Skidmore, Missouri - 40 Years After They Killed The Bully

in skinmore everyone knows everyone else under the sun including ken rex mcelroy this is the murder that has no witnesses someone shot and killed ken rex mcelroy as he sat in his truck he was feared and hated around town and even though plenty of witnesses saw the shooting no one ever identified the killer cold-blooded murder bang bang twice a hit killed him instantly we have done everything we can do law enforcement's done everything they can do and you end up with a murder for which no one has been yet prosecuted all those people watching this happen not one of them came forward and said i saw who did it i wouldn't go through that town and walk around there bang bang twice a hit killed him instantly no witnesses no case everyone saw the town bully get killed i got to tell you it's really eerie being here i've read so much about this town and now i'm here i mean this town is home to one of the strangest unsolved murders maybe ever and it all happened in this quiet little town in rural northwest missouri population about 260 but for such a small town it certainly has a history of some really heinous murders but probably none of them are more famous than the murder of ken rex mcelroy and that actually happened right here back in 1981 this was the dng tavern this is right where ken mcelroy was shot dead sitting in his truck in front of dozens and dozens of townspeople and to this day no one has ever been convicted of his murder so it's a pretty famous case i mean there's been movies about it best-selling novels written about it and plenty of documentaries in fact i recently saw a news special from 1981 shortly after the murder and i thought it would be interesting to come here and show you what the town of skidmore looks like now after almost 40 years so that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take a walk around this small little town and i'm going to show you how things look now in the town of skidmore less lovely than most of the county is the town of skidmore only two paid streets a few run down storefronts that look as if they've never seen better days and not much more just about everyone in these parts feared mcilroy phil everhart knew him since he was a boy he wasn't the kind of a man that would fight another man out in the streets [Music] he used a gun so to catch you up to speed on the story of the mcelroy murder 47 year old mcelroy had a long rap sheet with over two dozen different charges including assault rape theft assault with a deadly weapon molesting a miner and the list goes on he allegedly burned down people's houses and stole livestock and attempts to intimidate people into getting what he wanted mcelroy was very well known around these parts as being the the town bully and most of you may think of a middle school bully someone who used to steal your lunch or pull your hair but it was like that times 100 because this bully carried a shotgun one such well-known story is when a man named romaine henry was driving down a road around here and he was stopped by ken mcelroy with a shotgun standing in the middle of the road who accused him of spying on him and before romaine henry could reason with him mcilroy shot him in the stomach and then shot him in the side of the face he said well you're a lion sob and and when he said that well then he more or less laid to barrel that shotgun right against my stomach and pulled the trigger and when he did why of course it laid my flesh all open and blew my flesh into this door here now in case you're wondering mcelroy was arrested for this and there was a trial but two of his buddies testified that he was with them during that time and mcelroy was exonerated but this would not be the last time that something like this happened which brings us to the bowen camps grocery store right here in town this is the building where the grocery store was i think it's i think this side on the right here is where the grocery store actually was which is now good time charlie's this was ernest beau bowen camps grocery store and it's here where two of ken mcelroy's children two daughters i believe one was four and one was fourteen went into the grocery store to buy some candy and evidently they were accused of stealing the candy and ken mcelroy did not like that back here is the porch or this was the loading dock where bo bowen camp was sitting the day that ken mcelroy approached him and stuck a gun in his face one day mcelroyd turned up at the loading bay behind the store where mr bowen camp was sitting watching the world go by in some old interviews bo bowen camp talked about how he was sitting there ken approached him and was mad that beau had accused his children of stealing some candy and shoved a shotgun in his face and bo actually had to think to himself is this guy really going to shoot me or is he just trying to intimidate and at the last second beau turned his body to dodge it and ken fired that shotgun hitting bo in the neck fortunately he thought to survived now is he going to shoot or is he just going to scare me so i thought if i was going to shoot i better dodge over so i dodged over just in time he got released in the neck now you may even be asking yourself where were the police where was the law enforcement and first of all this was 1981 in rural missouri there was a sheriff's apartment but it was pretty far away i think like something like 20 minute drive away so every time something happened with they'd call the sheriff's office by the time the sheriff got there mcilroy was gone and another interesting thing is there was a town marshall but allegedly mcelroy shoved a gun in his face and intimidated him about the bone camp incident where he shot old man bowen camp on the loading dock and he was supposed to the marshal was supposed to testify against him well that marshall up and quit after that run-in with mcilroy i pulled a gun out and was holding it there and he asked me if i was going to testify against him i told him i'd have to go over because i was a marshal david dunbar was marshall but for only six months he was to be a witness in the bowen camp shooting after this encounter with mcelroy he quit the job and went into business wiring up houses for cable tv he said that he would believe in killing a man that wanted to put him in the pen for the rest of his life so there really wasn't that much law enforcement out here and there were court cases for these different situations but he just kept beating the system he had a fantastic lawyer out of kansas city and he had a decent amount of money and could pay this lawyer to keep finding these loopholes and getting him out of all these indictments and he was more than just fearless he was harassing people and you know something i have never been able to verify these allegations that he was harassing anybody no local preacher tim warren would disagree he's a friend of bowen camp and just before mcelroy's trial for the shooting of ernest bellen camp warren says mcelroy and trina turned up at warren's church armed with a machine gun i noticed that he and and trina were out of the truck and he had the machine gun out and in his hand someone's yelling at their dog for barking too much kind of adds to the eeriness of this place the town is absolutely desolate man but this area right here this piece of property was a gas station back in 81 and right next to it was where the american legion hall was which is where a good portion of the town got together somewhere up to a hundred people possibly even including the local sheriff trying to figure out what to do about this bully now after that meeting they got word either they got word that ken with was with his wife at the bar just around the corner or it was planned it's never really been known trina mcelroy's wife talked about how there was an unsettling in the bar that day so they decided to leave they walked out and everyone in the bar followed them outside right then they were met with everyone from the american legion hall and all those people surrounded the truck dozens of people nobody really knows for sure but could have been as many as 60 people possibly even 70 people that surrounded the truck while they were inside it there's a tension a sense of showdown in the air i seen the man go across the street go to his pickup take the gun out and i see you shoot it a number of shots were fired exactly how many can't be determined 15 minutes later sheriff's deputies arrived to find the street empty and ken rex mcelroy dead ken's truck was right here and you can actually see from the one of the shots right through the window you can see it says the dng tavern or the dng bar now it's not known exactly how many shooters there were most say more than two possibly even three because of the angle of the bullets and where they came from but ultimately mcelroy was shot twice in the head and died instantly and everyone else that was standing around the truck everyone that witnessed this just walked away now after mcelroy was shot someone took his wife trina out of the truck and brought her just up the hill here to the bank and i think that this was the bank i could be wrong now there's a few buildings up here and none of them are open uh now it's just completely caved in but a lot of these a lot of the buildings that were here in 1981 are long gone so this is the town of skidmore 40 years almost 40 years after the town murdered ken mcelroy and no one was ever convicted of it it's an incredible story i don't know that that's ever happened before but i'm glad i came here i wanted to come and show you what this town looks like now it's always very interesting to see what is left what is untouched and you know what has changed probably one thing that will never change is the fact that that is an unsolved murder i don't think anybody in this town will be talking to the authorities about it anytime soon for many residents skidmore was never the same after this shooting the town would forever be plagued by a new type of intimidation in the form of forced secrecy that still is ever present even today almost 40 years later while many have gladly refused to tell authorities what they had witnessed others have remained quiet out of fear for their own well-being and their families the reality of this situation is there is a murderer walking freely in skidmore so it is best for the people of this town who are still here and still alive to go about their lives while forever keeping their mouth shut you

Channel: Mobile Instinct

Views: 640,734

Rating: 4.8941336 out of 5

Keywords: ken mcelroy, the skidmore murders, skidmore missouri, the town bully, noone saw a thing, in broad daylight, mobile instinct, where is ken mcelroy buried, true crime stories, true crime

Id: olZHcoYfwmI

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Its_ya_boi_snekface]

Oh gee I saw the caption in the pic and audibly uttered "That's fun" like wow I'm a whole new level of disappointed

[u/Bethorz]

The town of Skidmore is always near the top in reddit threads that ask questions like “where is the scariest place you’ve ever been”