Charles Ray Hatcher - Childhood and Youth

Childhood and Youth

Charles Ray Hatcher was born in Mound City, Missouri, a small town 34 miles north of St. Joseph. He was the youngest of Jesse and Lula Hatcher's four children. His father was an ex-convict and an abusive alcoholic. Hatcher was bullied in school, and he would often inflict pain on his classmates.

In the spring of 1935, he and his older brothers were flying a kite with copper wire they had found in an old Model T Ford. His oldest brother, Arthur Allen, was about to hand the kite to him when it hit a high-voltage power line and electrocuted him. Arthur was pronounced dead at the scene. Soon afterward, his father left home and divorced his mother. His mother remarried several times, and in 1945, Hatcher moved with his mother and her third husband to St. Joseph.