Bill Conrad was a Texas prosecutor whose 2006 case was closely tied to NBC’s To Catch a Predator. The police and the show’s crew went to his house as part of a sting operation, but Conrad died by suicide.
Now, Primetime, an A24 film starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Henson, re-enacts the 2006 sting operation conducted with the Murphy Police Department by To Catch a Predator.
Who was Bill Conrad?
Louis William “Bill” Conrad Jr. was born on January 30, 1950 in Kaufman County, Texas. According to his obituary, he was the only son of Louis William Conrad Sr. and Monty Estelle King. People.
He grew up in Terrell, Texas, with his younger sister Patricia Conrad. Before attending the University of Texas, he was president of his high school class, according to Sir.
Conrad later earned a law degree from Texas Tech University. By the age of 30, he had become the district attorney of Kaufman County.
In 2000, Conrad moved back to the Texas home where he grew up following the death of his parents. He never married.
In 2002, after more than 20 years as district attorney, Conrad ran for district judge but lost. The loss reportedly affected him deeply and he did not work for almost a year.
He later returned to law and became chief felony assistant district attorney in nearby Rockwall County, Texas. CBS News.
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What was Bill Conrad accused of?
In November 2006, police in Murphy, Texas worked with NBC News and the Internet activist group Perverted Justice to set up a sting operation. new York Times.
A Perverted Justice member posed as a teenager and exchanged messages with a user named “inxs00”. Murphy police reportedly confirmed that the account belonged to Conrad.
Xavier von Erck, then director of operations for Perverted Justice, told The Times that the messages were allegedly “of a sexual nature”.
However, the messages between Decoy and Conrad suddenly stopped. Conrad never visited the house built for Sting. He also began deleting his MySpace profile, apparently trying to remove his online activity.
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What happened to Bill Conrad?
Dateline producers urged Murphy police to obtain an arrest warrant for Conrad and a search warrant for his home.
On November 5, 2006, Murphy police, two Terrell police officers, a tactical team and the camera crew from Dateline’s To Catch a Predator, including host Chris Hansen, went to Conrad’s home to serve the warrant.
Conrad refused to open the door, so the tactical team forced their way inside. SWAT officers found Conrad in a hallway. He then went into a dark room and shot himself in the head.
He was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where he was pronounced dead. An NBC News spokesperson told The New York Times that no one from Dateline had contacted Conrad. He also said there was no indication that he knew the camera crew was outside before his death.
In July 2007, Conrad’s sister Patricia filed a $105 million lawsuit against NBC Universal. Today. In the lawsuit, Patricia alleged that NBC was “more concerned about its own profits than pedophilia.”
The lawsuit also claims that after Conrad’s death a police officer told a Dateline producer, “This would make good TV.” NBC settled with the Conrad family in June 2008 for an undisclosed amount.
NBC canceled To Catch a Predator in 2007 and parted ways with Hansen in 2013.