After just over 21 years a cold case of the killing of a mom-of-seven has been closed.

Tamara Mattson, known to friends and family as Tammy, was murdered at Camano Island State Park, in the state of Washington, back in December 2003.

It wasn’t until the ninth of that month that the 39-year-old’s body was found dumped in vegetation on Camano Island, located an hour’s drive north of Seattle, with Tammy herself known for staying in the Lynnwood area of Snohomish County.

Mom-of-seven Tammy Mattson was 39 years old when she was murdered (Facebook/Island County Sheriff’s Office)

Drugs and the cigarette

According to her mom Sharon Chism, she was involved with drugs.

“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 told 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.”

A statement issued by the Island County Sheriff’s Office explained: “For nearly six years, Sheriff’s detectives pursued leads and interviewed ever-widening circles of acquaintances but they kept running into dead ends.”

All they knew was that Tammy’s ‘was very violent’, and that ‘whoever did this to her was very determined to make sure she was not alive when they left her’, Det. Ed Wallace, an officer investigating Tammy’s death, told Fox 13.

Following advances in DNA technology in the summer of 2009, it allowed the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab to develop DNA profiles from minute amounts of human biological material.

In this case, that was DNA left behind on a cigarette butt that was discarded close to Tammy’s body and when they ran it through the system there was a match – Carl D. Schlobom, whose DNA was registered following a 2005 murder conviction in Arizona.

Karl Schlobom was wanted by the FBI (FBI)

The ‘confession’ during a ‘free talk’

It took until June 2021 for prosecutor Gregg Banks managed to secure an interview with Schlobom alongside Wallace and other personnel.

Wallace stated: “He knew things that only the killer and detectives knew.”

The statement also explained that his motive was discovered, and that was that Schlobom, who would have been around 48 years old at the time, killed her over a dispute about a drug deal.

However, he never signed a sworn and verified confession that covered everything from their ‘free talk’ they’d had, as he waited for guarantee that he could serve his time in Washington.

It took three years before the states of Washington and Arizona were able to come to an agreement over extradition, but in that time Schlobom ‘had suffered a series of debilitating strokes and had advanced dementia’, Island County Sheriff’s Office explained.

It meant that Schlobom, who is now aged 69, could not be charged for Tammy’s murder as his mental condition renders him incapable of being prosecuted.

Scholobom was diagnosed with dementia two decades after he was believed to have murdered Tammy (Arizona Department of Corrections)

The delay

So why did it take 12 years before an interview was struck with Schlobom after he was identified as a person of interest in the case?

The issue for cops was how could they pin him to the murder; they knew that the cigarette was discarded around the same time as the murder, but without a witness, there was no way to prove that he wasn’t just a bystander.

After Banks reached out to Schlobom, it became apparent that he knew what had happened – but there was a catch.

In order for him to confess, he wanted to be extradited to Washington to serve the remainder of his life sentence, but laws meant that he would have to serve his time in Arizona before doing so.

Banks explained: “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.”

If you’ve ever assumed that all a flight attendant has to do is serve food and drinks, then you’re sorely mistaken.

Not only does a flight attendant have to keep everyone on the flight fed and watered, they also have to keep everyone safe and a big part of that is keeping a keen eye for any suspicious activity.

In fact, it was thanks to some eagle-eyed flight attendants that customs officials at Delhi Airport in India managed to uncover a foiled gold smuggling operation, after passengers refused the in-flight meal service. Because let’s face it, who can make it through a long flight without so much as a cup of tea or a chocolate bar?

The passengers were sitting unusually still (Getty Stock Images)

Staff onboard the Indigo Airlines flight 6E-1802 first became suspicious when they noticed three passengers sitting unusually still throughout the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Almaty, Uzbekistan, prompting crew to offer them a range of refreshments in a bid to test their reactions.

When the passengers refused food, tea and water, the flight attendants became increasingly concerned with their bizarre behavior and decided to alert the captain.

In turn, the Indigo Airlines captain used air traffic control to contact customs officers at Delhi’s IGI airport, who were waiting to intercept the passengers on their arrival in the Indian capital.

Staff at customs decided to question the three passengers and their luggage was sent through the X-ray machine, but nothing was found. Still not satisfied by the results, customs officers used Door Frame Metal Detectors to investigate further, to no avail.

It led to a shocking find (Getty Stock Photo)

Still convinced that something suspicious was going on, the officials took each of the travelers into private rooms to interrogate them separately and each of them in turn confessed to smuggling gold pieces in their rectums.

When officers searched for the hidden treasure, they recovered around 439 grams of gold from eight separate pieces.

According to News 18, all three passengers were then arrested at the airport and taken into custody, though it’s not clear if the passengers are from India.

Meanwhile, a passenger travelling from Indore to New Delhi was recently intercepted after being flagged as suspicious at the Indira Ghandi International Airport.

Airport security noticed something odd when the luggage passed through the X-ray machine.

While searching the suitcase, they discovered almost 999 grams of gold, believed to be worth around $86,000.

A plane passenger has revealed the note they received from a flight attendant after getting stuck in the loo for the entire journey.

Flying is hardly all fun and games at the best of times – especially now some people have decided to start ‘raw-dogging’ on their plane journeys.

However, there’s one way which would leave you having the worst flying experience of your life and that’s being trapped in a plane’s bathroom for the whole duration of it.

It sounds too nightmarish to be true, but unfortunately for one passenger it was their actual reality soon after they took off from Mumbai airport in India earlier this year.

The only lucky part of this story is the SpiceJet Flight SG-268 lasted just over an hour, traveling from Mumbai airport at 2am local time to Bengaluru in India’s southern Karnataka state.

However, that didn’t mean the experience was any less anxiety-inducing for the unnamed male passenger when they first realized they were locked in.

The passenger had gone to the toilet as soon as the seatbelt signs switched off after takeoff.

But he then could not get out of the toilet due to the door failing to open.

The passenger was stuck onboard a SpiceJet flight. (Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The budget airline said in a statement: “A passenger unfortunately got stuck inside the lavatory for about an hour.”

The crew and many others onboard tried to free the man, but nothing seemed to work.

It meant that the passenger was stuck in the toilet for the landing of the commercial aircraft at Kempegowda International Airport.

The man was understandably panicked by the whole ordeal, so a flight attendant decided to slide a note under the door in an attempt to reassure him.

And it didn’t take long for the note to go viral following all the drama.

The flight attendant’s note. (X)

“Sir we tried our best to open the door, however, we could not,” it began.

“Do not panic. We are landing in a few minutes, so please close the commode lid and sit on it and secure yourself. As soon as the main door is open, an engineer will come. Do not panic.”

And that’s exactly what happened as the plane landed, with two engineers boarding and breaking down the door once it was on the ground.

After the man was freed from the toilet captive, he received ‘immediate medical support’.

Since the passenger’s story made worldwide headlines, the airline has issued him with a full refund.

“SpiceJet regrets and apologizes for the inconvenience caused to the passenger,” SpiceJet said in a statement.

“The passenger is being provided a full refund.”

LADbible Group previously contacted SpiceJet for further comment.

Police have revealed a man has been arrested and accused by locals of trying to light a fire in Los Angeles amid the devastation being caused by wildfires.

After the Palisades fire broke out on Tuesday, multiple others have broken out over California, sweeping through the state and engulfing Los Angeles.

At around 4:30pm yesterday (January 9), a man was spotted by locals in the Ybarra Road area of the Woodland Hills area allegedly trying to start a fire, the residents immediately calling police.

The accusations

The man was spotted on a bicycle, riding around with a blow torch in his hand, Fox 11 Los Angeles reports. Using the blow torch, the man was allegedly attempting to set fire to garbage cans and old Christmas trees lying out on the street.

Local, Renata Grinshpun, told KTLA 5: “We were sitting in the backyard and suddenly, we hear a car come to a screeching halt and the guy is running out saying, ‘Stop! Drop what you’re holding! Neighbors, he’s trying to start a fire! Call 911!’”

Grinshpun reports seeing a man with a ‘propane tank or a flamethrower’ and explains a group of locals then rallied together and followed the man, catching him and even zip-tying him to prevent him from doing anything or running off before authorities arrived at the scene.

Another resident told FOX 11: “He was very, like, ‘I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I’m not putting this down. I’m doing this’. And [he was] very focused on moving forward with the blow torch. And we’re like, ‘We can’t be doing that right now.'”

Senior lead officer Charles Dinsel confirmed a man has been arrested, videos from the scene showing authorities apprehending him.

Five fires are sweeping through California (Apu Gomes/Getty Images)

The investigation

An LAPD spokesperson told The Telegraph: “About 20 to 30 minutes later a suspect was detained over in Woodland Hills area by citizens. It is being investigated as a crime.”

It’s now being investigated whether the suspect is connected to any of the fires currently causing devastation across Los Angeles.

The Telegraph reports it’s being considered whether or not the suspect is connected to the Kenneth Fire which has been raging in the West Hills, burning over 950 acres of land and forcing residents to evacuate, officials reportedly questioning whether one of the fires is actually the result of a possible arson attack.

At the time of writing, nearly 30,000 acres of Los Angeles has been attacked by fires, five massive fires raging on, the death toll as a result of the fires having risen to 10 and is expected as rising further.

LADbible Group has contacted Los Angeles Police Department Topanga Community Police Station for comment.

You can support those affected by the fires by donating to the Red Cross online, by calling (800) 733-2767 or texting REDCROSS to 90999.

If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact GrieveWell on (734) 975-0238, or email info@grievewell.com.