NC woman helped convicted murderer escape. Here’s how long she’ll be sentenced
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- Jacobia Crisp pleaded guilty to aiding escapee Ramone Alston in August 2024.
- Crisp received 18 months of supervised probation after suspended prison terms.
- Alston’s sister faces pending charges for assisting in the same prison escape.
Almost a year after a convicted murderer’s escape, a Burlington woman pleaded guilty this week to helping him evade authorities.
Jacobia Shiner Crisp, 33, was sentenced Monday on charges of felony harboring an escapee and aiding an escape from prison, according to court documents. In exchange for her guilty plea, a charge of obstructing justice was dismissed.
Crisp helped Ramone Alston, 31, after he escaped from prison guards in August 2024 while attending a doctor’s appointment in Hillsborough, The News & Observer previously reported. Alston was serving a life sentence at the Bertie Correctional Institution for the Christmas Day 2015 killing of 14-month-old Maleah Williams in Chapel Hill.
Alston eluded multiple law enforcement agencies for three days before he was arrested at a motel in Kannapolis. Crisp reportedly booked the motel room under her name, CBS17 reported.
Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood has said Crisp and Alston developed some sort of relationship through “telecommunications” over several months while he was imprisoned. Alston has since been transferred to a maximum-security unit at Granville Correctional Institution.
Judge Clayton D. Somers sentenced Crisp to a minimum of four months and a maximum of 14 months on each charge, to be served consecutively, but those sentences were suspended in lieu of 18 months of supervised probation. If Crisp successfully completes a year of supervised probation, she may be transferred to unsupervised probation, sentencing paperwork states.
Alston’s sister, Monique Brady of Graham, has also been charged with helping him escape. Brady’s charges remained pending as of Friday afternoon.
