Days before a Spokane mother's killing, her texts shed light on an attempt to escape a volatile relationship

For Rachael Ballinger's birthday last month, her husband and children gifted her a tree.

She started planting it in the front yard of her house - a house she worked hard to buy for herself and her two young boys - on North Hawthorne Street during Memorial Day weekend.

She was in the throes of separating from the man she had married just last year, 42-year-old Josiah Ballinger, and was texting her longtime friend Katie Morrison about him and her yard project.

The two had been friends since 2001 after meeting in high school. They confided in each other about everything, including how upset Rachael Ballinger was at how her husband was reacting to her yardwork.

"He doesn't think he picked me and my progress apart," she wrote in a text.

Morrison replied, "He is not going to change his behavior without serious consequences."

She then sent a separate, encouraging text, reminding her friend of the strong-willed, hard-working girl she's always been: "Don't forget who you are."

Less than three weeks later, on Sunday, Rachael Ballinger's two sons witnessed their stepfather pull a handgun during an argument with their mother and kill her, according to court records.

Her younger son, a 9-year-old boy, told investigators Josiah Ballinger wanted to leave the house, but his mother wanted him to stay and talk. Josiah Ballinger began to get physical with her, "pushing her and hurting her," until he shot her and fled, according to court records.

"He stepped over her body and just left her there," the boy told police.

Her 14-year-old son ran from the house, called 911 and gave officers an exact description of Josiah "Jo" Ballinger's Jeep. The teen rushed back to the stairs to find his mother lying at the bottom. He "was so scared I could not cry," the teen told police.

Police saw the silver Jeep driving in the neighborhood nearby, pulled it over, watched Josiah Ballinger fling open the driver's side door and stick out his hands in surrender. He was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder without incident, according to court records.

"Those boys are heroes," Morrison said through tears. "Rachael would be proud."

An escalation

The weekend leading up to Rachael Ballinger's killing was riddled with bizarre and erratic situations - she was repeatedly texting and calling Morrison nearly every day on what was going on with her husband, phone logs show.

On Friday, Morrison said Josiah Ballinger left around 9 a.m. and was gone for more than three hours, which was apparently unusual. Rachael Ballinger was tracking his phone and watched his phone ping in Airway Heights, a spot where he keeps his RV, then Walmart, then a thrift store in North Spokane. She watched his phone's location move on the freeway towards Spokane Valley and suddenly drop off. That's when Rachael Ballinger decided to call Morrison, panicked.

The two were on the phone with each other, worried something was wrong with his mental wellbeing or he had gone missing and feared the worst.

To Morrison's knowledge, there had never been any physical altercations between the couple, though court records say Josiah Ballinger had exhibited suicidal behavior in the past.

She was on the phone with Rachael Ballinger as she ransacked her house, looking for items that might have gone missing to give her a sense of where her husband might be. She mentioned on the phone that a gun he kept near his bedside was gone. Josiah Ballinger showed back up to the house in the late afternoon and told his wife he had lost his phone out the window, later admitting he threw it out in anger, she wrote to friends in a text.

"It's hard to trust after being let down so many times," Rachael Ballinger wrote. "And after all of the emotional and verbal abuse."

Throughout the weekend, Morrison remained encouraging to her friend, repeatedly telling her she was sorry and that she empathized with her exhaustion, but said the behavior felt abnormal and "screams so many red flags at me."

On Saturday, Rachael Ballinger texted friends she bought him a new phone, that she was going to separate the couple's phone lines and confronted them about their relationship.

"I looked him straight in the face. I told him everything that isn't working in our relationship has always been fixable," Rachael Ballinger wrote. "But I can't make you."

That Sunday, she continued to text friends about updates with her soon-to-be ex. She even sent Morrison a video on Instagram discussing "red flags in relationships" around 1 p.m.

By 5 p.m., her son had called police to tell them she had been shot.

Morrison didn't know what happened that night. On Monday, she was internally questioning why she hadn't heard from her friend yet because they talked and texted nearly all the time. Until her phone rang.

"Her sister and cousin called me," she said. "I dropped on the floor and started screaming. I knew."

Intimate partner killings accounts for approximately 40% to 50% of U.S. femicides, according to data from the American Journal of Public Health. The risk of homicide increases when the partner tries to end the relationship or leave. It also increases dramatically if there is a firearm in the home or the perpetrator's stepchild or stepchildren are in the home, the study shows.

"We cannot treat this like its not a big deal. When people stop listening to you is when it gets the most dangerous. Keep talking," Morrison said. "Even if you think its not worth it, keep opening your mouth."

The World Health Organization also reported that 1 in 3 women experience domestic violence in their lifetime. In the state of Washington, domestic violence is not just physical abuse, but can be verbal, emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of any intimate partner.

"We need to all be on the lookout for patterns of behavior. When we hear our internal sign say it doesn't feel right or it makes me uncomfortable, that's when you begin having those conversations," said Sally Winn, the director of legal services at the Spokane YWCA. "Sometimes we don't get a heads up. Sometimes there is no law enforcement interaction. Some people never have an entry point into services. We need to learn to recognize it. We must err on the side of offending someone and bringing it up, rather than regretting not bringing it up."

At present, the YWCA is facing a boom of people reaching out for domestic violence legal assistance. The organization has seen a 95% increase since last year in people seeking legal assistance in a domestic violence case or attempting to file a protection order, Winn said. Spokane County also ranks third behind King and Pierce counties, meaning Spokane County has a "disproportionately high number" of cases in Washington, she added.

Telltale signs of violence can sometimes be obvious, but sometimes it isn't. Continuing to reach out and being able to recognize changes in a person's behavior is a start, but placing blame doesn't help, Winn said.

"It is never a victim's fault, ever. People try to find excuses for behavior and quick to blame the victim," she added. "It is absolutely not (Rachael's) fault."

For Morrison, there's "all the time in the world" to make sure Josiah Ballinger pays for the killing.

"I didn't know he was such a coward that he would do this to her, and leave her children with the backlash," she said. "My best friend is dead. I will sit and wait as long as it takes to get justice for her."

The tree Rachael Ballinger had planted still stands in her yard. A pile of dirt she had excavated from the ground still lays on a tarp on the grass. And the gray bricks around it are still halfway around the tree's base, as if she is still going to finish it.

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This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 11:44 PM.