73-year-old Colville man suspected of 1997 double homicide held without bail

A 73-year-old Colville man accused of killing a Stevens County woman and her young daughter in 1997 will be held in jail without bail after a prosecutor said the man has a prior murder conviction in Oregon and would be at risk to flee and harm witnesses if released.

Charles Tatom, wearing striped Stevens County Jail clothing with a long white beard, made his first appearance virtually Friday morning in front of Stevens County District Court Commissioner Timothy Trageser.

Several law enforcement agencies teamed up to arrest Tatom on Thursday morning at his residence.

Tatom faces two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the killings of Marlene Emerson, who was 29, and her 12-year-old daughter, Cassie Emerson. If convicted, Tatom would face life in prison without parole.

For years investigators suspected Tatom of the killings, but it wasn’t until recent DNA testing that detectives said they could definitively link Tatom to the crimes.

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

At the time, investigators believed someone killed Emerson, lit her home on fire and abducted Cassie, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review. 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.

Authorities said Tatom is believed to have been an associate of the Iron Horsemen Motorcycle Club, an outlaw group with ties to the Hells Angels, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which helped apprehend Tatom this week.

Investigators said Emerson associated with the same motorcycle club and 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.

On Friday, Trageser read the charges, which said the alleged murders were to obtain or maintain membership or advance his position of hierarchy in the motorcycle club.

Stevens County Prosecuting Attorney Erika George, who argued for no bond, said witnesses are “extremely fearful,” which delayed them providing information to detectives. Trageser ordered Tatom not to have contact with 53 witnesses and victims’ surviving family members.

Although Tatom is 73 and free of criminal convictions the last 18 years, George said Tatom deserved to be held in jail in part because of the brutality of the killings. She said Marlene Emerson’s ear was removed before her body was found in the fire and her daughter was brutally murdered and left in the woods. 

“These offenses are heinous; they’re violent,” George said.

She said Tatom has “murdered at least once before” stemming from a 1970s Oregon killing. George said she’s never asked a judge to hold a murder suspect without bail until Friday. 

“If you release him, he has no reason to stay in this area,” George said. 

Melissa Haney, Tatom’s attorney and the director of the county’s public defender’s office, said her client denied committing the crimes and argued for a $500,000 bond.

She said he’s been cooperative with law enforcement since the time of the killings and that Tatom’s “whole life is here,” noting that he’s lived in the same home for 30 years, doesn’t have a driver’s license and could not afford to leave the area because of his limited income.

Haney said Tatom has taken polygraph tests and offered to do more of the tests. George said a polygraph test Tatom took determined he was “deceptive.” 

Trageser said the detailed affidavit featured a great deal of direct and circumstantial evidence against Tatom and held him without bail.

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

Police found blood stains on the seat of the Blazer, the window and the butt of a cigarette in the car’s ashtray. 

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 summer, forensic scientists again tested the preserved evidence from the scene and found that DNA left on the center console in the Blazer matched Cassie’s DNA. Tatom’s DNA and parts of Cassie’s DNA were found on the cigarette, which showed that Tatom had smoked a cigarette after his “contact” with the girl, documents said.

Tatom is scheduled for an arraignment Dec. 31.