It started as a highway pileup on I-15 near Lindon, Utah. A loose truck tire had bounced into traffic and smashed two cars, triggering a chain reaction. By the time it was over, crumpled vehicles littered the road. Drivers stood by their cars while state troopers tried to untangle the scene. Then came the discovery that had turned a nasty crash into something straight out of a crime drama.
As officers combed through the wreckage, a state trooper froze mid-step. There (between the splintered wood of a refrigerated trailer), he saw them. Two pairs of wide, terrified eyes staring back. Kids. Trapped inside. The truck driver, 28-year-old Jacob Ortell Scott, stood nearby. When cops asked if anyone was in the trailer, he at first looked dazed.
Then came his flat, icy answer: “There were kids in the trailer.”
Troopers pried open the trailer to find Scott’s half-sisters inside. They were only 12 and 14 years old. The girls had been locked in with no way out, but they weren’t tied down. The temperature was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and they had set up a makeshift bed in there.
That’s cold enough to cause hypothermia in only a few hours. Records show they’d been trapped there for nearly two hours before help arrived. Scott now faces charges of felony child abuse. A Utah judge refused bail, calling him a “substantial danger” to the community.
The saga started with a blown tire. Scott’s big rig lost a wheel near Salt Lake City, and it jumped the barrier and smashed into two other cars. A few people were hurt, but not seriously. Then another semi crashed into a nearby passenger car, almost like a cruel joke. Metal cracked across the freeway as a result of the growing chain reaction.
Trucker arrested after young half-sisters found trapped in refrigerated trailer set to hypothermia-inducing 30 degrees https://t.co/DIevGgB2VM pic.twitter.com/CvMmUI6cgH
— New York Post (@nypost) September 19, 2025
Two young girls were found shivering inside Scott’s refrigerated trailer as crews set out to clean up the debris from the truck. What looked like a stressful traffic jam quickly turned into a criminal matter.
Lt. Cameron Roden with the Utah Highway Patrol confirmed the girls are Scott’s half-sisters. And this isn’t about trafficking. Still, for drivers stuck in that backup, the thought of those kids locked in the cold won’t fade easily. It’s the kind of detail that sticks.
The children are stable now, officials say.
Utah State Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Child and Family Services have talked with them. We don’t know exactly how they’re doing, but cops say it’s incredible they made it out alive after two hours in that freezing trailer.
Parents often choose not to open a case of kidnapping, all too grateful to have their children back. But without cases, how can kidnapping syndicates – posing as initiation schools – be stopped? #CarteBlanche @macmoleli pic.twitter.com/CabE47XaT6
— Carte Blanche (@carteblanchetv) June 1, 2025
But why were those girls locked inside? Why did they leave with no way out in below-zero cold?
Right now, nobody has answers. The man involved, Scott, hasn’t explained publicly. Investigators are still looking into how this happened and how anyone might have hurt children in this way.
Evil isn’t always hidden in murky online forums or far-away trafficking networks. Sometimes it lives much closer to home…right in the family. Scott remains in Utah County Jail on felony charges. The girls are now safe, yet why did this happen? That mystery cuts as deep as the cold of the refrigerated truck that nearly became their tomb.
