Michael Bernard Bell, 53, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Tuesday evening for a 1993 double murder that stemmed from a failed act of revenge.
According to court records, Bell had spent months plotting to kill Theodore Wright, the man who fatally shot Bell’s brother in what authorities determined was an act of self-defense. Obsessed with retaliation, Bell obtained an AK-47 and a 30-round magazine through his girlfriend and tracked what he believed was Wright’s vehicle.
On the night of December 9, 1993, Bell saw a yellow Plymouth he believed belonged to Wright parked outside a Jacksonville liquor lounge. What he didn’t realize was that Wright had sold the car to his half-brother, Jimmy West.
When West returned to the vehicle with two women, Bell ambushed them. He fired 12 rounds at West and four at one of the women, Tamecka Smith, killing both. The second woman managed to escape unharmed by ducking. Bell then turned his weapon toward a crowd outside the lounge, spraying bullets indiscriminately.
After the shooting, Bell reportedly drove to a relative’s home and told his aunt, “Theodore got my brother, and now I got his brother.”
In addition to the murders of West and Smith, Bell was later convicted of three other killings:
- Michael Johnson, his mother’s boyfriend, on August 19, 1993
- Lashawn Cowart and her 2-year-old son, Travis, on September 25, 1989
He received a 25-year sentence for those crimes but was sentenced to death for the 1993 killings.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Bell’s death warrant on June 13. His attorneys filed appeals with both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, but a state court recently denied one of those appeals, citing “overwhelming evidence” of guilt.
If the execution proceeds, Bell will be the eighth person put to death in Florida in 2025 and the 25th nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
