Post by sclcookie on Jun 6, 2006 1:21:15 GMT -5
Man convicted of killing girlfriend with ax set to die Tuesday
Convicted of auto theft a month before his 20th birthday, Timothy Tyler
Titsworth avoided an immediate five-year stint in prison when he was sent
to a boot camp for 2 months as a 1st-time felony offender, then released
on probation.
The camp and probation didn't work.
3 months later, he was arrested and charged with capital murder for the
slaying of his girlfriend, who died at the mobile home they shared in
Amarillo. Christine Marie Sossaman, 26, had been hit about 16 times with a
dull 2-bladed ax as she slept.
On Tuesday, the Denver-born Titsworth, now 34, is set to receive lethal
injection for her death nearly 14 years ago.
He would be the 11th Texas prisoner executed this year and the 1st of 3
scheduled to die this month in the nation's most active capital punishment
state.
The U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to review his case.
Evidence showed Titsworth, who dropped out of school after the 8th grade
and worked as a roofer, was high on crack cocaine at the time of the July
23, 1992, attack.
"I didn't think that I had a problem and didn't accept the help and
treatment provided to me," Titsworth, who had walked out of at least two
drug treatment programs, wrote on an anti-death penalty Web site. "With my
fear, ignorance and denial of the truth that so many others have seen, I
ended up here: on Texas death row."
According to court records, a friend of Sossaman testified the victim told
her the day before she was killed 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 to
purchase more drugs.
He was arrested driving Sossaman's car while en route to what a companion
said was yet another visit to the crime scene to collect items to sell. By
then, Sossaman's mother, worried when she couldn't reach her daughter by
phone, had discovered the body and alerted police, three days after the
crime.
"He was just a crackhead," Randall County District Attorney James Farren
said. "He got caught with her property in his possession. In addition, he
confessed."
In his confession, Titsworth told authorities the two had argued, Sossaman
went to bed and he went out to buy crack and a pill he believed was LSD.
He told detectives that while high on the drugs, he went to the mobile
home where Sossaman was sleeping, got the ax from a closet and blacked
out, although he said he did remember hitting the victim four or five
times.
Evidence showed the woman lived from 20 minutes to two hours after she was
beaten to her head, neck and upper body. A chest wound was so severe her
ribs were driven into her lungs, a pathologist testified.
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.
At his 1993 trial, Titsworth's lawyers argued he shouldn't be convicted of
capital murder because evidence showed the slaying was committed while he
was under the influence of drugs and that he didn't intend to steal her
property. Jurors didn't buy the argument, returning a guilty verdict after
deliberating about an hour.
Titsworth declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his
scheduled execution.
"I'm on death row and have fought a hard battle within the appellate
courts, only to reach the final stage ... a better man, a stronger soul,"
he wrote on a Web site that seeks prison pen pals.
His mother testified at his trial she was a bartender with a drinking
problem, that her son began drinking beer about the age of 2 and that his
father committed suicide when Titsworth was 6. She said Wyoming
authorities took him and an older brother from her custody when Titsworth
was 8 and placed the siblings in an orphanage for a year. He had his 1st
run-in with the criminal justice system at 13, she said.
Scheduled to die next - on June 20 - is Lamont Reese, 28, who authorities
say is a former street gang member convicted of gunning down 3 people
outside a Fort Worth convenience store in 1999.
ON THE NET
Texas Department of Criminal Justice execution schedule
www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm
Timothy Titsworth www.ccadp.org/timtitsworth.htm
(source: Associated Press)
Convicted of auto theft a month before his 20th birthday, Timothy Tyler
Titsworth avoided an immediate five-year stint in prison when he was sent
to a boot camp for 2 months as a 1st-time felony offender, then released
on probation.
The camp and probation didn't work.
3 months later, he was arrested and charged with capital murder for the
slaying of his girlfriend, who died at the mobile home they shared in
Amarillo. Christine Marie Sossaman, 26, had been hit about 16 times with a
dull 2-bladed ax as she slept.
On Tuesday, the Denver-born Titsworth, now 34, is set to receive lethal
injection for her death nearly 14 years ago.
He would be the 11th Texas prisoner executed this year and the 1st of 3
scheduled to die this month in the nation's most active capital punishment
state.
The U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to review his case.
Evidence showed Titsworth, who dropped out of school after the 8th grade
and worked as a roofer, was high on crack cocaine at the time of the July
23, 1992, attack.
"I didn't think that I had a problem and didn't accept the help and
treatment provided to me," Titsworth, who had walked out of at least two
drug treatment programs, wrote on an anti-death penalty Web site. "With my
fear, ignorance and denial of the truth that so many others have seen, I
ended up here: on Texas death row."
According to court records, a friend of Sossaman testified the victim told
her the day before she was killed 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 to
purchase more drugs.
He was arrested driving Sossaman's car while en route to what a companion
said was yet another visit to the crime scene to collect items to sell. By
then, Sossaman's mother, worried when she couldn't reach her daughter by
phone, had discovered the body and alerted police, three days after the
crime.
"He was just a crackhead," Randall County District Attorney James Farren
said. "He got caught with her property in his possession. In addition, he
confessed."
In his confession, Titsworth told authorities the two had argued, Sossaman
went to bed and he went out to buy crack and a pill he believed was LSD.
He told detectives that while high on the drugs, he went to the mobile
home where Sossaman was sleeping, got the ax from a closet and blacked
out, although he said he did remember hitting the victim four or five
times.
Evidence showed the woman lived from 20 minutes to two hours after she was
beaten to her head, neck and upper body. A chest wound was so severe her
ribs were driven into her lungs, a pathologist testified.
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.
At his 1993 trial, Titsworth's lawyers argued he shouldn't be convicted of
capital murder because evidence showed the slaying was committed while he
was under the influence of drugs and that he didn't intend to steal her
property. Jurors didn't buy the argument, returning a guilty verdict after
deliberating about an hour.
Titsworth declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his
scheduled execution.
"I'm on death row and have fought a hard battle within the appellate
courts, only to reach the final stage ... a better man, a stronger soul,"
he wrote on a Web site that seeks prison pen pals.
His mother testified at his trial she was a bartender with a drinking
problem, that her son began drinking beer about the age of 2 and that his
father committed suicide when Titsworth was 6. She said Wyoming
authorities took him and an older brother from her custody when Titsworth
was 8 and placed the siblings in an orphanage for a year. He had his 1st
run-in with the criminal justice system at 13, she said.
Scheduled to die next - on June 20 - is Lamont Reese, 28, who authorities
say is a former street gang member convicted of gunning down 3 people
outside a Fort Worth convenience store in 1999.
ON THE NET
Texas Department of Criminal Justice execution schedule
www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm
Timothy Titsworth www.ccadp.org/timtitsworth.htm
(source: Associated Press)