A West Boca Raton man is facing five felony charges after Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigators say he kidnapped his girlfriend, fired a gun near her head, and strangled her unconscious during an hours-long ordeal that stretched across the county.
The Charges
Alexander Daniel Montague, 26, was booked on kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and domestic violence felony battery, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
How It Started
Deputies say the incident began before dawn when Montague spotted his girlfriend of two years riding in a white BMW near Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach. He got out of his white Tesla, threw water into the vehicle, and threatened to shoot her friends if she didn’t get into his car. She complied.
What Happened During the Drive
Investigators say Montague punched and kicked her repeatedly while confiscating her phone, and dragged her back into the vehicle by her hair when she tried to escape at a traffic light. At a secluded location near the Palm Beach Kennel Club, deputies say he retrieved a handgun from his trunk, fired it into the ground, and pointed it at her head while threatening to kill her.
How It Ended
Deputies say Montague later strangled her unconscious at a Tesla charging station near Delray Beach, and attempted to force five sleeping pills on her once they returned to their shared Boca Raton home. She escaped and was found during a welfare check by deputies. An exam at Bethesda Hospital found injuries consistent with a concussion, bruising, bite marks, and significant hair loss.
Where the Case Stands
Montague is currently under a mental health hold with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
The strangulation charge is the one to watch
Among the five felonies here, domestic battery by strangulation is the most significant, and not because of how it sounds. Strangulation is treated as a separate offense in Florida and most states because researchers studying domestic violence homicides found it to be among the strongest single predictors that a future assault will be fatal. A partner who has been strangled once is at dramatically elevated risk of later being killed by the same person, which is why the act was carved out from ordinary battery rather than left as one more way to inflict injury.
That reframes how to read this case. The kidnapping and the gunshot are the details that make it a story; the strangulation is the detail that makes it a forecast.
The mental health hold raises a real question
Montague is under a mental health hold rather than in ordinary pretrial custody, which is appropriate if he is in crisis and also creates a practical problem the system handles inconsistently. A hold is a treatment mechanism, not a detention one, and it operates on clinical timelines rather than the schedule of a criminal case. Where those two tracks hand off to each other is where victims most often lose visibility into whether the person who hurt them is still confined. Whether that handoff is managed well here is worth following, because it is the part of these cases that rarely gets reported after the arrest.
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