JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Detectives have arrested 41-year-old William Bell Jr. for the murder of a 50-year-old man, nearly two years after the crime occurred.<\/p>\n
The victim, Steven Hopkins, was found strangled to death in his home on Merrill Road on November 30, 2023, after a citizen requested that the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office do a welfare check.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Hopkins\u2019 apartment had been ransacked and that there were two knives found next to his body.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Bell\u2019s heavily redacted arrest report states that Bell may have been arguing with the victim about stealing something from the suspect\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n It also indicated he sexually assaulted a woman inside the apartment. DNA evidence was collected from a shirt found at the scene.<\/p>\n Investigators found Bell at the Florida State Prison, where he was already serving time.<\/p>\n He was arrested again on murder, armed robbery, sexual battery and false imprisonment charges.<\/p>\n He is currently being held in the Duval County jail.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Detectives have arrested 41-year-old William Bell Jr. for the murder of a 50-year-old man, nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":245879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,126889,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,16047,8423,130745,130746,7325,7326,130743,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,130744,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-245878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-crime-in-jacksonville","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-fox30","15":"tag-jacksonville","16":"tag-jacksonville-fl","17":"tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","18":"tag-jso","19":"tag-merrill-road-murder","20":"tag-murder-rate-in-jacksonville","21":"tag-northeast-florida","22":"tag-southeast-georgia","23":"tag-steven-hopkins","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa","30":"tag-wfox","31":"tag-william-bell-jr","32":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115246970107787773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}