A clerk at a convenience store near the apartment complex where two police officers were slain says she sold the suspect beer several times in the hours before the shooting.

Another person said she saw him talking with the officers moments before the gunfire erupted.

Two others said they saw him run through the apartment complex moments after the shooting, carrying a handgun.

Demeatrius Antonio Montgomery, 25, is being held in Mecklenburg County's uptown jail, charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the March 31 shootings of Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton.

Police have declined to discuss details of what happened when the officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at the Timber Ridge apartment complex off Milton Road. They say they are still piecing together what happened and do not want to jeopardize the investigation.

But the Observer has reconstructed more of what happened that night through interviews with residents at the east Charlotte apartment complex. The interviews shed light on when and why Montgomery might have been there that day.

Few residents said they knew the name of the man they saw that night. But at least three people say the man they saw in their neighborhood is the same person they now see in police mugshots displayed in news coverage.

Much remains unclear, however, about why that Saturday night ended in deadly violence.

Woman says suspect `calm'

Shauna Gibbs, who identifies herself as a distant relative, said Montgomery was at the complex that day, visiting her."I was together with him the whole damn day," Gibbs, 27, said. "He was with me. He was calm."

Montgomery lived with his maternal grandmother more than four miles away in southeast Charlotte near Mint Hill. But Gibbs said "Buddy" regularly visited her and other family members around the city.

That Saturday, Gibbs said, Montgomery was just hanging out with her and her kids. She has said he didn't have a gun with him. She said she doesn't allow guns or drugs around her six kids.

At the nearby KT Express Mart on Milton Road, clerk Veronica Jones said, she saw Montgomery come in at least four times between 6 and 10 p.m.

She didn't recognize him as a regular customer. But she remembers his hairstyle -- "little plaits" -- and the beard around his jawline. She later recognized him, she says, as the same man she has seen in the media.

"I know faces," Jones said.

One of the times the man came in, she said, he brought in a young child.

Each time, he bought a single 24-ounce can of Steel Reserve 211 beer, which costs $1.28 with tax, she said. Twice, he also bought five Airhead candies, which cost a quarter apiece. Sometimes he came up short, she said.

"He was quiet," she said.

She said police took the store's surveillance tape.

Residents at the complex also say they saw a man that afternoon they now identify as Montgomery, walking around the parking lot in the southeast corner of Timber Ridge.

That evening, Gibbs said, he started to cook her kids some hot dogs. He burned them a bit, she said, so she took over.

Domestic disturbance call

Nothing unusual happened until 10:26 p.m., when police were called about a domestic disturbance at the complex.

Kameka Young, 20, said she saw the police cars and went outside to see what was going on. She said she overheard the officers talking with a man who had been arguing with a woman about money.

Then another call came in. One of the officers told the man, Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

"They zoomed out of the parking lot," Young said.

Police have said the officers may have been called out on a more urgent matter. They have not released details about how long they may have been gone.

Young said she spotted a man in the parking lot, whom she saw more than once that afternoon, wearing a white tank top and jeans.

Now he was walking from Gibbs' building over to the building where the domestic dispute occurred.

He sat on the stoop, she said. "The whole time, he was by himself," she said. She later identified him as Montgomery.

Meanwhile, another resident also saw a man in a white tank top walk from Gibbs' building to the stoop. She does not want her name published, saying she has received threats. But she said it was the same man she has since identified as Montgomery.

The officers returned to the complex within about two minutes, Young said.

The other woman said she saw them talking with Montgomery. But she said she turned her head for a moment.

Bam, bam, bam. Residents reported hearing anywhere from two to five gunshots, fired in quick succession. Residents rushed to the two fallen officers to try to help.

Clark and Shelton appeared to have been shot in the head -- one in the back of the head, the other behind his right ear, witnesses have said. Police have said the officers' guns remained holstered, untouched.

Young, who was standing between two buildings, said she saw the man in the tank top she saw earlier. He was running through a playground at the complex. She said he was carrying a gun in his right hand.

A 14-year-old said she also saw a man running through the playground, with a gun in his right hand. She later said it was Montgomery.

In custody shortly after

Montgomery was taken into custody at 11:50 p.m., less than 40 minutes after the shooting, according to jail documents. Police won't comment on the timing but said he was detained at The Plaza and McBride Street. Police have said the earlier domestic call was unrelated to the shooting.Power lines, with open space underneath, run about a mile from Timber Ridge to the area where he was taken into custody.

When asked why Montgomery might have been near The Plaza and McBride after the shooting, Gibbs said he has family in that area. "That's how Buddy goes," she said. "When he leaves here, he goes and sees his other cousins."

Back at the apartment complex where the officers were shot, police had arrived and escorted Young into a patrol car. They then drove her to McBride and The Plaza. She said she was asked to look at a man in the back of a squad car and tell them whether it was the same man she saw running with the gun.

She said it was. She also now says it was Montgomery.

Just before 2 a.m. a WCNC camera crew filmed Montgomery, wearing a white tank top, being taken into police headquarters in uptown. He wasn't charged for another 19 hours.

Detectives return to complex

Throughout Friday, six days after the shooting, people stopped by the grassy spot at the complex where Shelton and Clark fell. The impromptu memorial that started last Sunday had grown from a few bouquets and notes to include a bundle of red and blue balloons, tulips and Easter lilies.

After dark, a handful of officers stopped by to pay respects.

But homicide detectives were also at the complex Friday night, back to search the second-floor apartment where Montgomery was visiting last weekend.

Gibbs, the woman who lives there, said she had already given them permission to search her home and vehicle several times earlier in the week.

"I ain't done nothing," she said when she arrived at the complex with detectives already in her home. "I feel I'm a prisoner already."

She said she didn't know what they hoped to find.

"I don't know what happened when he left here," Gibbs said. "Buddy would do nothing like that."

Flashes of light filled the apartment as crime scene technicians photographed the home. A sergeant sorted through a bag of trash on the balcony.

Gibbs' father stood with his daughter as she waited for investigators to finish searching the home. He, like others who know Montgomery, said he can't make sense of what Montgomery is accused of doing.

"The times I've met him, he's been quiet ... not being rambunctious and wild like some young people are," Lance Gibbs said.

"I really don't think he did it. I could be wrong."

About the Suspect

Demeatrius Antonio Montgomery, 25, grew up away from his mother for most of his life. Then she died in a house fire in northwest Charlotte in March 2003.

His father was married to another woman when Montgomery was born in 1981, birth and marriage records show. The father moved around with the military. He has declined to comment.

For a while after dropping out of South Mecklenburg High at the end of 11th grade, Montgomery lived in Colorado, staying with his aunt and her family.

He also has lived with the mother of his two children, but she now appears to live out of state.

Montgomery has been charged with misdemeanor charges only in his adult criminal record, N.C. and Colorado court records show.

But since he turned 16 he has been involved in confrontations with authority. He has been convicted three times for assault -- once on a female and twice on a government official. He also has been convicted three times for resisting an officer.

He also has an outstanding warrant in Colorado, El Paso County court officials said, because he missed a court date there following a domestic violence charge involving the mother of his children. Have a Tip?

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police ask that anyone who saw the shooting or has information to call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600. Tipsters may remain anonymous.

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