{"id":11426,"date":"2026-05-15T12:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-assassination-of-tommy-ballard\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:15:14","slug":"the-assassination-of-tommy-ballard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-assassination-of-tommy-ballard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Assassination of Tommy Ballard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Tommy Ballard refused to let his daughter\u2019s disappearance fade away. After Crystal Rogers vanished in 2015, Ballard became the face of the search. He organized volunteers, worked with investigators, and publicly called out the man he believed was responsible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>A year later, while hunting with his grandson, Ballard was shot and killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The attack was precise. Intentional. And, to many, not a coincidence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>As investigators worked to unravel both cases, one question loomed over everything: was Tommy Ballard murdered because he got too close to the truth?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Got a tip about this case or know about another you think we should cover? Send us an email at <strong>bloodtrails@themeateater.com<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themeateater.com\/listen\/blood-trails-case-files\/the-assassination-of-tommy-ballard\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tommy Ballard refused to let his daughter\u2019s disappearance fade away. After Crystal Rogers vanished in 2015, Ballard became the face of the search. He organized volunteers, worked with investigators, and publicly called out the man he believed was responsible. A year later, while hunting with his grandson, Ballard was shot and killed. The attack was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.ctfassets.net\/pujs1b1v0165\/7yRzxjuqQLKcR2r5nJosIt\/b91d94979a49ea6da93e5e1ee4405994\/tommy_2.JPG","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hunting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11428,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426\/revisions\/11428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}