Tampa Bay Times18%
After random attack killed Clearwater Beach bicyclist, final defendant learns fate 13%
By Alexa Coultoff10%
7/13/2026, 10:35:43 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Authority, and Self-Serving Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.5% saturation with 203 hits. Analysis detected 1,501 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,397 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 29.4% and a BS Rank of 13% (13,823 of 15,743 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 87.80% of the article peer group.
In March, a jury decided that Savonne Morrison should not be charged with murder for driving the getaway car after his neighbor beat a Clearwater Beach bicyclist to death with a tire iron in 2022.
Instead, the 21-year-old was found guilty on a lesser charge of manslaughter, a second-degree felony that carries up to 15 years in prison.
But Morrison didn’t learn how many years he would spend in prison until Monday, after a lengthy sentencing hearing in which lawyers for both sides argued about whether his involvement in a prior violent felony warranted harsher penalties.
Two years before the manslaughter case, Morrison and two others were arrested for carrying out an armed carjacking.
They were sentenced as youthful offenders, which allows judges to cap maximum sentences at six years.
Morrison spent about a year in jail before he was sentenced to probation in June 2022.
Four months later, Morrison violated that probation when he left Pasco County and participated in the homicide of 49-year-old Jeffrey Chapman.
Pinellas-Pasco Judge Elizabeth Jack found him guilty of violating probation at a hearing in June.
On Monday, Assistant State Attorney Thomas Koskinas asked Jack to sentence Morrison to life in prison, citing a presentence investigation written by a probation officer that called Morrison a “danger to society.”
“You, Judge, have the opportunity today to protect society from this violent person,” Koskinas said.
“You heard the facts of the homicide, Judge, and today you’ve had the opportunity to hear about the carjacking.
Just four short months from the time of sentencing after receiving the break of a lifetime for a violent felony offense, that’s how the defendant rewarded the court.”
Defense attorney Jervis Wise argued that imposing a life sentence for the violation of probation would be a breach of Graham v.
Florida, a landmark U.S.
Supreme Court case that says sentencing juveniles to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
“We’re not asking that he get a slap on the wrist, but given the circumstances, the bottom of the guidelines is an appropriate punishment,” he said.
Jack had the choice to sentence Morrison to 15 years in prison for both cases.
Instead, she opted for 15 years on the manslaughter charge and 30 years on the carjacking charge to run consecutively.
An armed carjacking
Morrison was 15 when he and two others planned an armed carjacking of a peer.
Prosecutors began Monday’s hearing by having the lead detective on that case give the court an overview of what happened.
Pasco Sheriff’s Office Detective David Dacey said Morrison and Benji Joseph had been seeing the same girl.
On Dec.
29, 2020, Joseph got a text from her asking to be picked up in Land O’ Lakes.
When he arrived, a red Toyota sedan pulled up “nose to nose with him,” and three “armed, masked men hit him with a firearm,” Dacey said.
They collectively forced him out of the car.
The other defendants — one 16, one 18 — got in Joseph’s car and ran him over on their way out, causing severe cuts and rashes to his face, hands and stomach.
He was taken to the hospital, where he got eight stitches to reconnect his left ear to his head.
Dacey said he later reviewed text messages that showed Morrison telling the girl what to say to Joseph to get him to show up.
Joseph took the stand and said he was hit so hard he couldn’t move.
He said he still suffers from pain.
Wise said Morrison “accepted full responsibility at the time” and participated with law enforcement in telling them where Joseph’s car was and who the other two participants were.
“His ability to appreciate his actions was impaired because he was a juvenile,” Wise said.
“I don’t believe under the statute that life would be an appropriate penalty.”
A fatal bludgeoning
On Oct.
20, 2022, Morrison’s next-door neighbor asked for his help.
“Wyd (What you doing) I need you,” Jermaine Bennett texted him.
Then, Bennett said: “Imma come pick you up.
We about to get ghetto.”
When Morrison, then 18, got into the car, Bennett told him he was angry with his ex-girlfriend and wanted Morrison’s help beating up her new boyfriend.
They drove to her house, but she wasn’t home.
From the witness stand at Morrison’s trial, Bennett told jurors he lost it.
He began drinking and using cocaine.
He told Morrison to drive his Nissan Altima from Land O’ Lakes to downtown St.
Petersburg.
When they arrived, Bennett smashed random cars with a tire iron and encouraged Morrison to join, he said.
Then, they pulled over in front of Bob’s Carpet & Flooring on 22nd Avenue, where an older man was walking alone.
Bennett got out of the car and pretended to ask the man for directions before repeatedly striking him with the tire iron, prosecutors said.
Morrison stayed by the car.
John Budenas, 82, testified at the trial that he only remembered the first strike before he was knocked out.
He said Morrison did not participate in the beating but assisted Bennett by driving him away.
(Jurors found Morrison not guilty of aggravated battery on a senior.)
The pair drove to Clearwater Beach, where they spotted Chapman riding his bike on Mandalay Avenue.
Bennett jumped out of the car and knocked Chapman off the bike with the tire iron, and the pair took turns beating him to death, prosecutors said.
Surveillance footage from neighboring homes on the darkened street showed Morrison running out of the car with Bennett, then quickly running back.
Morrison pulled the car closer to the scene of the killing before driving himself and Bennett away, according to footage.
Forensic technicians testified that a likely match to Morrison’s DNA was found on Chapman’s jean pockets.
Chapman’s wallet was missing when police arrived.
Bennett, 30, pleaded guilty to the murder in May 2024 and is serving life in prison.
Prosecutors sought to impose the same sentence on Morrison.
‘What exactly would a third chance produce?’
In order to decide a sentence, Jack had to weigh Morrison’s participation in a series of violent crimes against his status as a juvenile offender in the carjacking case.
Before Jack handed down the sentence, Morrison’s mother and Chapman’s daughter gave statements.
LaVonne Morrison apologized to Joseph and his mother for the harm they suffered in the carjacking.
Joseph’s mother bowed her head in her lap with tears in her eyes.
She then read a statement on behalf of her husband, Shaun Morrison, who could not make the hearing due to a family emergency.
“No words can truly ease the pain that comes from losing someone you love.
Although I know that nothing can bring Mr.
Chapman back or ease the sorrow, I hope you can find strength in the memories you shared with him,” he wrote.
“I’m writing to ask you to look beyond the conviction and to see my son as a human being deserving of mercy, hope and the opportunity to rebuild his life.
He was a teenager influenced by older people than him.
Savonne did not share the intent that led to this tragedy.”
Chapman’s daughter, Sierra, read a statement over the courtroom phone.
“My father did not deserve to die the way he did.
He was doing one of the simplest things he loved: riding his bike,” she said.
“This was just a man living a quiet and humble life.
They were not capable of remorse that night — they were capable only of deciding how much damage was enough.
My father was murdered for sport.
If this is who he is when given a second chance, what exactly would a third chance produce?”
Tracy Lynn Hartig, a psychologist hired by the defense, gave testimony based on her two evaluations of Morrison from 2023 and a few months ago.
“It’s of significance to me was that he was the youngest person in both events,” she said.
“He is still in that developmental stage; his brain is still growing.
Because of that, there is still some time to do some work with him to change the trajectory of his life.”
As Jack issued a sentence of 45 years, Morrison’s family looked on from the courtroom pews with silent tears.
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