Left inset: Tyler Cardiel (KSAZ/YouTube). Right inset: Timothy Bell (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Circle K in Phoenix where Tyler Cardiel had worked an extra overnight shift on Christmas Eve before being shot and killed by Timothy Bell (KSAZ/YouTube).
An 18-year-old honor student fresh out of high school in Arizona was shot dead leaving a Circle K while walking home after an overnight shift at the gas station. His killer told cops he was angry, tired, and cold, so he blasted the teen after simply crossing paths with him.
“He was a good kid,” said Tyler Cardiel’s mother, Monique Cardiel, in an interview with local independent TV station KTVK. “He had never gotten in trouble. He never went on his first date.”
Timothy Bell, 35, was sentenced to 49 years in prison for the Christmas Eve 2020 murder, which unfolded near a Circle K in Phoenix. Court records viewed by Law&Crime show that Bell pleaded guilty in January to charges of second-degree murder, robbery and weapons misconduct. He received 25 years for the murder charge, 14 years for robbery, and 10 years for weapons misconduct.
“It was his first Christmas away from us, so I was sad, and he was walking out the door and I looked at him and I was like ‘you have to go?’ and he was like ‘I’m just going to work. I’ll be back later,’ and he turned around and gave me a hug,” Monique Cardiel told local Fox affiliate KSAZ in 2022.
She said she knew something was wrong when Tyler didn’t answer his mom’s texts and calls after he didn’t return home that night.
“My son didn’t deserve this, he deserved to live,” Monique Cardiel said at Bell’s sentencing. “And the way I see it I didn’t just lose my son — [Bell’s] mom lost him as well because now he’s going to be in trouble and gone.”
Police say that Bell was found following the shooting at a hospital, where he was being treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Bell told detectives he was angry over sleeping on the street and being cold; Tyler had simply crossed paths with him while walking home, per cops, and Bell wanted to kill the first person he saw, according to KSAZ.
“This is a tragic accident,” Bell claimed in court before being sentenced. “I’m not the type of person that does this to innocent people,” he said. “I’m definitely an intelligent Black man and bettering myself every day, but this is a tragic accident. I never meant this to happen to anybody.”
In a statement announcing his sentencing, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office described Bell as someone responsible for “shooting and killing a stranger on the street with a stolen firearm,” per KSAZ.
Tyler had just graduated from high school less than a year before he was killed.
“This was a senseless and violent act that took an innocent life and forever changed a family,” the office said. “Our hearts are with the victim’s loved ones as they continue to cope with the unimaginable loss of someone taken too soon.”
