Mother, 6 children, shooter dead in tiny Bell

A former Tampa man who accidentally shot and killed his 9-year-old son in 2001 is at the center of a grisly murder-suicide in the tiny town of Bell, about 50 miles west of Gainesville.

When Gilchrist County sheriff's deputies responded to Donald Charles Spirit's 911 call Thursday afternoon, they discovered seven dead, six of them children under the age of 11.

Spirit, 51, was alive when deputies arrived at the home on a remote rural road. They tried to talk to him, said Gilchrist Sheriff Robert Schultz, but he shot himself.

Spirit killed his daughter, Sarah Spirit, and her six children in his home at 2550 NW 19th Ter., Schultz confirmed during a news conference Thursday night.

The sheriff would not say if he knew of a particular motive for the killings.

"There are certain things in life you can explain; there are certain things you can't," he said. "This is one of those things that I can't explain."

Schultz said Spirit called 911 around 4 p.m., threatening to harm himself and the people with him.

"It was enough to alarm us to get there, and we needed to get there in a hurry," the sheriff said.

The children were identified as Kaleb Kuhlmann, 11, Kylie Kuhlmann, 9, Johnathon Kuhlmann, 8, Destiny Stewart, 5, Brandon Stewart, 4, and Alanna Stewart, 3 months.

No one else was at the home when the shootings took place, the sheriff said.

Deputies had been called to the home several times before, but Schultz could not say the reason for the calls or whether Spirit's daughter and grandchildren also lived in the country home.

Officials are considering this a murder-suicide and do not suspect any greater threat to Bell, which has a population of just 350. Schultz said he had never handled a crime this gruesome before and that the tight-knit town is devastated by the tragedy.

"We're all family here," he said. "This community will come together. We will get through this."

In 2001, Spirit, who lived in Tampa at the time, was hunting with his two sons in deep woods in Osceola County when his rifle went off as he cleaned rust from the barrel. The bullet hit 9-year-old Kyle in the head, killing him instantly.

Half an hour from the nearest paved road, Spirit drove through brush and dirt as Kyle lay in the flatbed of his pickup.

"It all happened so quickly," Spirit told the Tampa Bay Times a few days later. "It's unbelievable."

Though the shooting was ruled an accident, Spirit was investigated for being a felon with a firearm. Court records show that Spirit had several entanglements with the law, including a March 1998 conviction for felony marijuana possession in Hillsborough County Circuit Court. He pleaded guilty to the felony gun charge and spent almost three years in prison. He got out in 2006, after which it appears he moved to Bell.

"I may not have lived the best life," Spirit told the Times before going to prison, "but I know that this was an accident. I know that none of that other stuff matters when it comes to my son being dead, dead because something went really wrong."