Nicholas Rossi, the American fugitive who faked his own death and fled to Scotland to avoid rape charges, has died in a US hospital aged 38.
The Utah Department of Corrections said he died on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at 20:32, after choosing to discontinue medical treatment. A spokesman said: “Rossi died from complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment. This notification follows communication with Rossi’s family and his victims.”
“Nicholas Rossi, who faked his death and fled to Scotland to avoid rape charges, dies aged 38.”
Rossi had been suffering from “chronic, degenerative conditions” while in custody, according to the UDC.
The serial sex offender spent years on the run after attacking a former girlfriend in Utah in 2008. He was found guilty of raping two women at separate trials last year, but denied the allegations and claimed the women were “lying”. One victim told the court Rossi had left a “trail of fear, pain and destruction” behind him. “This is not a plea for vengeance,” she said. “This is a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal.”
Rossi was sentenced to five years to life after being described as “a serial abuser of women” and “the very definition of a flight risk” by the judge in Salt Lake City, Utah. The sentences for his two convictions were ordered to run consecutively.
He had faked his death in 2020 after being charged, posting an online obituary claiming he had succumbed to late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. That same year, he married a woman he met in Bristol, and the pair moved to Glasgow together.
Rossi was finally caught when staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow recognised his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol “wanted” notice while he was receiving treatment for Covid in December 2021. Despite his claims of mistaken identity — that he was an Irish-born orphan named Arthur Knight who had never been to the US — an Edinburgh court determined he was Rossi, and an extradition warrant was signed. He was sent to the US in January 2024.
In court, Rossi eventually acknowledged his genuine identity in October 2024, asserting he had absconded to avoid “death threats”. He had indicated he planned to appeal both convictions.
Utah authorities had started searching for Rossi when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. The original investigation into the 2008 rape was closed before a rape kit underwent retesting, identifying Rossi as the perpetrator — but he had already fabricated his death and escaped to the UK.
One victim was praised for her “courage in confronting [Rossi] years after the attack took place”. Rossi’s former girlfriend said she had ended the relationship over his aggressive behaviour and his failure to repay money he had borrowed from her.