By Antonio Planas -
NBC News
An Alabama police department is under scrutiny after video showed a woman getting into one of their vans nearly two weeks before an officer found her dead inside the vehicle in Huntsville, a town 100 miles north of Birmingham.
City cameras recorded the woman, Christina Nance, 29, entering the van around noon
on Sept. 25, Huntsville Police Deputy Director Dewayne McCarver said at a news conference last Friday.
The vehicle was parked at the rear of the police department's public safety complex, authorities said.
City cameras recorded 29-year-old Christina Nance entering the van at around 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 25.
Nance got into the van because he was uninsured
, which violates department policy and "shouldn't have happened," McCarver said.
On October 7, an officer walked past the van and noticed some shoes next to it;
Nance's body was found inside, McCarver said.
The windows were open.
“What stresses us and hurts us is that… cars pass by.
People walk near the van, ”McCarver said.
"
We just wish she had yelled at someone or something, because there were, unfortunately, potential opportunities for this not to be a tragedy
."
The police van, which was purchased in 1995, was initially used to transport inmates to jail, he said.
It was recently used to transfer evidence that had to be destroyed in the resolved investigations.
The van was last used in March.
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"Due to its original design, it does not have handles on the inside because it was made to transport prisoners and inmates," McCarver added.
"You can't get out of the inside of the van," he explained.
Prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump represents the Nance family.
"We will get to the truth of what happened to him," Crump said in a statement Wednesday.
"We lift up Christina's family in prayer as they mourn this devastating loss," he added.
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Nance's family reported him missing on October 2
.
Investigators mistakenly believed that she was last seen on Sept. 27, McCarver said.
The error delayed the investigation, he said;
Researchers sat watching videos, minute by minute, for hours, to find out what had happened.
On September 25, before getting into the van, Nance was seen walking through the parking lot, lying in the bushes and sitting on the hood of a police car, police said.
Another video showed Nance opening the windows of the van on Sept. 28, McCarver said.
Investigators have no way of knowing what Nance's state of mind was before he got into the van or once inside
, McCarver said.
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The police department's Crisis Intervention Team worked with Nance "in the past to provide resources and different things," McCarver said
.
Police were "very familiar" with Nance
, he said, declining to provide details.