Pine needles and overgrown grass litter the dirt road to Don Charles Spirit’s empty home.
It’s the same road Gilchrist County officers raced up Thursday afternoon after Spirit called dispatch and threatened to hurt himself, his daughter and his six grandchildren.
It’s the road those children once stomped up after school. And it’s the same road a single cop car later closed off with crime scene tape, shielding the scene where Spirit shot each of his family members shortly before turning the gun on himself.
When officers arrived Thursday, Spirit had already pulled the trigger on his daughter, 28-year-old Sarah Lorraine Spirit, and her six children: Kaleb Kuhlmann, 11; Kylie Kuhlmann, 9; Johnathon Kuhlmann, 8; Destiny Stewart, 5; Brandon Stewart, 4; and the youngest, Alanna Stewart, who would have been 3 months on Sunday.
An officer briefly confronted Spirit before he pulled the trigger again and took his own life.
Alanna will never learn to walk, and Sarah will never see her children grow.
The shooting shook the small community of Bell, Florida, about an hour outside of Gainesville, where about 350 people live.
It’s the kind of place where doors are left open, cats sleep on window sills, and asphalt roads are few and far between.
But Bell was bleak the day after Don’s spree, when eight of its residents were lost to bullets.
Its milky, gray sky shed light drops of rain as cops and reporters flooded the small town, and Gov. Rick Scott later spoke at a press conference.
Down the main road, Dolores Miudlin sat behind a table colored with fresh produce. She sold cantaloupe-sized green peppers, softball-sized peaches and homemade jams in glass Mason jars, but her mood was grim.
The 65-year-old said her daughter, Becky Brock, worked with Sarah.
Brock was shocked. She said she didn’t think the family had problems.
“You don’t expect something like this to happen,” Miudlin said, “especially in a small town like this.”
However, the family’s records weren’t spotless.
More than 10 years ago, in 2001, Don told officers he accidentally shot his 8-year-old son in the head while the two were hunting. He was arrested for possession of an illegal firearm and spent three years in prison.
In August 2008, Sarah Spirit placed a call on Don Spirit for domestic violence, but he wasn’t officially charged.
Officers said Sarah served probation for grand theft charges last year.
At about 1 p.m. Friday, Scott stood on the steps of the Gilchrist County Emergency Operations Center.
“It is an unbelievable tragedy,” Scott said during a press conference on the tragedy. “We have to say a prayer for this family.”
Gilchrist County officers stood behind Scott in deep green uniforms with their hands folded at their stomachs and their faces reflecting the community’s grief.
“You don’t know what goes through a suspect’s mind when this happens,” Scott said.
Lt. Jeff Manning choked on his words. At one point, he put his head down as tears filled his eyes.
“Everybody knows everyone,” Manning said of the community.
Gilchrist County Superintendent of Schools, Robert Rankin, read from a piece of paper.
“As you can imagine, this has been a tough day,” he said. “We pray that God will be with us in the days ahead.”
After school Friday, Gilchrist County officers guarded students at Bell Elementary School. Two boys with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpacks walked with their mother to her car. A red-haired woman held her child tightly, slowly rocking him back and forth in the sticky afternoon air.
“Have a great weekend,” Deputy CJ Schauble yelled to students boarding buses before smacking a pair of love bugs on her forearm.
Schauble has been working at Bell Elementary School for 14 years. She knows all of its children. She knew the ones who died.
Before long, the street in front of the elementary school fell quiet. Students had been picked up. A few cars buzzed in the background. An occasional word was said.
Schauble continued to wave at the last buses.
It was the same wave she gave to the children shortly before they died.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/22/2014 under the headline "Bell community reflects on recent murder-suicide "]
A police car blocks off the road to the home of Don Spirit on Friday afternoon. Spirit shot and killed his daughter and six grandchildren at his home before killing himself in Bell, Florida.
