Martin inmate: Cellmate 'needed to be killed' | Treasure Coast Talk

by TCPalm.com

“It’s not like I killed an innocent citizen or somebody who was undeserving,” said Silva, 29, of Bell’s Oct. 14 homicide at the Martin Correctional Institution, where both men were serving life prison terms.

“Under my belief system, there’s still some people in the world that need killing and he was one of them,” he said. “I don’t believe I should pay for killing somebody that needed to be killed.”

Bell, 45, was convicted for raping a young Marion County girl after entering her bedroom through a window as her parents slept down the hall, according to Jerry Burford, a former state prosecutor who tried the 1999 crime. Bell left behind a palm print on a windowsill, he said, and Bell’s DNA was found on the victim.

Silva told several investigators he caught Bell masturbating while holding a photo of Silva’s young niece, which prompted the attack.

Convicted of armed-robbery, armed-carjacking kidnapping and other crimes, the former Fort Lauderdale laborer and landscaper serving life in prison was no stranger to violence after twice using a knife during a 2007 crime spree in Broward County.

During an interview at the Martin County jail, Silva recited details of Bell’s death.

“I stepped off the bed, I hit him, when he hit the door he fell to the ground,” he recalled, his voice flat. “I continued to hit him a couple of more times and then I wrapped a noose around his neck and I strangled him.”

Reported dead at 2:40 a.m., a guard found Bell on a bottom bunk lying on his stomach with a black shoestring wrapped around his neck — the other end attached to a metal bed frame.

“If you had kids, you would understand,” Silva later told a prison nurse treating wounds to his right hand. “You should thank me for it.”

Despite confessing to the grisly crime, Silva has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He said it’s wrong for state prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him.

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