This killer has inspired movies like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Eaten Alive" he is Joe Ball and even 60 years after his crimes, its hard to make a full picture of his life. In 2002 a man put together these peices and wrote a magazine article on it all. Micheal Hall was the author and his studies are as follows....
Eaten Alive was a movie made of a hotel owner who fed his guests to alligators our back, Tobe Hooper was obviously fascinated with Joe Ball, like so many others are still today.
Ball was one of 8 children, born in 1896. He was a quiet kid and spent a lot of time alone instead of with other kids. He became fascinated with guns at an early age and developed outdoor skills that became handy for him later on. Ball went to WW1 and came back 2 years later, was honourly discharged. He worked for his dad for a while but soon got into illegal works and became a bootlegger in no time. He hired a man to help and the man was terrified of Ball, especially when he drank.
When bootlegging grew boring, Ball opened the "Sociable Inn" A salloon in gator country. All customers called him creepy but harmless. He soon tired of this and decided to jazz up the Inn and he dug a whole, cemented it, stuck up a fence and got some huge alligators on the property. He would open and be extremely busy on weekends, throwing a cat, dog, rabbit in the cage and seeing the gators get it delighted the customers. The bar was also known for its pretty waitresses. They never stayed long, many drifters but they were young and attractive none the less.
Minnie entered his life then. She was loud and cruel to many but Ball enjoyed her company and they began to run the bar together. By 1937 Joe had another waitress in love with him and another soon to come. Ball tried to balance all three women and did it with difficulty.
Minnie was the first to disappear. Ball said she left town to give birth to a black baby. He married one of the other women then and later said he shot Minnie and buried her in the sand. His wife didnt believe him and was later in a car accident that took her arm. Rumours flared that a gator had her but it infact wasnt true. She later dissappeared which left one more girl. She vanished shortly after.
The neighbour complained of rotting meat and Ball pulled out his rifle insisting it was gator food. He loved his gators and the neighbour left for another state.
Waitresses kept vanishing but business was good. Minnies parents still were asking questions and police investigated to find nothing out of the ordinary. Police did however find that Minnie had not packed and asked more questions but led to dead ends. 2 more girls went missing in the mean time.
In 1938 things changed. An old neighbour reported seeing Ball cut off human meat and feed it to his gators. There was also talk of a barrel that smelt like death inside. Investigators found no barrel but found something else. Ball wasnt going to jail! When they went to collect ball he closed up and pressed "no sale" on the cash register. He pulled out a gun and shot himself. He died instantly.
They found a bloody axe with hair and blood all over it, remains of humans in the alligator pond and more missing persons showed up that were all reported last seen at the Inn.
Balls handyman was pulled in to the station and he assisted in finding Minnies body. They found her in the sand and the smell was so bad that many vommitted on the spot. She was dismembered and her head burnt in a camp fire. He also spoke of the other girl getting murdered and how they sliced her up and burnt her head too.
It seems that the story may be exaggerated a bit as some say Ball was a gentle man that only killed the two girls. They say he only killed when driven to and no one was fed to the alligators. Some of the missing women were found later on and others were not. The alligators were given to the zoo and lived there the rest of their lives.
Although its not completely sure whether he killed them all or not, he was a very popular man and a lot of stories were made either about him or based on his mystery. Why did he shoot himself? Why did they all go missing? And could the alligators really eat all those people and not leave a trace? With the case being so old and evidence lost, it makes it hard to ever know. How it changed my life:Horror\\\\Buff You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click hereScroll all the way down to read replies.Show all stories by Author:  60162 ( Click here )
Halloween is Right around the corner.. .
|
