Episode 27 - Grace Millane

0:16 Welcome back to Crime Besties to another episode.

0:19 Hey Emma, how you doing? I am really excited we are

0:23 recording our final episode of 2024.

0:26 That freaks me out entirely in so many ways.

0:28 I know. Well, yeah, that's it.

0:30 Yeah. So go ask.

0:31 First of all, I know we say that a lot, but you know.

0:33 We're proud of. Us on the back we're.

0:35 Allowed to be proud of us. Yeah, we've done like, what is

0:39 this episode 27 is it? Yeah, yeah.

0:42 So like we're we're six months down the track and consistently

0:45 producing an episode every week. So I think we've done really,

0:49 really well and we. Really funny, I was flicking

0:51 through some photos last night to try and find, well, 'cause I

0:54 take a photo of my box that I leave out for the kids every

0:56 Christmas so that I know what I put in it last year so I know

0:58 what to put in it this year. Mm hmm.

0:59 Anyway, so so I was trying to find that photo of like it

1:03 flicking back into my photos from last year.

1:05 And so as I went through, I think there's a photo from it

1:07 was about February, March of us to set up with our podcast, like

1:11 kind of like, you know, selfie of like a setup.

1:13 And I'm like, Jeez, Feb, that seems a little early to take us

1:17 that long to get it. It did it.

1:19 And I'm like, it did actually, because we started like we sort

1:21 of had a few, you know, like false starts and things before

1:24 we got like an actual episode. And then we recorded a few and

1:27 banked them because we will be like, do we really want to do

1:29 this? Do we want to release these like

1:32 we when we recorded them at first we're like, oh God, do we

1:34 just do we practice more? Do we?

1:36 I don't know. And then we're like, no, we just

1:37 need to bite the bullet and get it out there.

1:39 That Band-Aid off, Yeah, yeah, but.

1:41 I think when we were recording in Feb, we were just trying to

1:43 actually figure out how microphones.

1:44 How the microphones worked, it was all I think that's what it

1:46 was. It was just doing a setup of

1:48 kind of like how do how do we do this?

1:49 Like I. Feel like we didn't record our

1:51 first episode until like April or May, Yeah.

1:54 And then we released it in June, yeah.

1:56 So yeah. Yeah, I think we're just doing

1:59 some tests. But yeah, it was just cute.

2:00 I was like, Oh my God. Wow.

2:02 And our setups changed heaps entirely.

2:04 Yeah. And we've got it down pat.

2:06 We were, you know, getting ready for the recording.

2:08 We used. It used to take us all day to.

2:10 Yeah, to get going. Yeah.

2:11 We'd literally like drop the kids off.

2:13 And be like, oh crap, we've got to go back and pick them up.

2:15 Yeah, and now we're we're bloody well oiled machine we.

2:18 Can get so much done on a Friday as well as a record.

2:20 Yeah, we've been to. Assembly, Yeah, it went to

2:23 assembly this morning and we've both got appointments this

2:25 afternoon that will well and truly easily get 2.

2:28 So yeah, now I was thinking about what we could have a bit

2:32 of a chat about before the podcast today, and I don't know

2:35 why this memory popped in my head, but I wanna know what is

2:39 it's very Christmas theme, this question, What is the worst KK

2:44 present you've ever been given? Gosh.

2:48 Do you want to think about it? And I'll tell you mine.

2:50 Yeah, tell me yours and I'll have a thing.

2:51 Because I've had a few. Because I've been a teacher.

2:53 Yeah. Oh.

2:53 Yeah, fair call. Well, mine actually relates back

2:56 to when I was in grade 6 at school.

2:58 Oh, yeah. And I can't remember what the

3:00 limit was. It was a little while ago, but I

3:03 got given and I still remember the the kid who gave it to me.

3:06 Paul Hotel soaps. Oh, were they like the Rose

3:12 ones, the little rose ones or? No, No, they were.

3:15 Wrapped and they were wrapped with the hotel.

3:17 They were legit, legit hotel soaps.

3:20 Yeah. So he'd pinched them out of some

3:21 hotel, he'd say. That's what he gave me for my

3:24 game. That's pretty bad.

3:29 It's bad, but I mean look, the kids thought you know, like, I

3:34 mean I've been given some pretty shit gifts over the time and not

3:36 necessarily KK ones. Go tell me you know my worst

3:40 one. Oh, yeah, I know your worst one.

3:42 Yeah, you've got to tell the people.

3:43 Oh, should I? Oh yeah.

3:45 OK, 40th birthday present like you know, So should be a decent

3:49 present for a 40th you'd think. Well, what one would think.

3:52 You'd think, yeah, yeah, I've got an electric toothbrush from

3:54 someone who was very close to me at the chat.

3:59 Right? Name.

3:59 Names. Oh, yeah.

4:01 It's just like, oh, Meg. Yep, Yep.

4:03 First thought, and I like toothbrush, yeah, and a pair.

4:07 And a pair of socks. Yeah, but.

4:09 They were fluffy. Fluffy socks?

4:11 No, they were just regular socks.

4:12 I. Thought they were like.

4:13 Home socks, you know, new, new, new oh.

4:15 So it was like K. Mart you know, crew socks like.

4:20 Yeah, right, Right. Yeah, That's pretty bad.

4:22 That's pretty, pretty bad. Yeah, maybe I may have been

4:26 married to the person. Yeah, maybe.

4:28 Maybe. Yeah, things happen for a

4:31 reason. My husband, the worst thing he's

4:37 ever given me. I'm just trying to think he's

4:39 pretty good, but I'm also very good at dropping hints slash

4:43 links to what I need or one. I love it.

4:47 What's the worst? I think he's given me some.

4:49 I have gotten a few like Marge bowling ball gifts.

4:52 You know how you know in the seasons where Homer gifts Marge

4:55 for bowling? Ball, I love that.

4:56 And then she almost has an affair.

4:57 Doesn't. Yeah.

4:59 I have received a few of those, like, you know, tickets to

5:03 things that maybe wouldn't be up my alley necessarily.

5:06 Yeah. But nothing like an electric

5:09 toothbrush that takes the cake. Yeah.

5:13 Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's the thought that

5:15 counts. Not in that instance.

5:17 No, I don't think there's any way of digging yourself out of

5:19 that one, is there? It's.

5:21 Not Oh, what about is it? Let's make it even better, it

5:23 did get taken back and returned, so then I actually didn't get

5:26 anything. Yeah, that's worse.

5:28 Yeah, that's worse. Yeah.

5:31 Yep. What about as a teacher?

5:34 Look, the coffee mug situation was getting bad that like I did

5:38 have to do a massive, you know, exodus of those out of my

5:41 cupboard because I end up with just odd coffee cups.

5:44 I wanted. I was like this big thing of

5:46 being an adult almost of going. I want a set of four that match.

5:49 Literally said that to me last year.

5:51 Do you remember? You were like, I think it was

5:53 during the Boxing Day sales. Yeah.

5:55 All. I wanna get matching coffee cups

5:57 for my new house. Yeah.

5:58 And I was like, yeah, that I get that because we're the same.

6:00 We've got heaps of mismatched ones and neither of us are

6:03 teachers, but you just sort of accumulate bits and pieces along

6:05 the way. And look, I'm all for a bit of

6:06 mismatch, but like matched in some way, like kind of coffee

6:09 mugs. I actually find that really

6:10 cool. But these, I was talking like

6:12 random. Yeah.

6:13 Random, random like. So it was really, yeah.

6:16 Needed a change. Plenty of candles, which I know

6:18 you love a candle. I love a candle, but these are

6:20 cheap ass candles. Yeah.

6:22 You know which. I mean a quality can.

6:23 And look, as a teacher, honest to God, anyone looking for

6:25 teacher gifts, the best gift you can give a teacher is the card

6:30 with the note written in it thanking them genuinely for what

6:33 they do. The gift itself I really did not

6:36 need. I call, I call bullshit.

6:38 On that, no I'm 100%. I used to start and cry over the

6:41 cards. OK, I mean, that is lovely.

6:43 It's all heart warming and whatever.

6:45 Great, great, great. But I'm trying to think of

6:47 things to get for kids teachers for Christmas.

6:50 You really have to get them something.

6:51 Get a bottle of wine. But what if they don't drink

6:54 Like I feel like one of. Our sorry, are they a teacher or

6:57 I'm just. Not sure.

6:58 Like, I don't know that either of my kids teachers drink,

7:01 actually. Yeah, OK.

7:03 That's which is more of a thing these days.

7:05 Probably when I was teaching a teacher drank, whereas now I

7:07 think there's a lot more people that are alcohol free, which is

7:10 great. Good on them.

7:11 Like I love that. Good for you.

7:12 But yeah. How do you cope through the day

7:14 then? So, and both of my kids, I said,

7:17 what do you want to get your teachers for Christmas this

7:19 year? Yeah.

7:20 And they both had different ideas and they were both very

7:23 thoughtful. Like I thought they really

7:24 thought about the person. And yes, yeah, So I've just gone

7:27 down that path, but. Yeah, I'm usually my youngest

7:29 has nailed it for his teacher, I think, and it's so simple and

7:32 easy which. I like where you are.

7:34 You gonna reveal? It might not.

7:36 She's into AFL football. She actually works part time for

7:38 an AFL footy team, as we know, but so he wanted to get her

7:41 earrings 'cause she loves wearing special different

7:43 earrings on like on a Friday. Apparently she wears egg and

7:45 bacon earrings. She listens to this podcast

7:47 occasionally so she might hear me talking about this.

7:50 Apparently she has egg and bacon earrings on like each on each

7:54 year on a Friday because she has eggs and bacon for breakfast on

7:57 a Friday. I'm.

7:58 Not told if this is true. Because I like if Brody's

8:00 noticed this or she's talked about it.

8:02 I love it. That's so cute.

8:03 So he's telling me all about this and how she likes chaining

8:05 up her earrings. And so, yeah, then we put the

8:07 two together and he's found these pair of earrings that are

8:09 like little AFL footballs. Oh, well, that is really

8:13 thoughtful. I love that.

8:14 So that is. Nailed it.

8:15 But yeah, bro Mason hasn't. Can't bring me anything this

8:18 year, unfortunately. I'm going to have to work that

8:19 one out myself. Oliver's all over it with his

8:22 teacher, and Lucas had a really nice idea for his as well.

8:28 And we've, I've just supplemented it with something

8:30 else because, you know, it wasn't quite, you know, it was,

8:34 it was thoughtful, but it wasn't, you know, enough anyway.

8:38 So that's all done and ready to go.

8:41 Yeah. Yeah, I can't believe we're at

8:43 this stage of the the year already.

8:44 That's insane, yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

8:47 So in light of this being our last episode for the year, we

8:53 put out a a bit of a question on our social media.

8:56 What will once this is released will be a month or so ago.

8:59 Yeah. And we asked people to give us

9:02 suggestions for cases that they wanted us to cover.

9:04 And we've decided based on suggestions.

9:08 And thank you to everybody who's replied.

9:11 We are covering Grace Mullane today.

9:13 Yeah, actually it came from quite a few people.

9:16 This one was mentioned. So yeah, I mean, this, it's a

9:19 big one and a good one. When it got mentioned to me

9:22 originally, I was like, oh, like, you know, yeah, I have

9:24 watched that Netflix show, but like, you know, there's too much

9:26 in that, you know? But yeah, we've got into it more

9:29 now and it's like, well, there's a lot to this.

9:30 So I. Feel like every time we go, oh,

9:32 is there much to it? We still can bang out an episode

9:34 that's over an hour long. So yeah, it'll be fine.

9:37 I'm sure it'll be fine. This.

9:39 Surprisingly enough, I'd actually knew nothing about this

9:42 case. Yeah, once I got into it.

9:44 I remember now like hearing bits and pieces about it, but I

9:47 didn't put it all together that. This was the one I don't

9:49 remember hearing about this at the time at all, where it, so it

9:52 wasn't until I think came out as a Netflix special that I knew

9:55 anything about it. But yeah, it's.

9:58 Did you remember hearing about it when it happened?

9:59 Yeah, 2018 that this occurred. Yeah, I did.

10:02 I do remember. Yeah.

10:04 And I just remember it being all about Tinder.

10:07 Like, I feel like that was the focus of the media at the time.

10:11 So I didn't then put together once you were telling me this

10:13 story, that it was the same, same case.

10:15 Same case, yeah. Right.

10:17 Yeah. So it was an interesting one to

10:20 to delve into. Yes, yeah, yeah.

10:23 I mean, we can get into this probably a bit more as we talk

10:25 about the case. But like this whole Tinder thing

10:29 is a bit I'm on offense of like, I guess it comes down a little

10:32 bit the Ashley Madison one that we did recently too, of like the

10:34 fact of how much is the app itself to blame for things, you

10:38 know, and people sort of, you know, there's this stigma now

10:40 around Tinder, you know, the Tinder swindler, The this is the

10:43 guy who's kind of knows the Tinder killer in some ways,

10:45 like. And so I mean, I don't use

10:48 social. I don't use apps for dating or

10:50 any never have dare say you have never no high school

10:55 sweethearts. Yeah.

10:57 Yeah. So I don't have any experience

11:00 in coming at it from that perspective.

11:01 But all I know is that friends I know who've used them, I'm

11:04 always like, like tell me where you are and make sure you're

11:07 staying in touch and things. But.

11:08 Also the types of things that then people experience after

11:11 going on dates, after meeting these people.

11:13 Like, yeah, same. I've got acquaintances and

11:16 friends who I know who've used the apps and on the odd occasion

11:19 it turns out really well. But yeah, then also there's many

11:24 multiples of occasions beyond that, but it.

11:27 Seems to be Tinder is a bit like specifically what from what I'm

11:30 getting like you know that Tinder seems to have something

11:33 about it, which I think it's around the I know a lot was

11:36 mentioned through this case that Tinder is a bit more around

11:39 looks and that's something whereas other apps aren't built

11:42 around that so much, I think. OK, so, but I don't know how

11:47 much of like these these sorts of people who do the wrong thing

11:50 to women, you know, meet people. And do you know, is it is it the

11:53 app that's facilitating this to be more prevalent or is there

11:56 just more people like this? Who are A holes?

11:59 Look, I think the A holes have always been out there.

12:01 It's just been this is like. Gives them an Ave. to pursue

12:05 things that they would have otherwise been able to do.

12:07 But in answer to your question about like the responsibility of

12:10 Tinder and the apps in these situations, after this, and this

12:15 might be getting a little bit ahead of us here, but after

12:17 this, this case took place, Tinder actually did release a

12:21 statement. Right.

12:23 Specifically about this case, yeah, right.

12:25 And they said I've written it down because I was really

12:27 interested that they almost took a little bit of responsibility.

12:31 They said that they were deeply saddened by Grace's death and

12:35 they're looking into safety measures to ensure that things

12:39 like this don't happen well. I mean, I don't know how you

12:41 can, though. I don't because once someone

12:43 meets up with someone like, yeah, I don't think that an app

12:45 is responsible for that. And their whole Tinder's whole

12:48 thing is that we allow you to meet people.

12:51 What happens beyond there is not nothing to do with us, which is

12:55 much fair, but that's what it's there for.

12:56 Yeah. Yeah.

12:57 And once you're meeting up in person, you're then consenting

13:02 or in some terms we'll, we'll get into that a lot.

13:04 Definitely comes in, comes into this, yeah.

13:06 But you're there of your own volition.

13:08 Yeah, That's not got anything to do with Tinder, you know.

13:12 I just feel like then like the the onus always falls on the

13:15 female around safety. Yeah.

13:17 And how as a society we can shift that.

13:19 Yeah. I don't know.

13:20 It's really, I mean, it's a bigger question than just I

13:23 think today. And here are our podcast.

13:24 Absolutely. Yeah.

13:26 Interesting. Yeah, Should we get into?

13:28 It let's get into. It OK Grace Emmy Rose Mullane

13:31 was born on the 2nd of December in 1996.

13:36 She was born in the UK and it sounds like she came from a

13:39 really lovely, very close knit family.

13:42 I think she had mum and dad and two brothers.

13:44 Is that right? Yeah, two older brothers that

13:46 were from a previous marriage of her dad, I believe so.

13:49 She was the only daughter of David and Gillian Mullane, but

13:53 she was very much loved by her brothers and very close to them

13:56 as well. So, yeah, very beautiful family,

13:58 yeah. She decided to take a gap year.

14:01 As you know, I think it's less of a thing in Australia to take

14:04 a gap year, isn't it? But a lot of a lot of people in

14:07 Europe and the UK especially, will take a year between school

14:10 and university or university and even starting work.

14:13 Yeah. Which is what what Grace has

14:15 done. Yes.

14:16 So she graduated from the University of Lincoln and

14:19 decided to take a gap year. She had left home like she was

14:26 so young. Yeah, she's 20 years old.

14:28 Well, I mean, well, in this she's, you'll find that she's

14:30 reported it's either 21 or 22. Yeah.

14:32 So depending on, unfortunately, when she passed away, Yeah,

14:37 yeah. She was 21 or 22, yeah.

14:38 So she'd spent, was it 6 weeks or so in Argentina, in South

14:42 America? Yeah, Peru she was in and she

14:44 did all the, the Inca trail, all that sort of stuff.

14:47 And with that group she was, she was with other people, yeah,

14:50 touring, doing that area. So yeah, pretty awesome stuff,

14:54 she was saying and. And then apparently she was sort

14:56 of like looking for, you know, safe places for solo female

14:59 travellers to travel around. And yeah, New Zealand was, you

15:02 know, very high up on the list because New Zealand is a really

15:05 safe country. Yeah.

15:07 Not to say they don't have crime, but it's, yeah, very safe

15:09 country. And yeah, yeah.

15:11 So she decided to head over to head over to New Zealand and she

15:15 arrived there on the was it the 20th of November 19th?

15:19 I thought no. Yeah, I think 20th of November

15:24 in 2018, after her six weeks of of travelling around South

15:28 America, she travelled around the upper North Island, so the

15:32 Bay of Islands. Have you ever been there?

15:34 No, I haven't done much of the. I've only done the South Island

15:37 of New Zealand. I haven't done really much of

15:39 the actually none of the North Island at all.

15:41 Yeah, I've. Only been to the north.

15:42 Yeah, right. Stunning.

15:43 Like we went back in the day. The laboratory that I work for

15:48 opened up a branch over in Auckland.

15:51 Yeah. And so a group of us went over

15:53 there to help them sort of get going.

15:55 And my God, it is such a beautiful, beautiful part of

15:59 the. World S Island is stunning too,

16:01 so I mean, it's incredible. New Zealand, no joke, I think

16:04 must be one of the most spectacular places in the world.

16:07 Yeah. I remember driving along and

16:08 just kind of going, oh, my God, that is the most incredible

16:11 thing I've ever seen. And then you kept driving and

16:12 turn around another corner and go, oh, wait, how do we top

16:14 that? We just topped that.

16:16 Like, yeah. They've got the most beautiful

16:17 lakes and partner. Mountains and mountains.

16:20 Arts. It is a stunning, stunning

16:22 place. Yeah.

16:24 So Grace was, you know, looking around and having a grand old

16:28 time. She arrived on in Auckland, so

16:31 in the capital city up there on the North Island on the 30th of

16:35 November and she'd booked some further travel around the 2nd of

16:39 December. So she I think she was going to

16:41 travel to the. South, yeah.

16:42 Isn't that right? Yeah.

16:43 I think she was planning on spending a few nights, you know,

16:44 in Auckland itself before moving on to do other things.

16:47 She was planning sort of a two week stay in total in New

16:51 Zealand. So she had, you know, another

16:53 another bit of travel to do from from Auckland.

16:54 Yeah. So she was moving around pretty

16:56 quickly. Really.

16:57 Yeah. Yeah.

16:57 Do you know where she was going after?

16:59 No, I can't remember now. I think I do remember reading

17:02 it, but I can't remember where it was now.

17:03 So she was more North Island she was still sticking to, although

17:05 I know I think she had plans to head.

17:07 South if she did, I think on the 2nd of December her plans were

17:10 to head South. Yeah, I meant beyond New

17:11 Zealand. Do you know where she?

17:13 Well, I know that she was due back in the UK around June for a

17:16 fact, like there was a family wedding.

17:18 Yeah. So I believe she was planning on

17:20 further things like probably Australia from there and

17:23 potentially I guess some Southeast Asian countries maybe

17:27 working way back up, I think to the UK from, from memory, Yeah.

17:30 Yeah, she was in constant contact with her family

17:34 throughout her, you know, the six weeks in South America and

17:37 then through to her travels around, around Auckland and the

17:41 North Island of New Zealand. Yeah.

17:43 So much so that she would have often really frequent, you know,

17:47 texts back and forth. I mean, we're talking 2018, you

17:50 know, social media. Easy.

17:52 Yeah, if they if she was an. App you've got?

17:54 Yeah, if everybody speak. To someone via text or phone

17:57 call, there was something on on social media, so there was daily

18:00 contact, an update of some sort to someone in the UK around what

18:05 she was up to. If not many, multiple times in a

18:08 day, yeah. Have you looked at her

18:10 Instagram? And yeah, I did.

18:12 Post She's quite a talented artist too, so she actually had

18:14 two different Instagram accounts.

18:15 One was all of her artwork and one was her social sort of

18:18 stuff. Yeah.

18:19 A very intelligent artist. Incredible.

18:21 Yeah, yeah. And even like her photography

18:24 just, yeah, you know, the post that she puts up.

18:26 I mean, we're probably the generation, you know, sort of

18:29 before her. And some of our Instagram posts

18:32 are a bit like, I look back on things that I've posted in the

18:35 past and we're fucking. How embarrassing.

18:37 The filters used to put on it and.

18:38 She it's so it's mortifying, but hers are so tasteful.

18:44 She's so young. I'm like, Oh my God.

18:47 But, yeah, that sort of speaks to, you know, where she placed

18:50 value and where she was sort of, you know, happy to be putting

18:53 her life out into to the ether and what a vibrant and

18:58 incredible young woman. Yeah.

18:59 I mean. So great courageous to go on her

19:02 own and do these travels. You know, she obviously was

19:03 someone who'd get along with people very easily because she'd

19:06 mix in with everyone. And from all accounts, on the

19:09 30th of November, she arrived in Auckland and was at a sustained

19:11 a backpacker's name called the Bass Backpackers.

19:14 And that night that she arrived, she was at the pub.

19:17 There was AI think there was a pub on the roof at the

19:19 backpackers and you know, and she'd mixed in with a few people

19:21 from the backpackers and you know, which is all what

19:23 backpacking places are all about.

19:24 But, you know, I felt comfortable on her own to

19:27 infiltrate, you know, other people and, you know, find out

19:29 what their travels were and have a few drinks and stuff and get

19:31 to know people. So and, you know, talk about

19:33 what they were going to do next and potentially go together or,

19:36 or, you know, and that sort of thing or find other way, other

19:38 ideas of things you could see. So she was really an outgoing

19:43 social person, you know, obviously just an easy to get

19:45 along with. So.

19:46 Yeah. Yeah.

19:47 Lovely. Lovely, absolutely lovely.

19:49 Her family became suspicious like so as we were saying,

19:53 they've had so much contact with her, whether it be direct or

19:56 indirect through social media over the what, what was almost

20:00 what, 8 weeks of her travels to that point.

20:03 And they became incredibly suspicious because it was

20:07 actually her birthday on the 1st of December, 2nd of December.

20:11 Sorry. And she was turning 22, so

20:14 they'd been sending messages to say happy birthday, tried

20:17 calling her, and they had no response, which was highly,

20:20 highly unusual. Yeah.

20:22 So much so that they immediately reported her.

20:25 Well, I think on the 5th of December her family reported her

20:31 missing. Yeah, officially with the

20:32 police. OK, yeah, so they were trying to

20:35 figure out though people right from the get go.

20:38 Yeah, people she'd made contact with and they were looking

20:40 through her social media to be like, oh, I wonder if we can

20:42 sort of figure out who that person is and say, oh, have you

20:44 seen Grace around? How awful would it be to be half

20:49 a world away from your child? Yeah.

20:51 And not know what's going on with them.

20:53 Yeah, it. Would be absolutely horrible.

20:56 Yeah, can't even imagine it. So, you know, they, they've done

21:00 their very best on their own to try and figure out what what was

21:03 going on. But as you said, they've

21:05 reported her missing to the police and I believe did her dad

21:08 immediately come over? He did.

21:10 He immediately came over. So he arrived on, I want to say

21:13 it was the 6th of the 7th, sorry, 7th.

21:16 He arrived on the 7th because on the 7th he gave a press

21:18 conference. Yeah.

21:19 So, yeah, So basically, yeah. So she was staying at these

21:25 backpackers and on so a couple of days after.

21:29 So the last contact they'd had with her was I think the morning

21:32 of the second is that. Right.

21:33 So no, no. No, sorry, the. 1st no.

21:36 So on the night of the first, her last contact was to a friend

21:41 to and it was during the evening for her in New Zealand and you

21:44 can actually see it on CCTV when she sends this message to a

21:48 friend saying I'm on a date. It's going really well and we're

21:53 really clicking. I'll let you know tomorrow how

21:56 it's gone. So that was sent at

21:58 approximately around 8:30-ish her time in New Zealand to a

22:02 friend back in the UK. And that's the no, the last

22:05 known contact for to someone back home.

22:08 Yeah. OK, so that was on the night of

22:10 the 1st. OK, so that was the last known

22:12 contact. So have her.

22:14 Her family I'm I'm assuming have known this.

22:16 I'd say once they're all sort of going sending messages to her

22:19 about happy birthday and none of them are receiving responses

22:22 that I think the connections are all being made between family

22:24 and friends saying yeah, I haven't heard from a response

22:26 either. I haven't had a response once.

22:27 Like that's sort of that snowballed pretty quickly that

22:29 they were all finding out that they weren't getting a response.

22:32 Yeah, yeah. And then a couple of days after

22:34 this last contact, there's a really interesting Facebook post

22:39 that at least interesting Facebook comment, a comment on a

22:42 Facebook, or was it Instagram? One or the other doesn't really

22:45 matter by a man. On the app it was.

22:50 It was the name was Jesse Shane and the comment was beautiful,

22:57 very radiant. On a photo, it was just a photo

23:00 of of grace. Yeah.

23:02 And that comment was made. There was a bit of confusion at

23:04 first that that comment had been made on the second, but it

23:08 actually had done something funny in the app and but it was

23:11 actually made. That comment was actually put on

23:12 there on the 1st of December, so they worked that out eventually,

23:16 but still that was the last comment or anything on her

23:18 Facebook, me on social media and it was a male's name and someone

23:23 that didn't link up to anything else on her social media.

23:25 So that was another interesting little.

23:28 Tidbit And that was what the police kind of saw once she was

23:31 reported missing and they started looking into what was

23:33 going on and yeah, like, so they've, they've gone to the

23:36 backpackers. Well what they're in Auckland.

23:39 It is so heavily CCTV, it's blows my mind.

23:43 So you can actually go onto YouTube and I think it was the

23:47 New Zealand Herald have uploaded a full like it's like 50 minutes

23:50 worth. It's not even all of it by any

23:51 means. There's a whole lot more CCTV,

23:54 but you can actually map out the timeline on there pretty clearly

23:57 in this 50 minutes of CCTV of what goes on over a course a few

24:00 days. What blows my mind is that you

24:03 you track them and you can see on CCTV they're walking down

24:06 this road and then it cuts to the next CCTV and it's there's.

24:09 No cut though. You can see them like it's a

24:12 continuous thing. It's unbearable.

24:14 CCTV everywhere. And this guy like, I mean, this,

24:18 it did not, it did not help this guy's case whatsoever because

24:21 it's all very mapped out. But what?

24:23 So what they did was they went to the CCTV and went right, we

24:25 know she's staying at base backpackers and they found her

24:28 exiting base pack Packers on the CCTV and were then able to track

24:32 her. So they have a have really huge

24:34 team on this real quick, their New Zealand police officers

24:37 which all credit to them, they did an amazing job on this.

24:39 Very much so the CCTV, they tracked her from there to then

24:43 meeting when she walked out of the backpackers to this place

24:46 called Sky City where they you see her standing in this area.

24:50 Let's talk about this. Yeah, this got me good.

24:54 So in the footage, please go and have a look at it.

24:57 Yeah, you can see him. So he's gone and had a beer at a

24:59 pub beforehand or. So they, yeah, they went back

25:02 and then tracked him and you can see where he's.

25:04 So she lived her backpackers, like I think it was like 543,

25:07 something like that. And she's gone, as you said,

25:10 walked over to Sky City, which is where they said they were

25:12 going to meet previous to this. He's gone to some pub just down

25:16 the road. I think he's done like 3 pints

25:19 or something, like a huge amount of beer in a really, really

25:21 short amount of time. Yeah.

25:22 And the CCTV tracks him coming out of that pub and walking up

25:25 the road. Then it cuts to a scene where

25:28 you can see Grace standing, waiting for him.

25:32 And then he walks up and it's like he sees her.

25:35 And then he does like, A36 double backs.

25:37 Do I do I want to go there? And he literally walks around in

25:41 a circle. And then she's obviously seen

25:44 him. So he's kind of trapped in a

25:48 way, like, as in not not trapped, but he's been caught.

25:52 Yeah. It's.

25:52 I'm like, did he look at her and go, oh, Nah.

25:55 Well, I mean, I don't think you would because she's, I mean,

25:57 stunning, very attractive girl. But I don't know, I've watched,

26:00 I've watched that multiple times myself kind of going, what's

26:03 going on there? What's I doing?

26:04 My only thing is that he's like oh she's not what I expected.

26:08 I'm fucking off. I mean because he only he had.

26:11 Wish, we wish. And they say, I really feel like

26:12 that's a moment in time where it's like that sliding door

26:14 moment of like, if only he just did turn around.

26:18 But then that doesn't track with his previous records because

26:21 he's a, you know, a prolific Tinder user.

26:24 Might as well find out. But he he isn't someone who

26:27 would have walked away. I don't think so.

26:30 I don't know whether it was or am I ready?

26:32 Like as in am I? Am I if I got my game face on?

26:34 Yeah, that's how I kind of ended up taking it of like, oh, she

26:37 is. Maybe I actually took it as

26:40 shit. She looks like her pictures.

26:42 She's as good as I thought. Well, am I?

26:44 Am I if I switched on the right charismatic personality yet?

26:49 You know, I almost feel like it's that I don't know, it's

26:52 him. Recalibrate.

26:54 It's like he, it's like he's like psyching himself up for.

26:56 It yeah, I'm getting his I'm in here.

26:58 Oh, this is a good one. Like I don't.

27:00 Know, I just really totally different interpretation.

27:02 No, I I switched between the two, but my watching it

27:05 repeatedly and knowing then what I know of him.

27:08 Yeah, that was where where I got to with it that it's like, no,

27:11 it's him going, oh, is this is too good to be true.

27:15 Almost like OK. And I really honestly think that

27:18 that was more of like I'm going in, but like, oh God, am I

27:21 ready? Like, yeah.

27:22 OK, so then they go up and they have like a little bit of an

27:25 awkward hug, as you do when you're meeting someone you don't

27:28 know and you're obviously on a date.

27:30 But it's weird, I'm sure. It's weird that initial, like,

27:33 you know, watching them on the CC, it's like so typical of two

27:36 people meeting for the first time of like, you know, like

27:38 awkward. But like, yeah, OK, I'm, I'm

27:41 attracted, you know, but this is awkward now.

27:44 Yeah, yeah, but they seem to chat the whole time as they walk

27:46 along and yeah, so they head. Inside into Sky City at 2:00 and

27:51 they go up to Andy Burger Bar, Yeah.

27:53 And you can see, again, CCTV footage of them arriving at the

27:57 bar, having a look at a menu, ordering some drinks and trying

27:59 to find somewhere to have a seat.

28:02 Yeah. Let me just get the timings of

28:04 this. So they've.

28:06 That was this was all happened at around 6:00 PM Yeah.

28:09 Then at 7:16, they leave Andy's Burger Bar and head over to a

28:14 Mexican bar. Yeah.

28:16 And they order two pictures of Margarita and one picture of a

28:21 sangria. So that's quite a bit of

28:23 alcohol. Yeah.

28:24 And they drank those three massive, you know, jugs of

28:29 drinks. Yeah.

28:30 In an hour and 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah.

28:33 I mean, they they were Downing some drinks like, but I mean,

28:36 I'm yeah, we can get to his drinking habits and her.

28:38 So you can again see CCTV footage of them at the bar

28:42 buying these drinks. Yeah, he's paying for

28:44 everything. Yeah, it looks that way.

28:46 He's paying and. Oh, definitely, and.

28:47 He's making a show of it. He's yes, showing things around.

28:50 He's yeah, like getting, like making even the way he gets his

28:52 wallet out of his pocket. He, like, makes a show of it

28:56 'cause he's a hero. At 8:30 PM, they decide to go to

29:02 the Bluestone Room, which is a bar close by.

29:05 Yeah, It's actually close to the hotel that he lives at.

29:09 Yeah. So he's told Grace that he lives

29:13 at this hotel. It's called City Life Hotel.

29:16 Did you Google it? Yeah.

29:18 It's not the nicest of a hotel, no.

29:20 The room's pretty ordinary and yeah, it's like, pretty.

29:23 Dingy looking and like it's not, he would imagine, a fancy.

29:28 Not something you'd imagine someone who's told Grace his

29:30 date that he is an oil manager. Offshore oil manager.

29:35 Whatever that is. I mean, is he implying that he

29:41 by the way? Not true, no.

29:44 Is he implying that he manages oil rigs or something?

29:47 Yeah, I think so. I think, I don't really know

29:50 what he thinks he's telling me, but.

29:51 I just think, I mean, he came up with lots of different things we

29:54 now know as the trials and stuff went on and I'm getting ahead of

30:00 myself, but we'll talk about. We'll get into that string of.

30:03 Lives. Yeah.

30:04 All of his jobs that he's had. Yes.

30:06 Yeah. So it's at around this time, as

30:08 you said that that Grace texts her friend and exactly what you

30:12 said things are going really well and yeah, you know, but

30:15 yeah, there's a bit of a spark there but Oh my God, the CCTV

30:18 footage of them inside this bluestone room.

30:21 Yes. My my.

30:22 Yeah, that's and like for the police, it definitely gave them

30:25 a a red flag immediately when they because they went and

30:27 watched everything, every little detail.

30:29 But yeah, what he, how he behaves there when I'm behind

30:32 Grace's back is interesting. Even the way he kisses her.

30:36 So they're at a point now where they're, they're obviously quite

30:41 inebriated. I don't know the proportion of

30:44 which drinks everyone's had, but I'm guessing they're both, you

30:47 know, drinking a substantial amount of alcohol.

30:50 The way he kisses her on those CCTV, foot in on the CCTV

30:54 footage in the Bluestone room, he basically like grabs her neck

30:59 and like pulls her to. Yeah.

31:01 It's predatory. It is, yeah, I, I watching it is

31:05 really uncomfortable and I think a lot of that is because you

31:07 know what, you know what's to come.

31:09 But also just looking at it kind of going, I don't know from a

31:13 first date perspective, he was and looks different people like

31:15 different things let's you know, but he he seems quite forceful

31:19 and. Yeah.

31:20 I mean, she's going in as in like it's not like she's trying.

31:23 No, she's from IT or anything like that.

31:25 She's obviously a willing participant.

31:27 At that point at. That point at some point during

31:30 the night, she after this she goes off to the toilet.

31:33 What does he do? Oh, that's awful.

31:35 Yeah. So she she stands up and goes to

31:36 the toilet. He first of all, he goes to the

31:38 toilet and comes back. They'll kind of doing a bit of

31:40 a, you know, like you get on old table, you know, hold the table.

31:42 Yeah, because if you get up and move, both of you, you lost your

31:44 table and you know that drinks are there on the table.

31:47 But then she it's her turn. She gets up to go to the toilet.

31:49 He immediately grabs her handbag and rummages through it and then

31:55 puts it back on her seat and then grabs her drink and downs a

31:58 Heba drink out of her bottle and puts that back on the table

32:01 before she comes back from the bathroom.

32:03 So bizarre. It's really weird.

32:04 What is he looking for in her bag?

32:06 This is it. Like what was he?

32:07 Doing like What can you find in a woman's bag?

32:10 Oh God, you want a tampon, mate? Yeah.

32:12 Like seriously, what was he gonna like?

32:14 Was there, was he looking? Like what was he looking?

32:17 For I don't know he's, but he's an odd carrier.

32:20 Oh, he's the oddest of all characters, yes.

32:25 So yeah, the CCTV footage is. Very interesting.

32:28 Yeah. So at 9:40 PM, so they've been

32:31 at this bar for about an hour. Yeah.

32:32 And they head back to his hotel, which is, I think, is it next

32:37 door. It's not really hard because I

32:38 was definitely walking because yeah, you watch them on the CCTV

32:41 at least one St. Sort of down they walk and it's

32:43 look, they're walking quite wobbly, like, you know, they've

32:46 had many drinks. And so they and you see them

32:49 enter into city life hotels and head up in the elevator.

32:53 You see them both. Walk both walk into the elevator

32:55 and they press the buttons, but you can see him putting his card

32:58 like back into his wallet, you know, because you've got to

33:00 swipe your card on the elevator, you know, you've got to be a

33:02 resident to be able to get the elevator to go up kind of thing.

33:05 He does that, puts it back in his card.

33:07 He can see him like swaying as he's putting his card back in

33:09 his wallet. So it's very clear, inebriated

33:12 and both of them. But yeah, they head up to the

33:14 room, but unfortunately that CCTV footage is the last we see

33:20 of Grace when and there is CCTV on the staircase as well as the

33:24 elevator, but you don't see any of that because she's not there.

33:28 There's there is no footage of her exiting that building that

33:35 we see her as a person walking or leaving that building.

33:39 That's the last we see her really.

33:40 So the next day obviously is oh, sorry.

33:44 No, I was gonna say what we know from then, what the police have

33:47 gathered, should we get to that. Oh, let's let's wait one second.

33:51 I'm just gonna like just sort of that double back a little bit.

33:54 OK. So, so obviously, as we said, so

33:59 that's where the CCTV footage sort of ends for us in terms of

34:01 like with that's the last we see of Grace.

34:03 So then it's the path, of course, of course.

34:05 Is that the second of 2nd of December is her birthday.

34:09 You know, messages, you know, messages are coming back from

34:11 her. Her the family get worried.

34:13 Her dad gets on a flight and on the 5th they they report her

34:17 missing. So basically the police are now

34:21 also who is she? Where have we got, where are we

34:23 at on the 6th of December? The police have tracked this

34:29 Jessie down that actually they found him on the 5th, contacted

34:33 him on the 5th and said we need to have a chat.

34:35 He was like, I can't right now, I'm at work, but tomorrow

34:37 morning I'll come in and have an interview.

34:38 So he was very willing to do that at that time.

34:41 So he came, went in for an interview on the 6th.

34:44 So basically this interview that he does on the 6th is very

34:52 interesting. So I don't know whether we want

34:55 to go to hear about who Jesse is before we hear about his

34:58 interviews. Yeah, how how about we do that?

35:00 Yeah. So that that gives a little

35:02 context. Yeah, I think we need to sort of

35:03 explain who Jesse Kempson, Jesse Shane Kempson is.

35:06 So obviously this is someone she's met on a dating app, so

35:09 she doesn't know any of this about him.

35:11 So let's just keep that real clear that Grace has met up with

35:14 someone who she knows nothing about.

35:16 But we know this about him when we meet him basically.

35:19 So Jesse Kempson was born on the 28th of December 1991.

35:23 So it was approximately about 27 years of age at this time.

35:26 But he's a very interesting background.

35:28 So nine years of age, his parents separated and his mum

35:32 and younger brother at that point moved to Australia.

35:36 So he's left in New Zealand and he is raised by his grandfather

35:40 for a short period of time and then his father as well.

35:43 You know, his father from reports seems to have been maybe

35:47 somewhat violent or aggressive. I'm around Jesse.

35:51 So he's experienced a lot of that sort of in his life, but

35:53 also a lot of rejection then from his mum who's moved

35:56 overseas. I think that puts an interesting

35:58 context onto things like why, why a mum would leave one son in

36:03 one country and move to the other.

36:06 What would motivate someone to do that?

36:08 I just. Query, you and I both have two

36:12 boys. I could not.

36:13 No, I could not at all. But just makes me question a lot

36:19 of things. Was she, was she exiting the

36:21 violent and, and you know, relationship and she had no

36:25 choice in that? And then in in saying no choice,

36:29 did she see traits in Jessie that she wasn't able to cope

36:32 with? And it was easier in a lot of

36:34 ways to leave him where he was in New Zealand.

36:37 I don't know. I don't want to judge at all in

36:39 that because I just feel like there's a whole lot to that

36:41 situation that we don't know. Yep.

36:44 But same. I feel like there's something

36:46 there that as a mother, you kind of go, there's something here

36:49 that doesn't make sense as to leaving one child behind if.

36:52 She was seeing things in Jesse that were sort of meaning that

36:57 he was heading down the path of the dad.

37:01 Wouldn't you want to remove him from that situation?

37:03 And or is it too far gone or I don't know, you know, I mean.

37:06 As you said, we can't judge some somebody.

37:09 We're not in her shoes. No, it just, it's an interesting

37:13 circumstance, I think. So that rejection from his

37:15 mother, the violence from his father, maybe there's AI mean

37:19 we've already alluded to the fact that he's lying is just

37:23 absolutely prolific, you know, And is that some sort of

37:25 escapism for him, you know, to create this life that he would

37:28 have liked to have had that he didn't get to get to have as a

37:31 as a child? I mean, interesting.

37:34 But so in 20/20/2013, he actually did leave New Zealand

37:38 and went to Australia. He did try to reconnect with his

37:41 mum and brother in Australia when he was here, but that

37:43 didn't happen. So that again is interesting.

37:47 What happens. Yeah, it's further rejection,

37:49 which is really sad for him, but I'm.

37:52 I'm just really curious as to why.

37:54 Agreed. Yeah.

37:56 But basically the his move from New Zealand to Australia time

37:58 was under some simmering tensions back in a New Zealand

38:03 with family. So there was lots of lying going

38:06 on and stealing that his family were really sick and tired of.

38:11 So he was in Australia for three years.

38:15 He had some interesting interactions here with people.

38:18 There's been some interviews around housemates and stuff that

38:21 people he worked with a lot of stories.

38:24 There was one particular story I heard around where the

38:26 housemates had there were females and males living in this

38:29 house. He had like the smallest bedroom

38:31 and in the house because that's all he could afford.

38:34 Yet he was telling everyone that his family were restauranteurs

38:36 and that they had millions and millions of dollars.

38:38 And he was out there scoping the place to, you know, open their

38:41 next restaurant and they're like, but wait, you can't even

38:43 afford the rent that, you know, the lowest rent in the house you

38:45 can't even afford. But it actually got worse than

38:48 that. They were finding that when he

38:49 was drinking, when he drank alcohol, he became very

38:52 aggressive and to the point where the females in the house

38:56 began to take knives from the kitchen into their bedrooms and

39:00 sleep with them under their pillows because they felt that

39:02 uncomfortable. There was one particular

39:05 incident in one share house that the other she let the other

39:09 housemate housemates know of this, whatever this incident was

39:12 that night. And they were all banded

39:14 together and kind of went, we have to get him out.

39:15 Like he can't live here, that's not OK, you can't feel like

39:18 that. They'll come to in contact with

39:19 the landlord about it and everything.

39:21 And so they planned the next morning as a group to go to him

39:23 and say you need to move out. He must have got wind of that or

39:27 had some sort of inkling it was going to happen.

39:29 And all of a sudden he was like, my mom died, I'm leaving, I have

39:31 to go to the funeral and stuff. So he left.

39:34 So whilst he was out of the house doing whatever he's doing

39:37 with this funeral, which his mom didn't die, apparently as far as

39:40 we were, it was a lie as well. Yes, prize, prize that he, they

39:45 then all, they basically, they evicted him at that point and

39:49 they basically said, yeah, that's it, you're not coming

39:50 back. However, after that happened and

39:55 he had officially moved out and was no longer in the house, they

39:58 would often find that they would smell his aftershave near

40:02 windows. It's so fucking creepy.

40:06 I remember just, this is a total tangent, but I remember Narelle

40:10 Fraser, who's one of our favorite Victorian detectives.

40:15 I was listening to a podcast that she was, so it wasn't her

40:18 podcast. She was being interviewed for

40:20 another podcast and she was talking about when she worked in

40:24 sex crimes and she said, you have no idea how many times I

40:29 have gone to the scene of a crime.

40:30 Like, it might be Nick is missing from her from a

40:33 clothesline on. Yeah, like repeated things.

40:35 And I'll go and do a walk around the house and I'll find tissues

40:39 with semen in them at a window. And I think that's kind of what

40:43 was going on in this. Situation.

40:45 I thought you were gonna say she'd smell the lynx spray.

40:48 Oh my God, my, my eldest has just discovered his body spray

40:53 and I I was just saying to Meg like his bedroom smells like a

40:56 bloody French whorehouse or something like it.

40:59 It's like he he could not spray more of that stuff on himself.

41:03 But anyway. Yeah, sounds like this guy.

41:04 Totally. Yeah.

41:05 So, you know, these fucking creeps, that's what they do.

41:10 Yeah. They come and they peep in like

41:11 peeping, peeping Toms. Like, literally, yeah.

41:14 And they're looking through windows and like, masturbating

41:17 outside. Oh, you just the way that

41:20 Narelle was talking about this, it was like, wasn't that

41:23 uncommon? Standard.

41:24 Oh God. It's typical behaviour of.

41:26 And then obviously these are behaviours that then tend to

41:29 escalate if they're not got caught and intervened with

41:32 early. Yeah, yeah.

41:34 So just if the lying that he did like it got it was so out of

41:38 hand. So at least some of the lies

41:39 that he would tell were that he was an oil company manager, he

41:43 was a cousin of a prominent all black, that he had gang

41:46 connections. Another one was that he was in

41:49 he was an ex gang member and now he was a had flipped to a be an

41:53 informant to the police. Another one was that all of his

41:56 friends were police officers and also that he had had cancer.

41:59 Yes. So the lies were everywhere.

42:02 There was the tangle that he had absolutely created for himself.

42:06 I don't know how he could keep track of it all.

42:07 I don't think he did. He did.

42:08 People caught on to him. Very.

42:09 Quickly he was like. Clever enough.

42:11 Night wasn't smart enough to actually tie them all up or

42:13 anything. People were on to him.

42:14 Yep. So yeah, some people up there

42:18 who have lived with him called it, said things like that.

42:20 He was very chatty and he was reasonably easy to live with to

42:22 begin with. But usually the pattern was that

42:24 from after that point, the alcohol consumption would

42:27 increase and then he would become aggressive and that

42:31 quickly things would not make sense in terms of his

42:33 explanations for stuff, right. Yeah.

42:36 So upon his return to New Zealand, then after his stay in

42:39 in in Australia, he actually sent put a message on Facebook.

42:43 And this only, it's a message only went to like his in his his

42:46 family and friends, not to the extensive.

42:49 List of public. Wasn't public to anyone else,

42:52 but the message that he put on Facebook on his return to New

42:55 Zealand was. Hey everyone, I just wanted to

42:57 touch base with you all. I've made a lot of bad decisions

43:00 in my life so far that I'm not proud of.

43:02 Sorry there's no punctuation in this so I'm just gonna just

43:04 please bear with me. Sorry I'm not proud of some,

43:08 some of which have greatly affected others.

43:10 I firstly want to extend the most sincere apologies for this.

43:14 I've done a lot of reflection over time and have narrowed down

43:16 the cause of all at all. And with that being said, I

43:19 believe you all deserve to know my clear arrogance and

43:22 selfishness has truly affected the relationship I have with

43:25 people in my personal life. I know that I was growing up

43:28 emotionally, mentally. When we grow up, we make

43:30 mistakes. That's how we improve in the

43:33 exam of life. You can't retest yourself with

43:35 the same question paper. But with that being said, we can

43:38 change how we treat each other and over time we've learnt.

43:42 I've learnt that every every action has a reaction but people

43:46 I've recently been oh sorry but I've also learnt how much

43:49 compassion we all have as people.

43:52 I've recently been diagnosed with severe anxiety and

43:55 currently take me take medication to keep this under

43:57 control. That's actually not a lie.

43:59 He had been diagnosed with anxiety and was taking

44:01 medication. Putting all that aside, I just

44:04 want anyone who I've hurt slash, let down to know I'm truly sorry

44:07 from the bottom of my heart. I think he knows.

44:13 He knows what to say, but then the actions don't necessarily

44:16 back that. That's the thing, yeah.

44:18 Like he's, he's posted that. I've heard it was a written

44:26 interview where I think it was his cousin.

44:31 I think yeah it was. It was somehow related but a

44:34 similar age to him was like, well it was all bullshit because

44:37 he just went back to his old ways as soon as he came back.

44:40 Like it's not like he was on the path to salvation and changed

44:44 anything. No, Yeah, but he he knew that he

44:46 needed people. Yeah, he like.

44:48 So, you know, how can I manipulate them?

44:50 Yeah. To get what I want.

44:51 Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll say an apology.

44:53 Say and. Yeah, but the actions don't

44:56 back, do you know? Why he was living at the hotel.

45:00 Not really. No, I I don't either.

45:02 I was like what I wanted to know was and I couldn't find it

45:06 anywhere. Why are you living in a hotel

45:08 mate? I mean I know it was a shitty

45:09 hotel and it was probably not that expensive, but was it

45:12 because he couldn't keep a house keep?

45:15 AI think the house situation going.

45:17 I think he realized that that wasn't working for him using

45:20 share housing and so he had to live on his own and the only way

45:24 he could do that was by. I know he told one of his Tinder

45:27 dates that he was living in the hotel because he was this

45:30 offshore oil manager and he was coming and going and.

45:33 Maybe it was just part of that whole idea that he could kind

45:35 of. Conjure.

45:36 Look like that, that's what's going on.

45:38 He I know that he'd only just been recently let go from a job

45:42 that's in the area. So, you know, he probably moved

45:46 in the area for this job that he did have, but they let him go

45:49 pretty quick cuz thing he was doing some pretty dodgy stuff

45:52 there. Things he was what is he doing?

45:53 He's making phone calls. He was meant to make so many

45:56 phone calls, but he was actually calling himself and it was all

45:58 fraudulent what he was doing within his job that they said,

46:00 Nah, you're out, see you later. Yeah.

46:03 So that and that had happened I think maybe a week or two prior

46:07 to meeting. Two weeks before meeting Grace.

46:09 Yeah. Was terminated.

46:10 Yeah. So basically that gives you the

46:12 picture of this person who the police are now going to

46:15 interview in relation to. This is the last known person to

46:18 have seen Grace according to their CCTV and the interaction

46:22 on Facebook. So they bring him in on the 6th

46:25 of December to interview him and he tells them a story of the

46:29 meeting up and having a great date.

46:32 And then but about 8:00 PM they separated and went their own

46:35 ways. He, he reckoned that he went and

46:38 then had more drinks at another bar until like ten, 11:00 at

46:41 night and says that he was so intoxicated, doesn't remember

46:45 anything else about the night. So that was the story he gave

46:49 the police then. They knew a lot more than this

46:52 already. Already they knew more so they

46:56 pulled out, they basically sort of went, oh, thanks Matt, mate,

46:58 just give me one more minute and I'll just because actually, they

47:00 actually asked him for a DNA sample, which he agreed to give.

47:03 But the guy, so the cop actually walks out of the room and then

47:06 comes back and he goes, we can leave the DNA sample for now.

47:08 We'll come back to that. Just we don't need to worry

47:10 about now, which I think was making him feel like I've got

47:13 him, like they're feeling comfortable with me that they

47:15 don't need that. Yep.

47:17 So then because then what he does is he pulls out a photo, a

47:20 CCTV image of him on this on the elevator at 8:00 AM on the 2nd

47:26 of December with a suitcase and he's and the cop just sort of

47:31 shows it to him and says he says really not much at all.

47:33 He let leaves this open air. He doesn't.

47:36 Have a lot in this interview. Yeah, I love it when cops do it.

47:38 Yeah, I'm no good at it. I can't have quiet.

47:41 Well, I've got questions and I need to know blah blah blah blah

47:43 blah. Yeah, cops are very good at

47:45 this. And so he just puts the photo

47:46 there and he's like, tell me about this.

47:48 And then there's just silence. And you can just see Jesse in

47:51 this. What I mean again, this is you,

47:54 you can actually see these interrogations and things.

47:56 So you can see his body language body language changes.

47:59 Like, he kind of tenses and sort of sits up.

48:03 He puts his hands between his legs.

48:04 It's like he's trying to, like, hold on to something.

48:07 Yeah. And then he also, like, he's

48:09 taking drinks of water. He's like, you can just tell.

48:12 He's so uneasy. Yeah.

48:14 Yeah. So basically he says, oh, I've

48:16 got it a bit mixed up. Yeah.

48:17 I must have got up earlier than I thought, you know, that he'd

48:19 said that he was, he got up at 10:00 AM or something.

48:21 And so then this, he explains the the suitcase and says that

48:24 he bought the suitcase because he was going to have to move out

48:26 of where he was living, which, OK, yeah.

48:29 But then he says, and but then he really is adamant around

48:32 this. But I've still got that

48:32 suitcase, if that's what you're implying, which the cop has

48:36 implied nothing. He's just, he said nothing.

48:38 I love this. And he's just digging his own

48:39 grave here of like, you know, oh, I've still got that.

48:41 If you can go and get it. It's in the it's in the room.

48:43 It's in the room. I've still got that suitcase.

48:46 So the the cop is very, very good at just, he keeps it very

48:50 calm. He starts putting the pressure

48:52 on and starts bringing out a couple more CCTV images.

48:55 It's just putting the cards on the table of like, we know more,

48:58 more, more than one. And here's your opportunity to

49:00 come forward at this point. So in New Zealand, they don't

49:05 have the rule of being able to detain people 48 for 48 hours.

49:08 They either have to arrest or let them go.

49:12 So the cops decide they do let him go because they don't have

49:16 enough to arrest him on. They want more information, they

49:18 want to find more. They.

49:19 Need more time that they need the time and it's they're

49:21 gathering all this can you even imagine how difficult it would

49:24 be the way that they've tracked them through the night that

49:27 would take so much man it was a. Huge, huge team to do that.

49:31 Which, yeah. To put this all together, yeah.

49:34 The other thing, oh, sorry, no, no go.

49:35 The other thing that they were looking at was his like Google

49:38 history and all of that kind of thing.

49:40 So they also get a search warrant for his apartment.

49:42 So obviously having the fact that his hotel room, the hotel

49:45 room, sorry, I think this wasn't there were sort of apartments,

49:48 not hotel rooms. Like I got the vibe.

49:50 I think it was like a service department.

49:52 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

49:55 So they basically at this point, because there's not enough

49:57 adding up, it gave them enough what he gave in that interview

50:00 that they knew he was lying and they could prove he's lying.

50:03 So therefore they could get a warrant for his apartment.

50:05 It was for the hotel room. So that gave them enough to do

50:08 all that. So they let him go, but knowing

50:11 that they can be able to search his, search the room and all

50:13 these sorts of things, which gave them the time to do that.

50:16 So that gave them more time to look into more CCTV footage as

50:20 well and get all their evidence and all their ducks in a row.

50:23 That's right. So what?

50:24 They discovered is that so they obviously had access to his

50:28 devices and phone records and they discovered that at 1:29 AM

50:33 on the 2nd of December, he has Googled hottest fire and

50:38 Wautakare ranges. OK.

50:41 So keep that yeah in your mind. And a lot of other things we'll

50:44 get into. It well that comes in, Yeah.

50:46 At 1:40 AM he watches 8 clips of hardcore pornography.

50:54 Six hours later he googles. So this is about 7:00 7/30 he

51:01 googles car hire, duffel bags with wheels, rigor mortis, large

51:07 suitcases, industrial strength cleaner.

51:10 And this is my favorite flesh eating birds.

51:14 Yeah, just checking if there's any vultures in the area.

51:16 I just might just see if that can maybe assist me.

51:19 Yep dude. Mm hmm Yep dude.

51:22 So what the absolute. What the actual fuck?

51:27 They also obviously with the search of the apartment, so I

51:31 guess we can actually go back a little bit here to the CCTV

51:34 footage, what else they found on that CCTV footage, which will

51:37 then highlight what they actually found in the apartment

51:39 as well. So basically he said that they

51:42 separated at 8:00 PM and went their own ways on the CCTV

51:45 footage. It is very clear that's that

51:47 they don't do that. That's when they went on to the

51:49 second bar or third bar, sorry. Yep, 3rd and the Bluestone.

51:52 They end up, as we said, got back to their apartment at 9:40

51:56 and see her go up into the room. That's all.

51:58 We've seen all that. The following day, though, at

52:00 8:00 AM, he does. He gets up and he goes into the

52:03 lift and goes downstairs, goes to the atrium and purchases a

52:08 large suitcase. There's so much movement here.

52:12 I'm like, sorry mate, but can you please get your shit

52:14 together and like do things all at once?

52:15 He is in and out and in and out of that place.

52:17 I don't know. What the fuck he's doing?

52:19 Oh, it just confuses the hell out of me.

52:21 So he he gets back to the the apartment with the suitcase,

52:25 then goes out again, goes to Woolies, buys a heap of cleaning

52:28 products, just cleaning products, goes back to the

52:32 apartment, hide it. And The thing is, the Woolies,

52:34 he does self checkout. Yeah, you can see this.

52:36 It's like literally, you know, on top of his CCTV you can see

52:39 literally every. Every item that he purchased,

52:42 yeah, their CCTV footage is so clear, so good.

52:45 Yeah. At 10:25 he goes and rents a

52:47 car. And again in the cab.

52:49 Clear shot of him in the cab. And he's stressing in that cab.

52:52 I don't know about that. I just see, I see on his.

52:54 Face and he's like and like he's like shifting in his chair, I.

52:58 See him as being quite. Yeah, Yep, this is what I'm

53:00 doing. Like I don't see panic at all.

53:02 Oh no. Panic.

53:03 No, no panic. I agree with that.

53:04 But he's like, I feel like he's not agitated.

53:08 He's yeah, maybe agitated. He's wanting to get.

53:12 Yeah. Yeah, I agree that he's not

53:15 panicked. Yep.

53:17 So yeah, so he goes and rents this red car from Apex Rentals,

53:22 brings that back to the apartment.

53:24 At 2:53 PM he leaves again and heads to Revelry Bar.

53:29 So and at this bar he meets a Tinder date.

53:35 So that has a date with another Tinder woman, thank goodness.

53:38 And we can get into her story when we get to the trial and

53:40 stuff. But she did not feel comfortable

53:42 around him. And you can see on the CCTV

53:44 footage as they walk out, they go in opposite directions.

53:47 Now apparently she, her car was parked in the same direction as

53:50 he was walking, but she was like, Oh no, my car's this way.

53:52 And walked the opposite direction of what he was because

53:55 she was like, no, no, no, not going to partake in that.

53:58 So thank. I mean, good luck, good to her.

54:00 I mean, well done. Because it could have been, you

54:02 know, well, I don't know. Could he have taken her back to

54:03 his apartment like with bodies still in there in the room?

54:06 No, but she describes him as like she said, he was very odd.

54:10 She was really creeped out by him.

54:12 Oh, he talked about really weird stuff on the day.

54:14 Really weird shit, like he talked about how he's friends

54:17 with all these cops and that the cops are really concerned about

54:21 finding all these dead bodies in the white Taka forest.

54:24 Because the dogs can only sniff dead the body 4 feet

54:28 underground, so if you bury it a lot more than that then you then

54:31 they don't get found. Turns out that's not true.

54:33 No, that's not true. Police dogs are so that's their

54:37 sense of smell is so sensitive that is not even supposed to

54:40 being true. You brought up rough sex with.

54:42 Yes, and talking, talking about it, Yeah.

54:44 And then weirdly, she brought up a topic of some guy who'd just

54:47 recently been done for murder. And he's reaction to that was oh

54:50 isn't it awful how one guy can just do what?

54:52 Make one mistake and end up being in prison for life?

54:57 Fucking gross. He also admitted to this date.

55:00 So she was a journalist? Yeah.

55:02 Admitted to him that he'd been shopping for suitcases that

55:05 morning and it was really hard to find one big enough for all

55:07 his sports equipment. Yeah, so yeah, he was yuck.

55:13 So that date only lasted about an hour and a half.

55:16 So he gets back to the apartment at about 5:40 in the evening,

55:20 exits again at the of the apartment at 712 and goes to a

55:23 shopping complex again. He leaves again to go to Woolies

55:29 and gets a cleaning machine. Yeah, you know those like carpet

55:32 carpet machines you can hire from Woolies?

55:35 He goes and gets one of. Those, Yeah, goes to the

55:37 apartment. He's only in the apartment for

55:38 about half an hour. So you use this carpet cleaning

55:40 machine for like half an hour, then takes it back to Woolies at

55:43 about 9:00 at night. So flaws me.

55:46 I mean, who cleans a service department?

55:49 Like especially with a carpet cleaning machine, even for no

55:52 reason for no like no reason. Like he's just getting into the

55:54 elevator with this carpet cleaning machine.

55:57 No one thought to go, mate. What do you need that for?

55:59 I don't know what I mean, you know, I guess you're not on your

56:02 mind going. What is it?

56:03 If it is more like a service department type thing then maybe

56:07 there isn't someone like at a front desk or something to.

56:10 Oh, there was no, no, there was a full lobby with people with.

56:12 But was there someone like was it man?

56:14 Yeah, Yeah, yeah. There's CC footage of that

56:16 entirely that there's multiple people at the lobby there.

56:18 And no one's yeah, OK, no, that's.

56:20 Weird. Yeah.

56:21 So at 9:30 that night, you see him leaving his room with two

56:25 suitcases on a luggage trolley. And he's pushing.

56:29 Them one of the the one on the bottom is clearly very heavy.

56:33 He's got then one sitting on top that kind of moves it's probably

56:36 got nothing in it. I don't know, it was very nice.

56:38 I. Think we know what's in what was

56:40 in it now? Yeah, yeah, there's a couple of

56:42 things where he dumps stuff, but yeah, I don't know about that.

56:44 This particular bag, I feel like that was a bit more of a he was

56:47 putting the decoy bag of like being on top.

56:49 I just, I don't know. Yeah, but you can very much see

56:51 the bottom 1 is very heavy. Well.

56:53 He he like kind of goes to like really hit like it's trying to

56:57 get him to push it into the into the lift.

57:00 Because what I found really gross was so he wheels this

57:03 trolley with the suitcase out to the car and he's, so he loads

57:08 this, the suitcase and this is all on CCTV, loads it into the

57:11 back of the car. And you see people walking down

57:12 the street and they look, they don't know what's going on.

57:14 But how awful would you feel if you like you can see people

57:19 you've got, Oh my God, that's me.

57:20 And that was happening as you're walking down the street.

57:23 So, you know, he unloads this, this trolley, puts the suitcase

57:26 into the back of the car, wheels the trolley back into the lobby.

57:29 And as he's like walking into the lobby, he flags like, and

57:32 talks to the guy behind the counter in the lobby of like, Oh

57:35 yeah, couldn't get the trolley around.

57:37 Like, you know, struggled with trying to manage the the trolley

57:41 adjust. He's just awful.

57:43 He's so there was no element of him doing the whole like, oh, I

57:47 hope no one saw me do that. Like, you know, like he not at

57:50 all. He was even bringing.

57:50 Attention to himself having a conversation.

57:52 With someone at Brown, the trolley being so heavy or

57:54 whatever or you know, hard to manoeuvre blows me up way God

57:59 horrible. So anyway, the next morning, so

58:02 that obviously flows it in the next morning on December 3rd at

58:05 6:50 AM, he leaves city life again and in the in the car

58:10 drives to a hardware store. He purchases a red shovel as

58:15 well as 5 bolts. Yeah, they they were the decoy

58:19 and he seemed at the counter talking about this with the guy

58:21 like coming. Yeah, I don't know, to be the

58:22 right size, like kind of stuff obviously.

58:24 And whilst the this red shovel is sitting on the on the counter

58:28 like is if you know, that's just my you know, extra bit of

58:30 purchase. I'm actually really worried

58:31 about the I'm here bolts like, you know, Yeah.

58:34 So you then see him at a oh, sorry.

58:39 He returns from there and he goes to, I think he drops off

58:41 some things to the dry cleaners, a bag of things at the dry

58:45 cleaners, a couple of things. He goes to a car wash because he

58:49 when he returns to city life, sorry.

58:51 After that, he you see him get out of the car in the car park

58:55 and walk through no shoes, pants are kind of hooked up a bit.

58:59 And he walks back into the into his apartment with a bag, but

59:03 yeah, no shoes on at all. So he gets dressed and you see

59:06 him come back out again and that's when he goes to the dry

59:08 cleaners and stuff. Yep.

59:09 Then he goes to a car wash. Yep, at the car wash.

59:13 You see? Which is about 11:20 in the

59:15 morning. On the third you see him washing

59:17 down the entire car. He pulls out the back a pair of

59:20 shoes and hoses them off. And you can clearly see on the

59:23 CCTV how filthy these shoes are, how like he's trudged.

59:27 Through so yeah, yeah. So then he.

59:29 Drives out of the car wash, but then you see him come back into

59:33 the Bay and leave the shovel, which that became a bit of an

59:37 issue. They didn't because they they

59:38 couldn't track that so well where he was.

59:41 That took him a long time to find that shovel.

59:43 But yeah, because he told them when they asked him about.

59:47 The shovel, what did he, he said he'd left it because they were

59:49 like, why did you buy a shovel? And he was like, oh, I bought it

59:51 for I can't remember where you said he'd left it, but he said

59:55 he'd left it somewhere. And then they found they were

59:57 able to track the rental car right, And they found the.

1:00:01 That they there's it's so clear that he leaves it just in the

1:00:04 corner of the of the bait the car wash.

1:00:06 Yeah, yeah. So you know again, he's being

1:00:09 deceptive. Yeah.

1:00:12 So heads. Back to his apartment after all

1:00:14 of that. Yeah.

1:00:18 Then he obviously takes a bag from the apartment at about 3:20

1:00:21 in the afternoon and goes to this place called Albert Park

1:00:24 and that he dumps heap stuff out of this bag into a rubbish bin

1:00:27 in Albert Park. The inference is that the bag

1:00:30 basically. Contains some personal effects

1:00:32 of graces, so her mobile phone and some other personal effects.

1:00:36 No, not the mobile phone. So because they retrieve the.

1:00:38 Stuff out of the the bin. They do actually get to that and

1:00:41 they they get that the phone, they believe they still can't

1:00:44 prove this because they've never found the phone.

1:00:48 So on the 6th, on the morning of the sixth, he goes out again to

1:00:52 a Bay somewhere and all they know is that he drove there in

1:00:56 the morning, but they don't know why and they don't know what he

1:00:59 did there, right. But the phone has never been

1:01:01 found. So there is an inference there

1:01:03 that potentially that's where he got rid of the phone.

1:01:05 I thought he put the phone in the bin.

1:01:06 OK, I no. No, the phone hadn't been

1:01:08 retrieved because. They were kind of, they would

1:01:10 have really loved to have found the phone because they just,

1:01:13 there was some interactions that he was talking about over the

1:01:15 phone. That.

1:01:16 Yeah. That because he told the police

1:01:19 in his first interview that the following morning, 'cause he

1:01:22 that he didn't see Grace that night, obviously after 8:00 PM.

1:01:25 And that he the next morning had texted her to on Tinder to try.

1:01:29 He wanted to text her to see if they could catch up the next

1:01:32 day. And they've been unmatched.

1:01:35 So he couldn't. So he couldn't, Yeah.

1:01:37 Which, yeah, it's such a Dick. So, yeah, let me see.

1:01:44 We were up to they, oh, that's right, 2:20 in the afternoon on

1:01:47 the CCTV, you can see the police arrive in the City Life foyer in

1:01:51 the lobby there and they're talking to some of the managers

1:01:54 and sort of asking about Jesse. And as they're sort of talking,

1:01:58 they they sort of go, oh, that's Jesse there.

1:02:01 You can, he's just walking up, but Jesse on the CCTV, you can

1:02:04 see him walking up towards the lobby and then he does the freak

1:02:07 out 'cause he sees that there's cops inside and go.

1:02:10 I'll suddenly turn around and starts walking off down the

1:02:13 street and he walks very quickly then down the street to evade

1:02:16 them. I think it's actually really

1:02:18 funny the way he does that. Oh, oh, it's like so awkward.

1:02:21 Yeah, yeah. And then he's room down the down

1:02:23 the street. Yeah.

1:02:24 So they run after him and try and like sort of to catch him.

1:02:27 Up, up with him there. But turns out they.

1:02:29 Yeah. So that's on the 5th, sorry, of

1:02:30 December that happened. So then the 6th, on this

1:02:33 morning, the 6th, he agrees to come in to have the chat and the

1:02:35 interview where he doesn't, you know, admit to anything and, and

1:02:40 sort of, you know, but he's clearly lying.

1:02:42 Yeah. So then again, on the 8th, after

1:02:45 they've searched his apartment and done all those sorts of

1:02:47 things and got all their evidence together, they bring

1:02:50 him in for another chat. Yep.

1:02:52 He brings a lawyer as he's entitled to do.

1:02:54 As he should do. Absolutely.

1:02:56 And at this point, he does confess.

1:02:59 However, his story is not. It doesn't align with a lot of

1:03:04 things, but this is his confession of what?

1:03:06 His version of events? His version of events.

1:03:09 Is. That they consumed 25 drinks

1:03:11 each, were very drunk. That they had consensual sex.

1:03:16 That she was into like 50 Shades of.

1:03:18 Grey. Sort of a bit of kink in that

1:03:20 way. Yeah.

1:03:21 And then so they had this rough sex, all very consensual and

1:03:27 According to him. Yeah.

1:03:28 And then after he, after they finished, he decided to go and

1:03:32 have a shower. And he says he walked into the

1:03:35 bathroom and had a shower, but he fell asleep under the shower

1:03:38 head, like while the shower was on.

1:03:40 Yeah, seriously. Take showers to wake themselves

1:03:42 up. Like but seriously, you're not

1:03:44 fucking falling. Asleep in the shower with the

1:03:47 shower on? Yeah, No, don't.

1:03:49 Don't even What? An idiot.

1:03:51 Anyway, he reckons he's then all really like, eventually he wakes

1:03:54 up and he's all really groggy and he goes back into the

1:03:56 bedroom and Grace isn't there, so he assumes that she's gone

1:04:01 and this is his story, obviously.

1:04:03 And then he falls into bed because he's so drunk and falls

1:04:07 asleep. When he wakes up in the morning,

1:04:10 he sees Grace dead on the floor on the other side of the bed in

1:04:15 a pool of a, in a pool of blood. There's blood on the floor,

1:04:17 there's blood coming from her nose, He said.

1:04:21 The police have also found some very interesting photos that

1:04:24 were taken that night of Grace's genitalia and and of his and the

1:04:29 timing of those are actually. So basically the sequence of

1:04:32 events of his searches and those photos being taken on his phone

1:04:36 that he searches, or I'm gonna butcher it, the white Tucker,

1:04:40 white Tucker ranges. He searches them first, Yep.

1:04:44 And then he searches hottest fire.

1:04:47 Yep. Then he takes the photos he

1:04:49 knows. So the inference is he watches

1:04:51 the porn. Sorry, porn first.

1:04:53 Sorry. Yes, watch the porn.

1:04:55 And then takes the photos. So the inference is from like

1:04:57 the prosecution in this in the trial is that she was dead when

1:05:02 he took those photos. They kind of know this too, in a

1:05:04 way. Because he also says in his

1:05:07 statement at this point, he says in his statement that Grace

1:05:11 wanted all of the lights off. And so while they were having

1:05:14 sex, she lighted in the dark. And he'd turn the TV on at one

1:05:17 point to give some ambient light.

1:05:19 And she didn't even like that. But then the police look at

1:05:22 these photos of her genitals, and it's fully lit up like the.

1:05:25 It's the lights are on. Yeah.

1:05:26 So that goes even further to the fact that she was deceased when

1:05:31 these photos were taken. Yeah.

1:05:33 And they literally just close up photos of her genitals.

1:05:37 Oh, my God. Awful.

1:05:39 I don't know if it's maybe. A good spot to put it, but the

1:05:42 autopsy report, etcetera, it's it, there's actually no evidence

1:05:46 of them ever actually having sex, No.

1:05:48 So just put that out there. Just yeah.

1:05:50 Put that out there also, it's, I think it's worth noting at the

1:05:53 minute too, that he has had, and we find this out during the

1:05:57 trial that he has had many encounters with women that were

1:06:02 horrific for those women. Yeah.

1:06:04 And some of them actually did have injuries from penetration

1:06:09 from him because he was so rough with them.

1:06:12 So the thought is that had they actually had PNV sex, that there

1:06:20 was potentially going to be some kind of like notable damage

1:06:25 potentially to Grace. But there was no sign that

1:06:28 they'd had sex at all. There was no semen.

1:06:30 There was no swelling or bruising or anything around that

1:06:33 area. No, there was swelling and

1:06:36 bruising, however, around her neck and bruising on her arms

1:06:40 and the coroner basically said oh, there was sorry.

1:06:45 There was also some bruising on her jaw and on her neck.

1:06:50 The coroner concluded that she had been strangulated and

1:06:54 asphyxiated and that it would have taken up to 5 minutes of

1:06:59 really strong hold in order to kill her.

1:07:06 The. Defence argued that against that

1:07:10 and there and this shits me. So they're argued this that that

1:07:15 because she was intoxicated, it would have, it could have

1:07:18 potentially been less time to do that.

1:07:21 However the simple fact of the matter is she would have passed

1:07:25 out first. As in, it takes time to strangle

1:07:30 some strangle someone, whether it be a minute or 5 minutes.

1:07:34 That is a long time to applying pressure somewhere and not

1:07:37 noticing that this person isn't responding.

1:07:40 There's time to go, oh, she's passed out, stop.

1:07:44 And to be able to have her, you know, come good.

1:07:47 Yep. Before that, this is Jesse's.

1:07:50 Thing isn't it is that. This was consensual.

1:07:52 She was into, yeah, she was part of a member of the BDSM

1:07:55 community and that she wanted this rough sex and play.

1:07:59 The defenses case was that it was consensual and just in the

1:08:04 act of this consensual rough sex that she had died by mistake.

1:08:10 But the prosecution basically say that no one consent can

1:08:13 consent to their own murder. So yes, she may have consented

1:08:17 to some rough play, but at the point where she's passed out,

1:08:20 she can no longer consent. Like that's that's beyond that

1:08:24 now not and yet you've still taken it to the point where.

1:08:27 She's. Died.

1:08:28 There's a moment with the in the.

1:08:30 Trial where the defense attorney, Ian Brookie, he

1:08:36 actually, you can actually see on his face and that though it's

1:08:40 almost hard for him to even get these words out of his mouth

1:08:42 that I feel like a lot of the defence was like that's what

1:08:44 Jesse wanted the defence to be. And so they were implementing.

1:08:47 Although however, the the if you watch at the trial, there so

1:08:52 much of the defence is so problematic.

1:08:54 I felt I'll watching it, but there's a moment where he says

1:08:58 in his, I think it's his opening argument basically is that he

1:09:00 says Jesse did what she wanted him to do.

1:09:06 And you can see him struggling to even really put those words

1:09:10 out of his mouth because that is absolutely disgusting.

1:09:14 It's bullshit. I have so many issues with the

1:09:17 fact that this trial meant that her sexual preferences were put

1:09:24 out in the public, when that, to be honest, has nothing to do

1:09:28 with the fact that she's now dead.

1:09:30 Oh, absolutely nothing. There is nothing there that that

1:09:34 that should not have ever been brought into trial.

1:09:37 No, it's, it's irrelevant. It is.

1:09:38 Absolutely relevant. No one asks to.

1:09:40 Be strangled to death The. Justice in the case said that

1:09:46 this isn't sex gone wrong. The person responsible must have

1:09:49 known what they were doing and the defence sort of in response

1:09:53 to that were basically said words along the lines of, you

1:09:57 know, bad situations where people to do bad things.

1:10:00 So it's not like Jesse's not bad.

1:10:02 He was just in a bit of a bad situation.

1:10:04 So what could he do? Maybe call the fucking police or

1:10:07 call an ambulance? Or maybe don't strangle your

1:10:11 Tinder date to death in SO in his interview where he.

1:10:14 Does confess and I put that inverted commas.

1:10:16 He he says that he did attempt to dial I think it's 111 in New

1:10:20 Zealand. Don't quote me, but he hung up

1:10:23 because he panicked, right? Well, they weren't able to prove

1:10:26 that he didn't. No, no, not at all.

1:10:27 Which to me like it. Connects pretty quick you know

1:10:30 kind of thing that they'd be able to track that so I don't

1:10:31 think that ever happened, but that's what he said happy he

1:10:33 did, but then he says he says about putting her body in the

1:10:36 boot in the suitcase and stuff that he was just I was awful.

1:10:39 It was awful and he was like he's like fake crying at this

1:10:41 point in the interview and he says I just couldn't stop

1:10:44 thinking about what they what we had shared the night before.

1:10:47 Oh fucking gross. Oh, it's.

1:10:49 So disgusting like. I'm no, no, no, no, no, no.

1:10:53 Yeah. And the other one, the other

1:10:55 thing with the interview at that point, like so when they he

1:10:57 finishes telling his story of his, his his idea of what

1:11:00 happened. So he finishes telling that and

1:11:03 you just hear from the side. His lawyer actually says, so did

1:11:09 you intend to cause her death? The cop never reacts to this

1:11:14 questioning from the lawyer, like kind of thing.

1:11:16 And Jesse does. He says, Oh no, no, no.

1:11:20 Now the simple fact is in in New Zealand, the law is that you had

1:11:24 to be able to be convicted of murder.

1:11:26 It's got to be intent to kill. So his lawyer is trying to

1:11:29 already plant that seed of there.

1:11:31 There wasn't intention to kill, so therefore it's not murder.

1:11:35 You'd be under a different and a lesser charge.

1:11:39 There's nothing about this that's not murder.

1:11:41 I can't even. So that's that already begins at

1:11:45 that very early stage that his lawyer's planting that yeah, the

1:11:49 other they so the. Prosecution's case, they

1:11:52 actually put together a whole list of extender dates and there

1:11:58 was so much evidence that went towards this being a pattern of

1:12:01 behavior for him. One most notably was, and he

1:12:05 ended up, I'll talk about that in a second, but a month before

1:12:09 he'd met Grace, he was on a date with a woman and they, I think

1:12:13 they ended up back at, I don't know if it was her house or his

1:12:17 apartment, apartment, I'm not actually sure, but they ended up

1:12:20 back somewhere. And she decided during the

1:12:23 course of this that I'm really sorry.

1:12:26 That's my dog in the background. He's getting more delivery.

1:12:28 There's a delivery. Hey guys, it was black.

1:12:31 Friday and so there's lots of deliveries.

1:12:33 I'm very, very sorry for that. But he was, they were on a date

1:12:37 and it got to the point where they've gone back to a house and

1:12:40 they, she's decided in the course of that, that she no

1:12:43 longer wants to engage in sex with him, even though that's

1:12:47 kind of where it was going. You can withdraw your consent at

1:12:50 literally any time. Consent is fluid.

1:12:54 It is fluid. It is not black and.

1:12:56 White No. It is you.

1:12:58 You have the right to do whatever you want, whenever you

1:13:00 want in those spaces and. He has then.

1:13:05 Restrained her, sat on her face with his bare bottom and all the

1:13:12 other bits and the pinned her. Forearms down.

1:13:16 She said it lasted for 30 seconds and it felt like an

1:13:19 hour, 30 seconds would feel like that in like it is a.

1:13:22 Long time to not be able to get breath.

1:13:24 Yeah, but those asshole fucking defence lawyers when you watch

1:13:28 that because I don't know if she's in the the courtroom, to

1:13:30 be honest, when she I don't you can't tell you don't see her.

1:13:33 So I don't know whether it's some sort of link or whether

1:13:35 she's in the room and but doesn't matter either way.

1:13:37 The fucking defence lawyers and they're the way they speak to

1:13:40 her is so disgusting. It should not have been allowed.

1:13:43 No they they just destroy her in terms of like really they re

1:13:48 victimize her 100%. They tell they keep saying I'll

1:13:51 put it to you that you were never restrained that you

1:13:53 wouldn't this never happened. How dare you.

1:13:55 That's her statement. Like that's what she says

1:13:59 happened. That's what happened.

1:14:00 Stop believing the victims. That's I mean, that's their job.

1:14:03 At the end of the day. I.

1:14:04 Don't. I don't agree with it.

1:14:06 I don't agree with it at all. But they had to put that out

1:14:09 there. I guess not.

1:14:09 It's her. It's hard.

1:14:10 I've got to have evidence as to why to say that.

1:14:13 She's not like put it to her of like saying, oh, but we've got

1:14:15 this actual evidence. Do the defense need evidence?

1:14:17 No, but the. Prosecution need evidence the

1:14:20 defense. Doesn't.

1:14:21 And that's why this is such horseshit and why it's so unfair

1:14:25 the rape someone on the stand like that don't want to.

1:14:27 Come forward then, do they Because as.

1:14:29 You said they're being re victimized, they're being re

1:14:31 traumatized by this and hats off to her for doing this in

1:14:35 Grace's. Well, the fact of the matter is,

1:14:37 this thing, this wouldn't. Have got maybe to where it got,

1:14:39 I mean, the the police and everyone agrees, you know, at

1:14:41 the end of all this that if it wasn't Grace, it would have been

1:14:43 someone else. Unfortunately, yeah, because the

1:14:46 simple fact is there is a pattern in his behaviors, but

1:14:48 every single it escalates and this is what was happening.

1:14:51 With him, but every other woman who?

1:14:53 Up to this point, there's a lot of women were on the stand at

1:14:57 the trial and they were, and again, hats off to them for

1:14:59 doing that. However, they never came forward

1:15:02 before Grace because of this, because this is how you get

1:15:06 treated as I'm the victim. Yeah.

1:15:09 So they didn't come forward and say he, you know, held a knife

1:15:13 to my throat. He, you know, he pinned me down.

1:15:16 You know, he raped me. All these sorts of things never

1:15:19 came out prior to Grace because why would you put yourself

1:15:22 through all of that? Because you're re victimizing

1:15:24 you. You've got to go through it all

1:15:25 over again and again in that disgusting courtroom of these

1:15:28 men putting it to you that you are lying.

1:15:32 So this, this particular victim, she.

1:15:35 Also said like, she was paralyzed after this had

1:15:38 happened. She, she and you would I, I can

1:15:40 totally. Yeah.

1:15:42 I mean, I've never been, thankfully never been in that

1:15:43 situation. But she could.

1:15:46 She was paralyzed, but she didn't know what to do.

1:15:48 He's gone to the bathroom and then she's visibly very upset.

1:15:53 And she, he's come back out and he's like, I don't know what

1:15:55 you're crying about. I've got cancer.

1:15:57 Oh, that lying piece of shit. Again, obviously didn't have

1:16:01 cancer. He's such a fucking piece of

1:16:04 shit. Oh, he really, really is so.

1:16:06 Basically, so obviously we've really discussed all the trial

1:16:09 one there, which is great, but the jury only took five hours to

1:16:13 deliberate at the end of the trial, again worth noting there

1:16:16 were seven men and. Five women on the jury.

1:16:18 And when I read that initially I was like, fuck, how's this gonna

1:16:21 actually go? Because I'm not saying all men,

1:16:25 but, you know, is there a bit of a brotherhood going on?

1:16:28 I'm like, there's seven men to five women.

1:16:29 How's this actually going to play out?

1:16:31 But thankfully, yeah. On the 22nd of November in 2019,

1:16:36 he was felt found guilty of her murder.

1:16:38 Yeah. Yeah.

1:16:40 He received. A sentence.

1:16:43 Of in February of 2020, of life in prison with 17 years non

1:16:47 parole because of the women who came forward during this trial.

1:16:52 He was actually then subsequently convicted of two

1:16:57 further sex offences and given an extra 11 years non parole on

1:17:01 his sentence. So there was a separate trial

1:17:04 that occurred with his ex. Girlfriend and the stuff that

1:17:08 she then ended up taking him to court over were horrific.

1:17:13 Her, her story is just absolutely awful.

1:17:16 Horrible. So, yeah.

1:17:17 That he held knives to her throat regularly threatened to

1:17:19 kill her on a number of occasions, repeatedly raped her.

1:17:23 Yeah, he was. She spoke about how aggressive

1:17:25 he was and that the fact was her take on things of not.

1:17:28 I mean, she knew Jesse ought to be honest, I think more than

1:17:30 anybody did if you could know him.

1:17:33 And she knew his true being. That's right.

1:17:35 And she came. Out and said that she believes.

1:17:37 To her core, that what would have happened is that Grace

1:17:40 would have said no and then he would have become violent and

1:17:44 insisted. And this kind of speaks to like,

1:17:46 he was intoxicated. His ex housemates have all said

1:17:50 that when he was intoxicated, he became really aggressive.

1:17:53 Yeah, it all just plays into the picture of what ended up

1:17:55 happening when you look at the actual scene.

1:17:58 So the cops, when they went in and saw the room, there's a lot

1:18:01 that doesn't line up within his story of events because there

1:18:04 are on the foot on the floor. It was found they use that line

1:18:06 Luminal and they've 2 pools of blood, but there's also blood

1:18:11 splatter on the walls. Yes.

1:18:13 So it's not as clear cut. I don't think of a

1:18:15 strangulation. I think there would have been

1:18:17 some sort of beatings as well, which I mean, I think he did

1:18:21 talk about, you know, that there was a bit of hitting in that

1:18:22 involved in the BDSM they were performing.

1:18:24 But there's I think there's far more aggression, aggression in

1:18:27 it than than playful. You know, in that sense.

1:18:31 There was a lot of evidence to suggest there was a lot more to

1:18:33 it. So I think she might have

1:18:35 thought, you know, and I think she that, you know, he might

1:18:38 have at what his ex-girlfriend insinuates of being, you know,

1:18:41 that she said no and then he's got aggressive is what happened.

1:18:44 Yeah, because agreed. And as we said before, there

1:18:47 wasn't actually no evidence of them actually having sex.

1:18:49 Yeah. So just absolutely awful.

1:18:53 It's horrible. Yeah.

1:18:54 I mean, I guess. That kind of brings us to the

1:18:56 end of the episode of Just Gonna Say That justice.

1:18:59 Simon Moore was the the the judge on this and he made some

1:19:04 interesting comments in sentencing.

1:19:06 He said that Kenson's childhood and upbringing has been affected

1:19:10 by various traumatic influences which impacted his transition to

1:19:14 adulthood and ability to make good decisions and the right

1:19:17 decisions. He also said that volatile

1:19:21 upbringing and cultural isolation may have led him to

1:19:23 lie to those who we wanted to impress by pretending you were a

1:19:28 man of affluence and social standing.

1:19:31 And that appears to have been your modus modus operandi when

1:19:34 attempting to impress the women you met.

1:19:38 Yeah, he's nailed that, hasn't he?

1:19:40 Yeah, I. Really think so I I.

1:19:42 Don't like the? The your, your upbringing is an

1:19:46 excuse for why you are the way you are.

1:19:48 Although I I get, I get that. But as an adult, you've still

1:19:52 got choices to make. And, you know, there are so many

1:19:55 people who grow up in horrific family circumstances.

1:20:00 Yeah. Who then go on to leave very

1:20:02 productive and very changed lives.

1:20:04 And he just wasn't one of those people.

1:20:06 No, I do think that there's some sort of brain.

1:20:08 Chemical imbalance with him of like that this he was he was who

1:20:11 he was psychopath maybe yeah I don't know but you know there's

1:20:16 no formal diagnosis no released but no I mean there's there must

1:20:20 be something there's something's not right about him at all like

1:20:23 and I think that that every woman that's come in contact

1:20:25 with him pretty much can and the fact that he has no remorse and

1:20:29 there's. No, to this day he has no

1:20:31 remorse and he still argues that.

1:20:32 It was, he has that rough sex, you know, it was what it was

1:20:35 consensual rough sex bullshit. It's just such.

1:20:38 Bullshit, but so he he did. Appeal, but it was all shut

1:20:41 down. Never.

1:20:42 He never made anywhere with any of his appeals.

1:20:44 So this stands the the sentence that he's been given stands but

1:20:48 he hope it's a lot longer than 17 years and it should be life.

1:20:50 And he never gets out because I, I 100% he would.

1:20:53 He would definitely offend again.

1:20:56 Yeah, well, all signs point to to that.

1:20:58 And people, people like this are known to not be able to be

1:21:02 rehabilitated. Yeah.

1:21:03 I hope that the justice system in New Zealand recognizes that

1:21:07 when he comes up for parole and he would literally never see

1:21:10 freedom again. Yeah.

1:21:11 Yeah. We can only hope.

1:21:13 Yeah. In the light of this.

1:21:15 They are her. Mum.

1:21:17 Unfortunately her dad passed away in 2020.

1:21:19 Death of cancer, which they say you know, they're think died of

1:21:22 a broken heart too. So I don't know if he made it to

1:21:25 sentencing even of her of him. But anyway I it was like at my

1:21:30 date time. I actually don't because the.

1:21:33 Sentencing was Feb 2020. But he he.

1:21:34 Did pass away in twenty 20/20/2020 as well so I'm not

1:21:39 sure when, but yeah. In the wake of it, though,

1:21:43 Grace's mom Gillian and her cousin Hannah set up a charity

1:21:47 called Love Grace, and they collect bags and items to give

1:21:54 to women who experienced domestic violence.

1:21:56 And they also raise money for the White Ribbon Foundation,

1:21:59 which obviously then moves to educate young men and boys

1:22:03 around domestic violence to hope that the next generation is not

1:22:08 going to be inflicting these kinds of things on women and

1:22:12 girls in the future to breaking that cycle as well of.

1:22:16 You know, not repeating what you've grown up with.

1:22:18 And, Yeah. And, you know, at letting kids

1:22:21 know that there's no different options.

1:22:24 And there's a lot of help out there for those who want it.

1:22:26 Yeah, yeah. May.

1:22:29 Grace, rest peacefully now. Absolutely.

1:22:31 Yeah, hopefully she's with her. Dad and painting all the artwork

1:22:35 she ever dreamed of while she wear issues.

1:22:38 That's it, as always in these cases.

1:22:39 Like the world has lost a really great person, and that's so

1:22:44 unfair because why? Yeah, it's.

1:22:49 Why do these things happen? I It blows my mind to even think

1:22:53 about it because it's, yeah, it's too much sometimes.

1:22:58 A young woman should be able to, you know, adventure out.

1:23:01 And see the world and go on a date and be safe on that.

1:23:04 I mean, I have to. Comment on Justin.

1:23:05 Trojan, who was at the time the Prime Minister of New Zealand

1:23:08 when she came out, Oh yeah, when she came out to publicly say an

1:23:12 apology to the family that their daughter should have been safe

1:23:15 in their country and she wasn't. Oh, God, Like she.

1:23:20 We need more leaders like her in this world, unlike certain

1:23:23 others, because that that compassion, you could you knew

1:23:26 it. It was not a political thing.

1:23:29 No, she said it as a parent herself, as a member of the of

1:23:33 of the community. Just wow.

1:23:36 Yeah. Can we have more of that,

1:23:38 please? I just love her.

1:23:40 Me too. Love her.

1:23:42 Yeah. I've got a T-shirt with her

1:23:43 name. On it.

1:23:46 Story for another day. Yeah.

1:23:48 All right. Well, that brings us to the end

1:23:50 of our final episode for 2024. However, guys, stay tuned over

1:23:55 that. We're having a break for three

1:23:56 weeks now. Our next episode will be

1:23:59 released on the 14th of January, so stay tuned to our socials and

1:24:02 we'll give a few hints about what that case is going to be.

1:24:06 Yeah, Emma might try and do some dances over the summer.

1:24:08 That we might post over doing So what?

1:24:10 What do you know if I'm doing dances you're doing?

1:24:12 I'm filming. I can't do both.

1:24:14 Film it. Yeah, you can, but.

1:24:18 Over the next couple of weeks we are going to release a little

1:24:21 bonus episode for everybody. So stay tuned for that when it

1:24:25 comes out. So in order to be notified when

1:24:27 that comes out, hit the notification bell or the follow

1:24:31 button on your on your podcasting app so that you know

1:24:34 when that's come out and you can have a bit of a listen.

1:24:37 We're gonna do a little bit of AQ and a type of type of episode

1:24:40 for you guys and we might leak onto the socials.

1:24:43 What episode we're gonna do for our first one for the new year.

1:24:45 So stay on there and check those out as we go too.

1:24:49 Excellent. Now thank you everybody for.

1:24:51 Joining us again and we will see you next year, 2025, Happy New

1:24:56 Year. Stay safe.

1:24:57 Yeah, stay curious. Kind of besties.

1:25:00 Bye. See ya.