Woman convicted of murdering father details her role in his killing: ‘I don’t forgive myself yet’

Police found an Ohio father and his girlfriend gruesomely hacked to death by a crowbar and ax in the bedroom of their home on Sunday, July 29, 2007.

Richard Messina Sr., 50, and Sandra Cover, 43, were in bed in their South Euclid home when they were attacked. Richard Messina’s 18-year-old daughter Tabitha was missing, but a small hatchet-style ax was found on her bed.

“It was brutal. Brutal,” retired South Euclid police detective David Volek said on Cliché: Behind barsairs Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “He wasn’t someone who just wanted to see Richard dead. Because that would have been to break into the house, shoot him and leave. No, no, no, it was personal. Too personal.

Tabitha Messina was ultimately convicted of both murders, as was her friend and lover Carlos Christopher, 19. Today, for the first time, Tabitha Messina is speaking publicly about what happened behind bars at the Dayton Correctional Institute. Her story first aired in season 1 of Broken: killer couples in August 2013.

For more on true crime:

Where are jailbreaker Casey White and his alleged accomplice two years after the 2022 escape?

“No contact with reality”: teenager diagnosed with schizophrenia after killing his mother with a frying pan

Inside the lives of Lyle and Erik Menéndez behind bars, 30 years after the murder of their parents

“This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t brought him home,” Tabitha Messina said. Cliché: Behind bars. “And I’m 100 percent guilty of that.” What I’m saying is that I may not have committed the murder, but I was definitely guilty of what happened. My friend choices were horrible when I was young.

Tabitha Messina said after 18 years behind bars, she regrets what she did just a month after graduating from high school.

“It was just a day of celebration and it turned out to be a nightmare,” Tabitha Messina said. “And it’s just something I can’t wake up from.” Never. Never. I see this day every day.

Carlos Christopher’s account of the night Richard Messina was murdered

Carlos Christophe. Photo: Oxygène

Carlos Christopher, his girlfriend Tammy Tabak, Tabitha Messina and her boyfriend Jason Gaylord had all attended a local festival and hung out at a playground the night Tabitha Messina’s father was murdered. Police said Christopher’s father was a gang leader in Brazil and was killed. His mother was in prison. He had been adopted by a family in Ohio.

“When I met him, he had this darkness,” Tabitha Messina said. “He was angry. He always tried to be tough. He has always been a macho man. »

Although Tabak was dating Christopher, she told police after the murder that Christopher and Tabitha Messina were in their own relationship.

“I don’t know exactly when. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Carlos and Tabitha themselves told me that they were sexually involved with each other,” Tammy Tabak previously said on Broken: killer couples.

Although the four men were together the night of the murder, Tabak and Gaylord both returned home and police determined they were not involved. Christopher and Tabitha Messina were later apprehended in one of his father’s vehicles in North Carolina. Police questioned Christopher and he began confessing to why he killed Richard Messina and Sandra Cover, and alleged that Tabitha Messina told him she had been abused by her father.

Tabitha Messina’s struggles with drug addiction in prison

“She starts telling Carlos what a horrible childhood she had,” Volek said on Broken: killer couples. “How she was repeatedly raped by Richard. How he had beaten her.

Christopher said he and Tabitha Messina returned to Messina’s house that night to “scare” his father. He admitted to taking an axe, hatchet and crowbar out of the garage with Tabitha Messina. He then claimed that Tabitha Messina first attacked Cover with the crowbar and asked him to hit her as well after beating her father, which started a chain of violent events that culminated in the two murders . /span/span/span/span/span/span/span/p pspanspanspanspanspanspan“Carlos was 19 years old. I don’t understand. I’m not going to say that he was totally repentant and remorseful. He knew what he was doing. He knew it was wrong,” Volek said. “But he thinks he did it for the right reasons because he still believed at that time that Tabitha was being molested by her father…and that poor child, he was so manipulated by Tabitha.” /span/span/span/span/span /span/span/p pstronga href=”https://www.oxygen.com/snapped-behind-bars/crime-news/lucille-duncan-claims-innocence-james- pruitt-murder” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”spanspanspanspanspanspan RELATED: Brother of Woman Convicted of Ex’s Murder Takes Responsibility for Crime: ‘I Couldn’t Take It Anymore’/span/span /span/span/span/span/span/a/strong/p div data -embed-button=”media” data-entity-embed-display=”view_mode:media.embed” data-entity-embed-display-settings =”()” data-entity-type=”media” data-entity- uuid=”43dfef2b-37ca-4927-b72e-eb558652d6d5″ data-langcode=”en” class=”embedded-entity”div class=”media__image ” style=”max-width:862px” div class=”media__image-wrapper” div div img loading=”lazy” decoding=”async” fetchpriority=”low” src=”https://www.oxygen.com/sites /oxygen/files/styles/scale_862/public/2024/09/tabitha-messina -snapped-behind-bars-205_0.jpg?itok=uMfTkYUz” width=”862″ height=”575″ alt=”Featured Tabitha Messina in episode 205 of Snapped Behind Bars” typeof=”foaf:Image” /div /div / div div class=”media__metadata” div class=”media__metadata-wrapper” span class=”media__caption” Tabitha Messina. /span span class=”media__credit”Photo: Oxygen /span /div /div /div /div div class=”listicle-heading” div class=”blog-post__faq” div class=”faq–question” h2What does Tabitha Messina do What happened the night her father was murdered?/h2 /div div class=”faq–answer” pTabitha Messina’s story about the night of the murders differs from that of her co-accused , Carlos Christopher. She says the police or the justice system never gave her a chance to explain herself./pp “I was stunned. Like I’ve never had any problems before. And you didn’t even give me a chance to speak – nothing,” Tabitha Messina said. “I didn’t even have the opportunity or chance to live in this moment. My life was taken from me at a very young age. pp“Looking back on the fight, I said horrible things to my father,” Tabitha Messina said. “And even though he was angry that day, I understand now that he was just afraid. He knew something bad was going to happen if I continued on the same path…I just told him I hated him…I think I broke his heart that night. »/p Richard Messina called the police and reported the phone stolen. When police caught up with Tabitha Messina and her friends at the playground, she said she sent Christopher to take the phone home./pp “I was afraid to take it back because I knew he would take it back to me. trap in the house,” Tabitha Messina said. “He came back shortly after and said that he and my father had this altercation. He tried to compete with my father. And he was angry and told me that my father was disrespecting him. So he hit him. » After Richard Messina reported the assault to police, he also told police to tell his daughter she was no longer welcome at the home, according to Tabitha Messina. That’s when she explained that she had hatched a plan for revenge – but not murder./pp “I had (no) money. And my dad had all the money,” Tabitha Messina said. “I’ll take his money. I’ll get some stuff. And he’s going to feel bad for what he did to me. It was a matter of revenge. »/p pTabitha Messina claimed Christopher told her he was just going to “scare” her father while she was getting her things downstairs. She alleged that when Christopher went upstairs, he beat her father. She added that she was the one who hit Cover with a crowbar to scare him away when she woke up during the attack, but claimed it was Christopher who killed her./pp” I remember he hit her with the hatchet and that was it,” Messina said. “And I haven’t forgiven myself yet…because if Carlos was never there. , they would still be alive I blame myself for that. “I just saw someone get killed right in front of me.”/p pTabitha Messina also said that Christopher’s story that she told him. abuse was a lie./pp “Carlos was so far from the truth. There was never any sexual abuse in my house,” Tabitha Messina said. “My father would have cut his arms off before doing something like that. So it’s – I don’t even know where it came from. »/p Christopher was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole. Tabitha Messina accepted a plea deal of 65 years to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2067, at the age of 78./pp “I just hope I can get out of here one day and put this behind me. Never forget. But try and maybe start a life. Have a second chance,” she said./p /div /div /div pspanspanspanspanspanspanspanspanWatch all-new episodes of emSnapped: Behind Bars/em at 7/6c Sundays on strongOxygen/strong./span/span/span /span/span /span/span/p