GAINESVILLE — The state agency that an Alachua County grandmother called to protect her grandchildren in 2013 failed to heed a recommendation that the children be kept away from their grandfather, who later killed them, according to Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell.
During a 2013 child abuse investigation, the University of Florida Child Protection Team warned the Florida Department of Children and Families after interviews with Kylie Kuhlmann, Kaleb Kuhlmann and Johnathon Kuhlmann that the children should not have contact with Don C. Spirit, according to Darnell.
But that message was either ignored, forgotten or not relayed fast enough. Sarah Spirit told a DCF agent sometime after Sept. 1, 2014, that she and her six kids were moving in with her father.
On Sept. 18, Don C. Spirit shot and killed his daughter and her six children before killing himself behind his home north of Bell.
Using a powerful .45-caliber handgun, Spirit fatally shot Kylie, 9, Kaleb, 11, Johnathon, 8, and their siblings Destiny Stewart, 5, Brandon Stewart, 4, and Alanna Stewart, born on June 28. Spirit also killed their mother, Sarah Spirit, 28.
Both the UF team and the Florida Department of Health refused to confirm that they interviewed the children, citing confidentiality laws.
However, Darnell said an Alachua County deputy's role in the June 1, 2013, child abuse case brought to DCF by the grandmother of the children, Christine Jeffers, and the Sept. 18 murder-suicide prompted Darnell to request an inquiry.
“I was advised that, regarding our contact with DCF and Christine Jeffers, a forensics interview was conducted,” Darnell said, later adding, “And DCF was advised (for the children) not to have contact with the grandfather.”
DCF spokeswoman Alexis Lambert refused to comment on whether the recommendation was made, citing an ongoing investigation by her agency's Critical Incident Rapid Response Team, which was assembled to review how it handled cases involving the Spirit family.
Results from the inquiry should be available sometime this week, Lambert said.
The DCF Critical Incident Rapid Response Team was formed through policy adopted by the Legislature in the spring in the wake of a powerful Miami Herald special report revealing that at least 477 children who had reported prior contact with DCF later died.
The report also found that cutbacks in services and a push to keep families together actually placed children in harm's way.
The legislation, known in legislative chambers as the Child Welfare bill, was signed into law earlier this year by Gov. Rick Scott. His office, which oversees DCF, failed to respond to a Friday request for comment on the UF Child Protection Team's recommendation.
The 2013 Alachua County sheriff's report states that Sarah Spirit told Jeffers she had seen guns in Don Spirit's home and Jeffers told a deputy that Don Spirit suffered from a bipolar disorder.
Don Spirit was a convicted felon, and, although his civil rights had been restored by the state Office of Executive Clemency in 2008, he was not allowed to possess any firearms.
In a domestic violence case reported to the Gilchrist County Sheriff's Office in September 2002, Don C. Spirit's son — who was a juvenile at the time — told deputies his father beat his mother, threatened to kill her and took a sledgehammer to her sport utility vehicle and the house telephone.
In 2006, deputies reported that Don C. Spirit beat his son because the boy loaned his own jacket to a friend.
In August 2008, a pregnant Sarah Spirit ran from the home in fear for her life after her father threw her against a refrigerator, deputies said. In a resulting application for a protective order, Sarah Spirit wrote that her father had a horrible temper.
“I am very scared of him,” Sarah Spirit wrote in the Gilchrist County Circuit Court document. “I know what he is capable of from past events with my mom.”
The Alachua County sheriff's report released on Tuesday provided more details into the circumstances that led up to a case that stunned Bell, a mostly agricultural town of roughly 350 residents.
The deputy reported that he was told by Kylie, Kaleb and Johnathon that Don C. Spirit beat them with a belt for playing inside his home, and Kylie showed him a bruise on her leg. But because Don Spirit lived outside Alachua County, the deputy relied on the DCF investigator to alert the Gilchrist County Sheriff's Office. The deputy also noted in his report that he would contact Gilchrist authorities himself after he got a call from the DCF investigator to confirm forensics interviews with the UF Child Protection Team.
The phone call from DCF never came, and the Alachua County deputy learned through a follow-up in August 2014 that the case had been closed and deemed unfounded on June 24, 2013.
Gilchrist County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Manning had said one of his deputies assisted a DCF investigator in a visit to Don C. Spirit's home on June 21, 2013, but no report was written.
Darnell said a meeting on Friday with her command staff also led her to believe the deputy who assisted DCF properly performed his job. However, the case was an experience in which to learn, she said.
“Our procedures and practices are very good, but we can always improve,” she said.
A DCF summary provided on Sept. 22, 2014, stated the agency embarked on another inquiry into Sarah Spirit on Sept. 1 — about two weeks before the murder-suicide — after investigators heard an allegation that adults in Sarah Spirit's home were smoking a synthetic drug known as Spice.
Sarah Spirit had admitted to failing a drug test administered by a probation officer, which led to jail time. Following Sarah Spirit's release from jail, she and her six kids were kicked out of the home where they had lived and moved in with Don C. Spirit at the home at which they were fatally shot on Sept. 18.