After spending more than 30 years in prison for the 1995 kidnapping and brutal killing of two people in DeKalb County, 57-year-old Chris Tatrow wants to be a free man but any hopes he had of gaining release on parole anytime soon may have been dashed at his parole hearing Tuesday.
At the conclusion of the session, hearing officer Gary Faulcon, a Parole Board member, cast his vote to decline parole for Tatrow due to the seriousness of the offense but a final decision is not anticipated for a couple of weeks.
“Its going to be my recommendation to decline you Mr. Tatrow based on the seriousness of the offense. Your release from custody at this time would depreciate the seriousness of the crime. This was a very horrific incident where two men were treated very badly and very inhumane and ended up losing their lives over something that was very minor and that just did not have to happen. My vote is to decline you until April 2028. Ways to improve your opportunities for parole in the future are to complete programming as recommended and maintaining positive institutional behavior,” said Faulcon.
“The file will go to other parole board members who will independently review and vote until there are enough concurring votes to reach a final decision. In Tatrow’s case, there needs to be four concurring votes by board members before a final decision is reached. Generally, it takes approximately a couple of weeks to finalize,” said Dustin Krugel, Communications Director for the Tennessee Board of Parole.
The parole hearing for Tatrow, who is serving a life sentence for first degree murder in the killings of 26-year-old John Harry and 18-year-old Roger Zammit, was held at the Northwest Correctional Complex (NWCX) in Lake County at Tiptonville, Tennessee where Tatrow is incarcerated. Tatrow has spent more than half of his life behind bars because of the crimes. This was Tatrow’s third appearance before members of the Tennessee Board of Parole. His first was in October 2019.
District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway and Zammit’s sister Jessica Zammit Boyer, stepfather Mark Blanchard, and son and daughter in law Christopher and Mariah King spoke out against parole for Tatrow at Tuesday’s hearing during a video conference from Cookeville. WJLE covered the story at the Cookeville location.
In addition to Tatrow himself, others speaking on his behalf were Tatrow’s mother and stepfather Diane and Ricky Taylor. If paroled, Tatrow said he would live with his mother and that he had a job waiting for him at Music City Sheet Metal in Nashville.
During Tuesday’s hearing, parole board member Faulcon cited from the court records how the case unfolded. While Tatrow was away from home in January 1995 his trailer home in the Belk Community of DeKalb County was burglarized. When Tatrow returned home, he became suspicious that the victims Zammit and Harry had stolen from him. They were picked up by Tatrow and his accomplices and held against their will and then were tortured and murdered. The victims’ bodies were wrapped in carpet and woven fence wire with concrete blocks attached before being dumped over Hurricane Bridge in Center Hill Lake.
Although Tatrow now claims he can’t recall certain specifics of the crimes and denies being the instigator, he said Tuesday that he takes full responsibility for his actions.
“My house was broken into and the victims and some of their friends had broken into my house and this is what started the whole ordeal,” said Tatrow. “The two victims were at my house. They had been coordinating a recollection of my stuff that had been stolen. It was not any money or drugs. It was my old guns, knife collection and looking back now nothing major at all. In this exchange tempers got out of hand and a lot of threats were made. This went on for like a two-week period,” said Tatrow.
“I was not at home. I had been away for about eight days, “Tatrow continued.” I hadn’t had any sleep. I was scared to death and from the time of about dark on January 14th, 1995, it was just a ball of light and flickering faces and just bad feelings. Roger Zammit came to the house on Thursday. Mr Harry came to the house on Friday night. The crimes happened on Saturday night. We had ridden into town with Zammit and a partner of mine and Zammit had gone into different apartments and houses and collected a gun here and there, tools, trying to collect some of the stuff that had been stolen. There was nothing planned for harm to be done to anybody. We were just locating the stuff and resolving the issue.” he said
“After a hard week of a dangerous situation, on Saturday night my mother came to the house,” Tatrow explained. “I met her in the front yard. Zammit was in the front cab of the truck asleep. Both doors were open. He woke up while my mother and I were talking, and he went inside. When I walked in the house the other guys had already taken Roger and Johnny up and it just went downhill from there. From there on I don’t have a clear picture of step by step. They ended up dead and I woke up in the truck passed out. I don’t know exactly how Mr. Zammit died. I shot Mr. Harry. I take full responsibility because it was my fault. If nothing else, I should have stopped it. I don’t have a clear recollection of the events,” said Tatrow.
In making his appeal for parole, Tatrow said Tuesday during the hearing that he is a better man today. “I have tried hard to be a better man every day. On the night of the crimes, the murders, it was terrible. That is not who I am. It was a bad ordeal, and it was an ordeal brought on my multiple people not just me by myself. It was instigated not by me, but I take full responsibility for it. But I am trying to be better, and I am better. I know I could do good on the outside. I try to follow my Lord and try to be led by the Lord. I was not being led by the Lord back then, but I am now. I’m sorry,” said Tatrow.
Speaking against Tatrow’s being paroled, District Attorney General Dunaway said during the hearing Tuesday that Tatrow had a better recollection of the crimes only three years ago during his last parole hearing and shortly after the murders in the statements he gave to investigators back in 1995.
“This trial occurred on July 8, 1996, in Cumberland County and Tatrow was convicted of two counts of first-degree felony murder and two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping,” said DA Dunaway. “I personally attended the last parole hearing on April 7, 2022, and I find it odd that Tatrow’s memory is very different today than it was at that April 2022 hearing. At the April 2022 hearing Tatrow clearly admitted that he strangled Mr. Zammit in the bathroom. He took Harry outside, debated over what to do. He said I should be the one to do it and I shot him. Those were Tatrow’s statements from the last parole hearing. Notably different from the statements today,” said Dunaway.
“The way these men (victims) were treated is over and above what it took to kill them,” Dunaway explained. “They were tortured over a three-day period. This was not a heat of passion killing. This was a three-day torturous situation where Tatrow stabbed his victims. He pulled guns on them. He cut them and tied them up to chairs, wrapped them in wire, tied bricks to them and threw them in the lake about a 100-foot drop from the bridge to the water’s surface,” he said.
Members of Zammit’s family also appeared at the hearing via video conference from Cookeville Tuesday to ask that parole be denied
“I lost my mom that day because she never, ever recovered from losing her son,” said Boyer. “My brother’s dad was at the lake that day when they pulled my brother out of the water. Its almost so shocking its unbelievable to hear of how many people just came and went (from Tatrow’s home) and at no time did anyone stop it or say hey maybe this has gone on a little too long. And I can’t understand how someone wouldn’t expect things to escalate the way they did looking at the horrible things that had taken place over those three days. Roger was 18 years old. He didn’t make good choices at that time but when you are a teenager you don’t make the same choices you make when you are 30 and 40 years old but he never got the chance to do anything different. He never got the chance to see his son grow up who was six months old when he was killed or his four grandchildren he will never get to meet. He didn’t get the chance to do anything different because that was taken from him,” said Boyer, Zammit’s sister.
“My husband (Christopher King) will never have his father. My children will never have their grandfather. He will never get to be part of any of their lives,” said Mariah King, Zammit’s daughter in law.
“We miss Roger all the time, birthdays, anniversaries and stuff like that. We love him and miss him much,” said Mark Blanchard, Zammit’s step father.
Three people, including Tatrow’s mother and stepfather, attended the hearing at the prison in Tiptonville to speak for Tatrow’s parole.
“Ricky and I have been married for 21 years, and Chris will have a stable home if he is granted parole, “said Diane Taylor. “My husband and I are both retired. I love my son, and I will provide him a good home and whatever he needs until he can obtain gainful employment. He is a great leather worker, a trade he learned while in prison. He makes beautiful leather works. He will be able to make money with that until he can get a permanent job. I visit with Chris at least once a month, and I call him a couple of times a week on the phone. Until I die, I will be there for him. We have a strong bond, and nothing ever will break it,” she said.
“Diane and I were not married when all this happened 30 years ago, but he will have a home and he will not do drugs or alcohol as long as he is with us and he will have a job waiting for him when he gets out,” said Ricky Taylor.
Ashley Massey, Transitional Programs Coordinator with the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative, also spoke in support of Tatrow. “THEI is the college program here at the Northwest Correctional Complex and we partner with Dyersburg State Community College and Lane College. Mr. Tatrow enrolled in Dyersburg State in the summer of 2017, and he graduated with a 3.6 GPA and was the valedictorian of his class. He then went on to enroll in Lane College which is our bachelor’s degree program. He graduated in 2024 with a 3.9 GPA and was also Summa Cum Laude of that program,” said Massey.