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Slaying Suspect Accuses Victim's Wife From The Stand

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By THOMAS W. KRAUSE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 22, 2008

TAMPA - A man charged with murder took the witness stand Wednesday to say he didn't shoot and kill George Stewart - Stewart's wife did.

That contradicts a recorded 911 phone call, in which Stewart identifies his attacker and clearly describes the attacker as "he" several times.
Prosecutors played the 911 recording for Timothy Craig Blackwelder, 25, while he testified on his own behalf.

"Now he's got a gun pointing at me," Stewart says on the tape.
Assistant State Attorney Jalal Harb asked Blackwelder why Stewart used the word "he."

"Not she," Harb said. "It's 'he's pointing a gun at me.' Did you hear that?"

"I guess," Blackwelder testified.

"Should we play it again?" Harb asked.
Blackwelder got obstinate.

"You could play it all day long and I can sit here and say 'I guess' all day long," Blackwelder said.

The tape played on: "He's still there. He's got a gun," Stewart says.

Then, Stewart is shot. He screams in agony. After several seconds, Stewart's breathing becomes shallow.

"Now what's he saying?" Blackwelder asked Harb.
Blackwelder is charged with murder, burglary of a dwelling with assault and violating a domestic violence injunction.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors have said Blackwelder met Brittani Key Stewart when she was about 12 years old. As teenagers, they began a relationship but grew apart.

In February 2007, she married George Stewart, the father of her two daughters. The couple separated after a month. That's when she reunited with Blackwelder.

Blackwelder, Brittani Stewart and her two children lived together for about five months. The relationship was rocky. On Nov. 21, she was granted a court order to keep Blackwelder away. Regardless, two days after the court order, she and Blackwelder moved to South Carolina with her children.

Within five days, she drove back to Florida. Blackwelder returned on a bus.

Brittani Stewart never officially reunited with George Stewart but she asked him to come to her house on Dec. 7 to help with the children and some errands.

That's where stories change.

Brittani Stewart testified Wednesday that she spoke to Blackwelder only one time after their return from South Carolina. Blackwelder asked her to meet him at a lounge. She didn't show.

When Blackwelder came to her home, she wasn't expecting him. She said she hid in the bathroom while George Stewart called 911.

After the shooting, she said, Blackwelder grabbed her by the arm. She followed him to her van and went to Georgia with him, she said, because she was afraid he would hurt her children if she didn't.

"Why, why, why did you do this?" she said she asked Blackwelder as they left her home.
Blackwelder testified that a couple days after they returned from South Carolina, he took a gun from his mother's boyfriend and met Brittani Stewart at a grocery store. He told her he was going to kill himself because she wanted to abort his baby. She took the gun from him, he said.
Blackwelder testified that he showed up at her house at her request. George Stewart, Blackwelder said, had pushed her to the ground when she told him about the pregnancy.

When Blackwelder walked into the house, he said, he asked George Stewart to leave but he would not. Then, Blackwelder said, he saw Brittani Stewart shoot her husband.

"I was in shock because I forgot she even had the gun," he said.

In Georgia, before his arrest, he and Brittani Stewart had sex, he said.
Prosecutors called Brittani Stewart to the witness stand a second time. She acknowledged that she had sex with him but said it wasn't her idea.

She also testified that she did not meet Blackwelder at a grocery store; she did not get a gun from him; she was not pregnant; and George Stewart was never abusive toward her.

"George had never touched me," she said.

Today, attorneys will give closing arguments and the jury will begin deliberation. If convicted, Blackwelder faces life in prison.

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause@tampatrib.com.

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