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Deputies on Wednesday are searching for an inmate convicted of murder who escaped more than 24 hours ago while authorities were taking him to the UNC Hospitals Hillsborough campus.

'Extremely dangerous': Reward increases to $35K as Orange County deputies search for convicted murderer who escaped Tuesday morning

Today, we're gonna start with Keith Acre. He's with the Department of Adult Correction and that's Keith Ac Ree. He'll be followed by Kirby Saunders S A UN D er S Orange County Emergency Services Director and then um Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood, both standard spellings will also be here for any questions. Thanks again for being here. Good morning everyone. I'm Keith Acre, Communications Director for the Department of Adult Correction. Um This morning, a couple of updates for you. The United States Marshals Service is contributing an additional $10,000 to the reward amount that's not available, which now brings the total reward available to $35,000 for information that relates to the uh the capture of Ramon Austin. Um And in in, in an effort to better manage the flow of information and incoming phone calls. Um We are providing a new phone number this morning for uh people calling in with information. Um That new number is 919324, 1082 9193241082. Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Mr Alston is encouraged to call that number. Um provide what they know. Um And that information may um may qualify them, may lead to AAA reward for them if that uh information leads to his capture. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Kirby Saunders, the Director of Orange County Emergency Services, as I mentioned yesterday. Uh we have been uh tasked to assist the local law enforcement, state and federal partners in the capture of Mr Austin. Uh Specifically, we are helping to coordinate uh both an intensive ground search effort as well as assisting in the investigative task. Uh That law enforcement is the mission um that they are doing. Currently, as I mentioned yesterday, we searched approximately 580 acres yesterday with an additional 100 acres or so. Over into the evening hours, our focus uh intention yesterday was to really focus uh a lot of efforts in and around the hospital area where Mr Austin escaped from um to really assure the community that he was not there. Uh We did not find any office, did not find Mr Austin and we didn't find have any additional sightings in that area. Uh It's important to note that there are really two sides to this search effort. There's a ground search effort which are clearing known areas, uh residences, ravines, creeks and things that any places he may be while simultaneously in an exhaustive investigative search also happening in the rest of the world outside of that immediate vicinity. Yesterday, in initial response, we involved both aerial assets, helicopters, canine resources and ground searchers, law enforcement officers specifically trained in searching for individuals who are fleeing, capture. Um Those canine tracks led us north of the hospital area in some areas. Uh We followed those until they uh the canine since ran cold. Uh Today's effort is to re uh search those areas along those, those canine tracks to look for any uh what we call clues. So any uh any signs that Mr Austin may have been there, any footprints, any uh discarded remains, handcuffs, a tie or anything that we can find that would confirm a direction of travel and how he may have evaded capture. And that is our focus today. So our, our law enforcement resources and searchers will be uh focusing north of Hillsboro, north of the UN C hospital, Hillsboro campus uh on the ground today as well as assisting law enforcement investigative functions. Anyone have any questions? Uh Laura Levine here with WRL News. We know Alston uh has family and friends within this area. Have they been in communication with you all? Have you been communicating with them? Are they cooperating with this investigation? So we have made contact with some family members? Yes. Um Cooper has been varied, Anthony w you know how he was able to get out of there. There are a couple of theories. Um None have uh given us a concrete answer. Um We're interviewing the two transport officers in more detail. Um about that. But right now we're, we're not able to speculate exactly how they were able to be removed. I'm Dina with CBS 17 was his escape caught on hospital camera. And if so will that be? So I spoke with uh Chief Kelly White of the hospital police yesterday and he allowed me to look at that video. Um I understand that there has been a request of the media to the hospital for that and I'm sure that will be provided um doesn't show a whole lot because it happens so quickly as, as most of you know, the technology behind those cameras is stop gap. So um all of that information is not captured, there is a, a very um the door opens, his foot hits the ground and then he's out of the frame. So he was moving quickly more quickly than the camera could capture with the reward announced yesterday. Have you all received an influx of information calls? Um If so, do you have an estimate on how many tips? I don't have an estimate. I can tell you that um throughout the night on up to three o'clock this morning, I was getting calls on my cell phone. Um None of them, to be honest with you, a lot of them were people that were just playing games with the phone numbers. Um And we expect that we know that's going to happen. Um No concrete leads at this time. Again, $35,000 is, is a lot of money. Um Somebody knows out there that this was planned and they know who's involved in it and we hope that motivates them to do the right thing and let us know so that we can bring this to a successful conclusion and a just conclusion may have changed Anthony. That's quite possible. Um And I want, I'm glad you brought that up because that's on my notes to address today. There have been some questions about what he looked like because there's so many different photographs of him. Um The reason there are a lot of photographs and I understand that the Department of Corrections takes pictures of them frequently. Um I did not realize he had dreadlocks until yesterday when I saw that first picture. It's my understanding that when he ran, he was in dreadlocks and he had those tied back. Um It's quite likely and probable that he's cut those, but we don't know that we can't say that with any degree of certainty. So I would ask the public to concentrate on the photograph of his face and all the iterations of his hair so that if they see him and it has changed, they'll know that it's him March. He has a very distinguishing mark tattoo on his chest and it is um the word flame, which is that I'm told a nickname and it's done in dots and right in the center of that word flame is a star. Um The other than that, I think there's a tattoo on his right arm, niece, the word niece on his right arm. Other than that, I'm not familiar with any other tattoos, scars left the jail when they made it to the, the so the timeline I can give you is that he arrived or the the escape happened at 7:01 a.m. As for when he left, uh we're gonna be back here today at four for our next press briefing and unless something happens before then and I'll have a more detailed timeline by then about. Uh and I just wasn't prepared for that question. I apologize uh for when they left when they arrived so forth. You said that you were talking to the two transport officers. Has anybody been put on suspension or any? No, ma'am, we're offering them support. Uh One more question, Sheriff, as you mentioned, the calls and tips that were coming in, obviously, media, media getting them as well. We received a few that he possibly were spotted in the Timber Lake area, any belief or any substance to the fact that he could have been traveling in that direction. So I'll say this since he left the hospital, everything indicates uh the northern push. Um We received a call last night that he was at Big Lots in Durham. Um We received another call that might suggest that he was in another area in Durham. Um there was some discussion about him being in another part of the state. Um I cannot put any degree of certainty with any of those. Um, we, uh we do have a team that's going to some of these locations. Look at cameras there and I wanna really emphasize cameras. Our neighborhoods are, are riddled with ring cameras and I just wanna, you know, plead to the public. If you're in that area of, of interest, it's Hillsborough, uh especially around the hospital in these neighborhoods. Please check your ring cams. You know, I got one, I don't look at it every day. It doesn't give me alerts every day. But if I take the time to go back and look at what happened on Thursday, maybe I could. So I would ask the public to please do that, whether it's a ring cam or other kind of surveillance equipment, you might have to please check that for us and let us know and remind everyone about the, the $35,000 reward. And again, remind one of the 911, 324919324, 1082 1082 tip line. Uh for those calls, got a question share. Uh Again, a lot of folks locally will remember Ramon also name develop a type of, I went to high school with his father. I went to, I went to all school with his father first through and I've known Ramon since he was born. He was a, um, he was a troubled child and he was, he's been involved in criminal activity since he was a juvenile. He's extremely cagey. He's extremely dangerous and he has nothing to lose. Thank you all very much. We appreciate you.

Law enforcement gives update on escaped inmate convicted of murdering 1-year-old girl

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