Video shows Christina Nance in Huntsville police van 12 days before her body was found
Huntsville AL October 16 2021
Huntsville police said video from a surveillance camera appears to show Christina Nance entered the van at the city’s public safety complex 12 days before her body was discovered.
Police showed the video to members of the media during a news conference this afternoon. Police Chief Mark McMurray said Thursday they would release the video after members of Nance’s family had seen it.
“The Huntsville Police Department’s thoughts are with the family during this tragedy,” McMurray said in a statement. “Investigators met with the family Friday morning and showed them the security video of the events leading up to Ms. Nance’s death. We will continue to work with them through this difficult time.”
Authorities said an officer walking to a police car found Nance’s remains in an old, unused police van parked at 815 Wheeler Ave. on Oct. 7. Nance was not in police custody at the time of her death.
Madison County Coroner Tyler Berryhill said this week that an autopsy of Nance’s body showed no signs of foul play or trauma. The official cause of death is currently pending further studies, including toxicology analysis, by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Deputy Chief Dewayne McCarver said during the news conference that the security video came from a camera on the public safety building, which showed a parking lot with the police van to the extreme right. The video shows a figure police believe is Nance walking through the rear corner of a parking lot used only by police officers. The area is cordoned off by a crossbar for vehicles but allows pedestrians to walk through.
For a brief portion of the video played at the conference, timestamped for Saturday, Sept. 25, reporters saw a lone figure walking slowly through the parking lot. At one point, the person sits on the hood of a police car. Later, the person is seen walking among bushes at the lot’s edge.
Though the video is timestamped about 12:39 a.m., the time was actually 12:39 p.m., police said.
Then the person walks behind the van. McCarver said investigators believe at this point, Nance entered the van, which had not been used since March. The van was purchased in 1995 and had formerly been used to transport inmates. It has also been used to carry evidence released by courts to be destroyed after its use in trial. Because the van had formerly been used for inmate transportation, it was possible for a person to open the van doors from the outside, but not possible to open them from the inside, McCarver said. It is department policy that vehicles should be locked, he said.
At other portions of the video, McCarver said, motion can be seen in the van, which had windows that could be popped outward instead of raised and lowered. One unanswered question is why no one heard Nance attempt to call to anyone for help. The lot usually sees a lot of activity, with officers entering and leaving through the day and night, he said.
“We wish she would have called out to someone,” he said. “There were opportunities for this to not be a tragedy…we have no idea of knowing what her state of mind was.”
Nance’s family reported her missing on Oct. 2, telling police she had last been seen on Sept. 27. However, movement was detected in the van on that day, McCarver said. Movement was last seen inside the van on the video on Tuesday, Sept. 28, police said.
“We really had to watch two weeks of surveillance,” he said. “We worked our way back to the 27th, and then as we reviewed the video, we realized she was there, and we had to then start working our way back again.”
Nance’s body was discovered on Thursday, Oct. 7, when an officer discovered Nance’s shoes on the ground outside one of the open windows, then spotted her body inside, McCarver said.
McMurray also said the department had been working with Nance’s family for more than a year through the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), a program designed for first responders who handle crisis calls involving people with a mental health condition.
Nationally known civil rights attorney Ben Crump is now representing Nance’s family. Relatives of Nance held a press conference in Huntsville Sunday, saying they questioned the circumstances surrounding her death.
Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, in a statement this afternoon, said, “Our hearts go out to the family of Christina Nance as they grieve and we hope that as this investigation continues, that it will provide them a sense of closure. In light of the many unanswered questions surrounding her death, there should be an independent autopsy and the investigation needs to be thorough and comprehensive.”
“Hopefully, many of the questions raised by the community and the family of this young woman will be answered. We need to fully understand what happened to Ms. Nance so that we may prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future.”
