I’m not in a Christmas-y mood this week. But, you know what I am in the mood for? People getting a big serving of street justice.

I was recently made aware of Kenneth Rex McElroy. His story and eventual fate could be summed up in the following short video:

Ken McElroy was born in 1934 to migrant farmers. Much of his early years consisted of moving from place to place, dropping out of school, stealing whatever wasn’t nailed down (including livestock), and chasing skirts. When he reached adulthood and settled down in Skidmore, Missouri, he was a career criminal, stealing whatever he could get his hands on and bullying whoever tried to stop him.

But, this guy decided he wasn’t nearly terrible enough. So let’s toss pedophilia into this boiling vat of a terrible man. McElroy loved little girls, and would show how much he loved them through manipulation, coercion, demeaning sex acts, and beatings. He was married four times and divorced three times, always because someone younger came along. He also had 3 girls on the side throughout all of his marriages, and this resulted in at least 17 kids.

His last wife, Trena McCloud, was only 12 when she unfortunately crossed paths with McElroy. He raped her multiple times, which inevitably led to Trena getting pregnant. This made it difficult for McElroy to dispute raping her in court. In order to beat the charges, he demanded for the McClouds to consent for their daughter marrying him, since a spouse can’t be compelled to testify against their partner. McElroy was within his legal right to do this, since child marriage laws in Missouri were pretty lax up until THIS FUCKING YEAR. The parents said, “Fuck that,” to which McElroy responded by burning down their house and shooting their dog. Shortly after, Trena moved in with him and Alice, since she was still very pregnant and in the abuse-fog. After Trena had given birth, she and Alice ran off to the McClouds’ new house for safety. But, McElroy brought Alice and Trena back at gunpoint, shot the McClouds’ new dog, then burned the house down again.

After Trena brought the baby to a doctor, the authorities were called, and both the baby and Trena were brought to a foster home. McElroy posted up outside the foster home for days and demanded that either Trena be returned to him, or he was going to steal the foster parents’ biological daughter, since he had been stalking her, too. Trena went back to him, and her parents formally consented to her marrying him.

He would often intimidate witnesses and law enforcement into not testifying by stalking them or posting up outside their houses and shooting at their property. In total, he was tried 22 times, but 21 of those times didn’t result in prison. Before you ask, McElroy’s lawyer, Richard McFadin, was just as scummy as he was. For every felony he helped McElroy beat, he got an extra $5k. He also liked to taunt prosecutors when he found legal loopholes that got his client acquitted.

Of note, McElroy shot a farmer, Romaine Henry, in the chest over some nonsense. Henry survived, but the charges didn’t stick, due to repeated delays, changes of venue, and unreliable witnesses. McElroy decided to shoot Henry’s tractor while Henry was watching as an additional “Fuck you.”

The one conviction that did stick was the attempted murder of Bo Bowenkamp. Bowenkamp and his wife, Lois, owned a grocery store, and some of Ken McElroy’s kids went in to get some candy. One of the younger kids excitedly went to leave without paying, and Bowenkamp yelled after her to come back and pay. The older kids, taking after dear old dad, decided to escalate and argue, saying that they weren’t stealing anything. Lois Bowenkamp told the kids to get out and that they were banned. Ken turns up, demands to know what happened, and Bowenkamp explains that he wasn’t accusing anyone of stealing. He simply said the little kid got too excited and didn’t pay before she left with her candy. Ken accepted this, then wanted to buy some cigarettes. Bowenkamp said no, because the damage was already done, and the McElroys were permanently banned from the store.

The stalking started that same evening, with McElroy watching the store like a hawk and driving past the Bowenkamp house multiple times a day. The Bowenkamps complained to the sheriff’s office several times, but they didn’t do anything, since McElroy hadn’t done anything. Never mind that he had priors for stalking people, then attacking them. According to the deputies, McElroy wasn’t going to do anything. Except he did. With a shotgun. In Bo Bowenkamp’s neck. Bowenkamp lived, and the case went to trial.

Despite Richard McFadin’s attempts to stall and loophole the shit out of the case, a jury found Ken McElroy guilty of assault. But, because he wasn’t convicted of any previous crimes, he was looking at a two-year sentence. To put salt in the wound, he was allowed out on bail during the 25-day appeal window. To put dirt in the salt in the wound, the whole time he was out, he was bragging about getting away with his crimes, and how once he got out, he would kill Bo Bowenkamp.

Enough was enough. During a town meeting, 60 Skidmore residents got together and demanded to know what the sheriff planned to do about McElroy since he clearly hadn’t learned his lesson. Sheriff Dan Estes had the bright idea of suggesting they form a neighborhood watch. The gentlemen at town hall then went, “Okay, he’s not gonna help. We need to handle this ourselves.”

At that same moment, McElroy and Trena were at a nearby bar, presumably for Ken to be a smug asshole to whoever was there. To his pleasant surprise, 30 people filed into the bar. Some ordered drinks, some stared at him. But all were waiting for him to leave. When McElroy headed out the door with Trena, the 30 men followed, where an additional 15-ish were waiting in the parking lot. McElroy and Trina got into the truck, and the crowd closed in. Before McElroy could pull out of the lot, a couple of people who were armed shot numerous times at Ken. He was struck in the head and neck, then collapsed onto the steering wheel. Trena ran from the scene, aided by a couple of the witnesses. No one called an ambulance, and Ken McElroy died right there.

In the ensuing investigation, no one stepped forward as the one(s) who pulled the trigger. Everyone in attendance claimed to have either ran or hit the ground when the shots rang out. Trena couldn’t say who shot Ken, since it all happened so fast, and she was in such a panic to get away that she didn’t look back. No one called in to the tip line except reporters trying to get more information on the story. Numerous people were accused of firing the fatal shots, including the mayor, the postmaster, one of the owners of the bar, and even Trena. But, all the leads went nowhere, as everyone had the same story, “I didn’t see anything.” The case remains open to this day, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to talk. A few of the witnesses have even passed on without saying anything.

Kenneth Rex McElroy was a terrible person. He only cared about himself; stealing what he wanted, raping little girls, and was willing to murder anyone who challenged him. While he might have had a rough childhood, it didn’t excuse the cesspool of a man he ended up becoming. It’s very telling about the type of person he was that people were more concerned about how this would make the town look than the actual act of vigilantism.

The town of Skidmore is smaller now, and many of the old shops and bars have closed. A few other high-profile cases have stained the reputation of Skidmore, but the killing of the town’s worst resident was the one to really put a dark spot on the town. A long-time resident of Skidmore regretted that the townspeople killed McElroy “on Main Street in broad daylight. They knew where he lived. They could have got him at night on a country road. We’d all been better off.”

Former town Marshall David Dunbar, who resigned after McElroy threatened him, said his only regret was that the people fucked up McElroy’s Silverado, saying, “That was a really nice truck.“

Some of the parties involved, or who were related to those involved, were asked about what could have been done differently. Of course, the consensus is that law enforcement should have done its fucking job and not been a bunch of cowards when dealing with a criminal. Otherwise, the citizens would not have felt pushed into taking matters into their own hands. As Cheryl Huston, Bo’s stepdaughter, said in an interview, “I have a friend who wrote and recorded a song about the McElroy shooting. One of the phrases in the song is, ‘When it came time for cries of justice, we realized that it was just us.’ Sadly, that seems to be exactly the way it was.”