Mom By Day, Bounty Hunter By Night

Oct. 17, 2005 — -- By day, Sandra Scott is a stay-at-home mother of two. But after she kisses her husband and kids goodnight, she heads out for her second job as a bounty hunter tracking down fugitives.

"Bounty hunting is definitely an addiction for me," said Scott, 39. "It's the thrill of a chase. You know, if I'm not chasing a bargain and I'm not chasing a sale, I'm chasing a fugitive."

Scott has been bounty hunting for the past year, but got her start putting criminals behind bars when she was a teenager. When she was 14, Scott was attacked in a park near her house, and her testimony helped lock up the attacker. She later became a private investigator and then a bounty hunter.

"To be a great bounty hunter, you really have to have that sixth sense where you can size people up and read them, all in just a moment's notice," Scott said. "You have to be able to read body language."

Scott has the authority to arrest, an authority given to her by bail bondsmen who have custody of suspects they bailed out. But Scott is not a police officer.

"I've been into homes to arrest people where there's cocaine laid out on the coffee table and there's pot and I don't care about that stuff," Scott said. "That's not what I'm there for. I'm not the DEA, I'm not the cops and I'm not going to tell anybody. I just want the body, and I want the body in jail, because then I get paid."

So far, Scott has never been paid more than $800.

"I'm worried about her getting shot or stabbed or killed or something," Scott's husband, Ron Scott, said.

There are an estimated 1,200 bounty hunters in the United States. Not many are women and most work with at least one partner as protective backup.

"You never go alone. As a bounty hunter, you'd have to be crazy to go alone," Scott said. "But they (my family) also know that I can handle myself. Do they worry? Yes, they worry. But that's not going to stop me."

"If this makes my child happy, then I totally support her," Scott's mother said.

Scott has been criticized by veteran bounty hunters who believe her past working in the adult film industry and wrestling hurt her credibility as a bounty hunter. Scott doesn't deny her colorful past, but doesn't believe it hurts her current career.

"I'm definitely not a veteran bounty hunter," Scott said. "I am considered a newbie having been in the business for just about a year. But for me it's the fact that I have the drive and the ambition to be the best."

Her detractors also resent that she's become a media darling, despite limited bounty hunting experience. There is already one reality TV show on the air about a real-life bounty hunter and Scott said she has been getting offers for her own series. Last week she was invited by a movie studio to the Hollywood premiere of "Domino," which is about a female bounty hunter. Scott said the movie did not parallel her own reality.

"Ninety percent of bounty hunting is sitting around doing surveillance," Scott said. "The other 10 percent is interviewing people doing what we call pretexting on the phone which is pretending you're someone you're not to get information. You have to lie. You have to pretend to be someone you're not."

Scott has posed as a florist and a homeless person and has gone door to door with a picture of a "lost" cat.

"When a person is lying to you, they will subconsciously glance off to the right when they're talking to you," Scott said. "What they're doing is they're accessing the creative side of their brain that they need to access to make up a story, to be able to make a cover story … I think these are skill that being the mother of a teenage daughter you just acquire."