BOSTON, MA - Transsexual Michelle Lynn Kosilek broke down in tears during testimony, describing what his life would be like if a federal judge does not order the state Department of Correction to pay for a sex change operation needed to complete the convicted killer's transformation into a woman.

Death would be preferable to continuing life as a man, Kosilek said. “Death is not the greatest loss in life,” he testified in US District Court in Boston. “The greatest loss is the dying a little bit inside every day . . . Death would be a relief.”

Kosilek, formerly known as Robert , was convicted of first-degree murder in Bristol Superior Court in 1993 and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He strangled his wife, Cheryl, in 1990 inside their Mansfield home and left her body in her car at the Emerald Square Mall.

Since August 2003, after US District Judge Mark Wolf ordered it, the Department of Correction has provided daily female hormone injections to Michelle Lynn Kosilek, 57. He also underwent laser hair removal.

With his hair well beyond shoulder-length and wearing lipstick, he testified that the hormone treatment changed his body.

“My butt got bigger and my skin got softer and the hair on my head got thicker,” Kosilek said in a voice that sounded feminine. He added he has grown breasts.

Kosilek, who insists that department personnel address him as a woman, testified that if the surgery is performed, he anticipates being welcomed warmly at MCI-Framingham, the state's only prison for women.

He is living at MCI-Norfolk, a medium-security, male-only prison where he is assigned to a single-person cell, according to court papers.

In court papers, the Department of Correction contended that the sex change operation would present a security risk. Kosilek would have to be transported out of state for the procedures several times to a private hospital where he would have to be guarded 24 hours a day.

The department said it has never sent an inmate out of Massachusetts for medical treatment. While returning him to Norfolk could put him at risk of being sexually assaulted, the department said in court records, sending him to the women's prison would upset female inmates, many of whom are victims of domestic violence like Cheryl Kosilek.

Michelle Lynn Kosilek also wants plastic surgery on his nose and to have his Adam's apple surgically reduced, but said in court yesterday he would waive those requests if the sex change procedure is done.

The jury-waived trial before Wolf is expected to last several more days.