A man convicted of murdering a Jacksonville couple in 1993 in a revenge killing aimed at the wrong person has been scheduled to become the eighth man executed by lethal injection in Florida in 2025.
Bell was convicted in 1995 for gunning down Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith in a car outside a Jacksonville bar in a case of mistaken identity, believing West to be the man who killed Bell’s brother earlier that year. Prosecutors said Bell was unaware the real killer had sold his car.
In signing Michael Bell’s death warrant on Friday, June 13, Gov. Ron DeSantis matched the record of executions for one calendar year set by former governors Bob Graham in 1984 and Rick Scott in 2014, with six months left to go.
Bell is scheduled to be executed on July 15. The next person scheduled is Thomas L. Gudinas, on June 24. Gudinas was found guilty of raping and murdering a woman near a downtown Orlando bar in 1994.
7 in 6 months: Gov. DeSantis nears record as Florida ramps up executions in 2025
Prosecutor: Michael Bell killed couple in ‘law of the jungle’
According to court records, in June 1993, a man named Theodore Wright killed Lamar Bell in self-defense. Bells’ brother, Michael Bernard Bell, publicly swore revenge and plotted it for months, prosecutors said.
On Dec. 8, he bought an AK-47 rifle and ammunition through a girlfriend. The next night, he saw Wright’s yellow Plymouth. Bell returned with two friends and the rifle, found the car in the parking lot of a liquor lounge in Jacksonville, and waited until its owner came out, court records show.
Bell was unaware that Wright had sold the car to his half-brother, Jimmy West.
When West left the lounge with Tamecka Smith and another woman, Bell approached the car and fired 12 bullets into West and four into Smith at point-blank range, prosecutors said. Bell also fired at bystanders, riddling the front of the lounge, before driving to his aunt’s house and telling her, “Theordore got my brother and now I got his brother.”
West died at the scene and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman ducked and was uninjured.
Bell was arrested in 1994 and convicted for the murders in 1995. He was later convicted of three other murders: a woman and her toddler son in 1989 and his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the West-Smith shooting, the Associated Press reported.
Multiple appeals claiming incompetent counsel, violation of due process, and application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 Hurst v. Florida requiring a jury to find aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death sentence all failed.
When is Michael Bell scheduled to be executed?
If the execution happens as scheduled, Bell’s death is scheduled for 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
How many death row inmates has Florida executed?
From 1924 until May 1964, the state of Florida executed 196 people. There were no executions from May 1964 until May 1976.
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, but it was reinstated in 1976.
DeSantis is on track to set a new record for number of executions in Florida in a calendar year.
When is the next execution in Florida?
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is scheduled to be put to death on June 24.
He was convicted in 1995 for the murder of Michelle McGrath, whose battered body was found in an alley in downtown Orlando after prosecutors said Gudinas attacked after previously attempting to assault another woman who got away.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida execution of Michael Bell to be 8th in 2025. What to know