Hit-and-run suspect pleads not guilty in fatal I-75 wreck

The 18-year-old driver of a car police say fled from the scene of a fatal chain-reaction crash on Interstate 75 this week is free on $200,000 bond after pleading not guilty to a pair of connected charges.

Jonathan Matos Morales, of Cocoa, was arrested April 21 at the Atlanta Braves baseball training facility in North Port. He stands charged with failure to stop or remain at a crash site involving death and negligent manslaughter-vehicle.

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Matos Morales had been a minor-league baseball player in the Braves’ organization until he was released from the team following the incident.

Police said a Ford Mustang GT changed lanes in the early morning hours of Tuesday, initially hitting another southbound vehicle near State Road 64, pushing it into the path of a semi-truck, which flipped. The driver of the truck, 34-year-old Stavan Albert Facey was killed.

After FHP troopers posted word that a Mustang had left the scene, officials at Cool Today Park contacted authorities saying a vehicle of that description was parked in their secured lot, with damage consistent with descriptions provided of the fleeing car. An attorney for the Braves relayed to investigators that Matos Morales drove the vehicle and that he lived in a dormitory on the premises, court documents show.

According to court documents, Matos Morales told investigators in a sworn interview that he was driving from his girlfriend’s house in Pasco County to a baseball workout when the incident took place around 6:30 a.m. Video from a witness' dash camera shows a Mustang slowing and accelerating several times in traffic, changing lanes several times before the incident takes place.

“Mr. Matos Morales stated he stopped to look at the damage, but on video he clearly leaves the scene without stopping,’’ the arrest report says. “Mr. Matos Morales stated he thought about calling 911, but never dd because he was scared to have that conversation with a cop. Mr. Matos Morales stated that he was panicking, shaking and called his girlfriend first to tell her that someone had tapped him on the side of his car when he was just trying to brake for someone that was in front of him.’’

Matos Morales was signed by the Braves as a free agent in July 2025 and was assigned to the organization’s rookie-league team in North Port and a winter-league team in Puerto Rico. He was release by the Braves on April 21. As a senior for Rockledge High, he was the Brevard County high school baseball player of the year in 2024.

Facey’s family in Volusia County has opened a GoFundMe page.