The Day Skidmore Silenced Its Notorious Bully

Ken McElroy, known as the "town bully" of Skidmore, Missouri, terrorized the community for years with crimes ranging from theft to assault. Despite numerous charges, he managed to avoid conviction through intimidation and legal manipulation. On July 10, 1981, McElroy was shot dead in broad daylight, surrounded by dozens of townspeople. His murder remains unsolved as the townsfolk maintained a collective silence, frustrated by the failures of the legal system to curb his reign of terror

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I've shared several stories about individuals or even small groups of individuals who have

(00:05):
allegedly gotten away with murder.
But what if I told you that in July of 1981, an entire town got away with a murder?
What if I told you that when you hear this story, you might have very mixed opinions
about the victim and the alleged killers?
Join me for the odd mystery story of Ken Rex McElroy as I share the story of a town

(00:28):
bully and a criminal so extreme, so conspicuously bad and frightening, that he inspired a mob
to take the law into their own hands and then inspired hundreds more to hold their silence
for many decades to follow.
With just 440 residents, the farming town of Skidmore, Missouri was a place where everyone

(00:52):
knew everyone.
The people there were typically hard working salt of the earth types.
It wasn't the type of place anyone would have expected to become the center of a crime
spree.
Despite being in the middle of America's heartland, Skidmore had a sort of quote,
wild west field to it even before 1981.

(01:14):
The people in this town were self-sufficient and more inclined to handle problems face
to face than to seek help from outside the local authorities.
So when these independent and mostly self-sustaining souls turned to law enforcement for help,
the situation was already gravely serious.
Unfortunately when it came to Ken McElroy, law enforcement wasn't up to the challenge

(01:39):
of solving the town's problem.
Ken McElroy was one of 16 children from the wrong side of town.
His father was a tenant farmer and his mother was a housewife.
He dropped out of school by the eighth grade, preferring to hunt raccoons and commit petty
crimes.

(02:00):
He soon grew into a large, armed, intimidating figure who knew how to use threats and force
to get whatever he wanted.
For more than two decades, McElroy was suspected of being involved in theft of grain, gasoline,
alcohol, antiques, and livestock, but he avoided conviction when charges were brought

(02:22):
against him 21 times.
Often, after witnesses refused to testify because he allegedly intimidated them frequently
by following his targets or parking outside their homes and watching them.
He terrorized Skidmore by committing crime after crime, assault, child molestation, statutory

(02:45):
rape, arson, burglary, animal cruelty,
McElroy fathered more than 10 children with different women.
Once, he violated a 12-year-old girl.
To avoid statutory rape charges, he divorced his wife.
He then married the girl.

(03:06):
Trina, when she was just 14 and already pregnant with his child, to force her mother to agree,
he set her mother's house on fire and then shut her dog.
Although he couldn't read, he knew how to pick a good defense lawyer and pay one.
He also knew how to cultivate the right allies.

(03:27):
Defense attorney Richard McFadden loved McElroy.
He could count on him to pay in cash to defend three to four felonies a year.
His hunting buddies were always willing to stand up and perjure themselves, so it became
impossible to place McElroy at the scene of any crime.
When that didn't work, McElroy would intimidate witnesses sitting in their driveway.

(03:50):
With a shotgun, staring menacingly at them.
He'd stuff rattlesnakes into juror mailboxes.
It didn't take long for witnesses to recant or for jurors to vote for an acquittal.
Eventually, Trina would succumb to Stockholm syndrome, morphing from victim into fellow

(04:11):
perpetrator.
Sometimes, she'd hold a shotgun on witnesses while McElroy ranted at them.
The eerie specter of 47-year-old McElroy and his creepy child accomplice pushed the town
into a state of deep fear and terror.
And everyone knew McElroy was perfectly happy to pull the trigger.

(04:34):
Once, he'd shot a local farmer in the stomach twice, just because the farmer had ordered
him to get off of his land.
When he sauntered into the local watering hole, known as the D and G Tavern, he could
empty the place out in minutes.
He did it often, walking in as if he owned the place.

(04:56):
Del Clement, the real owner of the bar, would stare resentfully as his customers fled and
as McElroy forced him to serve up drink after drink.
Even the police weren't immune from McElroy or his threats.
Margaret Stratton, wife of state police Corporal Richard Stratton, received a visit from McElroy

(05:16):
and his shotgun a few weeks after her husband arrested him.
The big bully and brute seemed unstoppable.
Bo Boeing Camp was the 70-year-old owner of the local grocery store.
And he wasn't afraid to stand up to a bully.
When McElroy's daughter, Tonya, stole some jawbreaker candies, he said something.

(05:41):
Ken McElroy shot him in the neck for his trouble.
Boeing Camp survived, but barely.
Boeing Camp was well-liked and the town's simmering resentment exploded into a boil.
And yet, the town received a temporary reprieve.
McFadden made his first slip-up.
He requested a change of venue and got it, only for the new prosecutor to hit McElroy

(06:05):
with a second degree assault charge.
It was better than nothing.
The two-year sentence would be the first time McElroy actually saw the inside of a prison
cell for any of his crimes.
The town rejoiced.
But not for long.
McElroy was out within days.
The judge allowed him out on a $40,000 bond pending an appeal.

(06:30):
He swaggered into the DNG with a firearm in clear violation of his bond, vowing to finish
the job with Boeing Camp.
The bar patrons called the prosecutor, who revoked his bail.
The judge scheduled a hearing.
McElroy should have been back in prison so quickly, his head spun.
But that's not what happened.

(06:50):
McFadden kept scheduling delay after delay, and every delay meant McElroy spent even more
time outside a prison.
That up, some 50 or 60 residents headed to the American Legion Hall to meet with Sheriff
Danny Estes.
Perhaps the meeting began as an honest exploration of townsfolk legal options.

(07:15):
Perhaps a plan was already broiling.
The official record says that Sheriff Estes recommended that the townsfolk form a neighborhood
watch and avoid confronting McElroy.
There was talk of a neighborhood watch of sorts.
Then at the meeting, Bandit about the idea that they could follow McElroy around in groups,

(07:37):
armed groups, at all times.
The plan wasn't particularly feasible though, and by the time the mob left the meeting,
they had other ideas.
They headed over to DNG, where Ken and Trina were sharing a drink.
Every one of them had a weapon close to hand.
A rifle, a shotgun, a pistol.

(07:58):
20 towns people went inside to confront McElroy.
McElroy didn't seem particularly concerned.
He rose without a word, made Trina follow him and headed outside to his truck, a Silverado.
McElroy had time to start the truck before one man shot him from the front and one man

(08:20):
shot him from behind.
The latter shooter was probably Del Clements.
The owner of the DNG bar, the shots shattered the window of the truck.
One of the townsfolk opened the passenger side door to haul Trina out and to get her
to safety.
Trina claims she saw Del raise a rifle and shoot, and many reports say that Del's involvement

(08:45):
was an open secret around town.
Del will never see the inside of a jail cell for the shooting, as he died in 2009.
He never opened his mouth.
Never confessed, never pointed the finger at any other person in town.
There may have also been a third and a fourth shooter who missed.
It was tough to say.

(09:06):
By the time the sheriff arrived, every last shell casing had been collected.
Most of the crowd had dispersed.
And the weapons had mysteriously evaporated with them.
They'd shot Ken McElroy in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses.
But this was no open and shut case.

(09:30):
Nobody wanted to speak to the authorities.
When they did speak to a man, to a woman, they all had the same story.
They heard shooting.
They took cover.
They didn't see a thing.
Law enforcement was almost impressed by the solidarity the town was showing.
As one investigator put it, they couldn't get a single farmer to turn.

(09:51):
If anything, law enforcement faced hostility from the townsfolk for investigating it all.
When the FBI arrived later, they faced hostility too.
Police had failed to protect them.
How dare they put in the effort now to find not a way to jail McElroy, but a way to jail
a citizen who had stood up for himself.

(10:13):
The only person who seemed to care that McElroy was dead was Trina.
Law enforcement dutifully worked the case, but perhaps not as hard as they might otherwise
have worked it.
Who could have blamed them for half-hearted efforts when many of them had lived under
Masleroy's shadow as well?
No charges were filed.
Soon, Trina went into hiding.

(10:36):
Bitterly, McElroy's lawyer and only friend would go on to complain for years that the
town had gotten away with a murder.
I'll bet that by now you must be asking yourself some pretty important questions like, do I
think the town was right to clam up?

(10:57):
Do I believe vigilante violence was the only choice these people had?
Would or could I have remained silent?
Or would I have spoken up?
Skidmore shrank as the killing became national news.
Socioeconomic factors also played a role.

(11:18):
Today, the town has fewer than 250 people and is not the sort of place anyone would
want to visit for vacation.
The town became the site of far more violence, playing host to a series of shocking murders
and disappearances.
The culture of violence continued in the town, as did the culture of silence.

(11:39):
Given one of the murders involved a baby being ripped from a mother's womb, the suspect
in that story was only the third woman ever in American history to be executed by the
federal government.
We can conclude not all the killings can be written off as righteous.
Of course, it would be foolish to lay this culture of violence completely at the feet

(12:02):
of the mob that ended the life of McElroy.
Skidmore also now has a big meth problem and where there is meth, there is violence.
Katrina McElroy insisted.
Until the day of her cancer death at age 55, that her husband was but a scapegoat.

(12:24):
She'd even go so far as to try to convince the media that McElroy was a good man.
She managed to sue Sheriff Estes DNG owner, Del Clement, Mayor Steve Peter, the city
of Skidmore and Notaway County.
They settled out of court for $17,600 but nobody admitted any guilt.

(12:44):
Without so much as a clear set of suspects to work from, law enforcement was forced to
drop the case.
Police admit that this one will never be solved, at least in terms of determining which specific
hands aimed guns and pulled triggers.
Whether you see this case as a satisfying story about an evil man being brought to justice

(13:06):
by a community that pulled together to end their nightmare, or a story of about 50 murderers
who got away with it, at least one moral is clear.
Push people for too long and eventually they will push back.
In 1988, a book written by Harry McLean went into detail covering McElroy's life.

(13:27):
The book entitled In Broad Daylight became an award winning book based on his story.
In 1999, a film starring Brian Dennehy, also based on the same book was made for television.
It's my guess that you have probably found this story to be a bit of a departure from
my usual unsolved murder cases.

(13:49):
Where I so often feel empathy for the surviving family and friends, while I'm sure with the
number of children he fathered, there are plenty of family left in his aftermath.
It's my best guess that there are very few friends that are missing old Kenneth Rex McElroy.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this story.

(14:12):
If you did, please leave me a review, download and share this podcast with your friends.
Can you believe what Ken got away with before the town took matters into their own hands?
Do you believe that his lawyer made one too many mistakes and might have brought McElroy
the sentence he received?
While still a killing, it's hard to hold the people that felt they needed to defend themselves

(14:36):
from Ken McElroy.
Now if you found this story intriguing, this next story will be an absolute confusing story.
It's the still unsolved murder of Ernie Brasier, a mild-mannered, quiet family man, an attorney
who chose the quiet legal position of working on insurance claims.

(14:57):
Still, someone took his life and no one knows why, and his family still hopes that one day
they get answers to the question, why their beloved husband and father was murdered.
Find that story next on my podcast channel.
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(15:21):
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(15:43):
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Thank you.