The escaped killer of a one-year-old girl who fled from a medical transport van Tuesday was captured early Friday in a hotel in the Charlotte, North Carolina suburb of Kannapolis, authorities said.
Ramone Alston, 30, escaped from the van as it arrived at the UNC Gastroenterology hospital in Hillsborough, North Carolina by freeing himself from his leg restraints and fleeing into nearby woods with handcuffs on, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said.
No one was injured when he was taken into custody, the department said, adding that hundreds of law enforcement and public safety officials were involved in the search including FBI Charlotte SWAT agents, Kannapolis Police and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.
North Carolina Department of Adult Correction via AP
CBS Raleigh, N.C. affiliate WNCN-TV reported that a reward for information resulting in Alston’s arrest stood at $50,000 after being increased several times but there was no word on what led law enforcement to Alston.
A short time after he was caught, a female acquaintance, Jacobia Crisp, was arrested in Alamance County and charged with felony aiding and abetting a fugitive, according to the department.
Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison and taken to a high security unit in the state prison system where he will “resume serving his life sentence for first degree murder and await court appearances for his escape charges,” the department noted. “The investigation will continue to determine his movements since he escaped on Tuesday, any additional accomplices that aided him, and if he committed any other crimes while on the run.”
In a Wednesday news conference, Orange County, N.C. Sheriff Charles Blackwood urged residents near the hospital to check their home cameras for any evidence of where Alston went, and to stay vigilant.
“He’s extremely cagey, extremely dangerous, and he has nothing to lose,” Blackwood said.
Alston has been his term at the Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, N.C. since his conviction in the murder of 1-year-old Maleah Williams, who was shot on Christmas Day in 2015 from a passing car while she was playing outside her family’s apartment in Chapel Hill. She died three days later.