Savonne Morrison was convicted of manslaughter after prosecutors said a nighttime crime spree ended with the random killing of Jeffrey Chapman.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A Florida man convicted of manslaughter in the killing of a bicyclist on Clearwater Beach was sentenced to 45 years in prison, closing the case against the second of two men accused in a violent overnight crime spree that ended with 49-year-old Jeffrey Chapman dead on a roadside.

Savonne Morrison, 21, received 15 years for manslaughter and another 30 years for violating probation stemming from a separate 2020 carjacking case, according to reports from his July 13 sentencing hearing. The prison terms were ordered consecutively. The judge also imposed time served for a criminal mischief conviction. Morrison had originally faced a first-degree murder charge in Chapman’s death, but a jury in March rejected that charge and found him guilty of the lesser manslaughter offense after about five hours of deliberation.

The sentencing hearing brought together two cases from different points in Morrison’s young life. Prosecutors emphasized that he was already on probation for the earlier violent carjacking when Chapman was killed during the overnight hours of Oct. 20-21, 2022. The defense asked the court for a substantially shorter sentence, pointing to Morrison’s youth at the time of his earlier offense and disputing the prosecution’s view of his responsibility in Chapman’s death. The competing arguments left the judge to weigh the jury’s lesser verdict against a record that prosecutors said showed an escalating pattern of violence.

Chapman’s daughter, Sierra Chapman, urged the court to impose a severe punishment. She described her father as a quiet, compassionate man who had been doing something ordinary when he encountered Morrison and Jermaine Bennett on Clearwater Beach. She told the court her father had been “murdered for sport” and stressed that Morrison had already received leniency in his previous case. Her statement focused not only on the loss of her father but on what she viewed as the failure of an earlier opportunity to keep Morrison from returning to violent conduct.

The killing occurred after investigators said Morrison and Bennett spent part of the night damaging vehicles in St. Petersburg. Police said cellphone video documented windows and other parts of vehicles being struck with a tire iron. Authorities later connected the pair to the beating of a 79-year-old man in St. Petersburg that same night. Roughly an hour later, investigators said, the two had traveled north to Clearwater Beach, where Chapman was riding a bicycle on Mandalay Avenue. Police have said Chapman did not know the men and was not targeted because of any prior dispute.

According to the initial police investigation and arrest allegations, Chapman was knocked from his bicycle and tried to get away before the attack continued. Bennett was accused of repeatedly striking him with the tire iron. Officers responding to the scene found Chapman dead. Surveillance video and information connected to the vehicle used that night helped detectives identify suspects, authorities said. Bennett later acknowledged to investigators that he had repeatedly hit Chapman, according to reports citing the police investigation.

The digital evidence became another significant piece of the case. Police said Morrison sent Bennett a link to news coverage of Chapman’s death after the attack. Investigators said Bennett responded with dismissive language and later sent messages including “we did it” and a reference to the pair as “legends.” Authorities also said Bennett’s phone contained video from the earlier vandalism. The messages were cited by police when they publicly described the events as a senseless crime spree. They also helped investigators construct a chronology tying the St. Petersburg incidents to the killing in Clearwater.

Bennett’s case was resolved before Morrison went to trial. Bennett pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2024. Morrison, however, took his case before a jury. Prosecutors argued that his participation made him criminally responsible for Chapman’s death even though Bennett was identified as the man who delivered the fatal blows. Morrison’s defense contested the extent of that responsibility. The jury ultimately declined to convict Morrison of first-degree murder and instead returned a manslaughter verdict, creating a substantial difference between the two men’s convictions and sentences.

At Morrison’s sentencing, the prosecution returned to the case that had placed him on probation in the first place. Morrison was 15 when he participated in a 2020 carjacking. The victim in that case, Benji Joseph, appeared at the sentencing hearing and described being pulled from his vehicle, struck and left in the roadway before being run over with his own car. Morrison had been sentenced as a youthful offender and was later released on probation. Prosecutors told the court the killing of Chapman occurred only months after that probation began, an argument they used to oppose another lenient sentence.

Morrison’s lawyer, Jervis Wise, urged the judge to look at the circumstances differently. He argued for a 15-year sentence and pointed to Morrison’s age during the carjacking, while also telling the court there was evidence relevant to Morrison’s state of mind and actions during the Chapman case. Members of Morrison’s family asked the court for mercy. His mother, Lavonne Morrison, expressed condolences to the victims and their families while arguing that her son should retain an opportunity to rebuild his life. A letter from Morrison’s father disputed what he viewed as a portrayal of his son that did not reflect the person the family knew.

Those pleas came against the sharply different account offered by Chapman’s family. Sierra Chapman told the court her father was simply riding his bicycle, an activity he enjoyed, when strangers crossed his path. She described him as patient, wise and kind. The absence of any known relationship between Chapman and the two men has remained one of the case’s defining facts. Police said from the beginning that the attack appeared random, and investigators did not identify a personal dispute that would explain why Chapman became the victim.

The case drew attention in part because the investigation linked several incidents across Pinellas County during a short period. Police described vandalized vehicles in St. Petersburg, the serious assault of an older man and then Chapman’s death in Clearwater. Investigators used cellphone recordings, surveillance video, vehicle information and communications between Morrison and Bennett to connect events that initially occurred in different jurisdictions. That evidence allowed authorities to present the killing not as an isolated confrontation but as the fatal end of a series of destructive and violent acts.

Morrison’s manslaughter verdict also marked an important distinction between what prosecutors alleged when he was arrested and what jurors were willing to find beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. He had been charged with first-degree murder alongside Bennett, but the jury chose the lesser offense. The sentencing court nevertheless had to consider the separate probation violation from the carjacking case, allowing the judge to impose punishment connected to both episodes. The resulting 45-year total was therefore not a single 45-year manslaughter sentence: it combined 15 years for Chapman’s death with 30 years arising from the violation of probation in the earlier case.

With Morrison sentenced and Bennett already serving life without parole, the principal criminal cases arising from Chapman’s killing have now reached sentencing. For Chapman’s family, the hearings provided a final opportunity in these prosecutions to describe the man they lost and the effect of a killing authorities have consistently characterized as random. Morrison now faces decades in state prison, while Bennett remains under a life sentence for first-degree murder.

Author note: Last updated August 21, 2026.