A suspected pedophile killed himself moments after admitting to watching heinous child porn to a predator hunter who confronted him at his home.
Donald Letcher, 60, was seen on camera describing his viewing habits in graphic detail to Predator Poachers’ Alex Rosen.
Rosen coaxed him into admitting his crimes after appearing at his home in Canova, South Dakota.
He then called the cops, but before Letcher could be detained, he went back into his house and shot himself in the head.
‘The cop turns his back on him, Letcher goes in the home and we hear a pop,’ Rosen explained to talk show host Breanna Morello.
‘It didn’t really register what is was because it wasn’t a loud shot, it was a .22 I think he had and then the cop break the door down.’
Rosen’s team caught the aftermath on camera, which showed police frantically trying to get inside the property.
‘The camera man goes around the side of the building and sees him with a hole in his head bleeding out, a few hours later he was airlifted to hospital where he was pronounced dead,’ Rosen added.
The pedophile hunter said he first connected with Letcher via messaging app Telegram, where the suspect was ‘acting pretty sexual’ and requesting nude photos of what he believed was a 12-year-old girl.
Rosen explained he got Letcher to admit to viewing child pornography involving children as young as infant age in a bid to secure a conviction, as the state’s law was hazy around solicitation of porn from a fictional child.
He was unaware that Letcher had previously been convicted of two counts of sexually molesting his girlfriend’s nine-year-old daughter in Bridgewater in 1995.
However, the charges were overturned due to a technicality and Letcher was exonerated a year later.
It was not his only brush with the law however and in 2022, Letcher was convicted of the hit-and-run of a six-year-old girl.
Letcher was given just 25 days in jail for the offence which occurred while he was drunk behind the wheel.
Rosen posted the interaction on his page on X, where the video has been viewed more than 18 million times.
‘I am a firm believer that all human lives have value. Except for pedophiles,’ one viewer wrote.
‘All’s well that ends well #Justice,’ another person added.
But the clip has also sparked backlash.
‘The fact that there was not a real child that he was talking to and that they tricked him into thinking he was talking to someone that actually a decoy, they will be charged for something now for his death,’ one person responded to the post.
‘Alex should be arrested,’ another wrote in response to a post about Letcher’s suicide.
‘I hope you get charged idiots,’ a third person wrote.
During an interview with Morello, Rosen revealed that he was detained by police after the incident but ultimately released.
He remained confident about his behavior and claims Letcher has nobody to blame but himself.
‘It couldn’t have happened to a worse guy,’ he told Morello. ‘I know it’s still a human life and all that but when we say death penalty for pedos we mean it.
‘Somebody has to be the one to experience it, so screw him.
‘There is really no good reason to attack us for approaching an individual like this. We never go up to anyone where we don’t have great reason to believe they are hurting children.’
He added that although he was talking to a decoy, Letcher was still ‘being a predator’ by soliciting explicit photos from what he thought was a minor.
‘If he’s getting off on infants being tortured then screw him,’ Rosen said.
Rosen’s group is just one of many who engage in anti-pedophile activism and stings such as the one against Letcher.
Some have suggested that their tactics actually hinder police work and potentially violate human rights around privacy due to the fact they often live stream their efforts online.
Although such vigilantism is not illegal, activists can be charged if they break the law in the course of their actions.
In 2021, Illinois pedophile hunter Kyle Swanson was indicted on felony charges of unlawful restraint and obstructing justice over his stings.
The charges were ultimately dropped, but the case highlights the potential legal issues such activists can run into.