Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Nicholas Rossi, convicted of two 2008 rapes, has died.
- Rossi, 38, died after discontinuing medical treatment for an existing condition.
- He faked his death and fled to Scotland to avoid arrest before being extradited to Utah.
SALT LAKE CITY — The man convicted last year of raping two women in 2008 before faking his death, fleeing the country and assuming a new identity to avoid prosecution, has died.
The Utah Department of Corrections announced Friday that Nicholas Edward Rossi, 38, was pronounced dead on Thursday at a local hospital just after 8:30 p.m.
"Rossi died from complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment," the department stated.
Rossi, 38, was convicted in August in 3rd District Court of rape, a first-degree felony. He was found guilty again in September of a second rape in Utah County. He was sentenced to a total of 10 years to life in the Utah State Prison.
Rossi made headlines for the extraordinary efforts he took to avoid prosecution and his unusual behavior even after he was arrested, claiming to the court that he was really Arthur Knight Brown, an Irish orphan who had never been to the United States, and addressed the court in an Irish accent and claimed the allegations against him were "complete hearsay."
Rossi's identity was confirmed, however, by DNA and his tattoos. At his first sentencing, the judge noted that the only reason Rossi finally admitted his real identity was because he became aware the consequences could be worse if he maintained his charade, "but not out of the goodness of his heart."
He was accused of raping a 21-year-old woman in Orem in 2008. At the time, however, the woman only knew Rossi by one of his many aliases. A rape kit was submitted in 2017 to the Utah State Crime Lab for testing as part of the Utah Sex Assault Kit Initiative, an effort by the state to test hundreds of backlogged rape kits that had been submitted by police departments but sat in storage for years.
In 2018, the test results came back and matched with the DNA profile of Rossi, who was investigated in a sexual assault case in Ohio, according to the attorney's office. Investigators also learned that Nicholas Rossi had fled the country to avoid prosecution in Ohio and attempted to fake his death. But he was discovered to be living under an assumed name in Scotland.
A man named Arthur Knight was arrested at a Glasgow hospital after being in the intensive care unit for a month while he was treated for COVID-19. The Scottish Sun reported that Knight was a "fugitive wanted by Interpol in America" and was arrested by Scottish police "on behalf of colleagues in Utah."
After Rossi's arrest was reported, a second woman contacted police in Salt Lake County in 2022 after seeing a news article about Rossi. She too was sexually assaulted by Rossi in 2008.
Rossi was eventually extradited back to Utah where he was convicted of rape in Salt Lake County and Utah County but maintained his innocence.
"May it please the court, I will be incredibly terse. I am not guilty of this," he told the court before being sentenced. "These women are lying, and in due course, we will lodge an appeal."
Rossi used a wheelchair and supplemental oxygen at all of his court hearings.
"Mr. Rossi was a sexual predator who tried to escape accountability. He was caught and died with the public knowledge of his guilt, and the personal accountability of being in prison. The survivors of his heinous acts have the consolation that he died in prison with the knowledge of the crimes he committed," Salt Lake County Attorney Sim Gill said in a prepared statement on Friday.
