Leading up to the trial date Hatcher’s supporters built a defense campaign that sponsored several events. They pointed to the lack of physical evidence linking Hatcher to the murder.

During the trial Thelma Clark, who has been active in Hatcher’s defense and is his mother, explained to this reporter that several prosecution witnesses admitted in court that they were testifying as part of plea bargain agreements they had reached with the authorities.

In 1988 Hatcher and another Tuscarora Indian activist took over the offices of the local newspaper, The Robesonian, to support demands that the state governor investigate a number of unsolved murders and the death of a young Black man in Robeson County jail who had died after being denied medical attention. Acquitted on federal charges, Hatcher was later tried and convicted by the state of North Carolina. He served five years in prison and one year on parole on a kidnapping charge.

Clark said the authorities are now preparing to move him from his home county in eastern North Carolina to Marion, in the western part of the state. She said the defense is now organizing to appeal the conviction.  
 
 
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