‘Every one of them are dead,’ Florida shooter says in 911 call

The Florida grandfather who killed his daughter and six grandchildren called 911 and bluntly reported the shooting, saying he was going to kill himself when police arrived.

“Yes, ma’am. I just shot my daughter and shot all my grandkids and I’ll be sitting on my step and when you get here I want to shoot myself,” Don Spirit told a sheriff’s dispatcher in a 911 recording released Tuesday morning by Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Department officials.

“Every one of them are dead,” he said.

Tuesday, sheriff’s officials revealed that Spirit used a .45 caliber handgun to kill his daughter, Sarah Lorraine Spirit, 28, and her six children who ranged in age from 3 months to 11 years, at his home in Bell, Fla. He turned the gun on himself soon after law enforcement arrived. Gilchrist County sheriff’s deputies briefly spoke with Spirit before he fatally shot himself in the head.

The children were identified as Kaleb Kuhlmann, 11; Kylie Kuhlmann, 9; Johnathon Kuhlmann, 8; Destiny Stewart, 5; Brandon Stewart, 4; and Alanna Stewart, who was born in June. The children’s bodies were in separate areas inside the house, while their mother was found outside the home after the Sept. 18 shooting.

It’s unclear how Spirit, a convicted felon, obtained a firearm. Federal and local law enforcement authorities are investigating, sheriff’s officials said in a written statement.

During the 911 call, Spirit seemed to become increasingly frustrated when asked what kind of gun he had used.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of gun I’ve got,” he said. “They’re all dead and when you get here I’ll shoot myself and then you can figure out what kind of gun it is.”

At no point does he express regret.

There is still no clear motive for the shooting, sheriff’s officials said.

“As stated before, this tragic and devastating event may never be fully explained,” sheriff’s officials said in a prepared news release.

At one point in the 911 recording, Spirit becomes angry and yells profanity at the dispatcher who questions him about how the shooting happened.

“I don’t want to hear it now…” he said. “Just bring the ... out here. That’s all. You’ve got ... all the kids are dead in the house.”

“One of them was a baby.”

Sheriff’s officials said the investigation is in its final stages and that the autopsy report on Spirit will not be complete for several weeks.

Don Spirit had a long history of domestic violence — at one point pushing his pregnant daughter against a refrigerator and assaulting and threatening his former wife, according to court records.

A family member described a tumultuous, sometimes violent father-daughter relationship — fighting one day and caring for each other the next — and said the 51-year-old man was particularly on edge before Thursday night’s shooting.

The mother and her six children were living with Don Spirit at the time of the killing, said Katie Stewart, an aunt of Sarah Lorraine Spirit’s three youngest children.

Stewart, 17, said she had also been living at the house but moved out about a week ago, partly because of Don Spirit’s escalating anger.

“He was just yelling and cussing too much,” she said.

Stewart said she had seen him use synthetic marijuana. Also, she said he was on medication for what she believed was bipolar disorder. “He was taking medicine, but a couple of days ago, before this happened, he said he was going to quit taking his medicine because it wasn’t helping him,” Stewart said.

According to Gilchrist County court records, Don Spirit had been in and out of jail. He pleaded guilty in 2003 to a weapons possession charge after he shot and killed his 8-year-old son in a hunting accident two years earlier. He served three years before being released from prison in 2006.

Before the accident, Spirit had numerous run-ins with the law, with convictions dating to 1996, when he pleaded guilty to felony drug possession for marijuana. He also pleaded no contest in 1995 to child abuse, including depriving a child of food and shelter, according to court records from Hillsborough County, Fla.

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