In a video posted online of her 34th birthday celebration, Shanann’s little girls, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, sang a sweet rendition of Happy Birthday to their mom as Shanann’s own mother,Sandra Rzucek,joins in via Facetime on Shanann’s phone.
Shanann’s husband,Chris Watts, 33,can be heard singing in the background.
When the song ends, Bella blows the candles out on the round cake adorned with a butterfly on the side.
The Watts family.Facebook
“What!?” Shanann says in mock surprise to Bella. “Did you blow my candles out?”
Bella giggles as Celeste shouts something about candles in toddler talk.
Had Shanann lived, she would have been 35 today.
“She loved everybody,” her mother told ABC News in December in an interview with20/20. “Her love for children and friends was amazing.”
Shan’ann Watts (right) and her daughters.Shanann Watts /Facebook
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Last summer, Shanann and her daughters spent six weeks in North Carolina with her parents and brother before returning to the Frederick, Colorado, home she shared with Chris on Aug. 7. She left home again to attend a quick work trip on Aug. 10, returning home just before 2 a.m. on Aug. 13. Hours later, Chris killed her and the girls.
“If he was this happy and wanted a new start, get a divorce,” Weld County Prosecutor Michael Rourke said.
“That’s the big word — why?” Shanann’s father, Frank Rzucek told20/20. “He must have snapped because there’s nothing else I could figure out what happened to him.”
Sometime after Shanann returned home, Chris strangled Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant with her unborn son, Niko, and smothered his two little daughters.
Celeste and Bella Watts.Facebook
Chris loaded their bodies, one at a time, into the back of his truck and drove out to a remote oil site where he worked.
Bella had scratches on her body from being shoved through the hatch. Investigators found a tuft of blonde hair on one of the hatch openings.
Candlelight vigil for Watts family.RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post/Getty
On Nov. 6, Chris pleaded guilty to murder, the unlawful termination of a pregnancy and tampering with a dead body in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors would not pursue the death penalty, the Weld County district attorney’s office said.
Thirteen days later, he was sentenced to five life sentences, three to be served consecutively, without the possibility of parole.
In December, he was tranferred to an out-of-state prison “for his own safety,” a source close to Watts tells PEOPLE.
source: people.com
