Man Who Faked Death to Avoid Sex Charges Captured

OKLAHOMA (Ben Caxton) — Less than 24 hours after he was added to the U.S. Marshal’s most wanted list, a Mississippi man who faked his death to avoid going to prison for child sex crimes was in custody. A tip led authorities to 43-year old Jacob Blair Scott; he was arrested Wednesday night at an Oklahoma RV park. Scott will be extradited to Mississippi to face a 14-count indictment charging him with sexual battery, touching a child for lustful purposes and exploitation of a child. He disappeared in July, days before he was set to plead guilty in Mississippi to the charges. Alabama authorities believed Scott had faked his own death when they found his abandoned boat with a suicide note, a handgun tied to a rope and a small amount of blood. His pickup truck was in a nearby parking lot. A weeklong search of the Gulf of Mexico failed to produce Scott’s body. He had withdrawn $45,000 from his retirement account shortly before his disappearance.