“Revenge is a dish best served cold” they say, and now, a Florida man is paying the cold, hard price after he was convicted of murdering two innocent people when he was targeting someone else entirely.
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In June 1993, Michael Bernard Bell’s brother was killed by Theodore Wright in self-defense. According to reports, Bell had told family and friends how he would kill Wright for vindication, and sought out to do just that after buying an AK-47 and a 30-round magazine. In December that same year, Bell approached Wright’s car, a yellow Plymouth. Unbeknownst to Bell, Wright had sold his car to Jimmy West, his half-brother. When West returned to his car with two women, Bell fired a dozen shots at West and Tamecka Smith. Bell mistook West for his brother’s killer when he saw the car. The second woman managed to escape the spray of bullets unharmed. West died at the scene and Smith died on the way to the hospital.
After Bell fatally shot West and Smith, he let off rounds of bullets towards a crowd of onlookers standing outside of a bar. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Now, Bell was put to death himself on Tuesday (July 15).
The 54-year-old was given a lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Officials said Bell woke up at 6:30 a.m. and ate his last meal, which was bacon, orange juice, an omelet, and home fries. He did meet with a spiritual adviser, but did not have any other visitors. He was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. His last words? “Thank you for not letting me spend the rest of my life in prison,” per CBS News.
His lawyers argued his execution should be halted due to newly discovered evidence about witness testimony, but the U.S. Supreme Court denied Bell’s request.
Per the Associated Press, after he was convicted of killing West and Smith, he was found guilty of murdering three other people. He killed a woman and her toddler in 1989, and his mother’s boyfriend about four months before his revenge plot.
Bell marks the eighth execution this year in Florida– who has the most executions than any other state this year, CBS News reports. Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Bell was the 26th person put to death in America this year, the Death Penalty Information Center reports, surpassing 25 nationwide in all of 2024 and the most since 25 in 2018.
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