VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Author's note: The video above is on file from March 15, 2022.
Jason Jablonski, a former Navy sailor who initially faced murder charges that were later reduced to voluntary manslaughter, was sentenced on Tuesday in Virginia Beach Circuit Court.
According to a spokesperson for the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney, he will serve five years and eight months in prison.
He was officially sentenced to 10 years, but some of that time was suspended.
Jablonski pleaded guilty to the charges back in October of 2022.
The violence unfolded on March 11, 2022, at the Eastwyck Village Apartments in Virginia Beach. Residents found a man lying face-down in a breezeway area and called police. When officers got to the scene, they found Herbert Bryant, 45, dead.
Upon investigating, police charged Jablonski with second-degree murder and Heather Totty with accessory to murder after the fact, according to previous coverage.
Court documents reveal that Jablonski got into a fight with Bryant the night prior while "on a crack bender." Documents say Jablonski beat Bryant with a dumbbell and then pushed it down on his neck until he stopped moving.
An autopsy performed confirmed that Bryant died from asphyxiation due to blunt force head trauma and a stab wound on his right shoulder.
The documents say that Totty then helped to drag Bryant's body outside and attempted to clean up the scene. They go on to say she collected all of Bryant's stuff in a bag, which officers found in a dumpster.
Totty was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months of that suspended, back in August of 2022.