Sweet, shyBella Wattsdidn’t like being the center of attention.
Never far from motherShanann‘s side, the bashful 4-year-old seemed to prefer sharing the spotlight with her more outgoing little sister, Celeste, or Cece, 3, her best friend and constant companion.
Bella would have turned 5 on Monday. But this year there won’t be any candles to blow out or gifts for her to open.
Celeste and Bella Watts.Facebook
“I have no idea who gave you the right to take their lives, but I know God and his mighty angels were there in that moment to bring them home to paradise,” Shanann’s mother, Sandra Rzucek said in court on Nov. 19, when her son-in-law was sentenced to life inprison without parole for murderinghis entire family including his unborn son, Niko.
Shanann Watts /Facebook
He killed them, said Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke, so he could start a new lifewith a woman he’d been having an affair with for little more than a month.
RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post/Getty
Sandra told ABC’s20/20that she considered Bella and Cece to begifts from God.
“They had a lot of love, they were amazing,” she said. “I couldn’t ask God for more. He really blessed us with them, the children and Shanann. [Shanann] loved everybody. Her love for children and friends was amazing.”
After strangling Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant and smothering his two little daughters, with Bella putting up a struggle as she fought for her life, he loaded their bodies one at a time into the back of his truck.
He hid them on a remote oil work site where they were found days later.
CDOC
Chris buriedhis wife in a shallow grave.He placed the two little girls’ bodies in oil tanks through a hatch that was only eight inches in diameter, said Rourke.
Bella had scratches on her body from being shoved through the hatch. Investigators also found a tuft of blonde hair on one of the hatch openings they believe belonged to Celeste, he said.
Later, Chris told investigators that Bella’s tank seemed emptier than Celeste’s because of the splashes their bodies made into the oil below.
“These were his daughters,” said Rourke at Chris’s sentencing.
What made the murders all the more shocking was the way Chris seemed to dote on his daughters.
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Neighbor Kelley Trippy remembers seeing Chris playing with the girls when she went to their house for the first time in June for a neighborhood gathering.
“It was like he was a jungle gym for the kids,” said Trippy.
“I thoughtChris was such a good dad,” she says. “But I guess everybody has a mask that they put on.”
source: people.com
