A Birmingham man became the suspect in an unsolved 2024 killing in the city when two people, one of them his own brother, came forward and told police he had confessed to them.

Christopher James Birl, 43, is charged with capital murder in the shooting death of 52-year-old Maurice Turner.

Birl was taken into custody in March when police say he was allegedly holding a woman against her will after sexually assaulting her.

He is also charged with rape, kidnapping and sodomy in connection to that assault.

Birl went before Jefferson County District Judge William Bell Wednesday for a preliminary hearing on the two unrelated cases.

When it ended, Bell ruled there was enough evidence against the suspect to send the cases to a grand jury for indictment consideration.

Birmingham homicide Det. John Finke testified for nearly an hour, sharing disturbing details in the rape that included two men – one of them allegedly Birl – holding down the victim and taking turns raping her.

Birl was arrested after barricading himself inside a southwest Birmingham house.

He was captured, Finke said, when he fell through the ceiling while hiding in the attic.

After Birl was taken into custody, he was charged with killing Turner, who was found dead on July 17, 2024 on the kitchen floor of his College Hills home.

North Precinct officers just after 1:30 a.m. that Wednesday responded to a Shot Spotter notification in the 800 block of Jasper Road.

The gunfire detection system registered 10 rounds fired there, which is off Eighth Avenue West.

Sgt. LaQuitta Wade said when police arrived at that location, they did not see anything amiss or anyone in need of help.

Then, at 1:51 a.m., police received a call of a person shot.

Police and Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service arrived, and pronounced Turner dead at 2:03 a.m.

Turner, a father of two daughters and a son, was in the kitchen when the shooter opened fire through the back door of the first-floor apartment.

The bullets shot straight through the home, putting holes in the front windows.

Turner’s roommate, a close friend of his, was inside his own room when he heard shots fired.

“The roommate stated that he was inside of his room and did not see anything,‘’ Wade said at the time of the homicide.

“Yet he heard something that sounded like fireworks and began to look around his apartment and noticed the victim lying unresponsive on the floor.”

Under questioning by Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Charissa Henrichs, Finke testified that when he arrived at the scene that morning, Turner was dead on the kitchen floor from multiple gunshot wounds including a fatal shot to the head.

 “There were zero shell casings,” Finke said, but forensics showed that multiple bullets had been fired into the kitchen door from the outside.

Despite the ongoing investigation, there were few clues or leads.

In August 2024, the department put out a plea to the public for assistance, including surveillance images showing a white SUV fleeing the scene. Finke testified that investigators have found no link between Birl and such a vehicle.

In February, someone showed up at police headquarters claiming to have information on Turner’s homicide. That person, the detective said, did not want to be identified and will not testify at a trial.

“The person stated Mr. Birl confessed to them about being involved in the homicide,” Finke testified.

At that point, Finke did a background check and discovered that Birl was on probation or parole for a previous crime.

Finke spoke with Birl’s probation or parole officer and learned that Birl had not shown up for scheduled visits for more than a year, which gave Finke an avenue to pursue a revocation against Birl so that detectives could interview him.

On March 14, Finke said he was on vacation when his supervisor called him and said that a man named Darius Harris had called and said he also had information about the Turner homicide.

Finke said he would set up an interview with Harris when he returned to Birmingham.

Hours later, however, police received a separate call from Harris stating a burglary was in progress report and that his brother – Birl – was in his house and wasn’t not supposed to be there.

When patrol officers arrived at the Nassau Avenue home, they initially deemed it to be a civil matter.

It was then that Harris told them he was supposed to talk to Finke about Birl being a possible suspect in Turner’s murder.

Officers called Finke again and put Harris on speaker phone.

Harris gave a statement right then, which gave officers enough probable cause to take Birl into custody on a 48-hour investigative hold for Turner’s slaying.

“Mr. Harris stated that, back in July 2024, Mr. Birl came up to him while he was in the yard and was talking to him about how he shot and killed somebody named Maurice” Finke testified.

The department’s SWAT team was nearby on a crime prevention detail, so those officers also responded to the home.

Harris gave police consent to go into his home.

The officers got to the last room in the house and realized it was barricaded, Finke testified. They called for whoever was in there to come out.

“That’s when the white female comes out of the back bedroom distraught and confused,” Finke said. “She’s taken out said and said she’s been held against her will and raped and had a gun pointed at her head.”

“She had marks around her neck,” the detective said. “She said she was held down by the rope.”

“That (the gun) makes the SWAT up the ante a little bit,” Fink said.

“They backed up and deployed a chemical agent and that’s when Mr. Birl falls out of the ceiling and lands on the ground.”

A subsequent search warrant of the house turned up a pistol and black “whip/rope-like device,” Finke said.

Investigators learned that Birl and the victim met on a bus near UAB Hospital earlier that day.

She was going to visit a family member and Birl got off the bus with her after both said they shared an “enjoyable” conversation.

Birl had a pistol with him so he couldn’t go into the hospital. Instead, Birl and the victim took a Lyft back to the Nassau Avenue house.

 “She said she started to feel uncomfortable because Mr. Birl got ‘handsy’ and she didn’t want to do anything,” Finke said.

“He then called for another person to come who was inside the residence to come into the room. She didn’t know someone else was there.”

Birl, she said, used the whip/rope to hold down the victim while the other man raped her. Then when that was over, the man held the victim down by the neck while Birl raped her, she told Finke.

Birl then forced her to perform oral sex on him.

 “She told them to stop several times,” Finke testified. “He stated he was going to kill her.”

The other man has not yet been identified.

A rape kit done on the victim at the hospital showed the presence of semen, Finke said.

Under questioning from Jefferson County Public Defender Charles Black, Finke said he interviewed Birl who told him he and the victim never had sex but “fooled around a little bit.”

He explained to Finke, in detail, that he had previously been stabbed, which had caused some physical sexual dysfunction.

Birl also told Finke he did not know Turner or what happened to him.

Black, after hearing the testimony, said he would leave it up to the judge’s discretion on whether to proceed with the case, which Bell did.

Birl, who has a lengthy criminal history, remains held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail.