Jeffrey Lee Blevins, 56, was shot to death outside his apartment at the Fountain Place Apartments on North Wilson Avenue in Bartow on March 26, 2026. He was on the phone with his mother when she heard him fall; his sister, who lived with him, found him in a pool of blood. Officers arrived within minutes and he was taken to Bartow Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead shortly before midnight. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators from the Bartow Police Department and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office identified a neighbor, 48-year-old David Richard Morris, who lived in the apartment above Blevins. Witnesses told police Morris had been aggressive toward tenants, had a prior confrontation with Blevins, and sometimes bragged about his gun while using methamphetamine. A 9mm handgun with apparent blood was recovered from a backpack in Morris’s closet, and ballistic testing linked a casing at the scene to that firearm. Morris was arrested March 28, 2026, on charges of second-degree murder without premeditation and discharging a firearm in a residential area and was denied bond on the murder charge at his first court appearance.

Are there neighbors or visitors from Fountain Place Apartments who remember interactions between Blevins and Morris or who saw anything the night of March 26?