The Serial Killer Who Begged for Help and Got Ignored

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What happens when a young man writes a letter from prison begging for psychological help

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and the system decides he's lying?

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Today we're talking about Charles Ray Hatcher, a man who practically gave authorities a

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road map to stop him, but nobody was listening.

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By the time they finally paid attention, 16 people were dead.

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[Music]

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So here's the thing about serial killers.

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We all want them to be these mysterious, uncrackable enigmas.

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But sometimes the scariest part is how predictable their origin story actually is.

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Take Charles Ray Hatcher, born July 16th, 1929 in the tiny town of Mount City, Missouri.

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His father, Jesse James Hatcher, had a name that sounded like an outlaw legend, but he was

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really more like a small town nightmare.

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Jesse James was an ex-con, a bootleger, and an alcoholic who had perfected the art of

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making everyone around him miserable.

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When you're dealing with someone who can find money for booze, but struggles to put food

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on the table, you know the priorities are seriously warped.

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Jesse took his frustrations out on his wife and kids, turning their home into a war zone

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where Charles never knew when the next blow was coming.

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School wasn't any better for Charles.

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While other kids were learning their ABCs, Charles was getting a different kind of education.

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One taught with fists.

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The bullying was relentless, but here's where things get interesting from a psychological

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standpoint.

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Instead of breaking completely, Charles eventually grew bigger, big enough to flip the script.

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The victim became the perpetrator, and he started dishing out the beatings himself.

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The transformation is textbook cycle of violence stuff.

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But what happened next turned a bad situation into an absolute tragedy that would haunt the

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Hatcher family forever.

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When Charles was about six years old, he and his brothers were doing something completely

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normal, flying a homemade kite around their neighborhood.

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They'd attached it though to a copper wire.

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Taking turns to fly the kite like kids do, his older brother Albert Allen had finished his

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turn and was passing the kite off the Charles when disaster struck.

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That copper wire hit a nearby electrical line.

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Albert was electrocuted in front of his younger brothers and died instantly.

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Look about a traumatic core memory, watching your sibling die in a freak accident that could

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have easily been you.

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The Hatcher family never recovered from this loss, and honestly, who could?

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Within a few years, Jesse had divorced his wife and moved on because apparently abandoning

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your traumatized kids is easier than dealing with grief.

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Charles watched his mother cycle through failed marriages until she settled down with her

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third husband and St. Joseph.

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For brief moment, Charles found some stability there, but stability wasn't really in his DNA

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at this point.

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At 18, Charles landed a job driving trucks for a local logging company.

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Seems like he might actually turn things around, right?

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Wrong.

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That job lasted exactly two weeks.

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One night, and what can only be described as peak bad decision making, Charles got drunk

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and decided to borrow one of the company trucks.

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He disappeared into the night, probably thinking he'd return it before anyone noticed.

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He did bring it back the next morning, but the damage was done.

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The company had already reported it stolen, and Charles officially became a criminal.

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He got convicted of auto theft and received a two-year suspended sentence.

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At this point, he could have learned his lesson and moved on with his life, but Charles Ray

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Hatcher wasn't interested in making things easy for himself.

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Within months, he was back to his old tricks, stealing another car.

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This time, he got two years in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

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He served about half of his sentence, but prison didn't rehabilitate him.

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It just taught him new skills and introduced him to new kinds of violence.

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Shortly after his release, Charles committed his first documented violent crime.

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He targeted a 16-year-old newspaper boy, chasing him down with a butcher knife and attempting

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to abduct him.

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Thankfully, the teenager escaped and reported Charles to the police.

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This incident marked a crucial escalation.

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Charles had crossed the line from property crimes to predatory violence.

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When police arrested him, he was driving yet another stolen vehicle, which landed him

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with a five-year sentence.

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It was during this prison stay that things got really dark.

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While Charles was doing time, a fellow inmate named Jerry Therrington was found raped and

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stabbed to death in the prison kitchen.

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Charles was the only kitchen worker missing during the following inspection, but there wasn't

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enough physical evidence to prove that he was the killer.

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Still, prison authorities weren't taking any chances.

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They put Charles in solitary confinement.

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From his cell, he wrote a letter to the Penitentiary Major, claiming he desperately needed psychological

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help.

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And here's the thing.

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Many experts believe this was the last real chance to prevent what came next.

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If Charles had received proper treatment when he asked for it, some argue that 16 people

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might still be alive today.

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But the prison staff thought Charles was faking it, trying to get out of solitary.

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So he went untreated and was eventually released early.

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For some reason.

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Huge mistake.

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Once free, Charles headed to California and committed his first confirmed murder.

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At Antioch, he spotted a young boy riding his bicycle, lured him to a quiet creek, and

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strangled him with his bare hands.

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The first victim, 12-year-old William Freeman, had disappeared from Antioch, California, and

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August of that year.

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With no connection between Charles and the victim, he remained free to strike again.

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He started using aliases and constantly moved around.

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Classic serial killer behavior that made him nearly impossible to track.

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The authorities had no idea who they were dealing with when they arrested him in San Francisco.

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A six-year-old girl had watched her friend get approached by an older man offering ice cream.

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The boy accepted and walked away with the stranger.

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Later, a man walking his dog found Charles in the act of beating and raping the child.

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The intervention probably saved the boy's life.

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Charles told police his name was Albert Ralph.

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But his idea said, "Hobbert Prader."

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This guy was collecting fake identities like baseball carts.

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The courts ordered psychological evaluations, but Charles had learned how to game the system.

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He claimed to hear voices, see things that weren't there, and even made fake suicide attempts.

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The doctors weren't buying it though.

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Five times, they sent him back to the courts, saying that he was mentally competent to

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stand trial.

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When he was caught trying to escape from the hospital, the authorities had enough.

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Charles was transferred to St. Quentin Prison and eventually stood trial over three years

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after his arrest.

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He was found guilty and recommended for transfer to maximum security.

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But Charles wasn't done manipulating the system just yet.

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He slashed his own wrists and got sent to a prison hospital instead.

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Eventually, he was released to a halfway house in San Francisco with orders to report

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nightly for medication.

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Five days later, he vanished.

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Over the following years, Charles used different aliases and committed numerous attacks, mostly

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targeting young boys.

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But it was his attack on 11-year-old Michelle Steele that finally brought him down.

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On July 29, 1982, 11-year-old Michelle was reported missing from St. Joseph.

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The day after, her uncle found her nude, ravaged body on the bank of the Missouri River.

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She had been beaten, raped, and killed.

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The signature violence that had marked Charles' crimes for years.

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Shortly after Michelle's murder, Charles voluntarily checked himself into the St.

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Joseph State Hospital under the alias Richard Clark, claiming again to hear voices.

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When hospital staff realized their new patient matched the description of the last person

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seen with Michelle, they called authorities.

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The evidence against Charles was overwhelming.

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The nylon cords on his person matched those found on Michelle's body.

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His shoes matched the prints found at the scene, and his teeth matched bite marks on Michelle's

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skin.

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After years of evading justice, Charles Ray Hatcher was finally caught.

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Again.

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While awaiting trial for Michelle's murder, Charles slipped a note to a deputy that read,

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"Please call the FBI and tell them I would like to see them today."

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Very important case.

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When FBI agents arrived, Charles dropped a bombshell.

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He confessed to having murdered a total of 16 people between 1969 and 1982.

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Even more shocking, he revealed that an innocent man named Melvin Lee Reynolds had already

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been convicted and was serving life in prison for one of his victims, Eric Kriskin.

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Four years later, Reynolds was released when Charles Hatcher confessed to the murders to

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an FBI agent.

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Charles provided details about the killings that had never been made public and drew maps

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leading to burial locations of several victims.

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In exchange for information, Charles wanted only one thing to be put to death.

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When court proceedings dragged on longer than expected, Charles decided to take matters

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into his own hands.

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On December 7, 1984, officers found Charles hanging from electrical wire in his cell.

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In the end, Charles Hatcher got what he wanted, but his death left behind a trail of devastation

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that included 16 murdered victims, countless traumatized families, and hard questions

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about how many times the system failed to stop a killer who practically announced his intentions.

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The most haunting part of this story isn't the violence itself, although that is extremely

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disturbing, but it's how preventable so much of it was.

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From that first cry for help in the prison to multiple chances for proper intervention,

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Charles Hatcher's killing spree represents a catastrophic failure of the very systems designed

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to protect society from people just like him.

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Sometimes the most terrifying monsters are the ones we create through neglect.

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And Charles Ray Hatcher is the perfect example of what happens when society looks the other

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way at exactly the wrong moment.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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My name is Joe, hi, I'm the host and if you're a brand new listener welcome.

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Super pumped that you're here, make sure you hit subscribe before you move on to the next

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episode and when you become a subscriber that helps you also catch up on all the back episodes

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of 10 Minute Murder.

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Go to the website 10minutemerder.com, you'll find all kinds of things there including a way

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to send me an email like this one.

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Subject podcast inception.

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Hey Joe, if someone made a podcast about you making a podcast about murder, would you listen?

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Or would that be too weird even for you?

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And that's from Becca in Toronto.

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And let me tell you Becca, I had to sit there and think about that for a second because

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I didn't I wasn't sure exactly what you were asking me.

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But yeah, I think I would listen to that and there's already kind of a show that is that

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thing, not necessarily a real life thing, but only murders in the building on Hulu.

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I've watched a couple of season of that, that's not too bad.

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But yeah, I think I would listen to that, it'd be interesting.

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But mostly how people would interpret my process of doing this, how if people would think

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oh, that guy's crazy.

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Why is he doing things like that?

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That's nuts.

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I listen to a lot of standup comedy.

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It would be weird things like that.

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Why is this guy drinking so much diet Pepsi?

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That can't be healthy for him.

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But yes, I think I would check it out.

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Anyway, if you've got an email you'd like to send me Joe at 10minuteMurder.com.

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Go to the website if you don't want to remember that, you can go to the website and it's right

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there in your face.

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10minuteMurder.com.

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Alright, I'm going to stop rambling.

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You have a nice day.

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And if you're off to binge more episodes, don't let me stop you.

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You keep right on doing that.

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No matter what you're doing, I hope you have a fantastic time.

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Thanks for listening.

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[Music]