MYSTERY: The Alligator Man of Elmendorf

In Prohibition-era Texas, Joe Ball ran a saloon in the small town of Elmendorf, where he kept a pit of live alligators out back as a grisly attraction for his customers. Charming and well-liked, Ball had a steady rotation of young women working as barmaids and passing through his life, until they began to disappear. When authorities finally started asking questions in 1938, what they uncovered turned Ball into one of Texas's most enduring crime legends, a bootlegger and suspected serial killer said to have fed his victims to his alligators. In this episode of Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy examines the dark story behind the so-called Alligator Man, the women whose disappearances went unnoticed for far too long, and the grim question of how many victims Joe Ball truly claimed before his crimes came to light.

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