NEWS: 'To Catch a Predator' Sting Results in a Suicide

CELEB: 'To Catch a Predator' Sting Results in a Suicide

Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” series may have finally crossed the line; a former district attorney shot himself after police and Dateline camera crew arrived at his door to arrest him for soliciting a minor.

The Dateline crew and the vigilante group “Perverted Justice” use online decoys to snare men hoping to chat with teenage boys. The decoys lure men to the sting-house (fully wired with Dateline’s hidden cameras) where the target would be grilled by Dateline’s sleazy host, Chris Hansen. After Dateline gets their money shot, police move in for the arrests.

Decoys baited former Kaufman County D.A. Louis "Bill" Conradt Jr. on Monday. Conradt chatted for several minutes with an adult “Perverted Justice” volunteer. Although Conradt agreed to meet the legal-aged volunteer, he apparently had a change of heart, skipping the meeting. Police decided they had enough evidence to arrest Conradt for soliciting sex from a minor. As police and the Dateline camera-crew stormed Conradt’s home, they were startled by the sound of gunfire: Conradt killed himself.

Conradt’s associates and the officials in the town of Murphy, Texas are appalled with how NBC and law enforcement handled the situation.

In review… a guy chatted online with an adult pretending to be someone else. They agree to meet for some banging, but one of the guys lost his nerve. The police use this exchange between consenting adults to get an arrest warrant. As NBC, armed with an arrest warrant, stormed this guy’s house, he shot himself.

NBC’s questionable ethics and unabashed greed fueled this debacle. While law-enforcement-as-entertainment increased many a network’s revenue, NBC’s quest for ratings crossed the line between reporting news and creating news. While we need to vigilantly protect our children, we also need to vigilantly protect an adult’s right to freely exchange ideas with another adult.

Former Kaufman County D.A. Louis "Bill" Conradt Jr.

Man, there's truly nothing good on tv,
or about it.


Letterman's cool though.

I completely agree that that kind of mixture of law-enforcement and TV is very dangerous and I hope this incident leads to the examination of that and other shows like it. At the same time I think it's unreasonable to say that NBC crossed some sort of line, they didn't kill the guy, he killed himself.

Oh, and how could they charge him with soliciting sex from a minor if he was soliciting it from an adult?

Edited to add: I mean he could easily have argued (if he hadn't eaten his gun) that he knew it was an adult. The fact that it was would sort of lend credence to that idea. It's not that I sympathize with sexual predators, but this whole thing smacks of entrapment, and the "an innocent guy wouldn't have shot himself" argument frankly disgusts me. He was innocent, he wasn't willing to follow through, even if he did think it was a kid.

It is to my understanding that he thought he was supposed to be meeting a 13 year old boy... Not another "consenting adult".
He wasn't exchanging "ideas with another adult", he thought he was talking to a child.

What innocent person shoots themself??

I'm sorry, but I feel absolutely no sorrow over this man's death.

He wasn't chatting with an adult online. The decoy, who yes was an adult, was posing as a young boy. It was never mentioned that he was an adult; it was always stated that he was a CHILD. So, to that man's knowledge, he was having a sexually explicit conversation with a young kid, a minor. This was not a consenting conversation between two adults. He KNEW he was chatting with a minor, he KNEW it was wrong. This man didn't kill himself because someone caught him talking about sex with another adult; he killed himself because he realized he got caught illegally propositioning a child and was so fucking weak that he took the easy way out instead of taking responsibility for his actions.

I am not saying that Dateline doesn't sensationalize things, but they ultimately do a good deed. They are able to pour money--more money than any police department would have available--into a venture that captures perverted fucks who are willing to jeopardize their entire lives to have sex with a child.

This man is obviously not running on a low level of intelligence if he was a D.A. for many years. He had the mental capacity to differentiate between right and wrong.

I'm glad the fucker's dead. Spared the taxpayers the fee of court time and jail time. And I'm sorry if this came off as harsh...you know what, no, no I'm not. That man is a SEXUAL PREDATOR and he deserves what he got.

i'd consider it crossing the line if chris hansen had personally executed the guy. a man's suicide is nobody's responsibility but his own.

I'm reminded of 'Network'...

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!!"

+1

Check out www.pervertedjustice.com. IF that website is still around it should show some archives of online chat conversations this group has with alleged sexual predators.

Look, I understand there are people out there using the internet to solicit sex from minors. I agree that is a huge and horrible problem that should be addressed and needs a solution. I'm horrified by the news stories that are out there of all the predators luring minors into deviant acts.

I don't think Dateline and Perverted Justice is the answer. While they bring the problem to the public eye they're really doing very little to help other than create public awareness. Read some of Perverted Justice's archives. While horrifying, I can't help but feel that these online decoys are using some serious bait and lure into getting some of these "predators" engaged in explicit conversations. A majority of these guys are sick in the head and the heart but I feel pretty strongly that Dateline and it's decoys are somehow responsible for the "news" they bring to our televisions. In fact, some of the predators aren't trolling for sex with minors. In some cases, they're the ones initiating sexual conversation with a grown man just to see if he "bites."

My opinion is that the answer lies with the children's parents. Parents need to fucking parent their children and monitor what their children are doing. They need to raise their children with enough sense to know what behavior is acceptable, and what isn't. You can rest assure that while I won't be able to watch my daughter 24/7 when she turns into a teenager, she will know she can come to her mother and I with any problems or issues she's facing. She will know what types of behaviors are acceptable to her mother and I online and offline.

Agreed. I wish more of these sick fucks would off themselves. On one episode they actually "caught" someone who'd been "caught" by Perverted Justice before! If more of these animals would kill themselves, it would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs and jail costs incurred in prosecuting and incarcerating these sickos.

You CANNOT "rehabilitate" these people. It's like trying to get me to stop liking curvy women with big tits or homosexuals to stop being attracted to people of the same sex. Sure, you can get me to like women with small breasts and young boy bodies, but I'm always going to fall back to my basest desires.

Honestly, tell me the difference from what Dateline/Perverted Justice do and police departments publishing the names of people arrested for drugs/prostitution in the newspaper - besides the obvious larger target market. Sex offenders are required by law to notify their neighbors and local PDs when they move into an area, why not publically humiliate these monsters BEFORE they hurt you son/daughter/cousin/neighbor/friend's child?

+1

RIIIIGHT... because you never did anything you weren't supposed to as a kid that your parents never knew about.

Yes, parents in general NEED to be better parents, but even the best parents can't protect their kids from the actions of others. They can help their children look to avoid a lot of danger and know the difference between wrong and right, but sometimes bad things happen. Not every child that is abducted, raped and/or killed by a sexual predator goes along willingly.

he also changed his mind and DIDN'T meet the "13 year old" So what, exactly, did he do wrong? If I plan out a bank robbery, and halfway to the bank I change my mind, what crime did I commit?

I love that Dateline shit.

I hate Chris Hanson with a passion though.

"I made you some sweet-tea, take a seat while I put on a bathing suit."

What a load of bullshit. Sexually explicit conversations are grounds for death now? What a country. . .

That's the whole point... If he didn't do anything wrong then why did he kill himself?? I guess you could ask him but, wait a minute, he's dead.

If he was chatting online looking for sex from young boys and then bailing on the plans he was probably struggling with some issues anyway. I dont doubt that he was suicidal to begin with.

I think humiliating people on tv is pretty low and sick however these people should be busted regardless. I dont see how this is any different than hearing/reading about the pervs on the news, radio or paper.

Ive personally never seen the program since I dont watch tv but many coworkers talk about it on a regular basis so Im aware of it.

That man is responsible for his own choices in life and death.

agreed, i feel like there is probably some sort of history here...

also agreed. i have to think that a former DA knew the circumstances of his actions.

You think that talking dirty to a 13 year old boy is okay as long as you don't molest him?

The last time I checked, in America, Innocence is assumed, not guilt. Perhaps he killed himself because he new that in America, being accused of pedophilia is just as bad as actually committing it? And that his life would have been ruined no matter what he did or didn't do? You don't know, so saying he deserved death is a load of crap.

Oh I know! I saw that one. They caught him again, with the same online decoy something like the next fucking day. How stupid does one have to be.

And I understand what people are saying about Dateline/PervertedJustice "luring" and "baiting" these people in. But the bottom line is that almost every adult on this earth has the chance to recognize right from wrong and to act accordingly. Just because a child propositions you online does NOT mean it's ok to then accept. Using the excuse "I'm sick" or "I need help" does not get someone off the hook. It means that even they admit that it was time someone stepped in and stopped them before they did something awful or did something awful AGAIN. These people that they are catching are not mentally handicapped people who have trouble differentiating between good and bad, right and wrong. They are catching military men, lawyers, doctors, firefighters, church deacons, people who are supposed to stand for what is right and good within humanity. People who have other people's lives and souls in their hands at any given minute. If they are allowed to make serious decisions and judgments in all other aspects of life, then they should be accountable for the decisions they make in regards to accepting or not accepting the chance to sexually proposition someone they KNOW is a minor.

I mean, if a 13 year old girl dressed very provocatively and went up to a 35 year old man and asked for sex, that doesn't mean the guy is legally and morally allowed to have sex with her. It doesn't matter how confident the girl seems, how much she seems to truly want it, etc; she is a CHILD. There is absolutely no excuse for preying upon a minor like that.

Where in that article does it say he said anything explicit? All it says is that they talked and agreed to meet.

Personally I'm glad this guy offed himself. He should have done it sooner or gotten help instead of trying to seduce children on the internet. The only reason he killed himself was because he knew what he did was wrong and he didn't want to do the time, because he was a fucking pussy.

Oh yeah, I'm sure for popcorn and a movie... Right??
Seriously, we will never know what he killed himself for. But, he killed himself for guilt over something.