Seth bites into his greasy pizza and he watches the teenage girl opposite him bite into her own gigantic slice. She seemed nervous for some reason. He assured everything was fine, but everything was far from fine.
Just as Seth licked the grease from his lips, he heard a loud voice from behind him. “What are you doing here?” Seth swiftly turned around and panic washed over his face. He’d finally been caught in the act.
Seth Jones was an ordinary man who worked as a plumber in a small town in Ohio. He kept himself to himself, and if you asked his neighbors about him, they wouldn’t say much. Not many people knew that much about him.
But soon enough, Seth’s name would be all over the national news.
Seth had started online chats with numerous, random people all across the world. He had a friend in India, a fellow gamer in London, and recently he had started talking to a teenage girl who lived 200 miles away.
He didn’t know it at the time, but this “teenage girl” was about to turn his world upside down.
Seth had spoken to the girl for a few weeks and the two had shared everything about each other. Seth eventually asked the girl if she wanted to meet up and she agreed.
Seth planned to go around her house, while she was home alone, with pizza. But Seth had no idea what was waiting for him.
Seth set off in the late afternoon and picked up the pizza straightaway. As he drove along the highway, over 200 miles to the girl’s house, he could smell the pizza coming from the backseat.
He soon arrived at the girl’s house and pulled up on her drive, but Seth never could have predicted what would happen next.
The girl greeted him at the door and she let Seth, and his pizza, into the house. Once he dropped the pizza on the counter, Seth took off his coat and looked across at the teenager.
The girl seemed nervous, so Seth reassured her everything was fine. But everything was far from fine.
The two started to eat their slices of pizza and they made small talk, while an awkward silence lingered in the air.
Seth could tell something was up, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then suddenly, a man appeared from behind. Seth’s heart dropped as soon as he laid his eyes on him.
“Who are you?” Seth asked the man, his face as white as a ghost. He could feel his heartbeat race as the seconds went by. But the man ignored Seth’s question and instead he asked Seth, “what are you doing here?”
Seth had no idea who this man was, but this man knew all about Seth.
The man kept asking Seth questions about himself, about the teenager, about what he was doing here. But Seth responded with a mere shrug. “We’re just hanging out,” he said.
And so, after ten minutes of tension and confusion, the man finally revealed who he was. And Seth never could have expected it.
The man was Chris Hansen, a highly renowned journalist with a two-decade career catching and reporting on criminals like Seth. He had been all across the globe catching criminals. But he had never met a man like Seth.
Seth thought it was just him, Chris, and the teenage girl in the house. But Chris had brought company.
Just as Seth realized what exactly was going on, all of a sudden men armed with cameras came bursting into the room.
Seth’s face dropped and you could see the fear wash over him as the cameras got closer to his face. The truth was about to be revealed to Seth, and he never could have expected it.
You see, Chris was filming a documentary about criminals just like Seth, and this entire night had been an elaborate set-up. From the online chats to the house they were stood in.
Even the teenager was in fact a decoy, used to catch Seth in the act.
After realizing he’d been set up, panic and regret washed over Seth but Chris leaned over and whispered, “you’re free to go if you want.”
Seth looked at Chris picked up his coat. Had he gotten away with it? He jolted out the front door, but then soon realized he was far from free.
Cops raided in on Seth and tackled him on the ground. Once placed in the backseat of a disguised police car, the officers took him to custody where he was checked in ready for questioning.
When being questioned by cops, Seth proclaimed his innocence but the evidence didn’t lie. And neither did the footage recorded on Chris’s cameras. What would the verdict say?
After hours and hours of questioning, Seth was granted bail but soon after he was charged with three felony counts.
Seth pleaded not guilty to all three cases, and as of now the case is still ongoing and he is waiting to stand trial. It’s a good job for Chris otherwise this situation would have ended a lot worse, right?
