A routine traffic collision on an Interstate 59 exit ramp in Birmingham turned deadly when a verbal argument between the drivers escalated to gunfire. Willie Robert Morgan, 55, was shot following the fender bender and later died of his wounds. The other driver was identified as 37-year-old Leon Ruffin.

Birmingham Police located and arrested Ruffin within hours, with assistance from the department’s Realtime Crime Center and a special enforcement team. Ruffin was taken into custody at a residence in Pleasant Grove and charged with capital murder; he is being held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail.

Was anyone in the Birmingham area on that exit ramp that day who noticed the collision or the altercation between the two men?