Escaped murderer caught at Kannapolis Hotel – Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS – A convicted murderer who fled from Orange County corrections officials on his way to a doctor’s appointment Tuesday morning was recaptured at a Kannapolis hotel.

Ramone Alston, 30, was arrested just before 2 a.m. Friday at a hotel on Cloverleaf Parkway in Kannapolis. The operation involved FBI Charlotte SWAT agents, Kannapolis police officers and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. He was arrested without anyone being injured. Since his escape, hundreds of police and security officials have been involved in the search for him.

Shortly after his arrest, a female acquaintance, Jacobia Crisp, was arrested in Alamance County and charged with aiding and abetting escape.

Alston escaped from a transport van as it arrived at UNC Gastroenterology Hospital in Hillsborough, North Carolina. At the time of his escape, officials said he was wearing “handcuffs attached to a waist chain with a black box above the connector.” A $50,000 reward was originally offered for information leading to his recapture. Governor Roy Cooper approved a $30,000 reward from the state, the United States Marshals Service provided $10,000, and the FBI provided $10,000.

Alston was convicted of murdering one-year-old Maleah Williams, who was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting on Christmas Day 2015. She had been playing outside her family’s Chapel Hill home. She died three days after being shot. Alston is serving a life sentence for that conviction at the Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor.

Alston is charged with escape from prison and will be placed in a maximum security cell in the state prison system, where he will continue to serve his life sentence for first-degree murder and await trial on his escape charge. Investigators are still trying to determine where Alston has been since his escape and whether he may have committed any other crimes during his escape. They are also looking for possible accomplices.