By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., July 18 -- Two investigators who interviewed Marines accused of killing unarmed families in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005 told a military court that one of the men realized that he was targeting women and children but still proceeded to shoot them.

According to a special agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum said in May 2006 that he had identified civilians in a house close to where a roadside bomb had just killed one of his squad mates.

"He stated he identified the targets as women and children," special agent Matthew Marshall said. "He was very remorseful about it and very emotional about it, to the point that he cried at this portion of the interview."

In an interview later that month, Marshall testified, Tatum "made the comment that women and children could hurt you, too, as justification for why he shot them."

Tatum said he recognized that his target was "a child standing on a bed, with black hair and a white T-shirt on," Marshall said. "He couldn't tell if it was male or female."

Tatum also told investigators that he fired inside the house because his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, was firing and Tatum considered the house hostile.

Marshall acknowledged that Tatum ended the interview and asked for a lawyer after one of the investigators offended him. Marshall said he let Tatum "cool down" and then had him sign a waiver agreeing to be interviewed without a lawyer present.

Under cross-examination by Tatum's attorneys, Marshall acknowledged that Tatum never reviewed or signed written reports that included those statements. Marshall also said he did not tell Tatum that he was a suspect in a homicide investigation. And Marshall said that in a written report of his first interview on March 19, the only change Tatum requested was to add the word "unknowingly" to the sentence "I learned that I had engaged women and children during the clearing" of one of the houses.

Wednesday's testimony came in an Article 32 hearing to determine whether Tatum will face a court-martial. He is charged with murder in the deaths of two girls, negligent homicide in four other deaths and the assault of two children who survived the attacks.

In a separate trial for unlawful killings in Iraq, a military jury here convicted Cpl. Trent Thomas of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of an Iraqi man in Hamdaniyah. Thomas could be sentenced to life in prison.