A convicted child predator from Lubbock tried to outrun justice by fleeing to Europe — but like every bad Netflix crime doc, it didn’t end well.
Forty-five-year-old John Ellis Gess was supposed to start a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of online solicitation of what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. Instead, he decided international travel was the move. Gess vanished before his March 2025 surrender date, setting off a manhunt that would stretch from Lubbock to South America to Europe — a global game of hide-and-seek that ended the way all bad plans do: with airport security and a rental car.
His case started back in 2020 when he answered a Whisper post from an undercover DPS agent posing as a teenage girl. The post read “Bored. Ditching school. Spoil me.” Gess’ big pickup line? “Wanna get a room.” From there, the chats got gross — explicit sexual messages, creepy “I want to be your first” comments, and an eventual plan to meet up at a laundromat. (Because nothing says romance like the spin cycle.)
When he showed up, troopers were waiting. He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced — but allowed to stay free on bond during his appeal. After his conviction was upheld in 2024, he was supposed to turn himself in. Instead, his lawyer called him from court, and Gess said he’d “be there in 15 minutes.” He wasn’t. Turns out, he’d hopped continents.
Federal agents later tracked him through South America and into Europe, where he used prepaid phones and rented cars to avoid detection — because apparently he thought he was in The Bourne Identity. He was eventually caught in Croatia after a Red Notice from Interpol and shipped back to the U.S. this year. The feds dropped the flight charge so Texas could get on with the main event: locking him up for his original crime.
Now back in Lubbock County Detention Center, Gess is headed to state prison to serve his sentence and will have to register as a sex offender when he gets out.
Maybe he thought Europe would offer a fresh start — but when your biggest mistake is thinking Whisper and a laundromat are good ideas, you’re not exactly criminal mastermind material.
Lubbock produces some world travelers, sure — but this guy took “running from your problems” a little too literally.
