DATE:  October 14, 2020

CASE:  Fredrick Tatum (Case#15F02254)

PROSECUTOR:  Deputy District Attorney Allison Dunham, Homicide Unit

Fredrick Tatum was convicted by a jury of the first-degree murder of April Fowler.  The jury further found that Tatum was legally sane at the time he committed the murder.

On April 8, 2015, the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento Fire Department responded to a call reporting a deceased female in a room at the Quality Inn on Northgate Boulevard.  When they arrived, they discovered Fredrick Tatum in a hotel room along with the deceased victim who was lying on the bed. The victim had obvious signs of trauma to her face as well as bruises all over her body and the back of her hands. The weekend before Tatum murdered the victim, he had invited her to stay with him at the Quality Inn.  At some point, Tatum and the victim got into a violent struggle.  Tatum inflicted extreme blunt force trauma on the victim including multiple broken ribs, a punctured lung, lacerated liver, broken jaw and a broken neck caused from strangulation.

Tatum has three prior strike convictions, two for rape and a third for forced oral copulation, all of which will be determined at sentencing.

Tatum faces a maximum sentence of 80 years to life in prison.  Sentencing is set for December 3, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. in Department 31 before the Honorable Gerrit Wood.

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