They call him a bully. A big guy.
So, these others got together, and killed the man.
McElroy's wife, Trena,
says she knows who killed her husband,
but police refuse to act.
Investigators say, her story does not check out.
I know that there are people who know
who shot Ken McElroy.
But, in all those years,
no one has ever talked.
You're absolutely positive,
it was Del Clement who shot your husband--
Yes, I seen him shoot it.
Sure, I believe her. No reason not to.
People's afraid to say what they seen.
'Cause they're afraid what's gonna happen to them and their family.
Why did the grand jury not believe Mrs. McElroy?
I do not have an answer.
Trena is a liar. That's my complaint.
I believe that there was a major cover up here.
Not only by law enforcement, and all the people in that town.
No one talked. Everyone stuck together.
They went in. They had a town meeting, they all sat down together,
they decided that they were gonna do it. And they done it.
They're not gonna do anything in that county.
Because there was a question about
whether there was a conspiracy
to kill McElroy,
and the Sheriff was present,
it was necessary for the federal government to investigate.
I know the Sheriff and them were involved.
I don't care what anyone has to say,
whether it ever comes to light, I know they were involved.
I have no sympathy for Ken Rex,
or what he had in his head.
He scared this poor community, half to death,
to the point that they felt they had no alternative,
to do other than what they did.
Did they have an alternative?
I guess, we all have alternatives.
But, I certainly,
having lived within the county,
during the time that he was
seen as a menace to the county,
and feeling some of the things that I did...
I carried a gun
to protect myself, and my family, during that time.
I never have, at other times.
So, he brought out the worst in me.
So, he may have been guilty,
but they were guilty, as well.
They were guilty of
being vigilantes.
Hello.
Yeah, Bruce?
Kirby Goslee, how you doing?
Um, could I get a key to the museum?
Oh, there's the wasps.
These aren't too bad.
The ones that are yellow and black striped,
They'll keep stinging you.
You stay back.
Now, watch out for that snake.
Well, we're in the old Skidmore Depot,
which, uh, when they shut the train down,
they decided to make a museum, out of this building.
Around 1870,
Marteny Skidmore founded the town.
And the railroad was here.
And he put up a grist mill,
and once you had that,
then you could have everything else.
Small town living, that's how we all started.
Small town community,
everybody knew everybody, and...
I think that everybody, pretty much, loved everybody.
You don't have to worry about
your door being locked.
You didn't have to worry about
someone stealing your car.
You didn't have to worry about any of that.
Small towns, embody the American dream.
But, there's also a dark side.
If we go back, in Nodaway County history,
and you look at Skidmore,
they always did their own thing.
They wanted to be independent...
and unfortunately,
there was a culture of violence in the area.
Raymond Gunn lived here, in Nodaway County.
And there was a school teacher
in the area, that was hit on the head,
and killed, as she was working,
after school.
And Raymond Gunn was the one
charged with that death.
And Raymond had a history. He had already been arrested,
and convicted, of an assault against a female student.
So, when things would happen,
he was the first one they would turn to.
Here, you have a black man,
tied to the murder of
a white school teacher,
whether he was guilty of the crime, or not.
That was probably enough
for them to decide
what they wanted to do.
That morning, he was being taken to the courthouse,
to be charged with the murder.
And there's this huge crowd gathered,
and the Sheriff pulls right into the middle of that.
He delivered the man to the mob.
That's all I can say.
A group of vigilantes
took him from the Sheriff's control,
and paraded him through the countryside,
They took him through fences,
hedgerows, and everything else.
My granddad and my uncle was up there,
when they broke him out of jail.
Then, they took him out there,
and chained him up on top of the school house.
They cut holes in the roof of the school house,
that they could then, put his legs through.
Then, chained his feet together,
and then poured gasoline, and other flammables, on the school,
and him.
And set the whole thing on fire.
Burned him up.
You can't see someone be tortured, like that,
be burned alive, be publicly killed, like that.
and think there will be no consequence.
It creates real, psychological damage.
It was a black day, for our county.
That they did what they did to this poor man.
It was a horrible, horrible thing.
I suppose, the people felt it was necessary, at the time.
We live in a civilized country,
we're supposed to abide by laws,
let the legal system run its course.
But, that's the history of our country.
You get enough people riled up,
and they're going to go do vigilante stuff.
I would think, often, that with vigilantes,
it's a frustration,
that justice is not going to administer
a type of punishment that would be appropriate
to whatever the crime is.
Then again, I think there are others who just
love the opportunity to be mean.
That's these people's ancestors.
It's a legacy that's been passed down
towards vigilante violence.
It's you saying, "I'm independent,
I'm going to solve my crimes,
and I'm going to do it my way,
and then, when it's done, I'm sure it's done."
That's the legacy.
That-- Skidmore is born on.
One of the things I really enjoy here,
are the birds.
We have a lot of bald eagles,
and a lot of great blue herons.
Beautiful woodland country.
I'm kind of a woodsy guy, I--I want to be in the woods,
a long way from everybody else.
In Skidmore,
and, I'm sure, many of the other little towns, too,
it depends on which family you belong to.
What your last name is.
If you're not a member of a certain family,
you've got a problem.
I was an outsider.
I did not have any family, there.
I met Britt, I believe, the Fall of 1970.
He was, uh, the first man I'd ever met,
out of the jungle of Vietnam.
He had a lot of pain,
that he tried hiding, as well as he could.
But, I heard him sing, for the first time,
and I was absolutely amazed.
♪ Ooh!
♪ I need your lovin'...
When I came back from Vietnam,
I had, uh, three guys waiting for me
to play in a band with them.
By the end of the summer,
we had nine guys and a sound man.
And the name of our band was Festival.
We started the group in 1973,
and when we started,
Oh! Boy, we were going to hit big.
We ended up performing for 27 years,
across the United States.
And we were located in Skidmore.
Well, in '81, we bought this farm,
and it was great.
Three hundred acres, we had a lot of room to run around.
You could run around naked, out there.
There was nobody there.
We made no money.
We just adopted that lifestyle
of just sharing what we had.
It was a, uh-- like a little commune.
You know, community living.
There was a lot of skepticism about him,
by the community, when they first started up.
Most of it was because a lot of older people
viewed them as, maybe, a drug and alcohol thing.
Free sex. Who knows what they thought.
It was not the Manson family.
It was a very nice family.
It was an American family.
When we came into town,
we were really looked down upon.
People were very stand-offish to us,
because we were hippies.
You know, hippies. They didn't know what was going on, out there.
They were suspicious of outsiders, yeah,
because they knew the people that they knew.
I'd carry a double-barreled shotgun.
and walk into town with it in my hand.
There were a couple-- couple families, that were
not friendly to us.
Uh, but, they were not friendly to a lot of people.
It was hard for outsiders to be accepted in Skidmore.
And there were people that would move in,
and just wouldn't fit in, so, they'd just move back out.
I mean, back then, Skidmore was just
a really close-knit place.
I understand that,
you feel he was a loving husband,
and a good man.
But, those people in Skidmore,
must have had some cause to fear him.
I mean they just...
they--they disliked him.
For the reason, I don't know,
I don't know if it was 'cause of jealousy.
I don't know what the reason were.
In this town,
if you're not theirs, or from there,
or they don't want you there,
It's--I mean,
they are extremely racist, prejudiced people.
And, they still think that it's OK, what took place.
The mentality is still there.
It's exactly the same.
Their hate, their mentality, isn't just vigilante,
it's just pure hate.
If you did not fit,
they did not want you there.
If you were not a part of who they were,
what they were, then, you--you were an outsider.
They think it's OK for them to do pretty much
whatever they want, to whoever they want.
It doesn't matter.
It wouldn't matter if it was a child
that came through that town.
If it didn't belong there or they didn't want it there,
they're going to do the same thing that they did to us there.
This is the property, where Ken Rex McElroy grew up.
Until it mysteriously burned, shortly after his death.
McElroy's house was burned to the ground.
Destroyed by arson.
They just did that to run her
and the kids out of here, get them out of here.
And I think that was the cruelest thing, myself.
People are scared.
My husband's other children,
they've been shot at,
and they're just scared to say anything about it.
Somebody burned the house down.
And then the kids, the law,
harassed them, something bad.
Which was another
terrible thing, as far as I'm concerned.
But, you got to remember,
the law was involved
with this killing.
It wasn't like, the Sheriff and the police
did not know, were not made aware of,
didn't know what was happening.
They knew what was happening.
I know they were involved.
In rural communities, and small towns,
virtually everyone knows everyone.
And, so, people become frustrated.
They want immediate justice.
FBI agents came to town, dressed like farmers.
And now, few will talk to outsiders, at all.
The state investigation, was to determine
who killed Ken McElroy.
The federal investigation,
was not to determine who committed the murder,
but rather, whether the Sheriff
was guilty of conspiracy or, actually,
using his position,
to perpetrate the crime.
Ken Rex McElroy, was murdered last July,
in a vigilante killing.
With no one yet convicted,
his widow wants justice done.
I think that,
if the cover up were true, what we would be seeing,
is no investigation, whatsoever.
And, quite the opposite, is correct.
Initially, the investigation on Ken Rex McElroy,
would be under the direction of the Sheriff.
He makes the decision to activate the NOMIS Squad.
At that point,
NOMIS is leading the investigation
for that short period of time.
Shortly after Mr. McElroy's death,
Mr. McFadin and Mrs. McElroy
made contact with somebody
on behalf of the Federal government,
asking that the FBI run an investigation.
The FBI was involved
because there was a perception
by McElroy's widow, and by McElroy's attorney,
that prompted the FBI to believe, potentially,
that the Sheriff had committed a Federal crime.
"Color of law" means, essentially, that,
the law enforcement official, or public official,
uses that position, to commit a crime.
Murders occur all the time,
it doesn't mean it's a federal crime.
You cannot use the office that you hold,
as a state law enforcement officer,
to conspire to kill, or to kill, a citizen.
In this particular case,
the issue was, was the Sheriff
involved in a conspiracy to kill McElroy?
Danny was the Sheriff, for a lot of years.
He was a local boy, OK.
He, and his twin, were both cops.
Danny was the Sheriff.
Lanny was with the Maryville Police Department, here.
They were both, probably, six feet tall.
Pretty good looking guys, really.
Do you feel that everyone in Skidmore is as open with you
as they could be?
That's something that I can't tell.
- Yes, you can. -No, I--I--that's something that I can't tell.
That's, how do you say that, that,
you are as open to me, as you would be, with anyone else?
- That's a-- -Cause I get the feeling, right now,
you're not being as open with me, as you could be.
- That--it's an opinion. - It's a feeling I get.
It's an opinion. And I--I'm not going to give an opinion.
OK. Good.
It doesn't take a lot of credentials
to be County Sheriff, in the state of Missouri.
Think you get a gun permit, and then you go to,
what's called, Law Enforcement class, for...
a few hours, and you're given a certificate.
And, if you have that certificate,
you can be a Deputy Sheriff,
uh, in any county.
I don't know how many shootings had occurred
in Nodaway County,
that Sheriff Estes investigated.
I'm sure there were a few. Nothing like this.
Where the whole town is involved.
As far as the people, that's in this town,
they were worse than McElroy.
Worse than McElroy.
If the law--
They aren't going to say anything.
The law is going to be with them.
I've often thought about that, with McElroy,
and Estes.
I've often thought about that.
Were you at the scene?
- At which time? - The scene of the crime.
Yes, when it first took place.
And, what did you see there?
What did you find, when you arrived?
Well, Mr. McElroy was sitting in the pick-up truck,
in front of the, the, uh, tavern.
So, if the Sheriff was involved in this dirt,
this puts a whole new light on everything.
Sheriff Danny Estes
admitted, in interviews,
that he attended that meeting.
They were having a meeting,
and telling the Sheriff,
you have to do something about him, before,
he kills somebody else.
I don't know what his thinking was.
He, surely, couldn't have thought,
all this trouble was going to go away.
It was just boiling.
Estes says,
he got back into his car,
and he started heading for--
for Maryville.
He got halfway to Maryville,
and got a call from his dispatcher,
that Ken Rex had been shot.
So, he turned back around, and came to town.
There's another rumor, that he never even left town.
That he stayed there,
while this was going on.
Danny Estes,
he knew they were going to kill McElroy.
He was sitting outside of town.
So, when they called the Law,
he could be the one to come here.
I still thought they were going to kill me,
when they took me up to the bank.
Trena, she was going to call the Law.
Well, the ones that worked in the bank,
knew it was going to happen.
And, they told Trena to sit down, and shut up,
or you'll be the next one.
D-a-n-n-y,
R period, E-s-t-e-s.
How do you pronounce it?
Danny R. Estes.
You've got these scenarios,
you've got accusations,
you've got these rumors,
that,
Estes came up with the idea,
"Hey, we'll have this meeting,
we'll get rid of him, before, uh, he goes to jail.
and I get away, scot-free."
You know, to me, that's a really, really, really,
wild theory.
But, you can't eliminate any theories,
because, any of them,
might be true.
The day that he got shot,
I could see the handwriting on the wall,
I knew, that, the way it looked, was that,
I had OK'd a hit.
You know the facts,
they had a meeting that morning.
And the Sheriff was there.
And the Sheriff leaves.
And the discussion of that meeting was,
how to get rid of Ken Rex McElroy.
It's been asked, why Sheriff Estes
left that meeting,
after he knew that
Ken Rex was down the street,
and people were milling that way.
I can't answer that. I can't speak for Danny.
Did he make a bad decision?
I think, arguably, yes.
I, probably, would have stayed.
When they got word that Ken Rex was in the pool hall,
and they wanted to go down and show force,
Why would the Sheriff leave town, then?
We all assumed that, uh,
the Sheriff would be there to
keep the peace.
I could see that,
since I had been there,
that the impression would be that,
I had OK'd a shooting.
And I knew that there was a civil rights violation.
I knew the FBI was--
was in the wings.
I know they had a meeting,
and there was a lot of people there.
Most I know about, is what the woman told me.
This woman I knew, back then,
she was looking out a window,
and saw the whole thing.
And she saw
Danny Estes,
on the roof of the building, across the street
from where Ken was sitting in the pick-up.
She said he was the first one that shot.
If I was going to shoot that son of a bitch,
I would have gotten him, pissing off the porch,
about 7:00 in the morning.
And I would have been a long, long, long way away.
And no one would have known it.
The Department of Justice,
impaneled a Federal grand jury, this time.
Federal grand juries
are different than state grand juries.
They have more resources at their disposal,
and more power.
The medical examiner's autopsy report,
concluded that McElroy was shot in the head.
That caused his death.
Shot in the neck. There was a gunshot wound, there.
He was also shot two more times, in the back.
At least two shell casings were found.
One was a 22,
The other was a higher caliber, than the 22.
Considering the number of bullets
that were fired into McElroy, we can conclude that,
there were more than one shooter, of course.
The FBI subpoenaed,
almost every adult citizen in the city of Skidmore.
They were hauling Skidmore residents down, right and left.
Some of the stories were,
that people were on the verge of cracking,
telling the FBI what was going on, and then,
they'd say, "Well, I'd like to think about it."
And, supposedly, they'd go home,
and somebody in town would say,
"Well, if you want to live in Skidmore anymore,
you keep your mouth shut."
And the next morning, they'd go to the FBI
and they say to the FBI, "I don't remember anything."
The FBI was called in,
and they worked, and they worked, and they worked it.
Which one shot him?
Who, actually, put the shell in him?
You had to have
exactly,
there had to be no doubt.
The FBI did subpoena people.
They appeared before the Federal grand jury,
in Kansas City.
I asked the people
what they saw,
when they looked to the right.
And, they would tell me what they saw.
When I asked what they saw
when they looked straight ahead,
the response was, by all of them,
that Ken McElroy was in his truck, with his wife.
Still parked there, and turned the engine on.
Shots rang out,
and McElroy was shot.
I asked them what they saw when they looked to the left.
and virtually all of them said,
"They never looked to the left."
With the exception of three individuals.
They looked to the left, and saw,
purportedly, the shooter.
An individual who lies to a Federal grand jury,
is potentially liable for perjury.
Remember, that grand juries are
part of the judicial process.
And, so, when an individual lies,
under oath, in the appropriate forum,
they can be prosecuted for perjury.
OK, so, let's get real clear.
There's, uh--
How many eye-witnesses there-- were there?
Nobody has any idea.
How many people were on the street?
Nobody has any idea.
You can go back to newspaper articles,
and they start off at 30, and they may end up at 90.
So, the question becomes,
and the question that is, I believe,
the crux of this case,
is, how many eye-witnesses do you have,
that saw what happened?
I think the FBI
thought it was going to be a cake-walk
after the Northwest Missouri Investigations Squad
got done with it.
They were going to just roll in,
and start picking up people off the street,
and solve this.
Federal officials today,
ended their investigation
into the vigilante-style slaying of Ken Rex McElroy.
At the conclusion,
of the Federal grand jury,
They did not indict anyone.
I can't disclose
exactly what the grand jury proceedings were.
I can't tell you what they actually said
to the grand jury. I've given you an idea.
But, at the conclusion of the grand jury proceeding,
we had insufficient evidence
that would suggest the Sheriff was involved.
So, the state has the obligation, then,
to prosecute the case.
They got affidavits from three people.
and those three people came forward, and they said,
"Yes, we know who shot him."
They gave them the names,
and that was sent to the county.
I gave three names to the local prosecutor,
I released that information,
not because they were involved
in any crime, but rather,
they stated what they saw.
About 60 people witnessed the shooting,
but, none of them would say who did it.
A U.S. attorney said he does have the name of a suspect,
and that he's turning it over to local authorities.
I really don't think Skidmore
is any different than any other little town
that I've lived around.
Pretty complacent. Not much happens.
Sit around and watch the grass grow,
and the cars rust.
But, this just hit me, about three weeks ago.
Somebody was crowing about,
"God don't mess with us, we're Skidmore."
It just hit me.
Just hit me.
This guy,
no matter how bad he was,
or what,
they had him outnumbered, sixty to one.
And they shot him in the back.
I'm asked a lot of times,
why can this be forty years ago,
and nobody has come forward with a name?
People have come forward with a name, since day one.
How has this been kept quiet? It hasn't been.
They've hid it right there, on Main Street.
- No! I've got new people to talk to. -Oh.
You haven't come to see me, for three or four days.
I had nobody to talk to.
I've got new people
to tell my stories to.
-No.
- No, but they let me talk. - Yeah?
I wish there was a way,
and me not get shot,
that I could write a true story, from McElroy,
up to now.
But, I know, if I would open my mouth,
It wouldn't be long, that I'd be shot.
I tell everybody, the names were given.
But, any time you have that many people involved--
They had a common goal, a common cause,
and a common reasoning.
So, even if the names are correct,
it doesn't matter.
Nobody would prosecute them,
for what they've done.
To my knowledge,
the result of the FBI investigation,
was, that they handed over a list
of three names.
Three people, who were witnesses.
But, murder is,
prosecuted by the state of Missouri.
Pursue murder charges, prove their case,
get a guilty verdict,
and that lies, strictly and solely,
with David Baird.
As prosecutor, I'm not supposed to take cases
to trial, to see what will happen.
I'm only supposed to take cases to trial,
when I am convinced,
that I can obtain a conviction,
beyond a reasonable doubt.
I don't know how much information
David Baird was given,
But, names,
evidence, that the FBI,
either came up with, or verified.
I'm sure all that was turned over to David Baird.
You have the wife of the party that was killed
state, on the coroner's inquest,
"Yes, I saw this man point a gun,
I saw him fire the gun, and he killed my husband."
In this particular case,
given the level of evidence that we had,
it was my estimation,
that we did not have sufficient evidence to go to trial.
If they knew,
that there was enough evidence to bring against someone,
and Mr. Baird chose not to.
He allowed the killers to go free,
if he was unwilling to prosecute,
who needed to be prosecuted.
He's not going to go rushing
arrest the people that may, uh,
have did it, that you have enough evidence to claim, did it,
and have them sentenced,
because you're going to have a lynch mob, on your hands.
You ask yourself, a lot of times,
is that just because it's a small town,
and it's a small county,
and, is that just how they do things?
Everybody was really glad to get rid of Ken Rex McElroy,
so, yeah, I better not meddle in this.
They just want to charge Skidmore, Missouri,
as a whole, with a crime.
Now, had they brought those names to trial,
they would never have convicted them.
They would have been ruled, justifiable homicide.
I think they would have went to court,
spent three days debating it.
Had an O.J. Simpson trial,
and then acquitted everybody.
Justifiable homicide.
Now, had they done that 40 years ago,
where would that put our story today?
By this time,
the city of Skidmore, was tired.
They were fatigued.
All the reporters,
with all the law enforcement interviews,
and the courtroom testimony,
that they'd been asked to give.
And now, pretty much, everybody in Skidmore, thought,
"This is the end of it, it's finally over."
But, then, almost three years
after the murder of her husband,
Trena McElroy files a civil suit.
It's her last chance
to get justice
for her dead husband.
It's her last chance
for somebody to stand up
and admit responsibility
for the death of Ken Rex McElroy.
She was still fighting for him,
and his image as a man, and a father.
Yes, she was.
The filings asked for millions of dollars.
The defendants named, were,
Del Clement,
Steve Peters, who was the mayor of Skidmore, at the time,
Danny Estes, who was the Sheriff
of Nodaway County, at the time,
and the city of Skidmore.
You want the whole town to go on trial?
Yes.
Yes, because, I think the Sheriff
helped them set it up.
They was all there, they seen what happened.
It was the whole town.
Now, the widow called me up.
I said, "They're going to Federal court."
And, I think it's worth some real money.
- OK. - Mm-hmm.
I had a feeling,
somebody was going to kill her.
I had that feeling.
Because,
they probably would have.
She said, "They shot at my children."
She said, "My life is in danger."
and, she said, "I want you to dismiss it."
She told me to drop the lawsuit.
It never went to court.
No testimonies were ever heard.
No cross examination ever occurred.
Because it was settled out of court
for $17,000.
She settled,
and then, she moves away.
And, that was the last
that Skidmore ever saw
of Trena McElroy
or, really, any McElroy.
The American judicial system
failed in Skidmore, Missouri.
It failed twice.
As for Skidmore, no one is talking,
whether they have anything to say, or not.
They now feel secure, but they are still uneasy,
for among them, now, there is a murderer.
Second mark.
- OK, here we go.
- Second mark. - OK.
All clear.
I know this is a tough question to answer.
Look, McElroy cast a cloud over this town,
there's no question.
There was fear, here.
But, aren't you, now concerned
that, as bad as McElroy was,
now that he's gone, this town has
a
a dirty, little secret?
And that, in its own way,
will have as bad an effect on the town,
as McElroy did.
- No. - No.
Everything we do in life, every choice we make,
there's a consequence for.
The decisions and choices that you made,
You had to live with, for the rest of your lives.
If it destroyed the town,
and it destroyed, you know, other people's lives
within that town, because of the decisions
those people made on that day.
That's the burdens you carry, for that.
That wasn't the first...
incident of violence, in the community, but...
Then, it seems like, we had an outbreak.
Was it murder? Yes.
What did it do to the people?
Changed them, forever.
The people who were involved in this,
and the people who covered it up,
think they may have been doing
a good thing for the community.
They didn't realize, I suspect, or they don't care,
that their children are going to be negatively affected by this,
that the outside world is negatively affected by this.
It perpetuates itself.
When's the next type of situation going to occur?
When the community turns on an individual.
I mean, that's a real danger.
If you have young people,
who are aware of that...
Where does it leave them?
I do think that town holds, kind of, a curse.
Basically, it's a death for anybody that's there.
A part of the town died that day.
I think I counted nine
mysterious, horrible, or strange deaths,
that has happened, since Ken Rex died.
Benny, went to his ex-wife's yard,
and hung himself.
Wally McGinnis's son,
was hanging in a garage.
And Wendy, getting murdered by her boyfriend,
her jealous boyfriend.
He'd been abusing her for a long time.
Branson Perry comes up missing.
Yeah, it looked like you could say,
all these things are all related,
because Skidmore has got some evil people in it.
Well, that's all B.S., too.
No. People think that.
And there's nothing dangerous about Skidmore,
but, per capita, the violent deaths,
in and around Skidmore, are pretty high.
This is the third member of this family
to be murdered in the last four years.
Bobbie Jo Stinnet was strangled on Thursday,
her body mutilated,
and prosecutors explain they're proceeding cautiously.
You took down one man.
And you acted like you did
some humongous, great thing.
And in that, it brought hate.
You're still OK with what you did,
you're still keeping a secret,
but, you're paying with your soul.
Is Skidmore paying the price
for killing Ken Rex McElroy?
Whether I believe it's a curse, or not...
Apparently, they are, aren't they?