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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Colville man charged in 1997 cold case killings of mom and daughter

New tests on DNA collected from a cigarette butt and the inside of a Chevy Blazer helped investigators unravel a grisly 1997 double slaying of a Stevens County mother and her daughter.

Investigators have long suspected Charles Tatom, now 73, of the killings. But it wasn’t until this year that new evidence gelled with their suspicions to finally get Tatom arrested for the deaths of Marlene Emerson, who was 29, and her 12-year-old daughter, Cassie Emerson.

Prosecutors charged him this week with first-degree murder.

Marlene Emerson’s body was found inside her Colville trailer home that had been razed by fire on June 27, 1997. Her spine had been cut and her throat slit before the fire, according to court documents. Her daughter was nowhere to be found.

At the time, investigators believed someone killed Emerson, lit her home on fire and abducted Cassie, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review. They offered a $5,000 reward for information about the girl, who was believed to hold “the key to her mother’s death,” the former sheriff said in 1997.

A month later, Cassie’s body was found in a wooded area south of Colville with knife marks on her neck, according to court documents.

Investigators said Emerson associated with members of a motorcycle club in Colville at the time of her death. Some members were reportedly upset with her because of her role in a burglary and her cooperation with police in a separate case, according to court records. Some referred to her as a “snitch.”

Emerson complained of being harassed at her home, including finding bullet holes in her trailer, court records said. She told a friend she “wasn’t going to let anyone run her out of town.”

As the harassment escalated, Emerson’s mother later told police, “I told Cassie several times that if anything happened to her or her mom … she had to call me. She repeated the number over, which she knows by heart, and promised me she would. I asked if she was scared, and she said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Tatom, who associated with the same group as Emerson, was said to be “crazy” and violent, according to court records. He told people Emerson owed his friend money.

On the night of the killings, witnesses said Tatom left a home with a friend in a Chevy Blazer and came back the next morning with burn marks on his body, court records said. They also claimed he was in possession of a bloody knife he told people was used to gut an animal.

Investigators zeroed in on Tatom after an acquaintance was told he had said something about “dragging” the girl away and killing her. People connected to both Emerson and Tatom believed Tatom and another man were present for the killings because the man had told a few people “things got carried away.” The other man later died in a plane crash, according to court records.

Police tracked down the Chevy Blazer that Tatom was said to have been driving at the time, as corroborated by witnesses who were around during the fire, and found blood stains on the seat, the window and the butt of a cigarette in the car’s ashtray. They also found a bag of cassette tapes with Tatom’s fingerprints on them.

The evidence was collected and preserved for future testing. The window from the car was sampled in 2009, tested for blood and later matched to Cassie in 2013 after investigators exhumed her body.

This past summer, forensic scientists once again tested the preserved evidence from the scene. Washington State Patrol Forensic Scientist Brittany Wright indicated in her report that she had strip-tested DNA left on the center console in the Blazer, which came back as a match to Cassie.

Wright also tested the DNA left on the cigarette butt. She found Tatom’s DNA and parts of Cassie’s DNA on the cigarette, court records said. This indicated to her that Tatom had smoked a cigarette after his “contact” with the girl.

Documents indicate the case went unsolved for more than two decades because of restrictions on technology and because many of the witnesses feared retribution. Even so, it didn’t stop two retired detectives from working the case, Stevens County Prosecutor Erika George said.

“With advancements in DNA it was determined that there was potentially evidence that could be tested now that wasn’t tested before,” George wrote in an email.

Prosecutors requested Tatom be held without bail because he has a “propensity for violence,” George wrote, and that “there has been no reason for the defendant to think that he was in jeopardy of facing charges or arrest over these matters.”

“Now, he will be facing the possibility of dying in prison if convicted and will have full knowledge of all the evidence against him and all who have made statements against him,” she wrote.

Tatom’s first appearance in Stevens County Superior Court is set for 11 a.m. Friday. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

“I am grateful for the law enforcement agents and officers, who have dedicated more than two decades of their careers to identifying those responsible for Marlene and Cassie’s murders,” George said in a statement. “The Stevens County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office remains committed to holding violent offenders accountable and seeking justice on behalf of victims and their families.”