Man Gets 45 Years In Grindr Kidnap/Murder Attempt

From the Justice Department:



Chance Seneca, 21, of Lafayette, Louisiana, was sentenced today to 45 years in federal prison for kidnapping and attempting to murder a gay man as part of a months-long scheme to kidnap and murder gay men.

The court rested its sentence on many factors, including its determination that the defendant intentionally targeted the victim and other gay men because of their gender and sexual orientation.

According to evidence introduced at sentencing and in an earlier hearing where the defendant pleaded guilty, Seneca in June 2020 used Grindr, a dating application for gay and bisexual men, to kidnap and attempt to murder H.W., a gay man.

Specifically, Seneca used Grindr to propose a meeting with H.W., with the intent of murdering and dismembering him, and then drove H.W. to an isolated house, took out a handgun, instructed him to put on handcuffs, and then used several methods to attempt to murder him.

Believing that H.W. was dead, Seneca then attempted to dismember him. After his arrest, Seneca admitted that he had planned to continue murdering gay men until he was caught or killed.

Seneca acknowledged that he kidnapped and attempted to murder H.W. in order to satisfy a compulsive murder-fantasy.

Seneca had become fixated with the idea of killing gay men, and this fascination led him to spend months designing a murder-kidnapping scheme that mirrored the murders of gay men committed by the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Seneca intentionally targeted gay men, as Dahmer had done. Seneca had also intended to eat and preserve the bodies of his victims, as Dahmer had done.