Charles Ray Hatcher

Childhood and youth Charles Ray Hatcher was born in Mound City, Missouri, a small town north of St.Joseph, on July 16, 1929. He was the youngest of Jesse James and Lula Novada (Bomar) Hatcher's four children. an ex‑convict, and an abusive alcoholic. Hatcher was bullied in school, and in turn bullied his classmates and would carry this practice into adulthood.

In the spring of 1936, he and his older brothers were playing with copper wire they had found in an old ModelT Ford. His oldest brother, Arthur Allen, died when the wire hit a high‑voltage power line and electrocuted him. A few years later, his father left home and divorced his mother.

Crimes

1947–1963 In 1947, Hatcher was convicted of auto theft in St.Joseph after stealing a logging truck from Iowa–Missouri Walnut Company, his employer of two weeks. He received a two‑year suspended sentence. In 1948, he was convicted of auto theft a second time for stealing a 1937 Buick in St.Joseph. Hatcher was sentenced to two years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He had been repeatedly stabbed in the back. The police questioned more than 100 possible suspects, including "every known pervert in town", to no avail.

Death On July 29, 1982, 11‑year‑old Michelle Steele was reported missing from St.Joseph. The day after, her uncle found her nude, ravaged body on a bank of the Missouri River. She had been beaten and strangled to death. buried on the grounds of the Rock Island Army Arsenal, near Davenport, Iowa. It was then that he also confessed to the murder of Eric Christgen.

He was convicted of the Christgen homicide in October 1983 and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for at least 50 years. Facing his second Missouri conviction a year later for the murder of Michelle Steele, Hatcher requested a death sentence, but the jury refused, recommending a life term on December 3, 1984.

Four days after his sentencing for the murder of Steele, Hatcher was found dead in his solitary confinement cell at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. He had hanged himself using a piece of electrical wire. He was 55 years old.