Ramone Jamarr Alston, known as the “Christmas Day Killer,” who escaped custody on Tuesday morning and fled into the woods near UNC Hillsborough Hospital, has been recaptured in Kannapolis, North Carolina, authorities announced.
Tactical officers apprehended him at a hotel on Cloverleaf Parkway around 2 a.m. Friday, according to investigators. This location is over 100 miles west of where Alston originally escaped.
Alston, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, escaped from UNC Hospitals in Hillsborough while being transported from Bertie Correctional Institution for medical treatment.
“Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison and is being transferred to a high-security unit within the state prison system,” a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Adult Correction said in a statement.
“He will resume serving his life sentence for first-degree murder and await court appearances for the escape charges.”
In addition, police arrested Jacobia Crisp, a female acquaintance of Alston, in Alamance County on charges of aiding and abetting a fugitive.
Manhunt for Ramone Alston
Investigators are exploring the possibility of additional accomplices and indicated that more charges could follow.
Alston, 30, had been serving a life sentence for the 2015 murder of 1-year-old Maleah Williams, who was killed by a gunshot wound to the back of the head during a drive-by shooting.
Earlier this week, Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood, who has known Alston’s family for years, described him as “a troubled child” involved in criminal activity since his youth.
“He’s extremely cagey, he’s extremely dangerous, and he has nothing to lose,” Blackwood said during a Wednesday briefing streamed on Facebook.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office had offered a $35,000 reward for information leading to Alston’s capture, later increasing it to $50,000. A tactical team eventually found him hiding at a hotel in Kannapolis on Friday morning.
Alston was the driver and one of two gunmen involved in a 2015 drive-by shooting in Chapel Hill. The gunmen opened fire in an apartment complex, and one of the bullets struck 1-year-old Maleah in the back of the head while she was in her mother’s arms.
