Where Are Chris Kyle's Kids Today? What to Know About the 'American Sniper' Subject's Family

Yahoo

27-04-2025

It's been over a decade since Navy SEAL Chris Kyle — widely known as the most lethal sniper in American history — was murdered, leaving behind his wife Taya and their children, Colton and McKenna.
Kyle, who served four tours in Iraq from 1999 to 2009, had 160 confirmed kills and received numerous awards, including two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with valor. He's also the inspiration behind Clint Eastwood's 2014 film American Sniper, which was added to the Netflix library on April 21.
When he returned home, Kyle spent time with his kids, co-founded a security training firm and supported veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His time as a family man was tragically cut short when a fellow veteran killed him at a shooting range.
While Colton and McKenna were 8 and 6, respectively, when their father was murdered, they still remember the profound mark he left on their lives.
So where are Chris Kyle's children now? Here's everything to know about Colton and McKenna's lives today and how they honor their late dad's memory.
Kyle was a Navy SEAL who was considered the deadliest sniper in U.S. history. He was born and raised in Odessa, Texas, where his father gave him his first rifle when he was 8 years old, per Shooting Illustrated.
Kyle had always intended to join the military after graduating from high school, but he was initially denied when he was 20 due to a rodeo injury.
'That same recruiter kept my phone number, and I guess they must have been short a few guys, because he called me a few years later,' he told Shooting Illustrated.
In 1998, Kyle enlisted in the military and began basic training the following year. He became renowned for his sniper skills, at one point accurately aiming for a target over 2,100 yards away.
Related: The True Story Behind American Sniper: All About the Real Chris Kyle, Including His Tragic 2013 Death
With 160 confirmed kills, he remains the most successful sniper in American history; by his own count, the number is closer to twice that, he told D Magazine.
'I'm just a regular guy,' Kyle later told D magazine. 'I just did a job. I was in some badass situations, but it wasn't just me. My teammates made it possible.'
In 2009, Kyle was honorably discharged after 10 years of service. His decision was primarily motivated by a desire to spend more time with his family, Taya wrote in her 2015 memoir, American Wife: A Memoir of Love, War, Faith, and Renewal.
Following his return home, Kyle co-founded Craft International, a security training firm for the U.S. military now called Tac. In 2012, he published an autobiography, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, which became the basis for the film American Sniper.
After returning home from his final deployment, Kyle began working with fellow veterans dealing with PTSD. Kyle believed in the therapeutic nature of bringing fellow veterans to gun ranges where they could be around people who had been in similar combat situations.
On Feb. 2, 2013, Kyle, 38, and his friend Chad Littlefield, 35, were shot and killed by former Marine Eddie Ray Routh, whom they took to a shooting range in Glen Rose, Texas. Routh's mother — a teacher's aide at McKenna and Colton's school — had asked Kyle for help with her son, who had been diagnosed with PTSD.
Following six months in Iraq, Routh had been suffering from mental health issues. Weeks before meeting Kyle, he was checked into a psychiatric hospital after holding his girlfriend Jennifer Weed and her roommate hostage at their apartment, The Trace reported. At Green Oaks Hospital in Dallas, doctors said he was exhibiting paranoia, was 'impulsively violent' and spiraling into 'first-break schizophrenia.'
On Feb. 1, 2013, Routh proposed to Weed, but the following morning, they got into a fight, per The Trace. That afternoon, Kyle and Littlefield picked Routh up in Kyle's pickup truck to go to the shooting range.
In interviews with a forensic psychiatrist, Routh said that he believed Kyle and Littlefield were going to kill him. At the shooting range, Routh shot Littlefield seven times in the back. When he saw Kyle turning toward him, he also shot him six times. Routh then fled the scene.
After weeks of testimony, Routh was convicted of murder in February 2015, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Taya Kyle (née Studebaker), who grew up in Portland, Ore., was working as a pharmaceutical sales representative in Southern California when she met Kyle during a night out.
'We're in a bar, and he was so genuine and had a depth to him and this really hot body with a cute face and then an interesting career path,' Taya told ABC News in April 2015. 'I was intrigued, but I didn't think that it would ever be anything serious.'
The two married on March 16, 2002, exchanging inscribed wedding bands. On Kyle's ring, Taya wrote, "My life, my love." On Taya's, Kyle penned, "All of me."
While Kyle served in Iraq, Taya raised the couple's children on her own. After Kyle's fourth tour, Taya asked him to return home to focus on their family.
She recounted that telling her children about Kyle's death in 2013 was one of the most difficult moments of her life.
Sitting on her front lawn with her children on each knee, she told them, 'Something really bad has happened.' '
'The tears just poured out. We just sat out there in the grass for a while and I just held them,' Taya told PEOPLE.
Since Kyle's death, Taya has become an author. In 2015, she released her autobiography, American Wife: A Memoir of Love, Service, Faith, and Renewal, which details her life as a military wife and how she dealt with Kyle's death. Nearly a decade later, in 2024, she released her debut children's book entitled Prayers for Bears: Bailey the Grateful Bear.
On Veterans Day in 2014, Taya founded the Taya and Chris Kyle Foundation, which is dedicated to strengthening service marriages across the United States. She currently serves as executive director.
Taya has not dated or remarried since Kyle's death, she told PEOPLE in April 2024. "There's a line in Ed Sheeran's song, 'Tenerife Sea,' that says, 'Should this be the last thing I see, I want you to know it's enough for me,' ' she said. 'I think there was a big loyalty part of me that wanted to let him know that he was enough for me."
At the time of their father's death, Colton and McKenna were just 8 and 6 years old, respectively. Both siblings were devastated by the news.
Looking back, Colton 'took his death so incredibly hard," he told PEOPLE in April 2024.
Kyle's death, meanwhile, caused McKenna to fixate on the negative in life.
'My main coping mechanism was to look at everything as negative so I wouldn't feel something I thought was perfect was taken away again,' she told PEOPLE. 'I had an idea in my head that God's love was performance-based. That if I wasn't perfect, he would love me less.'
However, the family has credited therapy, their strong bond and their religious faith with helping them through the most painful moments.
McKenna is 'learning to see the good in the world again.' His dad's death has pushed Colton to be a better person, he added.
'Through adversity, through fire, gold is refined,' he said. 'I am a better man today than I would have been if I had not lost my father, especially at the time that I did. I have grown so much spiritually and emotionally."
After graduating from high school in 2023, Colton assumed stewardship of the American Sniper brand. He hopes to carry on his father's values, which are 'duty, sacrifice, patriotism, being God-fearing, freedom, family and excellence," Colton told PEOPLE in 2024.
'My mom has allowed me to move forward with it and see everything I can do with it,' he said. 'I'll be exploring lifestyle gear and serving active military and veterans through the brand.'
In his free time, Colton enjoys bodybuilding, Muay Thai, snowboarding, hunting, shooting, philosophy and gaming, he shared on Instagram.
Colton is also dedicated to his Christian faith. He hopes to earn a Ph.D. in Apologetics eventually, he shared in a 2024 TikTok.
Meanwhile, McKenna graduated from high school in 2024. She is currently on a gap year, per her bio on the Taya and Chris Kyle Foundation website. Currently, she is going "behind the scenes at Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, doing ride-alongs with deputies and interviewing prisoners" to share via social media.
'I show the behind-the-scenes of what law enforcement actually does, showing things like the forensic and canine units,' she told PEOPLE in 2024. 'That's really exciting to me. And it's also something that my dad was interested in. So I think that it's kind of carrying on his legacy.'
McKenna is considering a career in psychology in the hopes of one day becoming a counselor at the Taya and Chris Kyle Foundation.
She is also developing a podcast, "where she and her family will answer their followers' questions regarding healing, perseverance, and faith," according to her foundation bio.
Read the original article on People