A Burlington woman accused of helping a North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections prisoner evade the law after escaping from a transport vehicle made her first appearance in court on Monday afternoon.

After having been arrested, made bond and released the prior week, Jacobia Crisp presented at the Orange County courthouse in the first public appearance on charges since 30-year-old Ramone Alston was re-captured by authorities on Friday. The 32-year-old Crisp faces a charge of felony aiding and abetting a fugitive and a charge of felony harboring an escape.

Around 7 a.m. on August 13, Alston ran from a transport vehicle as it was arriving to UNC Hospitals’ Hillsborough campus for a medical appointment. The inmate evaded an extensive ground search conducted by local and state authorities for more than 24 hours before it was suspended the afternoon of August 14, with law enforcement arrested him in a Kannapolis hotel during the early morning hours on Friday, August 16.

Alston, who is serving a life sentence over the 2015 killing of an infant in Chapel Hill, was being kept at a state detention facility in Windsor, N.C. before his escape. Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said following Alston and Crisp’s arrests on Friday the pair developed a relationship over the phone while Alston was in prison. The nature of their relationship beyond that, though, is still under investigation and local authorities have yet to share any more details publicly. Investigators have also yet to share specific details on Crisp’s involvement with Alston’s escape and hiding from law enforcement.

According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the maximum time Crisp could be imprisoned on her charges is five years — in which any past criminal record would be taken into account. Several Triangle-area television stations reported Monday her prior record includes minor traffic violations, but nothing more. District Attorney Jeff Nieman committed last week to prosecute both Alston and any accomplices who helped him escape.

Crisp is next scheduled to appear in court on September 13.

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