The 30-year-old Saranac Lake woman was found guilty Wednesday, Feb. 11 of second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the beating and stabbing death of Wilbur, 65, her former boyfriend. After an eight-day trial, a Franklin County Court jury of seven men and five women deliberated for three-and-a-half hours before reaching their verdict.

Ball faces 25 years to life behind bars on the murder charge and up to 25 years on the assault charge. Franklin County Court Judge Robert Main Jr. scheduled her sentencing for April 20.

Ball showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were read in a courtroom packed with police involved in the case and Wilbur’s family and friends. Her attorney, Franklin County Public Defender Thomas Soucia, talked to her later and said Ball “showed emotion to us, that she was disappointed and she didn’t really understand what was going on and why it happened that way.”

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‘Justice was served’

Franklin County District Attorney Glenn MacNeill, who prosecuted the case with Assistant District Attorney David Hayes, said he was happy with the verdict.

“I think justice was served,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work, not just by me, but by everybody in my office and the various police agencies, the Saranac Lake Police Department and state police. … I had no doubt in my mind that she murdered Ward Wilbur, no doubt, and I think the jury saw that.”

The victory for the MacNeill comes just over a month after he took over as district attorney from DA Derek Champagne, who was elected in November to a new county Family Court judge position.

“I’ve been working, and David too, seven days a week, 10 to 14 hours a day since before the holidays to get ready for the case,” he said.

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Lemons and yoga mats

The prosecution said Ball savagely attacked Wilbur inside her apartment at 19 Morris Way in Saranac Lake – beating him with an aluminum baseball bat and stabbing him to death with a steak knife.

Ball had claimed she acted in self-defense because Wilbur had attacked her, but the prosecution poked some serious holes in her story by using, among other things, a yoga mat and some lemons.

Ball had argued that she was sleeping on her yoga mat when Wilbur came in and attacked her with a knife. But MacNeill showed the jury a picture of the yoga mat rolled up and leaning in a corner. He also showed the jury a photo of cut lemon slices in a garbage can in the apartment. Since police found no other knife there, so that must mean the murder weapon was already inside, not in Wilbur’s hand, MacNeill said during his closing argument.

“The photo of the lemons was something that when I was reviewing things, probably a month ago, the light clicked on,” MacNeill said.

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Abuse claims

Soucia argued that Ball was emotionally, physically and sexually abused by Wilbur, and that he had threatened her in the past. Other than Ball’s own statements to police, however, there was little testimony presented by the defense to back up those claims.

MacNeill revealed to reporters Wednesday that text messages Ball and Wilbur exchanged the weekend before the murder, which weren’t allowed into evidence, would have further countered Ball’s allegations that she and Wilbur had a stormy relationship.

“They were normal conversational text messages,” he said. “If you’re having normal conversation back and forth, it’s sort of an indication of what was going on between those two people.”

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Motive?

The biggest unanswered question is why Ball killed Wilbur.

“As the court indicated, motive is not part of the elements of the crimes, so I guess I won’t speculate on what her motive may have been,” the DA said. “I don’t know what her motive was. We may never know that.”

Asked what kind of sentence he’ll ask the judge to impose, MacNeill said he has to do some research.

“If the law permits me to ask for consecutive sentences, that’s probably what I’ll ask for,” he said.

The DA called this one of the two most brutal crimes he’s helped prosecute. The fact that this one was perpetrated by a woman doesn’t matter, he said.

“The law should be applied to everybody equally,” he said. “If you’ve done what was done here, you have to be held accountable for it.”

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‘Respect it’

Soucia said he was disappointed with the jury’s decision.

“You go into every case expecting to win, no matter how the odds may have been stacked against you,” he said. “The one thing I do appreciate from the jurors is they looked at the materials I asked them to look at.

Not long after the jury started its deliberations, it sent out at note asking for several pieces of evidence, including a written statement Ball gave to village police Patrolwoman Reyanin Peck, the recording of Sgt. James Law’s body camera after he arrived at the scene and the video of state police Investigator Dennis Dwyer’s lengthy interrogation of Ball at the village police station.

“When you look at a jury, that’s what you want them to do,” Soucia said. “You want a panel of jurors that can think about what they’re doing, weigh all the options and make a decision. You don’t always agree with what their decision is, but you respect it.”

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Character witnesses

Soucia only called two witnesses to the stand. He said he would have called more but case law and a decision by the judge prevented him from introducing character witnesses to testify about Wilbur’s “prior bad acts,” in part because they “were too remote in time.”

Did he think the case was lost at that point?

“I thought it was a difficult road, but I also thought the fact that the jurors asked for the things I asked them to ask for, that was a good thing,” Soucia said.

Ball didn’t take the stand during the trial. The public defender said that’s a strategy decision that’s left to Ball, but he made it clear that she didn’t want to testify.

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Next steps

Soucia could make a motion that asks the judge to set aside the verdict but he said he hasn’t decided if he will do so. He also has to prepare a sentencing memorandum, in which he said he has “more freedom” to talk about things that have happened in Ball’s life than he was allowed to present during the trial.

After the jury verdict was returned at 2:45 p.m., Main remanded Ball back to the Franklin County Jail without bail pending her sentencing. She was led away from the courtroom in handcuffs.