What It's Like To Recognize Someone On 'To Catch a Predator'

The show may have ended in 2007, but people online are sharing their experiences of seeing someone you know on an episode of To Catch a Predator.

Chris Hansen hosted the sting-operation series between 2004-2007. Episodes saw men arrive at a house under the impression they were meeting an underage girl or boy they had spoken to online. Rigged with cameras, the decoy would host the man for just a while, before Hansen appeared to confront them.

Yesterday, June 7, a Reddit user took to the "Ask Reddit" subreddit to find out more about those who knew someone on it. "Redditors who knew men caught on To Catch a Predator before the show, what were they like?" they asked.

In the day since it was shared, the post has gained over 8,000 comments and 47,000 votes.

"My husband worked with, and was good friends with, one of the men on the first ever episode. We were all in our late 20s, he was a highly educated, well-liked guy. He was nice, funny as hell. We were all shocked. He got busted trying to sleep with a 12 or 14-year-old girl. He got a good lawyer and so To Catch a Predator didn't show the video of him getting busted, only a photo that he shared in the chat with who he thought was the young girl. We read the chat log between him and the 'girl'. It was disgusting. He called my husband one time after the show aired to say, 'this was the first time he did anything like this and he got caught up in the taboo nature of it.' Never spoke to him again," alleged one Reddit user.

"My husband and I realized after the show aired in the fall that we saw him the day after he got busted. We accidentally ran into him, and got a drink to chat for a bit. When we parted I specifically remember asking my husband if he thought he was behaving strangely. He was super jumpy, not like himself at all. It is strange to realize he continued to work and hang out with my husband and our friends for the months between getting busted and the show going on air," they added.

Another Reddit user shared her experience of knowing someone on the show, writing: "Yes. He was creepy and kept trying to get me to go to Burning Man. When I told him I didn't think that was a good idea because I had a 10-year-old kid at the time, he said I should bring my kid. Now I don't think he was interested in my kid at all but I did tell him I thought that it would be super creepy to bring my kid to Burning Man with a bunch of people on E. This was in 2001. He came over to my house under the guise of talking business and then put the moves on me. I turned him down and sent him home to his wife."

Although this Reddit user didn't know him before, they shared their experience of realizing a classmate had been stung on the show. "For a long time I didn't know anything about him, and I was decently friendly with him since he was an older guy struggling to learn autoCAD and I was the only one who helped him. One day, some other guys in the class googled him and that's when we found out. He was odd, but not creepy," they wrote.

"His episode was pretty standard: a girl on the phone pretended she was a kid and arranged a meeting and they busted him. Although, his episode was absolutely hilarious because during the phone call he couldn't hear anything the girl was saying and asked her to repeat herself probably a hundred times. He was going through his house and turning off everything that made a noise, all while trying to talk dirty. His conversation was hilarious. People even made a soundboard of his conversation and prank called people with it," they continued.

"Didn't actually know the guy," added another Reddit user. "But one guy showed up to the sting in a company semi truck, it's blurred out in the episode. I went to work for them a few years after the episode. During orientation they gave us a list of 'things that will result in immediate termination.' Things like 'Driving under the influence, failing a drug screen and impromptu meetings with Chris Hansen,' [were on the list]"