A Lafayette man used a dating app as a “hunting ground” and lured a man he met on the app to a home where he planned on killing him to keep parts of his body as “trophies” and “food,” according to court documents.

Chance Seneca has been charged federally with one count of hate crime with attempt to kill, one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, two counts of kidnapping, one count of attempted kidnapping and one count of obstruction by destruction of records.

He was indicted by a federal grand jury on last week.

The 19-year-old also is facing an attempted murder charge and hate crime charge on the state level. He has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charge and has not yet been arraigned on the hate crime charge. 

On June 19, Seneca picked up Holden White, who he met on Grindr (a dating app for gay and bisexual men) from White’s apartment. Seneca drove them to his dad’s house on Maryview Farm Road, where the two would be alone, according to court documents.

Seneca asked White to “join him in the bathroom adjoining Seneca’s bedroom by proposing a sexual encounter,” an FBI agent wrote in the criminal complaint filed in federal court.

Seneca convinced White to put on handcuffs. Seneca held a gun to his back and told White that he could “do this the easy way or the hard way,” according to court documents. Seneca told investigators it was a “dark joke.”

Seneca then strangled the 18-year-old from behind until he was unconscious.

While White was unconscious, Seneca took White’s clothes off and put his body in the bathtub. He slit his wrists with a knife, according to court documents.

“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 the flesh,” the FBI agent wrote. “Seneca recalled crying during the attack and telling himself ‘not to bitch out.’”

He “intended to dismember and keep parts of the victim’s body as trophies, mementos and food,” according to a release from the Department of Justice.

Seneca “apologized” to White and told him to “let go… I’m setting you free,” according to court documents. Seneca eventually called 911 in a “self-described-effort to be put into a mental institution.”

On the phone with a dispatcher, Seneca said someone was strangled and he was waiting outside his dad’s house to speak with officers. When the dispatcher asked what happened he said “I really f—– my life up tonight,” “It’s my fault,” “I didn’t want all this to happen,” “I tried to control everything so good,” “It was going so well,” “I don’t want to be killed,” and “I just want help.”

When Lafayette police officers arrived, they found him outside smoking a cigarette, according to court documents.

Officers found White naked in the bathroom. His wrists were slit to the bone and there were strangulation marks around his neck. They found a knife, ice pick, saw and hammer near the bathtub, according to court records.

White was taken to a hospital where he was intubated for several days. He was later released from the hospital. 

Seneca deleted the Grindr messages from his phone to “get rid of things,” according to court documents.

He later told an FBI agent he used Grindr to “lure” White to his father’s house and “considered it fair to describe Grindr as his ‘hunting ground,'” according to court documents. 

If convicted, Seneca faces life in prison for the hate crime, kidnapping and firearm charges. He also faces 20 years for the attempted kidnapping and five years for the gun charge, according to the department. 

Seneca has been held in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center on a $250,000 bond since his arrest, according to jail records. He is scheduled to appear in a Lafayette Parish court in April. 

The attack left White partially paralyzed and emotionally traumatized. He described a harrowing experience, waking up naked in Seneca’s bathtub, bleeding from multiple stab wound to his neck as the young sadist was trying to saw off White’s hand at the wrist.

“The water is running, and it’s cold,” White recalled last year from the hospital. “He is in the process of doing my left wrist. He was slicing it like this and was very, very hard. It was to the point that he was basically trying to cut off my hands.”

The brutalized teen lost consciousness but woke up again to see Seneca looking down on him “with a fearful look in his face.” His attacker backed off and called police. Thinking White was dead, Seneca confessed to killing a man, and police arrested him not long after. White was rushed at Ochsner Lafayette General Hospital with severe injuries, and didn’t regain consciousness until three days later.

Prosecutors in Layfette initially refused to level hate crime charges in the case, citing Seneca’s apparent fascination with the gay murderous cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, alleging at the time his actions might have been an attempt to emulate his idol and role model. Hate crime charges were later added.