Hatcher was arrested the following day, as he tried to check in at the St.Joseph State Hospital. While awaiting trial, he confessed to fifteen other murders dating from 1969. The first victim, 12‑year‑old William Freeman, had disappeared from Antioch, California in August of that year, one day before Hatcher was charged with child molestation in nearby San Francisco. In another case, Hatcher penned a crude map that led searchers to the remains of 28-year-old James Churchill, 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.