Florida is preparing to carry out the execution of a man convicted in a brutal double homicide tied to a failed revenge plot from 1993.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke, unless a last-minute appeal halts the process.
Bell was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith.
Both Smith and West were gunned down outside a liquor lounge in Jacksonville.
Prosecutors say Bell mistook West for the man who had killed his brother earlier that year.
The actual killer had already sold the car Bell was targeting, but that didn’t stop Bell from taking deadly action.
According to court records, Bell called two friends, grabbed an AK-47, and waited outside the lounge for the car’s owner.
When West, Smith, and another woman exited the building, Bell opened fire.
West died instantly. Smith died en route to the hospital.
The third woman was unharmed, though witnesses said Bell also fired at a group of bystanders before fleeing the scene.
Bell was arrested the following year.
However, what came next revealed a disturbing pattern of violence.
Authorities later linked Bell