Latasha Roundtree

Latasha Roundtree

Cedar Rapids Police have arrested four young men in connection with a five-month old homicide investigation.

Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman says there’s still no “concrete” motive for the September 22 shooting death of 19-year-old Latasha Roundtree and more arrests are possible. Roundtree died at a hospital shortly after she was shot in the 600 block of 16th Avenue SW.

“This will not bring Latasha back, but hopefully this will be some closure to the Roundtree family,” Jerman said. Two 18-year-old men who are in custody are charged with first-degree murder; Tajh

Ross and Jeremiah Ellis. Two others, 20-year-old Liban Muhidin and 22-year-old Adrian Kenney, face lesser charges.

Roundtree’s father, Reggie Williams, said he thought the suspects were friends of his daughter and at least three of them were seen at memorial events following Latasha’s death. “That you can do that to a person you’ve been hanging with…that’s real surprising,” Williams said. Both Williams and Latasha’s niece, Lanajah Towns, said while the arrests bring a sense of relief, it doesn’t make life without Latasha any easier.

“It has been real hard and each day gets harder and harder,” Williams said. “She will be forever loved and she will never be forgotten,” Towns said. Latasha Roundtree was well known in eastern Iowa as she was a standout basketball player as a senior at Cedar Rapids Washington in 2011.

Roundtree had accepted an offer to play basketball at William Penn University in Oskaloosa, but she left college and returned to Cedar Rapids.

By Jill Kasperie, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids