Volume 14 · Chapter 4
Room 308
Jesse Kempson
Victim: Grace Millane
Case at a glance
- When
- December 1, 2018
- Where
- CityLife Hotel, central Auckland, and the Waitākere Ranges, New Zealand
- Perpetrator
- Jesse Shane Kempson
- Victim
- Grace Millane
- Outcome
- Convicted of murder in November 2019 and sentenced to life with a 17-year minimum; appeals dismissed in 2020 and 2021
The case
Grace Millane, from Essex, England, was 21 and traveling the world after finishing university when she reached Auckland, New Zealand, at the end of November 2018. On December 1, the day before her 22nd birthday, she met Jesse Kempson, a man she had matched with on Tinder, for drinks in the city.
After several bars, the two went to Kempson’s room at the CityLife Hotel, where cameras recorded them at 9:41 p.m. It was the last time Grace was seen alive. Kempson strangled her. Over the following days he looked up information online, bought a large suitcase, rented a car and a carpet cleaner, and buried her in the Waitākere Ranges west of the city. When Grace did not answer her family’s birthday messages, they raised the alarm. Police charged Kempson on December 8, and her body was found the next day.
Kempson claimed Grace died by accident during consensual rough sex. A jury rejected that and found him guilty of murder on November 22, 2019. In February 2020 he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 17 years. His appeals failed, and when a suppression order on his name lifted in December 2020, the public learned he had also been convicted of sexual offenses against two other women.
Read the full story
This case is told in full in True Crime Case Histories, Volume 14 by Jason Neal.
Get Volume 14 on AmazonCase photographs
2 photos
Where it happened
Why this case
“Grace’s case forced a hard look at the “rough sex” defense, and New Zealand’s courts refused to let a claim of consent excuse a killing. I also think about her parents noticing the silence on her birthday. Her mother has since put that grief into helping victims of domestic violence.”
— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories
