Tory Margaret Ball and her twin sister, Lily Terry Ball, were born on September 12, 2007, to parents Monica McCarrick and Michael Ball in San Diego, California. From the very beginning, circumstances within the household were far from ideal. The couple had a 10-year age gap, which, while not inherently problematic, set a complex tone for their relationship. Monica had been arrested multiple times for drug-related offenses and was also arrested for domestic violence in 2006. Shortly thereafter, the couple separated, and Monica took Michael to court for child support in 2009. Eventually, Monica relocated to the other side of the country, settling in Pennsylvania.
A year later, the young mother found love again with an old flame. Monica and Robert Paulson had known each other for about a decade but had recently reconnected over Facebook around Thanksgiving of 2009. The two began a long-distance relationship, and as is often the case with such rapid reconnections, things moved quickly. By May 2010, the pair became engaged. To outward appearances, Monica seemed happy and stable; she was working at a dental office and attending school at the time.
Robert, meanwhile, was grieving the loss of his ex-girlfriend, Jill, who had died by suicide in April 2010, several months after their relationship ended, using one of his own guns. Robert kept a variety of weapons in his home, including firearms and swords. As Robert grieved—likely grappling with significant feelings of guilt—Monica acted as a supportive shoulder to cry on. During the last week of August 2010, the couple decided to close the distance. With the assistance of his mother, Roxanne, Monica and her three-year-old twin daughters, Lily and Tori Ball, moved from Pennsylvania to California to live with Robert.
They secured an apartment together at the Summit at Paradise Valley complex, located at 3001 North Texas Street in Fairfield (later renamed Waterski). Monica began looking for a school to transfer to so she could obtain her license to practice as a dental assistant in the state, and Robert provided the necessary funds. To Robert, Monica was a dedicated mother who wanted to provide for her two girls, and she had never done anything to make him think otherwise.
Robert’s job required him to be away from home on business frequently. On September 9, shortly after moving into their new apartment, Robert was called away on a month-long assignment in Minnesota. Two to three weeks after his departure, he began to notice changes in Monica—changes that would lead him to believe her mental state was slowly deteriorating.
According to Robert, Monica discovered a synopsis for a horror movie he was writing with a friend. He described it as a slasher film about a man stalking children on a beach, in which every character died. Monica became deeply upset, convinced that Robert had written the story about her and that she might be in danger. Monica repeatedly brought the subject up during their conversations throughout Robert’s absence, suggesting that he had resumed their relationship only to hurt her. She also questioned him about whether he had driven his ex-girlfriend Jill to take her own life, accused him of infidelity, and claimed that his female friends despised her. She expressed fear of a UPS delivery man, claiming he had entered their apartment at times, and insisted she would not leave the premises because someone was waiting in a car outside.
Additionally, Monica became agitated over a Facebook post that Robert had not even authored. Apparently, one of Robert’s friends had made a joke about breaking up with a girlfriend using Dobermans, tasers, and ammunition. Somehow, Monica became convinced this post was directed at her. As Monica’s mood fluctuated, Robert would spend hours attempting to reassure her; she would seem fine for a time, only to descend back into the same cycle the following day.
Monica also indicated that she needed help with Lily and Tori, but as soon as Robert finished his assignment, he was called away on another. Rather than heading home to be with his family, Robert was informed he had to head to Alaska for five to ten days after leaving Minnesota. When Robert informed Monica of this, she went “berserk.” In their subsequent conversations, she claimed she missed him and desperately wanted him to come home.
Monica’s fractured mental state became increasingly apparent to her friends, with whom she remained in contact via text message. On September 25, Monica texted her friend Regina, stating she was afraid that Robert and his mother were “out to get her” and that she should alert someone if anything ever happened to her or if she went missing. That same day, she texted her friend Maritza:
“My fiance, Robert Paulson, and his mom are acting strange, so FYI if I end up missing or turn up dead or they try to say I committed it, it is a cover-up, so feel free to get revenge for me.”
Clearly concerned, Maritza called Monica, who told her she was afraid Robert would not approve of her and the children, and that she was jealous of his relationships on Facebook. She also mentioned her fear stemming from the book he was writing about the murder of a wife or girlfriend. On September 29, Monica sent Maritza another chilling message:
“They want to steal the girls and kill me, I think.”
Additionally, Monica texted her friend Pamela:
“He scares me. I feel like he is going to hurt me. I never meant to hurt him. I need to know I am safe, so hopefully, this is a paranoid delusion, but I’m telling you if I end up missing or turn up dead or they say I tried to commit, it is a cover-up.”
In response, Pamela suggested she pay a visit to her mother. Further conversations between the two friends involved Monica claiming she was seeking counseling before she “went off the rails,” and suggesting perhaps Robert had killed his ex-girlfriend, Jill. However, many of Monica’s text messages appeared to contradict what she shared with friends and family. In some, she discussed the stress of caring for the children on her own, while in another, she mentioned wanting to be “young and free and able to party.” Facebook messages exchanged by Monica on October 3 and October 7 revealed no signs of delusions, paranoia, or fear regarding Robert.
It is worth noting that Monica was not entirely isolated in the Golden State. Tori and Lily’s biological father still lived in San Diego, and she possessed a wide network of relatives and friends she could lean on, including Pamela in Los Angeles and her mother, Margaret, in San Diego. While some of these support systems were hours away, Monica generally had relatives keeping in close contact. According to her mother, Monica was managing well prior to the move; however, shortly after arriving in California, she began expressing intense fear of Robert.
Monica visited her mother in San Diego from September 29 to October 4. She brought the synopsis of the horror movie Robert had worked on and asked her mother whether it meant he was feeling violent toward her. Monica expressed ongoing concerns about the fact that Robert kept guns in the apartment—though she did not mention the swords during this visit. She repeatedly discussed her fears and uncertainty about the marriage. However, when mother and daughter went shopping for a wedding dress during the visit, her worries seemed to fade; she even sent a picture of herself in a wedding dress to her friend Pamela.
Additionally, Terry Fay, the paternal grandmother of Monica’s daughters, lived in Southern California. The two spoke regularly by phone, and Terry had cared for the girls on occasion. On October 11, Monica called Terry and asked who was going to take the girls. According to Terry, Monica did not sound rational. She claimed that Robert—to whom she had just become engaged—harbored a vendetta against her for 10 years and was kicking her out of her home. Mind you, she had just driven across the country with her daughters in tow to be with this man. Concerned, Terry told Monica that if she brought the girls to her home, she and her family would begin proceedings to gain custody of them.
Roxanne Paulson, Robert’s mother, also began to have concerns. She found Monica to be nervous and anxious, and realized she was having a difficult time managing while Robert was out of town. In early October, Monica and her girls spent the night at Roxanne’s home. However, between two and three in the morning, Monica decided to leave. When she took one of the girls to the car, she told Roxanne there was a car outside and that she thought someone was watching her. Roxanne reassured her that the person was simply a neighbor who left early for work. After the girls were in the car, Monica texted Roxanne to ask if it was safe to leave; once she got home, she texted again to confirm they were safe.
On the same day she had the irrational conversation with Terry Fay, Monica called Roxanne at work and told her the UPS driver was coming into the apartment. Furthermore, Monica contacted her mother on October 11. Her mother advised her it was not a good time to talk. When her mother asked if she had called about something important, Monica replied in a sad and subdued voice:
“No, it’s okay.”
On the morning of October 12, the assistant manager of the apartment complex asked Monica to move her car, as it was blocking other parking spots. At first, Monica would not open her door. When she finally did, she tried to explain why her car was parked that way but found it difficult to articulate. Finally, the assistant manager watched Tori and Lily while Monica moved her vehicle. Later, Monica contacted the assistant manager regarding a work order to have her locks changed. During that call, the assistant manager could hear Tori and Lily crying in the background. According to that manager, Monica seemed to want her to help with the girls.
That same day, Robert and Monica exchanged several text messages and phone calls. Some were incoherent. In one, Monica rambled about “robot butterflies” and concluded:
“You will never have me again.”
In another, she instructed Robert to tell the children’s father:
“Let the bunnies go forever so we can keep what’s ours and say that defending them is the number one most high for on your priority list.”
This was apparently a reference to their hope that Lily and Tori’s father might give up his parental rights so Robert could adopt them. Later in the evening, Monica sent a text that read:
“Tick tock.”
Another message read:
“Read James Patterson.”
According to Robert, when they spoke on the telephone later that evening, Monica sounded jumbled and incoherent. It sounded as if she were running around the house doing something. He could hear her panicking, with what he described as “hysterical noises” in the background. She would hang up, and he would call her right back. Then, Monica told her fiancé something bizarre:
“If Tori and Lily are okay, tell them it was an accident. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to make a fire. We’re going to make a fire.”
Robert then heard a fire alarm trigger, followed by a scream, and the call ended abruptly. Rightly concerned, he tried to call the apartment several times, but no one answered. What Robert didn’t realize was how far off the rails Monica had truly gone.
To any parent, what she did was beyond unthinkable. Strapping both Tori and Lily into their high chairs, the two little girls had no way to escape what their mother was about to do. We do not know the exact timeline, but based on the evidence, we know what transpired. Monica brandished what police described as a katana—one of the weapons from Robert’s collection. She then proceeded to hack away at her two bound and helpless daughters. One of the twins was stabbed multiple times in the stomach; the other was partially decapitated. In a bid to prevent first responders from accessing the apartment, Monica propped their bodies against the front door before attempting to set the apartment ablaze.
Neighbors reported they didn’t hear much noise from the apartment, apart from some loud thumping; there was no mention of them hearing any screaming. An hour or two later, the fire alarm sounded, and a downstairs neighbor saw smoke coming from one of the windows. This neighbor, Andre Douglas, ran upstairs and kicked in the front door, but found it was blocked. Not knowing the twin girls’ bodies were what stood in the way of his entry, he was able to break through another entrance—a sliding glass door. Given Monica’s apartment was on the third floor, Andre had to scale the balconies to get inside. When he entered, he saw the sword used to take poor Lily and Tori’s lives on the floor, covered in blood. According to Andre:
“Once I actually got past her room, there was a sword—a bloody katana-style Japanese fighting sword—in the hallway and a bottle of pills.”
Firefighters arrived and found the door slightly ajar but difficult to open. They forced it open, discovered a fire in a closet near the front door, and extinguished it. Retracing their steps, it was then that they discovered the mangled bodies of Tori and Lily. A search of the apartment revealed an assault rifle, a shotgun in the living room, and a box with a loaded handgun and additional live ammunition. In the hallway was the sword Monica had used, and alongside it, also covered in blood, was the lighter she had used to set the fire. Two high chairs had been overturned in the dining room with their food trays removed; these high chairs were completely soaked in blood. On a table facing the high chairs was a laptop computer playing an animated children’s program. In the kitchen, a landline telephone was on the counter; both the telephone and the countertop were covered in blood. Water was running from the bathroom faucet, and blood was in the sink and on the counter. A cell phone lay on the bathroom floor, and on a stool was the James Patterson novel Double Cross. The book was about a serial killer, and it was open to a page containing the words:
“My daughter is dead.”
According to the Solano County coroner’s office, Tori had 11 cutting wounds to her face, two to her neck—including a gaping wound on the front—nine superficial cutting wounds to the chest, and two deep stab wounds to the chest, one of which penetrated her heart and the other her lung. There was also a deep stab wound to her abdomen, three small superficial cutting wounds to the abdomen, and defensive wounds on her arms and hands. Lily had five cutting wounds to her face, four to her neck, and nine to her chest. A large gaping wound was found on the front of her neck that had severed her larynx and cut her carotid arteries. She had a six-inch-deep stab wound to her abdomen and multiple defensive wounds to her arms and hands. It was determined that neither of the girls had inhaled any smoke; they had died before the fire started.
Monica was located in the kitchen. She was unconscious and had sustained multiple self-inflicted injuries. Taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek in critical condition, she had two large lacerations to her throat and multiple cuts and lacerations on her arms and wrists. The tendons that flex the wrists and fingers were severed on one of her arms. She had a large laceration on her upper thigh and large lacerations on each ankle which severed her Achilles tendons. Despite her neighbor finding a bottle of pills near the katana, no drugs were found in her system. Upon release, she was arrested and charged with two counts of homicide, two counts of child abuse resulting in death, and one count each of arson and destruction of evidence.
Shackled to a wheelchair and heavily bandaged, Monica made her first appearance in court on October 26. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Between October 2010 and June 2011, Dr. John Shields met with Monica nine times, spending more than 20 hours with her. He administered psychological tests, interviewed her mother, and reviewed documents, including police reports, mental health records, and reports of other interviews. In his opinion, Monica suffered from a mental disease, most probably a depressive condition.
This condition first manifested in 1995, when she was 12 years old, at which time Monica was hospitalized for suicidal ideation and superficial wounds she had inflicted upon herself. According to hospital records, this was not the first time Monica had exhibited such behavior. At age 14, Monica was diagnosed with a form of attention deficit disorder and received medication. According to Dr. Shields, adolescents with untreated depressive disorders often develop substance abuse problems. In his opinion, Monica had bipolar disorder with psychotic features, signs of a delusional disorder, and polysubstance abuse.
According to Monica, she started using alcohol at age 12 and began using illegal drugs—including marijuana, acid, mushrooms, ecstasy, and possibly cocaine—around age 14. She graduated to using crystal methamphetamine at age 18. She continued to use it regularly, except when she was pregnant with the twins. Although she claimed she used it less as time went on, she was using it nearly every day until she was 25. Monica was using it during September 2010 and into October. In fact, she told Dr. Shields that she smoked it in Roxanne Paulson’s garage four days before the killings.
In an October 10, 2010, text message to Robert, Monica wrote:
“You wanted me to stay thin and said it was important and okayed me to use to do that.”
In another, she wrote:
“I am dying to smoke. I am leaving them alone here; they probably won’t wake up, but I can’t help it. It’s too hard to bring them everywhere.”
Sometime between 2003 and 2005, Monica was diagnosed with major depression. At the time, she was still living in San Diego and received psychiatric treatment. During that time, she reported experiencing paranoid thoughts. According to Dr. Shields, paranoia is a common side effect of ongoing crystal methamphetamine use. Long-term drug use can cause mental health problems well after someone stops using the drug, potentially resulting in chronic delusions. In his view, drugs were not the primary cause of her actions, although he acknowledged the possibility that her long-term daily drug use contributed to the issues she manifested on the day of the killings.
In his opinion, Monica’s actions were largely motivated by the delusional idea that she was being persecuted and that someone was going to take her daughters, separate them, enslave them in a camp setting, and torture them eternally. This delusion was fueled by the story Robert had written about girls or women being taken to an island, mistreated, and killed. She believed the UPS driver had keys to her apartment and was part of a conspiracy to harm her and the girls, and that messages were embedded in the videos or shows she and the children were watching. After the move to California, she told Dr. Shields that while she was reading the novel Double Cross, she understood a reference to the time of day in the book to refer to the time that people were going to come and take her daughters away into slavery.
Dr. Shields characterized this belief as an “idea of reference”—a psychotic symptom where mundane or normal occurrences are interpreted as special, personal messages. For example, individuals might perceive secret messages in license plates or feel personal significance regarding a news article. A few days before the killings, Monica and the girls were eating pizza at Roxanne’s house. Monica told Dr. Shields that the pizza made them sick, and she believed it was poisoned as part of an effort by someone, including Roxanne, to kill her and her daughters. When Robert told her he was going to Alaska instead of returning to California immediately, Monica believed it was a sign she or one of the girls was going to be taken to an enslavement camp. She became increasingly desperate to prevent that from happening. She believed the only way she could save the children from enslavement was to kill them. On the day of the killings, she sent Robert a text that read:
“You’re separating them.”
Monica told Dr. Shields that she started the fire because she wanted to hide the evidence of what she had done so her family would not find out. Dr. Shields testified that Monica’s mental disorder affected her ability to understand the nature and quality of her actions. She was not able to appreciate the harmful nature of her acts because she believed she was saving the children from harm. In Dr. Shield’s opinion, at the time of the murder, Monica was unable to recognize the moral or legal wrongfulness of her actions.
Monica’s county jail records indicated that by nine days after the killings, she claimed she was no longer experiencing thoughts of harming herself. She told the jail psychiatric staff she never heard voices, although she later claimed otherwise. A jail psychiatrist who saw Monica for a year and a half diagnosed her with chronic and recurring adjustment disorder issues. She also received diagnoses of bipolar disorder with psychosis and depressive disorder with psychosis. The psychiatrist also considered a diagnosis of a disorder on the schizophrenic spectrum. Monica was given antipsychotics and antidepressants in jail. On October 25, 2011, she told another inmate to essentially hurt themselves and claim to hear voices so they could meet at the hospital. In November 2011, Monica reported paranoid thoughts that people were going to attack her.
In April 2012, she used cocaine and drank 12 cups of coffee and was treated for a possible overdose. Allegedly, she obtained these drugs from the prison guards themselves. She was described as paranoid, delusional, and psychotic. She stated that gangs were out to kill her for snitching on a boyfriend 10 years prior and that if she had the means, she would “self-cancel,” so to speak. During her imprisonment, Monica was also interviewed by Dr. Pablo Stewart and Dr. Janice Nakagawa. Much of the information is redundant when compared against the interviews with Dr. John Shields. Importantly, Dr. Nakagawa concluded that Monica met the criteria for not being guilty by reason of insanity. Dr. Nakagawa did not believe that Monica understood the nature and quality of her acts because she was paranoid or delusional. Much like Dr. Shields, she also believed that Monica was not capable of understanding that her acts were legally or morally wrong. She testified that Monica’s drug use could have been a factor contributing to the emergence of psychotic symptoms and that drug use can trigger predispositions to delusions, paranoia, or depression.
However, a Solano County Superior Court jury found that Monica was sane when she used a sword to kill the three-year-old twins. On June 15, 2012, the jury convicted Monica of two counts each of first-degree homicide and assault on a child causing death. At her sentencing on October 3 of the same year, a tearful Monica addressed the court:
“I feel really bad. I pray for all of you every day, and I wish there was something I could do to ease the pain for both of our families. I love Tori and Lily more than anything in the world.”
Monica’s mother, Margaret, also addressed the court, attributing her daughter’s difficult childhood and mental illness to the incident and requesting that she be placed in a mental facility instead of prison. However, Tori and Lily’s father, Michael Ball, also had words for the judge. Instead of asking for leniency, he went on to describe an indefensible crime committed by the defendant. Never referring to Monica by her name, he said:
“I will miss all of the joys of my father-daughter relationship.”
Judge Peter B. Foor sentenced Monica to two consecutive life sentences in state prison, each without the possibility of parole. Two additional 25-to-life state prison sentences for the two counts of assault on a child causing death were dismissed. She was also ordered to pay $6,361 to the State Victims Compensation Board, in addition to a $10,000 fine.
Monica is currently serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women in Corona. She has attempted multiple times to appeal her sentence, but every attempt has failed. In the aftermath of Tori and Lily’s senseless deaths, a petition on Change.org began circulating on August 22, 2019, that petitioned California Governor Gavin Newsom to overturn Monica’s sentence. The petition was started by Margaret Crony and claims that all experts who evaluated Monica agreed she was not fully culpable for her actions. According to the petition and its author, Monica has completely changed her life since her arrest and her major depressive disorder is in remission. It goes on to state that Monica enjoys her prison job as a certified peer mentor who helps others.
In closing, we would like to share a passage from Tori and Lily’s obituary:
“Tory Margaret Ball and twin sister Lily Terry Ball were born in San Diego on September 12, 2007. On October 12, 2010, they received their angel wings after a tragic incident. Such beautiful little girls, full of life, love, and smiles—despair. Although their time with us was brief, they touched the hearts of so many. They will always be loved and adored by all who knew them. As twins, they shared a very special bond—one that only they could understand and one that will last in eternity. Tori and Lily will be missed dearly but will forever live on in our hearts.”
