“I didn’t wanna play that game anymore”: Actor reflects on target’s death in new “Predator” documentary
The story of Bill Conradt is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the show To Catch a Predator. Conradt was an assistant district attorney in Texas who became the target of a sting operation in 2006. Instead of falling for the bait, he never showed up at the decoy house. That should have been the end of it. Maybe he had second thoughts, changed his mind, decided it was wrong and abandoned the idea? But the cameras weren’t ready to let the story go.
Instead, the Predator production team and law enforcement brought the cameras to Conradt’s home. A SWAT team surrounded his house while television crews waited outside. As officers entered, Conradt took his own life.
Nearly twenty years later, those who took part in the sting are still haunted by what happened. In a new documentary, one of the decoy actors, Dan Schrack, reflected on the event: “You could offer me $10 million to film that episode in Texas again, I wouldn’t take it. I didn’t wanna play that game anymore.” Even a former detective called it a “stain on my soul.”
The tragedy highlights a central ethical problem: these stings were produced not simply to enforce the law, but to entertain an audience. Viewers tuned in for the spectacle of confrontation, but the human costs — shame, despair, and in Conradt’s case, death — were treated as collateral damage. Beyond the spectacle, there is also the troubling issue of manufacturing crime for television. Many of the men targeted in these operations were steered into conversations by decoys, pressured to meet, and then publicly shamed for taking the bait. Critics argue that some would never have acted without this carefully staged setup. This blurring of the line between preventing crime and provoking it raises deep ethical questions about whether television was catching predators — or creating them for ratings.
When journalism becomes entertainment and law enforcement bends to the demands of television, the results can be devastating. The pursuit of ratings can push vulnerable people into crisis, escalate situations that might have been handled differently, and leave everyone involved questioning their own role in the aftermath. Law enforcement should be focused on preventing real harm, not partnering with TV producers to stage fake crimes for the sake of headlines and Nielsen ratings. With the rise of social media and private vigilantes running their own “predator stings” for clicks, advertising dollars, and viral fame, the dangers have only multiplied.
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It’s unfortunate the film maker didn’t talk to any of the real victims of this sick scam. CAGE is a nationwide group with members in at least 22 states. We are very willing to share our knowledge and experiences with them about the online sting operations law enforcement and vigilantes conduct. We can point them to Chris Hansen victims too, that are willing to speak out about what Chris Hansen did to them.
They clearly are still clueless about how these sting operations are not designed to save or protect any real children from any real threat of sexual exploitation or real abuse. Instead they just create wild fantasies about minors and promote those by going around forcing that on other men. And then they claim, “This could have been a real child,” which tells us a lot about them. Anybody who cannot tell the difference between a fantasy they created in their head about minors and the reality of what kids are really like and are not like, is the one who is someone much more likely to do those things – bring to life their fantasies about minors in a different way from how they’ve been acting them out with those online sting operations.
https://youtu.be/_gVcM9c9TMY?si=SPKjesU6zg3eIZpM
To Catch a Predator decoy wanted to warn would-be pedophiles about hidden cameras and police: ‘Go home’ (https://ew.com/to-catch-a-predator-decoy-warn-accused-pedophile-about-filming-11814090) (Entertainment Weekly 19 Sep 2025)
In truth this could be argued as entrapment. However in reality the public has been brainwashed into believing that this is reality.
Don’t forget that it’s also very profitable for everyone but the target. Law Enforcement receives Federal Grant money to conduct, arrest, and prosecute with the condition that the number of those arrested continues to go higher or face the withholding of said funding. These types of operations are never carried out without that funding. The added bonus for law enforcement is those who are arrested are forced to pay the “chatter” for the time spent conversing with them leading up to the arrest as part of court restitution (at least in one county that I know of)
Don’t these shows have attorneys to at least advise how to do things within a legal framework? I hope they get sued out of existence.
NBC did get sued for millions by the Conradt family and settled for an undisclosed amount. The show then went off the air. Chris Hansen has tried to make a comeback but has never recaptured the lightning in a bottle. Perverted Justice shut down a few years ago.
But if there is one thing worse than the show itself is that the losers who grew up watching that trash as kids and teens are now grown people in their 20s and 30s and are trying to emulate the show to get clicks and likes and sell merch. It should’ve been outlawed, but politicians never passed any laws outlawing the practice.