Ramon Alston, 1-year-old girl's killer on the run, captured outside Charlotte after days-long manhunt
The killer of a one-year-old girl who escaped from a medical transport van on Tuesday was captured early Friday at a hotel in the North Carolina suburb of Kannapolis, Charlotte, authorities said.
Ramon Alston, 30, escaped from the van when it arrived at UNC Gastroenterology Hospital in Hillsborough, North Carolina, freed himself from his leg restraints and fled in handcuffs into nearby woods, the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections said.
No one was injured when he was taken into custody, and hundreds of law enforcement and public safety officers were involved in the search, including FBI Charlotte SWAT agents, Kannapolis police and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, the department said.
CBS Raleigh, NC affiliate WNCN-TV reported The reward for information leading to Alston's arrest was raised several times to $50,000, but there was no word on what led Alston to law enforcement.
Shortly after his capture, a female acquaintance named Jacobia Crisp was arrested in Alamance County and charged with assisting a fugitive.
North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections via AP
Alston was charged with escape and will be taken to a high-security unit in the state prison system, where he will « resume his life sentence for first-degree murder and await a court appearance on the escape charges, » the department noted. « The investigation will continue to determine his movements since his escape on Tuesday, additional accomplices who assisted him and whether he committed any other crimes while on the run. »
At a news conference Wednesday, Orange County, NC Sheriff Charles Blackwood urged residents near the hospital to check their home cameras and stay alert for any evidence of where Alston went.
« He's very cagey, very dangerous, and he has nothing to lose, » Blackwood said.
Alston is serving time at the Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, NC for the murder of 1-year-old Maleya Williams. Filmed on Christmas Day 2015 from a car while playing outside his family's apartment in Chapel Hill. She died three days later.
