Chris Hansen Is Still Catching Predators All These Years Later

Trigger warning: child predation, suicide.

Before internet personalities like Jidon Armani Adams and Vitaly Zdorovetskiy broadcast their crusades to catch child predators during livestreams, Chris Hansen was doing it on network television in the 2000s.

Maybe you’ve heard of him. A baking-apprentice-turned-investigative-journalist from Chicago, Hansen is best known for his Dateline NBC show To Catch a Predator. Running from 2004-2007, the program was something of an odd phenomenon on television. While not too dissimilar from, say, Cops, To Catch a Predator was provocative and shocking because it focused on Hansen’s confrontations with child predators. He’d use volunteers to lure culprits into a camera-rigged room, where he’d emerge from the shadows like Batman to interrogate the suspect’s actions and intentions before police moved in for the arrest. Once the episode aired, the person’s name and face were everywhere. It was some real career-ending stuff for the accused.

Not every sting operation went smoothly. One sting in 2006 resulted in a suicide that left an indelible mark on the suffering family and Hansen’s career. Not long after the controversy around this incident boiled into an investigation and a lawsuit, To Catch a Predator was canceled.

Despite NBC not renewing his contract in August 2013, Hansen didn’t stop pursuing investigative crime journalism. He’d bounce around over the years, hosting Investigation Discovery’s Killer Instinct and the last two seasons of the syndicated news series Crime Watch Daily, while experimenting with Kickstarter and YouTube to maintain his foothold in the burgeoning digital zeitgeist.

It’s Chris Hansen, unfiltered.

As the JiDions and the Vitalys of the streaming world cosplay as Hansen, Complex caught up with the predator-catcher pioneer to talk about To Catch a Predator’s origins, that regretful suicide, Takedown, and more.

(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Complex: A lot of people are probably familiar with you from your work on Dateline NBC, but for those who don't know, give us a little bit of introduction to Chris Hansen.

Chris Hansen: Well, I've been a television journalist for 42 years, which is shocking to look back and realize it's been that long. But besides being that and working on all the different stories over the years, breaking news, and a lot of crime stories that I've worked on, I’m husband and a dad. I have a wide variety of interests: reading, getting out, skiing down a mountain every once in a while, playing a little tennis, a little golf. But I've had a great time in life. My kids are grown. I have a wonderful relationship with all of them, and I get to see them start to embark on their adventures in life and it's really very gratifying.

And at the same time, I'm at a stage in my career where after doing this for so long and being blessed with such a long career and being able to do so many incredibly fascinating things that I have my own network now called Tru Blu. To be able to own the content and its distribution, to be able to turn some of these things around much quicker than you can in a traditional corporate structure is very gratifying to me. Under my current setup with Tru Blu, I make one phone call and crews are moving to meet me to start shooting a project. When we get wind of something, we can pursue it very quickly.

Complex: So, tell me how To Catch a Predator came about.

CH: When I pitched it originally at Dateline, I thought we'd do it once or twice. Maybe three times. And, well, here we are 20 years later. It was 20 years in March of this year. We did the very first predator investigation in Bethpage on Long Island, and we didn't know what was going to happen. I thought there was a good chance no one would show up, but in two and a half days, 17 guys showed up at this little house in Long Island trying to meet a child for sex, including a New York City firefighter.

So it all started there. And what I think we've done with that franchise, besides creating awareness and a dialogue that didn't necessarily exist before, is figured out how to take the viewer inside the conviction of a felony. They're watching a crime being committed, then watching the guy get confronted by me and the police. And so it's this amazing confluence of somebody trying to exploit a child getting caught. We've got the transcripts, we see them walk in and talk to the on-site decoy,, posing as the child. We see this play out in real time, and it's very compelling. People seem to continue to want to watch and find it very, very important.

Complex: It’s interesting to hear how it started so experimental and not knowing that it would build this massive following over 20 years. How did it evolve?

CH: So we had heard about the online watchdog group Perverted Justice, and at the time, its volunteers would go online posing as children. If they were approached and a discussion of sex was initiated by the alleged perpetrator, then a record of it would get made and the transcripts would get posted online. I started to think if we could combine their ability as decoys with our ability to wire a house with cameras and microphones, you get something compelling.

We kept refining it and it became clear early on that we needed to have a law enforcement component to this so we could be socially responsible. And quite honestly, even if you look at it from a television production standpoint, those first two investigations, the guys just walked away. It was unfulfilling for the viewer, but some of the cases were prosecuted after the fact. But starting with that third investigation and continuing on today, we have collaborated with law enforcement. In fact today, now in the current investigations, the decoys are actually part of law enforcement. So there's no question about the chain of custody of the chats. And the chats are the backbone of the case as you can imagine because it's where the initial crime is committed. It's a solicitation of a child online, so it's right there. So when they show up, that in many cases is just the fulfillment of the crime that was committed online.

Complex: Talking about these chats, is there a secure channel that you use to start these conversations with these predators?

CH: So, conversations start on a number of different social media platforms and it could range from platforms you use. Every day we see this activity on something as routine as Instagram or Snapchat or any of the others. And then pretty quickly it changes over to instant messaging. In the original investigations, the vast majority of the chat would take place in a chat room on AOL, Yahoo, or maybe MySpace, and all that activity was very, very much confined. So it was in some ways easier to find people who wanted to commit these crimes because it was all concentrated in one space. Now there is more activity than ever before, but it's more diffused. It's in so many different areas because there are so many more platforms today upon which adults can reach out to children.

Complex: It's just more decentralized.

CH: It's decentralized. That's an excellent way to put it. That's perfect.

Complex: I want to circle back to To Catch a Predator before we move on to what you're doing now at Tru Blu. There was an unfortunate situation that ended with someone taking their life.

CH: It was unfortunate; nobody ever wanted to see it happen. But it's important to remember that, in that particular case in Texas, after it occurred, investigators found multiple images of child pornography on the hard drive that belonged to the assistant district attorney. And that had more to do with presumably his actions than anything else that day. We also found out, and just in the last couple of years, that there was evidence scattered from that computer that led to the conviction of criminal charges of the assistant DA. So, there was more going on there than just him getting caught in a sting operation. Again, nobody ever wants to see anybody commit suicide. Of course, we should face judgment for our actions. But it's important to know, and some of this stuff doesn't come to light until years later because we don't know it and people don't get into the computers. People don't have the luxury of going back and looking at something years earlier.

Complex: What has been the craziest or the wildest bust that happened while To Catch a Predator was on?

CH: We had two guys walk in naked, which was shocking.

Complex: That is really shocking.

CH: I mean, the guy walks in and the producers put a towel on top of the refrigerator for me so I could hand it to him. It happened again in Fort Myers. I think probably the most shocking happened in Florida.

It was the last guy to show up during a sting investigation on a Sunday afternoon. This guy shows up, gets out of his car, and goes to the rear door. We think he's going to get beer or pizza or something. He opens up the door and leads his 4-year-old son by the hand out of the car and up the driveway. So now, as you can imagine, the folks on the crew with whom I work, and I've been with a long time, they're tough. But this took their breath away because now what do we do? Law enforcement's there, we're there, and there's this guy leading his child. I think he was going to put the child with a video in one room and try to have sex with the boy he thought he was going to meet. We got to make a lot of decisions very quickly. He walks in, I approach him, and he's stunned. The son is still there. And I said, ‘You know why you're here. I know why you're here. I don't want to traumatize your child, so it's best that you leave.’ And he turns and leaves.

Complex: If most stings don’t end this way, do they normally end in arrests? What typically happens next?

CH: The vast majority of our sting operations end with an arrest and a prosecution. Now, each case is different in terms of what the sentence is, and it depends largely on the person's criminal history. There's a whole probation and parole report that goes into it, and a recommendation for sentencing. So, it's not uncommon to see somebody who gets arrested for the first time only get probation and registration as a sex offender.

Depending on where this happens, if the person's got a criminal history, they're more likely to face prison time. There is a little bit of a difference in jurisdiction. In Florida, we tend to see higher sentences. In Michigan, it kind of depends on what the person's background is, but virtually everybody either pleads guilty or gets convicted. We hardly see any of these cases go to trial and the guy walks. That virtually never happens. We've had cases historically that were dismissed, very few for technical reasons or the case wasn't prosecuted. But the vast majority, and when I say vast majority, it is well into the 90th, 95th percentile, are convictions or guilty pleas.

Complex: I’m really wondering about the busts. I see camera crews in the house, you're in there, there's some hidden cameras. How does all of this work? Talk to me a little bit about the setup of a sting operation.

CH: These conversations take place online, but the decoys who now work for law enforcement never make the first contact. The decoy has a profile, and it’s made very clear they're underage. There are a couple of different scenarios the decoys use, then the conversation takes place and it has to go beyond the threshold of the conviction of a crime. The chats are reviewed by a law enforcement supervisor or an assistant prosecutor on the scene. The decision is made at that point, and the decoy will give out the address to the suspect.

In the meantime, we're in a home or an apartment or wherever we're at. That area has already been preset up. My crew will go in the night before to install hidden cameras so it's all set. In some cases, we actually have a mini control room. When the suspect comes in, when they drive up, when they drive around, all of that's caught on hidden camera. We capture all the moments, then we'll shoot behind the scenes with the detective and the deputies working as the decoys and the people undercover. I'll also capture moments to get the transcripts as best as I can. Sometimes we have copies, sometimes I make the notes, and then the person shows up. We try to get some interaction between the on-site decoy and the suspect, and at some point, the decoy goes away and I present myself. Sometimes, the suspect sits down and talks. Sometimes they try to run, and in that case, I get out of the way so law enforcement can take over.

It's a little different in each jurisdiction, but we adapt because regardless of the little differences between jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the compelling part is to get inside these guys' heads. Anybody can jump out of the bushes or from behind a closed door and create 10 seconds of traumatic video. My job is to get inside these guys' heads, because if you can understand how the mind of a predator works—whether it's a sexual predator or financial predator or anything else—you can better protect people from being preyed upon. And so that's important to me. It is getting in the guy's head, it's getting them to talk to me, and I think that's part of the reason that they do talk; I’m genuinely curious.

Complex: Right, you're not judging them.

CH: No, exactly. That's not my job. That's the viewer's job. I call BS on some of these guys. I’ve gotten tough with them. I'll put them in their place, but I'll listen as long as they talk. The best interview is a good listener. And so I try to employ that and I try to, all these years into it, I still try to improve my abilities as an interviewer. We did a collaboration with The Behavior Panel. It was interesting because we gave them some clips and they analyzed the interviews and the physical behavior and the verbal behavior of the suspects and then critiqued my interviewing. And I found it fascinating and very helpful to me in terms of how do you get people to talk? And so what they did for me was kind of block out a roadmap of techniques, if you will, that I found very helpful because you never can get so set in your ways. And so I constantly tweak my methodology and try to have a fresh approach to it every time I go out.

Complex: I’m going to bring back a question I had asked a little earlier about To Catch a Predator. What has been the most shocking bust on Takedown so far?

CH: I think the most shocking is when we see, well…I’ll tell you exactly what it was.

He was in Ohio, a guy named Donnie Vaughn shows up. The guy is 70 years old. He'd been chatting online. But he drives—we're in Ohio, not far from Dayton—all the way from Indiana. He thinks he's talking to the dad of a 13-year-old girl who he's going to have sex with. He brings in a milkshake for the girl. The girl is played by a deputy with the Montgomery County Ohio Sheriff's Department, and the dad is played by a detective. He walks in, all of this is on camera, he sits down, and he talks. And he's just so into this. He gives her the milkshake. He has her stand up and do a turnaround, and he's ogling her, and he's telling the detective, ‘Oh, it's good you're teaching her about sex this way because 13-year-old boys don't know how to have sex properly.’ He's going on, and I'm listening.

Hidden cameras come out, and so it’s my turn to go talk to him. He admits meeting other girls before online. And it turns out that he's a counselor for people with sex addictions in the local jails and prisons where he lived. So you got this guy who's clearly going to commit a felony here. And then I really give it to him. And then eight months later, almost a year later, police catch him. He's left Indiana. He moves down to Darke County in Greenville, Ohio, which was the site of another sting operation we did back on To Catch a Predator. He's living down there and gets caught in a sting being conducted by local authorities there.

Complex: Oh my goodness.

CH: Twice, police haul his ass in, and now they're in negotiations as some sort of a plea agreement that's going to land him in prison. And we did a follow-up story that hasn't aired yet, but we're working on that now. We also had a couple former law enforcement and one current law enforcement. We had a 61-year-old doctor who showed up and he was chatting with this decoy he thought was a teenage girl as he saw 18 patients in his practice that day, sent a picture of his penis to this girl, shows up with wine and Oreo cookies, and has this whole fantasy about getting the Oreo cookies in the girl’s braces. He ultimately pleads guilty.

Complex: I want to know about your background. Why’d you get into catching predators and broadcasting it?

CH: Well, I mean, to start in the broadcast world, I grew up about a mile and a half from where Jimmy Hoffa was presumably kidnapped. And so, it was a fascinating story to me in the mid-’70s. I used to ride my bike up there because it was at this restaurant where he was last seen, and FBI agents, local police, local reporters, network correspondence were just fascinated by this whole story.

And so, I've had three jobs: a baker's apprentice, hauling drywall, and then a journalist. And the hauling drywall gig was almost as helpful as the four years of college that got me there in terms of learning about people. But the impetus for To Catch a Predator really was seeing what Perverted Justice was doing and seeing that this issue was out there and knowing that there was a problem with children being preyed upon online. And there were some sensational stories floating around in 2004 about children meeting adults and ending up dead or sexually exploited. But how do you tell that story beyond anecdotal sad stories and video of clicking on a keyboard? How do you do it?

Complex: Do you consider yourself a content creator?

CH: Yeah. I mean, loosely, I guess. I’m just a reporter at heart. And I guess because we do stuff for social media platforms like TikTok and what have you, I guess I could be considered a content creator, but I'm just a reporter.

Complex: There's been this new wave of creators who’ve picked up the mantle of To Catch a Predator. What do you think of them? Do you think they're doing a good job? Have you watched their work?

CH: I’ve seen some of it. And look, I think there's an important place in society for citizen journalists. I think YouTube and social media platforms have allowed everyday people who have something to say to have a voice, and I think that it's been a great democratization of the media.

What concerns me about some of these vigilante predator catchers is that it would appear that some are out to create drama and get clicks and views, That is their right. They should get paid for creating their content. The problem with some of these guys is that their methodology does not allow for the prosecution of the case. So It may be a really bad guy they found online, and he may be an assistant DA. He may be somebody who's got a job in Hollywood, but the way they go about it, following him down the street to fire a smoke cannon at him or something else that doesn't allow the case to be prosecuted. The case is so muddied up that the police, law enforcement, and the prosecutors in some cases won't touch it.

Now, other cases have been prosecuted, and some of these vigilant guys have some successful prosecutions. Some bad guys have been exposed. But what would've happened had there been a proper investigation? Police get into the computer and find things that constitute a felony? They truly prosecute the case and the guy really faces justice? That's what we do, and that's what we will always do. So that's the big difference. Again, I can't judge these guys. I haven't seen them all. So, I don't want to bad-mouth anyone, but it concerns me. If you look at some of these guys, you'll probably come to the same conclusion.

Complex: What would your advice be to people who are doing this type of content?

CH: Typically what you see is they'll do what they do. They'll get a lot of attention, and they'll either figure out a way to do it, so there's some social justice to it, or they'll stop doing it and move on to the next subject. They'll peak, then they'll go away and do something else. I mean, some of these guys have been out there doing it for quite some time, and they've had some measure of success. But if you want to see it in a way that’s meaningful, compelling, and has high production and leads to justice being served, then watch what we do.