Revealed: How 60 Residents of a Small Missouri Town Banded Together 38 Years Ago to Kill a Gun-Toting Bully Who Terrorized Residents...

Via Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away
 

    Ken Rex McElroy, 52, was killed in Skidmore, Missouri, by townspeople in 1981

    ‘Gun-toting bully’ was shot to death by an angry crowd of as many as 60 people

    Residents grew tired of his menacing and took the law into their own hands 

    Now, that story is being told in a new documentary series, “No One Saw a Thing” 

It has been 38 years since Ken Rex McElroy was shot to death by an angry crowd in the dusty farming community of Skidmore, Missouri, and for 38 years, the case has remained unsolved.

 McElroy was widely regarded as a gun-toting bully who menaced the community, six episode docuseries, ‘No One Saw a Thing’, on Sundance TV, reveals. 

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For years residents watched him wiggle out of one jam with the law after another. 

He had a string of felonies to his name, and had previously been arrested for  arson, assault and statutory rape. 

In 1976, Skidmore farmer Romaine Henry claimed McElroy shot him twice with a shotgun during a row. McElroy was charged with assault with intent to kill, but ended up being acquitted at trial when two hunters gave him an alibi.

In 1980, he shot grocery store owner Ernest ‘Bo’ Bowenkamp, 70, in the neck with a shotgun during another fight, with the victim barely surviving.  

He was convicted at his trial of assault, but freed on bail pending an appeal. Immediately after his release, he  confronted Bowenkamp at a local bar with a rifle and made graphic threats. 

After growing increasingly concerned about McElroy’s actions, between 50 and 60 townsfolk gathered together in a local hall on July 10, 1981, to discuss their options.

The local sheriff tried to calm the crowd at the meeting, but then left, as the crowd stormed down the street to confront McElroy, who was in his truck with his wife Trena.

The crowd of town residents surrounded the truck, and several shooters reportedly opened fire, killing McElroy.

The citizens of Skidmore insisted they had not seen who fired the shots, and when the sheriff arrived to investigate no weapons could be found.

The district attorney declined to press charges and a federal investigation also came up blank. 

Though the townspeople denied witnessing McElroy’s murder, it was obviously a lie. 

His murder was an example of vigilantism that Skidmore residents didn’t seem remorseful about. 

In the documentary, local Britt Small insists the only mistake the residents made was not killing Trena too. Trena, whom McElroy began dating when she was just 12, and had married to avoid a statutory rape charge, was the only one who attempted to identify a gunman. 

Small said if he had been the one to carry out the killing, he would have done it at the McElroy’s home and then set fire to the residence.   

‘I’d have burned everything,’ Small says in the documentary.