The Unsettling Story of Killer Larry Bell

“He chose to die by electric chair, saying it would send him to heaven quicker to be with the two girls he had killed”

During a harrowing summer month in 1985, a sense of dread swept across South Carolina as two girls were abducted in broad daylight from their own homes.

The chilling story of their abductor and killer Larry Bell

Born on October 30, 1949, in Ralph, Alabama, Larry Bell led a nomadic life across the southern United States while honing his skills as an electrician. After settling into married life in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1972, he faced divorce by 1976. Throughout the 1970s, Bell made unsettling attempts to abduct at least three women, employing a knife and a starter gun in these sinister endeavors. However, he served a three-year prison sentence for only one of these assaults.

On Friday, May 31, 1985, 17-year-old Shari Faye Smith from Lexington, South Carolina, eagerly anticipated singing the National Anthem at her high school graduation scheduled for that Sunday. After a brief visit to a shopping center with her boyfriend that afternoon, Smith drove home alone, oblivious to the car tailing her in the rear-view mirror.

As Smith arrived home, she followed her routine, stopping at the mailbox at the bottom of the driveway. Approximately 100 yards away, her father, Bob Smith, observed his daughter’s car from his home office at the front of the house. He grew concerned when she didn’t pull up to the house as expected.

Rolling down the driveway, Bob Smith discovered the mail on the ground, Shari’s car still running with the driver’s door open, but Shari herself was nowhere in sight. Her purse, containing vital diabetes medication, remained on the front seat. Fear and confusion enveloped the Smith family as they grappled with the possibility of a kidnapping. In response, the County Sheriff and FBI coordinated an extensive search effort, establishing a 24-hour command center near the Smith residence.

Two days later, Bell placed a call to the Smiths, but it wasn’t to make a ransom demand; rather, it was for his own sadistic pleasure. Distorting his voice, Bell cruelly taunted the Smiths with a description of Shari’s abduction, claiming she had “the fear of God in her.” Simultaneously, Bell inquired about whether the family had received the letter he had sent. Investigators swiftly rushed to the post office early to intercept the envelope. However, Bell was merely playing with the Smiths’ emotions, offering false hope that their child was still alive.

What Bell had sent to the family was a handwritten letter dated June 1, 1985, poignantly titled “Last Will & Testament.” Spanning over two pages, Shari Smith courageously urged her family not to let her death shatter their lives: “I love you all so damn much… Sorry, Dad, I had to cuss for once. Jesus forgave me.”

Deriving pleasure from the control he wielded over the family, particularly the Smith women, Bell initiated eight telephone calls, with seven of them being recorded — though tracing calls took approximately 15 minutes during that era. Initially asking for Shari’s mother, Hilda, Bell later began relishing conversations with Shari’s older sister, Dawn, who bore a striking resemblance to Shari.

In a revealing moment, Bell hinted that Dawn might have been his original target, not Shari, inadvertently stating, “All I wanted to do was make love with Dawn.” Bell placed another call, delivering chilling news that he and Shari were now “one soul,” vividly describing Shari’s demise to her sister. He recounted how he had tightly wound duct tape around her head, causing her suffocation.

In a further disturbing call, Bell provided exact directions to the location of Shari’s body.

Fourteen days following the discovery of Shari Smith’s remains, Larry Gene Bell committed another heinous act by kidnapping and murdering another young girl, further exacerbating the trauma inflicted upon the Smith family.

On the afternoon of June 14, 1985, in Wagener, South Carolina, 9-year-old Debra May Helmick and her younger brother engaged in play beneath the front window of their trailer. According to court documents, a neighbor, who would later identify Bell, observed his car swiftly entering the trailer park. Bell came to a halt and approached the children, seizing Helmick around her waist.

As detailed in court records, Bell dashed back to his car, holding Helmick as she kicked and screamed, then hurled her inside before speeding away. The vigilant neighbor, having rushed outside, managed to get close enough to discern Bell’s South Carolina license plate, which prominently displayed the first letter: ‘D.’

A week later, on June 22, Bell placed his ultimate call to the Smith family, providing instructions on the whereabouts of Helmick’s body.

Investigators discovered Helmick’s significantly decomposed remains clad in a tank top, shorts, and silk adult bikini briefs layered over cotton underwear. This grisly scene affirmed Bell’s perverse sexual motives, with evidence of adhesive material resembling duct tape found in Helmick’s hair, indicating she, too, had succumbed to suffocation.

The capture and conviction of Larry Bell

The unraveling of Larry Gene Bell’s crimes can be attributed to a yellow legal pad used for Shari Smith’s final letter home.

FBI analysts meticulously examined the letter using a specialized electrostatic device to reveal the indentation of an incomplete phone number on the pad from a previous handwritten note. The complete phone number was traced to an Alabama business, which had been dialed from a South Carolina location near the scene of the abductions and murders.

The crucial breakthrough came when a South Carolina couple, visiting their son in Alabama, recognized their son’s number written on a yellow legal pad in their possession. They had noted it down in case their housesitter, Larry Bell, needed to contact them. The couple later identified Bell’s voice from one of the recordings of the Smith family.

Bell was apprehended on June 27 while driving a grayish vehicle. Although the car displayed a different license plate, a search revealed the original plate, DCE 604, corroborating the account provided by Helmick’s witness. Inside Bell’s residence, investigators found six hairs “microscopically similar” to Shari Smith’s, along with silk underwear akin to the type discovered on Helmick’s body.

In June 1986 and subsequently in March 1987, Bell underwent two trials, during which he was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of both girls, leading to a death sentence. On October 4, 1996, Bell faced execution. As an electrician, he opted for the electric chair over lethal injection, stating that it would expedite his journey to heaven to reunite with the two girls he had killed.