Not long out of custody, Travis Ball is back in jail after sending letters threatening the lives of Jones County deputies. Though never charged, Ball was the prime suspect in an anthrax threat at The Herald Gazette office in Barnesville in 2013 that shutdown the west side of town for five hours. He was also convicted of arson in Upson County and suspected in arson fires here in Lamar County. From Jones County sheriff Butch Reese: On Tuesday, March 23, our office, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service, the Lamar County Sheriff’s Office and the Butts County Sheriff’s Office, arrested Travis Leroy Ball, age 54, in regards to multiple incidents of Terroristic Threats and Acts. Ball, who is from Barnesville, is believed to have mailed several letters to both the Jones County Sheriff’s Office and the Jones County Superior Court Clerk’s Office over the last week, threatening to kill employees and blow up buildings. Included in both letters was a powdery substance which the letters claimed was Anthrax. Investigators executed a search warrant at Ball’s residence in Barnesville yesterday and located similar letters which had not been mailed yet. Ball was arrested in 2017 for a similar offense in which he mailed threatening hoax anthrax letters to the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ball was sentenced to two years in federal prison followed by three years supervised release in that case. For much more on this story, see the 3.30.21 print edition of The Herald Gazette.
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