James Otis Holmes was a 21-year-old Black man from Birmingham whose body was found in the early hours of November 7, 2012, in the yard behind a home on the 4800 block of Terrace R in Ensley. Sanitation workers on their route discovered him; police later said he had been shot in the head and neighbors reported hearing several gunshots hours earlier. Detectives described the scene as one that left them trying to reconstruct his final movements from limited neighborhood leads.

Holmes had previously been arrested in January 2011 with J’Andre Cockrell in connection with the death of 49-year-old transient Donald Durr Jr. Accounts say Holmes had pleaded guilty in that earlier case before he could be sentenced.

If anyone saw Holmes in Ensley on November 6–7, 2012, or has information about his last hours, please share what is known.