Alabama Woman Found Dead In Police Van Was Locked Inside For Days, Lawyer Wants 'The Truth'

The police department in Huntsville, Alabama, is facing questions after a video showed a woman entering a rarely used police van in the department's parking lot nearly two weeks before an officer had found her dead inside.

Christina Nance, 29, is seen entering the vehicle in the early afternoon of Sept. 25. She was found dead inside the van on Oct.7 by an officer, Huntsville Police Deputy Chief Dewayne McCarver said Friday at a news conference.

Security footage was discovered on Oct. 15, which shows Nance wandering the parking lot and lying in bushes right before she was seen entering the vehicle. It appears that she “popped” opened a window to get inside, McCarver explained.

The police vehicle has not been used since March and was purchased in 1995. It was once used to transport inmates so there are no handles from the inside to get out. The department has since kept it to be used to transport evidence to be destroyed, according to officials.

“Because of its original design, it does not have handles on the inside because it was made for transporting prisoners and inmates,” McCarver said. “You cannot exit from the interior of the van.”

McCarver admitted that Nance was able to get inside the vehicle because it was unlocked, but that it "shouldn’t have happened."

“What stresses us and pains us, … cars go by. People walk near the van,” McCarver said. “We just wish she would have hollered out to someone or something because there were, unfortunately, potential opportunities for this not to be a tragedy.”

Nance and her family are being represented by famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump. They are awaiting toxicology tests on Nance’s official cause of death.

So far there are no signs of “foul play or trauma,” according to an autopsy performed by Coroner Dr. Tyler Berryhill.

“We will get to the truth of what happened to Christina Nance, the young Black woman found dead in the police van in front of the Huntsville Police Department,” Crump said in a statement. “We lift up Christina’s family with prayer as they mourn this devastating loss.”