BAIL JUMPERS BEWARE!

By Shanna Hogan
Photo by Mike Maez/Getty Images for WE TV

Amed with a virtual arsenal of guns, Tasers and handcuffs, Sandra Margot Escott makes it her life’s work to chase down and arrest bail-jumping fugitives, cashing in on the reward for their capture. At 44, she is a bail bondswoman, bounty hunter, and oh yes, a grandmother. The obvious dangers associated with the job don’t seem to phase Escott; rather, she appears to enjoy the challenge.

“A lot of the crazier cases involve so many elements in trying to track people down, because when people don’t want to be found they’ll jump through all kinds of hoops,” she says. “Of course we always find them.”

Escott, who has a background in private investigation, began working in bond recovery in 2004.

“I didn’t really set out to be a bounty hunter,” she says. “It just kind of happened as a natural progression, I guess you could say.”
After the birth of her daughter Sabree, Escott says the baby’s father refused to pay child support. She says she spent 13 years chasing him from state to state as he worked for cash and hid his assets.
“I spent many, many years tracking him down to get him to pay child support,” she says, “so I pretty much had to develop the skills of a private investigator to keep up with him. I became very proficient at tracking people and their assets down.”

Throughout her intensive search, what she didn’t expect to find was a new career, but she had a knack for this line or work. She decided to become a private investigator. While working as a PI, Escott says she was introduced to several bounty hunters and became intrigued by the thrill of the chase. She took on her first bounty and has never looked back.

“People describe me as a thrill seeker with a death wish,” she says with a laugh. “Sometimes you’ll spend five days or longer sitting outside of a house and all of a sudden your case breaks. Not knowing how it’s going to go down is the best part.”