An Alabama man charged with multiple child sex abuse charges is believed by American and Southeast Asian authorities to be living in Thailand under an assumed identity.
Jackson Matthew Hall, 26, of Lacey's Spring, was facing charges in both Cullman and Madison counties when he apparently fled the country. A Cullman County assistant district attorney told WAFF in Huntsville that Hall faked his own death to escape the charges against him.
Details of the alleged faked death were not given in the news report.
Hall came to the attention of Thai authorities in March, when the family of a woman named Nittaya “Neung” Polseepim reported her missing, according to Thai news service ThaiVisa. Polseepim was taking a man, who called himself Tyler Smith, to a teaching job in Rayong.
It is believed that Smith is really Hall, according to the Biriram Times. Polseepim, who was reportedly in a relationship with Smith, may be helping him evade arrest, the Thai news media site reported.
Polseepim’s family is concerned for her safety, however. Her sister, Jamjit Polseepim, posted a plea for information about her sister’s whereabouts two weeks later on a Facebook group page titled, “Teaching Jobs in Thailand.”
“We don't know what to do," Jimjit Polseepim wrote, according to ThaiVisa. "She is often away from home, but calls home all the time.”
The missing woman's ex-husband, South African resident Darron Beetge, also posted several photos of a man who looks like Hall on Facebook last month. In the post, he called Hall an "American pedo fugitive."
“Just got a message from the police that they believe that he may be using copies of another teacher’s documents to get by,” Beetge wrote.
He said Hall is using the identity Tyler Doran Smith.
Beetge told ThaiVisa that he filed a missing person's report on his ex-wife to obtain a passport for their young son.
The Cullman Times reported that Hall is suspected of fleeing the country by using a passport in a friend's name.
Hall was indicted in November 2014 in Cullman County on charges of first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy, the Times said. Those charges stem from the alleged sexual assault of his girlfriend's 5-year-old daughter.
His bond on those charges was revoked in April 2015 after he was accused of exposing himself to a delivery woman in Morgan County, the newspaper reported.
Hall was out of jail the following June when he was indicted in Madison County on an aggravated child abuse charge for allegedly hitting a child, the Times reported.
When Cullman County sheriff's deputies attempted to serve him with an arrest warrant on July 7, 2015, he answered the door with pistol in hand, the News-Courier in Athens reported. He refused to come outside, and the sheriff and additional deputies responded to the scene, located near Ardmore.
The sheriff ultimately talked Hall into surrendering, the newspaper reported. No additional charges were filed against him.
It was not immediately clear when he made bail.
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