KEENE, N.H. - On a mid-June afternoon, an unemployed history buff from Holden, Mass. announced cryptically on his Facebook page that “D-Day’’ had arrived.
“Time to climb down into the Higgins boat and take a bouncing ride to the beach,’’ wrote Thomas Ball, referring to the World War II amphibious landing craft.
Four hours later, the divorced father of three died outside a courthouse in downtown Keene after igniting himself in a gory self-immolation.
Engulfed in flame, he screamed as he stumbled from the courthouse steps, fell to his hands and knees, and eventually fell silent.
Ball’s final words were delivered in the next day’s mail.
A friend in New Hampshire got a card with the tender inscription, “I miss you already.’’
The Keene Sentinel received a biting screed against the legal system, in which Ball recounted the ongoing 10-year court battle over his divorce, child support payments, and visitation rights with his children.
“A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match,’’ Ball’s letter begins. “And everyone wants to know why.’’
Such a desperate act would be shocking anywhere, but in the middle of a quaint New England college town, at the end of what Ball had once called “the prettiest Main Street in America,’’ it seems unthinkable.
His death and final writings have resonated within the father’s rights movement, of which he was an active member, and revealed a stubborn man consumed by his court battles and, over time, sinking further into darkness.
Ball, 58, intended his fiery death on June 15 - planned and researched at least 10 days in advance - to be the ul timate profane gesture, according to his writings, interviews, and court and police documents. He was taking aim squarely at the courts he blamed for keeping him apart from his kids and for what he saw as the system’s corrupt and ruthless emasculation of divorced dads.
“Face it boys, we are no longer fathers,’’ Ball wrote. “We are piggy banks.’’
The courts and his former wife tell a different story. They paint a picture of a prideful and headstrong man who once lost his temper, slapped his 4-year-old daughter hard enough to draw blood, and then chose to remain estranged from his children rather than acknowledge he made a mistake and participate in court-ordered counseling.
Ball’s love for his children “made it impossible for him to accept that some of his actions were harmful to them,’’ his former wife, Karen, said Thursday in an e-mail. “He was unable to comply with the court’s requirement to meet with the children’s counselor because to do so would mean acknowledging that he had done something to warrant the requirement.’’
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