2 Chester County men plead guilty, sentenced to prison in unrelated manslaughter cases
Two Chester County men were respectively sentenced Wednesday to prison in South Carolina for unrelated crimes, according to prosecutors and court records. One man has been sentenced for the 2015 fatal strangulation of a woman; the other was sentenced for a 2019 shooting death.
The convictions Wednesday afternoon for voluntary manslaughter are among the first violent crimes to be resolved in Chester County since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered trials and most hearings in the courts for more than a year.
“The 6th Circuit Solicitor’s Office is proud to have now procured justice for the victims and their families in Chester County,” said prosecutor Candice Lively, 6th Circuit deputy solicitor. “Justice was done in both these violent crimes.”
Murder conviction overturned
One of the Wednesday manslaughter convictions was against Jermaine Marquel Bell.
Bell, 36, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the 2015 strangling death of Judith Lindsay, 51, records show. Lindsay was found dead two doors down from where she lived on Fifth Street, Chester County Sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors said. Bell was a neighbor who knew Lindsay, prosecutors said.
South Carolina Circuit Judge Brian Gibbons sentenced Bell to 23 years in the S.C. Department of Corrections, records show.
Manslaughter carries up to 30 years.
Bell had been convicted of murder by a jury in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison. That conviction was overturned by the S.C. Court of Appeals, records show. Bell then was returned to the Chester County jail pending trial before the plea agreement was reached.
Shooting death also a guilty plea
Stephen Andrew Collins, 27, fatally shot Brandon Thomas Jones near Great Falls in January 2019, according to prosecutors and court records. Collins had been in the Chester County jail since January 2019 when he was arrested on a murder charge.
Collins pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 24 years in prison by Judge Gibbons, records show.
