Wife of murder-suicide suspect says husband was suicidal after son's 2001 death

BELL, Fla. — Channel 9 on Friday spoke with the former attorney of a man who deputies said shot and killed his daughter and six grandchildren inside a Bell home on Thursday.

Attorney Don Waggoner defended Don Spirit after a fatal hunting accident in 2001.

At the time, deputies said the 51-year old accidentally shot his 8-year-old son, Kyle, in Osceola County. Waggoner said the hunting accident tore Spirit's family apart.

On Friday, Channel 9's Tim Barber got his hands on a letter Spirit's wife wrote to a judge warning her husband was suicidal after the fatal shooting.

In the letter, Spirit's wife, Christina Spirit, begged for mercy, telling the judge every time the phone rang, she thought it would be the jail calling to say her husband killed himself.

PDF: Don Spirit 2001 arrest documents & letter from wife

The letter went on, "He has punished himself more than the court system could ever punish him. There is not a day that goes by that I don't catch him crying."

Spirit's wife finished the letter with, "Is it going to be enough for the state when this sentence causes my husband to commit suicide?  Because that is what I feel is going to happen."

"He wasn't a violent kind of person, didn't come across to me as someone who would you know be that way," said Waggoner.

The scene of Thursday's killings shocked the small Bell community. Waggoner said he never though Spirit would be capable of killing his family.

"Did you take him as a good family man?" asked Channel 9's Tim Barber.

"At the time, from what I knew and what I saw, I couldn't say anything else. It seemed that way," said Waggoner.

Deputies agreed that the 2001 shooting was an accident, but Spirit was arrested because a previous marijuana charge that made him a convicted felon, which took away his right to carry a firearm.

He was sentenced to a minimum three years behind bars.

"He was concerned for two things.  He was concerned about going to prison and having to leave the family he had left behind, and he was also emotionally distraught about having lost his son," said Waggoner.

Spirit's former attorney also told WFTV that Spirit's reaction to his conviction affected his life after prison.

"He was very emotional in court," said Waggoner. "There was a lot of crying, a lot of, you know, wailing and stuff going on that would be normal, maybe a little bit more than normal, but it was a really emotional kind of situation."

WFTV