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it's December 1st 2018 CCTV records 22-year-old Grace and her Tinder date Jesse getting ready to
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leave a bar they had just met a few hours ago but already they're about to head back
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to his place from the outside everything seemed to be going perfectly well so well in fact that soon after they could
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be seen heading to a nearby hotel and up to Jesse's hotel room shortly after nobody could have expected that this was
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the last time Grace would ever be seen alive the next day happened to be her birthday and nobody was able to reach
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her all day and the same was true even days after it was like she disappeared off the face of the Earth her friends
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and family quickly reported her missing but to no avail meanwhile Jesse was recorded on CCTV out and about going up
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and down the elevator carrying cleaning supplies and what appeared to be a suitcase a suitcase with contents that
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would shock everyone to the core and what's even worse the killer had another date lined up and if the
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cops don't intervene and arrest him quickly this girl as well as countless others could fall victim to this very
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same man tell me what happened last Saturday um from the beginning yeah at 5 5:37 p.m. on December 1st 2018 Grace who
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just finished a backpacking Journey from England to New Zealand leaves her hostile to meet Jesse meanwhile Jesse is
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having pre-date drinks at a local bar Downing several beers before the date begins in fact as he leaves the bar you
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can still see at least four empty bottles sitting on the table they meet in a popular spot where there's plenty
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of people making Grace feel safe while she meets her date for the first time but this will be a false sense of
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security as Jesse has no plans to try anything on to ward in public he's going to wait until they're
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alone suspecting nothing Grace accompanies Jesse to a bar where they drink together for over an hour before
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they head for a Mexican bar at 7:15 for more drinks and yet had another Bar Named Blue Stone room around 8:30 p.m.
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this will be where Jesse tries his luck and sees if he can get a little closer to Grace at 8:54 they share their first
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kiss this is when Jesse takes a trip to the bathroom and where Grace sends her very
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last message to anyone telling her friends that it's going amazingly well and that she just clicks with him so
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well she's probably excited to spend the night with a man that she genuinely likes she could have had no idea that
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instead he was about to end her life in one of the most horrific ways possible the next morning Grace's phone
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starts to receive a ton of messages it's her birthday and there are plenty of friends who want to send her their best
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wishes each and every one of these messages goes unanswered the first sign that something is wrong is at 8: a.m.
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when Jesse enters the very same elevator this time on his own throwing the camera
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a suspicious glance if you think he's just getting the birthday girl a morning coffee then think again during that
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night Jesse killed Grace by strangulation and now he's going to try and do everything he can to cover up his
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crime and he needs to do it quickly because he's already got another potential victim lined up by 8:07 a.m.
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Jesse is in town and about to start the most Eerie shopping trip possible he starts at the warehouse on Elliot Street
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where he buys a suitcase that he plans to hide Grace's body in he checks out the width and depth of the suitcase to
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make sure it'll fit her so he can dispose of her body before anyone can catch him then 25 minutes later he makes
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his way to another store where he buys a number of cleaning products that will be
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used to clean up the murder scene then he returns to his apartment for a number of hours reappearing at 10:42 a.m.
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before he jumps in a taxi and Apex car rental where he rents a car but it's what he does next that's truly shocking
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and puts pressure on the cops to discover and solve his murder as quickly as possible as Grace's body lies in the
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apartment Jesse goes on a date with another girl he'd met on Tinder given that he has all the equipment ready to
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hide one body it's speculated that he planned this to to be his second victim of the day as he arrives at the bar
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Jesse is wearing exactly the same clothing that he wore the night before possibly the same clothes that he wore
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when he killed Grace we are not sure whether kempson was as pushy in his initial messages to this girl but what
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we do know is that the conversation he struck up with her during the date not only brought up some major red flags it
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downright terrified her allegedly he wanted to talk to her about where to hide a dead body from the police right
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away the date is over and this girl's instincts may have just saved her life it's hard to imagine the horror that she
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would have felt when she learned the truth about the man she just walked away from certain that he likely had the same
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fate lined up for her as he did with Grace at 856 p.m. we can see Jesse carrying a piece of equipment back to
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his apartment more precisely it's a carpet cleaner and he's going to try and use that carpet cleaner to try and
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remove any trace of Grace's Presence at his apartment he's even got two of cleaner in his hand making sure he's got
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enough to get the job done 30 minutes later and we're greeted with the product of all his hard work he's about to try
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and hide the body he reappears in the elevator with a trolley carrying several luggage bags one of which is the
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suitcase that he' bought earlier that morning it's way too heavy to carry as inside is Grace's dead body of course he
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can't walk through the streets with this amount of baggage which is exactly why he hired the rental car minutes later
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he's loading the rental car with all of the baggage ready to make the next move in his attempt to cover up this murder
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hiding the body in a place he thinks no one will find it the next morning at 7:00 a.m. Jesse buys a shovel and heads
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back to his apartment where he collects some clothing to take to the dry cleaners destroying more potential
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evidence of his crime but he's not done there as he stops off at a random trash can tossing a large trash bag inside
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then Jesse takes his rental car for a deep clean paying particular attention to the rear of the vehicle where he had
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stashed the suitcase containing Grace's body and with that his work was done for
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the next 2 days Grace's family and friends go through turmoil nobody has heard from her she hasn't posted on any
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social media and she isn't answering either of her two phones her family report her missing to Auckland police on
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December 5th Grace's Father David even flies to Auckland and makes a heartfelt appeal for his daughter's safe return
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Grace has been missing for several days and as a family we've been extremely concern for her welfare do anybody who
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has seen spoken to or come into contact with Grace come forward and contact the investigation thing with so much media
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coverage at the time Jesse likely saw her father's appeal and yet the family's please went unanswered but Auckland
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police are about to use various methods to track Grace's last movements and find
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their main suspect in her disappearance they're able to find out she was on a date with a mystery man and after
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pouring over hours of surveillance footage they find the last person she was with and cheack him back to his
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apartment at 3:00 p.m. on December 5th the cops turn up at the city life hotel but they almost miss their man as he
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eyes them in the lobby when he approaches the front door Jesse thinks if he casually strolls away he won't be
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noticed but these eagle-eyed cops don't miss a trick and quickly apprehend him before he can make an escape at this
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point the smartest thing for Jesse to do is to own up to his crime Maybe try to play it off as an accident and face the
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consequences but he's not going to do any such thing in the interrogation room he plans to lie his way out of this but
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he's completely unaware that the cops have already seen every move from the night of the murder and have about as
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much evidence as they could possibly ask for at the start of the interview he has
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no reason to lie as he's just recalling the events before the murder tell us about Grace uh so I was talking to Grace
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on on Tinder yeah um we had matched on Friday I saw that we had matched um the next day on Saturday and and then uh we
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met at Sky City and then we decided that we're going up to Andy's Burger Bar um which is on the first
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floor not long into this interview Jesse becomes entangled in his first lie as he
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claims Grace was the one pushing for a date when we already know he was the one trying hard to meet Grace in their
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initial messages whose a was it to go to that particular burger place me because
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I knew I didn't initially know that she was real what do you mean well there's a lot
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of so have you heard of catfish no so catfishing is where someone uses your profile or uses your
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photos and pretends to be you and the mits and you're a completely different person right um and it's on Tinder it's
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all about the way you look um and so if they use more endearing photos um you're
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more likely to swipe for them okay yeah how does a how does meeting in a public place sort of protect you from meeting
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someone who's not as good-looking as well there's security there so if she wasn't who she said she was um at
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least in my mind I'd feel safe when Jesse is confronted with evidence from surveillance cameras he continues to lie
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a hole for himself that he's going to struggle to escape from uh no I go down Victoria
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Street uh straight down to the bottom and then hang a left and I head towards the Vu you go to the vict a bit
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uh yeah yeah yep you you've kind of walked in a bit of a funny direction if you were planning to go to the the V
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well it's the direction I normally go yeah it's um I mean I'm just saying like if you were if you were planning to go
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to the vict I normally go down Queen Street and then cross at the bottom of Queen Street
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go through the um the containers and then walk along the warf yeah is there a particular
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reason you were going to do that uh I feel safer down that way the cop obviously suspect something strange here
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Jesse's behavior and responses don't seem to line up or make sense at all and if Jesse is lying it'll only take a good
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few questions to throw him off completely so the cop starts to apply the pressure sending Jesse into Panic
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actually don't know if she's been murdered or not yet she may be alive and well okay but she might also be dead
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okay okay and it could be that you've done it hey I just want to ask a question am
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I being arrested for something I didn't do you been a Rec he's not being arrested just yet but
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Auckland police are convinced Jesse is either behind Grace's disappearance or is at least involved and the more they
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investigate this case the more evidence they find to suggest Jesse is the one responsible it's not just the
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surveillance footage that helps solve this case remember the new suitcase and cleaning products Jesse bought the
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morning after well believe it or not they were all bought on GRE credit card as well as an extra night's stay at the
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city life hotel in fact it's very possible he paid for his second date on Grace's credit card an extra day at the
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hotel should give Jesse time to clean up the mess but it's going to take more than a carpet cleaner to get rid of the
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evidence when police search his apartment they find traces of Grace's blood the credit card payments the
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witness testimony cell phone locations placing Grace and Jesse together and the Staggering detail found in the surv
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Vance footage bashed their suspect into a corner and in his second interview on December 7th they left Jesse no choice
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but to confess a confession that would soon lead into one of the most interesting but troubling defenses ever
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used in court talking to me about uh 50 Shades of Gray which is a a SE fantasy movie that's out we started having at
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first it was um it was just normal um it was very Placid um and then she asked me
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if we could get into uh bondage and then all I remember is falling asleep in the
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shower I I need I need stop go would you like some fres year yeah please I was in shock and I didn't
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know what to do went downstairs and I was just I don't know I was all over the place um I didn't believe what it
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happened I was just terrified and scared I I thought that she had gone I I thought she had L pathologist specialist
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doctor will perform a postm be very skilled at establishing people's causes of death you understand
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that um I went to the warehouse at the agrian um and bought a suitcase um I went back and I was just
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in shock um because it just didn't seem right I left to go and get cleaning products um so I messaged a friend and
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said I'll meet you at rivalry um after after finishing drinks with with her I got back to um
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City Life and the whole time I just kept saying I'm sorry and then I went downstairs and I grabbed the the porter
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thing and I put the suitcase on top of the pter thing I drove the high car into Wilson's Car
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Park and parked it I woke up the next day at about 500 a.m. drove the car out to cumu at first I picked up a a shovel
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from itm at kumia and I ended up driving towards the white tackies I went into the bush I dug a hole I went and got the
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suitcase and I covered the hole and then I drove where where is her positions um I
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thre them in the rubbish whereabouts um Albert P rubbish right so what items of your
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property have been disposed of an Albert P um everything all of their clothing everything that was in the room
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whereabouts did you clean the car the outside of the car um I think it was in Henderson I I don't know West very well
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okay and what did you use to clean the c um a water blaster thing from C planing place did she have any
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injuries not that I can remember I was just panicking did you inflict any injuries
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on her that caused her to die uh no did you kill Grace main no okay and you're under arrest for the
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murder of Grace mine on or about the second of DEC you understand y did you intend to cause her death no are you
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ready to take us to wish she is the media called it the 50 Shades of Gray defense the idea is that someone may
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consent to being harmed during intimacy knowing the dangers involved if they made no indication to stop then it would
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be seen as an accident and the person responsible shouldn't face a murder charge but this defense has always been
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seen as more of a scapegoat used by lawyers to try and get their defendant off with a lighter sentence which in
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this case would be manslaughter this doesn't change what happened after Grace's death and the disturbing series
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of events uncovered during the investigation from December 1st the day before the date all the way to December
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7th cops found Google searches made by Jesse looking for a place to hide the body he'd also taken photos of Grace's
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body before and after he packed her into the suitcase they found Grace's body on
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December 9th 2018 in the Y takur ranges just outside of ockland it was determined that she was strangled and
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had bruises on her arms and chest con consistent with being pinned down in New Zealand there is no such thing as first
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degree or second degree murder all charges are treated the same carrying a life sentence that meant there was no
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investigation into the premeditation all that mattered was if Jesse killed her or
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not it was that simple Jesse maintained his innocence but was eventually found guilty and on February 21st 2020 he was
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sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years after his Tri while two more women came
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forward and claimed Jesse had assaulted them after they met him on Tinder he was
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found guilty on those charges as well adding another 11 years to life added to his sentence