Speaker 1: H a wall street line, shackle change, Oh someome gird,
it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's
been a tentery juice as the hill Stream game Rango three.
Speaker 2: Come in by me to die.
Speaker 3: Inside these walls, inside the wild and went more girls.
Speaker 4: As I imagine, you're sixteen years old, you're a young mother.
You're tied to a bed at your grandmother's house while
the man you once loved walks through your family home,
executing them one by one. Your baby is lying beside you.
You hear shots, you hear bodies fall, and then he
cuts you, loose hands you your daughter and says we're leaving.
That nightmare was not a movie. It happened in Alabama
in two thousand and two. The man's name is Westerley Harris. Today,
more than twenty three years later, he sits on Alabama's
death row. This is the story of a family he destroyed.
I'm Jim Chapman, host of Bloody Angola, and this is
fifty Shades of Evil Alabama. Now, if you're a regular
listener of Bloody Angla, you know that I love digging
deep into the most dangerous of inmates that make up
the fifty states. Today, I'm bringing you into Alabama to
tell you the story of Wesley Harris, the case that
shocked the state of Alabama when it occurred in two
thousand and two. And you're not going to believe what
I'm about to tell you, So let's get right into it.
And I'm going to start by giving you a little
background on Wesley Harris. Now, he was born in south
central Alabam this is in April of nineteen eighty, and
he was raised primarily by his mother and his grandmother.
His family, they struggled economically. They moved around the south
central Alabama area frequently during his childhood years. Now, when
he was in the seventh grade, it is reported that
he suffered a head injury that would lead to consistent
migraines and a seizure disorder. Now, by the mid to
late nineties, he was in his teenage years, and those
who knew him would describe him as mild mannered, likable, polite,
easy going, which would directly contrast with what I am
about to tell you as it relates to his crimes.
At this time in his life, there were no reports
of any criminal activity during his high school years, but
he would struggle academically in school and that would lead
him to eventually dropping out of high school. So just
a few years after dropping out, in late nineteen ninety eight,
at the age of nineteen, he meets a fourteen year
old girl by the name of Janice Ball. Now, Janis
was raised quite differently than Wesley. She had a very
close family. They all, as a matter of fact, lived
on a family farm in Crenshaw County, Alabama. So Crenshaw
County is just outside of Montgomery, Alabama, and where the
family lived it was very rural. I'm talking in the
middle of nowhere. The family farm was very isolated. Now,
the relationship, in the way that Westerley entered this relationship,
it could be described as quite the storm. What started
out as a risky, youthful romance, remember he was much older,
that would quickly into a turbulent, controlling relationship. Those early
days of romance were very intense. In just three months
after Janice and Westerley met, she was already pregnant. Nine
months later, the couple would welcome their daughter, Shay, into
the world. However, Wesley, he was not what you would
call a present father during this pregnancy and Janis would
almost never see him during those nine months prior to
her daughter's birth. Now after the birth, Wesley appeared to
want to be more involved, and the couple attempted to
make a life together. They settled into a trailer in
nearby Laverne, Alabama. But the cracks in this relationship would
absolutely appear almost immediately as Wesley grew even more violent
and even more controlling now that Janie was living with him.
The smallest arguments would trigger what Janice would describe later
as a rage in Wesley, and he would beat her
violently during these instances. The violence would eventually cause her
to leave that trailer and return to the safety of
her family's farm, where she would live in the main
house with her grandmother, Mala Ruth Baul. Now, despite the abuse,
much like you see in many other cases of abusive relationships,
the couple doesn't completely split up. They maintain contact, They're
back and forth with each other. In this young lady,
I mean, she had a baby with this guy. She
was trying to make it work for better or worse.
As a matter of fact, Janie's father, Willie, who was
no fan of Wesley to say the least, he in
I can only speak to say love for his daughter
even tried to make this thing work, and he tried
to support the young couple by purchasing a trailer and
actually placing it on the family farm. Now, I can
only assume that his hope here was maybe that Wesley
would feel less pressure to pay bills and not go
into these violent outbursts that seemed like a lot of
these would be triggered by financial problems. And in addition
to that, if they lived on the family farm, he
could also keep an eye on his daughter and hopefully
keep her safe. Now, despite all this help, the relationship
between these two unfortunately would not improve. They would break up,
they would get back together, break up again, get back
together again, and they were just seemingly stuck in this
constant back and forth cycle. Wesley's temper seemed to control everything,
and Janie just never knew what was going to set
him off. He was unemployed and he was also dealing
with a recent arrest for distribution of crack cocaine. This
was in two thousand and one, and he would often
take his legal frustration out on Janice physically. So I'm
going to take you to August of two thousand and two.
Janis at this point was sixteen years old and Westerley
Harris was twenty two years old. Shae, their daughter at
this point in time, was seventeen months old, and the
relationship just gets totally out of control. To get in
an argument on August twenty third of two thousand and
two over Westley's refusal to pay Jamis for some diapers
that he had bought for Shade that he agreed to
pay for. She asked him about it. He refuses to
give her the money, and in the midst of this
back and forth fighting, he hauls off and slaps her
so hard it knocks her to the ground. She gets
up and she's gonna defend herself. She actually grabs a
shotgun from the closet. Now around this time, her brother
Jerry enters the main house and he sees that she
has this shotgun pointed at Wesley, and he attempts to
calm everybody down before things get worse. You know, there's
no good ending to this with someone having a shotgun
pointing at someone they're pissed at. Right. Eventually everything does
calm down, and Wesley storms out of that form and
leaves the property, but it wouldn't take long. The very
next day, as a matter of fact, Wesley starts calling
Janice at her work and he's begging her not to
call the police over that SmackDown if you will, that
he gave her. He's acting as if he's sorry, trying
to manipulate her all those things, but she doesn't tell
him what she's decided to do. The fact is she
hadn't made up her mind yet. Maybe she would call
the police, maybe she wouldn't call the police. She was
still thinking all of that over. But that was not
enough for Wesley. He wanted an answer right. So the
next evening, which is Sunday evening, Wesley shows up at
the farm and he is determined to speak to Janice.
Her grandmother, Mala Ruth, confronts him and she tells him
if he doesn't leave the farm, she's gonna call police. Well,
he still refuses to leave the farm, but rather than
call the police, she rounds up Janie's father, who then
rounds up two of her brothers, Jerry and John, as
well as Janis's mother, Joanne, and they all show up
at that trailer on the property armed and they ain't playing.
They are gonna make sure Wesley leaves the property, even
if he has to by gunpoint. And that brings us
to the horrific events that would take place on August
twenty six of two thousand and two. So Wesley Harris
by this point, he's enraged. He's probably stayed up all
night thinking on how he is going to get his
hands on Janis. You got to remember, this is a
guy that is used to controlling her, and that rage
just builds and builds to the point that he can't
take it anymore. The very next morning, at approximately eight
thirty am, he arrives at the Ball family farm, and
this time he is armed with a shotgun.
Speaker 2: Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today?
Speaker 4: Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you
what happened in New York.
Speaker 2: It cannot be as crazy as the case I told
you about yesterday in Louisiana.
Speaker 4: You know what, we should do a podcast about it.
Speaker 2: And with that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the
crime news headlines that have dominated the week.
Speaker 4: We cover trending crimes from all over the country and
even sprinkle in a few globally.
Speaker 2: Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
Speaker 4: Simply by searching crime wiar weekly or clicking the link
in the description of this podcast. He breaks into the
main house. Janice is awoken with the sight of Westley
raging his eyes, standing over her, shaking the bed violently
trying to wake her up. He has the shotgun pressed
into her grandmother Mala Ruth's stomach, and he forces both
women into the kitchen in that main house. He then
makes sixty two year old grandmother Mala lie on the
floor and he tapes her wrist behind her back with
duct tape. Now Mala Ruth hands behind her back taped
with this duct tape. She attempts to get to her
knees and she also is scared to death and she
starts to pray. And it's at this point that Wesley
Harris takes the shotgun and he shoots grandmother Mala Ruth
right in the face, killing her. He then turns his
attention to Janice, tying her hands behind her back with
the duct tape and then brings her into the bedroom
and he takes a telephone cord and an extension cord
and he ties Janie to the bed. He then turns
his attention toward baby. Shay picks her up, places her
in the bed, and tells Janice, quote, don't do anything stupid. Then,
as Janie is laying there, she hears footsteps of him
walking away and walking out of the house. Now, what
she didn't know is that he was heading to her brother,
seventeen year old Tony's room. He goes into Tony's bedroom,
where Wesley finds him sleeping. He puts a gun to
his head, shoots him, and kills him point blank range.
He goes back into the main house and then for
roughly seven hours, Wesley remains in that house. Periodically he
would check on Janis, he would watch TV, acting the
exact opposite of someone you would expect had just murdered
two people. Now, at three point thirty pm, Janice's older brother,
nineteen year old Jerry Ball, he arrives at the home
after picking up Janie's younger brother, fourteen year old John Ball,
from sk so, he drops John Ball in the front
of that main house and he drives off. John enters
the home just as Jerry drops him off and leaves,
and before he can even walk in the home, Wesley
shoots him. Then he pulls him into the house still alive,
shoots him again kills him in the kitchen. About thirty
minutes later, at four o'clock PM, Janesis father, forty year
old Willie, arrives on the property. Now he goes first
out to the hogpen to feed the hogs. Wesley exits
the main house, meets him at the hog pen, shoots
him in the face, killing him. And if you're keeping track,
that's Wesley's fourth victim of the day. Then about an
hour later, at five o'clock PM, Janie's mother, thirty five
year old jo Anne, she arrives at the home. She
enters the home and as soon as she walks in
you guessed it, Wesley shoots her in the face. Joanne
then falls to the floor, and just to make sure
she's dead, Wesley fires She had another shot into the
back of her neck, killing her. Now that's victim number five.
But Wesley, he's not done yet. About thirty minutes later,
Jerry Ball returns to that farm. He runs up the
porch steps where Wesley shoots him once in the head
and once in the chest, killing him. So in a
nine to ten hour time span, Wesley Harris had killed
Janis's mother, James's father, her three brothers, and her grandmother
six people. Throughout this entire ordeal, Janice was forced to
lay there tied to the bed while hearing each family
member get murdered, hearing those gunshots going off, and when
it was done, Wesley slowly unties Janie and tells her
to make baby Shaye a bottle. He then loads up
some stolen items that he's going to steal from all
these people into the car and he flees the farm
with Janice, Shay and even the family dog. So over
the next several days they would stay at friend's house,
with Janice obviously living in total fear that he's going
to kill her and the baby if she says anything
about any of this, But it was really no secret.
The victims were discovered the very next day by Crenshaw
County Sheriff's deputies. This was on the evening of Tuesday,
August twenty seventh of two thousand and two, the day
after the killings. The deputies get dispatched to the farm
after a family member by the name of Coleman Ball,
who was the son of Mila Ruth Ball. He goes
to the property and he finds his mother's house locked.
He had been alerted by his aunt who was concerned
because the door was locked, and that was apparently very
unusual for the family. So police make entry and they
make obviously this horrific discovery. So you have a manhunt
going on at this point for the murders of six people.
Six people all of the state of Alabama is on
watch for these two and police had a really good
idea that Wesley was the one responsible. So three days later,
after they implore the help of Wesley's aunt, who takes
to the airwaves to beg her nephew to give up,
it actually works, and on August twenty ninth of two
thousand and two, Wesley is taken into custody for these killings,
as is Janice. And of course it didn't take long.
Police quickly determined Janis had nothing to do with the
killings and was a victim of this guy. So the
very next day he is charged with six counts of
first degree murder, each count carrying a possible death penalty.
And it took a while, but by the fall of
two thousand and four, the case was finally ready for trial.
Jerry's selection begins This is on October twenty fifth of
two thousand and four, and the trial commences on November
third of two thousand and four. The prosecution, of course,
painted a picture of a calculated, vengeful attack, driven by
Harris's resentment toward the Ball family for trying to protect
Janie from his abuse. Janis, of course, testified in length,
and she recounted how Harris had held her captive and
forced her to witness the killings, and then abducted her
and their daughter as they fled. Now, the defense, they
aggressively countered this, and that's their job, right. They argued
that Janis was an unreliable witness who may have had
her own motives related to the family issues, and that
she had possibly solicited or participated in the plan. Obviously,
that totally bogus and ridiculous. The trial lasted nearly two weeks,
but on November fifteenth of two thousand and four, suddenly
that trial comes to an abrupt end and a mistrial
is declared. That's right, a mistrial. So what happened? Well?
Evidence emerged of jury tampering, apparently a woman connected to
Harris's circle, which was later identified as a close friend
of his had attempted to influence at least one juror,
and a juror was found to have committed perjury regarding this. Now,
both the woman and the juror later pleaded guilty to
offenses related to that, but the judge hadn't a choice
in this matter but to declare a mistrial in order
a retrial. Now, that second trial starts in the spring
of two thousand and five, and a full jury they
were already seated just a couple of days later. This time,
the proceedings moved much more efficiently. The guilt phase unfolded
over roughly two weeks in early June of that year,
and the prosecution again relied heavily on Janus's testimony. They
also had some forensic evidence linking Harris to those shootings,
and of course they covered the timeline of these crimes,
and the defense again tried to attack Janis's credibility, and
they presented some evidence of Harris's difficult childhood. They tried
to say he was a low functioning intellectual, and they
also focused on the fact that he didn't have a
very significant prior criminal history. He had one, remember, he
got arrested for selling cocaine, but they really focused on
he wasn't one of these guys that have been in
and out of jail since he was fourteen, Like that
freaking matters when you shoodn't kill six people. So on
June fourteenth of two thousand and five, after deliberating, the
jury returned verdicts of guilty on all six counts of
capital murder and Harris he showed very little visible emotion
as these convictions were read. Of course, the penalty phase
followed that. As a matter of fact, it was the
very next day, and this was the critical stage where
the jury would recommend life without parole or death. Now,
the defense presented an extensive case. They called ten witnesses,
including family members, a former baseball coach, a youth minister,
and even jail officials. In long story short, by the
time this thing was all over, Harris received the death sentence,
which at that time he was condemned to death by
lethal injection. Now, if you've learned anything since I've been
covering not only these cases, but everything I've covered on
Bloody and Goa, it's not that simple. Of course, he
had appeals et cetera throughout the years, but in each
of those appeals. Eventually his death sentence was upheld. So
when he sentenced to death, he arrives at what's known
as the William C. Holman Correctional Facility. This is in Atmore, Alabama,
and for more than twenty years now, Harris is identified
in prison records as prisoner zero zero zero zero Z
seven to one five. Obviously, he lives inside the walls
of Holman, which is one of Alabama's most notorious prisons.
The facility sits isolated among cotton fields. Its perimeter fences
and watchtowers are a constant reminder that this is the
end of the line for many, and Harris was no
death row at Holman is a world apart even from
the rest of the prison's violent general population see here.
The condemned or kept in restrictive housing, and they are
largely cut off from human contact. A typical day for
Harris would start in a very small cell, roughly the
size of an average bathroom, maybe eight by twelve feet.
Inside of that cell there is a steel bunk, a
combined sink in toilet, a narrow table shelf bolted to
a wall. The heavy door closes with that familiar clang
every night for him, and for twenty two to twenty
four hours a day, that cell is his entire world.
His mills are slid through a narrow slot in that cell.
Door showers come just a few times a week, and
typically almost always for death row inmates that's under escort.
He has very limited natural light, and the music of
the day is typically the sounds of guards walking up
and down that tier, distant voices, maybe the occasional scrape
of a food tray. Now a few times each week,
if the schedule holds Harris, he might be allowed out
for recreation, often alone in a small fenced cage where
he can pace, stretch, or just simply stand there. Communication
with other inmates only occurs through fishing, which are not
supposted to, but these are improvised lines made from torn
sheets of clothing that slide notes or small items from
sell to sell. He can read, he can write letters,
he can work on legal papers. He can listen to
a radio or watch limited television, and his visits always
place behind glass. Phone calls are brief, monitored and very infrequent.
And that is his life, twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. And I cannot say that I
feel sorry for Wesley Dale Harris. He's now in his
mid forties. He has spent more than half his life
behind these walls, all because of a knee jerk reaction
and the absolute insanity to control another human being that
led him to kill Janus's six family members. Absolutely horrific.
He is one hundred percent one of the most dangerous
inmates in Alabama and that was his story. Thank you
so much for listening. We'll be back next week with
another edition of fifty Shades of Evil. Not sure where
I'm gonna go next, so you'll have to tune in
and see if it's your state that I pick next.
You can check us out on Patreon for ad free
releases of all these episodes plus much more. I have
over two hundred ad free episodes up on the Patreon
that is patreon dot com. Slash Bloody Inngoa podcast and
until next time for Bloody Angola, I'm your host, Jim Chapman.
Much love.
Speaker 1: A Wall Street line, shackle chain, some girdie. It's calling
by the name. There is no mercy and it's been
a tentery Jesus as the Hill Stream Game Wrangle three.
Speaker 2: I'm here be.
Speaker 3: By mere to die inside these walls, inside the wild,
and went more girls.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: It's a.
Speaker 3: Bloody angle, obody angle in p