Deundray Cottrell, a 31-year-old Black/African American man, traveled from Atlanta to Birmingham, Alabama, for the Fourth of July holiday in 2024, spending the celebration with relatives and friends at a family member’s home in the South East Lake area. Cottrell, who worked in marketing and was pursuing a doctoral degree, had come to Birmingham with Julian Taylor Morris, whom police later described as his romantic partner.
On the evening of July 4, Cottrell was at the residence in the 7900 block of 4th Avenue South when he suddenly disappeared. Family members said that during the fireworks he went to check on his dog and was not seen by them again.
As the evening unfolded, Cottrell’s family became increasingly alarmed. His sister said that a shoe and his cellphone were discovered outside the residence, circumstances that did not fit with him intentionally leaving for an extended period. Family members searched the surrounding neighborhood and obtained residential surveillance footage that appeared to show Cottrell moving quickly through nearby yards and climbing over a fence. His sister later described the footage as making it appear that he was trying to find refuge or escape from something. These impressions came from the family’s interpretation of the recordings rather than a police determination of exactly what Cottrell was experiencing at that moment.
Birmingham police were called that night after Cottrell could not be located, and officers opened a missing-person investigation. Detectives with the Special Victims Unit became involved, while patrol officers and relatives continued trying to reconstruct where he had gone. On July 5, officers searching around the area where he had last been seen recovered clothing belonging to Cottrell. A neighborhood resident also turned over surveillance footage showing him walking in the vicinity, giving investigators additional information about the direction he had traveled after leaving the family gathering.
The search ended tragically on Saturday, July 6, 2024. Officers searching near the 7800 block of 5th Avenue South discovered Cottrell’s body inside a detached shed behind an abandoned residence, only a short distance from the home where he had disappeared. The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office responded and notified his family. Police initially described the circumstances surrounding the death as suspicious while awaiting the findings of the medical examination. The following day, the Jefferson County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide. Later reporting based on medical and court records established that Cottrell died from asphyxiation or strangulation rather than a gunshot wound.
Attention quickly turned to Julian Taylor Morris. Birmingham police said Morris was believed to have been among the last people to see or hear from Cottrell before the disappearance and publicly sought him for questioning. Morris was initially identified only as a person of interest, not as someone who had been charged with a crime. Investigators asked the public for help finding him, and a reward was offered for information. Cottrell’s relatives also raised questions about Morris’s actions and statements during the hours after Cottrell vanished. His sister told news organizations that Morris gave accounts suggesting Cottrell had unexpectedly left the house, while relatives said they were troubled that Morris did not participate in the search in the way they expected. Those allegations represented the family’s recollections and suspicions and were not, by themselves, findings of guilt.
For more than two years, no arrest was announced in Cottrell’s killing. That changed in September 2026. Birmingham police announced that investigators had obtained a murder charge against Morris, by then 33 and identified as a resident of Jonesboro, Georgia. On September 14, 2026, U.S. Marshals located and arrested him in Miami, Florida. He was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami on an Alabama fugitive warrant and held without bond while awaiting extradition to Alabama. Birmingham authorities said Morris was charged with murder in connection with Cottrell’s death.
The arrest marked a significant change from Morris’s earlier status as a person of interest. Investigators have said that after Cottrell’s body was discovered, Morris stopped speaking with detectives, and the investigation continued until authorities developed sufficient evidence to pursue the murder charge. Publicly available reports have not yet disclosed the complete evidence underlying the charge or provided a full reconstruction of what prosecutors allege happened inside or near the abandoned property where Cottrell was found. Morris’s defense attorneys have maintained that authorities charged the wrong person, making clear that the allegations will be contested in court.
As of September 17, 2026, Morris’s arrest is the reported criminal action connected to Cottrell’s death. He faces a murder charge and was awaiting extradition from Florida to Alabama; no trial or conviction had been reported. The charge remains an allegation unless and until proven in court. For Cottrell’s family, the arrest came more than two years after a holiday visit turned first into a frantic missing-person search and then into a homicide investigation centered on the shed where his body was discovered only a short distance from his sister’s home.
