Reward for N.C. convicted murderer who escaped grows to $50K

A $50,000 reward is being offered for information on the whereabouts of a North Carolina inmate, convicted of killing a 1-year-old girl, who escaped this week. 

Ramone Alston, 30, fled Tuesday morning as he arrived to a hospital for a medical appointment.

The reward sum has grown since his escape and now stands at $50,000 — $30,000 authorized by Gov. Roy Cooper, $10,000 from the U.S. Marshals Service, and $10,000 by the FBI. 

“There is someone out there who knows where Alston is,” Secretary Todd Ishee of the NC Department of Adult Correction said in a statement Thursday. “We hope that this reward will bring them forward with the critical information that leads to Alston’s capture.”

Alston escaped around 7 a.m. Tuesday shortly after his transport vehicle arrived at UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus. He freed himself from leg restraints and jumped out of the vehicle, and while still in handcuffs, he ran into the adjacent woods, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction said.

In a news conference Wednesday, Keith Acree, the communications director of the Department of Adult Correction, said officials are “pretty certain” Alston’s no longer in the immediate area of his escape.

Officials said Wednesday that more than 300 law enforcement personnel from 19 agencies have searched 1,335 acres around the medical facility. 

Alston was convicted in 2018 of first-degree murder in the Christmas Day 2015 shooting that killed 1-year-old Maleah Williams in Chapel Hill.

She was playing outside her apartment when someone opened fire from a vehicle, and she was struck as a bystander. Alston’s defense argued that he was present but did not kill the girl. Two other men were arrested, but only one has been targeted for prosecution. 

Alston was handed a life sentence. He has been serving his sentence at the Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor. 

He is described as 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing about 230 pounds. At the time of his escape, he had long black dreadlocks, but authorities warn, “he may have tried to change his appearance since then.”