New Hampshire couple wanted on child-abuse charges caught at Universal Studios in Florida
Jessica Linscott, 23, and boyfriend Roland Dow, 27, had been watching a parade when authorities moved in. 'They were totally surprised. They had no clue,' a U.S. Marshals official said. Linscott's son was found with burns and severe head injuries.
Roland Dow (l.) and Jessica Linscott are suspected of abusing the woman's 3-year-old son.
A nationwide manhunt for a New Hampshire couple wanted on child abuse-related charges ended Wednesday when the fugitives were tracked to a Florida theme-park parade — as if they were on vacation, authorities said.
U.S. Marshals cuffed Jessica Linscott, 23, and boyfriend Roland Dow, 27, as they left Universal Studios in Orlando as at least 15 undercover officers moved in on the pair around 6:30 p.m., reported
ABC affiliate WFTV.
They were wanted after Linscott’s 3-year-old son, James Nicholson, was taken to a New Hampshire hospital on Nov. 14 and found to have burns on his body and significant injuries to his head. Linscott claimed the bruises were self-inflicted, according to
CBS Boston.
James Nicholson, 3, was found with severe bruises and burns after his mother took him to the hospital on Nov. 14. The boy's father, Jonathan Nicholson, had died about three months after he was born.
But she and Dow had been on the run for a couple of weeks after the hospital reported the incident. A tip finally led investigators to search in Florida.
“Just as though they're here on vacation, no disguise, just normal for the weather and everything else, they were here,” David Charles, deputy criminal investigator for the U.S. Marshals Service in Orlando, told WFTV.
“They were totally surprised,” Charles told The Associated Press. “They had no clue.”
Ed Linscott, the uncle of Jessica Linscott, called the allegations that she abused her son, 'real cold.'
Linscott, of Plaistow, N.H., a town of about 8,000 residents in Rockingham County, is accused of failing to get medical attention for her son when he was suffering seizures from a head injury and of failing to protect him from harm. She's charged with multiple counts of child endangerment.
Dow is charged with assault.
Linscott and Dow were jailed on Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment by telephone. They were scheduled to be arraigned in Florida on Thursday on fugitive from justice charges.
Linscott's uncle, Ed Linscott, told CBS Boston that what she's accused of is "real cold."
“She ought to be ashamed of herself doing what she’s done," he said, adding, "I don’t know her boyfriend and I really don’t want to know him. I tell you I wouldn’t want to get my hands on him.”