Minnesota man kills pregnant sister and dismembers her, cops say

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A 23-year-old Minnesota man is accused of killing his pregnant sister and dismembering her body because she was “no longer innocent.”

According to Lakeville police, Jack Joseph Ball was charged Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Bethany Ann Israel of Bloomington and her four-month-old unborn child.

Ball was arrested late Thursday in Rosemount, about eight kilometers northeast of the crime scene. He had inflicted a knife wound on his neck. He has been in hospital since then. Charges were only filed against him on Tuesday. Bail was set at two million dollars.

According to a criminal complaint, Ball was arrested after police arrived at a home near 172nd Street and Encina Path around 11 p.m., where they found a large pool of blood on the kitchen floor under the sink and dish cabinet.

Officers said they found a bloody saw, a hatchet and large bloody knives in the house. As they searched the house, officers saw a knife on the living room floor near the stairs. During their search, police found several dismembered body parts that they believed belonged to Israel.

Officers also found Ball covered in blood in the backyard of a neighboring home. He was found by officers after receiving a 911 call from a Rosemount resident who reported seeing a man on their security camera who appeared to have discarded a body part on their front steps.

After officers found Ball and took him into custody, they later found diaries and other documents belonging to him in which he wrote that he was angry because Israel was pregnant and “no longer innocent,” according to court documents.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded that Israel’s cause of death was complex homicide. She was between 17 and 18 weeks pregnant, officials said.

“The allegations in this case are deeply disturbing and horrific – words cannot describe what our partners in the investigation went through,” said Dakota County District Attorney Kathy Keena. “My office will work hard to ensure justice is served for the victims and will provide the victims’ families with the support they need.”

Dakota County Assistant Prosecutor Stacy St. George added that diary entries indicated the murder “may have been premeditated.”

“This is a disturbing murder of the defendant’s sister and her unborn child,” he said in court on Tuesday, requesting the high bail. “Diary entries indicate this may have been intentional. As described in the indictment, the defendant committed the murder, then dismembered the body and dumped various body parts in various locations in Dakota County.”