A man who shot and killed a couple outside a Florida bar in a failed revenge plot awaits execution on Tuesday in Starke, Fla.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is set for lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke unless a last-minute reprieve is granted. Convicted in 1995 for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, Bell received a death sentence.
Bell’s execution will be the eighth in Florida this year, with another planned before the month’s end. The state executed six individuals in 2023, while only one execution occurred the previous year.
Twenty-five men have already been executed in the U.S. this year, tying last year’s total.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma has killed two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee each have killed one.
In December 1993, Bell spotted what he thought was the car of the man who fatally shot his brother earlier that year, according to court records. Bell was apparently unaware that the man had sold the car to West.
Bell called on two friends and armed himself with an AK-47 rifle, authorities said. They found the car parked outside a liquor lounge and waited. When West, Smith and another woman eventually exited the club, Bell approached the car and opened fire, officials said.
West died at the scene, and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman escaped injury. Witnesses said Bell also fired at a crowd of onlookers before fleeing the area. He was eventually arrested the next year.
Bell was later convicted of three additional murders. He fatally shot a woman and her toddler son in 1989, and he killed his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, officials said.
Attorneys for Bell have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argued in their state filing that Bell’s execution should be halted because of newly discovered evidence about witness testimony. But justices unanimously rejected the argument last week and pointed to overwhelming evidence of Bell’s guilt in a 54-page opinion.
Bell’s attorneys filed a similar petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, but the panel has not yet issued a ruling.
