Convicted Rapist Who Evaded Capture by Faking His Death Dies in Utah

A convicted rapist who had been living in Scotland under aliases for years and staged his own death has died in Utah, authorities said.

Nicholas Rossi’s years on the run ended in 2021 when he was apprehended in Glasgow after a nurse treating him for Covid identified him.

Investigators say Rossi attempted to avoid capture by creating a fake memorial page that falsely claimed one of his aliases had died of non‑Hodgkin lymphoma.

Rossi died Thursday at a hospital from what the Utah Department of Corrections described only as “an existing medical condition” after he ceased seeking medical care.

A recent photograph taken inside prison showed Rossi dependent on oxygen.

Law enforcement officials said Rossi fled to Britain or Ireland in 2017 before settling in Scotland. At age 38, he was extradited to Utah in 2024.

In 2025, Rossi was convicted on two counts of raping former girlfriends and sentenced to 10 years to life in prison.

Prosecutor Sim Gill, who oversaw Rossi’s second rape case in Salt Lake County, said he believed the news of Rossi’s death.

“He died knowing he was caught,” said Gill. “Even though he didn’t spend a long time in prison, there’s some justice to that.”

At sentencing in October, the judge described Rossi as a “serial abuser of women” and “the very definition of a flight risk.”

Gill said Rossi had a pattern of meeting women online, “sweeping them off their feet” before becoming increasingly controlling.

Rossi bought a wedding ring for a girlfriend, but she “saw red flags and called it off,” according to Gill. Rossi was later convicted of raping her and another girlfriend in 2008.

“He was a master manipulator,” Gill said. “She saw through him.”

In 2008, a Rhode Island resident named Rossi was required to register as a sex offender after being convicted of groping a college student in Ohio, prosecutors said.

In 2020, Rossi faked his death by creating a memorial page under the alias Nicholas Alahverdian, which claimed his ashes had been “scattered at sea.”

The page quoted his last words as ‘fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun.’ It also described Alahverdian as a painter, author, amateur ornithologist, political scientist, sociologist, accomplished orator, and child welfare reform advocate.

By that time, Rossi had been identified as a rape suspect after DNA evidence was discovered in a backlog of rape kits from a national database for registered sex offenders.

Rossi was apprehended in 2021 at a Glasgow hospital after an attentive nurse treating him for Covid recognized a distinctive tattoo that matched an Interpol wanted persons notice, said Gill.

The Associated Press reported that the tattoo depicted the crest of Brown University, an institution Rossi never attended.

“It was happenstance,” said Gill of the nurse. “Somebody was paying attention.”

At his arrest, Rossi appeared in an Edinburgh courtroom and claimed he was being framed, asserting his identity was Arthur Knight, an Irish orphan who had never been to the United States.

Gill added that Rossi never seemed to show remorse for his crimes.

“He lied to the world, and he also lied to himself,” said Gill.

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