Louisiana man sentenced to 45 years for trying to kill and dismember gay men

Chance Seneca, 21, was sentenced on Wednesday to 45 years after attempting to murder gay men he met on the dating app Grindr. The court said Seneca planned his hate crimes for many months and intentionally targeted gay men. 

In June 2020, Seneca used Grindr to propose a meeting with a man he solicited on the app with the plan to murder and dismember him, according to a Justice Department news release. Seneca became obsessed with his murder-fantasy perhaps inspired by the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, the release said; he planned to “eat and preserve his victims’ bodies,” just as Dahmer had done.

Seneca drove the man he met on the app to an isolated house and took out a handgun, told the man to put on handcuffs and then tried to kill him, the Justice Department said. 

Lafayette police responded to a call from Seneca on June 2020 and found a man, Holden White, 18, severely injured in a bathtub with strangulation marks on his neck and “wrists slit to the bone,” an unsealed affidavit said.

The affidavit was filed by an FBI agent and was based on information from Lafayette police and a conversation the agent had with Seneca. It said Seneca told police he had called 911 after the attack “in a self-described effort to be put into a mental institution.” Seneca had kidnapped two other men on June 19, the indictment said.