Joe Ball was born on January 7th 1896 in Elmendorf, Texas. Joe was a loner who loved guns and spent hours target practicing in the woods until he became a crack shot and a expert with firearms. This skill would serve him well on the front lines of Europe during World War I.
American Bootlegger
When Joe returned from the war in 1919 he refused his family's help and wanted to make his own living and he turned to the dangerous endeavor of bootlegging. Joe delivered bootleg alcohol to his customers by automobile and greatly enjoyed the excitement and thrill of going against the grain of the law.
Joe made lots of money with his illegal enterprise and hired a n African-American man named Clifton Wheeler to be his gopher and kept the man in constant fear of him. After prohibition ended Joe’s illegal bootleg business came to a sudden end and he was forced to reevaluate his prospects.
Joe loved to drink and he enjoyed being around rowdy crowds of like-minded people so when prohibition ended the illegal distribution of booze he decided to invest his ill-gotten gains into building a saloon he called “The Sociable Inn.”
The Sociable Inn
Joe was a disagreeable fellow who was generally feared by most people due to his imposing size, strength, and foul temper, but customers tolerated his temperament and tried to stay on his good side. Joe enjoyed harsh entertainments such as cockfights, which were held behind the bar on occasion.
Ball decided he wanted a more lively entertainment to attract more customers, so he dug a pit and lined it with concrete and filled it with live alligators. On the weekends live animals, including cats, dogs, or whatever could be caught were fed to the alligators to cheering crowds of intoxicated spectators.
It would later be speculated and rumored that Joe cut up his victims and fed their remains to his precious pets but although a very real possibility, and many locals believed it to be true, evidence could never be proven to the fact.
The Alligator Man
Joe considered himself a ladies' man, and owning a bar certainly gave him the access to dozens of young ladies impressed by a self-made businessman like him. He took up with a young lady named Minnie Gotthardt who he later murdered in 1937 and dismembered and buried her with the help of Wheeler.
After getting rid of Minnie, he romanced a young lady named Hazel Brown while also seeing several other women simultaneously. When Hazel became a problem he also killed and disposed of her body, once again with Wheeler's assistance.
Dozens of other young women were reported missing during this time and most of them were either employed by Ball, or were former bar-maids at “The Sociable Inn.” Police became suspicious because of the number of missing persons' reports and their ties to Joe Ball.
The Killing Ends
Joe was running out of time. Police were on to him and they knew he was responsible for the missing women. He repeatedly denied his guilt when questioned and there was little except circumstantial evidence to link him to the string of disappearances.
On September 23rd, 1938 two detectives approached Ball inside his bar and told him he was being taken into custody for further questioning. They were following upon several leads and suspicions they had about Ball and believed they were close to cracking the case.
Joe poured himself a drink and gulped it down and then walked over to his cash register and removed a revolver and deliberately and casually pressed the firearm over his heart and pulled the trigger, thus choosing to take his own life rather then pay the penalty for his heinous crimes.
Requiem
With “The Alligator Man” dead and gone, and under pressure, Clifton Wheeler began spilling his guts and led police to the grave sites of Minnie and Hazel. He vehemently denied any knowledge of the other missing ladies. So it’s unknown just how many victims suffered at the hands of Ball because he took that information with him to his grave.
Wheeler was sent to prison for a few years and Joe Ball went on to become a folk legend in Texas and inspired horror writers to make such movies as “Eaten Alive” a story about a deranged tavern owner who fed his victims to his pet alligators.
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