WEBVTT - The Strange Unsolved Murder of Ken McElroy 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:08.400 If you're going to Send Francisco or Seattle, you should 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:10.440 come to our live shows. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.880 That's right, well done, Chuck. We are still selling tickets 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.960 to our live shows on January twenty fourth and twenty 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.680 six On January twenty fourth in Seattle at the Paramount 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.200 Theater and on January twenty sixth in San Francisco at 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.560 Sydney Goldstein Theater. Tickets are still available to come see us. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.240 Hats off to Portland for selling out our show at 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.680 Revolution Hall already, and sorry to everybody who got shut out. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.320 That's right. So where can they get tickets at our website? 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:35.440 Right? 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.480 Stuff youshould do dot com yeah. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.120 Or linktree slash sysk. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.879 We'll see everybody then. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:50.199 a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.560 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.840 Chuck and Jerry's here too, pushing us around as usual 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.600 for this episode of Stuff you Should. 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.920 Know, our second episode for us of the New Year. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.200 And why didn't we save like a pretty happy one 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:10.039 to get going with. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.280 I don't know, I don't know, Probably because we knew 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.160 we were going to be so bummed out after Jonestown. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.520 We needed something that was a pick me up. And 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.399 what's crazy is this story actually is a pick me 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:23.960 up compared to Jonestown. 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.800 Oh boy, that's tough to parse out. So thank you 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.960 Tolivia for diving into this tough story. And also this episode, 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.320 we want to issue a very big trigger warning because 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.880 in it we are going to talk about a very 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.600 bad man and some of the bad things he did, 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:49.680 which included sexual assault and some of which were with minors. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.240 So trigger warning. Know that going in. There's no way 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:55.080 around it. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.680 There's very few stories that have like a clear cut villain, 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.080 but this is one of them. And the villain who's 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.560 also the center of our story. The person at the 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.720 center of our story is a man named ken Rex McElroy. Yeah, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.120 which I mean all you need to hear is that name, really, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.040 I think, and it kind of just puts a weird 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.120 chill down your spine that you can't quite identify yet. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.079 Yeah, this is a story that you may have heard 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.919 of before. There's no shortage of content about Ken McElroy. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.880 There was a book written in nineteen eighty eight by 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.200 Harry McLain, a crime writer, called in Broad Daylight, You 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.200 Know What's Coming colon our murder in Skidmore, Missouri. There 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.360 was a documentary just a few years ago in twenty 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.200 nineteen called a documentary series actually called No One Saw 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.120 a Thing, of which I watched at the first episode. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.360 How is it? I didn't get a chance to yet. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.840 Well, we'll talk about it. It's okay. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.799 It's got like a seven plus on IMDb. That's really 0:02:58.800 --> 0:02:59.400 saying something. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.680 Yeah, Chuck gives it a six minus. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:05.600 Okay, Still it's not too bad. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.560 It's okay. I mean, not a ton of light was shed. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.120 So maybe it's because if I went into it blind 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:12.239 it might have been a little better. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:12.720 Gotcha. 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.960 But there's also a nineteen ninety one TV movie starring 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.160 Brian Denahey and Marcia gay Harden, which I actually I 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.360 watched a very bad YouTube version of it. Mostly I 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.480 scribbed through a little bit of it. But it's actually 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.120 not terrible for a nineteen ninety one TV movie, largely 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.560 because Brian Dennehey is perfectly cast and awesome. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.200 Yeah, he really is. I don't understand why they changed 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:42.480 the names. Did Harry MacLean change the names for in 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:43.240 Broad Daylight? 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.920 I didn't read the book, but I don't know. Sometimes 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.360 they do that with TV movies. Huh, well, regardlessly the innocent. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.320 You know, I scrubbed ahead to the last probably thirty minutes, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:56.560 so all the good stuff. 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:57.560 That's kind of all you need. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.720 And you're right. Brian Denney was great and Marcia J. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.280 Harden did a great job at the really important point. 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:09.120 Yeah, she's a tremendous actor, as was Denney. Rip Brian Denney. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:14.560 So Ken Rex McElroy. He was from Skidmore, Missouri. That's 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.440 where this story takes place. He was the fifteenth of 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.880 sixteen kids. From what I saw, he was born in 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.120 nineteen thirty four. And you can be the wealthiest person 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.680 in your state and have sixteen kids and you're still 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.839 going to be hard scrabble. Sure, his dad wasn't the 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.640 wealthiest person in the state. So the mcelroys grew up 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.560 kind of doing what they could to make their own way. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:43.960 And Ken himself, I saw either he made it up 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.080 to age fifteen in school, which is a surprising statistic 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.479 to me after I know a little more about him. 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.320 I also saw that he was illiterate, which I would 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.400 definitely believe more than the fact that he made it 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.080 up to age fifteen in school. Either way, at a 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.880 young age, he he started taking up crime. You get 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.760 the impression not just out of necessity, but also probably 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.479 out of a certain amount of pleasure. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.040 Yeah, and this was to frame it. And then nineteen forties. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.640 He was born in thirty four, so by the time 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.960 he was criming, it was in nineteen forties. One thing 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.720 we should mention is, and I'm glad Livia dug this up, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.800 and this is no way excusing any of his behaviors, 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.200 but when he was eighteen year years old, he was 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.479 a working construction and there was an accident where some 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.560 very heavy cribbing fell about thirty feet and hit him 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.520 in the head. He had a construction helmet, but it 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.680 cut his scalp, so it clearly, you know, provided minimal protection. 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.919 And he said that he had a steel plate implanted 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.719 and had episodes of blackout episodes and pain throughout the 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.240 rest of his life. And it should be noted that 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.719 one common denominator in many cases of you know, sick 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.680 people who do awful things is head injury when they're younger, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.520 so that very well may have been the case. Again, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.640 not excusing anything he did, but we're trying to paint 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:08.560 a full picture here. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.800 He was like a modern day Phineas Gage. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.120 Yeah, exactly. And like you said, it seemed like he 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.800 enjoyed criming from a young age. He was a pretty 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.000 I mean this is before the accident, even he was 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.000 a pretty disturbed young man. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.039 Yeah. Oh, I have to say, yeah, I would say 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.600 I would definitely agree with that. But he did do stuff. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.159 He wasn't just like a lay about like. He was 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:41.760 a kind of an industrious criminal. He also trained hunting dogs. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:48.320 He was a dealer of antiques, a buyer and seller, 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.960 but more than anything, he was a cattle wrestler. Apparently, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.839 the year before his death, the county that Skidaways in 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.640 our Skidmores and not a Way county, the cattle thefts 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.479 were six times that of any other place in the state. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.320 It led the state in cattle thefts, and apparently a 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:15.480 lot of that was Ken McElroy. He was flush with cash. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.200 He would buy new cars, he could support. He ended 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:24.160 up having at least ten kids could support them all. 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.840 He had a lot of money and all of it 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.200 essentially was from crime. Because he had a tiny little 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.280 farm and he wasn't making much of any money off 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.760 of that. He was making it from stealing. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.040 Yeah, and when we say he had a lot of money, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.560 it's not the kind of it's not wealth. He had 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.440 the kind of money for a criminal in the nineteen 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.400 sixties and Skidmore, Missouri. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:51.400 He had skid More money. 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.600 Yeah, which is to say, oh, I hope there's no 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:59.240 skid Marians. There's a couple hundred of them, well listening 0:07:59.240 --> 0:07:59.560 to us. 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.720 Yeah, I just assume the whole town listens to us. 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.360 Anyway, they're probably so sick of the story. But he's 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.200 the kind of money guy that like he always had 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.320 like a few grand in his pocket with a big, 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.800 fat money roll, like that kind of dude. He was 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.360 a big guy. He was like six two or sixty three, 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.960 had this sort of here again kind of like Jim 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.960 Jones men of the time, had this jet black hair 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.120 and these huge side burns. He was imposing. But he 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.960 picked on people smaller than him. He picked on women 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.120 and children and young girls and took advantage of all 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.400 these people. And he was arrested and charged at least 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.600 twenty one times without being convicted. And if you're thinking, like, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.680 how in the world does that happen? When people know 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.720 he's committing crimes, he's getting arrested of these committing these crimes. 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:57.239 It's because he had a very, I guess good slippery 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.480 attorney named Richard Jean mcfahten who was supposedly a mob 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.200 attorney in Kansas City. And upon their first meeting, he 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.600 was like, you can't afford me, and McElroy said, let 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.680 me be the judge of that, pulled out that big 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.679 fat roll from his pocket, threw it on the desk, 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.000 and McFadden was delighted to have him as a cash 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:20.840 paying client who listened to him. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:27.200 Yeah, so McFadden was so was so good at getting 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:32.840 them off. He well, actually they worked together. McFadden was 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.400 good at getting him off, but it was he probably 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.640 wouldn't have been nearly as successful as Ken McElroy hadn't 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:43.000 have been also a very active participant in getting himself off. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.760 So Gene McFadden would get delay after delay, all these 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:53.240 procedural delays to just really put as much time between 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.640 Ken McElroy's arrest and the actual trial date as possible, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.439 and then Ken McElroy would get busy intimidating witnesses, and 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.040 if it got closer and closer to trial and in 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.440 a jury wasn't paneled. He would intimidate the jurors. He 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.720 would threaten their lives. He would threaten the lives of 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.120 their families. He would threaten to burn their houses down. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.600 He would threaten to kill them. He would threaten not 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.400 just with words, he would intimidate them by parking in 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.720 their driveways, by brandishing guns at them, by shooting guns 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.600 in the air, sometimes in the night, outside of their house, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.720 like just It would take a couple of these for 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.520 the average person to be like, I can't this is 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.480 not what I've signed up for. This guy is scaring 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.760 me to death. Some people lasted longer than others, but 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.239 most of the time, almost in every single time, eventually 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.680 he would intimidate enough of the witnesses that the cases 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.560 would fall apart. And that is how he became what 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:58.080 Crime Library referred to as this teflon coated hicic. 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:03.080 Yeah, absolutely like he shot a guy in the stomach 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.040 in July of nineteen seventy six, a guy named Romayne Henry. 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.520 And yes, you heard me right, Romaine Farmer spelled exactly 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.640 like the lettuce? Was he named after the lettuce? Because 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:14.559 was he a lettuce farmer? 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.600 I don't know. Did they farm letus in Missouri. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.240 They did in you in Arizona, I think just. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.560 For the sake of this story. Yes, he absolutely was 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.360 a Romaine Lettuce farmer. His parents raised him to be. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.720 One and named him after that Lettuce. So he was 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.120 shot in the stomach with a shotgun, was not killed, 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.319 and it got away with it, you know. In the documentary, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.240 like Romaine Henry pulls up his shirt and he's like, 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:44.800 here's where he shot me, and court witnesses he you know, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.840 like you said earlier, he was one of his side hustles, 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.280 was raising and training and selling hunting dogs, and he 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.240 was well liked by some people, like the people that 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.360 he dealt with with these hunting dogs. Other crime type 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.679 people liked him. So he had this stable of dudes 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.440 that would go to court and testify on his behalf 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.320 and provide him with alibis and say, like, he didn't 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.040 shoot him in the stomach. He was with us at 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.400 the time of the shooting. So he got away with 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.240 shooting Romayne Henry in the stomach with a shotgun. Even. 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.760 Yeah, and just to make sure that you understand what 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.360 kind of person Kim McElroy was the reason that he 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.800 shot Romayne Henry in the stomach was because Romayne Henry 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.280 approached him and said, hey, will you please not shoot 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.719 pheasants out of season on my land anymore? And Kim 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.680 McElroy responded by shooting him in the stomach because he 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.120 told him basically to stop shooting birds illegally on that 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:39.920 man's land. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.000 Yeah, it didn't matter who you were. There was a cop, 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:49.240 even a highway patrolman named Richard Stratton hashtag hero. Yeah 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.199 who had you know? Plenty of run ends, obviously with 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.000 McElroy because like you said, this is a town of 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.520 you know, a few hundred people at the time. I 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.040 think yep, maybe like four or five hundred again, and 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.440 so everyone knew this guy, including obviously Richard Stratton, and 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.360 he had a bunch of run ins, And so McElroy 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.120 started threatening his home and his family. One day, his wife, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.240 Margaret was on our way to church. She got in 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.240 the car to go to church and McRoy walks up 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.400 to the car, puts a shotgun in her face. And 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.480 he did that to cops, wives, he did it to judges. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.599 The county magistrate, Montgomery Wilson, was so fearful that he 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.600 wouldn't take these cases. He would have them move to 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.480 other nearby counties like he was. People called him the 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.040 town bully, but that is the kindest way to describe him, 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.719 because he was also a child molester and rapist. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:43.679 Yeah, I say we take a break and then come 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.560 back and talk about this, all. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:14:09.960 Right, We'll be right back, all right. So when we 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.880 left off, I leveled a pretty serious allegation, which is 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:18.400 absolutely true, that Ken McElroy was a child molester and rapist. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.680 And this is one hundred percent true. The story gets 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.440 very twisted and convoluted here, but it's kind of hard 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.680 to follow along because he was married and then had 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.120 a girlfriend and a wife at the same time, but 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.360 then another one and then another. Wooden would come in 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.400 and they're overlapping, and he's having kids with most of them, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.440 and it gets very confusing. But like you said, he 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.320 fathered ten kids. A lot of them were with underage girls. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.360 He got married for the first time in nineteen fifty 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.280 two when he was eighteen and his wife, Alita was sixteen, 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.840 and he is not like he calmed down or anything. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.560 He would pray and stalk in groom girls as young 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.360 as twelve thirteen years old, one of which was a 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:08.920 fifteen year old name Sharon, and they it was sort 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.000 of a familiar pattern where he would he would groom 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.280 and stalk these young teenage girls. He would abuse them, 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.240 he would rape them and threaten them with death and 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:24.040 somehow end up with them and not not somehow through 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.000 coercion and threaten intimidation. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:31.240 Yeah, and he would get so he would be married already, 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.040 and like you said, he'd be stalking and raping and 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.760 abusing some other younger girl at the same time. And 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:41.760 then inevitably, when charges were about to be brought against 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:46.160 him because of his like rape and abuse and in 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:50.560 one case shooting of one of the girls, he would 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.680 he would convince them to marry him. He would go 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:56.280 to his wife and be like, we have to get 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.760 divorced because I got to marry this girl so that 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.000 she won't testify against me. And he would be successful. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.280 And if they refused at first, he would use those 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.200 same tactics that he used to intimidate witnesses to intimidate 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.360 these girls into marrying him and becoming his wife. And 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.240 then astoundingly, he would go find a younger girl and 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.600 start the whole thing over again. Like this guy got 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.000 married more than once to keep the girl that he 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.480 was raping from testifying against him, because back then a 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.400 wife couldn't testify against her husband. 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.360 Yeah. So, I mean, we don't need to get into 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.080 every single one of those details, but suffice it to 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:40.280 say this was happening over and over and over remarkably sometimes. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.160 You know. Obviously, these girls parents would put up a 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.720 fight and get involved, and he would intimidate and threaten 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.360 them to the point where at one point he and 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.600 this is the wife he had sort of when the 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.120 final incident went down. Trina McLeod, who he got together with, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.480 this just so sick. When she was twelve or thirteen 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.800 year years old, was like picking her up from the 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.600 school bus. Yeah, and school officials were like, something's going 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.320 on with this creep. No one ever did anything, got 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.840 her pregnant at fourteen, and moved her into the house 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.080 he shared with the previous young girl that he was with. 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.640 So he had a son with Trina in nineteen seventy three, 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.879 and a couple of others with this young girl, Alice, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:32.919 and went to Trina's parents' house. They obviously are saying like, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.600 you can't keep our daughter like this, and he held 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.159 them back at gunpoint, brought the girls back, continue to 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.720 abuse them, and then eventually he would burn down the 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.879 house of Trina McLeod's parents and shoot and kill their 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.640 family dog. Yeah, is he a bad enough guy at 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:52.520 this point? All right, dear listener. 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:58.199 Apparently he somehow Trina ended up being treated by a 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.920 doctor somewhere or other. The doctor got the story out 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.359 of her, and the doctor was like, wait, can you 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.320 tell me all that one more time? And I guess 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.560 she did. And the doctor called the authorities, and this 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.800 time McElroy was in a lot of trouble and they 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.679 took Trina to child services and took her to a 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.280 family foster, a foster family, and he started stalking the 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.919 foster family and stalking their biological kids and threatening to 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.320 rape and kill them. And that foster family would not 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.280 give in. They were protecting Trina up until the time. 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.920 Trina's like, all right, I forgive you. I'm going back 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.000 to you, and I'm sure that foster family is like, 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.879 oh my god, I can't believe Yeah, I can't believe this, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.440 Like can you can't make that decision? And she did 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.119 and he got away with it yet again because he 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.080 got her to marry him to keep her from being 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.879 able to even testify against her and Gene McFadden in 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.600 a show of just how sleazy lawyers can be, served 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:01.919 as the way witness to their wedding. I think she 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.800 was fifteen at the time, and at the end of 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.240 the ceremony got her to sign a document saying all 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.600 the things she told that doctor were lies and they 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:12.439 lived as husband and wife. 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.640 That's right. So this is this was his final wife, 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.560 young trinam Cloud. He apparently got her parents because you know, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.879 you needed to have permission to get married at that age, 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.440 and her parents acquiesced because he threatened to burn down 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.040 the new house that they either bought or built. And 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.480 this is where I get to the documentary, like a 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:35.080 lot of it should be taken with a grain of salt, 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.040 because some of the local townspeople they interview are clearly 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.440 sort of just maybe don't have all the facts straight. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.320 Because someone in that documentary said that he burned their 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.760 house down again and shot their other new dog, and 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.160 I didn't see anywhere else where that happened. I think 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:52.760 it was just a threat or whatever. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.960 He killed a monkey too, right, That's what I heard. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.359 Deal with the documentary. So this is the this is 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.080 going on. He's terrorizing this town. Everyone knows he's an 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:08.760 awful guy. He's just can't be overstated what an awful 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.359 creep that he is. And I mean creep isn't even 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:19.000 that's way too soft to describe a guy like this. Finally, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.440 in nineteen eighty he sort of pushes his luck. As 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.280 Livia would call this section, things have kind of come 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.840 a little bit to a head. They're these local shopkeepers. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:31.920 They ran the B and B grocery there in town 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:39.080 Lois and Earnest bow Bowen Camp and they apparently his 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.320 you know, his kids would go in there and chop 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.960 lifts all the time, his very young kids. And one 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.520 of his young daughters, her name was Tonya or Tanya, 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:48.560 I'm not sure how that was pronounced. 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:49.280 Na. 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.600 Tanya was like four years old and was stealing candy 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.560 from the store. They confronted this young girl, and of 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.199 course McElroy wouldn't stand for that, so he starts up 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:05.440 with his usual routine, parking outside their store, staring them down, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.840 brandishing a shotgun and carrying it around with him. And 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.960 in July of that year, McElroy approached bo Bowen Camp 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.159 the grocery store owner. They had a brief conversation and 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.439 he shot this seventy year old man through the neck again, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:23.200 not killing him, but wounding him. 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:29.240 Yeah, and so Bo and Lois Bowen Camp were like 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.760 beloved in the town. Oh yeah, this is a big deal. 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:39.280 He had assaulted and a beloved elderly shopkeeper, grocer who 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.760 fed the town, and even McElroy knew it was a 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:45.840 big deal. He fled, he tried to get out of 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:51.760 the state. And you mentioned Richard Stratton, the Missouri Highway 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:55.320 patrolman who had run ins over and over and over 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.600 again with Ken McElroy. Well, he was out on patrol 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.800 night when that happened or that day, I guess, and 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:04.679 he got the all points bulletin er to be on 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.000 the lookout for Ken McElroy. And at the time, the 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.960 Sheriff's office, the rest of the Highway patrol they were 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.240 setting up roadblocks, looking on every highway that they could 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.240 for Ken McElroy. But Richard Stratton said, no, I know 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.840 this guy. He's got a police scanner. He knows exactly 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.080 where they are. He's going to take every back road 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.119 he confined to get to Kansas and get out of 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.760 the state and lay low for a while, and Richard 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.080 Stratton said, I know he's going to have to go 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.720 through Fillmore, Missouri to get to Kansas, and I'm going 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.280 to stake that place out. And in short order, Ken 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.879 McElroy came driving through in his Silverado with Trina in 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.520 the seat and he ended up getting busted by Richard Stratton. 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.879 He was caught. And this again even he knew this 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:46.200 one was a big deal. 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:51.840 Yeah, yeah, he finally was taken into custody this time. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.800 He I don't know if he just had an instinct 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:57.680 that there was probably no way out of this one, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.280 but he hired his trusteelawyer again McFadden, who said, all right, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.920 let's move this thing to Harrison County first of all, 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.440 and here's our plan is. We're going to say that 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:11.720 this was a dispute with Bowen Camp. This this sort 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.280 of argument you guys had over your daughter's stealing, and 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.199 that he pulled a knife on you and that it 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.080