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Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
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Speaker 6: the smartest way to Higher Like a real life Hannibal Lecter,
Speaker 6: the psychopathic murderer from Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs,
Speaker 6: Charles Hatcher was cunning, sadistic, and totally remorseless. He was
Speaker 6: a man with no conscience. He killed sixteen people, three
Speaker 6: of them children. Hatcher was also responsible for a different
Speaker 6: kind of tragedy, the conviction and imprisonment of an innocent
Speaker 6: man who was mercilessly hounded by the police, the prosecutor
Speaker 6: in the community for a brutal murder that Hatcher himself committed.
Speaker 6: A nomadic doctor Jekylinister Hyde who manipulated the legal system
Speaker 6: with gruesome skill. Charles Hatcher was the embodiment of evil,
Speaker 6: the devil's emissary on Earth. His nemesis was the lone
Speaker 6: fbi man in Saint Joseph, Missouri, who risked his career
Speaker 6: to end Hatcher's reign. Of terror. Innocent Blood is the
Speaker 6: true story of Charles Hatcher and his life of crime.
Speaker 6: A powerful and blood chilling glimpse into the darkness between
Speaker 6: sanity and madness. It also chronicles a justice system gone wrong.
Speaker 6: Throughout his criminal career, Hatcher was able to fool dozens
Speaker 6: of psychiatrists who repeatedly failed to identify him as a
Speaker 6: multiple murderer. Hatcher's astonishing skill was not just in his
Speaker 6: ability to murder an escape imprisonment. He became an expert
Speaker 6: at manipulating the criminal justice system. Overall, he outwitted police, prosecutors, psychiatrists,
Speaker 6: and judges in twelve cities and eight states. Terry Gainey
Speaker 6: first covered this story as a reporter for the Saint
Speaker 6: Louis Post Dispatch. Later, he spent four years researching the
Speaker 6: material for this book, interviewing over seventy five people. In
Speaker 6: reviewing thousands of documents, court transcripts, prison files, police reports,
Speaker 6: and mental health records, what emerges is the fascinating and
Speaker 6: horrifying portrait of a mass murderer at large in America.
Speaker 6: The book that we're featuring this evening is Innocent Blood,
Speaker 6: a true story of obsession and serial murder with my
Speaker 6: special guest, journalist and author Terry Gainey. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 6: and thank you very much for a green this interview.
Speaker 6: Terry Gainey, thank you, Dan.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. This is one incredible book, I
Speaker 6: have to say that, incredible and perfect for this.
Speaker 4: True murder.
Speaker 6: As we mentioned, just initially, give us a little bit
Speaker 6: of your background, why you wanted to be involved in
Speaker 6: writing this Innocent Blood, how you were in a position
Speaker 6: to do that. Tell us a little bit about where
Speaker 6: you were and what you were doing that you were
Speaker 6: in this position to write this book.
Speaker 4: I was a reporter for the Saint Louis Post Dispatch,
Speaker 4: and I was covering state government in the capital of
Speaker 4: Missouri City and Jefferson City is also the place where
Speaker 4: the Missouri State Penitentiary was located. And I became familiar
Speaker 4: with this story through the release of a prison inmate
Speaker 4: from the penitentiary by the name of Melvin Reynolds. Reynolds
Speaker 4: was an innocent man who was sentenced to life imprisonment
Speaker 4: for second degree murder of a child in Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Speaker 4: But it turns out he was innocent and the true
Speaker 4: killer later admitted that he had committed this child murder.
Speaker 4: And this is Charles Hatcher, the serial killer who becomes
Speaker 4: the focus of my book because the murder that he
Speaker 4: committed in Saint Joseph was not his only murder, and
Speaker 4: I began researching his life of crime throughout the country.
Speaker 6: Now, let's talk about the Christian Eric Christian murder that
Speaker 6: is attributed to as you say, Melvin Reynolds, Let's talk
Speaker 6: about that crime itself as you do, as you write
Speaker 6: in a book, May twenty six, nineteen seventy eight. And
Speaker 6: there's a babysitter named Karen Carter tell us about this.
Speaker 4: Well. Although Charles Hancher's life of crime began many years earlier,
Speaker 4: I focused on the disappearance and murder of Eric Christian
Speaker 4: as a way of beginning the narrative. Dan Eric Christian
Speaker 4: was a little, blonde haired five year old boy who
Speaker 4: disappeared at a playground on the shopping mall in Saint
Speaker 4: Joseph shortly before Memorial Day in nineteen seventy eight. It's
Speaker 4: a babysitter. Karen Carter was also employed at a major
Speaker 4: wood products company in Saint jo and she was responsible
Speaker 4: essentially for watching the boss's son that day, and she
Speaker 4: had gone into a store to buy an American flag
Speaker 4: to desproy, and the little boy wanted to play on
Speaker 4: the slide outside, and while she went into the store,
Speaker 4: she left him alone for a few minutes, and when
Speaker 4: she came out of the store, he had disappeared. And
Speaker 4: this begins a story of a city in the grips
Speaker 4: of a terrible crime, the death of this little boy
Speaker 4: in a city of about seventy five thousand in those days,
Speaker 4: and the family is a well known Saint Joseph family.
Speaker 4: Many workers were employed at the wood products company that
Speaker 4: Eric's father or was in charge of. So for two
Speaker 4: days they search the area around the city, and finally
Speaker 4: the second day after he disappeared, they find his body.
Speaker 4: And it's a little confusing about how he actually died,
Speaker 4: but it was later determined that he was strangled. And
Speaker 4: a special task force is empowered to investigate this terrible
Speaker 4: murder of this little boy. The city is in Greece
Speaker 4: and the police are under the gun to solve this
Speaker 4: terrible crime, but the task force is unable to come
Speaker 4: up with the perpetrator. In fact, in the force of
Speaker 4: searching for the person who actually did it, they arrested
Speaker 4: or took him custody, a janitor by the name of
Speaker 4: Harry Fox. Some police officers said there's no way Harry
Speaker 4: Fox could have done this crime because the body was
Speaker 4: found in a wooded terrain on the hill side that
Speaker 4: somebody would have to be pretty agile to get to.
Speaker 4: Harry Fox was an overweight aged janitor who just couldn't
Speaker 4: begin to climb the hill where the boy's body was found.
Speaker 4: But nevertheless, they brought it in for questioning, and during
Speaker 4: the questioning he went into convulsions and died. And it
Speaker 4: was a fine that the police were very aggressive in
Speaker 4: their tactics and trying to solve this murder, but they
Speaker 4: couldn't come up with the person who did it. Well.
Speaker 4: Several months go by and a new police chief comes in,
Speaker 4: a fellow by the name of Hayes. Chief Hays is
Speaker 4: bound and determined to solve the crime, and the police
Speaker 4: begin to focus on a gay man, a well known
Speaker 4: police character, a young man in Saint Joseph by the
Speaker 4: name of Melvin Reynolds. And when they first brought Melvin
Speaker 4: in for questioning, he denied killing the boy, but he
Speaker 4: told interviewer, I'll say I did it if you want
Speaker 4: me to. He was very his intellectual capacity was diminish.
Speaker 4: He was a type of person who wanted to please everybody.
Speaker 4: He had had a troubled background, and this is the
Speaker 4: person they begin focusing on as the man who had
Speaker 4: murdered little Eric Christian. You write about a couple of
Speaker 4: witnesses and also the people that come into play in
Speaker 4: terms of law enforcement and become major characters. You write
Speaker 4: about the incredible effort the search, and also the use
Speaker 4: of hypnotism and the use of truth serum. Again much
Speaker 4: different for people reading this today in today's forensic world.
Speaker 4: I guess in reality, you talked about a person named
Speaker 4: jeff Davey, and you talked about a Carl Simpson, and
Speaker 4: you talked about, of course, Detective Agent Holtztegg from the FBI.
Speaker 4: So tell us a little bit about the two witnesses
Speaker 4: that I mentioned, Carl Simpson and Jeffrey Davey, and the
Speaker 4: police interaction with them and what they had to say
Speaker 4: to police. Early in the investigation, the police had to
Speaker 4: determine the root that whoever abducted Eric from that shopping
Speaker 4: mall would have taken to get to the place where
Speaker 4: his body was finally discovered, and they walked the route
Speaker 4: and began questioning people who might have seen the perpetrator,
Speaker 4: the abductor, and the little boy. And they came across
Speaker 4: a couple of people who were witnesses and saw an
Speaker 4: elderly man leading a little boy by the hand. They
Speaker 4: were walking, not running, or he wasn't carrying the little boy.
Speaker 4: They were just walking. It might have been the scene
Speaker 4: of a grandfather walking his child, his grandson along the
Speaker 4: street and then along some railroad tracks to the spot
Speaker 4: where Eric's body was finally discovered. And one of the
Speaker 4: one of the people who saw them was Carl Simpson,
Speaker 4: who was getting off work. He saw them from his
Speaker 4: not from his carved from a parking lot where his
Speaker 4: car was parked. And another fellow by the name of
Speaker 4: Jeff Davy was doing some excavating. He was digging some
Speaker 4: dirt for a plumbing job. He was a plumber and
Speaker 4: he needed some dirt to fill a hole and he
Speaker 4: was taking it from a cliff side along the railroad tracks,
Speaker 4: and he saw a man with a little boy. And
Speaker 4: they believed that if anybody saw the murderer taking Eric Christine,
Speaker 4: it was probably Jeff Davy, so he gave a description
Speaker 4: to the police, and they brought in a hypnotist from
Speaker 4: Kansas to try to elicit more details from Jeff Davie's memory.
Speaker 4: And it was one of the more exotic efforts the
Speaker 4: police employed to try to solve this mysterious crime. They
Speaker 4: also used a behavior a behavioral expert from the FBI
Speaker 4: in Quantico, Virginia, who took all of the facts dan
Speaker 4: of the case, the time of day, motives, opportunity, and
Speaker 4: all of the things that might help to determine the
Speaker 4: type of person who would do this crime, and they
Speaker 4: developed a behavioral sketch that they gave to the police
Speaker 4: of Saint Joseph, Missouri to come up with the type
Speaker 4: of person they should be looking for. Probably somebody working
Speaker 4: in menial jobs, probably somebody who was not very well educated.
Speaker 4: The fact that the person had to climb an embankment
Speaker 4: where the body was discovered would indicate that he was
Speaker 4: somewhat physically, fairly adequate and rather muscular to get up
Speaker 4: this embankment where the body was found. And they also
Speaker 4: said that given the fact that this was a child abduction,
Speaker 4: there might be cases of similar abductions of children being
Speaker 4: taken away for sexual purposes, and that they should be
Speaker 4: looking for somebody a man who has been convicted or
Speaker 4: accused of similar crimes in nearby areas. So they came
Speaker 4: up with this sketch of a potential potential abductor, a
Speaker 4: potential perpetrator of the crime. And Joe Holpslag was the
Speaker 4: FBI agent on the scene who tried to help the
Speaker 4: local police in figuring out this crime. He was in
Speaker 4: an advisory capacity because it wasn't considered to be a
Speaker 4: federal crime at the time, and he was among the
Speaker 4: members of the task force who were trying to discover
Speaker 4: who had had murdered Eric Christian. You write about this
Speaker 4: confession despite reservations from some people when you talked about
Speaker 4: police Chief Hayes, and then the prosecutor in scope wasn't
Speaker 4: initially so convinced. Tell us what happens despite some inaccuracies, inconsistencies,
Speaker 4: and lack of detail sometimes in Melvin Reynolds's confession. What
Speaker 4: happens with that confession, Well, Melvin is questioned eleven times
Speaker 4: by police officers who continually come to his house, pick
Speaker 4: him up and bring him down to the police station,
Speaker 4: and then interrogate him, and in one case they use
Speaker 4: a zodium amatol, a truth serum, in an attempt to
Speaker 4: discover what is in his head. And the thing about
Speaker 4: Melvin was that he wasn't as sharp as those investigators
Speaker 4: questioning him, and he gave them some stories about where
Speaker 4: he was that turned out not to be true. Melvin
Speaker 4: probably didn't know where he was on the day Eric
Speaker 4: Christian was abducted and murdered, and as a result, the
Speaker 4: police thought he might be if he's giving them wise
Speaker 4: in their questioning, he might be the person who did it,
Speaker 4: so they kept coming back to him continually. But people
Speaker 4: who knew Melvin, including a police officer who had gone
Speaker 4: to school with one of Melbourne's sisters, said he's not
Speaker 4: the type of character who would have done it. You
Speaker 4: would say anything to any police officer trying to please them,
Speaker 4: just trying to get out of the questioning session. And
Speaker 4: a woman who was aware of wealth of where Malcolm
Speaker 4: was on the day Eric was abducted said she saw
Speaker 4: him not far from her house and there was no
Speaker 4: way that he could have been in two places at once.
Speaker 4: So there were doubts among people in the community that
Speaker 4: Melvine was good for this crime. But eventually, under police questioning,
Speaker 4: he signed statements and gave details of the crime. The
Speaker 4: convinced officers that he was the person who was behind it.
Speaker 4: The prosecutor, as you mentioned, Mike Inscow, was at first doubtful,
Speaker 4: but the pressure was on to solve this crime. The
Speaker 4: police were under the gun to come up whoever did it,
Speaker 4: and Melvin was caught in this trap that eventually found
Speaker 4: himself signing a statement, finding a statement that he had
Speaker 4: killed the little boy in the commission of a sexual act.
Speaker 4: So he's a victim of aggressive police tactics and a
Speaker 4: town that wants to solve a crime and somebody asked
Speaker 4: to be good for it, and Melton turned out to
Speaker 4: be the patsy that police he is committing the crime.
Speaker 6: You introduce a character, a public defender that I was
Speaker 6: surprising was very, very experienced and is a major character
Speaker 6: in this story. His name is Doms, and he wanted
Speaker 6: to represent him and plead not guilty by reason of
Speaker 6: mental disease. Tell us a little bit about this public defender,
Speaker 6: Doms and his concern for Melvin Reynolds and what did
Speaker 6: he do as a result.
Speaker 4: Well, Doms was the local public defender and he was
Speaker 4: overworked and underpaid, but he was interested in defending Melvin
Speaker 4: to the greatest extent possible. Dick Doms was formerly a
Speaker 4: judge in the Buchanan County court system that he had
Speaker 4: been voted out of office and he was looking for
Speaker 4: some kind of way to keep a job and the
Speaker 4: the court system of Buchanan County in Saint jo And
Speaker 4: so he became the public defender. And he knew the
Speaker 4: ins and outs of law enforcement in the community. He
Speaker 4: was aware of how things took place, and he was
Speaker 4: convinced that Melvin was innocent. And he had done some
Speaker 4: preliminary work on the case and had identified witnesses who
Speaker 4: would have said Malvin does not match the description of
Speaker 4: a person seen leading the little boy away from them.
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Speaker 4: All people said Simpson and Jeff Davies said, he was
Speaker 4: an older man, heavy set, thick shoulders. That's the person
Speaker 4: that police should have been looking for. Melvin was skinny,
Speaker 4: he was underweight. He was kind of a meet, not aggressive,
Speaker 4: assertive kind of person. And doms knew that he had
Speaker 4: been set up for this time. But the family, the
Speaker 4: family of Melvin Reynolds, believed he needed a high powered
Speaker 4: defense attorney to stand up for Melbourne in court in
Speaker 4: Buchanan County, so they hired a well known defense lawyer
Speaker 4: from Kansas City. Saint Joe, Missouri is about an hour's
Speaker 4: drive from Kansas City, and they hired a fellow by
Speaker 4: the name of Lee Nation who was a criminal defense
Speaker 4: lawyer in Kansas City. And Nation came in to represent Melbourne.
Speaker 4: And it probably would have been better if they would
Speaker 4: have stuck with doms because doms knew the community. As
Speaker 4: I said, he knew the background of the police, he
Speaker 4: knew what it had transpired in the crime. And Nation
Speaker 4: came in as an outsider and didn't have the same
Speaker 4: skills that Doms did in representing the defendant before a
Speaker 4: jury in Buchanan County, and with the trial really focused
Speaker 4: on the issue of Melvin's confession. Melvin had told police
Speaker 4: that he had taken the boy from the ball, he
Speaker 4: had done these things to him, and he did it.
Speaker 4: It was an accidental death and the way it went down.
Speaker 4: And Nation was hoping to keep those statements that Melvin
Speaker 4: made out of the court record and attempted to object
Speaker 4: it during the trial that Melvin was giving statements that
Speaker 4: the police had led him to come to certain conclusions.
Speaker 4: But TATEE that they played for the jury was the
Speaker 4: third tape that had been made in the series of interviews,
Speaker 4: in a session that had gone eleven hours. One of
Speaker 4: the questioning sessions. It was a marathon session that by
Speaker 4: the end of which Melvin was making statements on the
Speaker 4: tape that the police had sort of led him to
Speaker 4: say after having questioned him about the same facts in
Speaker 4: earlier interviews. So these were the statements that Nation hoped
Speaker 4: to keep out of the court trial. He was unsuccessful,
Speaker 4: and it was based on what was on those tapes
Speaker 4: that the jury convicted Melvine of murdering the Christian boy
Speaker 4: Nation did not call any of the witnesses who had
Speaker 4: seen somebody of a different description leading Eric from the ball,
Speaker 4: and as a result, Melvin was convicted and the sentenced
Speaker 4: to life in prison. And the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Speaker 6: You talk about and bring the reader right into the
Speaker 6: life of Melvin Reynolds. As a result, he is told
Speaker 6: that he is likely, because of the charges that he's
Speaker 6: been convicted on, that he is in risk good of
Speaker 6: being killed. But despite this he goes into the general population.
Speaker 6: What happens in general population with Melvin Reynolds, Well, Melvin
Speaker 6: was incarcerated in the meanest lock up in the state
Speaker 6: of Missouri, maybe one of the toughest places of.
Speaker 4: Prisons in the country, the Missouri Date p Aitentiary. It's
Speaker 4: closed now, but in those days it was a terrible
Speaker 4: place of the conditions were horrible, the inmates were tough,
Speaker 4: and the guards and correctional officers in charge of the
Speaker 4: place were under staff, and Melvin was subject to brutal
Speaker 4: sexual attacks. He was pushed off garbage truck he was
Speaker 4: working on the garbage detail and he was hanging on
Speaker 4: the side, and he constantly had to deny that he
Speaker 4: had killed this little boy. But in the prison system,
Speaker 4: somebody who is convicted of doing the crimes that Melvin
Speaker 4: did or was accused of doing, would be the lowest
Speaker 4: on the ladder, the lowest rung of the prison system,
Speaker 4: and he was always subject to brutality, even though he
Speaker 4: was always denying that he had committed these crimes. And
Speaker 4: he was told that, you know, if you go into
Speaker 4: the Missouri State Penitentiary with a record like yours killing
Speaker 4: a little boy, it's likely that somebody's going to take
Speaker 4: revenge on you and you're going to be killed yourself.
Speaker 4: And that's what Melvin feared when he was in the
Speaker 4: Missouri State Penitentiary, and oftentimes he came close to being
Speaker 4: killed during these fits and gang rates and things that
Speaker 4: took place. And it is in that section of the
Speaker 4: book that I switch to the character of Charles Catcher,
Speaker 4: because he had been in that very same penitentiary many
Speaker 4: years earlier, and he had been the perpetrator of killing
Speaker 4: another young man in the institution, in the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Speaker 6: Right now, you talk about that killing to compare what
Speaker 6: Melvioyn Reynolds was fearing and what could have been his fate.
Speaker 6: Fortunately wasn't. Then you introduced Charles L. Hatcher and his
Speaker 6: criminal career stealing cars the violence tell us a little
Speaker 6: bit as you write about his background growing up and
Speaker 6: how he came to this life of crime.
Speaker 4: That Charles Thatcher had been born in nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 4: and he grew up in an impoverished part of Missouri
Speaker 4: to a very poor family that had several other boys.
Speaker 4: He was the youngest. His father had spent time in
Speaker 4: the penitentiary on various charges assault feeling. He had an
Speaker 4: un people who had also been in the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Speaker 4: His mother was an alcoholic, and Charles Hatcher just didn't
Speaker 4: have an upbringing that could lead him to a life
Speaker 4: of prosperity. He was poorly educated, even though he was
Speaker 4: a smart little boy. According to his grade school teachers.
Speaker 4: The people who remembered the Hatchers from going to school
Speaker 4: in those little communities north of Saint Joe. We called
Speaker 4: about how poor they were and how their shoes. Sometimes
Speaker 4: they didn't have shoes. And of course he was born
Speaker 4: at the time of the depression.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 4: He began getting in trouble in his teens and involved
Speaker 4: in things like stealing cars, being drunk on the job
Speaker 4: and getting him to fight, and gradually he became crime
Speaker 4: just became part of his life. He frequently found himself
Speaker 4: in the Missouri State Penitentiary for crimes like stealing cars
Speaker 4: or attempted robbery, and he was in the penitentiary in
Speaker 4: the nineteen sixties for an attack on a newspaper delivery
Speaker 4: boy in Saint Joseph, Missouri. This was his first crime
Speaker 4: that seemed to indicate the darker aspects of his being.
Speaker 4: He had done property crimes in his earlier days, things
Speaker 4: like stealing cars and breaking into stores and attempted robbery,
Speaker 4: but later on in his life he turned to crimes
Speaker 4: of violence, and he attempted to abduct a newspaper delivery
Speaker 4: boy off the streets of Saint Joseph, Missouri, and the
Speaker 4: boy got away and was able to identify Charles Hatcher
Speaker 4: as the person who tried to abduct him, and he
Speaker 4: was sent sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary in the
Speaker 4: early nineteen sixties. And it was then that we realized
Speaker 4: what kind of a mean person Charles Thatcher was because
Speaker 4: while he was in the frontitentiary, he stabbed another inmate
Speaker 4: of a young man by the name of Jerry Lee Derrington. Farrington,
Speaker 4: in his physical aspect, seemed to be had the same
Speaker 4: kind of physique as Melvin Reynolds. He was a small person.
Speaker 4: He probably didn't belong in their state penitentiary. But they
Speaker 4: found him stabbed on the loading dock and the only
Speaker 4: person nearby was Charles Hatcher, and they put Hatcher in
Speaker 4: solitary confinement for nine months, trying to get him to
Speaker 4: a knit that he had killed Frrington, but Hatcher never
Speaker 4: admitted it. There were no witnesses, and so eventually Hatcher
Speaker 4: was step free in nineteen sixty nine, even though he
Speaker 4: had killed somebody in the Missouri State penitentiary. This is
Speaker 4: the man who we find out later is the serial
Speaker 4: killer responsible for Erek Christian's death. But that's a little
Speaker 4: bit beyond what we've talked about in the story before.
Speaker 6: You talk about in the early sixties as well, is
Speaker 6: that he his manipulative. Manipulative nature is evident when he's
Speaker 6: dealing with psychiatrists. So you write about that. The authorities
Speaker 6: knew that he was responsible for Farrington's death in prison,
Speaker 6: but they couldn't prosecute so they kept him in the
Speaker 6: segregation as long as possible. But also you write about
Speaker 6: that this is the beginning of him being able to
Speaker 6: manipulate psychiatrists to be able to avoid serious convictions.
Speaker 4: He spent so much time in institutions from his younger
Speaker 4: years in the Missouri State Penitentiary and later in mental
Speaker 4: hospitals in California, Nebraska, all across the country, Iowa, that
Speaker 4: he was able to feed back to counselors and psychiatrists
Speaker 4: and psychologists the kind of answers that would convince them
Speaker 4: that he had some kind of a mental prot problem,
Speaker 4: that he wasn't really a career criminal, but that he
Speaker 4: had some kind of mental disease. And by this knack
Speaker 4: that he had for manipulating the people that were responsible
Speaker 4: for his custody into believing that he was mentally ill,
Speaker 4: he was able to avoid long prison sentences. And it
Speaker 4: was after he committed the crime in California that this
Speaker 4: behavior was really really indicated by the way he was
Speaker 4: able to keep out of prison in California. In nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty nine, he abducted a little boy in San Francisco
Speaker 4: and the police arrest him. He's there's a witness to
Speaker 4: the crime. The police arrest him and why probably would
Speaker 4: have been killed had at least not shown up to
Speaker 4: interrupt the crime and progress. And they take into the
Speaker 4: policestation and Hatcher breaks away and runs into a mirror
Speaker 4: cuts himself, and the police immediately have to take into
Speaker 4: a hospital for treatment and for thereafter. He's in a
Speaker 4: mental health system rather than in the criminal justice system
Speaker 4: of California. And the book has a couple of chapters
Speaker 4: at this point it deals with how in those days
Speaker 4: criminals were handled in places like the California Mental Hospital
Speaker 4: at a Cascadero, where Hatcher is spent years of treatment
Speaker 4: and tried to escape several times and managed to escape
Speaker 4: one although it was recaptured. And through all of this
Speaker 4: the mental counselors and psychologists who interview him said that, well,
Speaker 4: he's probably committed this crime. He attempted to molest this
Speaker 4: child in San Francisco, but he cannot be prosecuted because
Speaker 4: he is insane. And he would go back and forth
Speaker 4: between the criminal justice system and the mental health system
Speaker 4: until finally somebody said, you know, this person cannot be
Speaker 4: released to society. A doctor, A J. Russi, who interviewed
Speaker 4: Charles Hatcher, said this report is to inform the judge
Speaker 4: that in my opinion, this man is still a mentally
Speaker 4: disordered sex offender, has not recovered and remains a danger
Speaker 4: to society and should not be given a new opportunity
Speaker 4: to victimize others. So eventually, eventually Hatcher is committed to
Speaker 4: a prison hospital in Vacaville, California, where he is gradually
Speaker 4: said to be improving and finally gained kids release. And
Speaker 4: this is just a short time before Eric Christian It's murdered.
Speaker 4: You write as well that there's confusion in those days
Speaker 4: too in identifying Charles Hatcher by the name Charles Hatcher,
Speaker 4: And so you talk about the various alibis that this
Speaker 4: or parmy aliases that he uses. At that time they
Speaker 4: thought they had a person named Albert Price. Can you
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about these alias and how
Speaker 4: he was successful using them? Charles Hatcher probably had a
Speaker 4: dozen names that he used over the years. It wasn't
Speaker 4: until somebody really spent some time putting it all together.
Speaker 4: Sure if he was arrested in and nobody ever took
Speaker 4: the time to track down who he really was. For
Speaker 4: a while, he went by Richard Clarke in Saint Joe Missouri,
Speaker 4: even though many years earlier people knew him as Charles Hatcher.
Speaker 4: He had I think maybe half a dozen Social Security numbers.
Speaker 4: He was known in California as Albert Price, and that's
Speaker 4: the name he was finally convicted under and served time
Speaker 4: there under, even though his real name was Charles Hatcher.
Speaker 4: So and it comes to play later on when he's
Speaker 4: arrested been prosecuted in Missouri, when they tried to show
Speaker 4: that he was a career criminal, and they tried to
Speaker 4: use the California example, they couldn't introduce it in court
Speaker 4: because they didn't have the wherewithal of showing that Albert
Speaker 4: Price in California was also the same man as Charles
Speaker 4: Hatcher in Missouri. So it's an example of how in
Speaker 4: those days we weren't our police agencies and our current
Speaker 4: courts weren't so interconnected with computers and the ability to
Speaker 4: quickly put together the background of an individual. Things. Since
Speaker 4: Charles Hatcher committed all these crimes, the governments in the
Speaker 4: states have become more adept at identifying characters like him,
Speaker 4: and he wouldn't have been able to pull off the
Speaker 4: rimes today that he did back in those days. But
Speaker 4: in those days people are for assistance in the police.
Speaker 4: They weren't as interconnected as they are today.
Speaker 6: You talk about a Gilbert Martinez and you say that's
Speaker 6: not his real name, but I mean Gilbert Martinez case
Speaker 6: again a horrifying attack. However, you talk about how this person,
Speaker 6: this boy, the family thought is not best for him
Speaker 6: to testify and move to Mexico. How does it happen
Speaker 6: that he contacts somebody to finally go to trial. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is an amazing part. Who does he contact? Albert
Speaker 6: Price aka Trels Hatcher? Who does he contact to try
Speaker 6: to get this thing into criminal court? After he was
Speaker 6: trying so hard to portray that he was insane.
Speaker 4: Well, it becomes clearer to Charles Hatcher that his ruse
Speaker 4: to use the mental health system to avoid prosecution is
Speaker 4: not going to work. It took a little while for
Speaker 4: the authorities to finally prosecuting them, prosecute them in court.
Speaker 4: But he realized if he didn't go to court and
Speaker 4: get sentenced, he would be forever found up in this
Speaker 4: system of being incarcerated without any eventual release states as
Speaker 4: long as they considered him a mentally disordered sex offender.
Speaker 4: So he goes back to his lawyer and says, okay,
Speaker 4: I want to go to trial, and he is tried
Speaker 4: in California in San Francisco, is convicted just based on
Speaker 4: the police witnesses who encountered him in the process of
Speaker 4: attacking the little boy on hill there in San Francisco,
Speaker 4: and the boy doesn't have to testify, but the police
Speaker 4: reports are enough to send Hatcher to prison. And it's
Speaker 4: in the prison set setting that eventually he convinces his
Speaker 4: counselor that he's gaining control over his life and he
Speaker 4: can eventually be released. In his release from prison in California,
Speaker 4: and he's placed on parole as long as he takes
Speaker 4: his medicine, that is, drugs that are going to control
Speaker 4: his urges, he'll be okay. But within a short period
Speaker 4: of time he the escapes parole and is is on
Speaker 4: the loose across the country. And it is shortly thereafter
Speaker 4: these back in Saint Joseph where the Christian murder takes place.
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Speaker 6: Talk about the law enforcement looking at other cases later,
Speaker 6: but at this time you talk about Hatcher arrested in
Speaker 6: Omaha in September fourth, nineteen seventy eight, tell us about
Speaker 6: what happens with authorities in Omaha, Nebraska and Iowa.
Speaker 4: Well the behavioral sketch of the man who murdered Eric
Speaker 4: Christian said, within a few months of this case, the
Speaker 4: person who did this will be accused of similar cases
Speaker 4: in other jurisdictions. And within a few months of Eric
Speaker 4: Christian's murder in Saint Joe, a couple of hundred miles
Speaker 4: north in Omaha, a man is arrested in attacks on
Speaker 4: homosexual man in the city of Omaha. And this man
Speaker 4: is using a different name now, his name is Richard Clark.
Speaker 4: And in hospital and mental facility in Omaha or Lincoln, Nebraska,
Speaker 4: or Bettendorf, Fiowa. Charles Hatcher, under various names, is arrested
Speaker 4: in these kinds of attacks, Attempting to abduct a boy
Speaker 4: from the mall in Bettendorf, Fowa, getting in a fight
Speaker 4: with a gay man on the street of Des Moines, Iowa.
Speaker 4: There's all of these cases, and Thatcher puts on this
Speaker 4: act that he is mentally impaired, and rather than going
Speaker 4: to jail, he gets foot into a mental hospital where
Speaker 4: he'll stay for a month or two. But eventually be released.
Speaker 4: The most serious aspect of this kind of behavior DAN
Speaker 4: took place in Bettendorg, Iowa, where Hatcher is arrested after
Speaker 4: attempting to abduct a boy from in front of a
Speaker 4: grocery store and march him to the back of the store,
Speaker 4: claiming he is a security guard. Hatcher uses this ruse
Speaker 4: to get the boy to come with him, and you
Speaker 4: know that boy is headed for trouble in the grip
Speaker 4: of this terrible predator who has a history of these
Speaker 4: kinds of activities. But the boy is smart and realizes, well,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, he's not taken me to see my mom.
Speaker 4: He's taken me out into the woods here, and there's
Speaker 4: going to be trouble, and he breaks away. They call
Speaker 4: the police and they arrest Hatcher and he finds himself
Speaker 4: in the custody of the Bettendorf, Iowa Police Department, and
Speaker 4: immediately Hatcher puts on this act like he's crazy. He
Speaker 4: begins whimpering and acting like he doesn't understand what's being
Speaker 4: said to him. So rather than put him in jail,
Speaker 4: they take him to Mount Pleasant, Iowa mel Hospital there
Speaker 4: where he spends a few months and eventually gains freedom.
Speaker 4: Rather than goes back to answer for attempting to abduct
Speaker 4: the boy in Bettendorf, Iowa. Once freed there, he's back
Speaker 4: in Saint Joseph, Missouri a few months later, where there
Speaker 4: is another child murder. Michelle Steele is murdered in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty two in Saint Joseph, Missouri. Sure has essentially come
Speaker 4: full circle. In nineteen seventy eight was a little boy
Speaker 4: murdered in Saint Joe. He has this series of crimes
Speaker 4: taking place in Nebraska, Iowa and elsewhere, and then he
Speaker 4: comes back to Saint Joe to commit with terrible murder
Speaker 4: of Michelle Steele, an eleven year old girl who disappeared
Speaker 4: on her way to the dentist's office. Well, in between
Speaker 4: those two cases, the murder of Eric Christian and the
Speaker 4: murder of Michelle Steele, a four year window of time
Speaker 4: during which Melvin Reynolds has been in the Missouri State
Speaker 4: Penitentiary for a crime he did not commit. Thatcher has
Speaker 4: read from the Police Magazine to the Detective Magazine that
Speaker 4: Melvin Reynolds has been sentenced to prison for the crimes
Speaker 4: that Catcher committed in Saint Joe, Missouri. So Hatcher knows
Speaker 4: that the murder that he committed has resulted in the
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction of another man. Hatcher had this abiding distaste
Speaker 4: and anger towards the court system. Many years earlier, he
Speaker 4: had been in the Buchanan County jail and had created
Speaker 4: some kind of a disturbance there after he had been
Speaker 4: arrested for one of his drunken disorderly crimes or some
Speaker 4: other assault, and he was handcuffed over a bar, over
Speaker 4: a rail, doubled over, and they left him that way
Speaker 4: for a day. And it was a It was a
Speaker 4: brutal punishment for a brutal character, and it probably deepened
Speaker 4: the main streak that already existed in Charles Hatcher. So
Speaker 4: he knew what it was like to be in jail
Speaker 4: in Missouri, in Saint Joe, Missouri, in Buchanan County, and
Speaker 4: in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He knew what kind of
Speaker 4: things were happening to Melvin Reynolds, and he knew that
Speaker 4: Melvin Reynolds was an innocent person. So this time, when
Speaker 4: Michelle Steele is murdered in nineteen eighty two in Saint Joseph, Missouri,
Speaker 4: the priests are able to focus on the man who
Speaker 4: actually committed the crime, Charles Hatcher, although at this point
Speaker 4: he's using the name Richard Clark. Clark is found over
Speaker 4: for trial and while awaiting trial on the Michelle Steele murder,
Speaker 4: he sends a node out to the FBI agent in
Speaker 4: Saint Joe. His name is Joe Holpslag and tells Holpslog
Speaker 4: that he has something important that he wants to say.
Speaker 4: In this note is the beginning of the unraveling of
Speaker 4: this entire career of serial killings that Charles Hatcher has
Speaker 4: been responsible bar. In the note is the first stepp
Speaker 4: towards freeing the immitcent man Melvine Reynolds from the Missouri
Speaker 4: State Penitentiary.
Speaker 6: You talk about the extraordinary exchange that this holtz Leg
Speaker 6: has with Charles Hatcher, but he also indicates that this
Speaker 6: isn't an altruistic thing to free Melvin Reynolds as much
Speaker 6: as to shame the prosecutor named Inscope. And you also
Speaker 6: have this incredible exchanges that they have with Agent Holsegg
Speaker 6: and Chief Hays and with Inscope prosecute Insco as well.
Speaker 6: Tell us a little bit about how hard it is
Speaker 6: or how difficult it is for polsk to convince Chief
Speaker 6: Hayes and Prosecutor Insco about what Reynald, pardon me, that
Speaker 6: Thatcher has already said and confessed to. So insco In Insco,
Speaker 6: the Buchanan County prosecutor, and Chief Hayes, the police chief
Speaker 6: in Saint Joe, Missouri, were responsible chiefly for prosecuting Melvin
Speaker 6: Reynolds for the Eric Christian murder of nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 6: And now here comes a man who says, hey, you've
Speaker 6: got the wrong person in jail, in prison for this crime.
Speaker 4: I'm the one who did it. And so what Hayes
Speaker 4: and Instoll have to do is become man enough to
Speaker 4: admit that they made a terrible mistake. They overreacted, they
Speaker 4: got the wrong person, put the but an innocent man
Speaker 4: in jail. And here before them is a career criminal,
Speaker 4: Charles Hatcher, a man who fits the description of the
Speaker 4: man seem leading the little boy from the shopping mall.
Speaker 4: And Insco at first disblieves what Oltslag has brought to him.
Speaker 4: He calls Hatcher a manipulator, a con artist. He's trying
Speaker 4: to just suzz up whatever is happening to try to
Speaker 4: avoid prosecution. In the Michelle Steel murdered, but over time,
Speaker 4: Oldslag and another prosecuting attorney in Ensko's office by the
Speaker 4: name of Rob pat Robb convinced Inscoe that it's more
Speaker 4: likely that Charles Hatcher murdered Eric Christian in Saint Joe
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy eight, just as he did Michelle Steele
Speaker 4: four years later. Hayes, the police chief, refuses to believe
Speaker 4: it and never did believe it, and attempts to get
Speaker 4: Fulkslag fired. He threatens to go to Washington, DC to
Speaker 4: FBI headquarters to get him pulled off the case, but
Speaker 4: Holkslag had dune enough of the spade work to realize
Speaker 4: on the early end of the Christian case that Melvin
Speaker 4: Reynolds is not near to the suspects that Charles Hatcher
Speaker 4: is and that this crime, the abduction of a murder
Speaker 4: of Eric Christian, is part in parcel of what Charles
Speaker 4: Hatcher has done throughout his life. And in the course
Speaker 4: of questioning Hatcher, they put in front of him is
Speaker 4: Trooper She This is a sheet that details all the
Speaker 4: crimes that Hatcher has committed all across the country under
Speaker 4: his various aliases, and Catcher finds the crime that took
Speaker 4: place in nineteen sixty nine in Saint Joe, the Gilbert
Speaker 4: Martinez abduction and attack, and says to the agent, a
Speaker 4: day before this or two days before this, I abducted
Speaker 4: and murdered a little boy in a town outside of
Speaker 4: San Francisco, the town of Antioch, California. And he provides
Speaker 4: some details of what the boy looked like, about his age.
Speaker 4: He was riding a bicycle. I left him, I strangled
Speaker 4: him beside a crete near Antioch, California. And he provides
Speaker 4: all of these detail sales that Opslag notes down and
Speaker 4: contacts the authorities in contact the FBI office in San Francisco,
Speaker 4: and they contact the police in Antioch, California, and sure enough,
Speaker 4: there's an unsolved child murder that took place there. A
Speaker 4: little boy named Eric Freeman had been playing tennis with
Speaker 4: a buddy of his, riding back home on their bicycles.
Speaker 4: A man in a car stops them and convinces Eric
Speaker 4: Freeman to get in the car with him, and they
Speaker 4: never They never were able to solve the murder of
Speaker 4: Eric Freeman, whose body was found of August twenty eighth,
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty nine, beside a creak they're strangled, they're an Antioch.
Speaker 4: But that's the prime that Charles Hatcher admits to from
Speaker 4: way back when that had never been solved. So Polslag
Speaker 4: knows that he has before him this man who calls
Speaker 4: himself Richard Clark, who has been doing this kind of
Speaker 4: criminal activity all across the country for years, and he's
Speaker 4: the man who killed Eric Christian. It's not Melvin Reynolds.
Speaker 4: And finally Hatcher agrees to go into court and admit
Speaker 4: that he's the murderer of Erik Christian. And that's really
Speaker 4: the most dramatic turn that takes place in the book,
Speaker 4: that finally we've got the right man and Melvin Reynolds
Speaker 4: can be released from prison.
Speaker 6: You include this incredible exchange between Hatcher and the judge,
Speaker 6: and the judge needing to be fully convinced because it
Speaker 6: isn't a slam dunk that they will accept, explain in
Speaker 6: what Hatcher really wanted in terms of sentence, and then
Speaker 6: the reality of what to be done in Missouri at
Speaker 6: that time and why, and the exchange between the judge
Speaker 6: and him.
Speaker 4: Well, Hatcher had these mood swings and at times he
Speaker 4: would be incarcerated and he would refuse to speak to anyone.
Speaker 4: He sometimes he would be in sort of a catatonic state,
Speaker 4: and there was a comparison between Hannibal Lecter, the fictional
Speaker 4: character in Silence of the Lambs, and Hatcher. There were
Speaker 4: people who tried to say that he's a lot like that,
Speaker 4: kind of a manipul manipulative personality that could convince people
Speaker 4: to He would be like a chameleon. He could change
Speaker 4: his appearance, change his demeanor, and seemed very smart and
Speaker 4: intelligent one minute conversational, and the next minute he would
Speaker 4: seem like a madman. At Sometimes in his lucid moments,
Speaker 4: speaking with Upflog, he would say, don't you know what
Speaker 4: has to be done to a person like me? You
Speaker 4: have to give me capital punishment, You have to take
Speaker 4: me off the face of the earth. He described himself
Speaker 4: as having an uncontrollable urge that builds and builds over
Speaker 4: a period of weeks until he has to kill someone.
Speaker 4: And he killed somebody we know in the Missouri state
Speaker 4: Gundentiary stabbed him. We know he had strangled children in
Speaker 4: various places across the country, and Hatcher at one point
Speaker 4: says that he would like to get the death penalty. However,
Speaker 4: in the state of Missouri in nineteen seventy eight, when
Speaker 4: Eric Christian was murdered, the death penalty was not in
Speaker 4: effect for technical reasons about the way it was prosecuted
Speaker 4: and carried out. So even though he admitted before the
Speaker 4: judge of a judge who had seen him many years ago.
Speaker 4: By the way, in that earlier attempted abduction of the
Speaker 4: newsboy that I mentioned, Frank Commett, a judge who sentenced
Speaker 4: Melvin Reynolds for a crime he did not commit. The
Speaker 4: judge cannot sentence Hatcher to death because capital punishment does
Speaker 4: not exist. But the judge has to be convinced that
Speaker 4: Hatcher indeed murdered every Christian. And so he trying to
Speaker 4: get Hatcher to give some details, and Paul Hatcher would say,
Speaker 4: was I did it the person who? I did it?
Speaker 4: All by myself. I strangle the Eric Christian. I don't
Speaker 4: know why I did it. And finally the judge is
Speaker 4: convinced and the sentences Hatcher to life imprisonment and the
Speaker 4: Missouri state and a temptuary. It's a high point for
Speaker 4: Hatcher in the sense that he's able to show the
Speaker 4: justice system in Buchanan palty is not infallible, that it
Speaker 4: makes mistakes. He's able to put the pot and the
Speaker 4: judges and the prosecutors and the bad life, and that,
Speaker 4: in the sense, is a victory for Charles Hatcher. He
Speaker 4: gloats about it, writes letters to the newspapers saying, sometimes
Speaker 4: the system makes a very bad mistake. He kind of
Speaker 4: telegraphs the fact that this whole case is going to
Speaker 4: blow up in Saint Joe, Missouri, and when it does,
Speaker 4: there are going to be a lot of people who
Speaker 4: don't look so good. And that would include the police chief,
Speaker 4: that would include Mike Insco, the prosecutor. And so if
Speaker 4: it's an attempt, are an example of Hatcher manipulating the
Speaker 4: justice system to suit his own needs. In this case,
Speaker 4: uh makes makes a mockery of the justice system. But
Speaker 4: in fact, what Hatcher has done is he has freed
Speaker 4: an innocent man from prison. And what what the book
Speaker 4: shows that at least the way our court system worked
Speaker 4: and police systems worked then then they were not infallible.
Speaker 4: Of course they're not infallible today, but in those days
Speaker 4: it was less likely that you could you could catch
Speaker 4: a man Charles Hatcher, he was actually smarter than this system.
Speaker 4: He knew the system's weaknesses. He knew what Buttons told
Speaker 4: course to get psychiatrists who decides he's not a criminal,
Speaker 4: he's mentally ill, and they put him in the hospital
Speaker 4: from which he could estate. That likelihood does not exist
Speaker 4: much today. Also, when Eric Christian was abducted, there was
Speaker 4: nothing in place that could mobilize the public like we
Speaker 4: can today with all the amberor alerts and the systems
Speaker 4: that we have to immediately notify the public that a
Speaker 4: child is missing and we have to be on the
Speaker 4: lookout for this child. So we have things in place
Speaker 4: now that would help capture or interrupt or stop to
Speaker 4: Charles Hatchers that might exist today.
Speaker 6: You write about the surprise and of course elation that
Speaker 6: Melvin Reynolds experienced. How many years was Reynolds in prison
Speaker 6: before he was released, and just tell us a little
Speaker 6: bit of as you write the strange occurrence that was
Speaker 6: him being released.
Speaker 4: Well, Melvin always insisted that he was innocent, and he
Speaker 4: was tried in nineteen seventy nine and sentenced to the
Speaker 4: Missouri State Penitentiary and it was not until nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: three that he's finally released because Charles Hatcher has finally
Speaker 4: admitted that he's responsible for this crime. Melvin is not
Speaker 4: somebody who's going to foe the justice US to see
Speaker 4: the courts for wrongful conviction. He's just happy that he's
Speaker 4: He's an introvert who's happy to have finally been freed
Speaker 4: from prison, and he's so happy that he's not been
Speaker 4: killed in prison like he was afraid he'd be killed
Speaker 4: in prison is people had warned him, and he was
Speaker 4: happy to find his way back to Saint Joe and
Speaker 4: lead what he could of a normal life. The police
Speaker 4: chief never got over the fact that Melvin was actually innocent,
Speaker 4: and claimed until his dying days that Melvin was good
Speaker 4: for the murder of Eric Christian, even though Charles Hatcher
Speaker 4: was the one who had done him.
Speaker 6: And prosecutor in school, he had to admit that he
Speaker 6: was wrong, which was big of him, and prosecute Hatcher,
Speaker 6: didn't he.
Speaker 4: That's right. He prosecutes Hatcher for the murder of Michelle Steele.
Speaker 4: Many of the crimes that Hatcher had committed all across
Speaker 4: the country could not be introduced to the jury that
Speaker 4: convicted Hatcher of the murder of Michelle Steele. That the
Speaker 4: jury does convict him. I talked to some of the
Speaker 4: jurors afterwards, and they said that what convinced them of
Speaker 4: his guilt, even though there were no witnesses, was that
Speaker 4: he had changed his name between the time that police
Speaker 4: first questioned him and the time he was arrested. So
Speaker 4: they knew that he was a dark personality and it
Speaker 4: came through during the trial. And so Hatcher was sentenced
Speaker 4: to life imprisonment again in the Missouri State an aitentiary,
Speaker 4: where he was found later found hung in his cell
Speaker 4: shortly after he was convicted. He was convicted in September
Speaker 4: of nineteen eighty four, and he was found hung in
Speaker 4: the cell in December of that same year.
Speaker 6: What was Agent Holstigg's take on all of this was
Speaker 6: he bitter at fellow law enforcement over his treatment and
Speaker 6: the ordeal he had to undergo just to be able
Speaker 6: to get justice for Melon Reynolds.
Speaker 4: Botflaw's career really is measured by this case because leading
Speaker 4: up to it, he was a law man who was
Speaker 4: respected in the community. Other policemen were friends of his,
Speaker 4: and Ulkslag believed in sort of a black and white
Speaker 4: criminal justice system. But what this case taught him was
Speaker 4: that sometimes the police aren't looking for justice. Sometimes they're
Speaker 4: willing to let things slide to solve the case, and
Speaker 4: in this case, they didn't look closely enough at all
Speaker 4: the facts to realize that Melvin Reynolds was not a murderer.
Speaker 4: And the reaction from some of his friends in the
Speaker 4: police department to where why don't you let this go?
Speaker 4: And not well enough alone convinced him that there are
Speaker 4: not people willing in the law enforcement community to take
Speaker 4: respect coonsibility for mistakes that have been made, and from
Speaker 4: thereafter his view of the system was more nuanced. It
Speaker 4: was not black and white, that things were not as straightforward,
Speaker 4: and he could not continue his work in Saint Joseph, Missouri,
Speaker 4: and he asked for a reassignment.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 4: He moved to serve layer assignments for the FBI in Hawaii,
Speaker 4: in San Antonio, Texas, and he later retired in Texas
Speaker 4: as an FBI agent. So the FBI was proud of
Speaker 4: his performance and he was commended for giving an innocent
Speaker 4: man out of prison, but among the law enforcement some
Speaker 4: of the law enforcement community in Saint Joseph, he was
Speaker 4: not held in high regard for the way he acted
Speaker 4: in that case. So he lost some and his attitude
Speaker 4: towards the legal community changed as a result.
Speaker 6: Sort of thing. Now this book, Innocent Blood was originally published.
Speaker 6: Tell us the original title that this book was published,
Speaker 6: and tell us about this book in terms of compared
Speaker 6: to the original.
Speaker 4: The book was first published by Lyle Stewart Publishing Company
Speaker 4: in hard pack under the title of Saint Joseph's Children.
Speaker 4: Two children in Saint Joseph, Missouri had been murdered by
Speaker 4: Charles Hatcher and that prompted that title, which was changed
Speaker 4: to Innocent Blood when Saint Martin's Press produced the paperback
Speaker 4: about a year and a half after the publication of
Speaker 4: the hardback. A few years later, the paperback was republished
Speaker 4: as a trade paperback and it retains the Innocent Blood title.
Speaker 6: Right. I want to thank you very much Terry for
Speaker 6: coming on and talking about Innocent Blood, a true story
Speaker 6: of obsession and serial murder. It has been truly fascinating.
Speaker 6: Is there a Facebook page or website that we might
Speaker 6: fans might take a look for this book and more
Speaker 6: information Bill.
Speaker 4: They can go to my Facebook page www dot Terrygamy
Speaker 4: dot com to see how to get the book, or
Speaker 4: it is available on Amazon if somebody would google Innocent Blood,
Speaker 4: A True Story of Obsession and Serial Murder, it's another
Speaker 4: way of getting the copy. It's available through Amazon. I
Speaker 4: was an investigative reporter for the Post Dispatch for many years,
Speaker 4: and this was my most fascinating journey through facts and
Speaker 4: documents and interviews that's always stuck with me. I was
Speaker 4: able to use the Freedom of Information Act to get
Speaker 4: FBI files to help tell the story, as well as
Speaker 4: documents and reports from mental hospitals in California about Charles
Speaker 4: Hatcher that I think helped tell the story in a
Speaker 4: very dramatic way so the reader can come away from
Speaker 4: it very understanding the mind as much as you can
Speaker 4: of a psychotic killer, and also see how the Justice
Speaker 4: Department had trouble dealing with it.
Speaker 6: Yes, it truly is a glimpse into all of that
Speaker 6: and the horror of all victims and searching for their
Speaker 6: loved ones, and this incredible journey through the judicial system
Speaker 6: to finally get justice and put away Charles Hatcher. Again,
Speaker 6: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 6: and talking about Innocent Blood, the true story of obsession
Speaker 6: and serial murder. Thank you very much, Terry Geaney. You
Speaker 6: have a great evening. Thank you, thank you Dan. Good Night.