More than two decades after the murder of a mother of seven, a cold case has finally been resolved.
Tamara Mattson, affectionately called Tammy by those who knew her, was brutally killed at Camano Island State Park, Washington, in December 2003.
Her body was discovered on December 9th of that year, abandoned in the vegetation on Camano Island. Tammy was known to frequent the Lynnwood area in Snohomish County, just an hour’s drive from Seattle.
Her mother, Sharon Chism, revealed that Tammy was involved in drug-related activities.
“No matter how many times I told her that she had to take a different path, she’d give her hair a flip and say, ‘No. I’m doing it my way, mom’,” Chism shared with Fox 13.
“’I’m going to do it my way’, she told me she could live on the street and she told me she could survive.”
The Island County Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying: “For nearly six years, Sheriff’s detectives pursued leads and interviewed ever-widening circles of acquaintances but they kept running into dead ends.”
Detective Ed Wallace, who was part of the investigation, stated that Tammy’s death ‘was very violent’, and that the perpetrator was ‘very determined to make sure she was not alive when they left her’, he told Fox 13.
In 2009, advances in DNA technology enabled the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab to extract DNA profiles from minute traces of human biological material.
In this instance, DNA left on a cigarette butt near Tammy’s body proved crucial. When analyzed, it matched Carl D. Schlobom, who had a DNA record due to a murder conviction in Arizona in 2005.
It wasn’t until June 2021 that prosecutor Gregg Banks was able to arrange an interview with Schlobom along with Wallace and other officials.
Wallace remarked: “He knew things that only the killer and detectives knew.”
The investigation revealed Schlobom’s motive: he killed Tammy over a disagreement related to a drug transaction. At the time, Schlobom was around 48 years old.
Despite the breakthrough, Schlobom did not provide a sworn and verified confession covering all details from their conversation, as he was waiting for assurance that he could serve his sentence in Washington.
It took three years for Washington and Arizona to agree on extradition terms, but during this period, Schlobom suffered several strokes and advanced dementia, according to the Island County Sheriff’s Office.
Due to his mental health decline, Schlobom, now 69, cannot be prosecuted for Tammy’s murder.
Why did it take so long—12 years—for authorities to interview Schlobom after identifying him as a suspect?
The key issue was connecting him conclusively to the murder. While the cigarette was left at the scene around the murder’s timing, proving Schlobom’s involvement without a witness was challenging.
When Banks contacted Schlobom, it became evident that Schlobom was aware of the incident—but he had a condition.
To confess, Schlobom wanted to be transferred to Washington to serve his life sentence, but legal stipulations required him to finish his sentence in Arizona first.
Banks stated: “Without his confession, we were stuck. This allowed him to speak candidly and allowed us to verify that he was the killer before we would negotiate any kind of deal.”