Holden White, a Louisiana man stabbed by his Grindr date, has granted a powerful new interview regarding his attack. In it, he details the horrible night that he thought would be his last. He also wants people to have hope for survival, even in their darkest moments.
White met Chance Seneca, the suspect in his attack, in June on the networking app Grindr. When the two met up for a hangout, Seneca proceeded to attack White, apparently living out his fantasies of killing gay men. Law enforcement has revealed that Seneca idolizes the gay serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who raped, murdered, and cannibalized his victims.
“Part (of what) I remember is that I reached over to grab something out of my bag,” White told KATC TV. “That’s when I felt a cord wrap around my throat and he started pulling me backwards. He strangled me for, I can’t tell you how long, but it felt like a very long time. And he did it to the point as to where every single blood vessel in my face ruptured.”
White woke up in a bathtub sometime later, with his attacker standing over him.
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“There was just blood all over my chest and stuff,” White remembers. “He was just kind of sitting there watching me, and I was like, ‘Okay this is it.’ My final words to myself was, ‘just stay calm.’ In my mind I kept repeating to myself, ‘just stay calm, stay calm.’ Slowly, I passed out.”
Seneca apparently couldn’t go through with the murder, and contacted law enforcement instead.
“I’ve been told that Chance called the police and he said, ‘Hey, I just tried to murder somebody, send an ambulance,’ and when they found me I was still naked in the bathtub,” White says. He woke up in a hospital bed severely beaten.
White has spoken out to make sure the world realizes his attack constitutes a hate crime–something local police have hesitated to declare. “This is a hate crime due to a fact that he made it a point to choose a gay man on a gay app,” he explained. “He made sure I was a gay man and then in the same breath, he also idolized Jeffery Dahmer. What Jeffery Dahmer did was he choose gay men and lured them back to his house and he would kill them.”
As his scars healed, White decided to mark the event with some body modification of his own: a new tattoo of a semicolon.
“Basically, what a semicolon does is it puts a pause on a sentence,” White explains. “Chance tried to stop my life, so instead of a period I made it a semicolon.”
“I’m staying strong,” White adds. “I’m not going to let this incident get to me.”
Chance Seneca remains in holding at Lafayette Parish Correctional Center awaiting trial.
tjack47
There is no doubting that this was a hate crime. My heart goes out to Holden as he continues to heal. He’s a brave young man. I am not putting blame on him, but I don’t use apps for this very reason. I’d rather cruise to see the person face to face, because I have very strong gut instincts about danger. If I used anything online, I’d meet them in a public place, have a chat, check him out. If I felt I was comfortable, I would take them, or they me, to a place where we could do as we wished. Cruising can be very dangerous too. I know at least 2 horrifying examples, more now that I think about it. It’s not easy being casual. When I was young, we cruised. No home computers, and we weren’t meeting guys at church or in the grocery store. Not in small town rural America. I know I had to be old enough to drive to the city alone. Some of we seniors are looked down upon by our younger, married or religious cohorts for doing what we know. I don’t like gay bars. Hold on Holden. You seem to have your head on straight. I would be a mess.
linedrive
Holy crap. So glad he survived. Sounds like a hate crime to me!
wooly101
Talk about the date from hell.
outdavid
White has to live with that trauma for the rest of his life after simply trying to go out on a date. This is so clearly a hate crime, plain as day, and authorities need to step it ip fast. Seneca sounds like an attention-seeking, sexually confused coward incapable of empathy. Hospital or jail time, lock him up and keep predators like him out of our LGBTQ communities..
Chrisk
Wow. Pre-meditated murder and targeting someone on their sexual orientation. Doesn’t get any clearer then that.
strap2900
I had a similar experience. I was attacked and stabbed with a pocketknife by a guy I met at a bar. He punctured both my lungs and I had to crawl to a neighbors house because he also cut my phone line (this was 20 years ago, no cell phones). The police never made an arrest because no one at the bar knew who he was and I only knew the name he gave me. The fingerprints they collected didn’t match anyone in the system. Needless to say, that was the last time I picked someone up in a bar without asking the bartender and other customers what they knew about him.
Godabed
WTF are you going on grindr dates especially in LA with this pandemic… What is wrong with people?
Anytime you meet anyone you don’t know you are putting yourself at risk, especially now. Stop being so selfish. And don’t put yourself in situation where you can get hurt.
Tombear
Fight back dammit