Primetime: Where Is 'Decoy Dan' Now?
First and foremost, Primetime is Chris Hansen’s story. Sure, it doesn’t paint him in the most ideal light, but what it does show is a crucial time in Hansen’s life and predator-catching career as he and his crew try to pull off their most ambitious sting yet.
The ‘stings’ in question were perfected to an art by the time 2006 — the year Primetime is set — rolled around. Chris Hansen had built To Catch A Predator, a Dateline NBC segment, from the ground-up. As the title implies, the segment involved a member of pedophile-hunting vigilante group Perverted-Justice pretending to be a minor and chatting to adult men online. When these conversations became inappropriate, the man would be lured to a house which they thought was the home of the child they’d been speaking to. In actuality, this was a ‘sting’ house where Hansen waited to confront the predator with the cameras rolling.
A big part of these operations were the ‘decoys’ who would greet the man at the house. These ‘decoys’ were usually of-age actors who pretended to be the child the man thought he was chatting to online. Their job was to lure the man into the home before Hansen stepped in. There were multiple decoys in the history of To Catch A Predator, but Primetime focuses on one in particular named Dan Plum.
Nicknamed ‘Decoy Dan’ by Hansen in the film, Dan was a crucial character in Primetime (played by Skyler Gisondo). But, he was actually based off of a real-life decoy from the original show, also called Dan. So, to learn more about the original Decoy Dan, and what he’s up to now, keep reading.
Who Is Dan Schrack?
Like in the movie, Dan Schrack was an actor looking for his big break. He first auditioned for To Catch A Predator when he was 21 years old. At that point in his career, his most significant acting gig was a Toys R Us advert. Per Esquire, Dan never actually realised, at first, what exactly he was auditioning for. He thought that he would be acting in dramatic reenactments of scenarios — but when he arrived at the audition, he was in for a shock.
Still, after the audition, he was offered the part, and received $5,000 for each shoot. TVInsider report that he appeared in a total of seven episodes between 2006 and 2007. But, there was one particular episode that was especially scarring for him: the one shot in Texas which, in its process, led to the suicide of prosecutor Bill Conradt, who was the subject of the sting. Dan spoke to Conradt as the decoy over the phone to try and lure him to the sting house.
"You could offer me $10 million to film that episode in Texas again," Schrack told interviewers in the documentary Predators. "I wouldn't take it. I would not take it and be happy about that decision," he determined.
Recounting the shocking chain of events, he added, “I know I was at the house when I heard what happened. It might have been an hour after that that we were told, 'That's it. We're done. We're done with you guys.' And then, I know I've blocked that out. I know I have."
Schrack went on to explain how, the morning before he was interviewed for Predators, he attempted to revisit the infamous Texas episode, he was unable to finish it.
"This morning I clicked a link on YouTube and it brought me to, it started to play the phone call, and I heard myself say 'Hello' and I had to immediately [stop]," he explained. "I was done. I didn't wanna play that game anymore. It's not a place I like to live."
He added, “I don't like knowing that I could have been the last person that this guy had a conversation with, outside of when police showed up. This was something that I had started to pack up as nicely as I could and bury as far back as possible."
Where Is Decoy Dan Now?
These days, Dan has switched careers. In 2013, he began studying Public Communications. He then started his journalism career with an internship at WIVB-TV, News 4. During his internship, he was promoted to Assignment Editor, and then started producing Wake Up!, the channel’s morning show.
After that, he started working on-air at WENY-TV. In 2017, he began anchoring and producing the morning news for northern Pennsylvania and southern New York. Since 2019, he has been a morning news anchor for ARC Rochester. He has also been making TikToks about communications for a following of over 70,000, as well as trying out stand-up comedy. Additionally, he offers paid online courses in communications.
Apart from the documentary, it seems like Dan hasn’t spoken much about his past on To Catch A Predator, and, by and large, seems to want to move on. But, with his stint now firmly back in the spotlight, it’s possible that this might change in the future.
