In a minefield of exaggerated or downright fake profiles and ulterior motives, you can never be sure how the online Mr. or Ms. Wonderful will turn out in real life.
But, like many things in life, you accept a degree of risk and take your chances.
For one woman in Utah yesterday, that statistically tiny chance of the worst possible outcome became a tragic actuality when she was stabbed to death by a man she had met only hours earlier on the popular dating app Tinder.
Ethan Hunsaker, 24, called 911 shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday to confess that he had just killed a woman he first met the night before, according to a press release posted by the Layton Police Department on its Facebook page.
Officers arriving at Hunsaker’s home on North Reid Avenue, Layton, found a woman lying on the floor with “multiple stab wounds to the torso.” After efforts to revive her failed, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the victim was 25 years old but are yet to release her name.
Following his arrest, Hunsaker told police that he had met the woman, whom he only knew by her first name, via the Tinder app. The two went to a bar, he claimed, before going back to his home to have sex, according to an affidavit cited by the Deseret News.
Hunsaker said that he later woke up with the woman laying on his arm and started choking her.
When the woman fought back, he took a pocket knife from his kitchen and allegedly stabbed her several times.
Marks on Hunsaker’s arms, neck and shoulders corroborate the suggestion that the victim struggled, according to court documents reviewed by ABC4.
Hunsaker indicated that he was suicidal during the 911 call and asked officers to shoot him when they arrived at his home.
He was booked on a first-degree murder charge and is being held at the Davis County Jail.
The motive for the murder is “under further investigation,” but “the attack appears to have been unprovoked,” police said.
Layton is a city of approximately 78,000 people situated 21 miles northwest of Salt Lake City.