Lying sex offender Nicholas Rossi kept lists of hundreds of young women he wanted to single out for abuse in a hoard of sick documents hidden in a basement. The American fugitive compiled more than a dozen notebooks containing their personal details, a scoring system and the best time to target them.
Rossi, who fled to Scotland last year, is in jail in Edinburgh after his ridiculous attempt to stop extradition to America on rape charges – by insisting he was an innocent Irishman called “Arthur Knight” – was thrown out by a sheriff, reports the Sunday Mail, our sister title.
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Police in the US states of Utah and Rhode Island, where the 35-year-old lived before fleeing to the UK, are now expecting many more women to come forward since his true identity was confirmed.
His terrifying dossier of notepads was found by his first wife Kathryn Heckendorn during a violent seven-month marriage in 2015. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail after Rossi’s identity was legally confirmed by Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday, she revealed how her twisted husband would have been planning out his next victim while married to her.
Speaking from her home in Ohio, Kathryn, 33, said: “When he was out, I was down in the basement trying to clean up and I found he had a bunch of boxes. There was a ton of journals written by Nick and it looked like they had different entries from different universities around the States.
“I remember one from Idaho – it said the girl’s name, her class schedule, her likes and dislikes.
“It also said, ‘She has a boyfriend who doesn’t like me, don’t approach her when she’s with her boyfriend.’ It was very creepy.
“There were probably about 15 to 20, all full of women’s details. I only looked at about four of them – that was enough.
“I keep waiting for some of these women to come forward.
“I think he was using these journals to try to see if he could spark a romantic relationship with them. If they had money, even better. It was just a way to find his next victim.”
Kathryn, who was 27 at the time, admits she froze and was too scared to confront him on it. She added: “I think I was afraid to know more of what was the truth.
“At that point I didn’t know how bad Nick was. I was slowly finding out. Two or three weeks after we were married, he was arrested for the first time for domestic violence on me.“I had a detective who was very concerned about me and he said, ‘I do rounds on your house, I drive by daily, now I’m afraid next time I drive by I’ll find you in the basement chained up.’ He said, ‘You need to get out, I’m working with other people and he is wanted in a couple of other states.’
“Unfortunately it still took me about five or six months after that to leave.”
Police are aware of the existence of Rossi’s vile dossier but have been unable to find it after he removed the boxes from the house following his divorce from Kathryn.
A US police investigator, who’s involved in the multi-state probe into Rossi’s movements, said: “We’re expecting many more women to come forward, particularly now his identity is confirmed and the publicity in the case. We think he would be looking at hundreds of women in these notepads.”
After their marriage, Rossi was convicted of domestic abuse on Kathryn and unlawful detention. Now a happy mum-of-one who’s set to marry again, she met Rossi in 2015 at their church in Ohio where he’d moved with his adopted parents from his home state of Rhode Island.
Unknown to her, he’d previously been convicted of a 2008 sex attack on an 18-year-old student at the local Sinclair College. Much like the accounts of the other women he’s abused, Kathryn said he seemed charming and quickly proposed marriage to her.
In hindsight, she now knows it was an attempt to manipulate, steal money and feed his narcissistic personality. She said: “He convinced me everything was my fault, that I’m the crazy one, I’m the problem. Some of it I still struggle with to this day, like trusting myself.
“I had to go through some intense therapy to get past quite a few things and triggers.”
She added: “Nick was a master manipulator and con artist. He knew exactly what he was doing to people. He believes he is the most important person in the universe. And I think he knows what he’s done is bad – he just does not care because, in the end, it benefited him.”
Kathryn now hopes Rossi will spend the rest of his life in prison and took some pleasure in hearing he suffered during last week’s hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, where he produced a stack of lies to claim he was innocent Arthur Knight, which were all dismissed on Friday.
He was matched up by fingerprint evidence and tattoos on his arms by a series of credible expert witnesses called by Scottish prosecutors in a court case which Rossi deliberately tried to delay for nine months.Rossi had been caught in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital in December last year where was seriously ill with Covid. Officers matched him up to the wanted man on an Interpol Red Notice via his distinctive tattoos and fingerprints.
But during evidence in court last week, Rossi tried to claim a mystery hospital worker called Patrick had taken his fingerprints and them put in the Interpol notice in a conspiracy with US police.
And, with a straight face in court, he said someone had tattooed him while he was in an 80-day coma. Rossi’s attempts to be bailed to return to the flat in Glasgow he rents with wife Miranda were rejected by the court.
He’ll now remain at HMP Edinburgh until a further extradition hearing next March. Kathryn added: “I hope he has nobody, that he’s alone, and knows how that feels.”
Rossi is also facing questioning over the alleged rape of Michelle Minnaar from Essex in 2017. The Sunday Mail revealed her story in June of how Rossi turned up at her home after fleeing the US and spent five weeks in an abusive relationship with her.
In late 2017 or early 2018 he met second wife Miranda and the pair married on February 22, 2020, with him using the name Nicholas Brown – seven days before he faked his own death in Rhode Island to avoid police detection. He is wanted in America for two historic allegations of rape and one of sexual assault.
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