Overview
- Jack Joseph Ball, 24, admitted to premeditated first-degree murder and to the premeditated murder of his sister’s unborn child.
- Prosecutors dismissed two second-degree murder counts, and Ball remains in custody at the Dakota County Jail.
- The court will next litigate Ball’s asserted mental-illness defense in May, according to the county attorney’s office.
- If the defense fails, Minnesota law requires a life-without-parole sentence; if it succeeds, the outcome would be civil commitment.
- Authorities say Israel, 30, was 17–18 weeks pregnant and that evidence included journals citing she was “no longer innocent,” dismembered remains at multiple sites, and a reported doorbell-camera sighting of a body part left on a porch.