EVERETT — They were friends who used to panhandle and drink together.
Now, one man is dead and the other is headed to prison for 15 years.
George Bell, 41, said Friday he didn’t intend to kill his best friend, Jamal Abdul Malik. He had gone to the store to pick up a couple of bottles of wine on April 21, 2014. The men argued when he returned to the south Everett apartment.
Malik, 22, accused Bell of being unfaithful to his girlfriend with the neighbor lady. Bell pointed to the wine, saying he’d gone to the store.
Malik started throwing and landing punches. Bell grabbed a kitchen knife. He stabbed his friend in the hand and shoulder. Then the blade sliced through the victim’s throat and severed an artery. Malik died on the couch.
“If I could go back, I never would have gone to the store,” Bell said.
He apologized to Malik’s mother. She had quickly left the courtroom as Bell started talking and didn’t hear the apology.
She wrote a letter to Superior Court Judge Linda Krese saying she will never forgive Bell for killing her son. He could have walked away, the woman wrote.
Krese on Friday agreed to impose the maximum sentence allowed by law. Bell pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and witness tampering last week just as his trial was getting under way.
His attorney had planned to argue that Bell was defending himself against Malik, a man with a history of violence, including breaking a friend’s jaw days before his death.
Public defender Jason Schwarz said he had urged his client to take the case to trial. Bell originally was charged with second-degree murder.
The defendant didn’t want to put Malik’s family through a trial, Schwarz said.
Bell, who has multiple felony convictions, faced decades in prison if he was convicted of murder.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Robert Grant planned to introduce evidence that Bell had used methamphetamine before the homicide and became paranoid when he was high.
Krese on Friday told Bell to take advantage of his time behind bars.
“Make some effort to do something worthwhile with your life as a way to atone for what you did,” Krese said.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
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