Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Murdered His Tinder Date // The Jesse Kempson Murder Story

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Jesse Kempson is a New Zealand man who became the center of a major international criminal case following the 2018 murder of 21-year-old British backpacker Grace Millane in Auckland. After meeting Millane on the dating app Tinder, Kempson strangled her in his hotel room and subsequently attempted to hide her body in a suitcase, which he buried in a shallow grave in the Waitākere Ranges.

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We'd love to talk, business. So this guy is a liar. Now, the guy's name is Jesse, and Jesse is 26 when this story starts, and he's living in New Zealand, and Jesse has a problem with lying. Like he's always making stuff up, he tells people that he's a high-level manager and an oil company, he tells people that he owns a $1.3 million house and a $900,000 BMW. He tells people he's a professional softball player for the New Zealand Black Sox. All complete nonsense.

In reality, he's kind of a turd who can't hold down a job and he's likely living on government assistance. And one day, in 2018, he screws his whole life up. Because he gets on Tinder and he's like swiping around and I guess he's looking for someone to smash with. And that is when he lands on this woman's profile. Grace. And Grace is 21 and she's a nice woman. And for the last year, she's been backpacking around the world and visiting a ton of different countries and her latest stop is in New Zealand.

So Grace is in New Zealand and she's staying in a hostel and as you could guess, she's trying to meet people. So she gets on Tinder and she starts swiping away and that is when boom, she matches with Jesse. And so they start chatting and they seem to like each other and they decide to meet up for drinks. So the next day they meet up. Here is security footage of them actually meeting.

And they go and they get drinks and they get a little food, and I guess their date is going pretty well. So they decide to keep the party going and go bar hopping. And they hit up a few other bars, and they're having a really good time. And of course, because Jesse is Jesse, he's lying his ass off the whole time. He tells her he's a successful businessman. He tells her he's related to a famous rugby player. He says he's planning to visit England, which is where Grace is from.

And Grace, of course, has no idea that this dude's a bullshare. Instead, it seems like she's kind of impressed by him. I mean, he seems cool and mature and seems to have a lot going on. In fact, when Jesse goes to the bathroom, she even texts her friend, saying how she's on a date with this big oil executive and how he's going to come to England next year. So the date continues, and after several hours of hanging out and bar hopping, they decide to go back to Jesse's place. And here's where shit gets out of control.

At Jesse's place, seemingly, out of nowhere, he suddenly snaps. And bam, he starts strangling her. And he strangles her until she unfortunately dies. And we don't exactly know why he did it, because he was the only person with her. And there are no other witnesses. Plus, he's a liar, so it's hard to believe anything, he says. But anyway, after murdering Grace, Jesse is still at home, and he doesn't really seem phased by what just happened,

and her body is still in his apartment. And while the body is chilling there, he looks up some adult websites, and he also gets on Tinder again, and he starts swiping, and in fact he matches with another woman, and he makes arrangements to go on a date with her. Then he starts searching online for ways to potentially clean up

and get rid of the body that's still at his place. So the next morning, Jesse goes to the store and he buys a suitcase. Then he goes to another store and he buys some cleaning products and he also rents a rug doctor machine to clean the carpet. During this time, Grace's phone, which is still at Jesse's apartment, is blowing up with happy birthday messages for Grace because it just so happens to be Grace's 22nd birthday. Of course, all those texts are going unanswered and all those calls are going straight to

voicemail. Anyway, after shopping, Jesse goes back to his apartment and he dumps off all the cleaning stuff he just bought and he crams Grace's body into the suitcase. Then he leaves it there. And he goes out on his other tender date that he had scheduled the night before. And on this date, Jesse is of course lying to this poor woman too. He tells her that he's the sales manager at a Woolworths in Australia. And he makes up something about how his best friend is coming over from Sydney to be a crown prosecutor or something. But here's where the conversation gets weird. This Tinder date tells Jesse how she once attended a trial in person.

And it was a trial about a guy who was being put away for murder and that, you know, the whole thing was really sad. And Jesse tells her that he once knew a guy who had rough intercourse with his girlfriend, you know, involving strangulation and stuff. But during the act, things went wrong and the girlfriend died. But the guy he knew went to prison for manslaughter, which is a really weird story to tell on a date. And I don't know how the Tinder Date reacts to this story, but anyway, he keeps going. He tells her how police dogs only have the ability to smell, bodies buried less than four feet underground, so police are missing a lot of bodies that are buried deeper than four feet. Now, at this point, they're about 90 minutes into this date,

and this poor woman, she's really not feeling all this. this dead body talk. So she decides to politely end the date and she makes an excuse to leave. And Jesse offers her a ride home and she's like, no. So Jesse goes back to his apartment and that body is still there, still crammed into that suitcase. So then he spends several hours trying to clean up the crime scene with all that cleaning stuff he bought. And I believe most of that time he spends trying to clean up the carpet. After that, he goes downstairs to look for a luggage cart, like the kind you'd get at a hotel. And so he finds one and he brings it up to his room and there he loads the suitcase with the body in it. And then he wheels the luggage cart through

the building and outside and then he loads the suitcase into a car he rented. Then he drives out to a remote area and he buries the body. Meanwhile, Grace's parents start to realize they haven't heard from her in a while, which is weird because she's normally posting to her social media a lot. and like sending photos of her backpacking trip to her family and friends and stuff. But now she's not even responding to birthday messages, which is just out of character. So they get in touch with local police, where she's at in New Zealand. And police agree to go to the hostel where Grace is staying and do a welfare check. Well, police get there and Grace isn't at the hostel, but all her stuff is still there.

So police start investigating, and almost immediately they start looking at her social media for clues, because you know, she posts there a lot. And that is when they see a comment on her Facebook page from a guy named Jesse. In fact, this Jesse guy was the last person to comment on her page and it was right before she went out on a date with him. So police reach out to Jesse through Facebook and he agrees to meet with them for questioning. So he meets with them and he tells them like, yeah, he had gone on a date with Grace, but that they had parted ways early in the evening.

I said, I know it's quick, but do you want to catch up for a drink? And she said, yep, cool. But police find security footage of Jesse and Grace coming into his building at 9.41 p.m. So they know he's lying. So they search his rental car and they search his apartment. And even though he tried to clean everything up, police find Grace's DNA and other forensic evidence. And so, bam, Jesse is arrested. And I couldn't find a mugshot, but here is a picture of him in real life.

And ultimately, he goes to trial, and he's found guilty, and he gets sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 17 years.