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The Strange Unsolved Murder of Ken McElroy · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
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  Speaker 1: Stuff youshould do dot com yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Or linktree slash sysk.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We'll see everybody then. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
• 0:44
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• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, pushing us around as usual
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: for this episode of Stuff you Should.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Know, our second episode for us of the New Year.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: And why didn't we save like a pretty happy one
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to get going with.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, Probably because we knew
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: we were going to be so bummed out after Jonestown.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: We needed something that was a pick me up. And
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: what's crazy is this story actually is a pick me
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: up compared to Jonestown.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, that's tough to parse out. So thank you
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Tolivia for diving into this tough story. And also this episode,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: we want to issue a very big trigger warning because
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in it we are going to talk about a very
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: bad man and some of the bad things he did,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: which included sexual assault and some of which were with minors.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So trigger warning. Know that going in. There's no way
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: around it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: There's very few stories that have like a clear cut villain,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: but this is one of them. And the villain who's
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: also the center of our story. The person at the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: center of our story is a man named ken Rex McElroy. Yeah,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: which I mean all you need to hear is that name, really,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I think, and it kind of just puts a weird
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: chill down your spine that you can't quite identify yet.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a story that you may have heard
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: of before. There's no shortage of content about Ken McElroy.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: There was a book written in nineteen eighty eight by
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Harry McLain, a crime writer, called in Broad Daylight, You
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Know What's Coming colon our murder in Skidmore, Missouri. There
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: was a documentary just a few years ago in twenty
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen called a documentary series actually called No One Saw
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a Thing, of which I watched at the first episode.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: How is it? I didn't get a chance to yet.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk about it. It's okay.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's got like a seven plus on IMDb. That's really
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: saying something.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Chuck gives it a six minus.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, Still it's not too bad.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It's okay. I mean, not a ton of light was shed.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: So maybe it's because if I went into it blind
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: it might have been a little better.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: But there's also a nineteen ninety one TV movie starring
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Brian Denahey and Marcia gay Harden, which I actually I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: watched a very bad YouTube version of it. Mostly I
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: scribbed through a little bit of it. But it's actually
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: not terrible for a nineteen ninety one TV movie, largely
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: because Brian Dennehey is perfectly cast and awesome.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he really is. I don't understand why they changed
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the names. Did Harry MacLean change the names for in
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Broad Daylight?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't read the book, but I don't know. Sometimes
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: they do that with TV movies. Huh, well, regardlessly the innocent.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: You know, I scrubbed ahead to the last probably thirty minutes,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: so all the good stuff.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: That's kind of all you need.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And you're right. Brian Denney was great and Marcia J.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Harden did a great job at the really important point.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a tremendous actor, as was Denney. Rip Brian Denney.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So Ken Rex McElroy. He was from Skidmore, Missouri. That's
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: where this story takes place. He was the fifteenth of
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: sixteen kids. From what I saw, he was born in
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty four. And you can be the wealthiest person
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: in your state and have sixteen kids and you're still
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: going to be hard scrabble. Sure, his dad wasn't the
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: wealthiest person in the state. So the mcelroys grew up
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: kind of doing what they could to make their own way.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And Ken himself, I saw either he made it up
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to age fifteen in school, which is a surprising statistic
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: to me after I know a little more about him.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I also saw that he was illiterate, which I would
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: definitely believe more than the fact that he made it
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: up to age fifteen in school. Either way, at a
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: young age, he he started taking up crime. You get
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the impression not just out of necessity, but also probably
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: out of a certain amount of pleasure.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was to frame it. And then nineteen forties.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: He was born in thirty four, so by the time
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: he was criming, it was in nineteen forties. One thing
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: we should mention is, and I'm glad Livia dug this up,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and this is no way excusing any of his behaviors,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: but when he was eighteen year years old, he was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a working construction and there was an accident where some
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: very heavy cribbing fell about thirty feet and hit him
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: in the head. He had a construction helmet, but it
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: cut his scalp, so it clearly, you know, provided minimal protection.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: And he said that he had a steel plate implanted
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and had episodes of blackout episodes and pain throughout the
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: rest of his life. And it should be noted that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: one common denominator in many cases of you know, sick
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: people who do awful things is head injury when they're younger,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: so that very well may have been the case. Again,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: not excusing anything he did, but we're trying to paint
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a full picture here.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: He was like a modern day Phineas Gage.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And like you said, it seemed like he
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: enjoyed criming from a young age. He was a pretty
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I mean this is before the accident, even he was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a pretty disturbed young man.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, I have to say, yeah, I would say
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I would definitely agree with that. But he did do stuff.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He wasn't just like a lay about like. He was
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: a kind of an industrious criminal. He also trained hunting dogs.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: He was a dealer of antiques, a buyer and seller,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: but more than anything, he was a cattle wrestler. Apparently,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the year before his death, the county that Skidaways in
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: our Skidmores and not a Way county, the cattle thefts
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: were six times that of any other place in the state.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: It led the state in cattle thefts, and apparently a
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: lot of that was Ken McElroy. He was flush with cash.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: He would buy new cars, he could support. He ended
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: up having at least ten kids could support them all.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: He had a lot of money and all of it
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: essentially was from crime. Because he had a tiny little
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: farm and he wasn't making much of any money off
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: of that. He was making it from stealing.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we say he had a lot of money,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it's not the kind of it's not wealth. He had
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the kind of money for a criminal in the nineteen
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: sixties and Skidmore, Missouri.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: He had skid More money.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is to say, oh, I hope there's no
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: skid Marians. There's a couple hundred of them, well listening
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to us.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just assume the whole town listens to us.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Anyway, they're probably so sick of the story. But he's
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the kind of money guy that like he always had
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: like a few grand in his pocket with a big,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: fat money roll, like that kind of dude. He was
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a big guy. He was like six two or sixty three,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: had this sort of here again kind of like Jim
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Jones men of the time, had this jet black hair
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and these huge side burns. He was imposing. But he
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: picked on people smaller than him. He picked on women
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and children and young girls and took advantage of all
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: these people. And he was arrested and charged at least
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: twenty one times without being convicted. And if you're thinking, like,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: how in the world does that happen? When people know
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: he's committing crimes, he's getting arrested of these committing these crimes.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It's because he had a very, I guess good slippery
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: attorney named Richard Jean mcfahten who was supposedly a mob
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: attorney in Kansas City. And upon their first meeting, he
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: was like, you can't afford me, and McElroy said, let
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: me be the judge of that, pulled out that big
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: fat roll from his pocket, threw it on the desk,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and McFadden was delighted to have him as a cash
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: paying client who listened to him.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so McFadden was so was so good at getting
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: them off. He well, actually they worked together. McFadden was
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: good at getting him off, but it was he probably
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have been nearly as successful as Ken McElroy hadn't
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: have been also a very active participant in getting himself off.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: So Gene McFadden would get delay after delay, all these
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: procedural delays to just really put as much time between
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Ken McElroy's arrest and the actual trial date as possible,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and then Ken McElroy would get busy intimidating witnesses, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: if it got closer and closer to trial and in
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: a jury wasn't paneled. He would intimidate the jurors. He
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: would threaten their lives. He would threaten the lives of
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: their families. He would threaten to burn their houses down.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: He would threaten to kill them. He would threaten not
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: just with words, he would intimidate them by parking in
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: their driveways, by brandishing guns at them, by shooting guns
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: in the air, sometimes in the night, outside of their house,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: like just It would take a couple of these for
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the average person to be like, I can't this is
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: not what I've signed up for. This guy is scaring
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: me to death. Some people lasted longer than others, but
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: most of the time, almost in every single time, eventually
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: he would intimidate enough of the witnesses that the cases
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: would fall apart. And that is how he became what
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Crime Library referred to as this teflon coated hicic.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely like he shot a guy in the stomach
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: in July of nineteen seventy six, a guy named Romayne Henry.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: And yes, you heard me right, Romaine Farmer spelled exactly
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: like the lettuce? Was he named after the lettuce? Because
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: was he a lettuce farmer?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Did they farm letus in Missouri.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: They did in you in Arizona, I think just.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: For the sake of this story. Yes, he absolutely was
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: a Romaine Lettuce farmer. His parents raised him to be.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: One and named him after that Lettuce. So he was
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: shot in the stomach with a shotgun, was not killed,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and it got away with it, you know. In the documentary,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: like Romaine Henry pulls up his shirt and he's like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: here's where he shot me, and court witnesses he you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: like you said earlier, he was one of his side hustles,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: was raising and training and selling hunting dogs, and he
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: was well liked by some people, like the people that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: he dealt with with these hunting dogs. Other crime type
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: people liked him. So he had this stable of dudes
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that would go to court and testify on his behalf
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and provide him with alibis and say, like, he didn't
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: shoot him in the stomach. He was with us at
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the time of the shooting. So he got away with
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: shooting Romayne Henry in the stomach with a shotgun. Even.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to make sure that you understand what
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: kind of person Kim McElroy was the reason that he
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: shot Romayne Henry in the stomach was because Romayne Henry
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: approached him and said, hey, will you please not shoot
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: pheasants out of season on my land anymore? And Kim
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: McElroy responded by shooting him in the stomach because he
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: told him basically to stop shooting birds illegally on that
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: man's land.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't matter who you were. There was a cop,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: even a highway patrolman named Richard Stratton hashtag hero. Yeah
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: who had you know? Plenty of run ends, obviously with
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: McElroy because like you said, this is a town of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you know, a few hundred people at the time. I
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: think yep, maybe like four or five hundred again, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: so everyone knew this guy, including obviously Richard Stratton, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: he had a bunch of run ins, And so McElroy
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: started threatening his home and his family. One day, his wife,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Margaret was on our way to church. She got in
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the car to go to church and McRoy walks up
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to the car, puts a shotgun in her face. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: he did that to cops, wives, he did it to judges.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The county magistrate, Montgomery Wilson, was so fearful that he
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: wouldn't take these cases. He would have them move to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: other nearby counties like he was. People called him the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: town bully, but that is the kindest way to describe him,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: because he was also a child molester and rapist.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I say we take a break and then come
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: back and talk about this, all.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Right, We'll be right back, all right. So when we
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: left off, I leveled a pretty serious allegation, which is
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: absolutely true, that Ken McElroy was a child molester and rapist.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And this is one hundred percent true. The story gets
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: very twisted and convoluted here, but it's kind of hard
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to follow along because he was married and then had
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend and a wife at the same time, but
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: then another one and then another. Wooden would come in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and they're overlapping, and he's having kids with most of them,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and it gets very confusing. But like you said, he
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: fathered ten kids. A lot of them were with underage girls.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: He got married for the first time in nineteen fifty
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: two when he was eighteen and his wife, Alita was sixteen,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and he is not like he calmed down or anything.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: He would pray and stalk in groom girls as young
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: as twelve thirteen years old, one of which was a
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: fifteen year old name Sharon, and they it was sort
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: of a familiar pattern where he would he would groom
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and stalk these young teenage girls. He would abuse them,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: he would rape them and threaten them with death and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: somehow end up with them and not not somehow through
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: coercion and threaten intimidation.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he would get so he would be married already,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: and like you said, he'd be stalking and raping and
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: abusing some other younger girl at the same time. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: then inevitably, when charges were about to be brought against
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: him because of his like rape and abuse and in
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: one case shooting of one of the girls, he would
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: he would convince them to marry him. He would go
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: to his wife and be like, we have to get
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: divorced because I got to marry this girl so that
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: she won't testify against me. And he would be successful.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And if they refused at first, he would use those
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: same tactics that he used to intimidate witnesses to intimidate
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: these girls into marrying him and becoming his wife. And
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: then astoundingly, he would go find a younger girl and
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: start the whole thing over again. Like this guy got
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: married more than once to keep the girl that he
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: was raping from testifying against him, because back then a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: wife couldn't testify against her husband.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, we don't need to get into
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: every single one of those details, but suffice it to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: say this was happening over and over and over remarkably sometimes.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You know. Obviously, these girls parents would put up a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: fight and get involved, and he would intimidate and threaten
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: them to the point where at one point he and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: this is the wife he had sort of when the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: final incident went down. Trina McLeod, who he got together with,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: this just so sick. When she was twelve or thirteen
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: year years old, was like picking her up from the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: school bus. Yeah, and school officials were like, something's going
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: on with this creep. No one ever did anything, got
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: her pregnant at fourteen, and moved her into the house
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: he shared with the previous young girl that he was with.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So he had a son with Trina in nineteen seventy three,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and a couple of others with this young girl, Alice,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and went to Trina's parents' house. They obviously are saying like,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: you can't keep our daughter like this, and he held
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: them back at gunpoint, brought the girls back, continue to
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: abuse them, and then eventually he would burn down the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: house of Trina McLeod's parents and shoot and kill their
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: family dog. Yeah, is he a bad enough guy at
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: this point? All right, dear listener.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Apparently he somehow Trina ended up being treated by a
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: doctor somewhere or other. The doctor got the story out
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: of her, and the doctor was like, wait, can you
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: tell me all that one more time? And I guess
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: she did. And the doctor called the authorities, and this
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: time McElroy was in a lot of trouble and they
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: took Trina to child services and took her to a
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: family foster, a foster family, and he started stalking the
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: foster family and stalking their biological kids and threatening to
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: rape and kill them. And that foster family would not
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: give in. They were protecting Trina up until the time.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Trina's like, all right, I forgive you. I'm going back
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to you, and I'm sure that foster family is like,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe Yeah, I can't believe this,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Like can you can't make that decision? And she did
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and he got away with it yet again because he
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: got her to marry him to keep her from being
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: able to even testify against her and Gene McFadden in
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: a show of just how sleazy lawyers can be, served
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: as the way witness to their wedding. I think she
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: was fifteen at the time, and at the end of
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: the ceremony got her to sign a document saying all
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the things she told that doctor were lies and they
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: lived as husband and wife.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: That's right. So this is this was his final wife,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: young trinam Cloud. He apparently got her parents because you know,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you needed to have permission to get married at that age,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and her parents acquiesced because he threatened to burn down
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the new house that they either bought or built. And
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: this is where I get to the documentary, like a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: lot of it should be taken with a grain of salt,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: because some of the local townspeople they interview are clearly
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: sort of just maybe don't have all the facts straight.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Because someone in that documentary said that he burned their
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: house down again and shot their other new dog, and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't see anywhere else where that happened. I think
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it was just a threat or whatever.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: He killed a monkey too, right, That's what I heard.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Deal with the documentary. So this is the this is
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: going on. He's terrorizing this town. Everyone knows he's an
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: awful guy. He's just can't be overstated what an awful
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: creep that he is. And I mean creep isn't even
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: that's way too soft to describe a guy like this. Finally,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty he sort of pushes his luck. As
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Livia would call this section, things have kind of come
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit to a head. They're these local shopkeepers.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: They ran the B and B grocery there in town
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Lois and Earnest bow Bowen Camp and they apparently his
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you know, his kids would go in there and chop
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: lifts all the time, his very young kids. And one
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of his young daughters, her name was Tonya or Tanya,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how that was pronounced.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Na.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Tanya was like four years old and was stealing candy
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: from the store. They confronted this young girl, and of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: course McElroy wouldn't stand for that, so he starts up
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: with his usual routine, parking outside their store, staring them down,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: brandishing a shotgun and carrying it around with him. And
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in July of that year, McElroy approached bo Bowen Camp
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the grocery store owner. They had a brief conversation and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: he shot this seventy year old man through the neck again,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: not killing him, but wounding him.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Bo and Lois Bowen Camp were like
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: beloved in the town. Oh yeah, this is a big deal.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: He had assaulted and a beloved elderly shopkeeper, grocer who
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: fed the town, and even McElroy knew it was a
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: big deal. He fled, he tried to get out of
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the state. And you mentioned Richard Stratton, the Missouri Highway
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: patrolman who had run ins over and over and over
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: again with Ken McElroy. Well, he was out on patrol
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: night when that happened or that day, I guess, and
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: he got the all points bulletin er to be on
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: the lookout for Ken McElroy. And at the time, the
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Sheriff's office, the rest of the Highway patrol they were
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: setting up roadblocks, looking on every highway that they could
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: for Ken McElroy. But Richard Stratton said, no, I know
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: this guy. He's got a police scanner. He knows exactly
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: where they are. He's going to take every back road
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: he confined to get to Kansas and get out of
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the state and lay low for a while, and Richard
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Stratton said, I know he's going to have to go
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: through Fillmore, Missouri to get to Kansas, and I'm going
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: to stake that place out. And in short order, Ken
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: McElroy came driving through in his Silverado with Trina in
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: the seat and he ended up getting busted by Richard Stratton.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: He was caught. And this again even he knew this
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: one was a big deal.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he finally was taken into custody this time.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: He I don't know if he just had an instinct
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: that there was probably no way out of this one,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: but he hired his trusteelawyer again McFadden, who said, all right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: let's move this thing to Harrison County first of all,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and here's our plan is. We're going to say that
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this was a dispute with Bowen Camp. This this sort
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of argument you guys had over your daughter's stealing, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that he pulled a knife on you and that it
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: was self defense and you were you were forced to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: do that. He was still using his you know, typical
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: playbook intimidation tactics on the Bowen Camps, but they refused
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to budget, which was great so that was their that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: was their defense. We should also mention while this is
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: going on, he continues his reign of terror on the town.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: There's a there was a Christian church whose minister was
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Tim Warren. And if you don't know anything about sort
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of small town actually probably even larger town ministers. Part
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of their job they don't just get up there and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: preach on Sundays, is they have to minister to the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: congregation in their community. So they will do things. Preachers
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and ministers will like come and check in on people
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: they're sick. They will visit people in the hospital if
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: they're injured or you know, or having some troubles. And
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: this is what Tim Warren was doing when he checked
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in on, or had planned to check in on Lois
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Bowen Camp and he got a call saying, don't go
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: see old man Bowen Camp. It's gonna be bad news
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: for you. He did it under cover by borrowing a
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: friend's truck and going in that but got a call
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, I knew that that was you there
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: within your friend's truck. Nice try and if you do
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: this again, I'm going to rape and murder your wife.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the reverend, the local reverend, Reverend Lovejoy is
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: just told that his wife is going to be raped
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: and murdered.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Right, that's right.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't get what the point of that was, did you.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't see any interpretation of that. I just saw
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: it explained or described. I never saw it explained.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I think just anyone sort of on the Bowen
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Camp side, because who knows, like the reverend could have
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: been and called to testify or something.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: He knows, I got you.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: That makes me think he was just trying to shut
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it all down, kind of like with the town marshall.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, so the town marshal nice setup. David Dunbar
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: was twenty four at the time, and if you were
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: town marshall of Skidmore, you not only had to call
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the sheriff when there was an actual, real, real trouble
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: because you weren't really allowed to do anything. You had
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to provide your own gun. The city would pay for
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: your ammunition, but you had to provide your own gun.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And David Dunbar was like, I don't even care about
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: this job. I took this job because I wanted to
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: win a bet that I had with my buddy for
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: a case of beer, right, and so In short order,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: he gets pulled into this whole thing by Ken McElroy,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: who pulls a gun on him, holds him at gunpoint.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I saw it for like twenty minutes at the Punkin Festival.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not punkin Junkin'.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: No, the Punkin Festival or the Punkin show. That's what
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I saw it as.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they chunked in no punks, yes.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: No, but David Dunbar. David Dunbar did say like, that's
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: it for me, man, I really didn't care that much
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: about this job anyway. I'm not going to stand up
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: to Ken McElroy. You guys need to find yourself another
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: marshal and they said, fine, we will, and then they couldn't.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: So the town was without a marshall even for a
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: little while.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: They probably didn't need one.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't sound like it was very effective
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: as positions go. And also the other thing I said,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: they need to call the sheriff. I saw someone intimate
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: that the sheriff may not have either taken Ken McElroy
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and the trouble he caused seriously, or he may have
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: been a friend or a sympathetic ally or something to
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Ken McElroy, because apparently he was not super responsive to
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Ken McElroy trouble calls.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: You know, he was interviewed in this documentary. He certainly
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: didn't seem sympathetic. He might have been intimidated as well.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's possible. I wouldn't blame him, frankly.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So this takes more than a year, I'm sorry, close
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to a year to come to trial because of all
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the delays that you know, McFadden, that's his game. Finally
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it does and there's another green. Like almost everyone in
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: this story seems like they were like very young at
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the time. Yeah. The prosecutor, his name was David Baird.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: He was a super young attorney. He was the county
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: prosecutor so named, just a few months earlier, and all
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, this kid is charged with prosecuting the case.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: He convicted him of second degree assault and sentenced him
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to two years in jail. And this was the very
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: first conviction after this year's long reign of terror on
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: this town that he faced. Of course, McFadden appealed. The
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: judge said you're out on forty thousand dollars bail, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Baird said, oh, it sounds fine to me.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So like after shooting Bo Bo and Camp getting
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: caught by the highway patrol, he gets let out on
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars bond, which he probably paid his bail
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: in cash from his pocket, and the town was like,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: you've got to be kidding me, Like you let this
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: guy free. Okay, we will will hang in there. We're
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: just gonna ride this out. And almost immediately Ken McRoy
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: was like, how can I get my bond revoked? I know,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I'll go show up at the local tavern in Skidmore,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the DNG Tavern, and I'll bring a M one carbine
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: rifle with bayonet on me, and I'll talk about how
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to use it to finish off Bo Bowen
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Camp in front of everybody in the bar. And that's
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: exactly what he did. And there just happened to be
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: a couple of brave souls. One of them was Pete Ward,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I think it was he and his sons who went
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and fo like confronted him about it and then went
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: and filed the complaint and said this guy needs his
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: bond revoked, And a bond hearing was set up ten
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: days from then, and that set up all of the
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: machinations that were now going to bring this story to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: its climax? Is it time for ad break? Have we
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: had a second one?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, if that's not a perfect setup for ad breakman,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: we've never had one.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So I said that Ken McElroy has basically just brandished
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: an arm. He's walking around town talking about he's going
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: to finish off the guy he's been now convicted of assaulting.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: But he's out on bail, and Pete Ward and his
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: sons go file a complaint and a bond hearing to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: see if his bond should be revoked is set up
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: for ten days, and those ten days pass, and on
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the tenth day, the day of his bond hearing, a
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: group of farmers around town who have just had it
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: up to here with Ken McElroy come to the American
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Legion Hall to basically go to court with Pete Ward
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: and Bobo and Camp and show solidarity but also show
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that these guys are protected. You better not mess with them.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. By most accounts, it was most of the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: adults in the town were at this American Legion Hall meeting.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I think there were like a little over one hundred
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: adults maybe living there, and it seemed like eighty of
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: them were at this American Legion Hall meeting.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot of people there.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: So they find out there that McFadden had gotten that
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: hearing delayed, that bond hearing delayed for ten more days,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: so instead of July tenth, it's going to be July twentieth.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: They called the sheriff Danny EST's in that we talked about,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and he basically said, you know, there's nothing that we
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: can do about it. And this is where I think
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that maybe I don't think he was friendly to McElroy.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I think he was just a law about biting sheriff
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that was like, you know, what do you want to do,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: like go kill this guy in the street, Like, we
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: can't do that. All we can do is keep tabs
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: on this guy and you know, stick together. It is
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: probably a good idea. So they said, that's a great idea.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: We should form a large group and stalk him, follow
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: him around. Their strengthen numbers if we get enough of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: us together, Like what's this guy gonna do? Kill all
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of us? There are some people that were at this
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: meeting that was like, you know, no one was talking
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: about doing anything more than that. Other people said, yeah,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: there were some people that were so you know, pissed
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: off about all this, that were like, we need to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: take matters into our own hands, Vigilanti style. And they
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: found out at this meeting that he's back in town
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: with his wife. They went to the tavern, the DNG tavern,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: still morning, mind you. They're in there drinking and they
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: all go down there. They walk in there as a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: group and fill this tavern about fifty to sixty people,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and it's clear what's going on. McElroy would not be intimidated.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: He did leave, but he apparently just sort of thumbed
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: his nose in their faces, bought a six pack to go,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and was like, you know, let's get out of here, Trina,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and walked out.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this crowd was like, okay, I kind of
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: like this following this guy around, watching his every step thing,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And they actually walked out of the bar with him,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: and supposedly there was between thirty and sixty people. Some
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: people had cleared out. Romayne Henry, who meet shot in
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the stomach before, said that he sensed that this crowd
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: was possibly out for blood and he didn't want to
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: have anything to do with it, so he laughed. So
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: not everybody who was in the VFW Hall or the
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: American Legion Hall was in the parking lot of the
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: D ANDNG tavern, but a significant number of people were
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: and they had Ken McElroy and Trina surrounded in Ken
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: McElroy Silverado. Ken McElroy apparent lee had the car turned on,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: still had him park. He pulled out a cigarette and
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: I saw that he either had just lit it or
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: was about to light it when somebody shot him in
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: the head with a high powered hunting rifle and then
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: followed that up with a shot to the neck, with
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Trina right next to him, who was suddenly covered in
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: his blood.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, through the back wind shield of the pickup truck,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I imagine instantly killed him with that first shot. His
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: foot slams on the gas and this thing is revving
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: at like full bore. This old truck starts smoking and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: eventually blows the engine and it just goes silent. Trina
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: apparently urinated herself, was initially told to stay in the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: car or she would be killed two and then gets
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: hustled out of this truck into a nearby bank, and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: a bunch of more shooting happens until the shooting stops.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It's about twenty seconds worth of shooting. People go up
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: peek in this truck. McElroy is hunched over. No one
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: helps the guy at all, and in the end they
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: figure out he was hit by two different bullet types,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: so two different guns had actually made contact with his body,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: two different bullets. So, you know, in the documentary again
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: there were people that were like, you know, five or
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: six people shot him, three or four people shot him,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: like everyone sort of got their own story, but as
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: far as the you know, autopsy goes, there were two
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: different calibers of bullet.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because here's the twist to this whole story. We
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: don't know at the very least, the law can't say
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: who killed Kim McElroy. They were between thirty to sixty
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: people who were standing right there when he was killed
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: from several feet away, and no no one saw a thing.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: The town circled the wagons and clammed up to this.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Day, Yeah, the town fully cleared out right after that,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and like he was just sitting there alone in the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: middle of town, dead in his truck. Apparently they went
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: into some local businesses in this One woman in the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: documentary said, we were just sort of hanging out in there,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: and someone came in and said it's over. You can
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: sleep tonight. Now just stand behind us.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did, man, I mean they did the
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: law I saw. Depending on who you ask, the law
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: took this very seriously like any other murder, and investigated
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: and tried to prosecute it. Others are like, yeah, the
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: local law didn't try that hard because everybody knew that
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: this was actually justice, even though it was a grotesque
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: form of justice.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Either way, no one was ever prosecuted. No one was
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: even ever arrested or charged with the murder of Ken
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: mackleroy because not a single witness would crack. There was
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: apparently one witness who shortly after said that they saw
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a man named del Clement and another man speed off
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: very quickly right after the shooting, and that person apparently said, oh,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I was mistaken. That's the closest the cops
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: got to a witness statement about who may have shot
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Ken McElroy. No one would say anything. Some people were
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: interviewed five to six times. Yeah, and no one cracked.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: They would not crack. And yet whoever said that they
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: saw del Clement speed off was probably telling the truth
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: because Trina Ken's wife, who by this time is twenty
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: four and looks a lot like somebody who would have
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: been friends with Eileen Warnos, it says that she turned
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: around right before the shooting started and saw very clearly
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Dell Clement, owner co owner of the DG TAB, taking
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: aim and shooting Ken McElroy in the head with his
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: deer rifle.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was not only the owner of the tavern,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: but he had a livestock that had been pilfered. Apparently
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it was a big hot head, and I get the
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: sense took great pleasure in pulling that trigger, as the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: sense I got. There was a lady in the documentary
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and again this is the grain of salt, that said
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that the main gun was thrown in a river. So
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, very interesting. I hadn't heard that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: anywhere else. But she also said right after that she
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: heard that they had McElroy's head in a head somewhere
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: and a freezer thing. So they couldn't do like more,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I guess bullet ballistics work or whatever.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you couldn't find it because it was stolen by
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a monkey.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that happened. There was another guy
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: in there named Britt Small, and I get the feeling
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: they just kind of gathered up whoever was still around
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and was like, you know, talk to me. And Britt
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: was a local guy, Vietnam veteran. He was like, you
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: know what, the only mistake they made is that they
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: let Trina live. I would have killed him in his driveway.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I would have ambushed them, both, killed her and him
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and burned his house down. That's what I would have done.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Well, she if you read newspaper accounts, like immediately after,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the Kansas City Star had a couple of articles like
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: the week after like she's scared to death or she
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: sounded scared to death that she was going to be next,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: or that her kids were going to be murdered. And
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: then of course the townspeople that they interviewed for the
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: same article are like, no one wishes her and ill
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: will right, you know, she's not in any danger, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: she swore that she was told to stay out of Skidmore,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: doon't ever come back, or else she was going to
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: get it and her kids would be after that. It's
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It probably just depends on which town
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: person you talk to.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, both things can be true, they could have
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: felt like she was a victim, but also please leave.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And apparently when she was hustled off to
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the bank, whoever did that saved her life because even
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: if they hadn't have been aiming for she probably would
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: have gotten hip by a straight bullet after that second round.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: But when she was hustled at the bank, there was
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: like a crowd, like you said to people there that
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: seemed to be just sitting there watching, like people knew
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: what was about to happen or what was going down.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: And she said they didn't need to do them like that,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: and someone said they had no choice. So even if
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: you didn't agree with that mob, justice that had taken place,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: and you were a Skidmore resident, at the very least
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: you weren't about to turn on your fellow townspeople, certainly
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: not for the likes of somebody like Ken McElroy or Trina.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And in the end, you know, they couldn't with
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: only Trina's word, there was nothing they could do that
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: young Prosecutor Baird and the FBI said, you know, this
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: is all we've got. We can't move forward. Everyone else
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: is saying they don't know what happened. The FBI closed
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: their investigation on September two, nineteen eighty two, and I
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: believe the share off. I'm sorry. The LEAs chief how
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Riddle was running the investigation, and he said, you know,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: he was really trying to get this case to go
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to trial because he's he is a law enforcement officer.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: And they weren't all like great mob justice, you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: they're like, we we should have handled it to begin with,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: but you certainly can't handle it this way. And he
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: said it was the most frustrating case of his career
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and basically, like this town got away with murder.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if the local law enforcement didn't work hard enough,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: that was par for the course. Because if there was
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: any theme to this aside from this horrible bully, it
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: was the local institutions failing the community time after time
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: after time after time for any number of reasons because
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: they were intimidated, because they were crupt, who knows, but
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: that was like the subtext of this whole thing is
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: that this community essentially had to take matters into their
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: own hands or else this guy was going to eventually
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: kill somebody, and they just decided that that was not
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: going to happen. They were going to stop before it happened,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: so it's tough to fault them for what they did.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Even though I don't agree with that. Still I understand
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: why they did it well.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I think you cannot agree with mob justice and also
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: say the town of Skidmore in the world was probably
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: better off without this child rapist walking around.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're right. I like your theories. I'm going
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: to subscribe to your newsletter.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: So as for Clement, the supposed one of the supposed shooters,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: he never said a thing about it. He died in
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. Trina in nineteen eighty five filed
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: a wrongful death civil case against the mayor, Clement, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the sheriff for five million bucks, settled for seventeen thousand,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: six hundred. The defendants didn't have to admit to any wrongdoing.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: They just wanted it to go away. She got remarried
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and a couple of years before that in nineteen eighty three,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: so two years after the killing, and she died in
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve. And you know, there was no mention of
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that life of hers in her obituary. I think she
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: really put it behind her, and I hope at some point,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: you know, there are interviews with her. That's the one
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: interesting thing about the doc, Like not too long after
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: their interviews with Trina McLeod. I would hope that at
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: some point she realized that she was a victim.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I hope so too, and came to on that.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: But who knows, because I mean, you there's a there's
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: a certain amount of like grudging admiration you have for
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: at the very least. It's like, man, this girl is
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: so twisted. She was like a really ardent defendant of
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: her husband's reputation and honor and memory and like really
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: went would she was really like mad that they had
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: killed him.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: One other detail I saw was that she offered a
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: five thousand dollar reward for information about who killed them.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Somebody had come forward, but she didn't have five thousand dollars.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: She was putting it up against the movie rights. She
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: presumed she would eventually be paid for. Oh interesting, Yeah,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: so I'm not sure. I don't think anybody would have
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: taken the five grand anyway, but certainly not a phantom
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: five grand that didn't actually exist yet.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. As for the attorney, he was always like he
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: was never like, you know, I really regret representing that
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: dirt bag. He was pretty proud of his work. He
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: had a long career as a lobbyist working in the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: legislature there in Missouri, and apparently would like buy copies
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: of McLean's book and have McLean sign them and hand
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: them out to all the delegates in the state Senate.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: He died in twenty twelve, Like I said, very proud
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of his work. And Stratton, the highway patrolman that we mentioned,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: was the guy who in an interview said, you know
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: they did what they did because we didn't do our job.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I think he felt forever bad that the law enforcement
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: had failed that town.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He also said in that same interview he knew
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: for sure who did it, and he was never going.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: To say I think it was Clement, I just don't
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: know who the second shooter was. The guy that says
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: he would have killed them both and burned their house down,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: claims that he knew the second shooter, but he wouldn't
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: say it either.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got anything else?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Quite a story, yeah, man, Yeah, thanks and thanks Olivia
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: for helping us with it. And since Chuck said good pick,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: that means, of course it's time for a brand new
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: listener mail.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: That's right. This is a follow up on our what
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I thought was a really good episode that I enjoyed
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: on Kenton Grua and the Grand Canyon River speed Record.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Great episode on that guys. I read the book a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: few years ago, and to answer a question you had
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: about the eleven pm start time, as I recall, you're
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: correct in their desire to employ the cover of darkness.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: There was also another, probably more important issue that led
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to that decision. Per my recollection of the book, it
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: was the timing of when they would run into the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: rapids where they eventually swamp the boat. It was a
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: stretch they'd expected would be the crux of the trip.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: As you pointed out, Kitting and his team were tenured
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: river rats who knew all the river like the back
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: of their hand. However, the unique dynamics of the unprecedented
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: CFS meant that they were uncertain of exactly how fast
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: they would be moving. By starting when they did, they
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: were able to more or less ensure that section of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the river where they flipped would be squarely in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: middle of the day. A good worst case scenario and
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: good pre planning. And that's from Noah. That sounds like
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a very reasonable assertion.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks a lot, Noah. I'm not going to challenge
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: him on it. Heck no, yeah. Okay. Well, if you
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: want to be like Noah and be like, hey, I
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: got you guys. You have a question, I'm in Noah,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: then get in touch with us. Do it like Noah did,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Do everything like Noah did. Send us an email to
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.