FL Executes Convicted Killer In Death Of Wrong Man, Woman

RAIFORD, FL — Another Florida man has been put to death after being convicted of fatally shooting a man he thought killed his brother, and a woman, in December 1993, according to media reports.

Records from the Florida Department of Corrections show Michael B. Bell, 53, of Duval County, was executed at 6:25 p.m. Tuesday at the Florida State Prison after being sentenced on June 2, 1995 and spending 29 years on death row.

Bell died by lethal injection, decades after he was convicted of shooting and killing Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, the Associated Press reported.

The Death Penalty Information Center said Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

Before the deadly shooting, Bell spent months planning the death of the person he accused of fatally shooting his brother earlier in the year, People reported. He used his girlfriend to buy an AK-57 rifle and a 30-round magazine, People reported.

One night, he thought he saw a car belonging to the accused person parked near a liquor lounge, but unbeknownst to him, the car had been sold to West, both the Associated Press and People reported.

With the rifle, he then gathered two friends and waited for West, Smith and a second woman to leave a club before approaching the car and shooting, the Associated Press reported.

Bell fired 12 shots at West and four shots at Smith, People reported, citing court records.

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West died at the scene, and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman was not injured, and before he left the scene, Bell was convicted of shooting into a crowd, the Associated Press reported.

Bell was later convicted of three additional murders — a woman and her toddler son in 1989 and his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, the Associated Press reported.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in relation to those killings, People reported.

“Thank you for not letting me spend the rest of my life in prison," was Bell's last statement before he was executed, the Associated Press reported.

Bell is the eighth person to be executed in Florida, records showed.

With Bell’s death, the number of executions in the U.S. surpassed last year’s total with more than five months left on the calendar. The number of executions has largely trended downward nationally this century after peaking with 98 in 1999. From 1995 to 2006, there was an average of about 67 executions per year, the Associated Press reported.

The Associated Press contributed reporting and writing.

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