This Article is From Sep 20, 2014

In Death, Florida Family Reveals a Sad Spiral of Domestic Violence

In Death, Florida Family Reveals a Sad Spiral of Domestic Violence

An undated image shows Don Spirit (Associated Press Photo/Gilchrist County Sheriff's Office)

Bell, Florida: Sarah L. Spirit was 22 years old and eight months pregnant with her fourth child when she called the police in desperation: Her father was violent, she was afraid of him, and she had nowhere to go.

"He pushed me against the refrigerator really hard then closed his hands really hard on my face and caused me pain," she wrote in the summer of 2008, when she went to a Gilchrist County court to seek a domestic violence injunction against her father, Don C. Spirit. "I am very scared of him. I know what he is capable of."

Spirit wrote that her father threatened to make her life "hell" if she called the authorities. She did go to the police. Although she did not follow up on her request for a restraining order, online court records show that he was later sentenced to six months in jail on a battery charge that arose that same week.

On Thursday, the police said Spirit killed his daughter, now 28, her six children and then himself, making the case the seventh domestic-related multiple-homicide in Florida so far this year. The victims include Kaleb Kuhlmann, 11; Kylie Kuhlmann, 9; Johnathon Kuhlmann, 8; Destiny Stewart, 5; Brandon Stewart, 4; and Alanna Stewart, who was born in June.

The Spirits lived together in a cycle of extreme poverty, drug addiction and domestic violence in Bell, a tiny town west of Gainesville where peanuts are grown and dairy cows roam the fields.

The Spirit family's story shows how a downward spiral of drug use, debt and repeated arrests can sometimes result in extreme violence despite interventions by the authorities. Repeated interactions with the Florida Department of Children and Families did not save the children, even though records show social workers sent the parole authorities to the Spirit home just a month ago.

It is also a reminder that, amid all the recent focus on domestic violence, it is not just spouses and boyfriends who can be assailants.

The agency would not say why the children were still in the home, despite records showing that it knew that Sarah Spirit and her boyfriend, James Stewart, had smoked synthetic marijuana in front of their children while both were on probation. The agency said Friday that it is deploying a Critical Incident Rapid Response Team to assess the agency's "interactions and interventions with the Spirit family" before the killings.

A close friend of Sarah Spirit, who lives in Bell and spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals in her tight-knit community, said Spirit had a good heart but was always struggling to support her family and keep it together.

"Her life was a mess," the friend said. "She had no job. She couldn't work with all them kids. Every time I turned around, something bad was happening to her."

Spirit was 15 when her father, an ex-convict, accidentally shot and killed her brother Kyle during a hunting trip. Don Spirit was not supposed to be in possession of a firearm, and for that he was sentenced to three years in prison, records show.

At 17, Sarah Spirit was pregnant with her first child. By the time her father was released from prison, she had two more children and was taking care of her little brother as well, her parents' divorce records show.

In the years that followed, Sarah Spirit found herself in and out of court. She was arrested on charges of theft, battery and illegal drug use, and sought child support payments from the fathers of her children. One of those arrests was after a fight with an 18-year-old girl.

Spirit was also convicted of grand theft this year after she stole $400 from the wallet of an acquaintance she visited in 2013.

Spirit had been living in a dilapidated shack on the property of her boyfriend's family. The boyfriend, Stewart, also found himself afoul of the law. He was arrested on charges of battery and dealing in stolen property, and is currently in jail.

Spirit, her friend said, lived hand-to-mouth on government assistance. The children were frequently dirty and unfed, and at one point they were removed from her custody.

A couple of weeks ago, Spirit knocked on her friend's front door, asking for diapers for the newborn and food for the other children. With her brother Joshua and both the fathers of her children behind bars, Spirit, who had epilepsy, was so down on her luck that she felt she had no choice but to return to live with her father, the friend said.

Their relationship was clearly strained. Court records show Don Spirit took his daughter to court three years ago, accusing her of collecting support payments for one of her children, Johnathon, even though he had been living with his grandfather. Don Spirit said the money belonged to him.

A judge ordered Sarah Spirit to pay her father $6,578 in back payments. She was supposed to be paying him $100 a month.

Residents said Don Spirit disliked his grandchildren and called them names in public, The Gainesville Sun reported.

"You see how small this town is; we all knew he didn't like those kids," the newspaper quoted Kim Berry, a Bell resident, as saying. "We're shocked it came to this."

Investigators said they knew of no motives.

"As far as I know, there was no motive related to anybody," Lt. Jeff Manning of the Gilchrist County Sheriff's Office said at a news conference Friday morning. "I don't know how you get clear signs that something like this could happen."

He choked up and paused. "It's a difficult scene to try to fathom why somebody did what they did," he said.

What is known about Don Spirit indicates a troubled life that deteriorated even further after the death of his son Kyle. "I may not have lived the best life," he said in 2001 after killing his son on the hunting trip, The St. Petersburg Times reported then.

Don Spirit's divorce records show that when he was released from prison, he planned to take custody of his surviving son, Joshua. He argued with his former wife over possessions such as a Jet Ski and camper, and in letters to her, he clearly saw himself as the better parent.

The relationship had not always been so fractious. His former wife, Christine Jeffers, had urged the court to be lenient on him in the shooting death of their other son, Kyle Spirit, saying that Don Spirit had not recovered from the son's death.

"The loss of our son has really taken a toll on him, and he blames himself every day," she wrote in a letter to the judge, according to The Gainesville Sun.

"He has punished himself more than the court system ever could punish him." she wrote. "Since our son's death, my husband has been severely depressed. The doctors have not found a medication yet to help him."

But court records show that even by the time his son was killed, Don Spirit had a criminal record. In cases dating back to 1990, he had been convicted of drug possession, battery and "depriving a child of food and shelter."

Bill Shaffer, a neighbor, said Don Spirit had a strange quality. Shaffer said he once gave him a ride, but his neighbor scarcely said a word and never even said thank you.

Police would not reveal any details about the crime scene. Other family members were unavailable for comment.

Robert Rankin, superintendent of Gilchrist County schools, said there were no indications of any problems with the children. Sarah Spirit's children attended Bell Elementary School, one in second grade, one in third and another in fifth grade.

Shaffer said Bell, population 453, is a "nice, quiet" agricultural community, the kind of place that when someone's house burns down, people set up a donation box right away to help. There are few jobs, though. Most of the good ones involve hauling rocks, sand and logs.

Another neighbor, Mark Hall, said he knew the Spirits only through his fifth-grade son. But the family was troubled, he said.

Kaleb, he said, had gotten in fights in school, and Hall said he was concerned that he was bullying his son. So he told his son to stop hanging out with him.

"My son tried to befriend him, but I had to tell him to stop being friends with him," Hall said. "I didn't want him to get dragged into that lifestyle."

Bell, he said, is "very country. People know your good news and your bad news." 
© 2014, The New York Times News Service
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