Rumor Has It (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

One night, in February of 2012, a farmer in Rural Ohio was at home when he suddenly heard the sound of a revving engine and spinning tires outside. Now these noises were coming from a neighboring field that nobody was supposed to be in, so the farmer naturally ran outside, hopped in his truck, and drove over there to catch the intruder. But by the time he got there, whoever it was, had vanished. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious deliberate and story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time you're over the follow-buttons house, sneak into their pantry and rearrange all the labels on their spices, okay, let's get into today's story. Next day, February 29th, 2012, a 67-year-old woman named Betsy Ball stood at the kitchen counter in her farmhouse in the small town of Vinton, Ohio. She poured herself a glass of wine and then she looked out the window across the expansive cattle farm that she owned with her husband, David. Betsy loved it here, even though the farm was a ton of work and really didn't bring in much money. In fact, money was so tight that both Betsy and David also had jobs at the local power plant just to make ends meet, but today was Betsy's day off and she had the farmhouse all to herself tonight because David, it was not his day off. He was actually working a double shift at the power plant until midnight. So now Betsy, she grabbed her wine glass and also a bag of pretzels from the pantry and she took them into the living room to watch TV. But when she got over there and sat down her wine glass on the coffee table, she noticed something weird at her back window. There was a man standing outside in their yard, over by their old barn that she and David used as a garage. And so Betsy, she walked over to the window and squinted her eyes to get a better look, but she couldn't make out the man's face, mostly because the garage was set pretty far back from the house, so this is a pretty good distance away. But despite seeing a stranger on her property, Betsy didn't panic because she figured even though she couldn't quite tell that this has to be their farmhand Lee Hawkins. Lee had been helping Betsy and David around her farm for nearly 20 years now. And then at some point, the man actually turned and began walking from where he was towards her, towards the farmhouse, which definitely would have been out of character for Lee because he was like this really quiet guy and he usually just came and went without ever stopping by the house to chat like he was anti-social if anything. And then as this man got closer and closer to the farmhouse, Betsy got a more definitive look at his face and she realized it definitely was not Lee. In fact, she had no idea who it was. And worse, he had a shotgun slanted across his back. At this point, Betsy was very nervous because here she was completely alone with this armed stranger walking across her property towards her. She thought about calling the police, but then the stranger, the man, he looked up and he raised his arm and he gave her a friendly wave through the window, like he was happy to see her and wanted to talk at which point Betsy, she relaxed because clearly this guy's not a threat. Now instead of reaching for the phone to call police, Betsy just waved back and then she walked towards the back door and she cracked it open. And also keep in mind that in this area, this very rural area, it just wasn't uncommon for people to walk around with weapons. So seeing this guy with a shotgun was alarming, but not particularly weird. And so eventually this stranger with the gun, he walks up and he apologizes to Betsy if he scared her. And he just said, hey, my name is Sean Petri and he was a friend of her husband, David. And as soon as he said that, Betsy felt really, completely relieved because actually that name Sean Petri, it clicked in her memory. Her husband, David, had recently mentioned to her that they had a new hire at the plant, whose name was Sean Petri, and that he had actually asked Sean to come over and hunt some of the coyotes that had been going after their cattle at the farm. And so Sean, he told Betsy that that's all he had been doing. He was hunting coyotes and he was done for the night. And so the two of them, they chatted for a bit before Sean said that he had to head out because he had worked the next 90 at a night shift at the power plant. So Betsy, she thanked him for coming by and then she watched from the back door as Sean walked back across that field. And then once he was out of sight, she shut the door and went back to her wine and pretzels. An hour later, just before 8 pm, Betsy sat in the living room chatting on the phone with her friend Sharon. Betsy told Sharon that she was pretty bored just staying home tonight because, you know, as usual, David was working late. She knew they could use the money, of course, but they just now didn't spend much time together. She also said, you know, even when their schedules did sync up, she and David, you know, they like to spend their time differently. Betsy liked to go out and spend time with friends, whereas David was just reserved. He preferred to work all the time or just stay home on the farm. And so Betsy often felt like she had to drag him out to gatherings and they sometimes argued about his work schedule, which he really liked to keep full. But you know, Betsy still really did love David and she did feel like on the whole, they had a good, strong relationship. And even though her friends and her adult sons from her previous marriage, they had all been skeptical of her and David's relationship at first, eventually they had all come around, you know, that David, he was great and they all knew that he genuinely loved Betsy and made her happy. And so Betsy and Sharon, they chatted for a bit longer on the phone about, you know, relationships and future plans and that kind of thing. And then eventually they said their goodbyes and Betsy hung up and she turned the TV back on. And then a little while later, as she's still just sitting there watching TV, there was this bright glare that flashed across the TV screen. And so Betsy, she turned around to see what was casting this light on the screen. And when she turned, she looked out her front window, which was wide open, and there were these really bright headlights beaming down on her property. Somebody was pulling up to the house. A few hours later, around midnight, Betsy's husband, David Ball, stood in the farmhouse's kitchen, and he placed a phone call to his stepson, whose name was John. When John answered, he sounded tired and groggy, like David's call had clearly just woken him up. But David, he told John he was really sorry to bother him so late, but he'd just gotten home from work. And to his surprise, he'd found the farmhouse was empty. He told John that the lamp had been on in the living room, and there'd also been a half-drunk glass of wine and some pretzels on the coffee table, but no sign of Betsy. And he was calling her, but she wasn't answering her phone. So David asked if John had heard from her, but John, who now sounded much more alert after hearing this, he said no, but he also told David, you know, don't worry about it. He said, you know, probably moms just out with some friends and she'd be home soon. And David, even though he had this growing sense that maybe something was off here, he had to agree that this was a logical explanation, because Betsy, she really was very social, very independent, and she also didn't always remember to let him know where she was going before she would go. So after David hung up with John, he just sat down on the couch and he waited. But around 2 a.m., so about 2 hours later, David still hadn't heard or seen his wife, and he was starting to get really antsy. So as he continued to just wait, he decided he would wait while walking around the property. He would just sort of walk around and see if there's any sign or any indication of where his wife might have gone, and that led him to their garage. Their garage was detached from the main house, so he had to leave the main house and walk over there, but when he went inside, he flipped on the light, and as soon as he did, he froze. And then a moment later, with a shaking hand, he pulled out his cell phone, and he called 9-1-1. About half an hour later, so around 2.30 in the morning on March 1st, Detective Chris Gill of the Galea County Sheriff's Department followed David through his farmhouse outside and over to the detached garage. So Detective Gill had arrived at David and Betsy's farmhouse just a few minutes ago, and he was here responding to a call about a missing person. Dispatch had told him that the husband, David, believed that Betsy had been taken by force from their farmhouse based on what he saw in this garage. But for Gill, when he arrived, the first place he went was actually the farmhouse, and the first thing he noticed when he went into the farmhouse was that the farmhouse certainly did not look like a crime scene. There was nothing broken, no overturned furniture, no sign of forced entry, no blood. But the odd thing that did immediately stand out to Detective Gill was David's demeanor. I mean, David had been the one who called 9-1-1. He's the one saying his wife has been kidnapped, but here the detective is, meeting David at his house, and David just had not seemed particularly worried about anything that was going on. It was like very nonchalant. He'd been so calm as he explained that he had just been working at the power plant till midnight, and when he'd gotten home, Betsy was gone. He had said that at first he thought maybe his wife was out with friends, but he sat in the house waiting for her for a couple of hours. She didn't turn up, and so he said he just decided to look around the property while he continued to wait. He walked over to the detached garage, and that's when he realized that something was wrong. And so that was the story that Gil was given. and now, Detective Gill, for the first time, stepped into the detached garage, and immediately he saw there was a Subaru parked in there, a Subaru car, and he walked over to it, which David had said that was Betsy's car, and immediately Gill did start to see signs of foul play. For one, there were a bunch of handprint streaks all over the car, and also what appeared to be scratch marks all over the garage floor, like some sort of struggle had taken place right there next to the car. And then when Gill bent down to get a better look at the area, he noticed little pieces of fabric on the ground, which David, who was standing nearby, very casually mentioned that appeared to match some of Betsy's clothes. At this point, Gill took out his flashlight, and he turned it on, and he looked underneath the car, and there he found a woman's shoe. At this point, Gill stood back up, he turned off his flashlight, and he told David that right now they need to clear the scene. When he and David left the garage, and Gill, he radioed dispatch, and he asked them to send out a forensic team to investigate a possible kidnapping. Around noon, on Thursday, March 1, 2012, so about 10 hours after Betsy ball was reported missing, Detective Chris Gill drove a squad car through a remote, grassy pasture about four miles from Betsy and David's farmhouse. Up ahead, through the windshield, Gill saw officers and crime scene texts gathered around this near abandoned looking farm. So earlier that morning, Gill had set up a public tip line, because he knew that in a small town like Vinton, the local community was usually a good source of information because everybody knew everybody. And almost immediately, after setting this line up, a call had come in from a local farmer who said he'd heard a vehicle revving its engine and spinning its tires in this field where Gill was the night before, around 9 p.m. And Gill had thought this tip seemed really promising, because it fit in with the timeline that police were starting to put together. One of Betsy's friends, a woman named Sharon, had come forward to say that she and Betsy had spoken on the phone around 8 p.m. on the night she went missing, which meant that if what Betsy's husband David had said about getting home to an empty house at midnight was true, it meant that Betsy had to have been taken sometime between 8 p.m. and 12 p.m. that night. And so now, Gill, he pulled onto this field, and he parked next to this abandoned looking barn, and he got out, and he could see that the crime scene text had already roped off a set of tire tracks with crime scene tape, and so Gill, he followed these tracks around to the backside of the barn where he found the medical examiner, and the medical examiner was standing over Betsy Ball's dead body. And as Gill got closer to the body, he could actually feel his chest tighten up, because this was easily one of the most gruesome killings he had ever seen. Betsy was lying on her back, and she was naked from the waist down, and her shirt and bra were pushed up to her shoulders, and Gill noticed that the fabric of her clothing seemed to match the scraps that he had seen in the garage. Furthermore, Betsy's face and arms were very badly bruised and scratched, and there were also pretty obvious ligature marks on her throat, which suggested she had been choked. And there were also marks on both of her wrists, like she had at one point been tied up, but she was not currently tied up. Also, there were a few very severe cuts made to her body. There was a long gash across her abdomen, and then her right wrist had been so badly cut that basically her hand had been effectively severed from her body. It was barely hanging on. But then on top of all of that, making this even more just horrific, was the fact that Gill could clearly see tire marks on her clothes, like she had been run over. So it was a lot to take in, and Gill knew that he would need to wait for the official autopsy to know the exact cause of death here, but right now, he just could not believe how many different types of injuries there were to Betsy's body. She had been choked, she had been cut, she had been run over with a vehicle, and also likely sexually assaulted. To Gill, this murder almost seemed obsessive, like the killer had taken great pleasure in what they were doing to her. Usually that kind of violence indicated a very close personal relationship between the victim and their assailant. And so now, Gill, he turned and began walking away, leaving the medical examiner to continue their work, and as he left, he made a mental note to tell his other deputies about keeping the details of this crime scene confidential. For one thing, he didn't want Betsy's horrible suffering to become a source of town gossip, but also, he just wanted a chance to interrogate potential suspects without them knowing the ins and outs of the case, assuming they are local suspects. As Gill walked back around the barn, he took another look around the surrounding field. Now, this field was not visible from the main road, and it had actually taken Gill quite a while to find the unpaid path that led to this spot. And so, this suggested to Gill that the killer had to have known about this field in advance, which meant that Betsy's killer likely lived or worked close by. Like Betsy's unusually calm husband, David. The following afternoon, on Friday, March 2, Detective Gill walked into the human resources office in the power plant where Betsy's husband, David, worked. Gill wanted to confirm that David really had been at work on Wednesday night at the time Betsy was attacked. Because right now, David was Gill's lead suspect. So Gill had spent the last full day speaking to Betsy's family members. And one of them, Betsy's son, John, had told investigators that he'd actually spoken to David the night Betsy was killed, because David had called him right around midnight to see if he knew where Betsy was. And this detail really stood out to Gill, because David had not mentioned making that phone call. He told Gill was that he got worried around 2am and he called 911, which meant he's calling 911 at 2am, but he's calling John apparently at 12, voicing concern, where his rendition of events to the detective had been, "I wasn't worried at 12, I was worried at 2. That's why I called it 2." But Gill knew that if David really had been at work all evening, like he said he had been, then he could not have killed Betsy, even if his timeline was not exactly right about when he actually felt worried about his wife. Because Gill had just heard from the coroner that Betsy's time of death had been at about 9pm that night, which was right around the time that the neighbor who called the tipline had heard that car revving in the field, where Betsy's body had been found, and also 9pm is when David claimed he was at work. And so now, inside the power plants HR office, Gill shook the hand of the HR manager and asked to see David Ball's time sheet for February 29th, the night his wife was killed. The HR manager led Gill to a computer and explained that their entire system was electronic, and that every employee had to scan in and out of the building with an ID badge. And so Gill watched as the manager pulled up David's records from the 29th, and it showed that David had entered the plant early that morning for a double shift, and he hadn't left again until 11.42pm, almost 3 hours after Betsy had been killed. No, unless David found some way to bypass the plant's security system, he had been at work when Betsy was attacked, which meant Gill now needed to expand his list of suspects. And so a little while later, when Gill got back to the station, he immediately checked in to see if they'd gotten any other calls from that tipline that were of note, and he was excited to learn that they had. Someone had apparently called in about this man who spent a lot of time on Betsy and David's farm. One afternoon, a few days later, Detective Gill walked into an interrogation room at the Sheriff's Station, and he sat down across from Lee Hawkins, who worked as Betsy and David's farmhand. Gill wanted to interview Lee, because he'd heard that Lee had been working on David and Betsy's property on the day Betsy was killed. And more than that, word around town, was that Lee was kind of like this anti-social loaner type, and people just didn't really seem to trust him. And now as Gill began speaking to him, he could see where this reputation came from. Lee seemed, you know, sort of gruff kind of awkward and maybe even a little bit nervous. Gill lastly, how he knew David and Betsy. And Lee, he just stared down at the table and sort of awkwardly said that he had worked for them for about 20 years now, and he basically did consider them family. Lee said on the day Betsy was killed, he had been working at their farm. He'd gone there in the early afternoon to do his usual chores and feed the animals. But he said he had left at 4pm, which was obviously hours before anything happened to Betsy, and he had just been at home all night with his wife and kids. Now, obviously, Gill had no way of knowing if what Lee was saying was true, but he wound up taking down Lee's wife's contact information, and he stepped outside and he just gave her a call, and she confirmed that Lee was at home during that time period, which meant obviously he could not have killed Betsy. And so at this point, Gill was feeling really frustrated, his two most obvious suspects, David and Lee now both had alibis. And so at this point, there really was only one more lead he knew about that was worth pursuing. Because over the past couple of days, Gill had been hearing rumors about a man who had been walking around Betsy's property on the day she was killed, and he was carrying a shotgun. A couple of weeks after the murder, Detective Gill knocked on the front door of a small rental house in Vinton, and when a man answered, Gill asked if his name was Sean Petrie, and when this man nodded and said, "I don't know what you're doing." Yes, Gil said that he really needed to speak to him, because he had reason to believe that Sean was the last person to see Betsy Ball alive. So remember, by this point, Gil had already effectively ruled out David and Lee because of their alibis. Now it was possible that perhaps Lee's wife was lying about Lee being home or not, but between the work hours that were clearly logged at the power plant for David and Lee's alibi looking strong, they were effectively ruled out. And so at this point, for Gil, Sean Petrie, the mysterious man with a shotgun, was sort of feeling like the case is only hope. But Sean, his reaction to seeing the detective at his door was very normal. I mean, he was a very immediately compassionate guy. He understood the gravity of the situation, and he invited Gil inside, and they had seats inside of his kitchen at the table. And Gil, he cut straight to the point, and he just asked Sean if he had been on Betsy's property with a shotgun on the night she was killed. And Sean, he just said, "Yeah, I was, absolutely." He even said that he had seen and spoken to Betsy right around 7pm, but he specifically said he never stepped inside their house. And then after they had spoken, he said he had walked back to his vehicle and driven straight to work at the power plant where he worked with David, and he actually filled David in on how the coyote hunting was going on the property. And Gil, as he's listening to Sean, he just couldn't help but be sort of let down. He half-expected, Sean might be sort of nervous to see him, or might try to deny being on Betsy's property, but Sean was definitely not acting like someone who had something to hide. But Gil knew that, you know, he could just be a great actor. He could sort of prove it one way or another by simply calling Sean's work, because that was his alibi. He either was or was not at the power plant at 9pm when Betsy was killed. And you know, if he was there, then this was another dead end. If he wasn't there, then he really is just a great actor. But already, just based on Sean's very calm demeanor and just how forthcoming he was being, I mean, Gil already is assuming this will be a dead end, that I'm going to have no suspects after this. And so by the time Gil left Sean's house and was heading back to the station to make the follow-up call to the power plant, in the back of his mind, he was already thinking, like, boy, I really hope that the small town gossip, because this is all anyone's talking about as this murder case, I hope that small town gossip leads to more tips that open up more opportunities for new suspects. At the same time, Gil was, you know, figuring out what to do next. A local mechanic, named Robert Markham, was sitting down to eat lunch in the auto repair shop where he worked in Vinton. And behind him, a coworker was busy fixing this black pickup truck. The black pickup truck owner, who Robert didn't know, had just driven over and asked to have the bed of this truck changed out immediately. So Robert and his team, they agreed to take this job on, and while Robert ate his lunch, his coworker had gotten started on the truck. And now, Robert listened as his coworker, chatted with this truck owner, and it wasn't long before the subject of Betsy's murder came up. This didn't strike Robert as unusual. I mean, in this town, her murder was basically all anybody talked about. I mean, this is the biggest news story Vinton had ever had. However, as the two of them continued to talk, Robert heard the truck owner start giving these details about Betsy's body that, at least to Robert, like these details were not public, like he had not heard these details. In fact, these details were so graphic, it seemed like everybody would know them. For example, the owner started talking about how Betsy's wrists and her stomach had been slit wide open, and that actually someone had had run over with their vehicle. And as this truck owner spoke, Robert couldn't help but feel like whoever this owner was, they didn't sound shocked or saddened by what happened to Betsy. As Robert's listening to this person describe these horrific acts of violence on Betsy, it just sounded like the truck owner was excited about it. This was really amazing. And so after hearing this conversation, Robert kind of kept it to himself, but after about a week when Betsy's killer still hadn't been caught, Robert decided that, you know what, I better call that tip line and just tell the police what I heard, even if it's nothing. And so he does that, he calls the tip line, and right away he gets a call back from a detective who asks him, "If you saw a photo lineup, would you be able to identify that truck owner who made those comments?" and Robert said, "Absolutely." Based on the police investigation and forensic evidence, here is a reconstruction of what investigators believe happened to Betsy Ball on February 29, 2012. Shortly before 9 p.m., the killer walked through Betsy's unlocked front door. And Betsy, who was in there by herself, she was a little surprised to see them, but she still stood up and welcomed them inside. But then a moment later, Betsy noticed the weapon that the killer was holding. And when she did, there was like this moment of recognition that, wait a minute, what are you doing here? At which point Betsy instinctively turned and bolted out the house, out the back door. And she began running towards the detached garage. Her car is in there. She's trying to flee. But the killer was way too fast. They chased after her. And before she could actually get into her subrube, they tackled her to the ground. And then there's this vicious struggle where the killer is trying to restrain her. And in the process of fighting with Betsy, her clothes rip, or whenever shoes comes off. But eventually the killer got control of Betsy and they tied her wrists together. And then when she was immobilized and they're sort of sitting on top of her, the killer pulled out a ligature and they wrapped it around Betsy's neck and they pulled it tight and they kept holding it there until Betsy died. And then after Betsy was dead, the killer stood up and they grabbed her body and they put her body in the back of their black pickup truck and they drove her out to that barn that that nearly abandoned looking barn out on that field that was sort of off the beaten path that nobody could really see. And there, the killer dumped her body on the ground and then proceeded to sexually assault her and then mutilated her body and then when they were done, they made sure to drive over her with their truck on the way out. And then from there, the killer simply drove back to their home where they knew their wife was waiting for them and that their wife would lie for them. The killer was Lee Hawkins, Betsy and David's long time farmhand. Lee originally had left their farm at 4 p.m. and gone home to his wife and kids just like he had told the police, but later that night he had snuck out and went and killed Betsy. And although Lee's wife originally did say that her husband was here the whole time, she would later recant her statement and said that he had not been home all night. Lee never explained his motive, but when the sheriff's department searched his house, they found this hidden trove of articles about somebody known as the BTK serial killer who had been active in Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s and killed his mostly female victims by attacking them in their homes, tying them up and then strangling them. And so for whatever reason, Lee was seemingly fascinated with the BTK killer and seemed to emulate him in the way he went about murdering Betsy. Lee was ultimately convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life without parole. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacasio. This episode was written by Margaret LeBron, Aaron Lann, story editing by Luke Barats, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano, research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stidem, production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner, theme song "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to Sirius XM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya. (upbeat music)