When a friend found 58-year-old Janie Ballard stabbed over 70 times in her Little Rock, Arkansas home on September 13, 2003, investigators immediately suspected her own daughter, Leslie, and Leslie's much older husband, Mike McCool. But how did a shy, successful young woman from a prominent family become capable of such unthinkable violence?

Leslie had grown up with every advantage—private school, college degrees, a job at the family printing business, and a condo bought by her parents. But after meeting Mike, a twice-divorced bodybuilder 22 years her senior with a violent criminal past, Leslie transformed completely. The more her parents disapproved, the deeper she fell under his control. When Janie cut Leslie out of her will, the relationship turned deadly.

This case explores how manipulation, greed, and toxic family dynamics led to one of Arkansas's most shocking matricides. A mother who feared her own daughter—and was right to be afraid.

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