In Broad Daylight

American writer Harry N. MacLean’s true crime non-fiction book In Broad Daylight: A Murder in Skidmore, Missouri (1988) details the life and death of Ken Rex McElroy, who over the course of twenty-one years evaded imprisonment despite a wealth of evidence connecting him to dozens of felonies including burglary, child molestation, statutory rape, cattle rustling, arson, and assault. A lifelong bully and masochist, McElroy was finally stopped not by the police nor by the courts but by his neighbors who took justice into their own hands, killing him. Despite the existence of more than forty eyewitnesses to the crime, nobody was ever prosecuted for McElroy's murder.

Born in 1934 in Overland Park, Kansas, Ken Rex McElroy was the fifteenth of sixteen children raised by migrant farmers Tony and Mabel McElroy. After moving for a number of years between Kansas and the surrounding states, the McElroy family finally settled near Skidmore, Missouri, a small town with a population of around five hundred people at that time. At the age of fifteen and already behind in school, McElroy dropped out of middle school, never to return to public education.

From there, McElroy embarked on what would become a twenty-year career of small-time criminal degeneracy. Though McElroy was known to engage in various acts of bullying and sexual assault, most of the charges brought against him during his two-decade crime spree related to the theft of gasoline, grain, antiques, alcohol, and livestock. But despite being charged on no less than twenty-one separate occasions, McElroy continually evaded being convicted, in large part a result of his habit of parking outside witnesses' homes and stalking them as a form of intimidation. McElroy also relied on the considerable abilities of his lawyer, a defense attorney from Gallatin, Missouri named Richard Gene McFadin.



During this period, McElroy married four different women and fathered at least ten children. His last wife, Trena McCloud, was only twelve years old when she met McElroy. Less than two years later, Trena was pregnant with McElroy's child. Eager to avoid a statutory rape charge, McElroy invited Trena to stay at his house along with McElroy's third and current wife, Alice. Further concerned about a potential rape charge, McElroy divorced Alice and married Trena, though the three continued to live together. Over time, Alice and Trena began to ally themselves against the violent McElroy. Just over two weeks after Trena gave birth, Alice and Trena escaped with the newborn. Unfortunately, McElroy found them hiding out with Trena's mother and stepfather. Enraged, McElroy forcibly removed the three of them and returned them to his house. Afterward, McElroy waited until Trena's parents left their house then entered the home. McElroy proceeded to kill their pet dog and burn down their house.

Around two years later, in 1973, authorities filed arson, assault, and statutory rape charges against McElroy based on testimony from Trena. For her protection, Trena and her child were relocated to the home of a foster family in nearby Maryville, Missouri. However, that didn't stop McElroy from intimidating Trena. Over the next few weeks, McElroy stalked Trena and her foster family, sitting outside their home for hours on end. McElroy even tracked down the foster family's biological daughter, hatching a plot to kidnap her on her way to the school bus. He planned to kidnap the girl and offer to trade her to the foster parents in return for Trena. Fortunately, McElroy never carried out this plan. Despite the litany of charges and the evidence that supported them, the state failed to convict McElroy of any crime relating to the sordid affair involving Trena, whom McElroy later coerced into moving back in with him.

McElroy once again found himself in legal trouble in 1976 after Romaine Henry, a local Skidmore farmer, accused McElroy of shooting him twice with a shotgun. According to Romaine, the shooting arose from an incident in which Henry warned McElroy to stay off his property. Henry also alleged that McElroy had parked outside Henry's house upwards of a hundred times in the months following the shooting while the courts slowly went about putting McElroy on trial. Despite Henry's testimony and that of two other eyewitnesses who placed the suspect at the scene of the crime, McElroy was acquitted thanks to clever legal maneuvering by his lawyer, McFadin.



In 1980, McElroy was again accused of attempted murder after shooting seventy-year-old grocer Bo Bowenkamp in the neck. The shooting arose from a dispute wherein Bowenkamp accused one of McElroy's young children of stealing from his store. After a long trial, the courts finally managed to convict McElroy, though the charge was merely "assault" and not "assault with intent to kill." Pending his appeal of the conviction, McElroy was released on bail. He proceeded to enter the D&G Tavern with a rifle attached with a bayonet, loudly proclaiming the graphic ways in which he planned to exact revenge on Bowenkamp.

Finally fed up with McElroy's violent terrorizing of their community, dozens of townspeople gathered at the Legion Hall in an attempt to formulate a plan with the help of Sheriff Estes. What exactly happened next may never be known except by the people involved. Nevertheless, there are a few facts the author can confidently put forth: After the meeting, Estes made his way toward the outskirts of town in his police cruiser. A group of townspeople descended upon the D&G tavern where McElroy sat drinking with Trena. McElroy and Trena left the bar and entered their pickup truck. Before starting the car, McElroy was shot and killed by at least two different gunmen in front of forty-six eyewitnesses, none of who called an ambulance. Of the forty-six witnesses, only Trena identified a gunman; the rest claimed ignorance.

Due to the lack of eyewitness evidence aside from McElroy's wife, the district attorney chose not to pursue charges. In what some might consider an insult to the community, the federal government launched an extensive civil rights investigation of the shooting—the only time, many townspeople felt, that formal law authorities showed any real resolve in attempting to assign blame in a crime related to McElroy. To this date, no charges, federal or otherwise, have been filed in the shooting death of Ken Rex McElroy.



With In Broad Daylight, MacLean paints a vivid yet disturbing portrait of small-town America that runs counter to many of the bucolic myths of the rural United States.