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Georgia Authorities Find Missing Woman, Suspected Killer

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TBO Staff

Published: December 8, 2007

Updated: 12/08/2007 11:32 pm

Suspect Timothy Blackwelder

Tampa police say Georgia authorities have arrested Timothy Blackwelder and have Brittani Stewart in custody.

Stewart is the mother of toddler twins and police say Blackwelder shot and killed her husband.

Investigators think Stewart left her home at 910 W. Sitka Street after Timothy Craig Blackwelder, 24, shot and killed her husband, George Anthony Stewart Jr., Friday afternoon. The circumstances of her disappearance are not clear.

Stewart and Blackwelder knew each other, police said. Court records show that Stewart asked for a domestic violence injunction against Blackwelder in late November.

A warrant was issued for Blackwelder's arrest on first degree murder and armed burglary charges.

Police responded to the Sitka Street house just after 4 p.m. Friday and found George Stewart dead of a gunshot wound when they entered a house, according to investigators. Twin girls were found with him, unharmed.

A tactical team and an armored rescue vehicle were called to the neighborhood as a precaution, said Tampa police Cpl. Jared Douds. SWAT members checked the home and surrounding houses for suspects, Douds said.

Police asked residents to temporarily evacuate their homes while the tactical team inspected Sitka Street and nearby North Boulevard, Douds said.

It does not appear that there was a break-in or that items were taken from the house, Douds said.
When police were en route to the possible domestic disturbance, a caller from inside the house told dispatchers that the suspect causing the disturbance was "possibly armed," Douds said.

Michael Urso, 44, who has lived around the corner from Sitka Street for 11 years, said his neighborhood is usually quiet.

"We don't have problems around here," Urso said.

Students from Adams Middle School were stepping off a school bus on North Boulevard when the first police cars and SWAT vehicles arrived, Urso said. The students rushed toward Sitka Street to see what was happening just as police were putting up crime scene tape, Urso said.

"It was incredible," he said. "In seconds, everything was blocked off."

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