Charles E. Ballard; Figure in Family Slaying, Misfortunes

Charles E. (Chad) Ballard, 73, who five years ago tried to kill himself but killed his wife instead. He was the son of Charles Edward Ballard, who owned casinos, farmland and several circuses. Misfortune began to plague the Ballard family in 1936 when the elder Ballard was shot to death in a dispute with a business associate. He had owned the plush West Baden Springs Hotel in Indianapolis, a one-time meeting place for such notorious figures as gangster Al Capone. The younger Ballard, who had been ailing since suffering a stroke in 1979, accidentally shot Alicia Chimiak Ballard to death in an April, 1982, suicide attempt. Ballard pleaded guilty to reckless homicide. In addition to a five-year suspended sentence and a $10,000 fine, a judge ordered Ballard to write a book about his family’s past. “The Ballards in Indiana” was a tribute to the elder Ballard’s charitable works, the author said. On Friday, somewhere in Indiana of undisclosed causes.