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Anthony BELL
Classification:
Spree killer
Characteristics: Shooting at the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church
- Kidnapping
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders:
May 21,
2006
Date of arrest:
Same day
Date of birth:
October 13,
1980
Victims profile: His wife, Erica Bell, 24 / Leonard Howard, 78, Gloria
Howard, 72,
Darlene Selvage, 47, and Doloris McGrew, 68 (in-laws)
A state judge formally sentenced convicted mass murderer Anthony Bell on
Thursday to die by lethal injection for killing his wife and 4 in-laws
in a May 2006 shooting spree in Baton Rouge.
District Judge Todd Hernandez followed a jury's April
17 recommendation that Bell be executed for fatally shooting 4 of his
in-laws at the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church and then kidnapping his
wife from the Dallas Drive church and shooting and killing her at an
apartment complex.
Bell did not react when Hernandez sentenced him. As
deputies led him from the courtroom, the 27-year-old Bell dressed
in an orange-and-white striped prison jumpsuit looked at family
members in the audience and said, "I love you. Never stop fighting."
Before sentencing Bell, Hernandez denied a motion
filed by Bell to once again fire his court-appointed attorneys. The
judge also denied a motion for a new trial filed by those attorneys.
Bell, who fired public defenders Greg Rome and
Margaret Lagattuta in February, represented himself in the guilt phase
of his trial but asked Hernandez to reinstate the lawyers during the
penalty phase.
The judge allowed the lawyers to act as Bells standby
counsel during the guilt phase of the trial.
Before leaving court Thursday, Bell thanked Rome and
Lagattuta for their assistance.
Bell, who was found guilty April 11 on 5 counts of
1st-degree murder and 1 count of attempted 1st-degree murder for
wounding his mother-in-law inside the church, received 5 death sentences
from Hernandez and a 50-year prison term on the other conviction.
Husband and wife Leonard Howard, 78, and Gloria
Howard, 72, were shot and killed at the church May 21, 2006, along with
Darlene Selvage, 47, and Doloris McGrew, 68.
Claudia Brown the church pastor and Bell's
mother-in-law was shot and injured at the church. She testified
against Bell at his trial.
Bell's 24-year-old wife, Erica Bell, was fatally shot
in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex later that day.
Hernandez appointed the Louisiana Indigent Defender
Assistance Board to handle Bell's capital appeal.
Jury’s verdict: Death
Bell killed five, wounded one in shootings
By Steven Ward - 2theadvocated.com
Apr 18, 2008
Convicted mass murderer Anthony Bell deserves to die
by lethal injection for killing his wife and four in-laws in a May 2006
shooting spree, a jury recommended late Thursday.
Jurors deliberated for just under two hours before
returning with the verdict shortly before 9 p.m.
When state District Judge Todd Hernandez read the
jury’s recommendation, Bell — dressed in orange-and-white striped prison
clothes for the first time in the trial — stood straight and stared in
the judge’s direction.
There were no outbursts in the courtroom during the
reading of the verdict, but many family members of the victims had
smiles and tears on their faces when the word “death” was pronounced.
Bell, 27, was convicted a week ago on five counts of
first-degree murder and a count of attempted first-degree murder in the
shooting spree that began at the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church, where
he killed four in-laws, and ended at an apartment parking lot where he
fatally shot his wife, Erica Bell.
The same jurors who convicted Bell recommended he be
sentenced to death. Jurors had a choice of whether to recommend a
sentence of death or life in prison.
“There was only one just verdict in this case and the
jury had the courage to render it,” prosecutor Mark Dumaine said in an
interview late Thursday after the trial.
“And we had a family patient enough to wait for it,”
he said.
“I’m happy,” Jeffery Howard, son of murder victims
Gloria and Leonard Howard, said after the trial. “My father taught me to
believe in the system, and the system worked. Mr. Bell is going to burn
now.”
Prosecutor Aaron Brooks said he felt satisfied for
the victims and their families.
“This family can finally get a sense of closure,”
Brooks said.
Defense attorneys Margaret Lagattuta and Greg Rome
declined to comment on the verdict following the trial.
During testimony Thursday, jurors appeared to be most
moved by the victim-impact statements made by family members of the
murder victims.
Irwin Howard, son of murder victims Gloria Howard,
72, and Leonard Howard, 78, described the impact the killing of Erica
Bell has had on her three children.
“My heart goes out to those kids. At night, they cry
in bed for their mother,” Irwin Howard testified.
Howard’s younger brother, Jeffery Howard, had tears
streaming down his face seconds after he took the witness stand. He
testified he was not as strong as his older brother.
“When I was at the morgue, I saw my father’s head
blown up this way,” Howard said, motioning to the back of his head.
“It affected me so bad it made me want to blow my own
brains out,” he testified.
Sonya Mills Laurence, sister of 47-year-old murder
victim Darlene Selvage, looked at Bell from the stand and asked him how
to soothe Selvage’s 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Mills, who was nearby
when her mother was shot inside the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church.
“Mr. Bell, if you only knew. I need you to tell me
what to tell Destiny. She had her mother’s blood all over her dress. How
could you,” Laurence asked, in tears.
In Thursday evening’s closing arguments, Dumaine told
the jury Bell “is controlling and manipulative and what he did was
inhuman and obscene.”
Brooks said Bell and his family — some of whom took
the witness stand Thursday to plead with the jury to spare Bell’s life —
were in denial because they have no other options.
“The defendant called this a monstrous act and (that)
is probably the only thing he said in this trial that was true,” Brooks
said.
In his closing argument, Rome, the defense attorney,
said all he could do was to ask the jury to consider recommending a
sentence of life in prison.
Bell represented himself in the guilt phase of the
trial, but asked Judge Hernandez to reinstate public defenders Rome and
Lagattuta, both of whom Bell had fired in February. Rome and Lagattuta
were first assigned to defend Bell in June 2006.
Earlier in the day, Bell’s assertion that he is
mentally retarded took a nosedive when one psychologist testified that
Bell is not retarded and another psychologist came to no conclusion.
If the jury had found that Bell was retarded, he
could not face the death penalty, by law.
Defense witness Dr. Mark Zimmerman said he didn’t
have enough data to determine if Bell is mentally retarded.
State witness Dr. Donald Hoppe was more definitive.
“He (Bell) is absolutely not mentally retarded,”
Hoppe testified.
Hoppe, like Zimmerman, administered an IQ test to
Bell long before the trial and Bell scored in the low 50s. The legal
benchmark IQ for mental retardation is 70, but jurors can consider other
factors.
Hoppe testified that after he compared his data with
Zimmerman’s data and studied more of Bell’s academic records before he
dropped out of the ninth grade, Hoppe suspected Bell purposely did
poorly on his IQ test.
Hoppe also testified that after watching Bell ask
questions during jury selection, Hoppe concluded Bell is not mentally
retarded.
“If that man (Bell) is mentally retarded, everyone in
this courtroom is mentally retarded,” Hoppe testified.
Bell was convicted April 11 of shooting and killing
the Howards, Selvage, and Doloris McGrew, 68, inside the Dallas Drive
church May 21, 2006.
He also shot and injured his mother-in-law, Claudia
Brown, inside the church.
Later that day, he kidnapped his 24-year-old wife and
shot and killed her in a car at a nearby apartment complex.
Anthony Bell Found Guilty
WAFB.com
April 11, 2008
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - It took jurors about two
hours to decide the fate of accused killer Anthony Bell. Late Friday
night, jurors unanimously convicted Bell on five counts of first-degree
murder for the May 2006 shootings at the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church.
Jurors were also unanimous when they convicted Bell on one count of
attempted first-degree murder for the shooting of Pastor Claudia Brown.
After the verdict was read, members of Bell's family
left the courthouse saying, "God is still in control." Some were in
tears. Members of the victims' families would not comment to the media.
Bell represented himself in this bizarre case. During
the course of the trial, Bell told jurors his ex-wife, Erica Bell,
killed four people inside the church before taking her own life. Bell
told jurors she did the shooting because he was having an affair with
Pastor Claudia Brown. On the stand, Brown denied any physical
relationship with Bell.
Jurors will reconvene Monday. Their next task will
be to decide if Anthony Bell should receive the death penalty for his
crimes or spend the rest of his life in jail.
There were fewer fireworks in the courtroom Friday
and much more emotional testimony. Also, Bell's former employer says on
the stand that he had knowledge of an affair between Bell and his mother-in-law. The
alleged affair between Bell and his mother-in-law was pretty much the
cornerstone of Bell's entire defense.
Earlier in the day, however, unspoken words rocked
the murder trial for Anthony Bell. The gesture of a 7-year-old little
girl reduces most of the jury to tears. Destiny Mills, daughter of
Darlene Selvage, took the stand and was questioned by prosecutor Mark
Dumaine. He asked her, "Destiny, who shot you mommy?" Without saying a
word and clutching a teddy bear in her arms, she reached out and pointed
right at Anthony Bell.
At that point, female member of the jury were in
tears. One woman had her face in her hands, while others were grabbing
for tissues. It was quiet throughout the courtroom. Later, the jury
watched a video tape of Mills from a few months ago in which she
described what happened. In that video, she says Anthony Bell was indeed
the person who shot her mommy.
Many family members were in court with the little
girl. A number of them wore buttons with a picture of Destiny with her
mother, Darlene Selvage. The buttons read, "Team Destiny." We spoke with
one of the witnesses, a former girlfriend of Anthony Bell. "I feel much
better to let the jury know that... how he was when he was younger and
if his mother would have got him help, maybe Erica would be here to
raise her son," says Lekeria Coleman.
Louisiana Man Shoots Four Dead at Church Before Killing His Wife
May 22, 2006
On Sunday morning a
man entered in the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and opened fire killing four of his in-laws. Another woman,
the head pastor at the church, was wounded in the shooting.
After the
shooting, the suspect, identified as 25-year-old Anthony Bell, kidnapped
his wife and three of his children, including a newborn.
About 90 minutes after the
killings, police got a report of a shooting at an apartment complex in
Baton Rouge.
Chief Jeff LeDuff of the Baton Rouge Police said that the
body of Erica Bell, the suspect's slain wife, was found in a parked car
at the Ardenwood Park Apartments, a few miles from the church.
The
kidnapped children were found all unharmed while Anthony Bell was
discovered nearby, crying and holding his infant son.
Police are still investigating why
and how the killings were carried out, but it's believed that they
probably stemmed from domestic problems.
Chief Leduff commented that
"when you start stacking up human life like this, it's sad.
It's
a sad day for the whole city."
5 Dead In Louisiana Church Shooting
4 Killed In Church, Suspect's Wife Found Dead Later
By
James M Klatell - CBS News
May 21, 2006
A man opened fire Sunday morning at a church hitting five people, four
of them fatally before abducting his wife, whom he later shot to death
at another location, authorities said.
Church members wept as they watched investigators
examine evidence and search for clues.
The suspect, Anthony Bell, 25, of Baton Rouge, was
captured at an apartment complex near the church. Three children
abducted with the woman were all found safe.
"This is going to be one of the worst days in the
history of our city," Police Chief Jeff Leduff said after Bell was
captured and his wife's body was found at the apartment complex. Her
name and those of the other victims were not immediately released.
Bell is accused of shooting five people at the church
before fleeing, Sgt. Charles Armstrong said.
CBS affiliate WAFB reports that one of the shooting
victims died after being transported to the hospital and the surviving
victim is listed in critical condition. Police say two of those killed
are females and one man, all older in age.
It was unclear whether Erica Bell, 24, was killed at
the complex, police said. Her three children, including an infant, also
taken from The Ministry of Jesus Christ church were found safe,
officials said.
Erica Bell's mother, church pastor Claudia Brown, was
wounded and was in serious condition at a hospital, police said, but
would not provide further details.
Jeffrey Howard said his mother had been shot in the
back of the head.
Anthony Bell faces charges of murder, attempted
murder and kidnapping.
Investigators did not know the motive for the
shooting at The Ministry of Jesus Christ church.
"This is senseless. This is a total waste of human
life," Leduff said.
The small church shares space in an old warehouse
with a guitar shop in a nonresidential area of Baton Rouge. Bell is
believed to have entered and opened fire shortly before services were to
end around 10 a.m.
After shooting five people, Bell fled with his wife
and with three children, including an infant, police said. The two older
children were found safely at a residence.
Hours later, police responding to a 911 call about a
shooting cordoned off the apartment complex. Officers found the woman
dead and Bell holding the baby, Leduff said. Bell was arrested without
incident.
At first police said the three children belonged to
the couple. They later said it was unclear whether Bell was the father
of all three.
