4: The Great Bear Nip-Slip — Show Notes

This case happened on September 20, 2010 on 88 Reynolds Road, which is east on Highway 82 past the intersection with 1417. Its now called Reynolds Lane btw.

There isn’t much on the victims, but I’ll give you what I found.

Misty Ballou was 25 at the time of her death, she had one child, and her sister was Cassandra Ballou who was also unfortunately in the fire as well. Cassandra was 28, she had two children and was pregnant at the time as well. The third victim was Brian Ritchie, he lived in the house with Misty and was 30 at the time of his death. There’s not really too much coverage on Brian, but in his obituary it says he enjoyed hunting and fishing, and that he worked at his dad’s auto body shop. There’s actually a tad more, but I’ll get to that near the end.

After responders got to the fire, the bodies of Misty, Cassandra, and Brian were all found inside. Brian had suffered blunt and sharp force trauma and had multiple gunshot wounds, Misty was shot several times, and Cassandra had been stabbed multiple times and shot once. It was also discovered that accelerant was used in multiple places inside of the home.

When investigations were done on the inside of the house after finding that this was now a homicide investigation, the Grayson County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Wheeler said that the SO had contacted the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive’s Agency to investigate. They had a K-9 unit and access to technology that isn’t readily available in town. The sheriff’s office also got help from the Texas Rangers and was given permission to use their forensic labs in Garland and Austin. In total, there were about 110 pieces of potential evidence taken from the scene and over a does people were interviewed.

As of 2015 the investigation was active and ongoing, but still 10 years later theres no news of a person of interest or any arrests made in relation to the murders or the arson.

The Ballou family has gotten over 1,000 signatures on a petition to urge the sheriff’s office to cooperate with TV shows like “Cold Case”, but nothing has happened of yet. The Ballou family was also contacted by the Justice Riders in Fannin county that also rode for Jennifer Harris who attended a small memorial for the two sisters and offered their support to the familly.

So as I mentioned before there was a bit more I had to mention about Brian Ritchie. I saw this Facebook post on a page called Grayson County News, and this post is from August 12th of 2018. It bring to light a number of cold cases in the area, theres Thelma Totten, Brent Gutheinz, Theresa Guiderbaldi, and Brian’s own case. But it mentions something I hadn’t read in any of the articles I found. The post says that the murders were drug related because of Brian Ritchie’s criminal record, so of course I had to look it up. And just. Wow.

Brian was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief on May 4th, 1998 plead guilty. He got 5 years of probation and 120 hours of community service.
January 14th 1999, he was found guilty of burglary and sentenced to 7 years probation and 240 hours of community service.
June 29th he was charged with posession of a controlled substance less than a gram. Guilty, 5 years probation, 120 hours of community service.
Feburary 25th of 2000, he was charged with aggrivated kidnapping, and sentenced to 10 years probation.

There were some appeals made to this if I read the records right, he lost a handfull of years of probation and was required to take anger management classes.

So because he lived with Misty Ballou, I decided to check her records as well.

Her’s start on August 4th 2002 with a DWI, she gets 180 days in jail and probation for 2 years.

On September 8th she’s charged with theft, gets probation for a year and 40 hours of community service, it looks like there was somthing else she had for a year but I couldn’t find out what it meant.
July 8th 2002, she get charged with possession of prescription drugs (June 12th 2003)
October 24th 2003 she gets charged with marijuana possession and possession of a controlled substance, get probation for 6 years and 160 community service hours. She got the marijuana charge down to 5 years and it looks like the other was changed to rehab for a year.
Her last charge is possession of a dangerous drug on september 7th, 2008 and sentenced to 30 days it looks like.

I was really kinda shocked, because all you see in articles is just nice things about the girls, and well. I checked Cassandra.

July 22, 1999 - Manufacture/Delivery of a Controlled Substance with an additional code I couldnt find. 5 years probation after $5,000 bond
April 27th 2000- Minor in posession of Alcoholic beverage, jailed for 3 or 4 days.
November 20th, 2000, evading arest using a vehicle,was 2 years but on a $5,000 bond she got county jail 6 days
May 7th, 2000 Abandon Endanger Child Criminal Negligence,2 years jail with a $5,000 bond. 5 years probation and 120 hours community service
May 7th, 2000 Unauthorized use of vehicle, 5 years probation and 120 community service hours. 17 days straight jail time.
Febuary 27th, 2001 marijuana posession, evading arrest 180days in county jail and 2 years
January 16th, 2005 theft by check, 180 days in jail
Feb 11th, 2005 theft 55-1,500, 180days
Jan 31st, 2005 forgery financial instrument, 7 years
July 16, 2005 marijuana posession, 7 years
Jan 18th, 2005, theft by check, 7 years
May 16th, 2005 posession of a controlled substance, 7 years
March 2nd, 2005 burglary of habitation, 7 years

Any information regarding the case should be sent to the Grayson County Sheriff's Office at 903-813-4200 or through their online tipline.

Sources: KXII ( 1, 2), Herald Democrat, Grayson County’s Judicial Record search

The odds of being struck by lightning in one year the US is 1 in 700,000 and the odds of getting struck by lightning in your entire lifetime are 1 in 3,000. Being struck by lightning can cause cardiac arrest or it can just straight up kill you. Injuries from lightning can be anything from burns, to memory loss, brain damage, and/or personality change. 10% of people struck by lightning are killed and 70% suffer long term effects-- 400 people survive being struck a year in the US.

Roy Sullivan was born in Virginia in 1912 and was the fourth of eleven children. Growing up in the Blue Ridge mountains and familiarized with the area, Sullivan joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and helped build what would become the Shenandoah National Park, where he worked as a park ranger from 1936 until his retirement in (?).

Roy Sullivan literally looked almost exactly like Gene Hackman and that’s mentioned in the wiki article i read and i need you to see the resemblance, too.

While working at the National park Sullivan was struck by lightning SEVEN times.

The first lightning strike occurred in April 1942. He was hiding from a thunderstorm in a fire lookout tower. The tower was newly built and had no lightning rod at the time; it was hit seven or eight times. Inside the tower, “fire was jumping all over the place”. Sullivan ran out and just a few feet away received what he considered to be his worst lightning strike. It burned a half-inch strip all along his right leg, hit his toe, and left a hole in his shoe.

He was hit again in July 1969. Unusually, he was hit while in his truck, driving on a mountain road—the metal body of a vehicle normally protects people in cases such as this by acting as a Faraday cage. The lightning first hit nearby trees and was deflected into the open window of the truck. The strike knocked Sullivan unconscious and burned off his eyebrows and eyelashes, and set his hair on fire. The uncontrolled truck kept moving until it stopped near a cliff edge.

In July 1970, Sullivan was struck while in his front yard. The lightning hit a nearby power transformer and from there jumped to his left shoulder, burning it.

In spring 1972, Sullivan was working inside a ranger station in Shenandoah National Park when another strike occurred. It set his hair on fire; he tried to smother the flames with his jacket. He then rushed to the restroom, but couldn’t fit under the water tap and so used a wet towel instead. Although he never was a fearful man, after the fourth strike he began to believe that some force was trying to destroy him and he acquired a fear of death. For months, whenever he was caught in a storm while driving his truck, he would pull over and lie down on the front seat until the storm passed. He also began to believe that he would somehow attract lightning even if he stood in a crowd of people, and carried a can of water with him in case his hair was set on fire.

On August 7, 1973, while he was out on patrol in the park, Sullivan saw a storm cloud forming and drove away quickly. But the cloud, he said later, seemed to be following him. When he finally thought he had outrun it, he decided it was safe to leave his truck. Soon after, he was struck by a lightning bolt. Sullivan stated that he actually saw the bolt that hit him. The lightning moved down his left arm and left leg and knocked off his shoe. It then crossed over to his right leg just below the knee. Still conscious, Sullivan crawled to his truck and poured the can of water, which he always kept there, over his head, which was on fire.

The next strike, on June 5, 1976, injured his ankle. It was reported that he saw a cloud, thought that it was following him, tried to run away, but was struck anyway. His hair also caught fire. On Saturday morning, June 25, 1977, Sullivan was struck while fishing in a freshwater pool. The lightning hit the top of his head, set his hair on fire, traveled down, and burnt his chest and stomach. Sullivan turned to his car when something unexpected occurred — a bear approached the pond and tried to steal trout from his fishing line. Sullivan had the strength and courage to strike the bear with a tree branch. He claimed that this was the twenty-second time he hit a bear with a stick in his lifetime.

All seven of these lightning strikes were reported by the Shenedoah superintendent.

Apparently, Sullivan’s wife was also struck by lightning one time when she was hanging clothes out to dry- Sullivan made it out safely.

Because Sullivan was struck so many times by lightning, people were afraid to be around him because he was such bad luck and were worried they’d get struck by lightning too and in his older age it really started to bum him out. Sullivan once said, “For instance, I was walking with the Chief Ranger one day when lightning struck way off. The Chief said, ‘ll see you later.’”

Sullivan died at the age of 71 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1983 while lying in bed next to his wife (30 years younger)-- who didn’t notice for a couple of hours..

A mystery perhaps?

Roy Sullivan is in the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Lightning Strikes Survived. The odds of getting struck by lightning 7 times in your life are 100 nonillion. Thats 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. A one with 32 zeros behind it.

Sources: National Geographic, allthatsinteresting.com. Mental Floss, Guinness World Records, Wikipedia

Misty and Cassandra Ballou & Brian Ritchie

The Spark Ranger