Five-Time Convicted K!ller Expresses Unusual Gratitude at Execution in Florida
Usually, a death chamber is the last place you’d expect to hear a genuine “thank you,” but Michael Bernard Bell proved once again that reality can outpace fiction. As Florida carried out its latest execution, Bell, 54, left everyone stunned by expressing gratitude to his executioners, insisting he’d rather face de@th than an endless future behind prison bars.
Bell, a man with five convictions for m*rd3r, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison on July 15. As the 26th person put to d3@th in the United States this year—and the eighth in Florida’s tally—Bell’s life ended at precisely 6:25 p.m., according to the governor’s office. His last morning began early, with a final meal as classic as it gets: an omelet, bacon, home fries, and orange juice—perhaps the last bit of normalcy after decades of turmoil.
Though sentenced for a pair of murders outside a bar in 1993, Bell’s record is much bloodier. Angry at a perceived enemy, he pulled the trigger on Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, mistakenly believing he was exacting revenge for his brother’s d3@th. Neither victim had any connection to his family tragedy, but both lost their lives that night. In a final act of recklessness, Bell also shot at a crowd before fleeing, sealing his fate as one of Florida’s most notorious convicts. Smith succumbed to her injuries on the way to the hospital, while another person in the car miraculously survived.
The gruesome timeline didn’t start there—back in 1989, Bell shot and k!lled a woman and her young son. By the time his 1993 rampage made headlines, he’d also gunned down his mother’s boyfriend, leaving a trail of tragedy and unanswered questions in his wake.
With a lifetime in prison looming, Bell made a choice few would expect: he welcomed his end, thanking those involved for preventing what he saw as a drawn-out existence behind bars. His final act, atypical as it was, closed the book on one of the more chilling criminal histories in recent Florida memory.
Bell’s unusual farewell serves as a reminder that, no matter how shocking the crime or the consequence, the final chapter can still surprise us. For the families left behind, closure may never come easily. But for the officials who carried out justice, there’s at least the strange comfort that even the darkest stories can end with a last, unexpected thank you.