Welcome everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong, where our motto is you’re either someone’s last love or first murder.
I am your host Ky along with my co-host Rick.
As a reminder, our show discusses true crime cases told in the form of a story with mystery, suspense, and just a little bit of humor sprinkled on top – but never at the expense of the victim.
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In today’s episode, I’m telling you about a case of mental health, emotional breakdodwns, and the outcome of not allowing yourself to get help.
But first, I wanted to remind you to head on over to our Patreon……….
Now, on to the show…
Christy Byrd was born in Decateur AL on May 2, 1974 to single mother Rebecca Marie Byrd. Nothing was mentioned about her father.
Jason Sheats was born and raised in Trinity AL, just 15 minutes away from Christy.
Although I couldn’t find how they met, numerous stories said they met when they were young and had a fairytale meeting. Their friends reported that when they were younger they just knew they were going to be together. They would always tell the story of how they met and it was so romantic that this was something one of their daughter’s looked up to.
So as you figured, they were married and had a wonderful marriage. They had two daughters, Madison Tyler Sheats born October 21, 1998 and Taylor Ashton Sheats born April 19, 1994. The couple moved to Houston where the girls grew up.
Christy loved her kids, loved being a wife, and just generally loved her life.
Both Taylor and Madison had an amazing childhood, raised by their loving parents. Christy, who was on social media alot, shared many pictures of the girls as well as their accomplishments and what they were doing in life. It was like her own public journal as much of social media is.
It’s through her Facebook posts that we find out that Taylor wanted to be an artist – it was her dream, but in the meantime, she was a full time teacher at a daycare. Madison loved her part time babysitting job and was very serious about her academic studies.
All was going well for the family until tragedy struck in early 2012. Christy’s grandfather died. Christy and her grandfather had a very special bond; he was one of her most favorite people in the world.He’d been a significant part of her life and was the reason she was the person she was today. After he died, Christy fell into a deep depression. Then, while trying to properly grieve this loss without it keeping her in an constant state of depression, another tradegy struck. Christy’s best friend, her mother, died a few months later.
After this, Christy was not the same. Her depression worssened, she experienced frequent mood swings, she barely ate, and even tried to commit suicide.
She stayed away from friends and family and was even put in mental health facilities when nothing else could be done.
Jason fought for her; stopped her from kiling herself, tried to be the stong shoulder for her to lean on, and still be there for his family but nothing would make Christy feel better. It became a norm in the house for the family to make service calls to get the police out to the house so that Christy wouldn’t hurt herself. It’s actually on record that there were 14 calls that went out to police and some of them were even filed as “mental crisis” dealing with Christy.
Doctors put her on medication for anxiety and depression, but even that seemed to not work. Christy became violent, when she’d never been before, she drank alot which shouldn’t be done period, but also shouldn’t be done when you’re taking meds. Especially meds for mental health.
By June of 2016, after 4 years of violence, pushing away, and constant arguments, with no resolution in sight, the marriage had soured and both Jason and Christy were ready for a divorce. According to Christy, Jason didn’t take her feelings seriously but according to Jason, he’d tried everything, but Christy was determined to push him away.
Although this was a sad time for Christy and Jason, their daughter, Taylor, was going to get married at the end of the month. They’d decided not to tell the girls so that they could enjoy the upcoming wedding.
A few days later, Christy got into an argument with Taylor. Christy had decided that she was going to ground Taylor and not let her see her fiance. Jason came and told Christy that she couldn’t ground a 22 year old grown woman. This entire event angered Christy more than it would any rational person. It made her even angrier when she realized that Jason didn’t see her point of view and agreed with Taylor instead. Later that day, Christy and Jason discussed divorce again. Imagine how angry this would have made Christy.
A few days later, Christy called a family meeting and planned it for June 24. Everyone was on board as family meetings were the norm in their house.
On June 24, 2016 everyone got together to talk about whatever was on Christy’s mind. Jason figured that they were going to talk about the upcoming divorce and finally tell their daughters what was coming. Taylor probably thought that Christy wanted to talk about the argument and her mom’s sudden aversion to Taylor’s fiance. Either way, they all gathered for the meeting.
When Christy came in and stood in front of her family, they could tell that she was “off.” If you know someone who has a history of mental illness, you get used to the warning signs. Your loved one may look and sound “normal” to everyone else, but you can see the warning signs of the person going towards an episode.
So anyway, they saw the warning signs and braced themselves for the episode ahead.
As they waited for Christy to start speaking, Christy instead pull out a gun.
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Christy then pointed the gun at Taylor and fired. Jason ran to save Taylor while at the same time yelling at Madison to get out. He dropped down over Taylor, shielding her body against Christy.
Madison, instead of leaving, ran to call 911. At this point, one the 911 call, you can hear Jason begging Christy not to shoot the children.
“Please don’t point the gun at us … I beg you, please put it away. I’m sorry. I promise you, whatever you want.”
I won’t replay or relive the 911 call here. We will have it posted in our private group on Patreon if you want to hear it.
While on the call, Madison began trying to leave the house. Instead, her mother turned her attention towards her and shot her in the back. Madison got through the front door but fell on the mat at the threshold, where she died.
By this time, Taylor and her father had run out of the house and were in the middle of the street by the time Christy caught up with them. Taylor had also called 911 so this part was also heard on the call. Christy fired again at Taylor, with Jason begging her to stop, and then she went back inside the house. Jason thought Christy was done.
At the point of the first shot, though, a neighbor had called 911 as well and was giving a very shaky, very scared and shocked play by play as to what was happening.
Jason picked up his daughter and started running down the street, however; by the time they reached the end of the street Christy had come back out of the house with gun in hand. Instead of being done, she had actually run out of bullets and had gone inside to reload. She ran to where Taylor and Jason were, but at that time police were coming down the road. This didn’t stop Christy and she kept running in the direction of the the remainder of her family. While the cops watched, Christy shot Taylor one more time. (I don’t think they just stood there and watched; I think they were just shocked that she blatantly did that in front of them). After she shot her daughter, she turned her attention towards the cops who were, at this point, yelling at her to drop the weapon.
Instead of doing this, Christy smiled and looked at her husband. She began raising her gun, but a cop fired, hit Christy, and killed her.
EMTs were also on the scene and they immediately airlifted Taylor to Memorial Hermann Hospital trying to save her life. At this point, she had been riddled by 3 gunshots in different parts of her body.
Unfortunately, a little while after arriving at the hospital, Taylor succumbed to her wounds.
Even though Jason was taken to the hospital as well, he didn’t need to be seen by a doctor as he had not one physical injury on him. However, he was admitted due to the level of emotional distress that he was experiencing.
Today, after all of this, Jason is still healing from the devestation. He’d appared on the Dr. Oz show on September 20, 2016.
While on the show he said, “I have nothing good to say about her. Nobody who loves her children can do that to her children.” and “No matter what I do, where I run, no matter what I occupy my time with, I will never be able to get those thoughts out of my head,”
You may be wondering why Christy didn’t kill Jason. He believes she did all of this to make his suffer for wanting a divorce from him. Jason recalls that she had so much time to shoot him too, but she never even tried to. She purposefully only went for the kids. Because she felt that he dismissed her feelings of loss after her loved ones died, she probably wanted him to see what it felt like. To be without those who you love the most.
And that is the twisted and disturbed case of Christy Sheats.
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I want to say this, if you know anyone who has a history of mental health issues, try your damndest to get them help. In this climate we live in, it’s almost impossible, but just still fight hard for your loved one and try to get them help.
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