A Wrestling With Sin Mystery: The Carny Con Man Jerry Balisok

Brian Damage

Regular readers will be familiar with our ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. Today we have the second standalone piece from that series looking at ‘The Carny Con Man’ Jerry Balisok.

The following is the true story of a professional wrestler, a con man, an FBI fugitive and an attempted murderer. The crazy part is, it is all the same person…a man by the name of Jerry Bibb Balisok. Balisok’s story began when he began a career as a pro wrestler in the south eastern territories. He was used as enhancement talent aka a jobber to the bigger stars of the territory such as Dusty Rhodes and Mr. Wrestling II. He always wrestled under a mask under the name of ‘Mr. X.’

Jerry Balisok was a large individual who stood over 6 feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds. He was born in Biloxi, Mississippi…but his family eventually moved and settled in Huntsville, Alabama. Balisok was a stand out amateur wrestler who got the wrestling bug early in life and pursued it professionally. Despite his career as a jobber, Balisok implored the promoters to start allowing him to win matches and be pushed as a star. He wrestled for just a handful of years from 1974 until 1977.

His pro wrestling career was cut abruptly short when he was involved in a motorcycle accident. He suffered a few injuries, one of which involved getting a steel pin inserted in his pelvis. With his pro career over, Balisok focused more of his attention to a motorcycle shop he owned since ’74. He began an affair with a married woman named Deborah Kindred. Things only got progressively worse for him as he was caught forging checks to but automotive parts overseas.

He was indicted on those charges and faced a trial. Fearing he was going to face jail time…Balisok skipped town and took his lover Deborah and her young son along for the ride. Balisok assumed the identity of Kindred’s cousin….a man named Ricky Allen Wetta. The couple and her son were now known as the Wettas and were hiding out in Florida. Things only got more crazy from here.

While in hiding, the infamous Jonestown Massacre took place in Guyana Africa in 1978. For those unfamiliar with this incident, it was a cult led by a man named Jim Jones who instructed all of his followers to commit a mass suicide. Over 900 people including many children died by drinking or being injected with poison. When the shocking incident made the news, Jerry Balisok’s mother Marjorie Balisok insisted his son was one of the people who died at Jonestown. The FBI checked dental records of many of the victims and none matched that of Jerry Balisok. The charges against him for forgery were eventually dropped, although he never knew it.

Marjorie claimed one of the unidentified bodies from the mass suicide and buried it in a grave in Alabama. The FBI continued to deny that Jerry was deceased and indeed he wasn’t. He and Deborah fled to Seattle, Washington under the Wetta identity. That did not stop Jerry from his life of crime. He started getting involved in real estate and made a small fortune for himself and his family. After having a personal fall out with one of his business partners named Emmett Thompson Jr…Balisok shot Thompson twice nearly killing him.

Balisok was arrested and charged with attempted murder and ultimately found guilty and sent to prison. His “wife” Deborah left him and took their children with her. He ended up serving 13 years of a 20 year sentence in prison. When he got released, he ended up marrying two women almost simultaneously. Both would quickly divorce him and get orders of protection for domestic violence. Jerry Balisok would change his name to “Harrison Rains” and fled the United States to Central America after embezzling money from a church that he founded.

He would be arrested, yet again…this time for the sexual exploitation of minors. He was eventually sentenced to 24 years in a Nicaraguan prison in 2012. In 2013, various reports came out that Balisok died from a heat stroke while in prison. It is unknown where his body was buried or if he was cremated. Jerry Balisok was the ultimate con man and criminal. Who knows what could’ve been if his pro wrestling career didn’t end after his motorcycle accident. What we do know if Balisok died in a Nicaraguan prison at the age of 57. Or did he?

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You can read all previous ‘Wrestling with Sin’ pieces here.

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