Man Receives 45-Year Sentence After Trying to Murder Gay Man as Part of Plan That ‘Mirrored’ Dahmer

A 21-year-old Louisiana man has received a 45-year federal prison sentence after prosecutors say he admitted to a plan targeting gay men that “mirrored” the serial killings of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Chance Seneca of Lafayette was sentenced this week after previously pleading guilty in connection with a kidnapping and attempted murder circa June 2020. In that case, Seneca is said to have used the Grindr app to target the victim, eventually convincing him to drive to “an isolated house,” at which point he brandished a weapon and made the man put on handcuffs. After attempting to kill him, Seneca—who’s said to have thought the victim was dead at the time—tried to dismember the man.

While Seneca pleaded guilty in the federal kidnapping case back in September, per regional outlet KATC, he still has a state charge of second-degree murder against him. The victim in the case, previously identified as Holden White, spoke with the outlet in November 2020 about surviving the targeted attack. At the time, he said Seneca “idolized” Dahmer, who murdered 17 people and was recently made the subject of a controversial Netflix series.

“The victim never thought that he would find himself falling prey to a predator in such a way,” Brandon B. Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, said of Seneca’s largely thwarted plan in a news release. “Hate crimes such as this are a top priority for the Department and this office, and we take these kind of cases very seriously.”

As discovered in an investigation led by the FBI and Lafayette police, Chance Seneca’s “fascination” with targeting gay men had inspired the development of a plot “that mirrored the murders of gay men committed by the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.” Seneca, authorities added, “intended to eat and preserve the bodies of his victims.”

Complex has reached out to the Lafayette Police Department for additional comment.