Suicide of Louis Conradt

On November 3, operatives worked to lure men to the house posing as children online; an indeterminate number of men began arriving, and were arrested after entering the house. Jimmy Patterson was an off-duty Rowlett, Texas police detective hired by NBC to protect the civilians involved, earning an hourly rate of US$35 (equivalent to $47.05 in 2021); he later detailed many mistakes made by the small-town Murphy police, including hyper-agressive crossfire situations when arresting suspects. Chief Myrick, on the other hand, thought the operation was extremely successful, hoping the Dateline exposure would bring national attention to Murphy and repeatedly joking about seizing the nice cars of arrested suspects.

In July 2007, sister Patricia Conradt filed a wrongful death lawsuit against NBC Universal for $105 million (equivalent to $137 million in 2021) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. NBC called the lawsuit meritless, and filed for dismissal, but Judge Denny Chin ruled against the broadcaster on the merits of intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations. NBC said they were going to fight the suit, but on June 24, 2008, the suit was "amicably resolved".

Dateline claimed that police took three encrypted computers from Conradt's house, and by February 2007, were coordinating with their manufacturer to unlock the files within. Dateline later aired an episode that claimed child pornography had been found on Conradt's laptop. Esquire reported that Conradt's Sony VAIO laptop was seized, and while forensic analysis proved it was the computer from which Conradt chatted with the PJ volunteer, it had no illegal material or content that indicated sexual predation.

Twenty-three other men were caught in the sting; two were from Murphy. The Collin County district attorney's office found problems with all of the arrests. Firstly, Perverted-Justice did not provide the comprehensive chat logs of their interactions with suspects. Secondly, by the next July, NBC had still yet to provide its video records for use in prosecution. Third, Texas law largely requires that arrestees have an outstanding warrant, but the DA found that the Murphy police were only—at best—acting as agents of Dateline: "merely a player in the show and had no real law-enforcement position. Other people are doing the work, and the police are just there like potted plants, to make the scenery." For an additional 16 of the cases, because neither the suspects nor PJ chatters were in Collin County, the DA had no jurisdictional authority. On June 1, 2007, DA Roach announced that he would not pursue indictments against suspects from the Murphy bait house.

In mid-2007, Chris Hansen said he had no regrets about how the Murphy/Terrell operation was handled. Murphy's Chief Myrick told 20/20 that he was proud of the sting.

NBC's own footage shows Dateline and police personnel working together such that the TV crew was even supplying Conradt's phone number and video surveillance. In 2007, Chief Myrick nonetheless claimed that it had been a strictly police-led operation with no undue influence from NBC or PJ, and disputed any Dateline involvement at Conradt's house. In 2022, Hansen was still defending himself, saying that the police were in charge of all aspects: they sought warrants on their own initiative, and they were the driving force behind confronting Conradt at his house.

In 2007, DA Roach explained to 20/20's Brian Ross that most of the operation was entirely "for show with no real law-enforcement purpose"; that NBC and PJ muddied the legal waters regarding transcript-evidence and Miranda rights; and that the push for drama endangered both suspects and officers with unnecessarily aggressive take-downs.

A July 2007 article in Esquire reported on many questionable aspects of the whole operation that led to Conradt's suicide. Hansen denied much the magazine's report, saying that To Catch a Predator wielded no influence over the police investigation, they did not trespass Conradt's property, and that Perverted-Justice was not on-site in Terrell; only the last of these did the show's host concede, after conferring with his producer.

In September 2007, 20/20 reported on the Conradt case to illustrate the fraught possibilities when newsmedia and police work too closely together: Murphy police received some of their instruction from Dateline personnel, dramatic footage superceded police procedure, and both NBC employees and Perverted-Justice volunteers were "deeply involved in the operation."

The suicide of Louis Conradt was the November 2006 death of a local assistant district attorney in the United States after Texas police served the man with search and arrest warrants stemming from a Dateline NBC – Perverted-Justice online sting of men soliciting sex with children.

David M. Granger, the editor-in-chief of Esquire, told the Houston Chronicle that the suspects seen on To Catch a Predator were being denied due process by conviction in the court of public opinion before they might see the inside of a courtroom to face their accusers. By spring 2006, the segment had been repeatedly criticized for ethical and journalistic concerns. Producer Allan Maraynes countered, saying that those involved "believe we're doing the socially responsible thing ... and the journalistically responsible thing."

In July 2006, Perverted-Justice (PJ) approached the Murphy, Texas police department (PD) about working together. A July 24 joint sting netted the suspect's Ford Expedition as the new police chief's official vehicle. When PJ suggested a larger operation with To Catch a Predator, Chief Billy Myrick eagerly seized the opportunity. The Collin County, Texas district attorney, John Roach, refused to participate; he wrote an explanatory letter to the Murphy Police to "serve as a wake-up call to Chief Myrick, giving the chief an out." Local residents protested the planned operation to lure predators to their neighborhood.

In the first days of November 2006, a Dateline NBC – Perverted-Justice sting was orchestrated in Murphy without informing the mayor or city council. A house was decorated for the just-passed Halloween holiday, with the interior outfitted with multiple live audio–video feeds. The headquarters for Murphy PD was about one mile (1.6 km) away, and NBC took over a room there to install high-tech equipment for remote live monitoring of the house's streams; Murphy officers referred to the room as "NORAD" and "the War Room".

Conradt was the district attorney (DA) of Kaufman County from 1980 to 2002, at which time he made an unsuccessful campaign for election to a district judgeship as a Democrat. Afterwards, he worked in private practice, and by 2006 he was working as the chief felony assistant district attorney (ADA) for Rockwall County, Texas. With a "near photographic memory for the law", Conradt's coworkers and courtroom opponents described him as a good prosecutor.

Louis William Conradt Jr. was born on January 30, 1950 in Kaufman County, Texas to Montie Estelle King and Louis William Conradt. Conradt Jr. graduated from Terrell High School in 1968, where he was the assistant editor of the yearbook and president of his senior class. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and his Juris Doctor from Texas Tech University. His friends described him as a predictable, reserved man. By 2006, he was still unmarried, and living in the Terrell, Texas home at 201 Davidson Drive in which he had grown up.