Longview man gets 13 years in prison for 2024 shooting death<\/p>\n
Published 7:26 pm Monday, March 23, 2026<\/p>\n
A Longview man was sentenced Monday to 13 years in prison for a 2024 fatal shooting.<\/p>\n
Tavyon Stephenson, 20, pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge as part of a plea deal in the 188th District Court before Judge J. Scott Novy.<\/p>\n
Stephenson originally was charged with murder following the July 22, 2024, shooting death of Isaiah Dickson, 21, CBS19 reported. Stephenson and Dickson got into a fight at the Townhouse South Apartments in Longview after Dickson attempted to enter a vehicle, and Stephenson shot Dickson in the abdomen. Dickson died at a hospital.<\/p>\n
Witnesses told law enforcement that Stephenson said he didn\u2019t intend to shoot Dickson, CBS19 reported. However, he drove away from the scene without waiting for law enforcement to arrive. He was arrested the next day.<\/p>\n
Stephenson\u2019s defense attorney, David Hagan, negotiated the plea with prosecutors over the course of several months. Prosecutors were in consultation with the victim\u2019s mother as well.<\/p>\n
Joey Fenlaw, assistant Gregg County district attorney, said he believes the 13-year sentence would deliver justice.<\/p>\n
Stephenson has spent more than 600 days in the Gregg County Jail, and that time will be credited to his sentence, Fenlaw said. Stephenson will be eligible for parole in two years.<\/p>\n
Hagan said he and prosecutors sought a plea deal because the case had \u201cstrong arguments\u201d for self-defense or lesser offenses. The plea spared all parties involved the trouble of a trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened in this case was a tragedy,\u201d Hagan said. \u201cA person lost their life, and that was never my client\u2019s intent. The judgment is reflective of that. If we could go back in time, many choices would have been made differently on that day. We certainly express our remorse and our condolences to the family of the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fenlaw agreed that Stephenson was remorseful, which factored into the plea agreement negotiations.<\/p>\n
Fenlaw said the victim\u2019s mother wanted closure, which Stephenson\u2019s guilty plea provided \u2013 as much closure as a plea can provide grieving families, that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they ever get full closure,\u201d Fenlaw said. \u201cI think it helps to know that they can move on if the case is no longer pending. But at the same time, she\u2019ll never have her son.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI hate that this happened. I hate that a young man lost his life, and I hate that another young man\u2019s going to have to spend 13 years in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailiffs walked Stephenson out of the courtroom in shackles after his sentence was decided. His family members took pictures, waved to him and said they love him.<\/p>\n
\u201cLove you, too,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longview man gets 13 years in prison for 2024 shooting death Published 7:26 pm Monday, March 23, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-541430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}