Earlier this month, we reported that Holden White, a gay Louisiana man who was strangled and stabbed by 19-year-old Chance Seneca in June 2020 after meeting the man on Grindr, was seeking a hate crime charge for his attacker, Chance Seneca. Police had previously said that the crime did not meet the requirement for a hate crime charge. That charge has now been added.
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White, who was in a coma for three days, described the attack to the Acadiana Advocate, recalling going to a residence Seneca said was his dad’s to play video games and, soon after arriving, struggling with a cord around his throat and waking up in cold bath water as Seneca was slicing his wrists with a knife and stabbing him in the neck. Seneca later called 911 to tell them he had murdered a man.
“He could have done this to a woman,” White told the Acadiana Advocate. “Instead, he chose to do something to someone who’s gay and proud about his sexuality.”
The Guardian reports: “The Lafayette parish district attorney’s oOffice added the hate crime charge to the case against Chance Seneca on 20 January. Seneca earlier pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted second-degree murder in last June’s attack, and he remains jailed on a $250,000 bond. His next pretrial hearing is 3 March. Prosecutor Donald Knecht declined comment, citing the pending case. Seneca’s attorney, J Clay LeJeune, said he had not been told why the hate crime charge was added ‘at this late date’, but his client will also plead not guilty to it.”
