Man Who Lured Victim on Grindr Gets 45 Years in Prison for Kidnapping - The New York Times

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The attack, which near a Louisiana antheral successful a coma for 3 days successful 2020, was portion of a strategy by Chance Seneca, 21, to kidnap and termination cheery men, according to national prosecutors. They said helium had been inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer.

A banner displaying the logo for the societal  networking level    Grindr extracurricular  the New York Stock Exchange erstwhile   the institution  went nationalist   successful  November 2022. It features a disguise  and the sanction  of the web  successful  achromatic  type.
Chance Seneca utilized Grindr, a societal networking level for L.G.B.T.Q. people, to lure users arsenic portion strategy to kidnap and termination cheery men.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Livia Albeck-Ripka

A Louisiana antheral who utilized the dating app Grindr to lure cheery men successful a strategy to kidnap and termination them was sentenced to 45 years successful national situation connected Wednesday for kidnapping and trying to termination a antheral helium recovered connected the web successful 2020, the Justice Department said.

The attacker, Chance Seneca, 21, told the authorities that helium considered the societal media level for L.G.B.T.Q. radical a “hunting ground” and that helium had utilized it to lure different man, Holden White, to his father’s isolated location successful Lafayette, La., connected June 20, 2020. The men besides communicated connected the messaging app Snapchat, tribunal documents said.

They had been successful interaction for weeks erstwhile Mr. Seneca, past 19, picked up Mr. White, who was 18, successful his car and drove him backmost to the house, wherever helium propositioned him, convincing him to enactment connected handcuffs, according to the documents filed successful U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Once astatine the home, Mr. Seneca strangled, bludgeoned and stabbed Mr. White, earlier slitting his wrists, tribunal records said. The onslaught near Mr. White successful a coma that lasted respective days and with lasting injuries.

Mr. Seneca utilized a loop to strangle Mr. White until helium was unconscious, earlier pulling him into a bathtub, wherever helium deed Mr. White successful the caput with a hammer, and stabbed him successful the cervix with an crystal pick, to marque definite that helium was dead, according to prosecutors. Mr. Seneca aboriginal told the authorities that helium had slit Mr. White’s wrists successful an effort to chopped disconnected his hands — which helium planned to support — but had panicked erstwhile helium saw bone, tribunal records said.

Just earlier midnight, Mr. Seneca called 911 and told dispatchers that idiosyncratic had been strangled, according to tribunal documents. He told the dispatcher, “It’s my fault.”

Prosecutors said Mr. White was transported to a hospital, wherever helium was intubated for 3 days successful a coma.

The Lafayette Police Department responded to the house, and arrested Mr. Seneca.

In March 2021, Mr. Seneca was indicted connected national charges of hatred transgression with effort to kill, kidnapping and obstruction, on with a firearms count. In September, helium reached a plea deal, pleading blameworthy to 1 number of kidnapping. The maximum punishment for the kidnapping discourtesy is beingness imprisonment.

Mr. Seneca inactive faces a authorities complaint of attempted second-degree murder, according to KATC 3, an ABC affiliate successful Lafayette.

Mr. White, 21, said successful a telephone interrogation Thursday that portion helium was inactive processing the quality of the sentencing, helium did not judge that justness had been served. “It’s not what I asked for,” said Mr. White, noting that helium had asked the justice for a harsher sentence. “Life is what I asked for.”

Efforts to scope Mr. Seneca’s lawyer connected Thursday were unsuccessful.

The Justice Department said that Mr. Seneca acknowledged helium had utilized Grindr to kidnap and effort to execution his victim, “for the intent of satisfying his homicidal urges, and that helium had planned to proceed murdering until helium was caught oregon killed.”

The section said Mr. Seneca besides said his onslaught connected Mr. White was an effort to “satisfy a compulsive murder-fantasy” and that helium had spent months cautiously designing a strategy that mirrored akin murders committed by the serial slayer Jeffrey Dahmer, and that, similar Mr. Dahmer, Mr. Seneca had planned to sphere and devour the bodies of his victims.

Mr. Seneca told authorities that helium had tried to lure different cheery antheral to his father’s location the time earlier the onslaught connected Mr. White, but that Mr. Seneca had changed his mind, tribunal records show.

“The facts of this lawsuit are genuinely shocking,” Kristen Clarke, the adjunct lawyer wide of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, said successful a statement. Mr. Seneca’s targeting of cheery men, Ms. Clarke noted, was a “disturbing reminder” of the unsocial dangers facing the L.G.B.T.Q. community. “The net should beryllium accessible and harmless for each Americans,” she said.

Patrick Lenihan, a spokesperson from Grindr, said that the institution was continuing to enactment toward the realization of a “safer, amended world” for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, noting that the institution publishes a information usher and information tips connected its app and website, and that it encourages users to beryllium harmless erstwhile interacting with radical they bash not know, arsenic good arsenic to study amerciable behavior.

“There’s a good enactment we person to navigate betwixt privateness and safety,” Mr. Lenihan said. “We are perpetually reassessing and moving with everyone from instrumentality enforcement groups to L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy and writer roots organizers to marque definite we are staying up of atrocious actors arsenic champion we perchance can.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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