Police track down suspect

Authorities didn't know he had left hospital

Police have caught up with a man charged in a fatal October wreck on Interstate 77 after losing track of him while he was being treated at a Chapel Hill hospital.

Albert Lamont Pharr is being held in the Mecklenburg County jail on charges of second-degree murder and felony death by vehicle after his arrest early Saturday by federal marshals.

Investigators lost track of Pharr while he was being treated at the N.C. Jaycee Burn Center after an Oct. 12 crash that killed James Walter Johnson.

Pharr was somehow released from the burn center without being taken into custody.

Federal marshals began investigating last week. They were searching for Pharr on charges that he violated his bail in a federal drug and weapons case when he was involved in the October crash.

At 3 a.m. Saturday, Pharr was spotted entering a house in Charlotte; marshals found him inside a closet.

Highway Patrol Sgt. Joe Mellone said Pharr apparently was released from the burn center without hospital officials' ever notifying law enforcement.

"He was released from the hospital and went about his business, and fortunately enough the U.S. marshals" caught up with him, Mellone said.

Mellone said privacy rules that are part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that went into effect in 2003 have made some hospitals reluctant to inform law enforcement officials when people charged with crimes are being released.

UNC Health Care spokeswoman Stephanie Crayton said that when law enforcement officials provide hospital police with a name and a copy of an arrest warrant, system policy states that hospital police may notify law enforcement before the patient's discharge.

In this case, she said, "hospital police say they have no record of any dealings with law enforcement pertaining to Mr. Pharr."

Crayton added that she is not aware of any cases at UNC where HIPAA rules have gotten in the way of officials being notified of a criminal defendant's discharge.