Iowan saw sniper link in sister-in-law’s death

BALLENGER

Posted By: Donna Sloan Rempp (email)
Date: 6/13/2016 at 20:19:07

Ballenger, Hong Im
Iowan saw sniper link in sister-in-law’s death
John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were charged in the September shooting in Baton Rouge, La.
When John Ballenger of Norwalk heard last week that authorities connected the Washington, D.C.-area snipers to a Sept. 21 slaying in Montgomery, Ala., an awful realization crept into his mind.
These were the men who killed his sister-in-law.
Hong Im Ballenger, 45, was shot and killed Sept. 23 outside a Baton Rouge, La., beauty shop. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head.
Eyewitnesses watched as the assailant, now believed to be sniper defendant John Lee Malvo, fled into a nearby wooded area. Hong Im’s purse in hand.
Norwalk man realized sister-in-law’s death was tied to snipers
The killing mirrored the one at a liquor store in Montgomery, just a few hundred miles from Baton Rouge.
No one was saying it yet, but at that moment Oct. 24, when news that the sniper spree extended south of the beltway flashed across millions of television screens, John Ballenger knew it.
“It was just too coincidental,” he said Friday. “Too many things added up.”
He immediately called his brother Jim, Hong Im’s husband, telling him what he had just seen on the news.
“It’s getting close to home.” John told Jim.
Jim called police in Baton Rouge that night, who were apprehensive to make any sniper connection with Hong Im’s murder.
The morning after the brothers talked, authorities arrested Malvo and John Allen Muhammad. Both were charged in the killing spree in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Jim Ballenger called the FBI about the possible connection to his wife, and agents said they were looking into it and would contact him with any news within a week.
Thursday, the FBI called Jim back. Ballistic tests inn Hong Im’s killing matched those of the Montgomery killing. Muhammad and Malvo were charged in her death.
And the Ballenger family suddenly was connected with the serial snipers who had frightened a nation for nearly a month.
The news that Hong Im allegedly was killed by Muhammad and Malvo did more than confirm the gut feeling in the pit of John Ballenger’s stomach.
“It wasn’t a relief, but it was a sense of closure,” he said Friday. “It certainly doesn’t resolve anything; it doesn’t bring Hong Im back. But at least we know the people responsible are captured.”
It doesn’t matter to him whether Muhammad and Malvo go to trial in Louisiana. As long as justice is served, he’ll be satisfied.
“There’s no way they’re getting away with this,” he said.
John Ballenger was in Baton Rouge for his sister-in-law’s funeral. He said the entire experience, even without the sniper connection, has been emotionally draining for the family.
“You hear things like this happening to other people, in other places in the world,” he said. “It’s almost overwhelming to know that there are people out there who would take a life for no reason.”
Hong Im was a petite woman, he said. The killer easily could have overpowered her and taken her purse.
Hong Im and Jim had three children: Gregory, whose age John Ballenger didn’t know, Jimmy, 19, and Joshua, 10.
Hong Im may be remembered by those who didn’t know her as one of the early victims of the serial snipers.
John Ballenger will remember her as someone else - the woman loved by many. The woman who would do anything and everything for anyone, even strangers.
“She was an angel.”
Source: Des Moines Register; 02 Nov. 2002, page 1A