North Carolina’s “Christmas Day Killer,” Ramone Jamarr Alston, was recaptured more than 100 miles away from the hospital he escaped from Tuesday morning, authorities said.
Alston, who was serving a life sentence for the December 25, 2015, drive-by murder of one-year-old Maleah Williams, provoked a three-day manhunt after escaping custody as he was arriving for a doctor’s appointment, ABC11 reported.
The convict allegedly ran off into the woods near UNC Hillsborough Hospital before somehow traveling more than 100 miles west to Kannapolis, according to Fox News.
The father of Maleah, whom a bullet wound to the head fatally injured while her mother held her outside their Chapel Hill home, expressed his displeasure with the escape in a statement to the local ABC affiliate.
“We don’t have any added feelings about Mr. Alston, we’re just displeased with the (Department of Public Safety) and their efforts to keep him in custody, or lack thereof. We wish Mr. Alston and his family nothing but peace, blessings, and prosperity,” Shaquille Williams said, adding that the thing that bothered him was that “somehow, he got out of his leg shackles.”
Alston was found shortly before 2:00 a.m. at a hotel and taken into custody with the help of agents with the FBI Charlotte SWAT team, Kannapolis Police, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (DAC) said.
“I am grateful to our DAC staff and thankful for the support and effort from hundreds of local, state and federal public safety officers who helped in the search and investigation that returned Alston safely to custody,” Department Secretary Todd Ishee said. “This was an incredible collaborative effort.”
No injuries were reported as a result of the confrontation, the DAC noted.
An acquaintance of Alston’s, Jacobia Crisp, was also arrested in Alamance County for allegedly aiding him in his escape.
Alston has since been transported to Granville Correctional Institution in Butner, the “highest security prison in the North Carolina prison system” according to ABC.
Records that the outlet obtained show that Alston had recently tried and failed to get his sentence lightened, with the judge denying his request in May.
Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison and continue to serve out his life sentence.
