Ex-husband of Missouri’s ‘angel of death’ convicted in Kansas of child sex abuse

A one-time security officer who is the ex-husband of murderess Jennifer Hall — a respiratory therapist known as Missouri’s “angel of death” — was convicted Tuesday of child sexual abuse.

Charles Scott Bell, 47, who had been married to Hall from 2008 to 2012, was arrested last year in Johnson County on a warrant out of Leavenworth County for aggravated indecent liberties with a child under age 14, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child between ages 14 and 16.

On Tuesday, a jury in Leavenworth District Court found him guilty on both counts. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 14.

Child sex crimes by an adult, under “Jessica’s Law,” carry harsh prison sentences of at least 25 years in prison without parole.

Charles Scott Bell convicted

On Facebook, Bell’s sister, Suzie Hartford, who had previously said she was convinced of her brother’s guilt, posted after the conviction: “GUILTY! GUILTY! Guilty on both counts! The girls who stood up to him are some brave girls!!”

“It’s a very somber day,” Hartford told The Star. “Very glad that the girls got justice, but also very heartbroken that they had to be put through this. . .and that our family had to be put through this.”

Bell, meanwhile, continues to face three additional sex charges in nearby Johnson County. They include aggravated indecent liberties, rape and intercourse with no consent, and aggravated criminal sodomy for offenses that allegedly occurred in June 2008 and April 2016.

Bell was arrested in September 2024 by the Merriam Police Department before being transferred to Leavenworth County.

Jennifer Hall called ‘Angel of Death’

In August 2023, Bell’s former spouse, Hall, was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison for the deaths of two former patients, although she had been suspected in the deaths of as many as nine.

Hall had been living in Overland Park.

The couple had a tumultuous relationship. Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 2002 deaths of Fern Franco, 75 and David Wesley Harper, 37.

Both had been patients at Hedrick Medical Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, located in Livingston County, where Hall worked for approximately six months from December 2001 to May 2002.

In that short period, the hospital — which typically averaged one “code blue” cardiac or respiratory arrest event each year — logged 18 among Hall’s patients. They also logged nine “medically suspicious deaths.”

Hall was placed on administrative leave on May 21, 2022. Tissue samples from Fern Franco’s remains, obtained by a search warrant, revealed the presence of both morphine, which suppresses respiration, along with the drug succinylcholine, a paralytic used to relax skeletal muscles as during intubation.

Hall for years had been rumored to have been an “angel of death,” a figure of speech used broadly to describe medical professionals tasked with healing, but who instead purposefully kill their patients.

In 2010, the families of five patients who died filed wrongful-death suits against the hospital, accusing Hall of being a serial killer who poisoned their loved-ones.

The Missouri Supreme Court, however, ruled that the lawsuits could not proceed because the statute of limitations had expired on bringing a civil case.

In 2012, Livingston County Prosecuting Attorney Adam Warren pledged to reopen a criminal investigation. Twenty years after the deaths, Hall, who was living in Overland Park, was criminally charged on May 4, 2022 with the first-degree murder of Franco.

Her arrest at an Overland Park hotel in May 2022 came nearly 20 years to the day of Franco’s death. The following February, she was also charged with the first-degree murder of David Wesley Harper.

Hall, in April 2023, accepted a plea deal in Livingston County Court to two counts of first-degree manslaughter and one count of second-degree assault. Hall is currently serving her time at a Missouri prison.