TALLAHASSEE—Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the eighth death warrant of 2025, tying the Florida record for most executions carried out in a year if all goes according to plan.
DeSantis set Michael Bernard Bell's execution date for July 15, just weeks after rapist and murderer Thomas Gudinas is set to die on June 24. DeSantis quietly signed the warrant on Friday in the latest example of his rapid ramping up of Florida executions.
If Bell's execution goes through, he will be the eighth death in seven months. This ties the state record set by Gov. Bob Graham in 1984 and matched by Gov. Rick Scott in 2014—both election years. The difference with DeSantis, who broke his personal record of six executions in a year set in 2023, is that 2025 is not a major election year.
Bell will likely be the first prisoner executed after a new Florida law growing the state's death penalty methods takes effect on July 1, potentially expanding tactics past lethal injection and hanging and toward lethal gas, the firing squad, or other new methods.
What Did Michael Bell Do?
In 1993, six months after Theodore Wright killed Bell's brother, Lamar Bell, in self-defense, Bell bought an AK-47 assault rifle, a thirty-round magazine, and 160 bullets—swearing revenge for his brother's death.
On Dec. 9, he saw Wright's yellow Plymouth parked outside a liquor store. Wright had sold it to his half-brother, Jimmy West, who was with two women, including Tamecka Smith.
Bringing two friends and his rifle loaded with 30 bullets, Bell approached the Plymouth's driver's side door after West and the women got into the car, and opened fire at point-blank range. He fired 12 bullets into West and four into Smith on the passenger side, killing them both.
The woman in the back ducked and escaped injury. Bell turned toward the liquor lounge and "riddled" the storefront with bullets, before driving to his aunt's house to tell her, "Theodore got my brother and now I got his brother."
His execution date is July 15.
