That just looks like neglect. Look at the wear on the inside of the tire. The ball joint probably just had ferocious play in it for quite a while. Dirt on the contact surface shows there was a lot of play in it for a while...
A little simple mechanical forensic investigation would tell a lot. Tire wear, as you point out, for example. Dirt on the contact surface is another.
How about the holes where the 2 missing bolts go - are those holes dirty? Rusty? Perhaps those 2 bolts haven’t been there in a while.