Suspect in killing was related to elderly victim
Spokane police continued Thursday to investigate the alleged homicide of an elderly woman in northwest Spokane.
The 51-year-old suspect, who was identified as a relative of the woman, reportedly went to the Spokane County Public Safety Building around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday and told an officer that he had killed a woman at 6707 N. Drumheller St.
Police went to the home, located one block south of Indian Trail Elementary School, and found the woman, believed to be in her late 80s, dead in the house.
Arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree murder was Robert Mattausch.
Police provided little details Thursday and likely won’t have any information or know a motive for the killing until next week, said Dick Cottam, police spokesman.
An autopsy for the victim is planned for Monday.
The victim, whose name was not released, apparently lived alone at the house, and had been alone with Mattausch at the time of the alleged homicide, Cottam said.
“That’s our understanding anyway,” Cottam said. “Detectives really haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.”
He had requested a lawyer and wasn’t answering any questions, Cottam said.
Mattausch refused a reporter’s request for a jailhouse interview. He will likely make his first appearance in court today.
According to phone records, the home on North Drumheller belongs to Opal and Raleigh Moreland. Raleigh Moreland died in 2000.
According to a newspaper article from 1997, a man named Robert Mattausch is the oldest son of a Waverly couple shot to death in their farmhouse that year.
Allen and Gertrude Mattausch were killed by a 20-year-old man, now serving a life sentence for two counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
At that time, Robert Mattausch told Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor that his family agreed not to pursue the death penalty for the man who killed his parents.
So far this year, police have investigated 12 homicides in Spokane.
Wednesday’s death will be the 13th, Cottam said.