Most-wanted fugitive who faked own death captured in Oklahoma

A Mississippi man who faked his own death to avoid child rape charges was arrested on the same day he was added to the US Marshal’s most-wanted list, authorities said.

Jacob Blair Scott, a decorated US veteran originally from Moss Point, was taken into custody around midnight Wednesday after he was put on the law enforcement agency’s list of 15 Most Wanted fugitives less than 24 hours earlier.

“This all-out media blitz led to a critical citizen tip that ultimately resulted in the fastest apprehension of a fugitive in the 37-year history of the 15 Most Wanted program,” US Marshals Assistant Director for Investigation Operations Jeff Tyler said.

Scott, who was sought for faking his own death in 2018 to avoid charges that he raped and impregnated his 14-year-old stepdaughter, was captured after a tipster called authorities to report that a man fitting his description was staying at an RV park in Antlers, Oklahoma, according to US Marshals Inspector Jeremy Stilwell.

Deputies later arrested Scott at the RV park after they verified his identity through his tattoos. He’s now awaiting extradition back to Mississippi, where he faces charges including sexual battery, touching a child for lustful purposes and exploitation of a child.

Scott — an Army veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart during his deployment in Iraq — had been using the name Luke and grew a beard to avoid detection, the Sun Herald reports.

Cops in Alabama suspected that Scott tried to fake his own death after finding his abandoned boat about a mile offshore from Orange Beach in 2018. What appeared to be a suicide note was found, along with a handgun tied to a rope and a small amount of blood, the newspaper reports.

Investigators subsequently learned that Scott had withdrawn $45,000 from a retirement account prior to his disappearance.

The mother of the juvenile victim, meanwhile, said she knew all along that Scott wasn’t dead.

“We knew the whole time that he was alive and everybody tried to say he was dead and we kept telling them he was alive,” she told the newspaper. “All of this pretty much ruined our whole life. It has caused so much stress and heartache.”

If convicted on all counts, Scott faces up to life in prison.