Bill Conradt, an American local assistant district attorney in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, killed himself on Sunday, November 5, 2006, when Texas police served him with search and arrest warrants stemming from a Dateline NBC – Perverted-Justice online sting of men soliciting sex with children.

[1] For upwards of US$100,000 per episode,[2] the production hired the vigilante group Perverted-Justice to assist in the "exposure [and] arrest of men ostensibly interested in having sex with children."

[1] David M. Granger, the editor-in-chief of Esquire, told the Houston Chronicle that the suspects seen on To Catch a Predator were being denied due process by conviction in the court of public opinion before they might see the inside of a courtroom to face their accusers.

[4] By early 2006, the segment had been repeatedly criticized for ethical and journalistic concerns,[3] and a Dateline producer told Radar magazine that, "one of these guys is going to go home and shoot himself in the head.

Chief Myrick thought the operation was extremely successful, hoping the Dateline exposure would bring national attention to Murphy, and repeatedly joking about seizing the nice cars of arrested suspects.

For weeks before the sting,[2] a PJ volunteer posing as a 13-year-old boy had been chatting online with "inxs00": a man who claimed to be a college student and had sent a sexually explicit photo.

[10] On November 4, an NBC voice actor made telephone contact with the pseudonymous man,[2] who ultimately provided personal information that identified him as Conradt.

Chief Myrick agreed, and rushed both warrants, foregoing any interagency coordination with the Texas Rangers, Collin County DA, or a grand jury inquiry.

Conradt did not answer officers knocking on the door to his courtyard, and confirmation of the search warrant was received at 2:20 p.m.—though it had "the wrong city, county, and date."

In mid-June 2007, after furious residents complained about the sting and its dangers—speeding suspects, overzealous arrests with guns drawn, and drugs brought by the suspects—the council voted to fire Sherwood by buying out his contract for $255,000 (equivalent to about $375,000 in 2023).

[14] Third, Texas law largely requires that arrestees have an outstanding warrant, but the DA found that the Murphy police were only—at best—acting as agents of Dateline: "merely a player in the show and had no real law-enforcement position.

A reasonable jury could find that by doing so, NBC created a substantial risk of suicide or other harm, and that it engaged in conduct so outrageous and extreme that no civilized society should tolerate it In July 2007, sister Patricia Conradt filed a wrongful death lawsuit against NBC Universal for $105 million (equivalent to $154 million in 2023)[15] in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

NBC called the lawsuit meritless, and filed for dismissal, but Judge Denny Chin ruled against the broadcaster on the merits of intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations.

[17] NBC's own footage shows Dateline and police personnel working together such that the TV crew was even supplying Conradt's phone number and video surveillance.

In 2007, Murphy's Chief Myrick stated that it had been a strictly police-led operation with no undue influence from NBC or PJ, and he disputed any Dateline involvement at Conradt's house.

He opined that Terrell's chief of police, Todd Miller, called SWAT because success in front of the nationally-broadcast Dateline cameras was the department's last chance at proving "they really weren't a bunch of lummoxes."

A friend of Conradt and over-30-year veteran attorney in Kaufman County called the SWAT decision "the stupidest and most unnecessary thing that I have ever heard of in law enforcement.

"[8] In 2007, DA Roach explained to 20/20's Brian Ross that most of the operation was entirely "for show with no real law-enforcement purpose"; that NBC and PJ muddied the legal waters regarding transcript-evidence and Miranda rights; and that the push for drama endangered both suspects and officers with unnecessarily aggressive take-downs.

[2] After Conradt's suicide, an article in the Columbia Journalism Review extensively investigated To Catch a Predator and the transparent Chinese wall between itself, Perverted-Justice, and law-enforcement.

Hansen denied much of the magazine's report, saying that To Catch a Predator wielded no influence over the police investigation, they did not trespass Conradt's property, and that Perverted-Justice was not on-site in Terrell; only the last of these did the show's host concede, after conferring with his producer.