Birmingham man charged with killing pregnant ex-girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter, wounding brother

A Birmingham man has been charged with killing his ex-girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter and injuring her younger brother.

Lee Otis Montgomery III, 27, is charged with capital murder in the Thursday shooting death of Cornelia Rose Lathan. He is also charged with aggravated assault/attempted murder and discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling.

Montgomery was booked into the Jefferson County Jail at 3:04 p.m. Friday and is being held without bail. Warrants against him were obtained Friday morning.

The fatal shooting happened shortly before 12:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 500 block of 25th Street North at the Park Place Apartments.

Officers were called to the apartment earlier Wednesday, Chief Scott Thurmond confirmed. They responded to a domestic disturbance that was verbal, not physical.

Thurmond said there had been previous domestic calls to the apartment.

A few hours later, just before 12:30 p.m., police said the woman’s ex-boyfriend who lived in the apartment returned. He stood in the parking lot and opened fire.

Witnesses said they heard three to four gunshots and then saw the suspect run away.

Cornelia was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:25 p.m

Her 5-year-old brother was shot in the leg and taken to Children’s of Alabama. His injuries are not life-threatening.

The children’s mother, who is pregnant, was later transported by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service to an area hospital for observation.

Montgomery was quickly taken into custody after a brief manhunt in Woodlawn. He was arrested in the 6000 block of First Avenue North.

The chief praised the quick arrest of the suspect.

“This shows when the Birmingham Police Department receives information and can act on it, how quickly we get people off the streets and into custody to make our city safer,” he said. “There are a lot of men and women who worked hard today to get this individual off the streets of Birmingham and I’m extremely proud of them and can’t thank them enough for their sacrifice and hard work every day.”

Court records show Montgomery was arrested last year on a third-degree domestic violence charge involving the same woman. Charging documents show he punched the victim in the side of the head and shoulder.

The charge was later dismissed for “lack of prosecution”.

Thurmond called the fatal shooting “heinous.”

“We’ve got kids out of school trying to enjoy the summer and we’ve got somebody so angry that they think they have to take violence into their own hands and shoot up an apartment.”

“We keep seeing these things in our city over and over again,” Thurmond continued. “It’s people who know each other and it’s very sad to see that continue.”

Cornelia is the 70th murder in Birmingham this year. Of these, seven were found to be justifiable and are therefore not considered criminal.

In all of Jefferson County, there were 93 homicides, including the 70 in Birmingham.