June 23, 2025 • 34 mins
On this episode, we talk about another father who killed his daughter and 6 grandkids. On his 911 call you'll here his calm but upset demeanor. This is the fourth family killer climbing its way up north in Florida.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Warning, this podcast may be disturbing to some listeners due
to the graphic nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome from wherever you are. This is the Demon Inside
podcast. I am your host John Benham.
If you would like to review another episode of The Demon
Inside, you can go to Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts,
(00:24):
iHeartRadio and any podcast platform.
And please don't forget to subscribe and rate US with five
stars. A new episode will come out once
a week. We will be right back after a
(00:58):
word from our sponsors. Well, Don Spirit shot and killed
his nine year old son in 2001. It was ruled an accident.
Still, some speculate he may nothave fully recovered mentally
from that tragedy. Our Carson Chambers continues
our team coverage with more on that possibility and the time
(01:19):
Spirit spent in Tampa. Carson.
Well, we've been knocking on doors all day long in his former
South Tampa neighborhood. We've also dug up his criminal
past from the Tampa Police Department and talked to his
former public defender. Deputies say Don Spirit
accidentally shot another familymember in a hunting accident
back in 2001, showing rust on the muzzle of his high-powered
(01:42):
rifle. The gun went off, striking his
nine year old son Kyle in the head.
His attorney back then says he took him as a devoted family
man. It's a time for what I knew and
what I saw him. I couldn't say anything else.
It seemed that way. Tonight, we know Spirit is
suspected of murdering his daughter Sarah and his six
grandchildren from three months to 11 years old.
And we're uncovering a history of violence that catches back to
(02:04):
the 1990s when Spirit lived in the South of Gandhi Home.
He was arrested numerous times for misdemeanor battery, a hit
and run accident with injuries and felony marijuana possession.
Then in 2008, records show Spirit was arrested for
battering his then pregnant daughter.
A heartbreaking letter sent by his daughter to the court begs
for his forgiveness. Sarah Spirit writes.
(02:27):
My father is in jail and I am the cause of that.
Me and my father fight all the time like a normal family does
because I have been very stressed out lately and so has
my father and things got out of hand.
She goes on to say my dad hasn'tbeen emotionally and mentally
stable since his son's death andhe would never hurt someone
intentionally. And in that same letter, Sarah
(02:51):
writes that she forgives her dadand that he is a big part of her
and her family's lives in Tampa.I'm Carson Chambers, back to
you. Hello my demon insiders, and
welcome back to the demon inside.
I'm your host, John Venom, and today we are going to be talking
about the demon inside Donald Charles spirit.
(03:15):
Now, before we get into the his story, let me tell you a few
things about Don. He killed his family, and this
is going to be another one of those shows that I'm trying to
focus on a pattern, and I'm going to give you a little sense
(03:37):
of what I'm talking about. Now, during this time frame,
there was another killing in Florida that was perpetrated by
a mom who killed all her kids with a knife.
For me, this doesn't fit the pattern that I am following.
(03:58):
What I'm following is a man who kills his family with a gun.
I don't just throw in things that match.
I find them because it's a fact and I don't try to manipulate or
change anything if it doesn't fit.
(04:21):
It just isn't meant to be. So we're going to talk about Don
and like I said, Don killed his family and he did exactly what
the other three dads did, which I'm talking about Paul marriage.
(04:41):
Neil Jacobson and Patrick Dale all did.
Paul, Neil and Patrick killed their family and then they
wanted to kill themselves. Now Paul and Neil didn't, but
Patrick, he did and so did Don. But before we continue with
(05:04):
that, let me go ahead and give you some of his history.
So Don was born on the 11th of December in 1962, and at the
time of his death, which was thetime of the crime, he was 51
years old. Now Don had grown up in New
Jersey and I couldn't find much about his school or anything,
(05:26):
but I did find an ample amount of records that he had from
crimes that he had committed. Now, Don was not a good person
by all means. He was, as one of his neighbors
(05:49):
said, he was an asshole. But this still struck everybody
as strange because nobody thought he would ever do this.
So court records, they came fromNew Jersey, said he had in.
This was in 1987, he said. They said he had two separate
(06:11):
charges, one for theft of an by unlawful taking and the other
was weapons offense. So for me, that means theft by
unlawful taking is he could havebeen shoplifting or he could
have been, you know, maybe picking something up at a
friend's house or whatever and they told him not to take it.
(06:33):
I don't know. But I'm just trying to give you
an example of as far as a weapons offense goes, anything
that he was carrying that could have been a weapon was charged
against him. Now, he did meet a wife, his
wife Christine, and they got married in December of 1989.
(06:55):
By 1994, they had moved to TampaBay, Florida.
By this time they had three kids.
They had a girl who is the oldest and then two boys.
Now, in 1994, Don was arrested in Tampa Bay for driving without
(07:17):
a license and his involvement inan accident that resulted in a
death. So according to public records,
he was charged with this crime. But I think he only got
probation from what I could findfrom this.
(07:38):
In 1995, a year later, he was found guilty of depriving a
child of food and shelter. Now this one I'm assuming could
have been his daughter, his oldest daughter, because she
wasn't a St. either. She would have been a teenager
at this time. She could have ran away from
home and he left her outside. She could have came back and he
(08:01):
was like no, I'm not going to let you in.
I don't know. But it wasn't serious enough to
where they took her away. So as far as the charge goes, I
mean it basically was dropped. So after that and after 1995
they moved to St. Petersburg, FL and according to
(08:23):
the county clerk there Don had 6non criminal cases involving
traffic violations. So what this meant was he was
driving, possessing the container, an open container,
and driving with a suspended license.
(08:45):
So he was also convicted for habitually driving with a
revoked license. That's a felony offense.
So we're talking about a felon now.
Now here comes a sad part in hislife.
So on November 14th of 2001 Pauland his two sons.
(09:08):
His youngest was 9 and his oldest I think was 12 at the
time or yeah along those lines and Paul was taking his oldest
son hunting. Now the 9 year old was crying
that he wanted to go. He said why does my older
brother get to have all the fun?So Paul agreed and he took him
(09:31):
and they went for a week and they were at the Three Lakes
Wildlife Management area and Donwas tired after a week of being
out there. They hadn't caught or shot
anything and that morning that they were getting ready to go
(09:53):
home, the boys wanted to go go out one more time to see if they
could get lucky. So Don kind of hesitated for a
while, but he gave them to the boys and they went.
They didn't get anything, but when they came back, Don placed
his rifle on top of the tailgateof the of his truck.
(10:15):
And circumstances happening, which is still kind of shocking
to me. He says that he was that he had
put the Browning rifle in its case and then that he had seen
(10:37):
while he was putting it in his case, he had seen some rust or
something on his gun, which he took out oil.
And when he was rubbing the gun,the gun accidentally went off
and killed his nine year old son.
Now, I don't think that Don killed his own son because after
(11:00):
this his wife says that he was amess.
Of course they went to get his son help.
I mean, but it was too late. So now comes charges against Don
and they want to charge him because they're they're not sure
(11:22):
yet if it was an accident or not.
And so they're trying to build acase around it.
And in September of 2002, he wascalled.
The police were called to his house because he was fighting
with his wife. Now he had got so pissed off
(11:45):
that he bashed in the windows onher Chevy Trailblazer with a
sledgehammer and he threatened to kill her.
So deputies found no signs of injury on the wife, who later
decided not to follow through with the charges.
As for involving law enforcement, deputies at the
(12:08):
time quoted the woman a saying, if I do it, all it will do is
make him more angry. So now comes the trial in 2003
and what happens is basically they release him from any
(12:29):
wrongdoing. They say it was an accident, so
he wasn't charged with that. But since he was a felon, they
gave him three years in jail because he shouldn't have been
carrying a weapon. Now I have questions about that
too, because how did he get a hunting license if he had a
(12:51):
felony charge? Maybe some of y'all know how
that works. I don't.
I'm not a hunter. So.
But his wife wrote in a 2003 letter to the judge pleading for
leniency for her husband. She says, and I quote, the loss
of our son has really taken a toll on him and he blames
(13:14):
himself every day. He has punished himself more
than the court system ever couldpunish him.
Since our son's death, my husband has been severely
depressed. The doctors have not found a
medication yet to help him. There is not a day that goes by
that I don't catch him crying now.
(13:36):
She was afraid that if he would have been put in prison for the
three years that he would kill himself.
He ended up getting charged witha felony possession and he got
sent to jail from 2003 to 2006. Now while he was in there, his
wife after 22 years of marriage,she decided that it was time for
(14:01):
her to get a divorce. Now Don was living by himself,
but every now and again his daughter would come and stay
with them. Now, Don and his daughter were
close, but they were all so volatile towards each other.
(14:24):
In other words, when you're living with somebody, you know,
eventually you get into arguments or you get into
fights. So in 2008, Don pushed Sarah,
who was pregnant. Now, this was her first kid and
I think at the time she was 17. And I think this could have been
(14:45):
caused because the report says that she was supposed to help
him pay with the property taxes.But for me, that didn't sound
right. And that source that I got that
from was actually a news source.And I couldn't find anything
legally saying that. But I'm assuming that maybe she
(15:09):
had told him that she was pregnant and he got upset and,
you know, done being done. He pushed her into the
refrigerator, not violently, buthard enough to scare her.
And then he grabbed her face with his hands and then he let
her go. Well, she took off running
(15:30):
because she got scared and she went down the road and called
the police. She called 911.
So when the police showed up, Sarah, his daughter told them
happen and they went to the trailer where Don was at.
And Don didn't want to come out and he was threatening to kill
(15:51):
himself. So after a small standoff, Don
finally came out and they arrested him.
Now later, Sarah actually wrote to a judge saying that she,
well, let me go ahead and read that to you.
She says this and I quote, this was written to the judge, he
(16:11):
will die if he goes to prison and it will kill me inside to
know I put him there in quote. So that has a lasting effect on
the judge. And she actually dropped the
charges. She didn't want him to go to
prison for that. And in 2013, supposedly John Don
(16:38):
had physically abused his grandchild.
Now this abuse was because the grandchild was jumping on the
sofa and I'm assuming Don had told her to stop jumping or get
down and then he ended up hitting her with a belt.
(16:59):
Now I'm not trying to make excuses for this guy.
I know we live in a different time now.
But when I was a kid, getting hit by a belt wasn't the end of
the world. You know, we didn't even know it
was child abuse at the time, which is kind of sad, but it's
the truth. By 2014, the Department of
(17:24):
Children and Families had seen like 2 weeks prior to this
killing that they were thinking that maybe the children weren't
in a good place. For some odd reason, it got past
them. And I'm not going to get into
that because that's all you hearabout in the news or read about
(17:48):
in the news because they're trying to turn this case back
then from him killing his familyto making it the fault of the
Child Protective Services. If you want to look that up,
great. If you don't, don't worry about
it. My thing is we're focusing on
Don now. The child protective service
(18:10):
people are the the children and families.
They said that Don was there as a stable person for Sarah and
the kids. So September 18th is when these
(18:33):
murders occurred, but the policefound that they think is the
reason why this happened, which was on the 17th.
So I'm going to read you what happened on the 17th of what the
police think happened. And people that knew him, that
(18:54):
knew Don said that he wasn't really acting like himself.
And they would see him from timeto time where he would walk out
to the end of the driveway so that he could pick up the four
grandkids that would come to thehouse.
And he did this every day duringschool.
So for me, if this guy really didn't give a crap about
(19:17):
anybody, why would he do that? Now, let me explain why I say
that. On the day before the murder,
there was a report that Colleen Stewart, which is the great aunt
of the three youngest kids, she was at the trailer where Don and
Sarah and the kids were. And she reportedly overheard him
(19:40):
tell the daughter and they quote, her kids were not worth a
shit. Tell someone to come get them
because I don't love them. I hate them.
End Quote. Now, the report also states that
later on Don had apologized and explained he was stressed out.
(20:02):
Now, he was stressed out becauseSarah didn't have a job and he
was paying all the bills and he was paying for all the kids and
she had started doing drugs again and supposedly and this
was his thought of this lady, this.
His the the great aunt, he she supposedly had introduced Sarah
(20:30):
to a guy named Jose two days prior and he had given her $25
on the 16th and $70 on the 17th for sexual acts, supposedly.
Now my thing is this he said that he was going to kill them
(20:55):
all. Now this is let me go down the
road first. Let me let me do this first.
So he says that she was doing sexual acts and he didn't want
this to happen. But on the report, they put that
(21:16):
he wanted some of the money. So why would he want some of the
money for a sexual act that he hated so much?
And I'm going to explain why he hated it so much to the point
where he kills his family, supposedly.
Like I said, none of this is really concrete.
He didn't leave a suicide note. I actually saw the takedown,
(21:41):
like when the police showed up in his front yard and everything
that the cop says he said I didn't hear, but maybe they knew
something that I didn't. But anyway, so this was building
up in Don. So on September 18th of 2014,
(22:03):
Don decides that enough's enoughand he's not going to let Sarah
become a prostitute and he's notgoing to have the grandkids go
down that road with her, and he was going to take care of it
that day and it was going to be a done deal.
So around 3:00 in the afternoon,Don goes out to the end of the
(22:27):
driveway, picks up his kids or picks up his grandkids, walks
them back. I'm assuming him and Sarah get
into an argument because in the kitchen there's like a mess like
that was a struggle and I think he stabbed Sarah 6 times they
(22:49):
said. Now, this doesn't fit into my
pattern, but this is when I'm looking at Austin Haroff, the
face Eater. He stabbed one of his victims
before he started biting the face off of a person.
(23:12):
I don't know what that significance is, but I'm not
going to hold it out of this either because like I said,
everything has a purpose and I don't want to try to make things
fit that don't fit. Austin Haroff had the naked
(23:34):
person, the you know, where he was seeing demons, where he was
growling like an animal, where he was biting the face off of a
person. But he also had a knife that he
stabbed somebody with and killedsomebody with.
Now with this family annihilator, he had stabbed
Sarah 6 times and then all of a sudden he was pistol whipping
(23:58):
there. Think about this guy.
This is a guy that was aggressive and violent of
course, but he had never really hurt anybody.
Yes he pushed Sarah against the refrigerator but it wasn't like
(24:20):
he beat her up. Yes he broke the windows to his
ex wife's Bronco or Blazer, but he didn't beat her up or kill
her. So on the day of September 18th,
after the kids are home from school, like I said, him and
(24:43):
Sarah get into a fight. He stabs her.
He hits her with a gun and he shoots her in the head in the
backyard and he covers her with a tarp.
Then he goes into the trailer where he kills all six of his
grandkids. Now, after he's done, he does
(25:08):
something that I've seen done a couple of times.
Deborah Jeter was one of these people that she stabbed her
daughters and then called 911. Don did the same thing.
Don called 911. And I'm going to play that for
you now. And.
(25:37):
Go Chris County 911 What's the address of the emergency?
Yes, ma'am. I I, I just shot my daughter and
shot all my grandkids and I'll be sitting on my step and then
when you sit here, I'm going to shoot myself.
What is the address that you're at, Sir?
2550 NW 25 Paris Don Spears Everyone of them are dead.
(26:00):
And you? Said your name is Don Spirit.
Yep. All right, Don, what kind of gun
do you have? It doesn't matter what kind of
gun I got, they're all dead. And then when you get here, I'll
shoot myself. And then you figure out what
kind of gun it is. And how long did this happen,
Don? I don't want to hear it, man.
I'm done with all, every fuckingthing.
(26:22):
Just bring the motherfuckers outhere.
That's all we got. All the kids are dead in the
house. OK, how many people?
OK, how many people? Six kids, one adult.
Six kids and one adult. Yeah, one of them is a baby all.
Right. Don, is there any way you can
(26:43):
stand with all of me till I get somebody there to help you?
What's that? How do you stay on the phone
with me? No, I'm not that.
I'm waiting for them to get here.
When they get here, I'm going toshoot myself on my back step.
All I'm doing is waiting for them on.
Your back steps, Yep. So after Don hangs up with 911,
(27:30):
the police show up about 9 minutes later and they see him
down at the his trailer and he'ssitting on the back of his
pickup truck on the tailgate andhe's drinking water out of a
jug. For me, this is weird because if
you're going to kill yourself, you've already killed your
(27:52):
family. You're going to kill yourself.
Why are you hydrating? My guess is, remember Austin
Harroff had a thing about water.He says that he had more energy
with it. He had more of of control over
(28:13):
water. Maybe this demon needs water to
be able to control or to gather energy to make this guy do what
he wanted. Maybe he didn't have that
strength with Paul Michael marriage or with Neil Jacobson,
(28:36):
but he did have it with Patrick Dell, enough to kill Patrick
Dell himself. And now Don, after drinking the
water, he goes back to the back of the trailer, comes back out
with a gun. He yells profoundly that he's at
the cops, says he's not mad at them, he's mad at his daughter
(29:01):
and the grandkids and he put an end to it and now he was going
to put it into himself. And he does.
He shoots himself in the head and he dies there.
This has a lot of the similarities to Patrick Dale, to
(29:24):
Neil Jacobson to Michael Paul Michael marriage.
So when I was talking about thisdemon, I said that I believed he
had a sense of humor. And I don't mean that in a
disrespectful way. I think this is his sick way of
playing with humankind. When he killed Paul, Michael
(29:50):
marriage his family with Michaelwith Paul Michael, Paul had twin
sisters. Then the next ones that he
killed were the twin boys of Neil Jacobson.
Now Patrick was more of a just aspare of the moment thing
(30:14):
because maybe he saw it coming and he knew that he could be
there just for that push. Like I told you in the last
episode and with Don, this is where the joke, his sick joke
comes in. Don kills his family four years
(30:40):
almost to the day. Patrick Dale killed his family
in September 27th of 2010. This was almost four years
exactly to the date Don killed his family, September 18th.
(31:04):
Now, like I told you before, I think this demon has a sense of
humor and decided to do this within that time frame just to
show himself like look at me nowin 2014.
(31:27):
At this time, the dog, his dog was trying to find his master.
He was with Annison Joseph in 2014.
Now remember, we have one more that finishes this pattern for
(31:48):
me and that's going to be next week's episode.
So for me, Don stabbing his daughter could have been just
the fact that he was upset. And when he started stabbing
her, this demon took over with all that rage blinded rage and
(32:09):
he just grabbed the gun and started shooting.
And we've heard that before withother people that have killed
their families, where they said once I started, I just couldn't
stop. For me, that's the demon that
(32:30):
when you're angry like that, youallow it in, whether you know it
or not. And that's when he does what he
does and it makes you feel like it's you doing it when in
reality you would never hurt your family.
(32:51):
I don't think Don ever wanted tohurt his family.
And I don't even know why Don would have a gun after the
incident with his first son. I know if I would have
accidentally killed my son, God forbid, I would have never
carried a gun again. Next week, we're coming.
(33:14):
To that end, it's going to be myseason finale.
And I'm going to bring in all the different crimes that this
pattern has followed, from the master demon to his dog or pets
(33:35):
who's trying to find him. And trust me, it all links back
all the way up to Matthew Bernard.
Thanks for listening guys. I'll talk to you all next week.
Don't forget to subscribe to theDemon Inside podcast on any
(33:56):
podcast platform. A new episode of The Demon
Inside will be released every week.
Let us know what you think of the episode on all our social
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comments, go to thedemoninsidepodcast@gmail.com
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(34:19):
thedemoninsidepodcast.com. We thank you for listening and
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If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends I am
John Venom and I'll see you nexttime if I don't get possessed.
(34:40):
The Demon Inside was written andcreated by James Porter.
It is a production of Venomous Entertainment.
Background music is by Lucas King and the title song Demon
Inside was produced by Rice Pober composer lyricist Peter
Shelley and performed by Conjure1.
Warning, this podcast may be disturbing to some listeners due
to the graphic nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome from wherever you are. This is the Demon Inside
podcast. I am your host John Benham.
If you would like to review another episode of The Demon
Inside, you can go to Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts,
(00:24):
iHeartRadio and any podcast platform.
And please don't forget to subscribe and rate US with five
stars. A new episode will come out once
a week. We will be right back after a
(00:58):
word from our sponsors. Well, Don Spirit shot and killed
his nine year old son in 2001. It was ruled an accident.
Still, some speculate he may nothave fully recovered mentally
from that tragedy. Our Carson Chambers continues
our team coverage with more on that possibility and the time
(01:19):
Spirit spent in Tampa. Carson.
Well, we've been knocking on doors all day long in his former
South Tampa neighborhood. We've also dug up his criminal
past from the Tampa Police Department and talked to his
former public defender. Deputies say Don Spirit
accidentally shot another familymember in a hunting accident
back in 2001, showing rust on the muzzle of his high-powered
(01:42):
rifle. The gun went off, striking his
nine year old son Kyle in the head.
His attorney back then says he took him as a devoted family
man. It's a time for what I knew and
what I saw him. I couldn't say anything else.
It seemed that way. Tonight, we know Spirit is
suspected of murdering his daughter Sarah and his six
grandchildren from three months to 11 years old.
And we're uncovering a history of violence that catches back to
(02:04):
the 1990s when Spirit lived in the South of Gandhi Home.
He was arrested numerous times for misdemeanor battery, a hit
and run accident with injuries and felony marijuana possession.
Then in 2008, records show Spirit was arrested for
battering his then pregnant daughter.
A heartbreaking letter sent by his daughter to the court begs
for his forgiveness. Sarah Spirit writes.
(02:27):
My father is in jail and I am the cause of that.
Me and my father fight all the time like a normal family does
because I have been very stressed out lately and so has
my father and things got out of hand.
She goes on to say my dad hasn'tbeen emotionally and mentally
stable since his son's death andhe would never hurt someone
intentionally. And in that same letter, Sarah
(02:51):
writes that she forgives her dadand that he is a big part of her
and her family's lives in Tampa.I'm Carson Chambers, back to
you. Hello my demon insiders, and
welcome back to the demon inside.
I'm your host, John Venom, and today we are going to be talking
about the demon inside Donald Charles spirit.
(03:15):
Now, before we get into the his story, let me tell you a few
things about Don. He killed his family, and this
is going to be another one of those shows that I'm trying to
focus on a pattern, and I'm going to give you a little sense
(03:37):
of what I'm talking about. Now, during this time frame,
there was another killing in Florida that was perpetrated by
a mom who killed all her kids with a knife.
For me, this doesn't fit the pattern that I am following.
(03:58):
What I'm following is a man who kills his family with a gun.
I don't just throw in things that match.
I find them because it's a fact and I don't try to manipulate or
change anything if it doesn't fit.
(04:21):
It just isn't meant to be. So we're going to talk about Don
and like I said, Don killed his family and he did exactly what
the other three dads did, which I'm talking about Paul marriage.
(04:41):
Neil Jacobson and Patrick Dale all did.
Paul, Neil and Patrick killed their family and then they
wanted to kill themselves. Now Paul and Neil didn't, but
Patrick, he did and so did Don. But before we continue with
(05:04):
that, let me go ahead and give you some of his history.
So Don was born on the 11th of December in 1962, and at the
time of his death, which was thetime of the crime, he was 51
years old. Now Don had grown up in New
Jersey and I couldn't find much about his school or anything,
(05:26):
but I did find an ample amount of records that he had from
crimes that he had committed. Now, Don was not a good person
by all means. He was, as one of his neighbors
(05:49):
said, he was an asshole. But this still struck everybody
as strange because nobody thought he would ever do this.
So court records, they came fromNew Jersey, said he had in.
This was in 1987, he said. They said he had two separate
(06:11):
charges, one for theft of an by unlawful taking and the other
was weapons offense. So for me, that means theft by
unlawful taking is he could havebeen shoplifting or he could
have been, you know, maybe picking something up at a
friend's house or whatever and they told him not to take it.
(06:33):
I don't know. But I'm just trying to give you
an example of as far as a weapons offense goes, anything
that he was carrying that could have been a weapon was charged
against him. Now, he did meet a wife, his
wife Christine, and they got married in December of 1989.
(06:55):
By 1994, they had moved to TampaBay, Florida.
By this time they had three kids.
They had a girl who is the oldest and then two boys.
Now, in 1994, Don was arrested in Tampa Bay for driving without
(07:17):
a license and his involvement inan accident that resulted in a
death. So according to public records,
he was charged with this crime. But I think he only got
probation from what I could findfrom this.
(07:38):
In 1995, a year later, he was found guilty of depriving a
child of food and shelter. Now this one I'm assuming could
have been his daughter, his oldest daughter, because she
wasn't a St. either. She would have been a teenager
at this time. She could have ran away from
home and he left her outside. She could have came back and he
(08:01):
was like no, I'm not going to let you in.
I don't know. But it wasn't serious enough to
where they took her away. So as far as the charge goes, I
mean it basically was dropped. So after that and after 1995
they moved to St. Petersburg, FL and according to
(08:23):
the county clerk there Don had 6non criminal cases involving
traffic violations. So what this meant was he was
driving, possessing the container, an open container,
and driving with a suspended license.
(08:45):
So he was also convicted for habitually driving with a
revoked license. That's a felony offense.
So we're talking about a felon now.
Now here comes a sad part in hislife.
So on November 14th of 2001 Pauland his two sons.
(09:08):
His youngest was 9 and his oldest I think was 12 at the
time or yeah along those lines and Paul was taking his oldest
son hunting. Now the 9 year old was crying
that he wanted to go. He said why does my older
brother get to have all the fun?So Paul agreed and he took him
(09:31):
and they went for a week and they were at the Three Lakes
Wildlife Management area and Donwas tired after a week of being
out there. They hadn't caught or shot
anything and that morning that they were getting ready to go
(09:53):
home, the boys wanted to go go out one more time to see if they
could get lucky. So Don kind of hesitated for a
while, but he gave them to the boys and they went.
They didn't get anything, but when they came back, Don placed
his rifle on top of the tailgateof the of his truck.
(10:15):
And circumstances happening, which is still kind of shocking
to me. He says that he was that he had
put the Browning rifle in its case and then that he had seen
(10:37):
while he was putting it in his case, he had seen some rust or
something on his gun, which he took out oil.
And when he was rubbing the gun,the gun accidentally went off
and killed his nine year old son.
Now, I don't think that Don killed his own son because after
(11:00):
this his wife says that he was amess.
Of course they went to get his son help.
I mean, but it was too late. So now comes charges against Don
and they want to charge him because they're they're not sure
(11:22):
yet if it was an accident or not.
And so they're trying to build acase around it.
And in September of 2002, he wascalled.
The police were called to his house because he was fighting
with his wife. Now he had got so pissed off
(11:45):
that he bashed in the windows onher Chevy Trailblazer with a
sledgehammer and he threatened to kill her.
So deputies found no signs of injury on the wife, who later
decided not to follow through with the charges.
As for involving law enforcement, deputies at the
(12:08):
time quoted the woman a saying, if I do it, all it will do is
make him more angry. So now comes the trial in 2003
and what happens is basically they release him from any
(12:29):
wrongdoing. They say it was an accident, so
he wasn't charged with that. But since he was a felon, they
gave him three years in jail because he shouldn't have been
carrying a weapon. Now I have questions about that
too, because how did he get a hunting license if he had a
(12:51):
felony charge? Maybe some of y'all know how
that works. I don't.
I'm not a hunter. So.
But his wife wrote in a 2003 letter to the judge pleading for
leniency for her husband. She says, and I quote, the loss
of our son has really taken a toll on him and he blames
(13:14):
himself every day. He has punished himself more
than the court system ever couldpunish him.
Since our son's death, my husband has been severely
depressed. The doctors have not found a
medication yet to help him. There is not a day that goes by
that I don't catch him crying now.
(13:36):
She was afraid that if he would have been put in prison for the
three years that he would kill himself.
He ended up getting charged witha felony possession and he got
sent to jail from 2003 to 2006. Now while he was in there, his
wife after 22 years of marriage,she decided that it was time for
(14:01):
her to get a divorce. Now Don was living by himself,
but every now and again his daughter would come and stay
with them. Now, Don and his daughter were
close, but they were all so volatile towards each other.
(14:24):
In other words, when you're living with somebody, you know,
eventually you get into arguments or you get into
fights. So in 2008, Don pushed Sarah,
who was pregnant. Now, this was her first kid and
I think at the time she was 17. And I think this could have been
(14:45):
caused because the report says that she was supposed to help
him pay with the property taxes.But for me, that didn't sound
right. And that source that I got that
from was actually a news source.And I couldn't find anything
legally saying that. But I'm assuming that maybe she
(15:09):
had told him that she was pregnant and he got upset and,
you know, done being done. He pushed her into the
refrigerator, not violently, buthard enough to scare her.
And then he grabbed her face with his hands and then he let
her go. Well, she took off running
(15:30):
because she got scared and she went down the road and called
the police. She called 911.
So when the police showed up, Sarah, his daughter told them
happen and they went to the trailer where Don was at.
And Don didn't want to come out and he was threatening to kill
(15:51):
himself. So after a small standoff, Don
finally came out and they arrested him.
Now later, Sarah actually wrote to a judge saying that she,
well, let me go ahead and read that to you.
She says this and I quote, this was written to the judge, he
(16:11):
will die if he goes to prison and it will kill me inside to
know I put him there in quote. So that has a lasting effect on
the judge. And she actually dropped the
charges. She didn't want him to go to
prison for that. And in 2013, supposedly John Don
(16:38):
had physically abused his grandchild.
Now this abuse was because the grandchild was jumping on the
sofa and I'm assuming Don had told her to stop jumping or get
down and then he ended up hitting her with a belt.
(16:59):
Now I'm not trying to make excuses for this guy.
I know we live in a different time now.
But when I was a kid, getting hit by a belt wasn't the end of
the world. You know, we didn't even know it
was child abuse at the time, which is kind of sad, but it's
the truth. By 2014, the Department of
(17:24):
Children and Families had seen like 2 weeks prior to this
killing that they were thinking that maybe the children weren't
in a good place. For some odd reason, it got past
them. And I'm not going to get into
that because that's all you hearabout in the news or read about
(17:48):
in the news because they're trying to turn this case back
then from him killing his familyto making it the fault of the
Child Protective Services. If you want to look that up,
great. If you don't, don't worry about
it. My thing is we're focusing on
Don now. The child protective service
(18:10):
people are the the children and families.
They said that Don was there as a stable person for Sarah and
the kids. So September 18th is when these
(18:33):
murders occurred, but the policefound that they think is the
reason why this happened, which was on the 17th.
So I'm going to read you what happened on the 17th of what the
police think happened. And people that knew him, that
(18:54):
knew Don said that he wasn't really acting like himself.
And they would see him from timeto time where he would walk out
to the end of the driveway so that he could pick up the four
grandkids that would come to thehouse.
And he did this every day duringschool.
So for me, if this guy really didn't give a crap about
(19:17):
anybody, why would he do that? Now, let me explain why I say
that. On the day before the murder,
there was a report that Colleen Stewart, which is the great aunt
of the three youngest kids, she was at the trailer where Don and
Sarah and the kids were. And she reportedly overheard him
(19:40):
tell the daughter and they quote, her kids were not worth a
shit. Tell someone to come get them
because I don't love them. I hate them.
End Quote. Now, the report also states that
later on Don had apologized and explained he was stressed out.
(20:02):
Now, he was stressed out becauseSarah didn't have a job and he
was paying all the bills and he was paying for all the kids and
she had started doing drugs again and supposedly and this
was his thought of this lady, this.
His the the great aunt, he she supposedly had introduced Sarah
(20:30):
to a guy named Jose two days prior and he had given her $25
on the 16th and $70 on the 17th for sexual acts, supposedly.
Now my thing is this he said that he was going to kill them
(20:55):
all. Now this is let me go down the
road first. Let me let me do this first.
So he says that she was doing sexual acts and he didn't want
this to happen. But on the report, they put that
(21:16):
he wanted some of the money. So why would he want some of the
money for a sexual act that he hated so much?
And I'm going to explain why he hated it so much to the point
where he kills his family, supposedly.
Like I said, none of this is really concrete.
He didn't leave a suicide note. I actually saw the takedown,
(21:41):
like when the police showed up in his front yard and everything
that the cop says he said I didn't hear, but maybe they knew
something that I didn't. But anyway, so this was building
up in Don. So on September 18th of 2014,
(22:03):
Don decides that enough's enoughand he's not going to let Sarah
become a prostitute and he's notgoing to have the grandkids go
down that road with her, and he was going to take care of it
that day and it was going to be a done deal.
So around 3:00 in the afternoon,Don goes out to the end of the
(22:27):
driveway, picks up his kids or picks up his grandkids, walks
them back. I'm assuming him and Sarah get
into an argument because in the kitchen there's like a mess like
that was a struggle and I think he stabbed Sarah 6 times they
(22:49):
said. Now, this doesn't fit into my
pattern, but this is when I'm looking at Austin Haroff, the
face Eater. He stabbed one of his victims
before he started biting the face off of a person.
(23:12):
I don't know what that significance is, but I'm not
going to hold it out of this either because like I said,
everything has a purpose and I don't want to try to make things
fit that don't fit. Austin Haroff had the naked
(23:34):
person, the you know, where he was seeing demons, where he was
growling like an animal, where he was biting the face off of a
person. But he also had a knife that he
stabbed somebody with and killedsomebody with.
Now with this family annihilator, he had stabbed
Sarah 6 times and then all of a sudden he was pistol whipping
(23:58):
there. Think about this guy.
This is a guy that was aggressive and violent of
course, but he had never really hurt anybody.
Yes he pushed Sarah against the refrigerator but it wasn't like
(24:20):
he beat her up. Yes he broke the windows to his
ex wife's Bronco or Blazer, but he didn't beat her up or kill
her. So on the day of September 18th,
after the kids are home from school, like I said, him and
(24:43):
Sarah get into a fight. He stabs her.
He hits her with a gun and he shoots her in the head in the
backyard and he covers her with a tarp.
Then he goes into the trailer where he kills all six of his
grandkids. Now, after he's done, he does
(25:08):
something that I've seen done a couple of times.
Deborah Jeter was one of these people that she stabbed her
daughters and then called 911. Don did the same thing.
Don called 911. And I'm going to play that for
you now. And.
(25:37):
Go Chris County 911 What's the address of the emergency?
Yes, ma'am. I I, I just shot my daughter and
shot all my grandkids and I'll be sitting on my step and then
when you sit here, I'm going to shoot myself.
What is the address that you're at, Sir?
2550 NW 25 Paris Don Spears Everyone of them are dead.
(26:00):
And you? Said your name is Don Spirit.
Yep. All right, Don, what kind of gun
do you have? It doesn't matter what kind of
gun I got, they're all dead. And then when you get here, I'll
shoot myself. And then you figure out what
kind of gun it is. And how long did this happen,
Don? I don't want to hear it, man.
I'm done with all, every fuckingthing.
(26:22):
Just bring the motherfuckers outhere.
That's all we got. All the kids are dead in the
house. OK, how many people?
OK, how many people? Six kids, one adult.
Six kids and one adult. Yeah, one of them is a baby all.
Right. Don, is there any way you can
(26:43):
stand with all of me till I get somebody there to help you?
What's that? How do you stay on the phone
with me? No, I'm not that.
I'm waiting for them to get here.
When they get here, I'm going toshoot myself on my back step.
All I'm doing is waiting for them on.
Your back steps, Yep. So after Don hangs up with 911,
(27:30):
the police show up about 9 minutes later and they see him
down at the his trailer and he'ssitting on the back of his
pickup truck on the tailgate andhe's drinking water out of a
jug. For me, this is weird because if
you're going to kill yourself, you've already killed your
(27:52):
family. You're going to kill yourself.
Why are you hydrating? My guess is, remember Austin
Harroff had a thing about water.He says that he had more energy
with it. He had more of of control over
(28:13):
water. Maybe this demon needs water to
be able to control or to gather energy to make this guy do what
he wanted. Maybe he didn't have that
strength with Paul Michael marriage or with Neil Jacobson,
(28:36):
but he did have it with Patrick Dell, enough to kill Patrick
Dell himself. And now Don, after drinking the
water, he goes back to the back of the trailer, comes back out
with a gun. He yells profoundly that he's at
the cops, says he's not mad at them, he's mad at his daughter
(29:01):
and the grandkids and he put an end to it and now he was going
to put it into himself. And he does.
He shoots himself in the head and he dies there.
This has a lot of the similarities to Patrick Dale, to
(29:24):
Neil Jacobson to Michael Paul Michael marriage.
So when I was talking about thisdemon, I said that I believed he
had a sense of humor. And I don't mean that in a
disrespectful way. I think this is his sick way of
playing with humankind. When he killed Paul, Michael
(29:50):
marriage his family with Michaelwith Paul Michael, Paul had twin
sisters. Then the next ones that he
killed were the twin boys of Neil Jacobson.
Now Patrick was more of a just aspare of the moment thing
(30:14):
because maybe he saw it coming and he knew that he could be
there just for that push. Like I told you in the last
episode and with Don, this is where the joke, his sick joke
comes in. Don kills his family four years
(30:40):
almost to the day. Patrick Dale killed his family
in September 27th of 2010. This was almost four years
exactly to the date Don killed his family, September 18th.
(31:04):
Now, like I told you before, I think this demon has a sense of
humor and decided to do this within that time frame just to
show himself like look at me nowin 2014.
(31:27):
At this time, the dog, his dog was trying to find his master.
He was with Annison Joseph in 2014.
Now remember, we have one more that finishes this pattern for
(31:48):
me and that's going to be next week's episode.
So for me, Don stabbing his daughter could have been just
the fact that he was upset. And when he started stabbing
her, this demon took over with all that rage blinded rage and
(32:09):
he just grabbed the gun and started shooting.
And we've heard that before withother people that have killed
their families, where they said once I started, I just couldn't
stop. For me, that's the demon that
(32:30):
when you're angry like that, youallow it in, whether you know it
or not. And that's when he does what he
does and it makes you feel like it's you doing it when in
reality you would never hurt your family.
(32:51):
I don't think Don ever wanted tohurt his family.
And I don't even know why Don would have a gun after the
incident with his first son. I know if I would have
accidentally killed my son, God forbid, I would have never
carried a gun again. Next week, we're coming.
(33:14):
To that end, it's going to be myseason finale.
And I'm going to bring in all the different crimes that this
pattern has followed, from the master demon to his dog or pets
(33:35):
who's trying to find him. And trust me, it all links back
all the way up to Matthew Bernard.
Thanks for listening guys. I'll talk to you all next week.
Don't forget to subscribe to theDemon Inside podcast on any
(33:56):
podcast platform. A new episode of The Demon
Inside will be released every week.
Let us know what you think of the episode on all our social
media platforms. If you have any questions or
comments, go to thedemoninsidepodcast@gmail.com
or click on the link down below.We would love to hear from you
and to become a Demon Insider, go to our website
(34:19):
thedemoninsidepodcast.com. We thank you for listening and
hope you will join us next week for a new Demon Inside podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends I am
John Venom and I'll see you nexttime if I don't get possessed.
(34:40):
The Demon Inside was written andcreated by James Porter.
It is a production of Venomous Entertainment.
Background music is by Lucas King and the title song Demon
Inside was produced by Rice Pober composer lyricist Peter
Shelley and performed by Conjure1.
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