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Local Slaying Suspect Extradited From Georgia

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By JOSH POLTILOVE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 13, 2007

Updated: 12/12/2007 11:56 pm

Days after attempting suicide, a Florida murder suspect told a Georgia judge that rather than extradition to Florida or more time in a Georgia jail, he'd prefer to have his mother come pick him up.

That option isn't available, the judge told Timothy Craig Blackwelder on Wednesday, according to WALB-TV of Albany, Ga.

Timothy Blackwelder

Blackwelder, 24, signed a waiver of extradition Wednesday and will face charges in the shooting death. He was booked into Tampa's Orient Road Jail on Wednesday night, with no bail set. He is expected to have a court appearance today.

On Friday afternoon, Blackwelder shot and killed George Anthony Stewart Jr., the father of twin girls, Tampa police said. Blackwelder drove off with Stewart's estranged wife, Brittani Stewart, police said.

Stewart, 22, told Tampa police she left her home with Blackwelder because she was worried about her safety. Blackwelder was apprehended in the Valdosta, Ga., area Saturday night and tried to hang himself Sunday night in the Lowndes County Jail, investigators say.

In court Wednesday, 14 guards followed him closely because of an escape attempt Tuesday.

"Last night at the hospital, they had to take the restraints off him to take care of some medical procedures, and he attempted once again to escape from our officers," Capt. J.D. Yeager of the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office told WALB-TV. "And it took about eight of our people to restrain him at the hospital."

Yeager said he is happy to get Blackwelder out of his county's jail.

"There's a lot of manpower involved in a case like this," he told the television station. "It cost us. It cost us a lot more to house an inmate on a capital charge like this, especially a suicide and escape risk."

From April 2000 to January, Blackwelder served terms in a Florida prison for convictions of armed robbery, burglary of a dwelling and grand theft, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.

In a 2004 letter to a Hillsborough County Circuit judge, Blackwelder wrote he was ready to be released from prison and be with his family.

"I'm sorry for what I did, I was young and being stupid, but I larned my lessin since the '5' years I been locked up almost," he wrote.

Brittani Stewart and Blackwelder have known each other since 1998 and had lived together, court records show. She was granted a domestic violence injunction against him last month, Tampa police said.

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at jpoltilove@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7691.

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