A 52-year-old man convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child was captured near Lake Livingston after eight years on the run, following an escape attempt that ended with him diving through a rear window of a Polk County home. Doyle Cheek was taken into custody on an outstanding felony warrant for aggravated sexual assault of a child, and his wife was arrested alongside him on charges tied to allegedly helping him stay hidden from law enforcement.
The arrest happened on August 14 in the Quailcrest area near Lake Livingston, after Polk County deputies moved in on a residence acting on information from the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office. As reported by Fox 4 Beaumont, deputies encountered a man at the home who identified himself as Jason Cheek and claimed the fugitive was not there — but authorities determined the man was Doyle Cheek himself. When deputies moved to detain him, Cheek ran and jumped from a rear window of the residence before he was caught.
Cheek had been convicted in 2011 of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child involving an 11-year-old victim, according to the sheriff's office, and served time in a treatment facility before his release under 10 years of probation and lifetime sex offender registration. He became a fugitive in 2018 after failing to appear for his initial post-release probation appointment, kicking off an eight-year search by North Texas authorities.
Tracked Across Two Distant Corners of Texas
Before his capture, investigators had tracked Cheek's possible ties to Watauga and Azle in Tarrant County, as well as Diboll in East Texas, per the sheriff's office. The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office had also placed Cheek on its wanted fugitives roster and worked with Crime Stoppers to offer a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to his arrest.
It was intelligence sharing between the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office in North Texas and the Polk County Sheriff's Office in rural East Texas that ultimately pinpointed Cheek's location in the Quailcrest neighborhood, resolving a manhunt that had spanned nearly a decade. The case links two very different parts of the state — the Fort Worth metro area where the original prosecution and alerts began, and the piney woods around Lake Livingston where Cheek had apparently been hiding.
New Charges Pile On for Cheek and His Wife
Beyond the original 2018 warrant, Cheek now faces charges of evading arrest and failure to identify as a fugitive stemming directly from his foot pursuit and false statements during the August 14 encounter. His wife, April Cheek, who was present at the residence, was arrested and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution of a known felon or sex offender, accused of helping her husband stay out of reach of law enforcement.
Under Texas Penal Code Section 38.05, that charge of hindering apprehension escalates from a Class A misdemeanor to a third-degree felony — punishable by two to 10 years in prison — specifically because the person allegedly harbored is a known felon or registered sex offender. Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child, the first-degree felony underlying Cheek's original warrant, carries a statutory punishment range of 5 to 99 years or life in prison upon conviction, according to Texas Penal Code Section 22.021.
Texas law also imposes lifetime obligations on offenders like Cheek even after release. Chapter 62 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires those convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child to register as sex offenders for life and verify their address in person with law enforcement, meaning failure to comply is treated as an independent felony — a legal backdrop that helps explain why Cheek's disappearance in 2018 triggered additional criminal exposure well beyond his original conviction.
