The Death of Ken McElroy, The Town Bully | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Moram. [Music] This is morbid. This is morbid. We're
fresh off a vacay. Yeah, we had a little vacay. Uh, we hit Disney for a day. We hit Disney. I met a bunch of people. I
only met I think two. Yeah, cuz you went one day. Me and Drew rolled deep and we
did five. Four day. We did four days and one at Universal. We did the one cuz Yeah, we Well, you have like a lot of
kids and we wanted to we wanted to redeem the Disney vacation. And guys, I didn't have a bad time. She No, she had
a good time. I did cuz I ended up like um I never I don't do rides. It's just like not and it's it's not me being an
[ __ ] It's just not me. I never liked rides. I've just never been a ride girl. I didn't go to theme parks as a kid. It
just wasn't a thing. Yeah. And I and I I don't like the feeling of uh your tummy
flipping. It's just it like people love that feeling and I get it. Literally my favorite feeling. Yeah. It's just not a
feeling I enjoy. Like if you're in a car and even and you dip down and it gives that like I don't like that. Oh,
sometimes on those bumps I speed up for them. Yeah. See, I don't like that. And so I'm just that kind of person. So,
usually I will do like the very chill chill chill rides. Yeah. And other than that, John is the ride guy. Ash is the
ride person. The ride t. I know that like, you know, Ash and Drew and John are going to take the take the ride.
There's always there's always an adult for each kid. Always. And I'll hold all the [ __ ] you know, and take the
pictures. Have to have that person. And I'm so good at that. You're great at that. You're great. You're great at
holding [ __ ] But this time, my kids. Now, the new Tiana ride opened up. I can't even express to you how [ __ ]
good this ride is. Well, here's the thing. If you know anything about me, you know I [ __ ] love Princess and the
Frog. She rides hard. I love Tiana. She's my favorite princess. She's great. That's my girl right there. Yeah. And
when I heard there was going to be a Tiana ride, I said, "Oh, [ __ ] I'm going to do that." And then I looked it up and
I was like, "I'm not going to do that." And then my kids said, "Mom, will you do
that with us?" And I said, "Yep, I'll do that with you." So, I literally went into this saying, "Fuck, I have to do
this 50 foot drop and I should know how to do it." The thing about the drops at Disney, though, is that they slow them
down. This one was It's so fast that I don't remember it. I think I blacked out. So, like, this one is I just showed
her Veloca Coaster and I was like, "Now that's a [ __ ] roller coaster." I don't do Here's the thing. Tiana ride.
If you haven't been able to do it, if you go to Disney, do the [ __ ] Tiana ride. Her Bayou Adventure. So much
[ __ ] fun. A gorgeous ride. The end of that ride. One of the coolest things I've ever seen. The whole thing. And
it's a It's long. It's long, but like in a good way. Very fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the little drops. I was able to
handle them and I was like, "Okay." And maybe even the little drops are good. They're pretty decent. I was impressed,
you know, and but I I think it was like my kids loved it so much and I was sitting next to one of them and it was
fun. It was so cute. Uh so that was a lot of fun. I recommend doing that. I always
love the Haunted Mansion. It's the best ride. That's a very fun one. Um I I had a I had a good day. She wore ears. I
did. I wore ears. I did for part of the day. They gave me a headache halfway through. I know. Sometimes they press on
the back. Yeah. It was [ __ ] hot. It was blazing hot, which I don't love. I don't know how y'all live in Florida,
but here's a little tip from me to you in case you're going. Uh, I prepared for this cuz I said, "We're not having a
disastrous Disney trip like we did last time." Never. And I said, "We're going to make this a fun day, which means I'm
going to make everyone as comfortable as humanly possible, even though it's going
to be a thousand zillion degrees." And it was. Um, I highly recommend the cooling towels you can get like
anywhere. You can order them anywhere. Sometimes you can even get them at the park. Yeah. And you just all you do is
wet them and they stay wet and cold for a long time. So you can just drape them over your neck or your shoulders. They
work. I don't know what the science is behind those, but they're incredible. They're very and they're really easy to
store in a backpack. So it's like if you're looking for that those little misting fans that you can get, highly
recommend. They're good for a little, you know, little zap of that. And I took it up a notch this time. What' you do?
Cuz I said, I know my kids. I know they're going to want to see this [ __ ] Main Street parade. That
parade's pretty awesome. Oh my god. It was pretty great. It is. I had a good day. See, that's all I needed. I just
needed a good day. I don't I still I don't want to do it again anytime soon. But we're going to We will eventually.
But like like I'm not a theme park girl. It's just not my thing. You guys know that. But I had a a good day, which is
exactly what I was looking for. I just wanted a good time. She's open to doing it again. I am. Absolutely. And my kids
had so much fun. That's really all I'm looking for is like the last time we everybody got sick and it just wasn't
get to see their faces. Their faces during the parade. The parade was I said I need to have eight children right now
just to experience experience that experiencing that as an aunt. Incredible. I can't imagine how that
made you feel as a mama. Oh yeah. Seeing the little the waving at the princesses.
Tiana again with Tiana. I think I meant to be Tiana's friend. I think so. They she
when she went by she pointed at one of my kids and did the little heart formed a heart and my child beaming. I have not
seen her that beaming in a and she was like Tiana just did a heart to me. Like it was I was like all right this is very
worth it. I was borderline about to cry. Yeah. It was the sweetest thing ever. But what I did for that was I got a
parasol and they sell parasols at Disney, which I didn't even know that. I just bought one my own. Get a parasol if
you don't like the heat and you're worried about that kind of stuff. I got one that like um maybe I can try to post
a link to it. I'll find where I got it cuz it folded up really small. It like even the um little spokes of the of the
umbrella itself bent upward to make it smaller. It was super compact. So I could put it in a bag, easy peasy, and
it like just crunched up. It was so worth it cuz they used it several times. It was smart. And I I was like lowkey
making fun of you like before we were going. I was bought a [ __ ] parasol. I saw so many people with parasol. It's
worth it. You're with the trends. So let me tell you, if you're thinking about it, it really does work. And take this
from somebody who's essentially translucent. Yeah. And who has children who are also pretty translucent. I'm
translucent, too. And I didn't even burn this time. I was so good about my sunscreen. You That's right. Oh, as you
should be. A recommendation. Another one. Oh. Um that there's an E.L.F. like ELF setting spray that has SPF 45.
That's all I use for face sunscreen cuz a lot of times when you do like the cream, it gets in your eyes and [ __ ]
This one, spray it on your face, good. I spray it on my face probably like three,
four times throughout the day. Not a hint of a sunburn. I love that. So that's a good one even just for the
summer. So there you go. these summer recommendations. That's our summer recommendation. I thought of something
when I was when I was there and I said, I got to tell the listeners. I got to tell everybody. I don't remember. I'll
post some. I I went real ham with like preparing for this trip. Yeah. If I think of any like interesting hacks that
I came up with, I'll be sure to post it for you guys just in case you have kids or are traveling or just traveling in
general. You and Drew Capricorned so hard because like you have like a million kids so you had to get like 45
different things. Yeah, it was just me and Drew going. Every day that I got home leading up to this, he had a new
thing for our trip. So, you have to be like prepared for that. He got This is a little bit gross, but I don't care. He
got these toilet seat covers. He got these toilet seat covers and you put them down and they like adhes to the
toilet seat. It changes your going to the bathroom experience. I hate a public restroom to the point where like even in
school, like in high school, I didn't like going to the bathroom. Incredible. But yeah, um the I'll try to
link the toilet seat covers. Yeah, cuz they were great. Yeah, anything that works. I mean, I'm by no means a
gatekeeper or or like a a professional when it comes to traveling or anything like that, but if it works with my kids
or and us, honey, I'll share it. Disagree. I think you became a professional planner. I think you should
start a Tik Tok page of trips even though you go on one once a year. Yeah, I go I don't go on many at all, but but
hey, when I do, I really prepare for it, right? So, yeah, I found a lot of uh good hacks. I'm just so happy that you
had a good time. I'm glad we turned our Disney trip around. That was it was real
rough that everybody got the stomach bug and like John was super sick. I was everybody was sick and it was just such
a lousy trip the first time and it was weighing on us that that's the Disney trip that we had been planning forever.
And so we were just determined new memories. I needed a good and it was and you have them. We got this one picture
of John and one of my kids in front of uh the castle fireworks going and we're I was like we're framing it.
There's just it was it was a good day. I didn't want to say it during the time cuz I was like don't say it. You'll jinx
it. No. But they had a great time and that's all that matters. During the firework I cried the first time I saw
the fireworks at Disney. I'm not Disney adult. When Tinker Bell came flying by, sobb. Full sob. Don't care. Cry every
time. You know, it's hilarious. You hate that. Do you hate that? No, I love it. I
think it's adorable. Uh, that's what I was like, "Oh, that's so cute." I And I turned to one of my kids who is very
like myself. Oh. And I turned to her and I said, "Oh my god, it's Tinkerbell." What did she say? If your kids are
listening right now, please, I'm going to say something that's going to ruin the magic. So, like, skip forward. I
just don't want to ruin other kids magic. No. Uh, but I was like, "Look at Oh my god, it's Tinkerbell." And she
goes, "Yeah, I can see the wire." I was like, "What?" I was like I was like I was
like, "What?" I was like, "Wires like what? What wires?" And she literally she's crying. She goes, "She's
ziplining." Okay. And I was like, "Yeah." And she was like, "She's not flying." All right.
Like she was literally like she was looking at me like, "Mom, are you sorry I'm ruining the magic for you, but she's
not really flying." You know what though? As long as Tank is ziplining as I thought you were going to say
something even worse. She was just like she was like, "Fuck that. That's not Tinker Bell." She was lit. Oh, well, no.
I think she essentially was like, "That's a zipline. That's not really Tinker Bell flying across." Whatever.
Whatever child. So, I looked and I looked at her and I was like, "Please don't like say anything in front of a
younger one." And she was like, "Of course I won't." And she hasn't. No, cuz the younger one brought it up and she
was like, I know. Wasn't that crazy? Did you say don't tell Titi either? Don't tell Ti. Don't tell Titi. She thinks
that's Tinker Bell. But I was like my such my logical child who's always looking to see how anything works. Well,
she wants to be an engineer. Yeah. She immediately saw those wires and was like, "Oh, I get it." One thing I will
say, and I say it every time I see the parade in between my tears. Where are those projectors?
How do they project those images onto because like they if you've ever seen the castle show like it's [ __ ] crazy.
I've never seen the projector. I haven't either. And there's only so many ways you can make Tink flyer, right? It's
[ __ ] beautiful. I think it's great. I think it's beautiful. So So there you go. It's a much different take on on
what happened than There it is. Cuz a lot of I displeased a lot of people who love Disney that last time. You don't
want to piss those people off. Yeah. And it it wasn't me. It was just a bad trip
coming from the Disney community. No, just kidding. You're like, "Just kidding." No,
seriously. But for real, shut up. Um, but yeah, so that was good. We got um we got some good stuff coming up that we
can't tell you about yet, like said, but uh but you will find out and it will be
awesome. I think we say that every episode at this point, but it's coming. It is. Yeah. Manifesting it. Um and I
think with that we can probably This has been a long intro. Yeah, we don't do those all the time, so sometimes it
happens. You lived. Um, you lived. Hopefully. Jeez. Pour it out if you did. Oh my goodness. But yeah, so Oh, quick
little little side side quest. Are you going to talk about the Anyone else hyperfixated on the Conclave coming up?
The way I knew you were about to talk about the Did you see me call that? I'm sorry. I said, "Are we about to talk
about the the conclave?" It's wild that this happened like right after the new papa and ghost was announced in purple
stuff. It's crazy timing. I'll give it to you. But also guys, and like this is no, I am not a religious person. You
know this. I've It's pretty clear by now. Honey, you knew if you're shocked by that. I don't know what to tell you.
Uh but I'm hyperfixated on it cuz I feel like it's very Gothic the way it all happens. Very metal. It is interesting.
this whole conclave and the burning of the ballots and the black smoke and the white smoke and everybody waiting for
that smoke to happen. Love it. Yeah, love it. And if you you want to bone up on on the conclave on your pope
knowledge and the Hold on, I'm going to look it up because I'm going to give you
somebody that you should follow. I love this creator to get all your uh the Pope
games here. He also covers the Baronstein Bear books and it's great. The He's a Tik Tok creator. He's on
other platforms too though, but I mainly follow him on TikTok. Um, Rob Anderson.
So funny. He's doing a thing where he's calling it the Pope Games and he's treating it like a Real Housewives kind
of thing, but he's introducing all the wouldbe popes and telling you what they stand for and against. So, it actually
he's giving you the information in like a very funny way. It's fun, but I'm like
I would not This is very interesting. He also gives them a house tagline. Um because again I I don't care at all
about this stuff, but I'm weirdly hyperfixated on it from a purely curiosity level. It's interesting. Like
it's a pure curious just me being like this is a wild situation. It is. I didn't know really anything about it.
Yeah. When was the last conclave? Uh Francis has been a a pope for for a minute. I thought he wasn't the pope
that long. I mean, a lot some popes are popes for like 30 years and [ __ ] That long, but I thought Francis was like
kind of a short pop. It was only a few years, I think. That's what I think. Yeah. So, it's only been a few. That's
what that's also what I think. So, that's So, they couldn't it couldn't have been
that long since the last conclave. I'm googling. Yeah. Google it. Find it out. Um, but again, none none of like to each
their own. The religious stuff doesn't really do anything for me with this, but it's I'm just purely curious. 2013. So
he's been there for a minute. I mean that is a very long time ago, but in my brain it's not. Yeah, it's over 10 years
ago. So there's that. Shutters. Uh but yeah, so become hyperfixated on that with me because uh it's fun. It's wild.
It's a wild thing. And follow Rob Anderson because he's really funny. All his other content. All his stuff is
funny. Um and that I think is the end of our very long intro. Wait, no, I'm just
kidding. [Music] So today we're going to be discussing a very strange very it's brutal at parts. Okay.
And then has a wild ending case. This fun question mark. This well this is the death of Ken McElroy. Okay. But he was
known as the town bully. Oh, okay. I don't want to tell you too much upfront about what happens. I would like
to leave the ending for the moment it happens because you're just going to be like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" So,
I'm going to give you very little of what I'm not going to tell you how this ends. Just know that the end he dies.
Um, and that he was the town bully. All right. So this did happen the the the act itself happens on July 10th, 1981.
Okay. When he Ken Mckel Roy was about 47 years old. This took place in Skidmore,
Missouri. Uh that's all I'm going to tell you about the end of it. Let's start at the beginning. Now we It's so
funny that this is 1981 because when you said the town bully, for some reason that just read as like 1900s, right?
Like 1904. Yeah, that's how I thought too, but it was in the 80s. Okay. And bully is um a nice way to describe him.
I would say uh the town predator, the town the town monster, the town criminal, the town abuser, the town
assaulter. Like he was a he was pretty terrible. Okay. He was pretty terrible. Okay, so let's talk about him. Let's His
name was Kenneth Rex McElvoy and he was born June 16th, 1934. That's why he's so
terrible. He's a Gemini. There you go. Male Geminis are the most frightening. I say that as Gemini, so call that. Okay.
Uh, he was born in Overland Park, Kansas, and he was one of 16 children. That's a lot. That's many children. One
might say, too many. One might say, uh, me. No, cuz I won't step in that. But he
one might say it. I don't know who that one is, but not me. That's what I said. One. I didn't say it. Uh, his parents
were Tony and Mabel McElroy. Mabel had married Tony when she was just 14 years old, and he was 20. Sounds illegal. Uh,
very much so. Uh, and it really sets the tone for how Ken is gonna act later in life. I think I'm not gonna like that.
Um, he married her because at 14 she was pregnant with Ken's oldest brother, Hersel. Oh, no. So, the apple does not
fall far from this tree. 14. Yeah. Born during the height of the Great Depression. Ken's early life was a bit
of a struggle for sure. But the whole family was Tony McElroy had always had a lot of difficulty finding and kind of
like maintaining work but it was because of his attitude and explosive temper. It
wasn't because it wasn't available. Uh just before the depression started he and Mabel had saved enough money to rent
uh 14 or no 400 acres of farmland in southern Missouri. God damn. And they planted a very large corn crop there
thinking this is their time. Unfortunately, they had two rainless weeks in the summer of 1927 and it wiped
out the entire crop. Just two weeks. Yeah. So, he lost his entire investment. Oh. According to author Harry McClean,
uh the complete loss broke Tony and he eventually just had to go back to working really lowpaying construction
and farming jobs in and around southern Missouri. Mhm. In the years that followed that, they continued having
children and struggling to get by on Tony's very meager wages, moving from one rented home to another whenever
things would become hard or unaffordable. When the four oldest McElroy bo boys became strong enough,
they were put to work farming, clearing land. Uh, this allowed the family to finally settle down in a rented home in
Skidmore, Missouri. Skidmore is a wild name. I don't know why Skidmore is a wild name and I feel like it's been
featured in like something that I saw lately. Really? Skidmore. I don't know. Well, it's a small town of less than 100
residents. Damn. And it's in Nawway County in northern Missouri. Okay. So, less than 100 residents. Very small
town. According to man, Ken McElroy spent the first 13 years of his life as the child of a tenant farmer, living in
someone else's house, subsisting at near poverty levels in a large family. And the bitterness of those years just never
left him. To make matters worse, with 14 kids in the house, Ken was uh definitely
not ever his father's favorite child and never even came close to being the favorite child. I mean, that's a lot of
competition. That's a lot of competition. But also, you're not allowed to have a favorite child. You
have to love them all. Now, with so much activity in the house though, both Tony
and Mabel were working 12 or more hours a day. They were out of the house a lot.
So, Ken and his siblings came and went as they pleased and were never really noticed by his parents. Like, they just
let it go. It was a very different time. But when Ken did get noticed, it was usually long enough for his father to
yell at him for not doing what he was supposed to be doing. Okay. So, not great. That's shitty. One would think
that in a family with so many people in it that maybe there'd be some close bonds between most of them. I don't
know. At least those close in age. But when it came to Ken, his brothers and sisters seemed to not really pay a lot
of attention to him. Kind of like his parents didn't. A. So, it was basically that because Ken spent a lot of his
childhood by himself. In the winter, he skated on the pond and in the summer he would hunt and trap animals, usually by
himself. And that's really sad. Yeah. During the depression, it was common for a lot of like adolescents and teenage
boys and some girls to be not going to school, absent from school a lot because they would need to stay home and help
the family earn money essentially. In Ken's case, this was true, but even if they weren't growing up during the
depression, he probably would have been absent anyways. Uh he didn't like authority. He was not into education.
And when he did show up for school, his appearance and hygiene were occasionally
so bad that the teachers would either have to take him to the washroom and show him how to clean himself, or they
would just send him home because they said he smelled so bad that it was distracting to other kids. Oh, that's
really awful. This lasted until Ken turned about 15 and he dropped out of school. Now, when it came to friends, he
was never super successful at forming bonds with other children in the area either. At best, his teachers would find
him kind of like surirly and like sullen, like he just wasn't. But at worst, he was mean, aggressive, and
unmanageable. Um, one of his former classmates said, "When I came to Graham school in fourth
grade, one of the first things the other kids told me was about Ken McElroy, the
type of kid he was. I was told to stay away from him, that he pushed other kids around." Damn.
Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. Another classmate said that on his first day riding the bus with Ken, Ken got into a fight with,
and this was Ken's first day riding the bus, Ken got into a fight with another student and Ken and one of his brothers
pulled knives out and threatened to cut the other boy. Holy [ __ ] And they said
after that, Ken had plenty of room on the bus. I would I would assume so. Yeah. So, it turned out the aggressive
behavior that he was demonstrating at school was something he was definitely learning from home. Usually is. In one
incident uh that man talks about in his book, Ken was caught stealing from a general store in town and the owner
called his father Tony to tell him that Ken had stolen from him. Yeah. Rather than like reprimand his son for stealing
and saying like, "Hey, that's not good. You can't do that." Yeah. Like we're not
allowed to. Tony quote burst into the store with a long curved hunting knife in his hand, slammed the owner up
against the wall, and held the knife to his throat and said, "If you ever touch my boy again, I'll cut your heart out."
I think that's super rational. I was like, "Whoa." Here's the thing. The report that I that we saw was that he
just called the father and was like, "He's stealing." Yeah. He's saying like, "You ever touch my boy again, I'll cut
your heart out. I don't know what happened if the owner like did something to him. Uh it's never good to threaten
somebody with a knife. Don't do that. Yeah, we don't recommend it. I could understand the rage component there. If
somebody touched my kid, I would also want to cut their heart out. But like you don't threaten people with knife.
It's illegal. Um but it also sounds, you know, this is this is a situation where
you can both be angry at the owner if he touched your kid. Absolutely. But again,
this was a time period where this probably wouldn't have been looked at as crazy if an owner like slapped against
the ceiling. But also, you have to reprimmend your kid for stealing from someone. Yeah. You can't because
otherwise they're just going to keep stealing and think that you'll attack people with hunting knives. Well, that's
this incident sent a very clear message to Ken and to everyone else in town that
no matter what he did, no one had the right to control him or tell him what to do or they'd have their heart cut out.
And from then on, Ken operated accordingly. Oh. Cuz this just did send a message to him. I'd be [ __ ] terri
like as a as a community member. I'd be [ __ ] terrified. Absolutely. And they were they eventually really were. Now,
as Ken grew older, his reputation got worse and worse, and his behavior became more and more problematic. Former
classmate Bruce Roberts said he was in trouble so many times. After dropping out of school, he found work at a local
plant nursery, but he was fired within his first week when the owner caught Ken quote, "Fooling around with a young girl
who also worked there." Oh, no. Now, this began a trend of Ken finding work and then losing work a short time later
because of his temper, his disinterest in authority, his disinterest in work. It would get the better of him. As far
as Ken's former friend John saw it, he said he was always in a kind of self-sabotage mode. Sounds like it. Um,
he said Ken never got over the fact that he was poor and he resented people who had money. He could never bring himself
to do their [ __ ] work. Huh. It's like, but that's not like you can't treat people like [ __ ] No, that's not gonna
get you anywhere. Exactly. You'll never work your way to the top with that attitude. In 1952, when Ken was 18 years
old, he married Oleta Holland, which was a girl two years younger than him. So, she was 16.
This was the first time Ken left the Mckelroy farm and struck out on his own. He didn't go very far, though. I was
going to say, how'd that go? Yeah. After the marriage, Ken and Oleta moved to Denver, Missouri, which was a small town
about an hour away from Skidmore, and that's where one of Ken's sisters lived at the time. Oleta at the time was
pregnant when they moved to Denver. Unfortunately, they did have a stillborn baby. Oh, that's awful. Which is really
sad. The move to Denver wasn't just an opportunity to start his own life with his new wife, though. It was also looked
to be like he was trying to start somewhere fresh where no one knew him and knew his reputation for being a
complete dick wad. Yeah. You already like pissed off too many people to get work. Yeah. Like you piss off a town of
a hundred people. That's going to be tough. Yeah. Word travels fast. That's going to be tough. Not long after they
relocated, he found work on a construction crew. And he was determined. He was like, "I'm going to
keep my anger in check." Like he was telling Oleta, "This is going to be different until an accident derailed his
newfound success." One day while he was working at the site, and he had been doing well up until here, a large piece
of cribbing, which is a temporary support structure, fell from one of the beams 30 feet above him and landed
directly on his head. Holy [ __ ] He was wearing a helmet. The blow split his construction helmet in half. Oh my god.
And it cut him obviously in his head and compressed his spine as well. Oh [ __ ]
Which caused muscle and nerve damage in his neck that he would have forever. Yeah. compressed his spine. So for Ken,
who had never been one for an honest day's work, this was just a sign to him that the straight and narrow way of life
was not for him. Okay. He took that as I tried to be good. I tried to go on the straight and narrow and look what
happens. [ __ ] that. Struck down. Not long after that, he and Alleta picked up their things and went back to Skidmore.
Was workers comp a thing back then? Right. when he figured in Skidmore he could find less dangerous and less um
scrupulous ways of finding money. Uh so throughout his early adolescent and teen
years, Ken had engaged in all manner of illegal activity, typically for no other
reason than just enjoying doing illegal activity and hurting people. Like much of his other very undesirable behaviors
and characteristics that he demonstrated in his youth, there was never any consequences for any of these illegal
activities, which appears to have enforced his own little [ __ ] up belief that regardless of whether it was right
or wrong. No one was stopping him from doing it. There was never going to be any consequences, so I'll just keep
going. He always got himself out of [ __ ] and he did that for his whole life. Now, a slippery slope. It is. It
does not work out for him. Now, once he and Alleta had settled back in a farm in
Skidmore, he started out his criminal career pretty small. According to Harry McClean, Ken quote, "Rigged a toggle
switch to shut off the running lights in his Ford and short up the plywood lining
in the back so that he could bear more of a substantial load in the back. With his truck now altered, he would drive
the back roads of Skidmore and the surrounding areas, looking at the properties of local farmers and looking
for calves or hogs that looked ready to be slaughtered and brought to market. Once he would find one that he deemed
suitable, he would make note of the closest entrance and return in the middle of the night, sneak on the
property, and steal the animal. He was stealing people's farm animals. He was stealing people's farm animals. That's
messed up. Most of the times he would just go a short distance to another farm and sell the stolen animal to that
farmer who didn't ask where it came from. He's like just putting cows in the back of his truck. Yeah. Now throughout
Skidmore and the surrounding towns, most adults knew how Ken made his money. But
they looked the other way because they didn't want to get on his bad side because he was a scary [ __ ]
That sounds like it. And on schoolyards across Nawway County, there were other stories about Ken. According to Mlan,
people whispered, quote, that he had raped a 14-year-old Quipman girl who became pregnant and died delivering
twins at home because she couldn't afford to go to the hospital. Oh my god. Yeah. About a year later, man went on to
say Ken quote, "Returned and raped her older sister who ended up marrying one of his best hunting buddies." What the
[ __ ] Yeah. Oh, that's he's a [ __ ] terrible. And it gets worse. the extent these are rumors. These are all
like things that are hard to verify, right? But they are things that people were talking about and believed and they
are reports of it. The extent of these like how much is fact and how much is exaggerated as fiction for those
specific rumors that we just talked about. But what is true is that around 1960 or so, Ken started hanging out with
a lot of young people and he's a full-blown adult, some much younger than himself. Um, during this period of his
life, when Ken was about 21 or 22 years old, his best friend was reported to be a boy named Larry who is at least a
decade younger than him. That's not normal. Yeah. Now, this that relationship is strange just as a
friendship, but it was his relationships with younger women and girls that people
around town were really concerned with. Well, and I'm sure he used Larry to meet
girls, right? [Music] Around the same time that he was spending considerable time with Larry
and using him to find girls, Ken also met a young woman in her late teens named Barbara, who soon became his go-to
drinking buddy. Oh god. A teenage girl. It's so sad cuz when you're that age, like as a teenager, and somebody older
wants to hang out with you, it's so exciting and it's so fun and you don't think anything's wrong. And then you
become an adult and you're like, "Why the [ __ ] did that adult want to hang out
with me when I was that age?" No adult wants to hang out with teenagers like this for anything but nefarious reasons.
It's so hard to tell teenagers that. Like, I was a teenager who hung out with older people. And I remember you being
like, "No adult should want to hang out with you like that." And I was like, "Fuck it." You're like, "Fuck that." I
was like, "You're so wrong. I had a great time." And now I realize it was [ __ ] weird. That's nefarious as [ __ ]
But it's so like like how do you tell kids how do you teach kids that? I know. It's like cuz you have to like shatter
completely their illusion of the world. Yeah. And their sense of self, too. Yeah. Like you really have to you have
to be a little You have to be a little You have to play them this honest with them. And you have to be like not
everybody is a good person. I' I've already had to tell my kids that. Yeah, not everybody's a good person. There are
adults who are really bad people and they want to do bad things to kids and you have to be on the lookout for that.
Yep. Now, according to man, this type of behavior was quite common for Ken, who always seemed to have young women
hanging around him. Ew. He wrote, "He would laugh and tell them they didn't have to worry about him." And this is
this is gross. He would say, "You're too old to make for me. I like my women young and tender. I like that young
meat. Ew. When when um Dave sent like did like helped me with this research, he sent me
a note on one of these that said, "I'm so sorry for this." when he sent that cuz he was like, "I'm sorry you have to
read this." Yeah. That's like I apologize. [ __ ] heinous. In fact, it was known around Skidmore that although
he was married to Alleta at the time, Ken would often carry on sexual relationships with girls as young as 12
or 13 years old. Oh my god. Meaning not sexual relationships. Rape. Rape. He was
raping 12 or 13y olds. And he was claiming like these are relationships. And poor Oleta
too cuz remember she was 14 when he got her. Yep. One of those girls who is referred to as
Donna G, that's not her real name, would frequently sneak out of her house at night to meet him. She was probably
excited to be assaulted by him. Yep. About a year later, according to McClean, Donna gave birth to Ken's first
child, a son. Oh my god. Of all the crimes and awful behavior that the people of Skidmore were tolerating from
Ken, the hardest for most of them to tolerate tolerate was his predatory behavior with young girls. Of course, I
can't imagine. and also his violence against women in general because like just giving you a heads up like he is a
violent abusive man like and I'm going to mention a couple of instances and it will be difficult to hear not
surprising. Um not long after moving back to Skidmore from Denver, Ken started an affair with a 15-year-old
local girl named Sharon. One evening in either 1959 or 1960, Ken and Sharon were
arguing in his car when he pulled out a shotgun and held it to her face and said
if she didn't shut up, he was going to blow her head off. Now, nobody knows if it was unt
intentional or not, but the gun discharged and it tore open the underside of Sharon's chin. Oh my god.
And it seriously injured her in the chin and neck. It's incredible that she even
lived. For the first time, the police were called and charges were filed finally against this [ __ ] [ __ ]
But as always, he found a way to avoid any consequences. How the [ __ ] And explain So he explained things to Oleta,
his wife. Uh-huh. And Ken insisted he had to divorce her and marry Sharon, in order to avoid being convicted for the
shooting. Cuz you can shoot your wife. What? Alleta agreed and the two were soon
divorced and Ken took up with the teenager Sharon. Well, that's a Alleta probably saw that as her ticket out.
Yeah. Who soon gave birth to a son they named Jerome. Yep. Jerome would eventually be taken in and raised by
Ken's sister Helen. Luckily, the fact that this woman had to marry a man who shot her in the face and then birth his
child and then have that child taken away from her, that's so [ __ ] I feel for Sharon big time. Now throughout the
1950s and60s, Miguel and his various criminal associates continued continued their theft, their illegal sales
schemes. They assaults, batteries, breakins, they did every they were literally tormenting this town. I like
this town lived in fear of this man and he would just avoid arrest or consequences through intimidation
tactics or just threats of violence. like he was literally running it and he shot a girl in the face. That those t
tactics actually worked is a testament to his reputation for how violent he was. Um and Ken's capacity for violence
was on full display in the summer of 1968 when Ken and three of his associates, Larry Comolmes, Raymond
Hayward, and Glenn Hayward were arrested for a brutal assault on 52-year-old Glenn Graham, a farmer in Skidmore. Oh,
now according to Graham the farmer, he and his daughter went out to the pasture, their pasture that evening on
June 13th to check on their horses when they were the victims of a completely unprovoked attack. Uh, and it was by
four men who were armed with brass knuckles and clubs. Oh, [ __ ] Graham's daughter, Anita Foster, told police she
heard her father call out for help. And when she ran to see what was happening, she saw the men had her father on the
ground and were kicking and punching him all over his body. This gets gnarly. The
sheriff's report stated one of his eyes was kicked out of his head. Oh my god. Yes. Holy [ __ ] The actual report states
one of his eyes was kicked out of his head. How does that even happen? That is brutal on a level I can't even describe.
Oh my, I just keep closing my eyes. When Anita, the daughter, ran to help her father. Quote, "One of the four men
assaulted her, held her down against the hood of a car, choked her, hit her in the stomach, and threatened her with
death." A neighbor, Jim Swope, came called the police when he heard the assault. And when he ran to help, one of
the amen the men tacked him as well. Holy [ __ ] Because all four men were known to Graham and his daughter, they
were quickly rounded up and charged with assault and intent to do great grievous
bodily harm. Even did do grievous bodily harm. Despite the severity and completely unprovoked nature of the
beating, a judge agreed to release the men on as little as $2500 for bond. Even Blanch was just like, "What
the [ __ ] was that?" I was just going to say that. What? Most of them were out of
jail within a couple days. They kicked a man's eye out. Yeah. Threat and were literally beat his
daughter brutally and threatened to kill her. In his testimony given during the preliminary hearing a month later,
Graham the the victim the the farmer told the judge when they arrived in the pasture, Ken McElroy quote came from the
direction of a nearby house and accused Graham of calling him names. That's what this is from. Graham tried
to tell McElroy that he didn't know him and certainly hadn't called him any names, but McElroy only punched him in
the face and then the three other men joined in after that. Among the injuries he sustained during this attack were
several broken bones in his face. His jaw was broken in two places. He had damage to his left eye which had to be
stitched back into its socket cuz remember it was kicked out of his [ __ ] head. Before fleeing the area,
Ken McElroy told Graham, quote, "We're going to do the same thing to your daughter if you report this." Oh. And he
repeated it twice as he ran out of the scene. What the [ __ ] is wrong with this guy?
He's a demon. He's a demon. A few days later, the charges against McElroy and Glenn Hayward were dropped. Don't even
[ __ ] say it. But this is this proves you right here that polygraph exams are [ __ ] [ __ ] No, they were dropped
after both men passed polygraph examinations testing whether they were involved in the beating, which they
denied. What a joke. But Glenn Graham and Anita Foster were also given polygraph examinations, the two victims,
during which they insisted Miguel Roy and Hayward were the asalants, and they also passed. It's also like, guys, in
this town of a hundred people, there's one man who's been terrorizing all of you for lying. Like, come on. And the
prosecutor told a reporter, "It's the first time I have been faced with defendants and prosecuting witnesses
telling the truth and being of opposite beliefs." What? Like they were like literally like this is the first time
that the polygraph exam has said they are telling the truth and they are also telling the truth but they have opposite
stories. Like at that point they should have thrown it out the window. Yeah. Like that's [ __ ] Hot dog. Like
truly. Yep. So the dismissal of charges against McElroy and Haywood caused outrage among the locals. This was the
moment when everybody was like [ __ ] this [ __ ] The fact that he's going to get
out of this. You can't kick a man's eye out and not expect public outrage. One resident wrote to um a letter to the
local paper and said, "Are these people released to go out and conduct other crimes and maybe kill next time, should
I and other men take the law in our hands to protect the ones we love?" Yes. Which is like, I mean, if the law
enforcement in your town is going to let that [ __ ] happen, so the letter writer
was right to assume that they would go on to commit other crimes. In fact, in the months that followed, Ken and these
associates only seemed to increase their criminal activities in and around Skidmore. Of course they did. They were
emboldened. They were emboldened. In the winter of 69, a farmer's co-op warehouse
was robbed twice of several cases of fertilizer and pesticides, totaling in the thousands. Wow. Expecting that these
thieves were going to return a third time, the co-op hired an elderly night watchman to guard the place and armed
him with a shotgun. A few weeks later, when the guard heard the sound of somebody trying
to break back into the building, he called out and the thieves ran away. But the guard aimed the shotgun in the
direction that they were running away and fired several warning shots just to scare them. The night watchman said he
never saw the faces of the men trying to break in and he couldn't identify them.
But according to Harry McClean, quote, "The night of the third burglary, a man had some shotgun pellets removed from
his rear end in a small town not far from St. Joseph. The man was Ken McElroy." I love that. That elatch man
shot his ass. He shot his ass. Literally. Now, Ken McElroyy's violent and very unpredictable temper and his
growing criminal enterprise at this point were a constant threat to the town and the locals. Yeah. But equally
problematic and much more disgusting to the locals was his constant predation on
teenage girls. In 1961, he was 26 years old and he met and began an affair with Alice Wood, who was a 15year-old girl
who worked at a local pharmacy. And did he he ended up marrying another 15-year-old girl like a few
years earlier. Oh yeah. Yep. Okay. In 1964 he had left his previous wife. Good. And now moved in with Alice and in
1968 they were married. Who was allowing this? That's what it's this time period
is wild. Well, but even at that time I like this is like the 70s. You if your parents allow it then
a lot of these the parents would end up having to they would be like bullied into it. going to keep my mouth shut.
Yeah. Uh like all the other women in his life, Alice suffered constant physical and verbal abuse from Ken that went
unreported for the most part. In one instance early in the marriage, and this is very upsetting, just so you know,
this is like um domestic assault, just so you're aware, Ken returned home to find Alice packing clothes in a box and
immediately exploded into a violent rage cuz he assumed that she was leaving him
before she could explain that she was just putting the clothes into storage for the season. Oh my god. He had quote
grabbed her by the hair and swung her into a wall. Oh my god. Yeah. And this apparently was a very typical experience
that women or young girls who got involved with Ken Mckelroy would deal with on a regular basis. Swing them by
the hair into a wall. He was very physically abusive. Sexually abusive, physically abusive, verbally abusive,
emotionally abusive. Nearly all of Ken's relationships were frowned upon by the town's people, but no one seemed like
they were going to do anything about this behavior. Like they were like being bullied into submission almost. the
worst and most egregious of his relationships, which would also prove to be his last and I think the tipping
point that ended his reign of terror, uh, began sometime in 1969. He met 12year-old Trina McNeely 12. You have to
remember that right now he is 27 years old and she is 12. 12. 12. He was 15 when she was born. Yep.
He's 27 years old and she is 12. He is a [ __ ] monster. I don't even want to know. Yep. So, although he
couldn't prove it at the time, Trina's uncle, Sheriff's Deputy Russ Johnson, suspected Ken of preying on school girls
when he stopped by a school dance one night and found Ken hanging around the middle school girls. Middle school? Like
what the [ __ ] dude? Later, Johnson learned that Ken had intimidated Trina's date into picking her up and bringing
her to him at the school, then bringing her home after. What the [ __ ] So, like
delivering Trina to him essentially. Ew. From that point on, it became common knowledge among the kids on the
schoolyard that Ken had been arranging to meet Trina before or after school, often picking her up at the end of the
school day. Sometimes Trina would get other students to sign her mother's name on absentee
notes and instead of going to class, Ken would meet her at the bus stop and take
her to Skidmore for the day. And again, she's probably excited that an older man
is expressing interest in her because she doesn't know better. Exactly. And also he was keeping her c like he was
threatening her like this was a captive situation and she was just doing whatever she could to survive it. Yep.
Um cuz one former friend said in the beginning she was more or less a captive and then she said then they said and
sooner or later when everybody abandoned her she just gave up and went along with
it cuz that's what they do. They isolate you. Of course that's exactly what he [ __ ] 12year-old. Oh my god.
Throughout the years that he'd known Trina, Ken had abused her in nearly every way possible, including stalking,
sexual assault, setting fire to her parents' home. What? And shooting her dog. No, he has literally stalked, abused,
raped, committed arson to her parents house and shot her dog. Like, I just don't understand why they're not putting
him behind bars. That's what I'm saying. That's how you stop people from doing crazy [ __ ]
[Music] Well, in 1971, when Trina was 14 years old, she became pregnant with Ken's
child and dropped out of school to move in with him and Alice, who she is still living
with. Alice later denied that they lived together at any point, like all in the house together, but he was fearing that
he might be facing statutory rape charges, which uh yes, you absolutely. Why all of a sudden is he fearing that?
bullied her parents into letting him marry her and then and divorced Alice and they married in
1974. Like he like threatened that he would like kill her, threatened he would kill them. Like they were totally put
into a horrible like the whole thing is just beyond anybody's comprehension. Yeah. To
allow certainly beyond my comprehension. I can't comprehend allowing that to happen. I just can't. But you have to
think about if they did allow that to happen, what was going on here. You know what I mean? Like how bad it was. Yeah.
And when you find out what happens to Ken and how um how many people are uh complicit in it happening, he was really
bad for it to go everything you've say. He's raped a 12-year-old. He's raped like multiple 12y olds. Multiple
multiple children. Throughout the 1970s, Ken McElroy continued to terrorize the people of Skidmore with violence, theft,
being a sexual predator, all the fun things. In 1973, he was facing charges of forcible rape, assault with a
dangerous and deadly weapon, and arson, but he was released on bond, and managed
to get the charges dropped. That's good. That makes sense. A few years later in 1976, Ken shot his neighbor, Roma Henry,
in the stomach after a minor argument and was quickly arrested for the shooting. Cuz like you shot your
neighbor bother arresting him, though. Um, this one's wild. Uh, before the trial had even begun, Ken burned the
judge's barn to the ground and stalked several members of the jury and got himself acquitted. Oh, okay. He burned
the judge's barn down and stalked the jury until he was acquitted. That's just a Tuesday for Ken. There is no stopping
him. No, the there is though. Uh the pattern continued four years later when McElroy shot 72year-old Ger Ernest
Bowenamp in the neck. My god. Ken was indicted for the shooting, but when the trial came in summer of 1981, the charge
had been reduced and Miguel Roy was convicted of a simple assault charge and he was released on bond pending an
appeal date which was scheduled for early July. That's good. Bowen Camp's wife Lois said, "Same old story. Police
arrest him. Courts let him go." So, like she told the reporter that she's like, "When is this going to stop? Like, are
we really just going to keep this going?" And the town said, "Yeah." A few days later, one of the locals spotted
Ken and Skidmore waving a gun around, which was in direct violation of the terms of his bond. The witness signed an
affidavit and agreed to testify at the bond hearing, which was brave as [ __ ] When the hearing date arrived, the
town's people learned that the bond hearing had been pushed back to an undecided date in the future. Fantastic.
To everyone in Skidmore, it seemed like Ken McElroy had managed to find a way to
avoid facing every single consequence in his entire life. That must have been maddening. The result they were fearing
was that Ken would only become angrier, more vengeful, more powerful, and eventually he would take it out on the
entire [ __ ] town. Yeah. Had he not already? Like he they were like, "Something even bigger is going to
happen here." Like, "He's not going to stop. We're all going to be dead at the end of this." Yeah. On the afternoon of
July 10th, a large group of Skidmore locals met at a Legion Hall. Town meeting. at a Legion Hall, little town
meeting at the Legion Hall, just to discuss the situation that they found themselves in. For decades, Ken McElroy
had prayed on the people of Skidmore. He had terrorized them. He had kept them hostage in their own homes. I mean, they
were terrifi they were he had victimized them all in one way or another. And it seemed like even law enforcement was too
afraid of him to do anything about it. By that point, he'd shot more than a handful of people. Like, and was liable
to go on doing so until he finally killed people, killed everybody in the town. Yeah. They all agreed something
needed to be done about the situation and if the law wasn't going to do anything about it, maybe they would have
to do something about it. Girl, as the group was talking, as they're talking in the Legion, this is a true like take a
sip of your drink. I'm getting ready like [ __ ] I'm getting a little comfier. As the group was talking, Ken
entered the DNG tavern, which was just like a bar. He had been in a few days earlier after the conviction for
assault. Oh, yeah. And the bartender remembered him saying, "I've been fighting prosecutors since I was 13
years old, and I'm damn near 50. This is the first time I've lost." Oh my god. Imagine that man being in your town for
nearly 50 years, doing the [ __ ] he was doing. Yeah. The conviction, or more likely the loss, had made Ken angry. And
on that day, he was in one of his shittier moods, which almost always meant to the people of Skidmore.
Something bad is going to happen. He's going to hurt someone. As Ken sat quietly at the bar, muttering about the
conviction, pissing and moaning, getting angrier and angrier, one of the patrons
slipped out of the bar and ran over to the Legion Hall and told everybody, "Hey everybody, Ken's over there and he is
[ __ ] spitting mad, so like something bad's going to happen." And the fact that they all knew like this [ __ ] is
mad and bitching about something, somebody's going to get hurt. That's bad. That's scary. Now, ordinarily, this
news would have cleared the room and sent everyone scrambling back to their homes just to wait, locking their doors,
closing their shades. They would like wait things out like until he had chilled out. The group of men, though,
all left the Legion Hall and walked over to D&G Tavern where they found Ken finishing his drink. And the group of
men just stared at him silently, wordlessly until he got up from his bar stool. And then he walked out the door
and they just wordlessly, no one said a [ __ ] word. They all just walked out after him. And again, no one's talking.
And he goes outside and he gets in his truck where Trina, his 12-year-old bride, who is now, you know, she's a few
years older now, but that's that Trina was waiting for him in the truck. The men all watched as Ken put the keys in
the ignition. And then before turning and starting the engine, they watched him light a cigarette. And then out of
nowhere, nobody could figure out where, gunshots rang out. Stop it. One after the other after the other from different
vantage points, different guns, just pow pow pow pow. All whoa, what happened? A
barrage. By the time the shooting had stopped, the car had been riddled with bullets. Was Trina okay? Trina's okay.
Okay. The But the car had been riddled with bullets of various calibers from various guns. Strange. The first shot, a
slug from a 30 3030 rifle, I think it's called. I don't know anything about guns. I apologize. Like, please don't
get mad at me. It's a rifle. Uh, it shattered the back window of the truck and it struck Ken in the base of his
skull, tearing through his tongue and teeth before exiting through his cheek. That's like low-key poetic because
remember that time when he shot a child in the face? Exactly. It would eventually be found a few yards away in
the wall of a small hut down the street from the cavern. Nobody was hurt, don't worry. That's good. Never can. Uh, the
second shot that hit Melroy came from a 22 caliber rifle and was fired from farther down the street. The bullet hit
him in the upper skull and into his brain before exiting the other side of his head. According to man, there was
also quote substantial evidence that a shotgun was also fired at the truck, which would have accounted for the
smaller pellet wounds found in Melroyy's neck and face. How terrible. When the shooting stopped, someone someone pulled
Trina out of the car while this was happening as well. Like literally dragged her to safety. Wow. This is a
movie. Um, and they kept her there until it was all over. When it was clear there
would be no more shootings, someone called the sheriff's department to report the death of Ken McElroy. I said,
"That's crazy. He just killed over." Of course, the sheriff was already in town.
In fact, he had been at the Legion Hall with everyone not long before the shooting. Wait, no way. He He was
getting a drink at that same time. He was at the Legion Hall where the meeting occurred.
Oh, under the circumstances, it wouldn't really be appropriate for him to investigate the
case. Feels like a little bit of a conflict. He said, "You know what? I I have something going on right now." You
know, uh, how about the deputy? The deputy. Maybe get the deputy on this one. So, the case was handed over to the
Northwest Missouri Investigative Squad or Nomis. um a task force of law enforcement officers from the
surrounding counties who occasionally called were called upon to investigate uh unusual crimes. No, don't bother the
task force with this. This he just he it was a bad time he died. This we're not even done. What? Cuz the news of Ken
McElroyy's murder spread quickly and soon journalists from around the country flocked to Skidmore to interview the
town that from all appearances had taken the law into their own hands. Unfortunately for those people, no one
in Skidmore would talk to anybody. Well, they didn't. Literally anybody. And they
never would. What? When I tell you no one talked. No one saw nothing. Wow. No one. Not one person in this town
said, "Let me tell you what I saw." That's brotherhood. In his statement to Nomous investigators and eventually to
Missouri FBI agents, Sheriff Dan Estes, the sheriff that was like, "Whoops, can't be there." Uh, he admitted that he
had met with a group of 35 or 40 men at the Legion Hall that afternoon to discuss their concerns about the Bowen
camp case and like the guy who this 70y old man ger who was shot in the neck. Yeah. And of Mick Elroy in general. They
were just discussing their concerns that he's a problem. That's all. But he adamantly desi denies having anything to
do with the shooting. No. In fact, when the man from the tavern came into the hall to tell them McElroy was in town,
Estes distinctly recalls telling them all, "We're not going to go down there and do anything." Right, boys? Then he
left, assuming everyone would simply go home. That's what he said. And and they did. He said, I told him, "We're not
going down there and doing anything." He did his job. As far as I'm concerned, that sheriff did his job. He said,
"We're not going to do anything, are we?" And they said, "Nope." and he said, "I'll believe you." He said, "Wink."
Based on the evidence collected at the scene and from Miguel Elroyy's body, there had been at least four shooters,
all firing from different positions along the street. That's crazy. One was directly behind the truck. One was off
to the driver's side, another was down the hill a few yards, and another was about half a block away by the post
office. Damn. Despite the fact that there were about 40 people in town that day, investigators found it nearly
impossible to find anything who would admit they saw anything. Anyone? Anyone, anything, nothing, anywhere,
anywhere, anytime, any place. One elderly man, one elderly guy told investigators he'd seen at least three
men with guns just before the shooting started. Couldn't tell you who they were, just that they were guys with
guns. But a short time later, his attorney withdrew the statement that citing his client's health problems. He
never said that and he didn't mean it either. And those who would talk would talk mostly to reporters. Lois Bowen
Campamp who had everything. She said, "I have something to say." She told reporters justice had finally finally
been served. She said, "You know how awful it was living in a town with Ken McElroy?" She said, "My neighbor and I
took turns sleeping at night. It was frightening. God." Yeah. That's how scary it was to live in that town with
him. That tells you something. Yeah. A few weeks later on August 2nd, a grand jury was assembled to review the
evidence and determine whether it was sufficient to warrant an indictment for murder. On who the problem was,
investigators had no suspect to indict. Trina said in her statement, "It seemed so strange. There were vehicles lining
the street, but no people anywhere. A man in the crowd told me to stay in the truck, that they wanted to shoot me,
too, but someone else pulled me out." In the end, the grand jury determined there
wasn't enough evidence to indict anyone, and the district attorney declined to press charges against any of the people
who were there the day McElroy was shot. The coroner's determination was that Ken
was killed by a person or persons unknown. And Trina's lawyer, Richard McFaden, said, "We are disappointed, but
not surprised. Now, we can only hope for the Justice Department to complete its report soon." If Trina and her lawyer
were hoping that something would come out of the Justice Department's report, they were probably disappointed by the
outcome. When he was asked about the potential for an arrest or indictment, District Attorney David Baird told
reporters any hope of making a case against McKelroyy's killer or killers faded when a county grand jury disbanded
to September 28th without issuing issuing any indictments. They said, "We just don't know." A short time later,
the the Missouri FBI wound down their investigation, too, finding little evidence that would lead them to to a
suspect, and virtually no one who would even admit to being in town that day. Damn. Trina and a few members of the
McElroy family tried to speak out against the injustice that they saw, but eventually that died down, too. You feel
for his family? For sure. For sure. That's tough. After spending years researching the case for his book, Harry
McClean isn't convinced that there are many people left in Skidmore who really know what happened. He said, "I don't
think the guys on the street that day went home and told their wives and kids. I think they went back home, got on
their tractors, and shut up." Former sheriff's deputy Dick Luzier more or less agrees with that assumption. He
told a reporter in 2001, "They were so relieved that Ken McElroy was gone that it didn't matter to them whether the
shooting was right or wrong. In the four decades since his murder, no one has ever been charged with or even
suspected of Miguely's murder. No suspects. Damn. Mayor Tracy Shuy said, "Just because those bad things happen doesn't
mean the whole town and the whole community is bad. For newcomers, it does come up. But what we say is that's not
all that we're about. We've had a couple of things that have been not so pleasant, but to us, that doesn't define
the town. Please see past that. If you can't, you've got to move on. She said, "If you can't, get the [ __ ] out of
schedule." Tracy said, "Get the [ __ ] out of here. We don't have much anymore. It
is what it is." She said, "Shut your mouth." And that is the wild death of Ken McElroy, known as the town bully,
which is a nice name, I would say, for him. It's a good anecdote to learn from. Yeah. You can't spend your life
terrorizing your community. Don't do it. that the ending of that case had my jaw
on the [ __ ] ground. Well, I know. I didn't really see that coming. I'm very glad that Trina was not hurt in that
that somebody pulled her out of the situation. And I'm sorry for his family that they didn't because it's like, you
know, it's it's a person. It's a person that Yeah. And you know, I'm sure they had different feelings for him. Of
course they did. Like there are monsters in every family that, you know, that their family loves. So it's like, you
know, that's just the way it is. And obviously vigilante justice is a very slippery slope and a very a lot. It's a
complex and very nuanced thing. There's it's you know this is a situation where you go by wow
that I'm more I'm mostly interested in the fact that I rarely see people come together and just keep a secret like
that or keep just no one saw nothing. That's wild. But I think they're right. I think this is a this was a community
of like farmers and you know bluecollar workers and they're all you know like they're working hard during a hard time
and they're getting their [ __ ] rocked every day and they're getting their [ __ ]
rocked every day by this guy. Most of them are scared to go to sleep and like the fact that she said the children
aren't safe. The children aren't safe. He's going to schoolards like he's going to school dances. Like there's nowhere
that anywhere is safe here. And if you didn't know like any other detail other than the fact that one woman said her
and her neighbor took shift sleeping. That alone tells you tell you what kind of fear he had them living under. Can
like genuinely sit here right now and imagine you call up your neighbor to wake them up because it's their turn to
watch for the town bully. Yeah. Like that's crazy. And that was not even that long ago. And they were just they were
tired of living under complete tyranny and just like you know well and if the law is not
going to do anything in a case. I'm not saying what's right and what's wrong. I'm just saying like this is a wild
case. Yeah. It's a wild case of you can't treat people like [ __ ] for your whole life. Yeah. And expect anything
good to come out of it. It's hard to say too much, but Exactly. Like because again I'm not condoning shooting people
by any stretch of the imagination. It's a horrifying sight to think about. Yeah,
it actually it's more or less just me saying you got to think about how you treat people. Yes. Because people do
people in in every different way. So you don't know what you're doing here. I've
never heard another story quite like that. Me neither. It's shocked. That's the thing. It's just a shocking shocking
story. Dave found that one. Dave found that one. Dave Dave Dave craziest [ __ ] Dave finds the crazy like the some of
the most fascinating stories and most interesting ones I've heard. Everyone came out of the mind of Dave for real.
Damn. Wow. Well, yeah. We hope you keep listening and after that we're pretty sure you will. Hell yeah. And we hope
you but not so weird that you terrorize a town to the point where there's quite literally no return. Yes. Don't just
don't do that. They'll meet at the Legion Hall. They will. Or the VFW. That's all I could picture. Yeah, that's
basically it. Bye. [Music] [Music]

On July 10,1981, forty-seven-year-old Ken McElroy was sitting in his truck in Skidmore, Missouri with his wife, Trina, when the vehicle was struck by a hail of gunfire that seemed to come from all directions. Although there were nearly fifty witnesses to the shooting, they all claimed not to have seen the shooters, and none of them called an ambulance. Later, when asked why no one did anything to help McElroy or cooperate with investigators, the people of Skidmore all agreed, Ken McElroy got what he deserved.

The story of Ken McElroy’s death captured the nation’s attention, primarily because it amounted to a modern-day lynching. However, while no one denies that McElroy’s death was murder, few people in and around Skidmore were interested in holding anyone accountable for the shooting. In fact, many seemed pleased to hear of McElroy’s death, which raised the question, how could someone become so hated by their neighbors that they’d be willing to overlook one of the most heinous crimes?

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Associated Press. 1981. "FBI enters Missouri shooting case." New York Times, July 18: 6.

—. 1981. "Little chance of trial in 'town bully' shooting." St. Joseph News-Press, October 26: 1.

Graham, O.E. 1968. "What is justice?" St. Joseph News-Press, July 19: 9.

Hansen, Rose. 2018. Skidmore revisited. February 6. Accessed April 9, 2025. https://missourilife.com/skidmore-revisited-part-1-death-ken-mcelroy-2/.

Loh, Jules. 1981. "Brute of Nordaway County: chilling rembeberances ." Kansas City Star, August 2: 1.

MacLean, Harry. 1988. In Broad Daylight: A Murder in Skidmore, Missouri. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

McGuire, Donna. 2001. "Two decades after bully's death, Skidmore still guards its secrets." Kansas City Star, July 10: 1.

St. Joseph News-Press. 1968. "Dismissals to 2 more defendants in beating case." St. Joseph News-Press, July 11: 9.

—. 1968. "Four now charged in beating of man, attack on woman." St. Joseph News-Press, June 14: 7.

—. 1973. "Three charges against man." St. Joseph News-Press, September 22: 5.

—. 1968. "Victim of assault testifies four men struck, kicked him." St. Joseph News-Press, July 4: 1.

Stewart, Paul. 1981. "Grand jury disappoints lawyer." St. Joseph News-Press, September 26: 1. Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Hosts Ash and Elena recount their Disney trip and discuss the vigilante justice surrounding the death of town bully Ken McElroy.

Key points

Disney Trip Reflections. Ash and Elena share their experiences and tips from a recent Disney trip.
The Death of Ken McElroy. A discussion about the brutal life and death of the town bully.
Ken's Troubled Childhood. Ken McElroy grew up in poverty, largely unnoticed by his family, leading to a troubled youth.
Tony's Violent Defense. When Ken was caught stealing, his father Tony threatened the store owner with a knife.
Ken's Criminal Beginnings. Ken began his criminal career by stealing farm animals, evading consequences due to his reputation.
Ken's Predatory Behavior. Ken's relationships with underage girls raised alarm in the community, highlighting his criminality.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was borderline about to cry.

Describing the emotional moment with Tiana.

5:52WatchMay 15, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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