Victim’s aunt makes Macon killer a promise: ‘I’ll be the one’ to keep you in prison
A brief and yet poignant moment of drama unfolded last week in Bibb County Superior Court. It was as powerful as it was no doubt painful for a woman who stood before a judge and said her piece on behalf of a murdered loved one.
Minutes after jurors convicted her nephew’s killer on Thursday afternoon, Ramona Chapman told of the hardship that she and her family have endured in the wake of Michael Chapman’s death nearly three years ago.
Michael Chapman, 30, was shot to death on the evening of Sept. 15, 2018, outside a friend’s house on Burke Street in southeast Macon. He and the friend had been talking about cars, comparing notes on their 1989 Chevy Caprices, when an armed man strode up and opened fire.
The killer, Dequavious Jamal “D.J.” Howard, then 18, shot Michael Chapman in the culmination of what prosecutors described as a running feud over parking spaces at the Pendleton Homes housing project up the road on Houston Avenue.
Investigators said the mother of Howard’s baby had clashed with Michael Chapman days prior and that Howard apparently took matters into his own hands to, in his mind, even the score.
On Thursday, moments before Howard would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — plus an additional five years on a gun-possession charge — Michael Chapman’s aunt said her nephew had been like a son to her.
At one point, Ramona Chapman turned to Howard at the defense table and said, “This young man, he don’t know what he took from our family.”
She said her nephew had three sons that she and the rest of their kin will now have to raise without him.
“I just want to tell you,” she said, motioning to Howard, “I promise you, I promise you, when it’s time for (you) to come up for parole and everything, I’ll be the one ... who keeps (you)” from getting out.
A few minutes later, the judge in the case informed the just-convicted Howard, who turns 21 next month, that there would be no parole.
Instead, the judge told Howard that he would be spending the rest of his life behind bars.
This story was originally published May 18, 2021 at 1:50 PM.