- In 2013, snapped: Killer couples
Told the story of tabitha messina,
A rebellious teen with a turbulent home life.
- Tabitha wanted to run wild.
She partied. She stayed out all night.
She ran with a crazy crowd.
- The messina house was a frequent attraction
To the south euclid police department.
We got called there for domestic disturbances,
Loud noise complaints.
- The chaos ended with a deadly crime.
- They were murdered in a very violent way
While they slept in their own bed.
- She set the whole thing up.
She put everything in motion.
She put everything into play.
- Now serving a life sentence
In the dayton correctional institution,
Tabitha messina opens up for the first time
About the night her father and his girlfriend
Were murdered.
- I might not have did the murder,
But I was definitely guilty for what happened.
Our parents always tell us, like, you know,
Choose your friends wisely, and it never registered.
- She offers herself up
In exchange for him sending a message to her father.
- He was honest, brutally honest.
He was so manipulated by tabitha.
- I am sorry for what happened,
And I wish I could turn it back, but I can't.
♪
[footsteps approaching]
- I'm tabitha messina.
[movie marker clapping]
And, I wanted to do this interview
Because I wanted people to hear my side.
Usually, when people come to prison,
They always say, you know, "I didn't do the case.
"I didn't do this." I'm not sayin' that.
I was definitely guilty for what happened.
- For my safety,
I feel comfortable being silhouetted.
Because I don't need nobody comin' after me,
I don't.
I feel it necessary,
And I want to speak up for my daughter's behalf.
I know both sides of the family are angry.
I know they have a right to be angry,
But everybody painted her to be a monster.
She's not a monster.
She was definitely there, yes, for the wrong reason,
But murder wasn't the reason.
- There's things about the case
That are still troubling to me, personally.
Uh, for one, the crime scene.
I've never seen that kind of destruction to a human body
That was done intentionally,
And I think what's troubling
Is my knowledge of the family.
I knew richard. I knew tabitha.
- On Sunday, July 29th 2007,
Police in the cleveland suburb of south euclid, ohio,
Receive a concerning call
Outside the home of richard messina
And his girlfriend, sandra cover.
- When officers arrive,
They enter through the unlocked back door
And cautiously make their way through the house.
- Upon checking the house,
They discovered in the second-floor bedroom
Richard and sandra deceased.
Richard's injuries were chops,
Which would be indicative of an axe or a knife.
Sandra had several elongated bruises.
- If you look at sandi cover's, uh, injuries,
You can see that there are a number
Of defensive type wounds,
Uh, that were sustained to her body,
Which indicates that she was involved
In a fight for her life.
- Homicide detectives
Are immediately called to the scene.
- You know there's jewelry boxes that are open,
Um, dresser drawers that have been emptied.
Its contents pour-- poured on the floor.
- Walk over to the side of the bed
Where richard is,
And you see that the comforters and the blankets
Have been pulled in such a way
That they cover his face.
- In the midst of this big disarray of the room,
Someone took the time
To put a doily over sandra's face.
- Their faces were covered.
Why?
That's what killers do
When they're familiar with their victims,
They cover their face.
- As police continue searching the home,
They make an ominous discovery in the bedroom
Of richard messina's 18-year-old daughter, tabitha.
- It's a small hatchet style axe--
It's just laying on a bed.
There's no blood on it,
Uh, no signs that it was used in the struggle.
We could not find or account for tabitha messina.
- Investigators weren't clear
As to whether it was sending a message,
Or whether it was an indication of tabitha's fate.
- Now the wheels are really spinnin'.
Where is she?
Nobody knows.
- Born in 1988, tabitha messina
Was a bright light in her parents' lives.
- She looked just like her dad.
Curly black hair. Big pretty eyes.
- Rick was a big bear of a guy
With a big smile
And a-a huge baritone laugh,
And he loved family.
Family was everything to him.
- As a dad,
I couldn't have had a better one.
He was the only man I've ever loved.
He was my best friend.
He was my provider.
He was my-- he was my rock.
- I grew up in a very...
Up-classy neighborhood.
It was like a suburb type of area.
Um, good schools.
It was beautiful.
- My daughter,
She was-- she loved sports.
She loves, uh, basketball.
Uh, she did soccer.
She made good grades.
- Unfortunately, her parents' relationship
Deteriorated in front of young tabitha.
- We got called there for domestic disturbances,
Loud noise complaints,
And, uh, she was a suspect in several burglaries
And breaking and entering's and thefts and shoplifting.
At times, taking little tabitha with her
When she shoplifted.
- She was in and out of prison over the years.
Rick would kick her out,
She'd come back beggin' for money.
It was a volatile relationship.
- As tabi's getting older,
She's aware of what is going on.
And, I used tell her, "baby, go on downstairs
"and play in the family room."
But, she heard all this.
And then she got to the point she wouldn't listen to me
When I'd tell her to go downstairs.
She'd say, "daddy, don't hit my mommy".
I know it affected her. I know it did.
- Richard and tabitha's mom split up
When tabitha was eight years old.
Shortly after, he began dating sandra cover.
- Sandi was rick's compass.
Sandi was-- showed rick that, um,
This is what a good life is,
And to be normal,
As normal as rick and sandi could be,
But, um, in a loving relationship that they had,
You know, sandi was his normal.
- After a whirlwind romance,
Sandra moved in with richard and tabitha.
- Your parents breakin' up,
You automatically think the other woman
Is trying to take your mom's place,
And I was a hard-headed child.
And she put up with so much from me,
And the more I pushed, the more she pushed,
And she was, she was strong-minded, too.
- As tabitha grew up,
Richard made sure to set high expectations
For his daughter,
Who struggled to stay out of trouble
From an early age.
- He tried to guide her.
"you have a curfew, uh, no drugs.
- I first met tabitha when I was fifteen.
We hit it off right away.
She was very outgoing just kind of like
That spunky little attitude like I was, so, you know,
It was kinda like we were two peas in a pod pretty much.
We were always on like, the same type
Of little misfit trouble.
- Surprisingly, richard gave his blessing
When tabitha began dating a classmate
Named jason gaylord.
- Jason, he was the parents' dream.
He was handsome.
He was charming, and he won my dad over.
- Although she had a boyfriend,
Tabitha was still exploring her sexuality.
- I was bi-curious at a young age,
And I was really never into boys.
And jason knew my secret.
He tried to change my mind,
And telling me that he could give me a life
That, you know, nobody could give me.
It was hard keeping my secret.
Um, because I felt like my dad
Would've probably turned his back on me.
'cause it would've hurt him.
I tried to do everything up to his standards.
I thought maybe I could fix myself.
- When tabitha's senior year ended in June 2007,
She began thinking about her future.
- Growing up, um, I always loved animals,
And I wanted to be a veterinarian.
- In my family,
I was the only one that graduated high school.
My dad thought like, you know, oh,
This is my-- my golden egg.
She's gonna make me proud.
He didn't know how much I really loved him
And how... He meant to me.
- Just one month later,
South euclid police have been called to the messina home,
Where richard and sandra have been murdered...
And tabitha is missing.
- This was brutal.
Brutal.
You know, this wasn't somebody
Who just wanted to see richard dead
Because that would've been break in the house,
Shoot him and leave.
No, no, no, this was personal.
Too personal.
- While authorities put out an apb for tabitha messina,
Detectives discover that both family vehicles
Are also missing, leading them to theorize
That there must have been two drivers.
- Where's richard's cars?
They had the jimmy and they had a corvette.
So, neither one of 'em in the driveway.
We knew there were two people involved.
That was obvious.
I'm telling the dispatcher,
You need to enter those as stolen,
And put an armed caution on the occupants.
I got a job to do. Doesn't matter who it is.
You have a job,
And now you have to do everything
'cause as we like to say when we're doing homicides,
We're now doing the work for god.
- Coming up...
As police search for tabitha messina,
Rumors of a complicated love triangle surface.
- I liked the excitement.
And that's what I was attracted to.
- This volatile relationship led to poor choices,
A heartbreaking betrayal,
And she couldn't face the consequences.
- She knows we know what she did,
And the wheels in her mind are spinning.
"how am I gonna get out of this?"
♪
- South euclid police investigating the brutal murders
Of richard messina and sandra cover
Are urgently searching
For richard's 18-year-old daughter, tabitha messina.
After processing the scene,
Detectives head outside
To talk with the mother of tabitha's boyfriend,
Jason gaylord.
- When I arrive at the crime scene,
Um, renee vlna and ashley gaylord
Who are jason's mother and sister respectively
Are already there.
They're giving written statements
To, uh, the patrol officers.
- According to renee,
Jason and tabitha had gone to south euclid's
Annual home days festival the previous evening
With tabitha's best friend tammy tabak
And her boyfriend carlos christopher.
- Home days is a carnival-type event
That, uh, the city of south euclid puts on.
You know, it has rides, games,
Attractions, food, music, fireworks.
- Detectives learn that tammy tabak
And carlos christopher are classmates of tabitha.
When detectives try contacting their cell phones,
The calls go unanswered...
- My best friend in high school was tammy tabak.
I met carlos through tammy,
That was tammy's boyfriend.
When I met him, he...
He had this like darkness to him.
He was short-tempered.
He always tried to be tough.
He was always like the macho man.
- Carlos really comes from a bad situation
Where his dad was a gang leader in brazil.
His father was eventually killed,
His mother went to prison,
And then this family in ohio adopts carlos.
- Carlos would be with tammy
And I would be with jason, and we would go out.
We would drink, we would, you know,
Go to the bowling alley, do things that teenagers did.
- So, the night before,
It's the night of home days in south euclid.
She's with her little crew,
Carlos, jason gaylord, tammy tabak.
They're just hangin' out, havin' a good time.
- Renee tells detectives
That when jason didn't come home later that night,
She became concerned.
- She was trying to get a hold of him
Throughout the night-- she couldn't.
She tried to call richard and sandra
On their cell phones-- they weren't answering,
So after she got off work that day,
She went to the messina house.
- When detectives reach out to richard and sandra's families,
They are devastated to learn of the tragedy.
- There were so many questions.
And shock and horror.
- We were all in disbelief. Helpless.
Couldn't do nothing.
It was like, holy cow, how did--
How did we get to this point?
- Richard's family tells detectives that richard
Had a tumultuous relationship with his daughter tabitha.
- She stayed out all night, she ran with a crazy crowd.
- The police department got called in several times
For verbal arguments between richard and tabitha,
Or her and sandra.
You know, that set into motion the whole thinking of, you know,
Tabitha may be involved in this.
- Now after nearly 18 years,
Tabitha messina is ready to tell her side of the story...
She starts at the beginning of that fateful night.
- Now that I'm older, um,
I've sat and I've replayed that day,
And even though I smile and, like, I'm good company,
I'm pretty much suffering every single day
Because I live with that.
It was just a party day, you know,
And it turned out to be a nightmare.
A nightmare.
And it's just something I can't wake up from.
Never, never.
I see that day every single day.
- According to tabitha,
The two couples were hanging out at a local playground
After the festival, when tabitha's boyfriend jason
Made a surprising gesture.
- Jason, he proposed to me, you know.
And it was weird because then carlos proposed to tammy
And he made it out to be, like, this joke.
And I was serious.
Because my sexuality wouldn't have let me, you know,
Get married at the time.
So, I felt like, you know, if I married him,
I can move out of the house and, you know,
Have my own life and do what I wanted to do.
- A short time later, tabitha received a phone call
From her dad.
- So, my dad and me got into an argument
Over a cell phone.
- Tabi had, um, sandy's phone,
And she had told her dad, "dad, I'll be home about 12:00",
Something like that.
When he called her, he said, tabi,
It's like going on 12:30.
"dad, I want to stay out with my friends a while longer."
Well, they got into it on the phone.
- Looking back at the fight,
I said some horrible things to him, my dad,
And even though he was, like, an angry person at that day,
Now I understand, like, he was just scared.
He knew something bad was gonna happen
If I continued down the same road I was going,
And he wasn't really a nurturer.
He expressed himself through anger.
And I just told him I hated him,
And he couldn't tell me about my life no more.
I pretty much told him, like, everything you've done
For 18 years doesn't matter,
And I think I broke his heart that night.
My dad asked me to come back home,
And I told him no.
And he sent the police.
The police know pretty much, like, all of us kids.
So, they know where our hangout spots are.
- Our guys go, they tell her,
You gotta take the cell phone back to your dad.
And then from what we know, she sends carlos back
With the cell phone.
- I was scared to take it back because I knew that
He was gonna trap me in the house,
And I would not be able to leave the house.
And he had his ways to intimidate.
So, carlos was like, "well, I'll take it back.
You don't have to even go to their house.
I got it."
And I was like, "all right," and I gave it to him.
Well, he ended up going to the house,
And I stayed back with jason and tammy,
And he came back, like, shortly after
And said that him and my father had this altercation.
- Rick was coming out the garage,
And carlos was coming up with the phone.
And he like shoved it into rick's chest.
- 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.
- Richard calls and says he was assaulted by carlos.
So, our guys take a report.
Richard fills out a statement which he says
He'll turn in to the station later.
- The police ended up rolling up on me
And everybody else, and they was like,
"your dad doesn't want you back home".
- After tabitha learned she was no longer welcome
In her father's house, she hatched a plan.
- I didn't have no money, and my dad had all the money.
I wanna take his money. I wanna take some stuff,
And he's gonna feel bad for what he did to me.
It was a revenge thing.
♪
- Tabitha messina continues her account
Of the night that led to the double murder
Of her father, richard messina, and his girlfriend sandra's cover.
- Me and carlos went to the house,
And I was gonna just take some stuff
And we were gonna pawn it, and I knew what I was going for,
What was worth money.
And carlos was like, "well, where's all,
Like, expensive things?"
And I remember, like, he had a safe in his bedroom,
And I was like, "well, he has it up there.
And he was like, "well, we're just gonna scare him.
Do what you gotta do. Grab stuff down here."
He went up there by himself for a while.
So, I didn't know what was going on,
So I heard something, so when I went up there,
That's when I seen him over my dad.
My dad, he didn't know what was going on.
Sandi, she ended up waking up, and she was just so scared
When I walked into the room.
But she came charging me.
I had the crowbar 'cause she was a lot bigger than me.
And so, I hit her, and I hit her again.
I was fighting her on the floor, and I kept telling her,
"please, just stop. Just stop."
And I was holding her down, and he finally came over,
And he was like, "man, get off of her."
And he pulled e off of her,
And I remember he hit her with the hatchet.
And that was it, like, she was done for.
And I've yet to forgive myself due to that night.
Because if carlos was never there,
They would still be alive,
And I hold myself responsible to that.
I was scared to death.
I just watched somebody get, like, killed
Right in front of me.
Carlos was like, "we gotta change.
We gotta do this, and we gotta do that."
And I was pretty much going with the flow, but, like,
Not mentally there.
And, um, he made me change my clothes.
And he changed his. And he had this hat--
I'll never forget this hat. And it had, like, stuff on it.
And as we were walking out the house,
He ended up throwing it in my-my bushes.
And he had me by the arm and he was like,
"we gotta get outta here." he said, "fast."
- So, he was like, "we gotta take their cars."
And he was like, "you know what?
Go where tammy and jason were."
And he followed behind me.
It was, like, bumper to bumper.
He made sure he was directly behind me.
And jason, I remember, gets in the car,
And he was like-he was, "baby, what's wrong?
What's wrong?" and I was like, "nothing.
Everything's fine."
I was trying to play it off like everything's cool.
I was like, "you know what?
Why don't we just, like, get married and, like,
Go far, far away from here?"
Like, I wanted him to save me. Like, I just felt trapped.
And he was like, "all right. Everything's gonna be fine."
And I was like, "we need to get tammy."
So, we kept calling her, and I was like,
"you need to come with us."
- Tabitha was like you, me, carlos and jason,
We're all gonna go to georgia and start a new life together.
Like we are running away to georgia.
Starting a new life, you know, where nobody knew me,
It actually sounded good to me at the time.
Tabitha and carlos had shown up in the jimmy and the corvette
That they had stolen from rick's house.
And that's when I pretty much, like, started getting
A bad feeling internally that something wasn't right,
But I don't know what happened.
Tabitha was driving the jimmy
And carlos was driving the corvette
And jason was in the car with tabitha,
And I ended up being in the corvette with carlos.
Carlos and I really didn't have a conversation
When I was in the car with him.
He was mostly really quiet with me.
- So, as I'm driving, I'm freaking out.
We stop at this hotel in the parking lot,
And we were sitting there.
And jason kept asking me what's wrong.
Well, I didn't know that his mother was worried
Because he-- she didn't hear from him,
And she couldn't get ahold of me.
And I'm like, "I don't-- nothing.
Like, everything's fine. Like, everything's fine."
They didn't ask about my parents.
So, I was like, "everything's fine."
Jason's cell phone rings.
And all of a sudden, I remember his color
Drained from his face, and I knew something was wrong.
- His mom calls and talks to him on the cell phone
After she finds a break-in at the messina house,
And convinces him to turn around and come back home.
- He kept trying to tell me, like,
"you gotta come back with me. Come back with me."
And I was like, "no, I'm not, I'm not--
I'm not coming back."
Jason was like, "I'm gonna take this car.
Come back with me. Let's go home."
And I was like, "I can't go home."
And I wanted to, so bad.
I kept trying to tell jason, "we just gotta get outta here."
So, I headed without him.
And carlos was like, "you go your way,
We go our way type thing.
And him and tammy ended up taking the car.
- Jason and tammy, they're in west virginia
Somewhere on-on 77.
And they turn around and come home.
- We were met by, like, fifteen to twenty cop cars
And brought in for questioning.
We were handcuffed at that point
Because the police really didn't know, honestly,
Who was involved in this situation.
- Coming up: Tabitha and carlos are apprehended,
But questions remain about the crime's true mastermind.
- She was scared of carlos.
She thought he was gonna kill her too.
- Tabitha manipulated him to do her bidding.
♪
- July 29th, 2007.
Detectives in south euclid, ohio sit down with tammy tabak
And confront her about the murders of richard messina
And sandra's cover.
Tammy claims she knows nothing about it,
And instead opens up about a complicated dynamic
Between her boyfriend carlos christopher
And her best friend, tabitha messina.
- At that time,
I was actually supposed to be dating carlos,
And tabitha was supposed to be dating jason.
I am not sure exactly when,
And I am not sure exactly, like, what happened,
But tabitha and carlos themselves had told me
That they were sexually involved with each other.
That night I saw them sitting there, like,
Kind of like holding hands or, like,
Sitting next to each other, like, close together
In, like, an intimate way.
When the group had left the playground,
Jason and I were-- ended up walking next to each other,
And tabitha and carlos were kind of, like,
If I had to give a guess,
Maybe 500 to a 1,000 feet ahead of us talking.
- Tammy says she and jason were annoyed,
And decided to go their separate ways.
- Jason had called me at 3:30 in the morning,
Asking me if I had heard from tabitha or carlos,
And I said, "no, I have not heard from tabitha or carlos."
- We find out there was a period of time
Where tabitha and carlos are unaccounted for,
For about two and a half hours or so.
Nobody knows where they are.
- I did not get a phone call from tabitha herself
Until 8:00 that morning.
She told me that we are running away to georgia.
- When detectives question jason gaylord,
His account mirrors tammy's.
- They didn't know what was going on,
And so the officials could see
Tammy and jason had nothing to do with this at all.
- Authorities redouble their efforts
To locate tabitha messina and carlos christopher
And put out a nationwide apb for the couple.
- So now we have issued warrants for tabitha and carlos,
And those are armed and dangerous warrants.
- Just 16 hours after detectives issued a bolo for the fugitives,
The manager of a motel in avery county, north carolina
Spots an unauthorized car in his parking lot.
- He sees trash outside the car.
Goes up, there's two people asleep in the car.
He calls the police. The sheriff shows up,
Walks up to the car, takes a look,
Runs the plate through the radio, gets the hit,
And I can only imagine what-- what went through his mind
At that point as he said, "get me some help".
- Within minutes, a team of heavily armed officers
Arrive on the scene
And order the occupants out of the vehicle.
- As soon as I opened the car door,
There was lasers everywhere.
I was scared.
I remember them telling me to turn the car off,
And every time I would go to reach for the car,
They would tell me to stop moving.
They came up.
They had guns pointed.
They cuffed me in the front.
Carlos, they cuffed him in the back,
And they put this wire around his wrists.
They didn't ask no questions.
They said that the-- the car was, um,
In an-- unauthorized use of a motor vehicle,
And that's all they would tell me.
- Later that day, detectives arrive
To transport tabitha and carlos back to ohio.
- My story was that I didn't know what happened.
And I kept my mouth shut, didn't say nothing.
I didn't have nobody to turn to.
I went through it by myself.
- Carlos christopher is more cooperative
When detectives sit down with him for a formal interview.
He tells them that after the altercation
With richard messina on July 28th,
Tabitha made a pass at him.
- Tabitha and jason begin having sex on the playground.
Tammy and carlos are making out a short distance away.
- Carlos would tell us that,
As tabitha would be having sex with jason,
She would be looking at him as if to entice him toward her.
He knew he should start telling us the truth
And when he did that, you could almost see
A weight being lifted off of his shoulders.
- Finally, we're gonna find out who did this
And what happened.
♪
- South euclid detectives are interviewing carlos christopher,
Who claims that earlier in the night of the murders
Of richard messina and sandra cover,
Tabitha messina had revealed a dark secret
About her father.
- She begins to tell carlos
About what a horrible childhood she had,
How she was raped repeatedly by richard,
How he had beat her.
- Carlos was so far from the truth.
There was never any sexual abuse in my household.
My father would've cut his own arms off
Before he ever did anything like that.
So, that's-that's...
I don't even know where that came from.
- Carlos tells detectives that he and tabitha made a plan
To break into her father's house.
- Carlos is telling us the whole intent
Of going into that house was to just scare richard
And tell him not to try and find tabitha.
- They entered the house through the garage.
He got an axe out of the garage,
And tabitha got a hatchet and a crowbar.
He says they started to go upstairs towards the bedroom.
For whatever reason tabitha put the hatchet down on her bed.
- They went into the bedroom.
He stood over richard.
Tabitha stood over sandra, and just about the time
That carlos was going to wake richard up,
He looks over and sees tabitha whaling on sandi with a crowbar.
Carlos, he says his mind froze,
And at that time, he hit richard with the axe.
After he hit him the second time,
He knew he was dead.
At this point and time, tabitha is still hitting sandra
With the crowbar,
But now she's on the ground.
Tabitha says to him, "carlos, kill this (bleep)."
- And that's when he stood over her
And hit her in the back of the head with the axe.
And that's what ultimately killed her.
Carlos was 19.
I don't get it.
I'm not gonna say he was totally,
Like, repentant and remorseful.
He knew what he did, he knew it was wrong,
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 he was honest, brutally honest,
And that poor kid, he was so manipulated by tabitha.
- Carlos was the-- more of the--
The tough one.
This wouldn't have happened
If I wouldn't have brought him to the house,
And I'm a hundred percent guilty of that.
Yeah.
What I'm saying is I might not have did the murder,
But I was definitely guilty for what happened.
Um, my friend choices were--
Were horrible when I was young
And our parents always tell us, like, you know,
Choose your friends wisely, and it never registered.
And I liked the excitement.
That's what I was attracted to.
- Following his confession, authorities charge
Both carlos christopher and tabitha messina
With two counts of aggravated murder.
- There were additional felonies that were committed,
And the level of cruelty that went into this type of killing
And how it was perpetrated, um, would definitely make this
A death penalty eligible case.
- Most of us wanted the death penalty.
I know I wanted the death penalty,
An eye for an eye.
- With both suspects in custody,
Authorities begin preparing for their trials.
- Carlos told us where they threw the ax and the crowbar,
And it was in a field, behind a convenience store.
And we went out there with the canine
And searched that whole field.
But we never did find the weapons.
- Detectives receive the concrete evidence they need
From forensic testing.
- A couple shirts, and a knife,
And a fedora hat that were found in the shrubs
Just outside of the house.
Those shirts were collected and submitted for testing.
Those shirts contained the dna
Of both tabitha and carlos respectively
Along with the blood of sandra cover.
- Despite tabitha's unwillingness to cooperate,
Detectives believe she orchestrated the crime.
- In some respect, she wasn't lying,
Carlos did the actual killing.
Hmm, but what was her role?
She set the whole thing up.
She put everything in motion.
She put everything into play.
- This volatile relationship led to poor choices,
A heartbreaking betrayal,
And she couldn't even face the consequences.
- I just felt like my whole world
Come crashing down.
♪
- In may, 2008, nine months after the murders
Of richard messina and sandra cover,
Carlos christopher is convicted of aggravated murder.
- The three judge panel decided he would get
Two consecutive life terms in prison.
- When the sentence came down, I was ecstatic,
Cause he will not have the opportunity for parole ever.
- Just days before tabitha's trial
Is set to begin in September of 2008,
Tabitha and her attorneys meet with the prosecution.
- The prosecutors took the death penalty off the table
To avoid putting the families through the trial.
So tabitha took her plea deal.
- They gave me 65 years to life,
And I was dumbfounded.
Like, I've never been in trouble before,
And you guys didn't even give me a chance
To speak, nothing.
I haven't even had a-- an opportunity to even have
A chance at life right now.
My life got taken from me at a young age.
- I think the sentence was ridiculous,
Utterly ridiculous.
They proved that my daughter killed nobody.
She was there, but like she said,
She was scared of carlos.
She thought he was gonna kill her too,
And I think the judges were unfair to my daughter.
- The court system knew my family,
And when I went in there,
The judge has dealt with my parents before.
They dealt with my mom. They dealt with my dad.
Didn't know it. Didn't defend myself.
Couldn't defend myself.
I never got a chance to really speak.
I would say to sandi's family that I am so sorry.
That she was a good woman,
And she did not deserve what was happening.
And then to my dad's family,
You know how hard he was,
But I would have never wanted him hurt, not like this.
I never wanted nothing like this to happen to him,
And I live with it every day.
I still can't look at her pictures to this day.
I just started to be able to look at my dad's.
And it hurts.
Very much so, it hurts.
- I do not believe tabitha has any remorse.
I do not.
And if she expresses it,
I take it with a grain of salt.
- I've been locked up for eighteen years,
And it has been a challenge.
It's been very hard.
I was in a really dark place, um, I'm missing my family.
I'm missing my mom.
- I've always told her,
"tabi, you can't bring those years back, baby."
You just have to keep moving forward.
And I've even told her a million times,
She's not the one that should be locked up.
It should've been me and him.
- I still to this day don't know why she did it.
I just see a dad who provided a-a home for his daughter,
Maybe not the best home life,
But I don't see how that plays into her killing him.
She had her whole life in front of her
To do whatever she wanted to.
She chose poorly.
- I just hope to one day, you know, be able
To walk out of here, you know,
And leave this behind.
Never forget but to try and maybe start a life.
To have a second chance.
♪