A 50-year-old federal inmate from Ocala has been sentenced to life in prison for using a torn bed sheet to strangle his cellmate to death.
On Friday, May 24, 2024, Senior U.S. District Judge John Antoon II sentenced David Lee Bishop to life in prison based upon his conviction for second-degree murder.
Bishop had pleaded guilty to the charge on April 5, 2024, three days before his federal jury trail was scheduled to begin.
According to court records, on February 3, 2019, Bishop used a torn bed sheet to strangle his cellmate to death at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex. The cellmate’s identity was not released.
Shortly after the murder was committed, Bishop called his mother and told her that he had “messed up.” When his mother asked if there had been an accident, he responded by stating that “it was totally and utterly on purpose.” He then told his mother that he was “just waiting on them to find ‘it’.”
When prison guards located his cellmate’s deceased body, Bishop immediately confessed to the murder. At the time of the offense, he was already serving a life sentence.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Belkis H. Crockett, Tyrie K. Boyer, Robert E. Bodnar, Jr., and Michael P. Felicetta.