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Killer Thriller: When a Whole Town Wants You Dead, Is It Murder or Justice? · Legally Brunette

0:06
Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host,
0:10
Speaker 1: Elisa Donovan. Hey, everybody.
0:15
Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller. Imagine a
0:19
Speaker 2: tiny town terrorized for years by a violent and intimidating
0:23
Speaker 2: man accused of arson and attempted murder who somehow kept
0:28
Speaker 2: escaping justice. Then one day, he's shot to death in
0:32
Speaker 2: broad daylight. Dozens of people witnessed the murder, but nobody
0:36
Speaker 2: will say who pulled the trigger. That's the true story
0:40
Speaker 2: behind In Broad Daylight, the best-selling book by my guest,
0:44
Speaker 2: Harry McLean, who spent years investigating Ken Rex McElroy's murder
0:49
Speaker 2: and uncovering the secrets of a town determined to keep
0:52
Speaker 2: them buried. He later served as a consultant on the
0:55
Speaker 2: movie of the same name. Okay, Harry, welcome to Killer Thriller.
0:59
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for talking.
1:01
Speaker 1: With me today.
1:02
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here.
1:03
Speaker 2: I am just fascinated by this entire case and your
1:08
Speaker 2: book and this movie. And let's start with something that's
1:13
Speaker 2: pretty impossible to believe, which is that Ken McElroy was
1:18
Speaker 2: reportedly indicted more than 20 times, but convicted only once.
1:23
Speaker 2: So how does one man become so feared that an
1:27
Speaker 2: entire community feels powerless to stop him?
1:31
Speaker 3: Well, you know, let me just add one thing. There
1:33
Speaker 3: was more than just the town of Skidmore. He had
1:37
Speaker 3: northwest Missouri, about six counties, terrified of him. And it
1:42
Speaker 3: ended up focusing on Skidmore because he was an illiterate
1:46
Speaker 3: hog farmer who lived on the outside of Skidmore. He
1:50
Speaker 3: managed to neutralize the entire criminal justice system of Nottoway County.
1:56
Speaker 3: Judges would not hear his cases. Prosecutors resigned. Cops turned
2:00
Speaker 3: around and left town when they heard he was there.
2:04
Speaker 2: I mean, so this is all because they were afraid
2:08
Speaker 2: of him, essentially.
2:09
Speaker 3: He had a persona much larger than reality. It grew
2:15
Speaker 3: the way those sorts of nightmares do. He became more
2:18
Speaker 3: of a threat than he actually was. But he had
2:21
Speaker 3: an ability to sense weakness in people and vulnerability and
2:27
Speaker 3: how to exploit it. And he would threaten people. And
2:30
Speaker 3: every fifth or tenth time he threatened somebody, he would
2:33
Speaker 3: do it. So that made him even larger than he
2:37
Speaker 3: really was.
2:38
Speaker 1: Right, right. So then you never know, is it going
2:41
Speaker 1: to be me or the next person, right? Oh, God.
2:44
Speaker 2: So you were working as an attorney in Denver when
2:47
Speaker 2: you first read about this murder. And you said the
2:50
Speaker 2: story jumped off the page because it involved a complete
2:53
Speaker 2: breakdown of the legal system. So what made you decide
2:57
Speaker 2: that you had to investigate it yourself?
3:00
Speaker 3: I mean, it was an unbelievable story just on the
3:03
Speaker 3: face of it because it was like, should have been
3:06
Speaker 3: 1891 rather than 1981. Right. The way it was presented
3:11
Speaker 3: in the Newsweek, in the first clip I saw, and
3:13
Speaker 3: the way it was presented in all media in the
3:16
Speaker 3: beginning was vigilante killing. And so the town was set
3:20
Speaker 3: up as a bunch of vigilantes who killed a bad guy. That's,
3:24
Speaker 3: you know, how many movies of the Old West is
3:27
Speaker 3: that the main theme? And it could go on in
3:31
Speaker 3: 1981 and one person could have the impact that he
3:35
Speaker 3: did to, I mean, and the second part of the
3:38
Speaker 3: storyline was that he was killed in front of 50
3:41
Speaker 3: people were basically observing it. And as time went on,
3:47
Speaker 3: grand juries met, all the witnesses came in and said
3:51
Speaker 3: that they didn't see a thing. And so you had all,
3:55
Speaker 3: you had the, you had the reign of terror, He
3:57
Speaker 3: had the killing itself, and then he had what you
4:00
Speaker 3: might call a cover-up, although I never found any evidence
4:04
Speaker 3: that there was an agreement to cover up. They just
4:06
Speaker 3: all decided individually they weren't going to tell the truth.
4:10
Speaker 2: So you eventually spent almost three years in and around Skidmore,
4:15
Speaker 2: and you described having a gun pulled on you, being
4:18
Speaker 2: bitten by a dog, having your tires slashed. I mean,
4:21
Speaker 2: what was the most frightening moment for you, and did
4:25
Speaker 2: you ever seriously consider just abandoning the book?
4:29
Speaker 3: I did, but I had a break. I got kind
4:32
Speaker 3: of taken in in a good way by a local
4:35
Speaker 3: farm family with a real good reputation. And they kind
4:39
Speaker 3: of backed me up and provided references and so forth.
4:43
Speaker 3: But in the beginning, it was quite scary because the
4:46
Speaker 3: FBI had been there two months trying to crack one
4:49
Speaker 3: of these guys. All they had to do is crack
4:51
Speaker 3: one of them and they could prosecute the killers. And
4:54
Speaker 3: they couldn't. And private detectives had been there. Magazine people
4:59
Speaker 3: had been there. So the town was wrapped up really tight.
5:02
Speaker 3: And I knew they would be because I grew up
5:04
Speaker 3: in a small town in north central Nebraska. And I
5:07
Speaker 3: could imagine the hostility that they would have as being
5:11
Speaker 3: presented as a bunch of vigilante killers. And that's, in fact,
5:16
Speaker 3: what I did find in the beginning. But basically, the
5:19
Speaker 3: people in that town were nice people. And they don't
5:22
Speaker 3: like being rude and nasty and pulling guns on people.
5:26
Speaker 1: Right, so that was not their normal behavior.
5:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they didn't like being put in that position.
5:32
Speaker 3: And I told them I was a lawyer, and their
5:35
Speaker 3: whole thing was, why is the law not working now?
5:40
Speaker 3: Why are you now investigating this case when you let
5:43
Speaker 3: him roam free for 20 years? And that was their anger.
5:46
Speaker 3: And finally, I mean, I said, look, I don't care
5:49
Speaker 3: who the killers are, really, because— If these two guys
5:54
Speaker 3: who did it, everybody said that they knew who did
5:56
Speaker 3: it to me, somebody else was going to do it.
5:59
Speaker 3: It had reached that point where it could not exist
6:02
Speaker 3: there anymore. Somebody was going to lose it, either on
6:04
Speaker 3: the main street of town like they did, or they
6:08
Speaker 3: were going to catch him driving home some night at
6:12
Speaker 3: 2 a.m. It was going to happen.
6:15
Speaker 2: It is such an excellent point and question as to
6:19
Speaker 2: why was he able to get away with terrorizing everyone
6:22
Speaker 2: for so long, and then now they want to prosecute
6:27
Speaker 2: the person who killed him.
6:29
Speaker 1: It is a good question.
6:31
Speaker 2: So you described how McElroy would park outside of people's
6:34
Speaker 2: homes and just simply stare at them.
6:38
Speaker 1: Which they cover very well in the film.
6:41
Speaker 2: He allegedly intimidated witnesses and even put rattlesnakes in jurors' mailboxes.
6:47
Speaker 2: So how did he become so effective at terrorizing people
6:52
Speaker 2: without necessarily even laying a hand on them?
6:55
Speaker 3: He had a sense, like I said, of people's weaknesses.
6:59
Speaker 3: And he also had an understanding that in the criminal
7:03
Speaker 3: justice system, you had to have a witness. for any crime.
7:07
Speaker 3: But back in those days, there were very few forensics involved,
7:12
Speaker 3: particularly in a small town like that. So it all
7:15
Speaker 3: came down to witnesses. So he went after the witnesses
7:19
Speaker 3: and he terrified them. He found friends of theirs or
7:24
Speaker 3: relatives of theirs who would tell them what was going
7:26
Speaker 3: to happen to him. And he came up with his
7:29
Speaker 3: own witnesses. And that's, you know, no witness, no case
7:33
Speaker 3: was the essence of his terror. He didn't think people
7:38
Speaker 3: would have the courage to come in and testify against them.
7:41
Speaker 3: And the longer he got away with it, the truer
7:45
Speaker 3: it became because then the people kind of lost faith
7:48
Speaker 3: in each other. If I come to your house to
7:51
Speaker 3: help you out, then he's coming to my house tomorrow night. Right. Right.
7:56
Speaker 1: It puts everyone, it's really chilling.
8:00
Speaker 2: It's, it's such a disturbing, uh, And the movie, again,
8:06
Speaker 2: does an excellent job of showing us that.
8:09
Speaker 1: And one of the most.
8:11
Speaker 2: Disturbing aspects of McElroy's life was his relationship with Trina McLeod.
8:17
Speaker 2: And he reportedly began sexually abusing her when she was
8:21
Speaker 2: just 12 years old, and she became pregnant at 14.
8:27
Speaker 2: What did you uncover about that relationship and the violence
8:31
Speaker 2: surrounding it?
8:33
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, he was sleeping with her mother first,
8:36
Speaker 3: and then he slept with her, and then he slept
8:38
Speaker 3: with both of them. And he had no sensibility or
8:42
Speaker 3: conscience involving his sexual escapades. They were brutal. And to
8:50
Speaker 3: the extent that her parents tried to stick up for him,
8:53
Speaker 3: he went and burned their house down when they said
8:55
Speaker 3: they weren't going to let him take her and shot
8:57
Speaker 3: the dog right in front of Trina. And she was 12, 13.
9:01
Speaker 3: She was a little country girl. She was pretty, but
9:04
Speaker 3: she was very unsophisticated. And as soon as she realized
9:08
Speaker 3: that her parents weren't going to back her up, that
9:10
Speaker 3: the law wasn't going to back her up, the law
9:12
Speaker 3: knew what he was doing, that she was living out
9:14
Speaker 3: there with him. As soon as she realized she was
9:17
Speaker 3: all by herself, what are you going to do? You're
9:19
Speaker 3: going to attach to this person because it's the only
9:22
Speaker 3: person who appears to care about you anymore. Right.
9:26
Speaker 2: It's, it is. So deeply upsetting and heartbreaking. And yeah,
9:31
Speaker 2: I mean, where would she go? What could she do?
9:35
Speaker 2: It's really awful. He marries her, and then in that way,
9:41
Speaker 2: he's protected from her being able to testify against him.
9:47
Speaker 3: Finally, there was one prosecutor, and he had charged McElroy
9:51
Speaker 3: with 13 counts of rape. This guy stood up. He
9:56
Speaker 3: was the first one who did it. And, McElroy's lawyer
10:01
Speaker 3: went in and said to the parents, you have to consent. Well,
10:05
Speaker 3: first of all, McElroy had to get divorced. He got
10:07
Speaker 3: that done. And then he said to the parents, you
10:10
Speaker 3: will consent to her marrying McElroy. And when they said
10:14
Speaker 3: they might not, that's when he burned their house down.
10:17
Speaker 3: So then they turned around and said, okay, we will
10:19
Speaker 3: consent to the marriage. Trina, by this point, I don't
10:22
Speaker 3: know what she was thinking exactly, but she did in
10:26
Speaker 3: the end go, you know, go along and get married.
10:28
Speaker 3: And so she was unable to testify against him. And
10:32
Speaker 3: the prosecutor, he was hanging out there all by himself.
10:35
Speaker 3: And he said, look, if she's not going to stand
10:38
Speaker 3: up for this. And of course she couldn't, it was unreasonable.
10:42
Speaker 1: Of course.
10:43
Speaker 3: Right. He just kind of, he, He could have gone
10:46
Speaker 3: in and tried to get the marriage undone based on
10:50
Speaker 3: some sort of fraud or coercion grounds, but he felt
10:55
Speaker 3: like he had done what he could.
10:57
Speaker 2: This girl, my heart really goes out to her.
11:02
Speaker 3: By the end, just to your last point, she was
11:05
Speaker 3: riding shotgun with him. She was so far moved into
11:09
Speaker 3: his world that she was... either driving one of the
11:14
Speaker 3: trucks behind his or in the truck with him as
11:17
Speaker 3: they terrorized the witnesses in the case against him. And
11:22
Speaker 3: she pulled guns on people in the alley, outside the bar,
11:25
Speaker 3: and so forth. She was very active in the terror
11:29
Speaker 3: at the end. Very sad case.
11:32
Speaker 1: It truly is.
11:32
Speaker 2: And I would like to believe, and I think it's true,
11:35
Speaker 2: that that aspect of things would be looked at very
11:38
Speaker 2: differently today in terms of victim's and sexual abuse and
11:44
Speaker 2: all of those things that she was, you know, certainly
11:48
Speaker 2: not really in her right mind, I would guess, and
11:52
Speaker 2: with no resources and no support. You've said that McElroy
11:59
Speaker 2: was so successful at frightening witnesses that people would change
12:03
Speaker 2: their stories after he showed up at their homes with
12:06
Speaker 2: a shotgun. Was there anyone that stood up to him
12:09
Speaker 2: and refused to be intimidated?
12:11
Speaker 3: Well, that's how it all came to a head, was
12:14
Speaker 3: that there was an elderly grocer in Skidmore. And he
12:20
Speaker 3: was 72, 73. And McElroy, one of his, he had
12:25
Speaker 3: about 13 kids by different women. And a couple of
12:28
Speaker 3: them went into the grocery store one day. And the
12:32
Speaker 3: little child picked up a couple of jawbreakers. And the
12:37
Speaker 3: grocer's wife, who was played in the movie by did
12:42
Speaker 3: a great job and she didn't she was an irascible
12:45
Speaker 3: woman i interviewed her for way too many hours she
12:49
Speaker 3: was harsh and kind of unpleasant and she didn't take
12:53
Speaker 3: any from anybody and she told that girl to put
12:56
Speaker 3: the jawbreakers back when she didn't i think i think
13:00
Speaker 3: eventually she did but then they went out and told
13:03
Speaker 3: trina that that the woman had accused the little girl
13:08
Speaker 3: of stealing So that got back to McElroy, and that
13:11
Speaker 3: was something that could never be tolerated by him. How
13:13
Speaker 3: dare anyone ever accuse any of his family of stealing?
13:18
Speaker 3: I mean, he was a great thief himself, so there's
13:24
Speaker 3: some irony there. But in the end, he shot. He
13:27
Speaker 3: was more offended that the male grocer would let his wife,
13:35
Speaker 3: it's kind of a hard thing to explain, come after him.
13:39
Speaker 3: So he wasn't that angry at her. He was angry
13:42
Speaker 3: at Bo for not controlling his wife. Right. And he threatened,
13:48
Speaker 3: he offered to give them a certain amount of money.
13:51
Speaker 3: He would give the grocer $ 1, 000 if he would get
13:56
Speaker 3: his wife to go out and get into an official
13:58
Speaker 3: at Matrina. Well, in the end, he came around. He's
14:02
Speaker 3: driving between the grocery store and the bar. And there
14:07
Speaker 3: are two or three boys standing around there and he
14:10
Speaker 3: pays them some money to leave to go inside the
14:12
Speaker 3: bar and get a drink or something. And he shoots
14:14
Speaker 3: the grocer. He, who is standing on a kind of
14:18
Speaker 3: a deck at the back of the grocery store, walks
14:21
Speaker 3: up and, and points the shotgun right at him. At
14:24
Speaker 3: the last second, the grocer twitches, kind of moves a
14:27
Speaker 3: little bit. So it tears his, tears half of his
14:29
Speaker 3: neck and his shoulder off, but it doesn't kill him. And, uh,
14:34
Speaker 3: McElroy took off then, um, Trina was with him at
14:40
Speaker 3: that point for that event. But in the end, he
14:44
Speaker 3: couldn't scare the grocer or the grocer's wife. Grocer's wife
14:48
Speaker 3: was too cantankerous. And the grocer himself, Bo, was just,
14:54
Speaker 3: he was at that point in his life where he
14:57
Speaker 3: was not going to be intimidated. He went and McElroy
15:01
Speaker 3: did all of this stuff, pulling shotguns on him, driving
15:03
Speaker 3: by their house, blowing the shotguns off in the middle
15:05
Speaker 3: of the night. and telling Bo's friends that he was
15:10
Speaker 3: going to kill him if he testified. And he held up.
15:14
Speaker 3: He actually held up. I mean, the whole world was
15:18
Speaker 3: watching to see Bo cave and say at the end, no,
15:21
Speaker 3: I didn't see who it was who put the shotgun
15:23
Speaker 3: in my head. Well, he didn't. He went through the trial,
15:27
Speaker 3: and he identified McElroy without any hesitation at all. And
15:33
Speaker 3: he was convicted of an assault. Should have been attempted murder, but... Yeah, why.
15:37
Speaker 1: Was that not attempted murder? I was confused by that, too.
15:40
Speaker 3: Well, the DA didn't want to overload the jury. He
15:43
Speaker 3: didn't want to make their... And you have to get
15:47
Speaker 3: a feel for what that town was like. Well, this
15:50
Speaker 3: was a town about 12 miles away, but what that
15:53
Speaker 3: area was like. And I understand why he did it.
15:57
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I can explain it, but if he
15:59
Speaker 3: asked too much of them, call him a murderer... they
16:03
Speaker 3: might be backing away somehow.
16:05
Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
16:06
Speaker 3: So just convict him of assault. We can get him
16:09
Speaker 3: gone for five to 10 years on that. And they
16:13
Speaker 3: got the conviction. First time in 20 years. Right.
16:17
Speaker 2: So he received a two-year prison sentence, but was released
16:21
Speaker 2: on bond while appealing. And you've said that he never
16:24
Speaker 2: should have been released. Why was that decision so consequential?
16:28
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, first of all, it's like you've got
16:30
Speaker 3: an angry bull and now you've just stuck him, you know,
16:32
Speaker 3: with a sword. And now he's not only, I mean,
16:36
Speaker 3: he's out of control now in anger and so forth.
16:39
Speaker 3: And the judge knew that. That judge was a chicken.
16:42
Speaker 3: He never talked to me and I nailed him pretty
16:45
Speaker 3: good in the book. But so he went back and
16:49
Speaker 3: he went after, he took, he wasn't supposed to carry
16:54
Speaker 3: any weapons and he took a weapon into the bar
16:57
Speaker 3: and And there were three people in there who were
17:02
Speaker 3: going to testify. They actually called the D.A. up and said, OK,
17:04
Speaker 3: he's he's breaking his bond terms. And we want you know,
17:09
Speaker 3: we want to want the bond revoked and put in jail.
17:13
Speaker 3: And the D.A. who had convicted him stuck with it
17:17
Speaker 3: and said, OK, you guys bring me after David's saying
17:20
Speaker 3: you saw him. And there was a rifle and we'll
17:23
Speaker 3: get a hearing and we'll revoke him. We'll try and
17:25
Speaker 3: revoke his bond. Well, the day of the hearing, so
17:28
Speaker 3: all the town, this is kind of the irony of it,
17:31
Speaker 3: the town gets cohesive around this. And the word spreads
17:38
Speaker 3: that they're going to go up to this little town,
17:41
Speaker 3: his name escapes me right now, and protect the witnesses,
17:47
Speaker 3: the people who sent David, because they were convinced McElroy
17:49
Speaker 3: was going to go after the witnesses and terrorize them
17:53
Speaker 3: or kill them. So they got together 60, 70 of
17:56
Speaker 3: them And they were going to drive the witnesses up
17:59
Speaker 3: to the town to protect him in a big kind
18:02
Speaker 3: of cavalcade. At the last minute, the hearing is canceled.
18:09
Speaker 3: And they've got now 60 people that have gathered together.
18:12
Speaker 3: And they realize if they do not follow through on this,
18:17
Speaker 3: they're finished. McElroy will have them where he wants them.
18:21
Speaker 3: And if they've met 60 of them and he hears
18:23
Speaker 3: about it, he comes in to confront them. And he
18:28
Speaker 3: sits in the tavern with Trina right beside him, his
18:31
Speaker 3: truck out in front. They gather up the road, some
18:35
Speaker 3: at the top of the hill, most of them within
18:38
Speaker 3: 30 or 40 yards of where his truck is. And
18:42
Speaker 3: they leave the barn, get in the truck, and two
18:45
Speaker 3: of them go for their rifles and blow his head off.
18:47
Speaker 1: It's like they finally snapped, right? I mean, that's essentially the... Yeah.
18:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it was a very stupid thing to do.
18:56
Speaker 3: because they could have caught him. I saw maps that
18:58
Speaker 3: had been drawn on how they were going to hang
19:01
Speaker 3: out in this little culvert, in this little ditch when
19:04
Speaker 3: he was on his way home. But to shoot him
19:07
Speaker 3: in front of 50 witnesses, it was an ultimately stupid,
19:11
Speaker 3: irrational thing to do. But they were no longer rational
19:15
Speaker 3: about him. Right.
19:18
Speaker 2: That's the feeling that even in watching the movie, it
19:20
Speaker 2: feels like I became irrational in watching it and feeling like, honestly,
19:25
Speaker 2: what would one do? It's like true terrorism, like he
19:30
Speaker 2: was terrorizing these people.
19:32
Speaker 3: You know, I can only tell you as an author,
19:35
Speaker 3: when you say that to me, that's the greatest compliment.
19:40
Speaker 2: Yes, you should take it because it really, I felt like,
19:45
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this is, you know, we consider, you know, terror, violence,
19:51
Speaker 2: all of these things to be so kind of blatant
19:53
Speaker 2: and direct. And while he certainly did some of those things,
19:58
Speaker 2: it was really that just constant, like a shark or something,
20:04
Speaker 2: just like the constant fear that people would have that
20:07
Speaker 2: he would put in them.
20:08
Speaker 1: It's very, very... well done and terrifying. So you've said
20:15
Speaker 1: you don't believe.
20:16
Speaker 2: The murder was a conspiracy involving the entire town and
20:19
Speaker 2: that you, you, as you just said that you have
20:23
Speaker 2: argued that two men made the decision to kill him,
20:26
Speaker 2: but what convinced you that killing was planned by two
20:29
Speaker 2: individuals rather than collectively organized?
20:33
Speaker 3: It wasn't really planned. I think that they were, something
20:36
Speaker 3: had to happen. That's what I was trying to say. And,
20:39
Speaker 3: It was in its own reality at that point where
20:42
Speaker 3: he's sitting there at the bar inside and there's about
20:45
Speaker 3: 20 people who followed him in the bar. And they
20:49
Speaker 3: were making comments to him, which they never would have
20:51
Speaker 3: made just by themselves. Right. So then a bunch of
20:57
Speaker 3: them followed him outside. And the two people that I
21:02
Speaker 3: believe killed him, and they're really, from the minute I
21:06
Speaker 3: got to town, there were only two names that I
21:09
Speaker 3: ever heard So everybody kind of knew who it was.
21:12
Speaker 3: Without a witness, you couldn't do anything. And it was
21:16
Speaker 3: their bar that they were in, and they would close
21:22
Speaker 3: when he came to town because the bar emptied. So
21:25
Speaker 3: they had to give an economic measure. Only that wasn't
21:28
Speaker 3: the real thing. One of them, the killer, was a
21:31
Speaker 3: hot-tempered cowboy. These were cowboys, not farmers. They were real strong,
21:35
Speaker 3: real strong. cowboy hats rather than baseball, CD or baseball caps.
21:41
Speaker 3: And they carried rifles in the back of the pickup.
21:46
Speaker 3: And I think two of them, when they saw him leave,
21:49
Speaker 3: they realized, I don't know, rationally or thought, we have
21:53
Speaker 3: to take care of this. And they had been drinking.
21:58
Speaker 3: One of them was a pretty heavy drinker. They walked
22:00
Speaker 3: out the back door across the street to where both
22:03
Speaker 3: their trucks were parked. And I think that two of
22:05
Speaker 3: them knew what they were going to do. I think
22:08
Speaker 3: one of them probably said, yeah, let's kill the son
22:11
Speaker 3: of a bitch, you know. They went out there not
22:13
Speaker 3: to join the crowd watching it, but to become, to
22:16
Speaker 3: give the crowd something else to watch, you know.
22:32
Speaker 2: Well, one of the most chilling details in your account
22:35
Speaker 2: is that Trina reportedly saw Del Clement approaching with a
22:39
Speaker 2: rifle and warned McElroy that he was about to be shot.
22:43
Speaker 2: But you say that McElroy was lighting a cigarette and
22:45
Speaker 2: didn't move. Do you think that he just simply believed
22:49
Speaker 2: nobody would dare kill him?
22:51
Speaker 3: Yes. And in a way, let me come in sideways.
22:55
Speaker 3: McElroy was played by Brian Dennehy in the movie. So good.
22:58
Speaker 1: So good.
22:59
Speaker 3: He was superb in it. And he captured that moment.
23:04
Speaker 3: And I think it's true. I think McElroy knew that
23:07
Speaker 3: if they, you know, that they had the weapons out,
23:11
Speaker 3: he believed Trina. She knew these people. She'd been in
23:14
Speaker 3: school with them and she knew who they were and
23:16
Speaker 3: what they were going to do. And he really didn't
23:20
Speaker 3: care that much in a sense because he was going
23:22
Speaker 3: to go to prison and And he was getting older
23:25
Speaker 3: and he wasn't quite having the same impact that he
23:29
Speaker 3: used to. He was kind of a little bit over
23:30
Speaker 3: the hill. And he wanted to make them into chickens.
23:38
Speaker 3: He didn't think they had the guts to do it.
23:41
Speaker 3: And if they did, then what the hell anyway, you know.
23:43
Speaker 3: So he had to somehow get this across, Dennehy did,
23:48
Speaker 3: the way he's lighting the cigarette. And he does it.
23:51
Speaker 3: I mean, now he got it from the book that
23:54
Speaker 3: that's what I thought he did. But if you watch
23:56
Speaker 3: him do it, you kind of get that sense that
23:59
Speaker 3: he's challenging them to see if they got the guts
24:02
Speaker 3: to blow his brains off. And they did.
24:05
Speaker 1: It's so good.
24:06
Speaker 2: He's so good in this, as is Marsha Gay Harden,
24:09
Speaker 2: who is like, I just, I'm such a huge fan
24:13
Speaker 2: of hers, and she has a really tough job playing
24:16
Speaker 2: the character Trina, essentially.
24:18
Speaker 1: She's so terrific, too.
24:19
Speaker 3: Let me put a little story in there about her.
24:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, please.
24:23
Speaker 3: She was, she's sitting next to McElroy when he's shot,
24:26
Speaker 3: of course, and so his brains and her blood go
24:29
Speaker 3: all over her. And when she's screaming, everybody said she was,
24:34
Speaker 3: you know, screaming that she thought they were going to
24:36
Speaker 3: kill her, too, which wasn't an unreasonable belief, but But
24:41
Speaker 3: in the old West, you don't shoot women. I mean,
24:44
Speaker 3: it was unreasonable. She was never in danger. They weren't
24:46
Speaker 3: going to kill her. They would have lost the kind
24:49
Speaker 3: of moral high ground. But anyway, so she's screaming, and
24:51
Speaker 3: they come and take her out of the truck, and
24:54
Speaker 3: she's more convinced they're going to kill her. Well, they
24:55
Speaker 3: walk her up to the bank and put her in
24:57
Speaker 3: the bank. But Marcia Gay Harden had to play that
25:01
Speaker 3: scene of her screaming with her husband's guts, brains all
25:04
Speaker 3: over her and blood. And she played, I'm sitting there
25:08
Speaker 3: watching it, and she played it like, Five times, this screaming,
25:13
Speaker 3: yelling thing. How in the world can you do that?
25:15
Speaker 3: Like she was crazy. Well, that's what actors do. If
25:19
Speaker 3: they ever see someone cook it up and pull it
25:21
Speaker 3: off five times in 15 minutes. She was really good.
25:26
Speaker 1: She is amazing. She should be in every movie going
25:32
Speaker 1: forward for the rest of time.
25:35
Speaker 2: So McElroy was struck by two bullets from two different weapons,
25:40
Speaker 2: as we've said. So according to your reconstruction, his foot
25:43
Speaker 2: pressed down on the accelerator as he died, sending the
25:46
Speaker 2: truck's engine racing. What did witnesses tell you happened immediately afterward?
25:52
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, that did happen. They thought what he
25:54
Speaker 3: did was when he fell forward like that from the
25:58
Speaker 3: blast in the back, his foot went down on the accelerator.
26:03
Speaker 3: And the engine roared. And it set this, if you
26:05
Speaker 3: can imagine the scene, it was one of my favorite
26:08
Speaker 3: scenes to try and write to make the reader feel
26:11
Speaker 3: what it was like in that town. Here this huge
26:13
Speaker 3: monster was dead. And here's this loud sound kind of
26:18
Speaker 3: celebrating it or putting this aura around it all. And
26:23
Speaker 3: his blood is coming out onto the street in the
26:27
Speaker 3: sand there. And some of them come up and they
26:31
Speaker 3: look and they, try and see if he's really dead,
26:33
Speaker 3: you know. And she's gone. She's one of the things
26:39
Speaker 3: the townspeople used to say about, they were so harsh
26:42
Speaker 3: on her that as she's running up the street, she's
26:45
Speaker 3: peeing in her pants out of fear. And they would
26:48
Speaker 3: repeat that whenever they got a chance because they were
26:52
Speaker 3: as mad at her or angry at her as being
26:55
Speaker 3: a part of it.
26:55
Speaker 2: But So after he was shot and no one called
26:59
Speaker 2: an ambulance, was everyone in shock, or do you think
27:03
Speaker 2: they all just decided we're not going to help him?
27:07
Speaker 3: Shock, yeah. I mean, one of the things that totally
27:11
Speaker 3: defeats this vigilante theory is that those farmers, most of
27:16
Speaker 3: them high school at best, were not stupid. They weren't
27:21
Speaker 3: going to make themselves into witnesses for a killing. If
27:24
Speaker 3: they had any instinct, any thought, that that was going
27:27
Speaker 3: to happen, they would have got the hell out of town.
27:30
Speaker 3: Why would they want to watch it? They could read
27:33
Speaker 3: about it. So they really had no idea that it
27:37
Speaker 3: was going to happen. And some of them said when
27:43
Speaker 3: they heard the shots, they jumped between the trucks or
27:47
Speaker 3: between the building, and when they stood up, they didn't
27:49
Speaker 3: see anything. And that was kind of the common story,
27:52
Speaker 3: but there was never any group decisions Amongst those farmers,
27:57
Speaker 3: what they were going to say or how they were
27:59
Speaker 3: going to say it. They had been friends since grade school.
28:05
Speaker 3: They kind of thought in the same terms. And they
28:08
Speaker 3: all kind of said these things. But he sat there
28:10
Speaker 3: for over an hour dead. Nobody in the town ever
28:14
Speaker 3: did call an ambulance. Nobody in the town ever called
28:18
Speaker 3: the law. Trina got up in the bank and she
28:21
Speaker 3: called his brother out on the ranch. And he called
28:25
Speaker 3: the cops. You can make a case that he would
28:28
Speaker 3: have sat there dead for another three or four hours
28:30
Speaker 3: before somebody came and got him.
28:34
Speaker 2: So she calls the brother, and then she also identified
28:36
Speaker 2: Del Clement as a shooter, but no one was prosecuted.
28:40
Speaker 1: What happened to Trina afterwards?
28:44
Speaker 3: It's really sad. Well, it's sad, but it also has
28:47
Speaker 3: a happy ending in a way. Trina went south to
28:52
Speaker 3: the Ozarks where her parents, her parents who had deserted her, were.
28:57
Speaker 3: And in the beginning, she stood up for him. If
28:59
Speaker 3: you go back and look at the news conferences, she's
29:03
Speaker 3: saying the shooters were cowards and he was a good man.
29:07
Speaker 3: He loved his kids and loved me. And she's adamant
29:10
Speaker 3: about it. I finally got a conversation with her in person.
29:17
Speaker 3: Probably about that time. It was about two and a
29:19
Speaker 3: half years later. And she remarried down in this little
29:25
Speaker 3: town in the Ozarks. and started her life over again.
29:29
Speaker 3: She had three children, I believe, either two or three.
29:35
Speaker 3: She married a guy who I met who was a
29:37
Speaker 3: strong local, farmer down there. And they put a life together.
29:43
Speaker 3: It was really a happy ending for her.
29:44
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
29:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm happy to hear that.
29:49
Speaker 3: And then she died of cancer about 10 years ago.
29:50
Speaker 3: But she did, she was, to me, when I talked
29:54
Speaker 3: to her, she had just started leaving the whole McElroy
29:59
Speaker 3: thing behind. I think this... This man said, because they
30:02
Speaker 3: were going to make a movie out of it. And
30:04
Speaker 3: they had the deal all set up and she backed
30:06
Speaker 3: out of it. She backed out of about $ 300, 000 at
30:08
Speaker 3: the end, much for her children's benefit. Right. And I
30:14
Speaker 3: think this guy had a lot to do with it
30:16
Speaker 3: and say, look, we can start our life over. You
30:18
Speaker 3: need to leave this whole thing behind.
30:21
Speaker 1: Gosh, this is just so fascinating.
30:25
Speaker 2: So you were an attorney as well as an investigative reporter. Writer,
30:29
Speaker 2: did promising confidentiality ever create a moral or legal dilemma
30:35
Speaker 2: for you? Like, what if you learned something that could
30:37
Speaker 2: have resulted in a murder prosecution?
30:40
Speaker 3: That didn't happen in this case. It's happened in some
30:43
Speaker 3: other books. And it kind of, I know other authors
30:47
Speaker 3: who've gotten in trouble with that, where they get a
30:49
Speaker 3: piece of information from somebody and it has the potential
30:54
Speaker 3: to be a part of a murder investigation.
30:57
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
30:57
Speaker 3: I didn't run into that. What I told people was
31:03
Speaker 3: it's a real process that I learned. First of all,
31:05
Speaker 3: I just go up and talk to them and say,
31:07
Speaker 3: I'm here. I'm going to stay around. Other people that
31:09
Speaker 3: had come in there, like from Playboy and Rolling Stone,
31:13
Speaker 3: kind of dropped out of an airplane from New Jersey
31:15
Speaker 3: and sat there for like six days and wrote exploitive junk.
31:20
Speaker 3: I said, I'm going to get to the bottom of this.
31:22
Speaker 3: And I can, what they always said was, He got
31:26
Speaker 3: away with this for 20 years. These trials never went
31:28
Speaker 3: to cases, never went to trial, blah, blah, blah, blah.
31:30
Speaker 3: But they couldn't prove it. And the journalists weren't going
31:34
Speaker 3: to take the time to go out to these other
31:36
Speaker 3: towns and dig into the files if they were even
31:39
Speaker 3: able to make that case. So I said, I'm going
31:41
Speaker 3: to do that. I'm going to go back to every
31:42
Speaker 3: one of those cases and I'm going to prove what
31:45
Speaker 3: you guys are saying is true. And that's exactly what
31:49
Speaker 3: I did. And people often say, you know, I'm kind
31:52
Speaker 3: of wandering now, but people often say, what was the
31:55
Speaker 3: town's reaction to your book? And I said, I never
31:58
Speaker 3: heard his, McElroy's kids didn't like it. But people in
32:03
Speaker 3: the town never criticized it, bought copies. And when someone,
32:10
Speaker 3: they used it when someone from, people still drive through
32:13
Speaker 3: Skidmore to this day because there's a map in the book.
32:16
Speaker 3: And they want to go where McElroy's house was. They
32:18
Speaker 3: want to go where the shooting was. They want to
32:20
Speaker 3: see where the tavern and all this stuff. And so
32:23
Speaker 3: when they stop the locals and say, now, where was
32:26
Speaker 3: McElroy struck when he was killed? They'll say, go buy
32:29
Speaker 3: the book in broad daylight. It'll tell you everything you
32:31
Speaker 3: need to know.
32:33
Speaker 2: You once went to a rodeo at Del Clement's ranch
32:36
Speaker 2: and followed him into a barn to introduce yourself.
32:39
Speaker 1: And he ordered you off the property.
32:41
Speaker 2: Can you take me inside that moment? Were you afraid
32:45
Speaker 2: of what he might do or how did all that go?
32:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the scariest moment was that. But I
32:55
Speaker 3: had to do it. I mean, you can't not do
32:59
Speaker 3: something because, and I thought, he's less likely, first of all,
33:04
Speaker 3: to get him before he's drinking because he was a
33:06
Speaker 3: serious alcoholic and do it on his property and get
33:10
Speaker 3: him alone so he didn't have to show off to
33:12
Speaker 3: somebody else. And so I kind of waited until he
33:16
Speaker 3: went to his barn. It just so happened there was
33:18
Speaker 3: a rifle in there. And I said, you know, I'm not,
33:22
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to, you know, blah, blah, blah, some
33:25
Speaker 3: rap to him to try and calm him down. And
33:27
Speaker 3: he said, I think it's time for you to leave.
33:29
Speaker 3: And I kept going. He turned around like this and
33:32
Speaker 3: he said, apparently you didn't hear me. I made a
33:36
Speaker 3: motion for the gun. I said, okay, I'm gone. I
33:40
Speaker 3: think if he'd have been drinking. Right. It could have
33:45
Speaker 3: gone bad.
34:02
Speaker 2: So you said that you have a strong idea of
34:05
Speaker 2: who fired the second shot but have declined publicly to
34:09
Speaker 2: identify that person. Is there anything more that you're willing
34:13
Speaker 2: to tell us about the second shooter or what convinced you?
34:17
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people said it. And there was
34:19
Speaker 3: a theory that there was a third gun, that there
34:22
Speaker 3: was a, it's called a third gun theory, that there
34:25
Speaker 3: was a shotgun. It was never really established. The investigation
34:31
Speaker 3: was so sloppily done at that point. They didn't even
34:36
Speaker 3: rope off the truck or anything. People were going in
34:39
Speaker 3: the truck, picking up. McElroy's teeth and so forth. And
34:44
Speaker 3: so some people said they heard a shotgun and there
34:48
Speaker 3: was some indentations in the truck that made it look
34:52
Speaker 3: like it could have been shotgun pellets. But I was
34:54
Speaker 3: never able to sustain that. And that would have been
34:59
Speaker 3: the third killer if there was one. And he was
35:01
Speaker 3: friends with the other two. So it is possible. But
35:05
Speaker 3: a shotgun sounds radically different than a rifle. And the
35:10
Speaker 3: people that were there said they didn't hear it. There
35:13
Speaker 3: were deer hunters there. They would have known the difference.
35:17
Speaker 3: And the second killer, the second person, is still alive.
35:22
Speaker 3: So Del Clement's dead. The alleged shotgun killer is dead.
35:27
Speaker 3: But the one who was normally identified as the second
35:31
Speaker 3: shooter is still alive. So I don't want to get
35:35
Speaker 3: into a defamation. He's not going to do it, but
35:40
Speaker 3: there's no real point to it because it's not me
35:44
Speaker 3: to make the criminal justice system work. And I couldn't
35:46
Speaker 3: prove it anyway, you know? Right.
35:49
Speaker 2: Did you expect Dell to give like a deathbed confession?
35:53
Speaker 3: Not Dell, but a lot of other people out of,
35:56
Speaker 3: out of the 50 or so witnesses who saw it.
36:00
Speaker 1: Out of guilt, do you think?
36:01
Speaker 3: Guilt or, you know, they were, um, They weren't, but
36:06
Speaker 3: they were religious in a sense, but not really religious.
36:09
Speaker 3: I mean, it wasn't a religious community. They had two churches,
36:12
Speaker 3: but it's not like they were a Baptist down in Louisiana.
36:17
Speaker 3: And so, but still they were religious in a way.
36:20
Speaker 3: And I kept waiting for one of them to give
36:23
Speaker 3: a deathbed confession. And I'd hear, well, this guy died,
36:26
Speaker 3: that guy died, this guy died. They had died and
36:29
Speaker 3: nobody ever did. Del was, by the time he died,
36:33
Speaker 3: was killed in an automobile crash. So drunk that he
36:38
Speaker 3: was such an alcoholic that he really wasn't worth much.
36:40
Speaker 3: I don't know if he even considered it. I mean,
36:45
Speaker 3: he was gone. He was gone by the time he died.
36:47
Speaker 2: Right. So you served as a consultant on the movie,
36:51
Speaker 2: and what did that actually involve for you? And was
36:56
Speaker 2: there anything that you strongly disagreed with in what they
37:00
Speaker 2: did in the film?
37:01
Speaker 3: No, I thought, I mean... You know, I hear authors
37:04
Speaker 3: complain about what happens to their books when they're made
37:07
Speaker 3: into movies. But it's a different art form, you know.
37:11
Speaker 3: And you have to expect that. You have to expect
37:13
Speaker 3: some spaces filled creatively. And so I didn't come at
37:21
Speaker 3: it with that kind of protective sense. You've got to
37:23
Speaker 3: tell a movie the way. And what I thought they,
37:26
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the terror that they had to
37:29
Speaker 3: project came through Brian Dennehy. And he was able to
37:35
Speaker 3: do that just as good with holding a shotgun and
37:39
Speaker 3: looking into the camera. He was able to pull that.
37:43
Speaker 3: And that was the big thing, was that you had
37:45
Speaker 3: to understand how terrified the people were. You didn't understand that,
37:49
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't understand why they killed him. You would
37:52
Speaker 3: judge him for it. You still might judge him anyway,
37:55
Speaker 3: but you wouldn't get it. You wouldn't feel it. And
37:58
Speaker 3: he did that, and he pulled that off. And that
38:01
Speaker 3: kind of made the movie work. Well, I tell you,
38:05
Speaker 3: the politics on a movie set are real bad. I mean,
38:11
Speaker 3: you've got the director, you've got the producer, you've got
38:14
Speaker 3: all the sub-directors and producers. They got in a fight,
38:20
Speaker 3: which went kind of bad at the end. But my
38:24
Speaker 3: experience of it was, Cloris Leachman came up to me
38:27
Speaker 3: one day, And remember, she's the grocer's wife. She says,
38:32
Speaker 3: don't you think, because I had, of course, seen the script,
38:35
Speaker 3: don't you think that I need to have more lines
38:38
Speaker 3: in the scene than in the grocery store? And first
38:42
Speaker 3: of all, I'm going, at your age, with your accomplishments,
38:47
Speaker 3: do you worry about something like that? But we are,
38:50
Speaker 3: you know? And I said, well, actually, of course, I
38:54
Speaker 3: guess when I think about it, yeah, you could use
38:56
Speaker 3: some more lines in there. Well, She went back and
38:59
Speaker 3: told the director that the author thinks that I need more.
39:03
Speaker 3: And they took it to the side and said, if
39:05
Speaker 3: you get into this, you're going to have to leave
39:07
Speaker 3: the set.
39:08
Speaker 2: I was going to say, it takes a lot of
39:11
Speaker 2: humility and confidence for you to say it's a different
39:14
Speaker 2: medium and they need to do this the way they
39:17
Speaker 2: need to creatively do it, which is really the best
39:21
Speaker 2: attitude to have. But I understand because the actress... She said,
39:26
Speaker 2: Cloris is smart. She knows this is the writer.
39:28
Speaker 1: He's the author. He's going to. if he says this
39:31
Speaker 1: like she I mean that it makes me.
39:33
Speaker 2: Laugh because I understand those dynamics very very well.
39:36
Speaker 3: And they had a you know they had a wardrobe
39:38
Speaker 3: set and one of the not too long after this
39:41
Speaker 3: happened the one of the wardrobe women came up to
39:45
Speaker 3: me and said they're putting they're putting McElroy in a
39:48
Speaker 3: leather sports coat And he never had a leather sports coat,
39:54
Speaker 3: did he? I mean, he, and the truth was he
39:56
Speaker 3: walked around in the winter in a t-shirt. That was
39:58
Speaker 3: his big thing. He wouldn't, he didn't know a sports
40:00
Speaker 3: coat from a dead cat, you know? And so I said, whoa,
40:05
Speaker 3: I'm staying out of this one. You're not going to
40:07
Speaker 3: get me quoted on this one. Sorry.
40:12
Speaker 2: You've said that although residents publicly insisted McElroy deserved what
40:17
Speaker 2: happened to him and you believe many privately struggled with
40:20
Speaker 2: the fact that a murder had occurred at all in
40:22
Speaker 2: their town, as a lawyer, do you personally believe the
40:25
Speaker 2: killing was justified?
40:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, basically is what they call the basic
40:31
Speaker 3: social contract in a civilized society is we will let
40:36
Speaker 3: you enforce the law. We won't go take care of
40:40
Speaker 3: of lawbreakers ourselves but what you have to do is
40:44
Speaker 3: you have to do it you have to fulfill those
40:48
Speaker 3: functions and if you don't and that contract is off
40:53
Speaker 3: um and we're looking out for ourselves now because you're
40:56
Speaker 3: not looking out for us so it got to a
40:58
Speaker 3: real primitive state you know right right uncivilized in a
41:03
Speaker 3: way where um they genuinely thought that he was going
41:08
Speaker 3: to he would, he, he was probably going to kill
41:11
Speaker 3: those guys who were, uh, signed the affidavit and life was,
41:15
Speaker 3: life was, uh, at stake. Right. And that this, now that,
41:21
Speaker 3: that implies a group decision to kill him. And there
41:24
Speaker 3: was not a group decision, but afterwards when you talk
41:27
Speaker 3: to him, I thought the women would, uh, come around
41:32
Speaker 3: and say murder's wrong regardless. Um, just because I knew
41:37
Speaker 3: them and they didn't. They were adamant as the man.
41:42
Speaker 3: What they'd say was they deserve, if I can remember right,
41:47
Speaker 3: they deserve a medal for doing it and a condemnation
41:52
Speaker 3: for the way they did it. In other words, why
41:54
Speaker 3: did you kill them on the main street of town?
41:56
Speaker 3: Bring all this hell down on our heads, you know?
42:00
Speaker 1: Oh, right, right. I mean, it is fascinating.
42:04
Speaker 2: I mean, and We are obviously still fascinated by it
42:08
Speaker 2: because we're talking about it today.
42:11
Speaker 3: 47 years later, the New York Times picked it up
42:15
Speaker 3: June 4th. And this story has been retold. And they
42:20
Speaker 3: decided they were going to tell the whole story all
42:22
Speaker 3: over again. And I went out back to Skidmore with
42:24
Speaker 3: them and gave big interviews. I mean, it's like every
42:27
Speaker 3: now and then someone goes, I've never heard that before.
42:30
Speaker 1: How'd that happen?
42:31
Speaker 3: Right.
42:32
Speaker 1: And I remember I was, I'm 55.
42:34
Speaker 2: So that when the movie came out, I was little enough.
42:39
Speaker 2: But when this happened, I was 10. And so I
42:42
Speaker 2: didn't know about that. But I remember the movie coming
42:46
Speaker 2: out and feeling like, oh my god. And I didn't
42:51
Speaker 2: see it at the time, but feeling like, wait a second.
42:53
Speaker 2: Did this happen? How have I never heard of this?
42:56
Speaker 2: How is this not, you know?
42:58
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Well, Harry, this has been so fascinating.
43:05
Speaker 2: You're such an articulate and interesting man. I'm in awe
43:10
Speaker 2: of the things you've done here. So In Broad Daylight
43:14
Speaker 2: is streaming online and on Harry's website, which is harrymaclean.com.
43:21
Speaker 2: And the book is available there. And thank you so
43:24
Speaker 2: much for your time.
43:25
Speaker 3: You're quite welcome. I've enjoyed our conversation. Great.
43:30
Speaker 1: It's been my pleasure.
43:31
Speaker 3: Thank you. back.