CCADP in the News

Condemned killer Randy Turpin Bell died Sunday after spending 23 years, two months and three days on Alabama's Death Row.

Bell was believed to be the first person ever sentenced to death in Alabama for the murder of someone whose body was never found.

Convicted in Chilton County in 1983, Bell died of natural causes just before 10 p.m. at the health care unit at Holman Prison, officials said Tuesday. "It's pretty straightforward - he'd been suffering from an illness and passed away," said DOC spokesman Brian Corbett.

"Obviously there are a number of inmates in the system who pass away," Corbett said. "It's not as common on Death Row because there's not as many, but it's not uncommon."

Most recently, Death Row inmate Donald Ray Wheat, 50, died at Holman Prison in 2004 from massive internal bleeding caused by a liver disease and severe ulcers. Wheat was convicted of killing four men at an Anniston Blockbuster video store in 2002.

Bell was convicted in the 1981 robbery-slaying of Chilton County mechanic Charles Mims, 42, of Clanton.

Mims disappeared Dec. 14 after telling his wife he would return for supper and telling a friend he would stop by around 10 p.m. to watch the news and have some coffee.

His orange pickup truck, with keys still in the ignition, was found a day later in a church campground parking lot, but his body was never found.

A witness testified in Bell's trial that he, Bell and Mims were together when Bell robbed Mims, took him to a secluded wooded area and shot him in the head twice at close range with an automatic pistol. Records weren't available Tuesday on why his execution had been delayed. On a Web site of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Bell said he had new lawyers and was challenging the state's evidence.

For the second time since he was locked up in San Quentin Prison last March, convicted murderer Scott Peterson has released a personal statement to the Website for the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, this time responding to the just-published For Laci, penned by his former mother-in-law, Sharon Rocha – and, in fact, commending the book's author.

Written by Peterson on Dec. 26, 2005, but not posted until Tuesday, the message states: "If a rumor I heard is correct, my Mother-in-Law, Laci's Mother, deserves applause. The rumor is that all the profits from her forthcoming book will be given to an educational charity ... I hope this rumor is true."

Peterson, saying that "Laci and I enjoyed supporting education," goes on to write, "Some people have done things to profit off of my wife and son having been taken from me and murdered. The profits from this possibly going to charity would counter this disgusting trend. If the rumor is true, what a wonderful act. Profit from tragedy is repulsive. - Scott"

Peterson was convicted of murdering Laci and their unborn son, Conner, and then dumping the remains into San Francisco Bay.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Rocha says the intent of her book was "for people to get to know" her daughter. "My biggest fear and the reason I kept saying, 'No, no, no,' was because I don't want anyone to think that I would do this to profit from Laci's death. That's the last thing I want to do."

With proceeds from her author's advance, Rocha set up "The Laci and Conner Search and Rescue Fund," as part of the Carole Carrington/Sund Memorial Reward Foundation to fund law enforcement and other nonprofit search and rescue organizations to help find missing people.

Rocha says that when Modesto Police Department Detective Craig Grogan told her that the dog handlers who were looking for Laci's remains had to stop because "they were pretty much out of money, and that the people with the dog were pretty much working off of donations, then it occurred to me this is what I could do."

As for Peterson, Rocha says she no longer follows media reports of her former son-in-law. "My personal feelings are that once I heard the guilty verdict, I was finished. I didn't care about the penalty phase. It did not matter to me whether it was life or death because even if it's life in prison he will die in prison," she says.