Published: June 06, 2006 11:25 pm      

Inmate executed for ax murder of girlfriend

Timothy Titsworth, 34, was executed Tuesday evening inside the Huntsville “Walls” Unit for the 1993 ax murder of his girlfriend in Amarillo.

Strapped to the death chamber gurney, Titsworth offered a heart-felt apology to the family of his victim, Christine Marie Sossaman, directing most of his statement to Megan Sossaman, Christine’s daughter who was 4 years old at the time of her mother’s death.

“There are no words to describe the pain and suffering that you have gone through all these years. That is something that I cannot take back from you all,” Titsworth said. “I hope that Megan, if she is here present today, know that today I hope you get peace and you. I am sorry that is has taken 14 years to get closure. If it would have brought closure or brought her back, I would have done this years ago, I promise, I promise.

“My family all knows the sincerity in my heart when I say these words to you. I didn’t mean to inflict the pain and suffering on your family. I pray that (Christine) is safe in Heaven.... If these words can ever touch your heart, I am sorry. I am truly sorry.”

After saying, “I love you,” several times to his friends and family, Titsworth stared at the ceiling as the lethal chemicals entered his system.

“Here we go,” he said, as he took his final breath.

Seven minutes later at 6:20 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

Megan, who recently graduated from high school in Colorado, said she was surprised by Titsworth’s apology.

“I didn’t expect it,” she said. “Before, (TDCJ officials) told us not to expect anything. Before that, I did kind of think he’d be sorry, but after they told us not to expect anything I completely stopped, and it caught me off guard.”

Christine’s mother, Inez Marie Gibson Zetzsche, said she was shocked in a good sense by Titsworth’s final words.

“He ruined (Megan’s) life and our lives. He orphaned Megan and left us with a void in our lives,” she said. “He was very sincere in what he was saying.”

Evidence showed Titsworth, who dropped out of school after the eighth grade and worked as a roofer, was high on crack cocaine at the time of the attack.

In his confession, he told authorities he and Sossaman had argued, she went to sleep and he went out to buy crack and a pill he believed was LSD. He told detectives he returned to the trailer, got an ax from a closet and blacked out, although he said he did remember hitting his girlfriend four or five times.

While being held at the Randall County Jail and awaiting trial, Titsworth was among four inmates who escaped by crawling through ductwork. He was captured about 12 hours later.

Titsworth was convicted of unlawful use of a motor vehicle a month before his 20th birthday in 1992 and sentenced to five years in prison. As a first-time offender, however, he was released on probation after spending more than two months at a boot camp.

Three months later he was arrested driving a car owned by Sossaman, 26, whose body had been found at the mobile home she was sharing with Titsworth. She had been struck some 16 times with a dull ax.

According to court records, a friend of Sossaman testified the victim told her the day before she was killed that she intended to ask Titsworth to leave because she believed her boyfriend had been stealing from her.

Evidence showed that after the attack, Titsworth took her car along with items from the trailer home that he sold to buy more crack cocaine, then returned repeatedly to the murder scene to take more property to sell for drug money.

Titsworth was the 11th prisoner executed in the Texas this year.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.