True Crime with Rachel Shannon
Mother "Butchered" Her Twin Daughters with a Samurai Sword: THE TRAGIC MURDERS OF TORI AND LILY BALL
Wed, 26 Mar 2025
On October 12, 2010, firefighters responded to a call at an apartment, rented by Monica McCarrick. When arriving to the scene, however, they found that 3 year old Tori and Lily ball were dead, and Monica was barely clinging to life. Turns out, Monica used a sword to murder her 2 young daughters, and attempted to take her own life. What could have caused this mother to commit such a disturbing act?
Chapter 1: What is the tragic story of Tori and Lily Ball?
Hello everyone, my name is Rachel and welcome back to another true crime video.
So the case that I have for you all today is definitely a very tragic case. It's really awful how this entire thing was able to happen, and I do feel like things could have been done to prevent it. There is also an element to this case of whether or not the person responsible could be held accountable for her actions because of mental health,
So I'm really looking forward to hearing what all of you think about this case after hearing the details. Today we are going to be discussing the tragic murders of Tori and Lily Ball. Tori Ball and her twin sister Lily Ball were born on September 12, 2007 in San Diego, California to Monica McCarrick and Michael Ball. These twins were known to be loving, sweet, and full of life.
As twins, they had a special bond that only a twin could understand. But the girls were born into a rough life from the start. Monica, their mother, had always struggled with mental health and drug use for basically her entire life. When Monica was 12 years old in 1995, Monica was hospitalized for self-inflicted wounds and suicidal ideation, as well as intoxication.
Chapter 2: What were Monica's struggles leading up to the tragedy?
At 12 years old, she had already started drinking alcohol. This was nothing new, though, as she had been self-harming from even a younger age. Then, by the age of 14 years old, Monica was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and was prescribed medication to treat it.
However, it appears that Monica may have been actually misdiagnosed, which I think is pretty common with these types of disorders that Monica had, unfortunately. So sometime between 2003 and 2005, she had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder.
It seems to me that a lot of times adults with undiagnosed ADHD may be wrongly diagnosed as depressed, and some adults with depression may present as having ADHD and be prescribed medications that are not suitable for them. So, by the age of 12, Monica started using drugs and alcohol to cope with her mental health issues.
She started using weed, LSD, mushrooms, ecstasy, and by age 14, she was using cocaine, and then by the age of 18, she was using methamphetamine. From the age of 18 and well into her adult life, Monica continued using meth. She claimed that she didn't use it while pregnant with her twins, but that's just her word. I don't know what to believe.
At this point, after we get through more of the details in this video, you guys can make your own assumptions about what really happened. But either way, according to Monica, she used meth almost every day from the time that she was 18. until she was 25 years old. Because of the drug use, Monica became paranoid, she would act out, and sometimes she could even be violent with Michael.
There were claims of domestic abuse throughout their relationship. She had been arrested on several occasions for drug use and domestic violence as well. So because of her severe issues with drugs and accompanying mental health issues, her relationship with Michael, the father of her children,
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Chapter 3: How did Monica's mental health issues manifest?
did not last so about a year or so after the twins were born by 2009 Michael and Monica split up after the breakup Monica moved from California to Pennsylvania for a change of scenery there she lived with one of her aunts and things seemed to be pretty calm for a period while she lived there it was a new change in pace and things were going really well for her and her children
But in November of 2009, Monica had been on Facebook when she reconnected with an old friend of hers who was living back in California. This man was Robert Paulson, who had a pretty rough history of his own. Robert had previously been dating a woman named Jill. And I believe the two were broken up when Robert and Monica started talking again.
But after the breakup and after Monica and Robert started talking again, in April of 2010, Jill took her own life. She had actually used one of Robert's guns to shoot herself. So obviously this was very tragic and devastating for Robert to go through. So Robert and Monica continued their relationship long distance until May of 2010 when they became engaged.
And by the end of August of 2010, Monica packed up her things and moved herself and her twins back across the country to California to live with Robert, her new fiance. Once she was in California in her new apartment with Robert, things seemed to be going very well. She had gone to school and got her driver's license to work as a dental assistant and started working at a dental office after that.
She seemed to be pretty stable and happy for the time being. Anytime she needed extra money or extra help with anything, Robert was happy to help. Robert saw Monica as a very good mother who loved her young daughters and and just wanted to do her best to take care of them.
At the same time, Monica did her best to help Robert cope with the recent loss of his ex-girlfriend, and she understood that even though the two were broken up when this happened, this was a very tragic situation and this was someone that he once cared about, so he needed to grieve through it. However, Robert's job actually required him to travel quite a bit, which did put some strain on Monica.
By September 9th, only a few weeks after Monica moved in with Robert, she had to leave and go to Minnesota for a month-long work assignment. Obviously, this wasn't ideal, but for the time being, Monica seemed to be doing okay with the distance.
The two spoke on the phone regularly, and Robert made sure to assure Monica that things were going great, that they were happy, and that these work assignments weren't going to last forever. Again, Monica didn't love the distance, but she seemed like she was okay with it at first. But as time went on, Robert and other friends and family members started to notice a shift in behaviors from Monica.
Friends said that it was obvious that Monica was struggling. In California, she had a lot less support than she did back in Pennsylvania. She was having a lot of trouble taking care of her twins on her own. She was struggling to sleep. She was very irritable and often went on rambling rants that people could barely understand.
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Chapter 4: What events led to Monica's alarming behavior?
She also added that her and Robert were not getting along at that time. On September 25th, Monica texted her friend, quote, Then she told Maritza about the slasher screenplay that Robert was writing, saying that she was afraid that the story was about how he was going to kill her, Lily, and Tori. On September 29th, she texted, quote, they want to steal the girls and kill me, I think.
But Maritza wasn't the only friend that Monica was expressing these types of fears to. Monica had another friend, Pamela, who was living in Los Angeles at the time. She would also tell Pamela that she was afraid of Robert and his mother, saying that Robert wanted to hurt her. In one text on September 25th, Monica texted Pamela saying, He scares me. I feel like he's going to hurt me.
I never meant to hurt him. I need to know I am safe, so hopefully this is a paranoid delusion, but I'm telling you, if I end up missing or dead, or they say that I tried to commit suicide, it is a cover-up. In the days after that text message Pamela continued talking to Monica and tried helping her through her situation. She suggested that Monica visit her mother.
She also helped her set up a phone counseling appointment for October 6th to try and help her out with her situation and to talk about her worries and to talk about what she was paranoid about. Then in the beginning of October, Monica told Pamela that she was rereading Jill's obituary. Remember, Jill is Robert's ex-girlfriend who died by suicide.
And she said that she thought that Robert actually murdered Jill, that it wasn't a suicide at all. She did use his gun to take her own life after all and so it could be possible that Robert was actually responsible.
These thoughts and fears only heightened when in early October, Robert called Monica to inform her that he was not going to be returning home after his Minnesota assignment like he was supposed to. He was actually going to be staying in Alaska for an additional 10 days on another work assignment after the Minnesota one ended.
So not only was he not going to be able to come home and see her before his next work assignment, but he had to go straight from Minnesota to Alaska, so he wasn't going to be able to see her at all. When Robert told her this, she became very upset, and her and Robert fought about it over the phone. After this, her concerns and worries got worse and worse.
Now, I do believe this was a different day than the day that Monica and her children left Roxanne's house at 2 or 3 in the morning.
it's not totally clear with the sources that i read but i believe it was after finding out about the alaska trip monica and the twins were at roxanne's house again hanging out and eating pizza so she was just there for dinner this time monica said though that the pizza made all three of them sick so this confirmed her belief that roxanne and robert were trying to kill her
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Chapter 5: What happened on the day of the murders?
The fact that they had these defensive wounds says to me that they were alive obviously when their mother was attacking them and they were aware of what was going on. They knew that their mother was hurting them but they had no idea why. I can't even imagine how this entire thing started and progressed with one girl who had to sit there and watch as her mother attacked her twin sister
being able to do nothing about it until she turned around and attacked her as well. It's just awful to think about. The level of injuries these poor children had is just brutal and I can't even begin to describe how disgusting it is. there was a lot of questions as to why, you know, there was a gun sitting right there.
Not that it makes it any better, but why would she choose to inflict this level of injury on her children to the point that they were still alive and they probably felt so much pain as their mother was slashing them and brutalizing them when she could have just shot both of them in quick succession and made it painless and
quick as possible again not that it makes it any better not that that wouldn't make the situation any better but I have no idea why she went this way of wanting to cut them and hurt them and do all of this to her children to kill them and put them through this much pain and this much brutality it just does not make any sense.
Then, when Monica arrived to the John Muir Medical Center for treatment, she was in critical condition. She had two large lacerations to her throat, as well as multiple cuts and lacerations on her arms and wrists. On one of her arms, she cut so deeply that the tendons that flex your wrist and fingers was completely severed, so about right here.
She had a large laceration on her thigh, as well as lacerations to each ankle, both of which had completely severed her Achilles tendons, which is unimaginably painful. Can't even imagine what that was like. At that time, she was tested for drugs, and it was actually negative for alcohol, cocaine, and meth, or any other drug for that matter.
At the time, to police, it appeared like this was a murder-suicide attempt. It looked like Monica had murdered both of her daughters by slashing and cutting and stabbing them before carrying their bodies to the door to block the door shut.
Then she cut herself all over the place and set the apartment on fire, either to make sure that she and her children had died or to cover the evidence of what happened in that apartment. While receiving treatment in the hospital, police charged Monica with two counts of murder, two counts of child abuse resulting in death, one count of arson, and one count of destruction of evidence.
By October 14, 2010, it appears that Monica was released from the hospital and booked into Solano County Jail. She pleaded not guilty to her charges by reason of insanity, and from there, she went through multiple psychiatric evaluations to determine if her mental health is to blame for her actions and if she truly knew that what she was doing was wrong.
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Chapter 6: What did first responders find at the crime scene?
It just doesn't make any sense to me. It obviously doesn't make sense to anybody else except for the people that do these things. I don't think any normal person could understand why this happens. But regardless, Monica had other options. She knew that she could have given the children back to her ex if she really thought that they were such a burden or that Robert was going to take them.
Her ex's mother literally said that they would take the children from her and that they would take care of them. And I'm sure it could have been a completely cordial and normal situation if she really didn't think that she could handle the children.
Or if she thought that their lives were in danger, she could have given them to Michael and his mother and let them take care of them while she was figuring out, you know, what these people were doing to try and kidnap her or whatever.
i just think that there were so many things that went into this crime but i do think at the end of the day that monica knew what she was doing but i do think that she knew what she was doing to an extent i think that she knew it was wrong and i do think that that is why she tried burning the house down because
If she got rid of all the evidence, then no one could see what she did and nobody would know that she's the one that murdered her children or, you know, that she cut them and hurt them in such a horrific way. I don't know what her mindset was. I don't think we will ever know.
I don't think any, you know, person that kills their kids or kills another person, I don't think we'll ever know like what is going through their head when they are doing it and when they think that this is the right thing to do. But at the end of the day, this is what she chose to do. And she is serving time for it and I'm very happy about that. But that is all I have for today's video.
And now I really want to hear what you all think. Do you think that she was insane when she killed those girls? Do you think that she really thought she was saving them? Or do you think she got sick of being a mother and wanted them out of the picture? Let me know any thoughts that you have in the comments below.
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