- 7 hours ago
Dating apps are meant to connect people, but for some, they became tools of terror. From fake profiles to deadly encounters, we dive into chilling stories where killers exploited dating platforms to lure their victims. These cases reveal the dark side of online romance and the dangers lurking behind seemingly innocent matches.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And he does unspeakable things with his victim.
00:03Police say Robinson met the women through a dating site.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're exploring the infamous times when killers across the globe
00:10use dating apps and websites to meet people, only to have their lives taken instead of a budding romance.
00:16As master, and that's what we knew him as, the slave master.
00:23Jesse Kempson.
00:24After graduating from university, Grace Mullane departed England for a backpacking trip,
00:28arriving in New Zealand in 2018.
00:30Less than two weeks later, after failing to respond to her family's birthday messages, Mullane was reported missing.
00:36On her birthday, she'd gone off the radar.
00:39It's New Zealand. Things like that don't happen.
00:42The investigation found that she was last seen with Kempson at a hotel in Auckland.
00:46The duo had met after matching on Tinder.
00:48With Kempson providing false information, he was arrested for murder.
00:52Shortly after, Mullane's body was found in the Waitakri Ranges.
00:55While his name was suppressed during the trial, it was later revealed.
00:58Working out who Grace was, we have to know who our victim is.
01:02And of course, the UK time is in the middle of the night, middle of our day there.
01:06So, and also, where was she staying, who was she friends with, her social media.
01:11And with it, so was Kempson's past of assaulting other women.
01:14In 2020, after being found guilty of Mullane's murder, Kempson was sentenced to life imprisonment.
01:19It was emotional.
01:24When that verdict was read, that was probably the most emotional courtroom I've ever been in.
01:29Bruce MacArthur.
01:30Between 2010 and 2017, the LGBTQIA plus community of Church in Wellesley, a neighborhood within Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was experiencing
01:39a concerning crime wave.
01:40Within that time, at least eight men connected to the neighborhood had vanished.
01:44It gives them a different view of what they had participated in or what crime they had committed.
01:50For others, no, it doesn't impact.
01:52Most of the men had Middle Eastern or South Asian descent.
01:54Following Andrew Kinsman's disappearance in 2017, the police investigation intensified, especially when MacArthur was connected.
02:01The landscaper and mall Santa had profiles on several hookup websites and apps, advertising his more extreme desires.
02:09Very extreme example of a controlling serial killer in that, you know, he's imprisoning his victims.
02:19He is keeping them after death.
02:23Seemingly, MacArthur used these to contact his victims before taking their lives.
02:28Remains of his victims were found in pots in the gardens he worked at.
02:31In 2019, after pleading guilty to eight murders, MacArthur was sentenced to life.
02:35I don't think that's enough comfort for the families or the community or the people that he's killed.
02:42I think that, you know, if you're going to do a maximum crime, you deserve the maximum sentence, which is
02:50life times eight.
02:51Mark Latunsky.
02:52The journey to get to this day has been especially hard for the friends and the family of Kevin Bacon,
02:58who, on the night he died, thought he was going to meet a new friend he met on a dating
03:03app.
03:03On Christmas Day 2019, Kevin Bacon's family was concerned when he didn't arrive.
03:08So, they contacted his roommate, who stated that Bacon had gone on a date after connecting with someone on Grindr.
03:13The investigation led the police to Latunsky, who lived in Shiawassee County, Michigan.
03:17There, they found Bacon's remains.
03:19What type of things did you see?
03:24Specifically, there was a lot.
03:28Latunsky later admitted to the officers that he took Bacon's life and fed on the remains.
03:32After being found unfit to stand trial, Latunsky underwent mental health treatment.
03:36Once he was deemed competent to face the charges in court, Latunsky pled guilty to taking Bacon's life, earning him
03:42a life sentence in 2022.
03:43For two days, the circuit court heard details of the case.
03:47Latunsky pled guilty to killing a man he met in 2019.
03:51Shakira Graham.
03:51In 2018, Meshack Cornwell believed he'd found romance when he connected with Graham on the dating app Plenty of Fish.
03:57The blossoming romance seemed to be going well when she stayed at his home in Garfield Heights, Ohio.
04:01Yet two days afterwards, Graham turned up again at the property with far darker plans.
04:06She messaged him and he liked what he saw.
04:09He found his perfect match.
04:12But they would never get their perfect ending.
04:16She fatally shot Cornwell multiple times before stealing several items from his residence.
04:20Nearly two months later in 2019, Graham was tracked down by U.S. Marshals in Shaker Heights and arrested.
04:26And there is no shortage of suspects.
04:29It was such an unveiling of secrets that came out.
04:33In 2020, she was found guilty of Cornwell's murder and of stealing from him.
04:37As such, Graham was sentenced to life in prison.
04:40You don't just wake up one day and become the person that committed these crimes.
04:45For someone to be that detached, something ain't right.
04:50Zhou Yiping.
04:50Before 2009, Zhou was enjoying being a local celebrity in Changsha, Hunan, China.
04:55As he frequented karaoke halls in the city and in nearby communities to showcase his voice.
05:00Yet, in 2009, Zhou began posting on extreme websites to look for hookups with men.
05:05Within seven weeks, six men he'd met with were found deceased.
05:09After other possible victims who escaped Zhou came forward, he was arrested.
05:13Found guilty of murder, the killer was sentenced to execution in 2011.
05:16Yet, Zhou appealed the sentence, claiming some of the victims had technically done the deed to themselves.
05:22However, the court upheld the punishment, which was carried out in 2014.
05:26John Edward Robinson.
05:2715-year-old Heather Tiffany Robinson sits in front of her computer.
05:32Confused.
05:33Her Uncle John has just been arrested for murder.
05:36With a history of being a scoutmaster, on the board of a charity, a Sunday school teacher, and a baseball
05:41coach,
05:42Robinson didn't seem like someone who would go on to make infamous history.
05:45Time after time, Robinson is caught and convicted for these white-collar crimes.
05:51But every time, he manages to escape any real significant prison time.
05:57Following a release from prison for a fraud conviction, Robinson morphed into the first known serial killer to use the
06:02internet to hunt for victims.
06:04Under the name Slave Master, he began connecting with women in extreme chat rooms.
06:09Robinson had an uncanny ability to get inside the heads of the women that he was preying on.
06:18And after being arrested for theft in 2000, a search of his home in Kansas uncovered human remains.
06:23He was found guilty of three murders in Kansas, earning him a death sentence.
06:27Robinson, after taking a plea deal, was convicted of taking five lives and received multiple life sentences in Missouri.
06:33He killed six women in the mid-1980s, but was not arrested until 2000.
06:39Police found women's bodies stuffed in barrels.
06:42Robinson has filed several appeals, including one to get the death penalty sentence overturned.
06:46Anthony Robinson.
06:47In 2021, women in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area were under siege by an attacker dubbed the shopping
06:53cart killer.
06:53It's fair to say that on the dating apps that he is known to use, there are other people that
06:58you need to contact.
06:59There are. We know he's been in contact with other people.
07:03We found four people that didn't make it.
07:06The bodies of at least four victims were found hidden under carts.
07:09The investigation led the police to CCTV footage of two victims entering a hotel in Virginia with Robinson.
07:15Yet, on both occasions, when he left the hotel, he was with a concealed shopping cart.
07:19That's how authorities believe 35-year-old Anthony Robinson of Washington, D.C. moved his victims, deeming him the shopping
07:26cart killer.
07:27It then emerged that most of the victims met Robinson through dating apps.
07:30While he denied the allegations, Robinson was charged with two murders.
07:34In 2025, he was found guilty and was sentenced the following year to life imprisonment.
07:38And we began this coordinated effort to track down more victims, unfortunately, that were at the hands of this shopping
07:48cart killer, Mr. Robinson.
07:51Khalil Wheeler-Weaver.
07:52In 2016, Sarah Butler vanished in New Jersey.
07:56When friends and her sister logged into Butler's social media for answers, they discovered that she'd been in contact with
08:00Wheeler-Weaver.
08:01So, the group of amateur detectives messaged him and set up a meeting.
08:05This trap led to Wheeler-Weaver being arrested and charged with multiple murders, including Butler's.
08:10The Butler family has been through an extremely difficult week having to bury their daughter.
08:16Khalil Wheeler-Weaver was arrested for Sarah's death.
08:19He'd been using tagged and dating apps to contact women and take their lives.
08:22The victim count could have been higher had one woman not escaped when Wheeler-Weaver attacked her.
08:27He killed 33-year-old Joanne Brown, 19-year-old Robin West, and 20-year-old Sarah Butler after connecting
08:32them using a social app.
08:34However, at the time, police reportedly didn't take her allegations seriously.
08:38In 2020, after Wheeler-Weaver was found guilty of three murders, he was sentenced to 160 years in prison.
08:44A convicted serial killer in New Jersey is sentenced to 160 years in prison.
08:49In 2022, he was charged with a fourth murder.
08:52But I want justice. I don't want him to have a moment of peace.
08:55All the women that he harmed and hurt, he should pay for.
09:00Carl Langdale
09:00On Christmas Eve 2015, schoolteacher Katie Locke, after matching on Plenty of Fish, met with Langdale.
09:06Plentyoffish.com is Britain's largest free dating website.
09:11Because Plenty of Fish is free, it's not really tailored to any specific type of person.
09:15It has a really wide database.
09:17However, as well as not telling her he wasn't actually a lawyer,
09:20Langdale also didn't inform Locke that he was serving a suspended sentence after telling a psychiatric nurse about his extreme
09:26desires.
09:27This is an individual who is able to disregard his actions and to act, to all intents and purposes, completely
09:33normal around people that he knows.
09:35During the night, he took Locke's life at a hotel in Chestnut, England.
09:38Locke's family searched for her, eventually arriving at Langdale's home, where they claimed he admitted to his deed to his
09:43mother.
09:44In 2016, after pleading guilty, Langdale was sentenced to life imprisonment.
09:48Yet, his violent urges continued, as he attacked a guard in 2017.
09:52In 2021, Langdale took his own life while in prison.
09:56And now he was on a dating website, where he can meet young women.
09:59That shouldn't be allowed to happen.
10:01These apps need to take some responsibility.
10:04They need to make them safer.
10:06Because otherwise, this could happen again.
10:08Stephen Port
10:09While he appeared on an episode of the competition show, MasterChef, all of that familial pride he'd experienced vanished when
10:15his dark side was uncovered.
10:16I'd asked them several times, have you looked at his laptop?
10:20And every time it was the same.
10:22There's no need to.
10:23It's too expensive.
10:25There's no need to.
10:25We know what happened.
10:27And it's done with.
10:28Beginning in 2014, Port started to use the dating app Grindr and other sites to hook up with men with
10:33dark intentions at his flat in Barking, England.
10:36Armed with illegal substances, he dosed and assaulted them.
10:40How can they not have linked those first three deaths?
10:44You've got three young gay men propped up dead within 300 meters of each other within four months of each
10:52other.
10:52Eventually, Port went further and began taking lives.
10:55Altogether, by the time the disgraced Chef was charged in 2015, there were 11 known victims, with four having had
11:02their lives taken by him.
11:03Are there alternative explanations for what has happened?
11:06And then there were some inquiries that should have been carried out more quickly and perhaps more thoroughly.
11:11However, accusations emerged that misconduct by the police led to Port escaping justice and continuing his spree.
11:17After finally being found guilty, Port was sentenced to life in 2016.
11:21That sick, twisted scumbag will never be able to hurt or destroy anyone else's family or life.
11:28A Jack can finally rest in peace.
11:30We will always be completely heartbroken as a family.
11:34Do you have any dating app horror stories?
11:36Let us know below.
11:37That's all.
11:38Anyway, I'd love to see.
11:40Bye.
11:40Bye.
11:40Bye.
11:41Bye.
11:43Bye.
11:43Bye.
Comments