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Woman Convicted of Father's Murder Details Role in His Killing: "Yet to Forgive Myself"
“I am sorry for what happened, and I wish I could turn it back, but I can’t,” Tabitha Messina said in her first interview since she was convicted of her father’s murder on Snapped: Behind Bars.
Police discovered an Ohio father and his girlfriend horrifically butchered by a crowbar and axe in the bedroom of their home on Sunday, July 29, 2007.
Richard Messina Sr., 50, and Sandra Cover, 43, had been 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 axe was found on her bed.
“This was brutal. Brutal,” said David Volek, retired South Euclid police detective, on Snapped: Behind Bars, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. “This wasn’t somebody who just wanted to see Richard dead. Because that would have been break in the house, shoot him, and leave. No, no, no, this was personal. Too personal.”
Tabitha Messina was eventually found guilty of both murders, along with her friend and lover, 19-year-old Carlos Christopher. Now, for the first time, Tabitha Messina is speaking publicly about what happened from behind bars in the Dayton Correctional Institute. Her story first aired on Season 1 of Snapped: Killer Couples in August 2013.
“This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t brought him to the house,” Tabitha Messina said on Snapped: Behind Bars. “And I’m 100 percent guilty of that. What I’m saying is, I might not have done the murder, but I was definitely guilty for what happened. My friend choices were horrible when I was young.”
Tabitha Messina said after 18 years behind bars, she’s full of regret for what she did just one month after graduating from high school.
“It was just a party day 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 that day every single day.”
Carlos Christopher's Account of the Night Richard Messina Was Murdered
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 had been killed. His mother was in prison. He’d been adopted by a family in Ohio.
“When I met him, he had this like darkness to him,” Tabitha Messina said. “He was short-tempered. He always tried to be tough. He was always like the macho man.”
Although Tabak was dating Christopher, she told police after the murder that Christopher and Tabitha Messina had their own relationship.
“I’m not sure exactly when. I’m not sure exactly, like, what happened, but Carlos and Tabitha themselves had told me that they were sexually involved with each other,” Tammy Tabak previously said on Snapped: Killer Couples.
Although the four had been together the night of the murder, Tabak and Gaylord both went home, and police determined they were not involved. Christopher and Tabitha Messina were later apprehended in one of her father’s vehicles in North Carolina. Police interviewed Christopher, and he began to confess why he killed Richard Messina and Sandra Cover, and alleged that Tabitha Messina told him she’d been abused by her father.
“She begins to tell Carlos about what a horrible childhood she had,” Volek said on Snapped: Killer Couples. “How she was raped repeatedly by Richard. How he had beat her.”
Christopher indicated he and Tabitha Messina returned to the Messina’s house that night to “scare” her father. He admitted to getting an axe, hatchet, and crowbar out of the garage with Tabitha Messina. He then claimed Tabitha Messina attacked Cover first with the crowbar and asked him to hit her as well after he beat her father, which set off the violent chain of events that ended in both murders.
“Carlos was 19. I don’t get it. I’m not gonna say he was totally repentant and remorseful. He knew what he did. He knew it was wrong,” Volek said. “But he thinks he did it for the right reasons because he still believed at that point that Tabitha was being molested by her dad…and that poor kid, he was so manipulated by Tabitha.”
What does Tabitha Messina say happened the night her father was murdered?
Tabitha Messina’s story about the night of the murders differs from her co-defendant, Carlos Christopher’s, story. She claims she was never given a chance by police or the justice system to explain herself.
“I was dumbfounded. Like I’ve never been in trouble before. And you guys didn’t even give me a chance to speak — nothing,” Tabitha Messina said. “I haven’t even had an opportunity and a chance at life right now. My life got taken from me at a young age.”
Tabitha Messina said her father called her that night at the playground, as she was borrowing Cover’s cell phone, and the two got into an argument because she’d missed curfew.
“Looking back at the fight, I said some horrible things to my dad,” Tabitha Messina said. “And even though he was an angry person that day, now I understand he was just scared. He knew something bad was going to happen if I continued down the same road I was going…I just told him I hated him…I think I broke his heart that night.”
Richard Messina called 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 back to her house.
“I was scared to take it back because I knew that he was going to trap me in the house,” Tabitha Messina said. “He came back shortly after and said that he and my father had this altercation. He tried to stand toe to toe with my dad. And he was mad and told me that my dad disrespected 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 home, according to Tabitha Messina. That’s when she explained she came up with a plan for revenge — but not murder.
“I didn’t have [any] money. And my dad had all the money,” Tabitha Messina said. “I’m gonna take his money. I’m gonna take some stuff. And he’s gonna feel bad for what he did to me. It was a revenge thing.”
Tabitha Messina claimed Christopher told her he was just going to “scare” her dad while she grabbed belongings from downstairs. She alleged when she went upstairs, Christopher was beating her father. She added that she was the one who hit Cover with a crowbar to keep her away when she woke up during the attack, but claimed Christopher was the one who killed her.
“I remember he hit her with the hatchet and that was it. Like she was done for,” Messina said. “And I’ve yet to forgive myself…because if Carlos was never there they would still be alive. I hold myself responsible to that.”
Tabitha Messina said she went along with all of it out of fear of Christopher.
“I was scared to death,” she said. “I just watched somebody get killed like right in front of me.”
Tabitha Messina also said Christopher’s story that she told him of abuse was a lie.
“Carlos was so far from the truth. There was never any sexual abuse in my household,” Tabitha Messina said. “My father would have cut his own arms off before he ever did anything like that. So that’s — I don’t even know where that came from.”
Christopher was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison, with no opportunity for parole. Tabitha Messina took a plea deal of 65 years to life in prison. She’ll be eligible for parole in 2067 at the age of 78.
“I just hope to one day be able to walk out of here and leave this behind. Never forget. But to try and maybe start a life. Have a second chance,” she said.
Watch all-new episodes of Snapped: Behind Bars at 7/6c on Sundays on Oxygen.
