by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

For our ninth "To Catch A Predator" investigation, we're set up in a large brick house in an upper middle class subdivision in Murphy, Texas-- a bedroom community outside of Dallas. It will turn out to be one of the most challenging environments in which we've ever worked.

First off, it's the weekend before election day and one of the most high-profile campaign issues in the race for Texas Attorney General is cracking down on computer predators. In fact as we're putting the finishing touches on our hidden camera house, we see the campaign commercial running virtually every 10 minutes showing an Internet predator being hauled away from his computer by police and put under arrest. If that's not a deterrent, I don't know what is.

But, the next thing we know, Del and Frag from Perverted-Justice are telling us our first visitor is just moments away. He's a businessman who owns, among other things a fast food restaurant. He's not sure about coming inside the house though and instead wants to drop off a Web cam for our decoy so that she can perform a sexually suggestive act.

Just moments before he's due to arrive, there is another challenge. The audio board, the piece of equipment our sound technician uses to control all of the microphones, goes dead. That means we have gone from something like 10 microphones to 2. And the one wireless microphone on our decoy is dodgy at best. As she walks out to the front porch to talk to the potential predator, she is at the outer range of the receiver. As you'll see, we get through it all and ultimately scramble to get another audio board.

But there are more surprises.

For the first time, we have neighbors in the area walk by the house unhappy with the fact that there is an investigation going on. Usually the neighbors are passing chocolate chip cookies to us over the back fence. Here in Murphy, a city council member was apparently upset that the police chief did not inform him of the investigation in advance. He rallied some neighbors to parade outside our house. This obviously would have been an inconvenient time to have one of our guys show up.

Within an hour things calmed down and we resumed. (Police tell us that later, after they gave an explanation as to exactly how the investigation was being conducted, some neighbors who were initially skeptical were more supportive.) In spite of all this, 25 men were caught in our hidden camera investigation. And as you'll see -- they come from all walks of life including some surprising professions.

The investigation in Murphy, Texas airs tonight 8 p.m. Tuesday on NBC. Click here for a video preview of some of the men we met there.

Seven of 20 men in the Harris County, Georgia leg of the 'To Catch a Predator' investigations pleaded guilty yesterday. They were sentenced to prison plus probation.

Click here to read the full story from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

Today, one of the men featured in our "To Catch a Predator" report posted a "mea culpa" on his Web site.

28-year-old Alvin King was seen in "To Catch a Predator" Long Beach last Tuesday.  He  was arrested, although he never entered the undercover house. He was picked up by Long Beach police at a nearby park as he met a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl.  We later learned that he runs a site featuring pictures of women's feet.

He pleaded no contest to one count of an attempted lewd act upon a child, and to  one count of attempting to send harmful matter.

He posted this message on his blog:

I have received quite a few scary messages from people out there; but there have also been quite a few bright spots; from people who understand what it is that I'm trying to say.

"Again, none of this absolves my actions; I know what I did was wrong; But I do want everyone to know that I am not a pedofile. That's not what motivated my actions at all."

For those who have requested - The chat log is on the perverted justice website. I will decline to post a link, as I do not want to send taffic their way (voluntarily).

I'm sorry for what I've done. I regret putting myself in this situation; the rest of my responses will have to be limited on this issue; you are all welcomed to share your thoughts.

For those who are curious, below is the first part of their chat log. The difficult thing about producing "To Catch a Predator" is that it's hard to get across how graphic and disturbing these chats truly are. If you read the transcript below, it's clear that King starts the conversation, knew he was talking to a 13-year-old, is aware of "To Catch a Predator" on NBC, and is the first one to turn the conversation graphic and  sexual.

solepleaser (09/08/06  6:39:36 PM): hello
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  7:26:55 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  8:50:26 PM): whats up
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:35:37 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:35:54 PM): whats up
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:00 PM): nuthin
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:04 PM): hang on a sec
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:13 PM): ok....
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:18 PM): you've had me on hold alll day though
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:22 PM): i dont think im interested now
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:24 PM): take care
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:32 PM): fine
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:44:56 PM): bye
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:45:04 PM): i hate rude inconsiderate women
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:45:32 PM): im not im sorry
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:45:43 PM): where are u from
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:45:55 PM): cali
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:03 PM): where in cali
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:28 PM): long beach
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:36 PM): oh ok
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:42 PM): asl?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:48 PM): 28 male carson
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:54 PM): kewl
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:00 PM): how old are u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:06 PM): 13
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:11 PM): 13?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:17 PM): yea
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:48 PM): hello
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:52 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:02 PM): do u have a cam
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:08 PM): no lol 
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:11 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:13 PM): wha u look like
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:21 PM): like a guy :P
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:25 PM): got any older sisters?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:26 PM): lol
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:29 PM): no
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:42 PM): i'd go to jail for hookin up with u :P
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:47 PM): huh
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:54 PM): i said...
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:59 PM): i would go to jail if i hooked up with u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:08 PM): how come
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:14 PM): b/c i like to suck on toes
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:17 PM): and... ya know
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:22 PM): have girls go down on me...
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:23 PM): lol thats funny
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:36 PM): and if we hooked up.... that stuff isn't legal :P
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:50 PM): wuld u tell on me?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:09 PM): more like, u would tell on me lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:14 PM): what do u look like?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:50:20 PM): i have a pic on my pro
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:45 PM): cool
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:48 PM): nice pic
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:50:56 PM): thanx
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:19 PM): how tall are u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:51:36 PM): like 5 2
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:47 PM): u like being barefoot I see
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:48 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:51:58 PM): how u no?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:09 PM): your myspace
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:52:24 PM): lol u like feet lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:40 PM): yes
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:41 PM): :)
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:48 PM): are u a cop
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:57 PM): posing undercover to catch "online predators" ...
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:53:15 PM): no wtf r u talking about
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:30 PM): lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:35 PM): don't u watch dateline?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:54:42 PM): no whats that
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:43 PM): just gotta make sure
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:47 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:54:52 PM): tell me
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:58 PM): it's a show on NBC
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:55:11 PM): they take guys to jail for messing around with young girls
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:55:25 PM): no way hahaha
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:55:41 PM): yes way

This (live) blog was meant to coincide with the broadcast. 

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

7:56 p.m.
I've read some of your blog comments and a few of you asked me if confronting the men who come into our hidden camera houses gets tedious. The answer is no. Not just because I am genuinely curious about what brought the men into our hidden camera house, but also because of the things these guys admit to me.

Take the case of one of the first men your going to meet tonight in Long Beach, Calif. Corye Blagg is a former Marine who works for a computer company in San Diego. Blagg told a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl on line that he wanted to take her virginity in the hot tub. But when I start asking the questions, he says he was just coming over to hang out. He also tells me that this isn't the first time he set up a date with someone he met online, although he says the others were of legal age. He even makes a surprising admission: that one of his dates ended up being a transvestite. He told me that he politely declined the transvestite's offer and scooted out the door and you won't believe what else he's about to admit to me. Later Blagg pleaded no contest to an attempted lewd act on a child.

8:11 p.m.
One of the benefits of working with Perverted-Justice is that because it also conducts online investigations on its own, in some cases PJ has already had contact with a man who later shows up in a Dateline investigation. Such is the case with 29-year-old Farzad Kalantari. Kalantari arrives at our house after a sexually-charged conversation with a decoy posing as a 12-year-old girl. When I confront him he, at first says he thought the girl was 14. Then, he says he was just coming over to teach the girl about the importance of a good education. When I ask if he's ever chatted online with underage girls before he says "no." What he doesn't know is that PJ has already told me about a chat he had with one of its decoys posing as a 14-year-old girl two weeks earlier. This is when his story really starts to unravel. Eventually Kalantari pleads guilty to an attempted lewd act upon a child.

8:21 p.m.
It's still startling to me that more and more of these guys walk right into our house and immediately try to show some sort of physical affection toward our decoy. Watch as 27-year-old Josiah Walker does just that with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl in our Long Beach house. He swoops right in, but when the decoy back peddles and I enter the room, he steps back. We're about to be presented with a challenge though because as I am asking Walker about his obscene chat and he's admitting to me that in fact he had planned on spending the night-- there is another man heading toward our front door. Walker leaves out the back and is arrested by police. Moments later here comes 26-year-old Joshua Larios. Online, Larios had asked a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl to expose herself to her father and her teacher. He's explicit about the sex acts he wants to perform with her. But once Larios sees me, he bolts. And because many of the officers are still in the back of the house, he actually makes it to his expensive Lexus. As you'll see he won't get far. Larios and Walker have both pleaded not guilty to an attempted lewd act on a child.

8:38 p.m.
Sometimes things happen during these investigations that are impossible to predict and that makes it critical for us to think on our feet and react quickly. That's what we do when we hear that 48-year-old Frank Sierras wants to come meet our decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. As it turns out Sierras and Perverted Justice have a bit of a history together.

8:45 p.m.
We've come to find out that Sierras was chatting with our decoy weeks earlier leading up to our previous investigation in northern California. And wait until you get the story on how PJ first came in contact with him. PJ says he solicited one of its decoys two years earlier before any of our To Catch A Predator investigations. (Sierra was never arrested or charged with a crime in that instance and said he was innocent.)

Unlike many of the other men in this investigation though, Sierras didn't want to come to our house. He wants to meet in a nearby park. This is always a tough call because if we hustle hidden cameras, the decoy, and me to the park and he doesn't show up, we could miss other men who will show up at the house. We decide it's worth taking the chance. It takes about 40 minutes to get everyone in position. We were on the lookout for a white SUV, the vehicle he told the decoy he'd be driving. Instead he arrives in a rental car, so we don't notice until the very last second that he's approaching our decoy sitting on a picnic table. We figure he must be the right guy. I head over to confront him and he bolts… right into the arms of the Long Beach Police. Sierras pleaded not guilty in this case but you're about to hear that he has a criminal past.

8:50 p.m.
A final note: Just two weeks after our investigation, officials in California strengthened the laws against adults who target children online. The new laws protect all minors up to the age of 17, and prosecutors say it should now be easier to win convictions in these types of cases.

9:10 p.m.
In our investigation in Long Beach, of the 38 men who were arrested, the district attorney decided to prosecute all but three. Under California law, attempting to have sex with someone under the age of 14 is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

Of those who were charged, at least 12 of the men have pleaded no contest.  They have been sentenced to probation ranging from three to five years.  And some of those men will be permanently registered as sex offenders.

As our series "To Catch a Predator" continues, next week we'll be setting up a house in the lone star state -- Murphy, Texas. You'll meet men ranging in age from 23 to 63, successful businessmen to unemployed, a middle school teacher, and an assistant district attorney in a nearby county who refuses to open the door for police and later makes a tragic decision.

Most of the men say they really weren't going to do anything, tune in next week and you decide.

Thanks for writing in. Keep the comments coming...

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Long Beach, California is our eighth "To Catch a Predator" investigation in two years. You'd think by now that potential predators would get the message -- not so.

In Long Beach, we saw the second highest number of men in any of our previous investigations. 38 men showed up in three days. 35 of them were charged with crimes including an attempted lewd act upon a child. So far, 12 of them have pleaded no contest or guilty.

We did see something in Long Beach that we didn't see in our previous investigations and it forced us to adapt behind-the-scenes: Some of the men, perhaps having heard about our earlier shows, were afraid to come to the house and instead wanted to meet at a different location.

Take the case of 48-year old Frank Sierras. Sierras had been caught by Perverted-Justice a few years ago allegedly having a sexually charged online chat with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. That was before Dateline's investigations. (Sierras was never arrested or charged with a crime after this first alleged conversation with Perverted-Justice, said he was innocent, and threatened to sue Perverted-Justice for posting a transcript of that conversation.)

Late this summer Sierras surfaced again chatting with a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl during our Petaluma, California investigation.  He never showed up at that house.

He kept chatting with the decoy though, who now told him she was visiting friends in Long Beach. Perhaps because he'd been caught by PJ before, Sierras wanted to meet our decoy at a park near our Long Beach house. We scrambled to set up cameras in and around the park and get our decoy in position. According to the chat log, Sierras discussed driving the girl home – all the way from Long Beach back to northern California, offering to take her to Disneyland along the way.

As you'll see tonight, not only did he drive 300 miles to Long Beach -- he also took several steps to cover his tracks. In the end, it doesn't work and Sierras is arrested, but not before a tense conversation with the decoy and a dramatic confrontation with our cameras. 

Part 2 of the Long Beach "To Catch a Predator" investigation airs tonight, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 8 p.m. Click here to watch Chris' chat with Meredith Vieira (on TODAY this morning) about the upcoming report.

This (live) blog was meant to coincide with Tuesday's broadcast.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent

7:54 p.m.

We've just come off of an eye-opening investigation in Petaluma, Calif. and are now in Long Beach, Ca. Once again we tried to set up the house so that my confrontations with the potential predators would be outside on the back patio. The weather cooperated. The sound of jets taking off and landing at two nearby airports did not.

Plan B, as you're about to see, is to set up a bar and stool inside the house. As a location, Long Beach was perfect: easy to get to and surrounded by several major metropolitan areas, but inside the house we're a bit cramped, so much so that a few guys actually spot some of our crew and try to make a run for it. One guy though, who stays and talks to me for several minutes tries to defend one of the most frightening chats I have read during the first eight "To Catch A Predator" investigations. His real name is Michael Warrecker, but his screen name is "can_I_rape_you_anally." Brace yourself for what you're about to hear, it's rough stuff, but important we think in order to understand the potential threat this man represents had there really been a 13-year-old girl home alone. What amazes me is that as I am talking to him is how casually he reacts to the things he said online, almost as if everyone on the Internet talks this way.

8:10 p.m.
It seems to me that more and more of the guys who come into our hidden camera houses quickly realize what they've walked into, sometimes because they've actually seen some of our previous investigations. Take for example one of the next men you're going to meet. He's a 36-year old musician whose screen name is "sugardavis." He chats online with a decoy who says she's a 13-year-old girl about smoking pot and rubbing oil all over each other's bodies. He shows up without the pot, but has everything else needed for the planned sex party.

 It turns out "sugardavis" says he's in counseling because he's met others online for sex. He chats with our decoy, a young looking actress for a few minutes before I also walk into the room. I'm not sure you'll be able to pick up on this watching on television, but it was clear to me that he recognized me immediately. It was almost as if he's seen a ghost. He says one word: "nooooo" and bolts. He won't get far.

8:21 p.m.

As many times as I have seen it happen, I still don't understand how a grown man with young teenaged kids can justify a sexually explicit online chat with another young teenager and then show up presumably for sex. Most of them seem to know intellectually that it's wrong and against the law, but somehow they must compartmentalize their lives in away that justifies their behavior.

Take for instance 44-year-old Robert Salinas who chats with and then visits a girl who he thinks is 13. In his chat he says "I could get in trouble for  making love to a minor." Salinas tells me he has just finished making a service call for the copy machine repair company where he works. Online, he says he has to pick up one of his own kids at karate practice but finds time to pick up sandwiches for our decoy.

Watch as he, like so many other guys, walks in like he's right at home. Salinas admits that what he's doing is wrong and suggests to me that getting caught is a "wake-up call." That's probably true -- but not as much of a wake up call as he's about to get from the Long Beach Police.

8:45 p.m.
Sometimes in our investigation we have so many men show up that we don't have time to put each and every one in our programs. That's what happened early last year during our investigation in Riverside County, Ca. 

There,  more than 50 men showed up and were arrested. One of the men in Riverside who didn't make it into the show is a man named Michael Siebert. He was one of the guys you sort of feel sorry for because they seem a bit slow, but a clear case of why a guy like him could still be dangerous.

Fast-forward 8 months from our Riverside investigation and here we are in Long Beach. Guess who's chatting about sex online with a decoy posing as a 13-year old?

Unbelievably he tells our decoy he can't come over Friday because he has a court date. Later, we'll learn that it's a court date stemming from his arrest in Riverside.

On Saturday night, however, he's in our living room looking for the girl with whom he thought he was chatting.

I say to him: "you know we've had this talk before." He curses, apologizes and promises he'll never do it again. In a moment, you'll hear about a third criminal case in which Siebert was charged. This one resulted in a year in prison.

8:55 p.m.
Next week you'll met a guy who is no stranger to Perverted Justice decoys -- and as you'll see, he'll stretch the resources of Dateline and the Long Beach Police. 

Hope you'll join us again on-air and online next week. And don't hesitate to send us your feedback, below.

Editor's note: Here's some Web-exclusive video -- a video blog of Chris and Lynn Keller, one of the producers behind the series. They talk about the feedback they've received re the show... and how they first reacted when a man stripped naked in one of the reports.

Also, many of the comments below asked about the absence of female predators in these reports. We've addressed this question in a previous blog entry. Check it out.

by Meade Jorgensen, Dateline producer

When I was asked to work on the "To Catch a Predator" project, I didn't know what to expect.

I flew into Long Beach a couple of days before the shoot was supposed to start.  When I got to the undercover house, I was amazed by the amount of work that still had to be done.
Mitchell Wagenberg and his team of "Street Visions" technicians were scurrying all over the place.  They were wiring up fifteen hidden cameras, and just as many microphones to get ready for the first "visitor."

As they always do, the "Street Visions" guys got it together in time.  The "Perverted Justice" decoys were chatting with men on line and our live decoy actors were ready.  Along with Chris Hansen and more than 20 people crammed into the house… I waited for our first visitor.

As I began to read through some of the chat logs, I saw one of the challenges of this story right away.  It would be difficult to let our audience know just how lewd and terrible some of these online chats actually are.

With good reason, we wouldn't be able to quote a lot of the obscene material in the chat on broadcast television, nor show the graphic pictures some of the men sent.  It was going to be tough to communicate how these men were talking--- to someone who said they were under 14 years old.

But I didn't have much time to think about that, because our first visitor showed up pretty quickly.  A man who used the screen name "can_I_rape_you_…" was coming to the door. 

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Some of the screen names are as frightening as the conversations the potential predators are having with the young teens they think they're talking to online. A 29-year old unemployed computer technician is using the name "can_I_rape_you_" in a sexually charged conversation with a girl who told him she was 13. In graphic detail, he lists the sex acts he wants to perform with the girl. When she types back that it sounds like some of them could be painful the man responds "ya, but it's a good pain ya know."

Of course the girl is really a decoy with the online watchdog group Perverted Justice which has again teamed up with Dateline for another "To Catch A Predator" investigation-- this time in Long Beach, Ca.

The potential predator, Michael Warrecker later tells the decoy: "I like rape" but, then explains that he doesn't really want to rape the girl "just rough sex…I'd want you to resist and pretend that you don't like it and stuff." He also tells her: "I might want to cut you a little…suck on your blood lol."

Later, when he shows up at our undercover house for his date, I confront him and he tells me he was just coming to "hang out." That excuse, however, does not explain the scary movie, video camera, and lubricant he brought with him. Warrecker has since pleaded no contest to charges of an attempted lewd act on a child. He received credit for 120 days time served in jail, has to take sex offender classes and has to register as a lifetime sex offender. Any violation and he could face four years in prison.

Warrecker is one of 38 men arrested in the Long Beach investigation, our eighth. It ends up being a challenging three days for the Dateline crew and for the Long Beach police which ran a parallel investigation and arrested the suspects once they left the house.

One of the issues in Long Beach is that several of the men have apparently seen some of our previous investigations and once they figure out what they've just walked into and answered my questions, they don't want to leave. They know what's going to happen next.

Such is the case with another man you'll meet in Long Beach. He's actually someone we've met before. When 26-year old Michael Siebert walks into our house, we know all about him. Unbelievably, we'd met him before. Eight months before Long Beach, Siebert shows up in our Riverside, Ca investigation. I confront him and he's arrested and charged. On the day before he shows up in Long Beach, he's in court on the Riverside charge. He even talks about his court date in his chat with the decoy posing as a 13-year-girl. Siebert's lawyer told us he has severe mental issues and has pleaded not guilty to in both cases.

And while he may appear to be a sad case, we find out he's served a year in prison for a dangerous assault and Perverted Justice tells us that he has had at least three other sexual chats with decoys posing as underage girls.

As you'll see on Tuesday's report, Siebert won't be the only man who has been caught chatting online with young teens before. You'll also meet another potential predator in Long Beach who has an elaborate plan for a young girl, a plan that involves a lot of travel.

There's also a "To Catch A Predator" first: While we are working in Long Beach, someone-- we don't know who-- has found out we're in town and posted a warning on the popular website CraigsList.

Inspite of that, we saw the second highest number of men in any of our investigations.

The "To Catch a Predator" report from Long Beach, California-- Dateline Tuesday, Jan. 30, 8 p.m.

Click here for some preview video clips on some of the men that are going to be featured in Tuesday's 'To Catch a Predator' report.

Mike Warrecker sips a drink as he is being interviewed by Chris Hansen; Paul Clemente hides inside his T-shirt -- and mentions "Dateline" as soon as he sees Chris.

Most shocking is Michael Seibert: he had already shown up in a previous Dateline sting. He arrived at the Long Beach home not too long after a court date related to the previous arrest.

Warrecker plead "no contest" on one count of attempted lewd act on a child. Clemente and Seibert have both pled not guilty.

An all-new 'To Catch a Predator' investigation in Long Beach, California, premieres Tuesday, Jan. 30, 8 p.m.

 

By Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

For an upcoming investigation into online sex predators, we went to Murphy, Texas— a bedroom community outside of Dallas and rigged a house with hidden cameras inside and out. And as always it wasn't long before men came to the door looking for a young teen home alone. 

54-year-old Stanley Kendall met a boy online who told him he was 13. He was really chatting with a decoy from Perverted-Justice. 

Online, Kendall told the decoy he wanted to teach the inexperienced boy different sex acts and sent a picture of his genitals.

Incredibly, it turns out he's a school teacher. When confronted, Kendall told us he teaches math at a Dallas Middle School. He also says even though he talked about teaching the boy all about sex, it never would have gone that far.

Outside, officers from the Murphy police department are waiting to arrest him. He's charged with soliciting a minor online  and is being held on $50,000 bail.

In Texas, the topic of Internet predators has become a highly charged political issue. The Attorney General and the lieutenant governor both used cracking down on child sex predators as a central campaign issue.

It's a felony in Texas to solicit a minor for sex over the Internet—even if the suspect never leaves his house and never actually attempts to meet the minor. 

"I guess that's what I like so much about the way Texas law is written: the fact that the meeting does not have to occur so we can still make a case out of it," says Murphy Police Chief William Myrick.

That was the case when a decoy from Perverted-Justice started getting messages from a man who we learned was an assistant district attorney from a nearby county. He was a 56-year-old named Louis William Conradt Jr., screenname "inxs00." He chatted graphically about sex with a Perverted-Justice volunteer pretending to be a 13-year-old boy and he sent pornographic pictures to the decoy. He talked about coming over to the undercover house, but in the end never did. And as far as we know, he never knew Dateline was in the area.

The Murphy police obtained an arrest warrant for Conradt and did something we've not seen before: They contacted the local authorities in Conradt's town and knocked on his door.

Conradt didn't answer, but police said there were signs he was still inside.  So a tactical team was called in. The officers lined up in formation then broke through the back door. But before they could make the arrest the assistant D.A. pulled out a gun and pointed at his head. Lieutenant Adana Barber was there.

"As they made entry they confronted the subject, I believe he was in the hallway... he told them he wasn't going to hurt them and then shot himself in the head," says Barber.

Officers performed CPR and Conradt was airlifted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas where he later died.

As is standard procedure, police are investigating the handling of this case.

Officers also seized the computers at Louis William Conradt's house.

Dateline will continue to report on new developments, and on the rest of our investigation in Murphy, Texas.

by Allan Maraynes, Dateline Senior producer

As of this writing, our 'To Catch a Predator' team has visited 6 states, 8 locations, and has broadcast almost 15 hours. What's been eye opening to all of us is, especially recently, is that many of those who are now coming to the undercover houses have actually seen our broadcasts. They actually worry out loud that the person on the other end might be part of a Dateline investigation.

And still they come. 

They finish their sexually graphic chats online with individuals clearly identified as underage, they get in their cars, sometimes driving hours, and most shocking of all, they open the door to a stranger's home and walk in!

You tell me. Is there a problem here?  If so, what does it tell us? 

What I do know is Dateline didn't discover the problem. Everyone knows that the Internet has some very bad neighborhoods; ones we warn our children to stay away from. For years, law enforcement has conducted stings of those who try to use the Internet to exploit sex, either involving children, or simply selling pornography.

What we did do was find a way to illustrate the problem. 

When we decided to observe what Perverted-Justice does, I knew it would be interesting to see, in real time, how online predators communicate with someone they believe is a minor.  But I wondered if one of them would actually be brazen enough to leave the cocoon of cyberspace, get in his car, and try to meet the "child." And if they did show up at a house, would they run?

I asked if we could actually get one of them to come inside a house.  If we did, could we get him to talk?

What I was looking for was person-to-person conversation. Some sustained communication that might shed some light on how online predators think.  How would they explain what they do and why they do it?

I was the first to think this was a long shot.  Why would an online predator stop to chat once he knew he had stepped into a very different situation than the one he'd expected?

Producer Lynn Keller along with our hidden camera team went to work. A house was rented.  Multiple cameras were installed.  The Perverted-Justice volunteers (posing as minors) went into the chat rooms were almost immediately approached by adults for sex, and proceeded to "invite" those adults to our house. 

Then our team waited. What happened next was astounding. When Correspondent Chris Hansen greeted these men instead of a young child, most froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Except these deer were talking.  And talking… and talking.

What resulted was an incredible glimpse into the mind of the predator. What I am convinced Dateline has done for the first time, is illustrate that these predators don't look like snakes, or worms, or whatever creatures run for cover when rocks are turned over. 

These are often normal, average, next door neighbors. Respected members of society.  Teachers, doctors, clergymen. That's what I think has triggered it all.  And this is why  I truly believe the Dateline series has made us pay much more attention to the problem.

When we began our investigation we had no idea it would evolve into a series of broadcasts.  But since these men continue to arrive at our undercover houses, all looking for sex with a minor, we're still asking what it means?  Is it merely an Internet problem?  Or does it say something about deeper social ill that needs to be explored?

We're still trying to figure it out, and we hope our viewers are trying to learn along with us.