Ken McElroy: The Scourge of Skidmore

What happens when a town bully pushes residents past their breaking point? Find out what became of Ken Rex McElroy after thirty-some years of feeling invincible in the tiny town of Skidmore, Missouri. When a town or city has no law enforcement of its own, is it safe to leave the citizens in charge of handing out justice? 

Part one of a series of bizarre stories from the 1980s. Do you remember your school or city's bully? 

Transcript

And we’re back. Between the end of the school year and Tyler and Kaitlyn’s constant need for shuttling, finding enough time to dedicate to writing and recording a podcast episode has been difficult. 

Speaking of Kaitlyn, we’ve been watching the last season of Stranger Things together. If you aren’t watching it, do so. If you’ve never seen Stranger Things, start from the beginning, it's a fun ride. The show manages to capture the eighties very well. So well that it has inspired me to take a look at some of the more bizarre stories from the decade of big hair, Eddie Murphy and Madonna. 

While growing up, three bullies stick out in my mind. The first was named Billy. A rotund boy with spiky blonde hair and glasses. He ruled the playground during my elementary school years. I remember him pushing kids around during recess. He was in trouble constantly. He never did much to me other than steal my twinkies. I managed to keep a low profile. 

Looking back now, and knowing a little better why kids behave the way they do. I’m guessing he didn’t really feel like he fit in. He accepted the label that everyone gave to him and ran with it. Who knows what trouble he faced at home? I never knew him well enough to know about his family or where he lived. 

Even the time he hurt me, I don’t think he truly meant to. At our elementary school we had this metal climbing contraption that we called the ‘Magic Carpet’. Think of wider monkey bars that instead of going straight across looked more like a wave… or… well, a magic carpet. Your typical run of the mill 70’s and 80’s unsafe playground equipment. 

I liked to grip the side edge and swing my body back and forth, like a gymnast on the uneven bars. So there I was, all lanky arms, swinging to and fro when Billy decided to give me some extra momentum. My hands slipped, I flipped and landed in the dirt on my face. Eyes glistening with tears, dirt in my mouth, blood pouring from my chin… and I remember seeing Billy’s face. He didn’t mean to. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had to act like he was. 

In what could be the ending of a movie, our sixth grade class party was at a swimming pool. I was never a great swimmer. While all the kids splashed and had fun I somehow drifted out to the deep end. While my friends thought I was goofing around pretending to drown, Billy could see I was in trouble. Like a mother duck, helping the stray duckling, Billy swam over to me and pulled me over to the side. He didn’t say anything to anyone and after that year I never saw him again.  

Bully number two came along in middle school. His name was Dan. Dan lived down the street from me, in fact his parents still do. My proximity to him may have saved me from becoming a victim. At times I almost felt like that little kid with the hat, who hangs around with Scut Farkus in “Christmas Story”. I was his crony? Maybe? Minion perhaps? I never helped him beat anyone up, but I would tell him how cool he was for doing so and I would share any gossip that came my way.

I had to stand at a bus stop with the kid everyday, I wasn’t about to not kiss his butt. As high school neared I can, clear as day, remember him pushing a dead riding lawn mower up and down the side street with his shirt off. He wasn't training for anything but pummeling people. 

I’m fairly sure he ended up in Juvy or joining the army or something. He just sort of went away. He always had girlfriends that were like five years older than him, too. It was weird. 

The last thing I knew about Dan is he was running a shady tree removal service and conned me out of a couple of hundred dollars. This was only a couple of years ago. I should have known better but I was still mentally kissing his butt even as a grown man. 

Bully number three came in the form of a high school junior that was totally my fault. There was a girl I’d befriended in middle school. Cheerleader. Cute. Waaaay to advanced for me. I was friends with her, nothing more. One day, over the summer between 8th grade and highschool, I was at Rock n’ Bowl for a teen night party. I was hanging out with this girl and our mutual friends, we were probably dancing to Kid n’ Play or Salt n’ Pepa. 

As the lights flashed and bowling balls slammed into pins, I remember her telling me that her boyfriend was being mean to her. So I said, “I’ll kick his ass for you.” 

The summer went on and I thought nothing of it until the first day of my freshman year of high school. As I’m struggling with my backpack and finding a place to sit, up walks a thick, muscular Junior named Matt. He said something witty like “This is strike one, strike two you’re out” as he jabbed a finger in my chest. As I sat there, nearly soiling myself, I tried to figure out why I didn’t get three strikes like everyone else and why, in god’s name, would her parents let an eighth grader date a high school sophomore. 

She had apparently told him what I said after they had reconciled in the back of his Ford Escort. He’d been waiting for weeks to meet me. That was my introduction to High School. He never laid a finger on me, but I would have preferred he did just to get it over with. He may have never thought about it again but I walked the halls everyday that year like a shadow ninja, avoiding any place he would be, scared that today would be the day.

A fun twist ending to that story is that I DJ’ed his daughter’s wedding a couple of years ago, he doesn’t remember any of that and he’s sadly, really nice.

The eighties were full of Bullies. Stan Gable from Revenge Of The Nerds, Mick McAllister - Teen Wolf, Ace Merrill - Stand By Me, Chet from Weird Science, The Heathers, Johnny Lawrence from Karate Kid. I hated him. And of course, who could forget Biff Tannen from the Back to the Future trilogy. 

So the eighties are kind of known for their bullies. Billy from my elementary school included. Let’s take a look now at one of the worst bullies of that decade. It’s a little known story from Missouri that’s hard to believe.   

Episode 43 - Ken McElroy: The Scourge of Skidmore

Ken Rex McElroy was born on June 16th, 1934 in the small town of Overland Park, Kansas. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Quitman, Missouri before settling down in Skidmore. McElroy was the 15th of 16 total children born to Tony and Mabel McElroy. The family was poor and farmed to make ends meet. At the age of 15, Ken dropped out of school, never finishing the eighth grade. In his teens he gained a reputation as a thief and womanizer.  

In March of 1955, at the age of twenty, McElroy was arraigned on charges of statutory rape. He was released on a $1500 bond. The victim, a fourteen-year-old girl, refused to testify and on March 29th the case was dismissed. This would be the first of many times that McElroy would find a way out of trouble. 

In October of that same year he paid a small fine of $6 for driving without a license and in September of ‘56 he was arrested on charges of careless driving.

At some point, in the late 1950’s, McElroy married his first wife, Sharon. Sharon was only fifteen when they first met. In between beatings, Sharon had two children with him. After the birth of their second child McElroy found a new, younger girlfriend named Sally. She was only thirteen when they met, with Ken now being around 27.  Over the course of the next few years he’d have three kids with Sally and two more with Sharon, bringing the total number of offspring up to seven. During that time, McElroy invited Sally to come live on the family farm with his wife Sharon and two kids.

In between making babies with underage girls, McElroy found himself in and out of trouble. In January of 1962, he was arrested once again for driving without a license and this time he was caught having false, out of state tags on his license plate. Six days later one of his wives/girlfriends gave birth to a baby and a day after that he was in trouble for careless and imprudent driving and speeding. That’s sort of the way his life went. Legal trouble… baby… new girlfriend… legal trouble… baby. 

In 1963 another McElroy baby was born. In 1964, now 30-years-old, he was arrested on new charges of statutory rape with another fourteen year old. 1967 saw him arrested for outstanding parking tickets. 

McElroy quickly became bored with Sharon and Sally and their combined seven children so he went out and found another underage girl. Alice Wood became McElroy’s second wife and third baby-mama after he moved out of the home he shared with Sharon and Sally and moved in with Alice. 

As was the case in his former relationships, he was abusive to Alice and the moment she gave birth to their son, McElroy’s eighth kid, she moved back into the home of her mother and stepfather in the next town over. 

McElroy was enraged and quickly phoned her house, launching into a tirade and demanding she give back his son. Alice’s stepfather attempted to stop McElroy and was shot in the leg.

He’d surely see jail time this time, right? Not so much.

He was arrested on assault charges, but as he’d done in the past, McElroy used scare tactics to keep his victims from talking. He threatened the stepfather with killing his entire family, he’d follow him on the road and sit and stare at his house at night. Alice’s stepfather eventually refused to testify and dropped the charges.

In 1968, McElroy and a few of his cronies got together to beat up an unexpecting man as he went to tend to his daughter’s horses. As they beat up her father, they threatened her life if she went to the police. Through suspected threats, McElroy and his friends were able to avoid any jail time.  

Despite shooting Alice’s father and threatening the lives of her entire family, she moved back into McElroy’s home with their son. As a welcome home present, McElroy introduced Alice to his new girlfriend, twelve-year-old, Trena McCloud. McElroy, at the time, was thirty-five. Two years later, now fourteen-year-old Trena became pregnant. After the baby was born, both Trena and Alice fled McElroy’s home and moved in with Trena’s parents. 

This made McElroy very upset. He drove to the McCloud residence, beat Trena and Alice and then proceeded to burn the family’s home to the ground. He then made the girls and their children return home to his farmhouse.

Due to the beating that Trena took, she was taken to a nearby hospital. A staff member at the hospital called child services and Trena and her son were brought to foster care. 

In 1973 McElroy was charged with arson, rape and brandishing a deadly weapon but his lawyer was able to delay the trial for a lengthy period of time. During this time, Trena ran away from her foster home and moved back in with McElroy. In order to keep away from a trial that would no doubt send him away for a long time, he married 17-year-old Trena and she dropped the charges. 

One headline from an October 1974 newspaper read “Rape Case Is Called Off, As Couple Weds”. 

In July of 1976, a farmer named Romaine Henry heard some gunshots near his home. He hopped in his truck and drove towards the sound to investigate. When he approached McElroy’s truck, McElroy opened the door and shot him twice, once in the gut and a second time that nicked his face. McElroy was charged with assault with intent to kill. 

At the hearing, McElroy denied he was even there. Henry claimed that McElroy sat outside of his home every night since before the trial began. Two raccoon hunters lied under oath, stating that they were with McElroy on the day of the shooting. After McElroy’s attorney exposed some dirt on Henry’s own criminal history, the jury took only 45 minutes to acquit him. 

In 1977, McElroy and Trena had a baby boy named Reno. It was McElroy’s tenth and last child. 

In 1980, as the Skidmore townsfolk grew weary of nearly 30 years of bullying, McElroy’s four year old child got in trouble for stealing candy at the local grocery store. The cashier held the girl until her mother was found and the store’s owner, 70-year-old Ernest Bowenkamp and his wife Lois talked to the girl. When word got back to McElroy he began stalking the Bowenkamp family. Eventually he showed up at the grocery store and threatened Bowenkamp with a shotgun. As the two argued, McElroy shot Bowenkamp in the neck. 

The 70-year-old survived and McElroy was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Finally, after dozens of court cases, McElroy was convicted. Instead of going straight to prison, he was freed on bail pending his appeal. 

After being released, the townspeople began gathering at the local Legion Hall to discuss what should or could be done about the town bully. On the morning of July 10th, 1981, as they met, the Sheriff discussed ways that they could protect themselves.  During the meeting, McElroy and his wife Trena arrived at the D&G Tavern. As the couple sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. The Sheriff suggested forming a neighborhood watch program and then hopped in his police cruiser and left. 

Perhaps with a wink, we may never know, he instructed the group to stay clear of McElroy and not to confront him. 

The group of concerned Skidmore-ians decided to ignore the Sheriff and left for the tavern. The bar filled up completely and McElroy could sense something was wrong. He reportedly bought a six-pack for the road, left the bar and entered his pickup truck. .

The crowd in the bar followed the couple out to their truck and surrounded it. That’s when at least two different people opened fire on Ken Rex McElroy. He was hit twice, by two different rifles. Of the group of roughly 45 people, not one of them made an effort to call an ambulance. McElroy died shortly after.  

Trena claimed to see who had fired on her husband but every other witness denied having any knowledge of who fired the two guns. The local District Attorney declined to press charges. An extensive federal-level follow up investigation also led to zero charges.

Ken Rex McElroy was buried at the Memorial Park Cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Three years later, in 1984 Trena McElroy filed a $5 million dollar wrongful death lawsuit against the Town of Skidmore, the Sheriff, the Mayor and the man she accused of being one of the shooters. When all was said and done, the case was settled out of court by all parties for $17,600. No one admitted guilt and still no charges were filed. Trena eventually remarried and moved to Lebanon, Missouri. She died of cancer on her 55th birthday on January 24, 2012.

In 1988, author Harry N. MacLean wrote a true crime book about McElroy's murder called “In Broad Daylight”. In 1991 the story was adapted into the made-for-TV movie under the same name. The film stared Brian Dennehy, Marcia Gay Harden, and Chris Cooper with Dennehy taking on the role of a renamed McElroy.

Some interesting notes on the story. McElroy was seriously injured in an accident while working on a construction site. A heavy steel beam dropped on him causing possible brain damage and severe, chronic pain. While he’d already been a bully and criminal, some townspeople believe the injury exacerbated his behavior and temper.

The nearest police department sent out an officer whose only job was to watch over McElroy and stop any incidents that arose. McElroy confronted and threatened the officer who called for backup. The police refused to come help. That officer apparently turned in his badge and quit the next day.

His Kansas City lawyer, Richard McFadin, helped the 270-pound McElroy get out of at least 20 indictments. There were some that believed McFadin was also a lawyer for the mob. Whether that is true or not is largely unknown. What is known is that due to his size and his lawyer, he felt invincible. 

As far as the town of Skidmore goes, there aren’t many people left alive or who are still living there who know what happened on that day. As of the 2010 census, there were barely 250 people living in the area. 

Despite its dwindling population, Skidmore has been in the national news for the wrong reasons on two more occasions. On April 11, 2001 a man named Branson Perry vanished from his residence on West Oak Street in Skidmore. Ground search parties were organized by the Nodaway County Sheriff's Office within a 15-mile radius of the Perry residence. Over the following month and a half, over one hundred people were interviewed in Perry's disappearance, but the case remains unsolved.

Three years later, on December 16, 2004, a woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was a cousin of Branson Perry, was murdered in her home on West Elm Street. Residents were horrified to learn that she’d had her unborn baby cut from her womb. The baby was found alive two days later in Topeka, Kansas. Her killer, Lisa Montgomery was executed early in the morning on January 13, 2021.

So I’m taking Skidmore, Missouri off of my tour itinerary. 

What say you, fellow Curators? Have you ever dealt with a bully? Were you once a bully? Is the type of vigilante justice carried out in Skidmore something we can be okay with? In the situation of Ken McElroy, maybe. 

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