Ricky Silva: Cellmate ‘needed to be killed’
January 29th, 2010 by TCPalm.com
Inmate Ricky Silva explains why he killed his cellmate at the Martin Correctional Institution. TCPalm.com
STUART — Not only does prison inmate Ricky Silva think the death penalty is too severe for his October confession to strangling his cellmate Terry Bell with a shoestring, but he’s proud of what he did.
And he wants you to be proud of him, too.
“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.
“I don’t believe I should be punished,” he insisted. “I believe people should be celebrating and clapping their hands.”
Assistant State Attorney Nita Denton couldn’t disagree more.
“He has no respect for human life,” she said.
Denton said based on a stack of confession letters he’s written to her office, sending Silva to death row may be the only way to stop him from killing again.
“He was asking for the death penalty,” Denton said, “and he would continue to kill not only inmates, but the people he came around if he in fact did not get the death penalty.”
Silva in his letters, she said, railed on the prison system and claimed he killed Bell as a message to prison officials.
“I’m tired of the system,” Silva wrote. “They feed us like little kids, they won’t pay us for work … there is no reason for me not to kill again.”
He’d keep killing, he wrote, until correction officials “give back everything they took from us: packages, weights, hobby crafts, paying jobs and three decent meals a day, or until I am dead.”
“I suggest (Bell) be taken as a warning,” Silva threatened, “because next time it will not be a black inmate who is killed.”
Silva, too, was accused by another inmate of killing Bell, an African-American, because of ties to a white supremacist group.
“He stated he’s made it his mission … to murder any blacks he gets access to inside the prison system,” George Warner wrote to prosecutors. “That was his chief motive for strangling his black roommate.”
But in a letter Silva wrote to Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, the New York native presented himself as a struggling drug addict who was abused by an alcoholic mother until at age 3, he and his sister were separated and bounced from one foster family to another. By age 16, he was alone and often in trouble.
“I had no family,” he wrote, “I started using drugs and by 19 I was an addict.”
By age 27, he was sentenced to life in prison for a series of crimes including breaking into a Fort Lauderdale man’s apartment, forcing him at knifepoint to drive to an ATM to withdraw cash before returning $20 to the victim and stealing his SUV. He was arrested shortly after committing an armed carjacking at a 7-Eleven.
Then, while in prison and suicidal, Silva reconnected with his long-lost sister.
“She sent me a picture of my niece and two nephews,” Silva said. “Here is the family I craved, but never had.”
He kept the photo at the edge of his bed. On Oct. 14, he woke up, saw Bell holding it and went into a rage.
“Here was someone violating the only people I have in my life,” Silva said. “I am not trying to justify murder but if people could see it through my eyes they might understand and hopefully agree I don’t deserve the death penalty.”
Meanwhile, Denton’s not buying it.
“If he had such a hatred of Bell because of the crime he committed, he could have asked to be moved,” she said. “He could have asked to be transferred to another prison.”
Melissa E. Holsman, TCPalm.com
Tags: death penalty, jail cell, Martin Correctional, murder, prison, rapist, strangulation, violence
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January 29th, 2010 at 9:55 am
They should give this guy a medal. Seeing that it typically cost around $60,000 a year per inmate and Bell was 45 and if he lived to 70, that’s a $1,500,000 savings to the Florida taxpayer. They should fire up Old Sparky and start reducing the deficit.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Good Job Ricky!
We need more guys like you to take care of things from the inside.
We should televise Friday night prison fights.
Fights to the death.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:10 am
this guy has been watching too much “Dexter”
January 29th, 2010 at 10:14 am
why does the headline on the front page read “Girl’s rapist proud he strangled cellmate, who ‘needed to be killed’”
did they even read the article before they spewed that crap? the cellmate is the one who strangled the rapist.. not the other way around…
January 29th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I don’t think the Post has any editors of proofreaders anymore. It is very annoying to have to read it to get local news.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Matter of fact they should get 10 years off their sentence each time they eliminate a child rapist, or rapist…
January 29th, 2010 at 10:31 am
BTW Joe It still costs more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison for life because of the automatic legal appeals
January 29th, 2010 at 10:33 am
ALL:
As our President would say…..this was a “budget neutral” murder….two lifers, one now dead, I wont grieve and my taxes just went down a bit, especially if you use Obama-math or Automotive industry math….
Public executions on the courthouse steps….a viable option, and if you want to generate non-tax revenue, televise it or pay per view it. If it makes my taxes lower, lowers the crime rate…I’m all for it.
OK liberals….go head and attack….then stop and hug a tree…then come back an attack some more.
Capt Morgan…..OUT
January 29th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I meant or editors. I’m doing my own proofreading!
January 29th, 2010 at 10:47 am
he redeemed himself to some extent for doing the job society did not do. he should be made at least eligible for parole.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:56 am
You right wing fools want a killer set free?! As long as it is not in you neighborhood I would guess?
January 29th, 2010 at 10:59 am
We should all send care packages to this guy (Ricky) for his fine work. He did in seconds what our crappy legal system accomplishes in decades. I agree with u ricky because I also have children. If someone were to harm them in any way out would come the MACHETE !!!!!!
January 29th, 2010 at 11:03 am
He is right. If you have been reading the local news lately, there are some people out there that the ONLY reason they are still alive is that it is illegal to kill them. Some people just do not deserve to breath the same air that the rest of us need.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:13 am
If only reality matched the comments above, I would agree. However, he killed a human being and doesn’t really care. Doesn’t that scare any of you????
January 29th, 2010 at 11:19 am
All of you who agree with someone taking someelse’s life are just as sick and need to be locked up with Silva, maybe you will make him made in some way and he will strangle the crap out of you so that your family can grieve like this man’s family had too.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Scared ? It’s called street justice SUSAN. Somehow even behind bars things get sorted out. Susan the way today’s society is going the meek get taken advantage of especially children. Im willing to bet neither You SUSAN or this asst. state atty DENTON have children. GREAT job RICKY. We should all have a choice of picking his next cell mate hhmm…..
January 29th, 2010 at 11:28 am
A quick review of these comments and those sent in response to other articles makes it clear that talk radio is not what needs limits, but this newspaper. To allow such dribble as these foolish posts is a disservice to true journalism and the reporters working at The Palm Beach Post. 90% of this would NEVER end up in the Letters to the Editor in a real paper. Shame on The Post for allowing it on-line.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:30 am
The only part that concerns me are the letters to the State’s Attorney. They suggest that he is prone to doing this again if he does not get what he wants. I’m glad that there is one less child rapist on this planet wasting time and space because we as a society are too full of ourselves to do what should be done with these types of convicts. But I am a bit concerned about someone like Silva because this is the type of person who could wind up killing an innocent person.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Hey iowaboy, I would drive him to your house as long as you agree he can live with you and your family. Deal?
January 29th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Will, FYI: Murderers have one of the LOWEST recidivism rates of any crime committed. Effectively, they are the LEAST likely to recommit. Child predators, however, have one of the highest, making them the MOST likely to recommit the crime of sexual child predation. I would rather have a murderer out on the streets ANYDAY of the WEEK rather than a sexual predator.
Frankly, I’d give the guy a badge and put him to work.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Hats off to this prisoner for doing what should have been done the day the rapist was convicted. Think of all the prison space we’d have if all prisoners did us this service. Please put him in a different cell each week in death row to do what needs to be done so we stop spending our taxes on these convicted felons.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Now we need to throw Ricky Silva into a prison cell with an inmate that has a belief system that detests armed-robbery and armed-carjacking kidnapping convicts and we will be all set. This guy could snuff out Mr. Silva, at which point we can revert back to step 1 and start the process again. Before you know it the prison system has rid itself of a few hundred thousand criminals and we can shut the system down.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Obama should give his Nobel to Ricky. Ricky’s done a HECKUVA lot more to deserve it.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
This story is interesting to me. Two guys in there for life.. 1 kills the other… Of course reguardless of why he did it he still took away a human life. No matter how horrible of a human he indeed was. It is illegal it is wrong. I do understand completely why he did it shoot i am not sitting her saying im not happy he did it. All rapists and espeically child rapist derserve to have their dicks cut off and shoved up their *$$…see how it feels to have something put somewhere where they dont want it. As a person who has been sexually assulted in the past it is a horrible experience I do not wish on my enemies.. It haunts you for the rest of your life. In many ways. Your personality, the way you treat others, the way you see things, the way you are in a relationship, and your dreams.. If it has to do with race then thats just wrong bc a color doesnt determine the person and that person couldnt help being that color so they shouldnt be punished for it. but the judge cant just say ok i wont charge you for murder even though you murdered someone bc their a rapist and pissed you off by masturbating to your family(which is horrible but not a excuse for murder) you still took away this mans life.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I don’t agree with what this man has done in life. I don’t agree with his stance that he will kill all black people in jail. I don’t agree with his white supremacy views - and I am white. However, I DO think he had a right to kill that pedophilic (probably not a word, but you get the idea) low-life SOB. If I got someone masturbating to a picture of ANY child, I’d want to do the same, but probably wouldn’t have the courage or strength. I know it’s God’s right to choose who lives and who dies, but maybe God chose to use this man as His tool. Bell was an obvious scum bag. Good riddance to bad garbage.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Let me see…
If there is 365 days a year and you move Ricky each day to a new cell then in 10 years he can take care of 3650 tax burdens. I will cook him 3 good meals each day plus a $1 a head if he continues. lol.
You liberals make me puke. Right on Ricky.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Way to go, Rick!!
January 29th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I would commend this guy and give him a medal if he wasn’t racist. Child predators come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Focusing on black predators leaves a slew of other races of predators free to continue on in their pervertedness. It’s ironic because most sexual predators are middle aged white men, go figure.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
On sick rapeist dead, much money saved. Where is the problem? Next.
January 29th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
ARe
January 29th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I agree lets let ricky out and give him a medal and on of the empty homes in all of your nhoods!! Wise man told me not to argue with fools so I guess I have to agree with you.
January 29th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Are you idiots serious? This guy didn’t do this because of what Mr. Bell did, if anything. He did it to get back at the system and you damn idiots are condoning it. Is it because he is black or a pedophile? As the above comments state, you see more white than black pedophiles. I hope this guy escape and come to all of you idiots house and kill one of your family members. This guy is angry at the world not Mr. Bell. What if he kills one of the officers? Would you say good riddance then? You all are a bunch of fukn idiots and may you all rot in hell!!!!!!!
January 29th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Did you idiots read this?
He’d keep killing, he wrote, until correction officials “give back everything they took from us: packages, weights, hobby crafts, paying jobs and three decent meals a day, or until I am dead.”
“I suggest (Bell) be taken as a warning,” Silva threatened, “because next time it will not be a black inmate who is killed.”
Silva, too, was accused by another inmate of killing Bell, an African-American, because of ties to a white supremacist group.
“He stated he’s made it his mission … to murder any blacks he gets access to inside the prison system,” George Warner wrote to prosecutors. “That was his chief motive for strangling his black roommate.”
But in a letter Silva wrote to Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, the New York native presented himself as a struggling drug addict who was abused by an alcoholic mother until at age 3, he and his sister were separated and bounced from one foster family to another. By age 16, he was alone and often in trouble.
“I had no family,” he wrote, “I started using drugs and by 19 I was an addict.”
By age 27, he was sentenced to life in prison for a series of crimes including breaking into a Fort Lauderdale man’s apartment, forcing him at knifepoint to drive to an ATM to withdraw cash before returning $20 to the victim and stealing his SUV. He was arrested shortly after committing an armed carjacking at a 7-Eleven.
You idiots want to give him a medal? OK I have contacted the doc and they are expecting shirley, ironica, luckydog, bill and the rest of you silly mf
January 29th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I think that there had to be a reason why they took it away and acting up and doing more bad is def NOT a way to get your stuff back.. your the one in there with no rights your the one who is locked up with these guards 24/7.. why would you want to make it worse on yourselves especially when you have YYYYYEEEEEEAAAARRRRRRRSSSSSSSSS left in your sentence. i mean unless you really just want the death sentence. maybe thats really what he wants. What else will happen to him… more prison time?… There are so many people out there just like him with their past and childhood. they need mental help before its too late. as for ricky here its too late but people are going to look at him in jail as someone who got what he wanted by breaking more laws and are going to do acts the same as him to get what they want. what ifit was your family in prison. ill admit it i have a brother in prison in PA right now for child molestation. yes he deserves to be there for 25yrs no doubt he gets what he gets for breaking the law and doing that to a child. its a horrible situation but i still love my brother and am happy i still have a chance to see him when he gets out and of course visitation. now if someone killed him i would be pissed as fuk bc thats my family. reguardless of what he did i love him so much still. Granted some feelings has changed as in i cant believe he could do something like that but he knows he was wrong and admits it and while hes in jail he is trying to fix himself so when he gets out he knows 100% he wont do that again. but if someone killed him now our family has to mourn his death ontop of his arrest and the embarassment of the arrest alone was alot now we have to have a funeral and ill never be able to talk or see him again bc some guy he was locked in a cell with got pissed off at the guards for taking his packages, weights, meals away???
January 29th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Geez maybe if you didnt rob people or do bad things to get yourself put in prison you wouldnt have that problem now would you? Your put in prison for doing something illegal you think you should have privledges that law abiding citizans dont even always have? look at how many people are unemployed out here where they are trying to abide by the law and work to put 3 meals a day in their childrens stomachs when your complaining while in prison for no work and shi*ty meals?
January 31st, 2010 at 12:03 pm
They should have all convicted child molesters and rapist stay in the regular prison population rather than protect them. Let them fight for themselves which their victims never had that chance. When will these politically correct, bleeding heart, ideology driven people wake up. This was also the same mentality prevalent on 9/10/01.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Captain Morgan is an assassass!
January 31st, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I hope I’m on that jury to help this man avoid the death penalty. He is a hero.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Since it looks like this guy did a good job, I’ll be intrested in knowing who his next cellmate will be.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I’d like to send Ricky a bottle of wine for a job well done !
January 31st, 2010 at 12:52 pm
all of you whose hearts are bleeding for the INHUMAN child rapist (which would have most likely harmed a child again) should be contacting the prison for putting this animal with the general population. Child predators need to be housed together to rape each other and die of disease.
January 31st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@ DEEZRUUGG I AGREE WITH YOU 100%. WHO ARE WE TO TAKE ANOTHER PERSON LIFE? TWO WRONGS DONT MAKE A RIGHT. AND IM NOT SAYING WHAT THAT MAN DID WASNT WRONG BUT YOU CANT JUST TAKE THINGS IN YOUR OWN HANDS AND TAKE HIS LIFE… IF YOU WERE SMAT YOU WOULD KNOW IS THE WORST THING SOMEONE CAN DO IS SUFFER. THATS WHY ITS CALLED PRISON…YOU HAVE EVERYDAY TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID! IF WE JUST GIVE YOU THE CHAIR YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE HAD TIME TO THINK ABOUT WHAT U DID!
January 31st, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Ricky Silva, but I hope the Martin CI keeps puting the Terry Bell types in with the rest of the inmate population. I’m delighted by what they have deal with (and deserve) besides fearing for their arses.
January 31st, 2010 at 1:50 pm
GO RICKY! IF THAT WAS INDEED HIS TRUE MOTIVE, I APPLAUD HIM.
SOMETIMES CREEPS GET TOO MANY RIGHTS WHILE THE VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES ARE LEFT TO SUFFER AND GO WITHOUT HELP. NO ONE IS HOUSING AND FEEDING THOSE PEOPLE LEFT TO GRIEVE THEIR LOVED ONE
January 31st, 2010 at 2:16 pm
@Steve Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 11:28 am
A quick review of these comments and those sent in response to other articles makes it clear that talk radio is not what needs limits, but this newspaper. To allow such dribble as these foolish posts is a disservice to true journalism and the reporters working at The Palm Beach Post. 90% of this would NEVER end up in the Letters to the Editor in a real paper. Shame on The Post for allowing it on-line.
____________________________________________________________
Steve, you said it best this article and the comments are not news worthy rather a glimpse into the moral decline of
today’s society. Child rapists are disgusting & twisted much like most of the comments above.
January 31st, 2010 at 2:29 pm
BTW the TRUTH is Ricky is only acting out because of
whats been taken away in the prison system. So yes he
may have saved the state money by killing Bell however
he is asking for the government to reinstate “weights”.
So that he and his prison pals can get really muscular
over power the guards, take their weapons and keys, escape,
ricky comes to your home rapes your wife at knife point,
steals your suv hold your children ransom while he clears
out your account @ an atm, now the cops are pursuing him
down I95 and he’s weaving in and out of traffic placing everyone’s life in danger, then bam he runs in the back of you sets off a chain reaction kills 4 motorists and your children. He’s finally in custody again (more money) trial more $, appeal more $$$, he wants three square meals more $$$$, he wants cable tv more $$$$$. You guys who proclaim Ricky is a hero are just as saddistic as he is.
January 31st, 2010 at 3:06 pm
We Pay taxes too much a year to prison convicts of horendous crimes, attorney “dragging” out one appeal after another. Keeping them in local county jails, instead of prision for timed served, the premo time. You say “what?” at this point of my life, I will kick a cop for a county jail time. 3 meals a day, free time to watch t.v. and gosh, get so buff running and weights, and maybe some basketball. I would have so much time on my hands to fight for my rights in jail! and have the taxpayers pay for me! WHERE IS A COP SO I COULD KICK HIM! I NEED A R&R!
January 31st, 2010 at 3:08 pm
He Bleeding hearts & Ax -Murder’s Just ask yourselves this question…..What would Jesus Do ?….Think…before you open your mouth. This is not our world, We are All just borrowing it.
January 31st, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Ol Vic, What would Jesus Do ?…. You try and you try, one cheek slapped after another and realize in this day “What would Jesus Do ?….” You pretty much look around and say why? Doggy, dog world. Amen, to survive.
January 31st, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Thank you sir I was raped as a child my attacker was released after 8 years and did the same thing to 4 other children I wish there were more like you.
January 31st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
although this guy killed a rapist that should’ve been killed longtime ago i do not approve of what he did because god gave us life and he is the only one that should take it ! & maybe this guy does not deserve death penalty because he has been lonely & still feels that way , what he really needs is GOD ! & gods forgivness .
January 31st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
i think that rick did a good job ! if i were in ricks shoes i would do the same
& really what the other dirty mind did wasnt right & didnt please god ! sooo i dont think rick should deserve death penalty , everything happens for a REASON !
January 31st, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Way to go Ricky, go and kill some more child molesters,you have alot of support.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
a sicko child molester gone, lots of money saved. Where is the problem?
It takes a criminal to enforce the law, the courts have abdicated.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:37 pm
No Jury will sentence him to death, Its really a win win for all parties.
I would sentence him to wear a “Does not play well with others” T Shirt and thats that !
January 31st, 2010 at 4:42 pm
A lot of sick people posting about this piece of dogcrap acting as judge and jury! Both were/are lifers so the system did not take anything away from the killer. He gave up his freedom when he decided to live a life of crime. Prison is for punishment, not rehabilitation. Prisoners, especially lifers, should have NO privileges and they have already forfeited the rights that you and I enjoy by walking the straight and narrow path. Now he should be hung upside down from an old pine tree and let the buzzards enjoy his punishment!!!
January 31st, 2010 at 5:16 pm
He should be issued a couple feet of wire, so he doesn’t risk breaking his shoelaces.
March 21st, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Hi,season 4 has ended strange because Rita is dead and I’m waiting for season 5.I think season 5 will be the best of the seasons.
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:56 am
I have written to this inmate. He is very intelligent and I believe you will agree if you take the time to WRITE him yourself and find out his WHOLE story. He does desire to receive ANY mail. He has previously stated to me, “jail is a cold lonely place”. You may strike up a conversation with him by writing to Martin County Jail C/O Mr. Ricky Silva - CFN#879518 - DC#L24722 - 800 S.E. Monterey Road. Stuart, Florida 34994. He WILL write you back. However, please be sure to WRITE you name and return address INSIDE your letter as the jail removes any return address STICKERS and postage stamps. Do NOT include anything else inside the envelope other than your letter and/or any non-objectionable photos. Otherwise it will be treated as contraband and disposed of or returned.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Ricky is a liar, scam-artist and manipulator. I used to write him when he was in jail last time and he got out, got arrrested for numerous crimes, then took a life. He needs to fry for this.
June 25th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
hmmm, now where are my dumbels