Suspect’s Trial Delayed in Case of Brutal Grindr Attack on Gay Teen
Author: Alex Cooper
The federal hate crime trial of a Louisiana man suspected of trying to kill and dismember a gay man he met through Grindr has been delayed.
Chase Seneca’s trial had been scheduled for March 14, according to the Associated Press. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays granted the defense’s request to postpone it.
The news agency reports that attorneys are attempting to reach a plea agreement.
Seneca is accused of strangling and cutting Holden White in June 2020. The injuries included punctures to the neck and cuts to the wrists that nearly came to the bone.
Seneca, who was 19 at the time of the attack, pleaded not guilty to both state and federal charges.
The two men met through Grindr and developed an online relationship, according to authorities. Seneca led White to his Lafayette, La. home where he had intended to kill and dismember him.
During the attack, White, who was only 18 at the time, was choked before his wrists and neck were cut and he was left bleeding in a bathtub. Last year, he told The Advocate, a Louisiana newspaper unaffiliated with the LGBTQ+ publication, that he remembered Seneca pulling out a cord early in the date and choking him until he blacked out.
“When I wake up, I am in his bathtub naked. The water is running, and it’s cold,” White said. “He is in the process of doing my left wrist. It was to the point that he was basically trying to cut off my hands.”
After slashing both White’s wrists and neck, Seneca left White lying in the bathtub bleeding as he stood over him, according to the victim and authorities.
“I was laying in the bathtub, naked, bleeding out, the water red and cold, and I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is it,’” White shared with the paper. “The last words I said to myself were just ‘stay calm,’ over and over and over in my head I was just repeating to myself to stay calm.”
After the attack, court documents state Seneca called police “in a self-described effort to be put into a mental institution.”
Seneca is facing charges including kidnapping and “hate crime with intent to kill.”
Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Alex Cooper
