STARKE, Fla. — A man who killed two people outside a Jacksonville bar in 1993 was put to death Tuesday evening.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, was given a lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
He was convicted of killing Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith. Prosecutors say he opened fire on them as they were leaving a bar in December 1993.
Another woman with the victims was injured but survived.
Prosecutors say Bell shot them because he thought West was the same person who killed his brother earlier that year. He didn’t know the person who killed his brother had sold the car to West. Bell mistook West for his brother’s killer when he saw the car.
Bell was convicted of West’s and Smith’s deaths in 1995. The Associated Press reports that was later convicted of three other murders for killing a woman and her toddler in 1989, and for killing his mother’s boyfriend about four months before West and Smith.
Bell is Florida’s eighth execution this year. The AP reports that Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, with Texas and South Carolina tying for second place with four each.
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