Bell was executed on July 14 at the age of 54, and his death has sparked more conversations about his past.

The inmate was sentenced to death for two murders eight years ago, but he has also confessed to three more.

During his trial, Bell’s defense attempted to introduce the childhood trauma that Bell suffered as mitigating evidence, but the state of Florida argued his brutal murders warranted the death penalty anyway.

More concerningly, however, Bell had a direct link to 34 other murderers who have found themselves on death row.

Experts have been forced to weigh in on how much this shared experience contributed to the decisions they would end up making later on in life that would see them sentenced to death.

When Bell was 15, he spent six months at Dozier School for Boys, a school in Marianna, Florida, that argued it focused on juvenile reform when, in actuality, those at the school suffered immense and systematic bouts of abuse.

A 2024 review of 14 studies published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging concluded that abuse can disrupt and rewire neural pathways involved in problem-solving.

This can then have a knock-on effect leading to struggles with emotions and empathy.

Martha J. Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania explained: “Developmental neuroscientists have come to think that there are two periods of life during which people are very sensitive to their environment.

“The first is in very early life. But there’s increasingly a view that adolescence is a second sensitive period.”

A report by the Marshall Project revealed that at least 34 students at the Florida school ended up on death row. The same happened with 16 boys sent to a separate boys school with a troubled history, named Okeechobee.

The students from the two schools are believed to collectively be responsible for 114 murders following their time there.

According to the scathing report, many of the children at Dozier were strapped down and beaten until they bled or fell unconscious, were shackled in positions for hours, were sexually assaulted, and had bets taken on who would win in a fight as younger boys were pitted up against older ones.

And you thought your school was bad!

This building at the Dozier School was known as the ‘White House’ and is where some of the worst abuse occurred (CNN)

In addition to this, between 1900 and 1973, almost 100 student deaths occurred and went unreported until forensic evidence uncovered 55 graves on the campus.

In 2017, a formal apology was issued, and in 2024 the legislature passed a $20 million compensation bill for survivors of abuse between 1940–1975.

But those on death row were ineligible for restitution.

Ahead of Bell’s execution, Maria DeLiberato, the executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, took issue with the treatment of those on death row despite the admittance of abuse at the school.

She said: “The State of Florida put [Bell] there. I mean, they put him in that space where he committed this crime and now they’re going to take his life.”

She later added: “Michael Bell’s life was derailed by the state as a child—and then ended by the state as an adult. His execution is a moral contradiction.”

Other inmates have spoke about the abuse they have sufferred (TFP)

And Bell’s terrible experience also wasn’t isolated.

Former Dozier student Jesse Guardado, 62, is currently on death row for killing a 75-year-old Walton County woman during the tail-end of a 2004 crack binge, and said he witnessed multiple criminal acts and was physically abused himself at the school.

Another victim who ended up on death row and has since been executed was Jerry White. Going to the school at the age 14, he also experienced a year of severe beatings and would grow up to rack up nine felony convictions before murdering a customer during a robbery.

25 people were put to death in the US in 2024 and its scheduled that a total of 35 death row inmates will die this year, per the Death Penalty Information Center.

Meanwhile, for 2026, there are already eight death penalties set to be carried out.

The 26th person to be put to death this year was Michael Bernard Bell, who was pronounced dead yesterday (July 15) at Florida State Prison, where he had been holed up for two decades.

Bell was facing the death penalty for the murders of Jimmy West, 23, and 18-year-old Tamecka Smith outside a Florida bar in 1993.

On the night in question Bell saw West driving a car that used to belong to the person who was responsible for his brother’s death.

With this in mind, Bell believed West was linked to his sibling’s murder and went on to recruit two of his friends to help him open fire on the vehicle.

Florida State Prison is the jail where serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed (Chris Livingston/Getty Images)

But authorities said that West and Smith, who was also killed in the shooting, had nothing to do with Bell’s brother’s passing.

West died at the scene while Smith died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. A third person was also in the car who miraculously survived the incident.

As well as West and Smith’s murders, Bell was later convicted for the deaths of three others, New York Post reports.

He fatally shot a mom and her toddler son in 1989 and, just a few months before West and Smith’s slaying, Bell murdered his own mother’s boyfriend.

After 20 years behind bars, Bell was pronounced dead at 6:25pm local time yesterday.

Speaking before the lethal injection was administered Bell said: “Thank you for not letting me spend the rest of my life in prison.”

These were the 54-year-old’s final words.

Michael Bernard Bell was convicted in 1995 (Florida Department of Corrections)

Eight of 2025’s executions have taken place in Florida, with a ninth set to take place later this month.

This is a dramatic change to last year when the state only carried out one death sentence.

The next person set to be killed is Edward J. Zakrzewski II who will be put to death on July 31.

Like Bell, Zakrzewski has been in prison since the 1990s having been convicted in 1996 for the death of his wife and their sons, aged five and seven.

Reportedly Zakrzewksi’s wife was trying to divorce him which sparked his fatal attack on her.