A funeral service was held in Decatur, Alabama, on Saturday, July 2, for the two Texas sisters who were shot and killed by their mother late last month.
Taylor and Madison Sheats were laid to rest at the Limestone Memorial Gardens, near the towns where they were born — 22-year-old Taylor in Huntsville, Alabama, and 17-year-old Madison in Cullman, Alabama.
Both their mother, Christy Sheats, and their father, Jason Sheats, attended high school in the area.
Jason’s former classmate, Marsha Hill, told local news station WHNT News that the distraught father was “so much stronger than I think a lot of us could have been.”
“We’re praying for Jason as a class, we love him, he knows that, he appreciates the support we have showed him as a class,” Hill added, referring to the 40 classmates from the East Lawrence High School Class of 1989 who showed up to the memorial.
As previously reported, Jason told Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy E. Neels that he believed his wife, Christy, had shot and killed their two daughters because she “wanted him to suffer.”
“Mr. Sheats stated Christy knew how much he loved Taylor and Madison and how much they loved him,” Neels said in a press conference on Wednesday, June 29. “By killing his children, Mr. Sheats will have to live the rest of his life with this horrible memory.
On Friday, June 24, Christy had called a family meeting, where Jason assumed she was going to announce to the girls that they were getting a divorce. Instead, the 42-year-old mother pulled out a .38-caliber handgun and fatally shot both her daughters.
Jason told Nehls that Christy had “ample time and opportunity” to kill him as well, “but she chose not to.”
“We look at him as a victim,” Nehls said. “This is something he is going to have to live with for the rest of his life. She accomplished what she set out to do, which is to make him suffer.”
