The state Department of Adult Correction offered a $25,000 reward Tuesday evening as the search continued for an inmate serving a life sentence for murder who escaped custody in Orange County.
“We know there are people out there who know where he is and probably have information to share,” said Keith Acree, spokesman for the department. “We are hoping that this will be the carrot that draws them out and provides information that will lead to his capture.”
At least 114 local, state and federal law enforcement officers were going door to door and combing through woods, creeks and ravines Tuesday evening for 30-year-old Ramone Alston, who escaped after arriving at UNC Hospitals in Hillsborough for medical care.
The search covers 580 acres, including the one-mile area surrounding the hospital, Orange County Emergency Services Director Kirby Saunders said.
Agencies across North Carolina are also on the lookout for Alston, who was still in handcuffs when he fled around 7 a.m., Acree said. Alston is considered dangerous, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.
Alston fled as two state corrections officers were removing him from a prison van at the hospital’s rear entrance Tuesday. He “broke away from the officers in the parking lot and ran to the woods,” Acree said.
Officials said he may have removed his leg restraints during the ride to the hospital.
“We are working diligently to follow all the leads that we have,” Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said, declining to be more specific. His office is also focused on reassuring the Hillsborough community that it is safe, he said.
There had been no reported sightings of Alston since early Tuesday morning, he said.
“As far as the community goes, there’s two ways of looking at this. He’s either in a five-mile radius or he’s in the rest of the world, and we’re searching both,” Blackwood said.
Manhunt expands to other agencies
Todd Ishee, secretary of the N.C. Department of Adult Correction, appeared with Blackwood at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
“Our staff will be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until offender Alston is returned to custody,” Ishee said.
Blackwood and Ishee did not elaborate on how Alston got free from his leg restraints, but noted the investigation into his escape will consider all the details of what happened from the time they left the prison in Bertie County to the time Alston escaped, including whether the officers may have been involved.
Dozens of law enforcement vehicles and officers could be seen posted in the Waterstone neighborhood across the street from the Hillsborough hospital and circling surrounding roads Tuesday afternoon. The hospital is also near the intersection of Old N.C. 86 and Interstate 40.
Durham Tech’s Orange County campus, which is across the street from the hospital, remained on lockdown Tuesday. The community college said late Tuesday night that it would move to “Yellow Status” on Wednesday, meaning the Hillsborough campus will operate remotely except for essential personnel. Classes will be held virtually.
Orange and Alamance County sheriff’s deputies, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough police officers, and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force are assisting with the search, Acree said. The Department of Adult Correction has also brought in canine officers and its prison emergency response team, he said, and a Highway Patrol helicopter is also on the scene.
Blackwood said he had also reached out to Eddie Caldwell Jr., executive vice president of the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, to get help from the Sheriffs Helping Sheriffs Network. The sheriff’s offices in Durham, Person and Chatham counties joined the search Tuesday afternoon.
Alston has friends and family in the area, he said, but corrections officials don’t know if he contacted anyone before escaping.
Serving life sentence for murder
Alston is serving life in prison at Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, N.C., after being convicted in 2018 of first-degree murder in the Christmas Day shooting of 14-month-old Maleah Williams in Chapel Hill in 2015.
Williams was fatally shot during a drive-by shooting in the Trinity Court apartments parking lot, where children were playing with their Christmas presents. A bullet hit Maleah in the back of the head as her mother Tylena Williams held the girl in her arms. She died in the hospital three days later.
Alston was driving the car when it stopped near a dumpster, and he told investigators that Pierre Je Bron Moore, who was planning to confront someone at the complex, got out and started shooting. Prosecutors said during his trial that Alston also started shooting.
Moore was convicted of second-degree murder in 2019 and sentenced to nearly 35 years in prison. He is currently being housed at Tabor Correctional Institution, records show. Prosecutors dismissed charges against a third man suspected of being involved in 2016.
Blackwood did not have details about Alston’s medical care but said he had previously been a UNC Health patient.
People in the area should keep their doors, vehicles and windows locked, but Blackwood also urged the public “to carry on their daily lives.”
“One thing I try to keep in my heart all the time is I’m not going to let somebody’s wrongdoing interfere with me living my life. I will say you have to take precautions every day in your lives,” Blackwood said.
Avoid Hillsborough campus, Waterstone area
UNC Hospitals lifted a lockdown there around 8:30 a.m., UNC Health spokesman Alan Wolf said in an email.
“The inmate fled from the hospital campus, and law enforcement immediately began searching for him,” Wolf said. “The safety of our teammates, patients and visitors is the top priority for us. We are grateful for our law enforcement partners’ rapid response.”
Durham Tech students and others also were advised to stay away from the community college campus near the hospital until further notice, the campus posted on Twitter.
Officials have not asked people who live near the hospital to shelter in place, because they don’t know in which direction Alston is heading, Stemper said.
“It’s kind of difficult to ask half a county to shelter in place,” she said, adding they don’t want to say where Alston could be heading to avoid tipping him off.
Alston is described as 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds. He was last seen wearing a gray T-shirt, brown pants and white New Balance tennis shoes. He was also wearing handcuffs connected to a belly chain with a black box over the junction. Stemper noted that Alston may also be wearing black, prison-issued shorts under his pants.
Anyone who sees Alston should call 911 immediately and not approach him, the Sheriff’s Office said. Blackwood said the public can also call the Sheriff’s Office at 919-245-2900 or his cell phone at 919-612-0003.
“To folks in the community, if you see something that is suspicious to you, you can guarantee it will be suspicious to us,” Blackwood said. “Let us know.”
