A Louisiana man was indicted and charged today in federal court in the Western District of Louisiana on six counts, including hate crime, kidnapping, firearm and obstruction charges.
Chance Seneca, 19, of Lafayette, was charged by a federal grand jury on March 18 based on his attempted murder of a gay man and his overarching plot to kidnap and murder gay men he met online.
According to the indictment, on June 19 and 20, 2020, Seneca “attempted to kidnap one man, [Holden White] and successfully kidnapped two other men through his use of Grindr, a dating application for gay and bisexual men. The indictment further alleges that the defendant attempted to murder one of these men because of his gender and sexual orientation, and that the defendant intended to dismember and keep parts of the victim’s body as trophies, mementos and food.”
“Seneca explained that he had hoped to remove and preserve White’s hands but that he could not finish his plan after seeing the bones of White’s wrists exposed under his flesh,” the complaint says.
The 18-year old victim said he “suffered from strangulation that popped nearly every blood vessel in his face, six stab wounds to the neck, blunt force trauma to his head and cuts so deep to his wrists that his hands were nearly sawed off.”
“He was just staring at me with a fearful look in his face, like a ‘I just did this?’ look,” the victim said. “I was laying in the bathtub, naked, bleeding out, the water red and cold, and I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is it.'”
The indictment further alleges that Seneca possessed a firearm in furtherance of the hate crime, and that he tried to cover up his actions by deleting texts between himself and the victim of the attempted murder.
The statutory maximum for the hate crime, kidnapping and firearm offenses is life imprisonment. The statutory maximum for the attempted kidnapping and obstruction offenses is 20 years. The statutory minimum for the gun charge is five years.
The FBI conducted the investigation.
