Iowa man Jacob Greer arrested after faking death to avoid child porn charges

An Iowa man who faked his own suicide in 2016 to avoid facing child porn charges has been caught, authorities announced.

Jacob Greer, 28, was nabbed in Spanaway, Washington on Monday – six years after he removed an ankle bracelet and fled from Des Moines, the US Marshals Service said in a statement.

Ted Kamatchus, US Marshal for the Southern District of Iowa, called the arrest “a testament to the tenacity” of the department and other investigative agencies.

“Even though the case went cold, they would not quit,” Kamatchus said.

At the time of his disappearance, Greer had been out on bail from an April 2016 bust on charges of receipt and possession of child porn by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the statement said.

Greer was “a survivalist” who planned to live in abandoned cabins in remote areas of the northwest US and Canada, the statement said.  

He was living with his grandmother when he removed his GPS monitoring device and left a phony suicide note in his vehicle. He took with him a survival pack that included a bow and arrows, then borrowed $1,000 from a friend to buy a car to hightail it out of state, authorities claim.

Greer’s new car was found ditched at a campground in Montana a few days later. On June 3, 2016, Greer was spotted at a Walmart in Kalispell, Montana with a camouflage hat on.

It wasn’t clear what he’s been doing in the years since or what led authorities to finally catch up with him.

He was in federal custody in Seattle awaiting extradition to Des Moines to stand trial on Tuesday, the service said.