When he stumbled across a makeshift music video shoot, Youtube and Snapchat influencer Stephen Morrison had no idea he would be stabbed to death by a stranger in a brutal confrontation
Within minutes of stumbling across a music video shoot, Stephen Morrisson was knifed to death by a complete stranger – then his killer laughed about it.
For six years, it seemed like the boastful offender had got away with murder. But today, he has been jailed for life with a minimum of 28 years.
On 23 June in 2020, Drill rapper Ellis Heather was filming a ‘carefully planned’ music video with fellow rapper Yonas Girma, 29, known as Yosh, when Morrisson turned up. Big python snakes and a Komodo dragon were being used as props for the makeshift shoot, where Heather and Girma worked alongside a videographer, technical assistants, models and extras.
Morrisson, a content creator known as Zero Ls, meaning zero losses, was already in the Wake Valley Pond car park in Epping Forest, Essex, when filming began. The victim often appeared in music videos with his brother – a rapper known as Morrison who has enjoyed success in the UK singles and R&B charts.
Jurors heard Morrisson had been acting “a bit weird” shortly after he arrived, banging his head on a tree and driving at members of the group. It was in that chaotic moment that the music video turned into a bloody murder scene.
A witness told the court that Heather, who was wearing a stab vest on the shoot, was enraged by Morrisson’s erratic behaviour and stabbed him in the torso during a chilling confrontation. Morrisson fled the scene, bare-chested and covered in blood, and died in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel two hours later at about 10pm.
Just hours after delivering the fatal blow, Heather, also known as Rackz, began to openly brag about his crime. He partied with friends, laughing as they listened to music by his victim’s brother, and even recorded his own boastful drill song goading those who knew the man he’d stabbed to death.
Days after Morrison’s death, a woman who had been on the video shoot called 999 to report she had heard Heather was responsible. As the killer rapper drove away, his victim had blood dripping down his neck, jurors heard.
The woman later travelled with Heather to a rural area where it was alleged he disposed of the murder weapon and then threw a blood-stained cloth from the car. The witness, who had a brief relationship with Heather, said that he became ill while they were travelling at speeds of up to 70mph.
He asked her to take the wheel before he was sick out of the window, she said. Asked why he was feeling ill, he told the woman “this is my first M”, said to be slang for murder.
Police used CCTV and ANPR cameras to trace Morrisson’s murderer to the scene and arrested Heather and Girma weeks later, but it was not until July 2025 that they were charged. Girma was found not guilty of murder and is now a wildlife influencer.
During the investigation, detectives trawled through lyrics in Heather’s songs, that had verses such as “OL got wet and he’s dead (Wet, wet, wet, wet), I see a man get stabbed and start holding his neck”.
Last month, Heather was found guilty of the frenzied knife attack. During the four-week trial, jurors were not told he was a member of the west London gang CGM – also known as 1011, nor that he was a drill rapper.
Members of Morrisson’s family, including his brother – who is also Lauren Goodger’s ex boyfriend – sat in court throughout and the trial burst into tears as the guilty verdict was handed down.
The BBC revealed after the verdict that Heather is already serving a prison sentence of seven years and nine months for firearms offences, imposed in July 2023, after a dramatic police chase through London.
Morrison had also spent time behind bars in 2012, when he was jailed following a burglary in which a live-in gardener at an Essex cannabis factory died after falling through a roof, reports The Sun.
During a sentencing hearing today, Friday, July 17, at the Old Bailey His Honour Judge Lickley KC said Heather was “armed with a knife… and had used it to deadly effect” and that he had “stabbed Stephen without any justification… in a moment of extreme violence” and had left the scene with no concern for Stephen.
