US murder suicide: 6 kids, 2 adults dead

An American man in a small North Florida town went on a shooting rampage, killing six of his grandchildren, his daughter and himself, police said.

The once-convicted shooter identified as Don Spirit, 51, was the father of a woman whom he killed along with her children, Gilchrist County Sheriff Robert Schultz said, according to NBC News.

Having shot his family, Spirit took his own life Thursday after police officers arrived at the scene and tried to make contact with him in his Bell, Florida residence.

The minor victims were between the ages of 2 months, to 11 years old. Sarah Lorraine Spirit, the children’s mother was 28.

Police was first alerted of the incident in a 911 call by Spirit himself. He made threats to harm himself and others, Schultz said.

Local police officers had been previously “out to that residence on numerous law enforcement occasions,” the sheriff said.

“There’s still a lot of unanswered questions. There’s going to be questions that we’re never going to get answered,” Schultz said in a news conference in Bell.

Spirit’s criminal history showed a troubling stack of convictions, with the earliest one dating back to 22 years ago, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

In 2001, Spirit shot in the head and killed his eight-year-old son, named Kyle, with a powerful rifle in a hunting accident. He was sentenced in 2003 for firearms offences and released in 2006 after serving three years in jail.

Bell is a town of just 350 people about 30 miles west of Gainesville, Florida.

The United States has an estimated 283 million guns in civilian hands. More than 30 people are shot and killed each day in the country, according to government data.

AN/HRJ