has been employed at the Jones & Allen mine for the last two years, and was well-liked among the mining community. Home invasion That evening, Ballard's 16-year-old daughter, Blanche, spent the Fourth of July celebrating at the White City Amusement Park, along the eastern suburbs of Springfield, with some friends and neighbors. The event had attracted 5,000 people during the day, and the night attendance was "more than double that number." Blanche returned home shortly after midnight. Blanche alleged to have just fallen asleep (though it would also be reported that she awoke from "a heavy sleep"), in her east-facing front bedroom, when she was awakened by the presence of "a strange form" lying at the foot of her bed, a bed that she also shared with her 10-year-old sister, Marie. Blanche alleged that she stretched her hand out and touched the "form" in bed with her, thinking it was her 22-year-old brother, Charles, arriving home after her and seeking "repose" in her bed rather than his own. She asked, "Is that you, Charlie?" When she received no answer, she asked if it was Charles again, then grabbed the "form's" hand and felt "hard substances" in it. Allegedly frightened, she recoiled, and "the form jumped away, mumbled something and ran into the parlor," on the north side of the house, where he proceeded to go from room to room. Blanche allegedly called out to her 43-year-old mother, Gertrude (who went by her middle name, "Emma"), which was said to have awakened her father. Ballard went to Blanche's room and, "perceiving a negro in the house," tried to approach the man. However, "before Ballard could close in on the man," the man fled. Ballard had seen nothing "but a fleeing glimpse" of the intruder, who reportedly ran, back through the girl's bedroom, and out the front door, "going around the south side of the house, toward the rear." In his undergarments, and "not knowing exactly which way the intruder had gone," Ballard reportedly went outside to his front porch (it would later be reported he exited to his back porch, where he allegedly "encountered a negro who was coming around the house." As the men neared the rear of the home, Ballard was then, reportedly, "attacked without hesitation," by the assailant with either a "knife or a razor." Fight with intruder Ballard reportedly fought with the attacker around the house, up