JOE BALL: A BUTCHER, A BAR OWNER AND A GATOR

The night seemed as usual for a Saturday at the Sociable, a small bar at a crossroads in Elmendorf, Texas. The town was not peculiar in any sort of way, merely 600 or so people and quiet. Slightly down trodden as most of the inhabitants were poor at best, but the bar business seemed to boom every week around this time. Walking into the bar one would think of any small town pub of the 30's. A small player piano sat in the corner of the room and the bar was a mere 20 feet along a back wall.

The owner of the place had been a bootlegger back in the day, that went legal of sorts. After his stint on the front lines in WWI and his honorable discharge in 1919, the money making road led him to liquor. Prohibition seemed the perfect avenue for some cash and he took it. It was with this money and his already familiar clientele, he started the bar. The bar business seemed boring though and he decided to spice things up a bit by adding some dancing girls who also worked in the world's oldest profession, of which he partook regularly.

The night began as it always did, drinking in the front room, playing cards in a side room and toward the end meandering out to the back for the Saturday night show. It used to be cock fights in an old concrete pool that sat in the rear of the lot, but that was worn out and the roosters were getting too hard to find. Tonight was to be the first night of the new festivities.

It smelled as it always did when first you walked into the back; a mix of burnt wood, stale beer, feces and an acrid smell of rotting flesh. Previously because of the chickens that lay strewn around the pool. The scene began almost surreal, Joe, the bar owner stood arms outstretched holding a cat by the scruff, in the air above his head and for all to see.

"Is everyone ready for the show?", said Joe with a definite enthusiasm.

"Hell yeah!" , everyone yelled in unison, drunk with anticipation or liquor, whichever was the case.

Joe's hand reached over to the cat's front leg and he twisted hard and fast, breaking it into multiple pieces. The cat screeched a deathly yell but stayed suspended in the air between Joe's large and unrelenting hands. He reached again to the other front leg and twisted it to the point of shattering the bones to powder. With each pull he just laughed and reached again until the cat had only one limb that worked. Joe swung the cat in the air and flung it toward the pool. It did as cats always do when they are in the air and tried to land on its feet. It fell flat to its belly with only one leg that would grab the ground. With this working leg it spun itself around and around trying with everything it had to move from the ensuing trouble it was about to receive. From deep within the black water of the pool a ripple ebbed to the shore. Slowly as if it knew it was being paraded for all to see, a deep green head emerged and waded slowly to the edge of the pool where the cat sat spinning itself in circles.

Within the cat's eye one could see the realization of its own demise. and with a quick chomp the cat was now half its original self. Joe laughed and yelled at the spectacle and the rest of the crowd stood in a daze momentarily as it realized what just occurred. Ridden with drunken stupidity though, they cheered and asked for more. The smells didn't get better, they seemed to deepen as Joe went to a barrel and opened the lid to grab another animal from its depths. A dog this time and the procedure was the same. He continued with this until all five gators were out of the pool and drooling for more meat. The crowd was in a frenzy by now and asking for more. Joe continued until his current supply had run dry and the gators stopped begging for more meat. The show was a success. With the end of the extravaganza also came the end of the night, everyone moseyed to the door waiting to see what would come about next week and what kind of display Joe would come up with.

Big Minnie disagreed with Joe on many occasions and being a working manager of the bar perhaps gave her privileges that other girls in the establishment didn't have, but Joe would ultimately have other plans for her and her disdain for the goings on over Saturday was not well received.

Joe had been with Big Minnie for quite some time and she knew of his dealings with the girls and she accepted it without consent. She just continued doing her job as she always did without looking back, that is until "Buddy" arrived. Buddy, Delores Goodwin, was smitten with Joe and Minnie knew it. Buddy accepted Joe in everything he did and Joe reciprocated, but Big Minnie seemed to be in the way.

In the summer of 1937 Big Minnie disappeared and the problems seemed to go away. Buddy and Joe were married in September. And Buddy took over Minnie's place. Her love for Joe never ended even after a bar brawl where Joe threw a bottle and cut from eye to neck. The scar remained with her until she also disappeared in April of 1938. By this time, Joe was seeing another woman named Hazel Brown otherwise known as Shatzie. By September of 1938 Shatzie also disappeared.

It was in September , on the 23rd, of 1938 that the Bexar County Sheriff's department was told of a foul smelling barrel outside a barn. When they went to investigate the barrel was gone, but the story was corroborated by a man named Clifford Wheeler. Clifford was a handyman that Joe had hired to help around the bar and he verified that the barrel was indeed behind a barn earlier in the day. Wheeler was questioned repeatedly about the barrel and finally laid it all out for the officers.

According to Wheeler, Joe Ball had killed many women, Hazel Brown and Minnie Gotthard being two of them. Wheeler had helped to dismember and dispose of some of the bodies. "Shatzie", Hazel brown was buried by the San Antonio river and was later found right where wheeler said. Big Minnie was shot in the head and buried in Corpus Christi and her body was also recovered. Wheeler told of many women that seemed to go missing after having run ins with Ball, how they seemed to just disappear . The townspeople told of the many times they heard a feeding frenzy going on with the gators and how some of the meat Ball threw to them resembled human parts.

Upon further investigation an axe was found with matted blood and hair behind Joe's bar and the investigation now turned into an arrest. The officers found ball outside of the bar and asked him to come with them for questioning about some missing people. Ball agreed but asked that he be allowed to close up his bar and have a quick drink. Since Ball seemed to be coming without problem the officers allowed him to go inside. They followed him in where he went behind the bar and poured himself a drink, offering one also to the officers. They declined and asked him to finish up his business. Ball walked over to his register, reached under and grabbed his revolver, a .45 caliber, and shot himself.

Speculations go on and on about whether he shot himself in the head or the heart, but the fact remains that no further information about Ball and his multiple murders could be gotten from him. The reports from that time are sketchy at best and to this day, Joe Ball, "The Butcher of Elmendorf", "The Alligator Man", remains as one of the possible first documented serial killers. His name still brings stories and fear to all those who hear of him. His death toll is reported to be at least 20 women and no one really knows for sure since many of the women were street girls who often went missing in that line of work.

It is undeniable that Joe had the potential and the means to dispose of many women and with the corroboration of wheeler who helped to get rid of the bodies, the idea that the alligator man was killing at will is not only ghastly but believable.