Prosecutor moving on, but mystery of Skidmore bully’s murder remains [View All]

[proud2BlibKansan]

Some of you may remember the 1981 murder in broad daylight of the town bully in Skidmore, MO, Kenneth Rex McLeroy. There were 30 witnesses and none would talk. No one was ever arrested for the murder.

There was a book written and a movie made.

The prosecutor on that case has remained in office and was just defeated in the Democratic primary. This is a pretty interesting article and retelling of the murder:

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The story would eventually be told in a New York Times best-selling book and a Hollywood movie. Outsiders — news crews, authors, the merely curious and probably the morbid — flooded to the hamlet of 400.

The story was not so much of a killing. It was of a whole town that refused to talk. The secret.

And that secret would be part of Baird’s life his entire time in office, which will soon end after nearly 30 years.

Ken Rex McElroy, 47, was a big, burly man with bushy sideburns, cold eyes and an ever-present gun. He was the Skidmore bully. On July 10, 1981, on a hot summer morning in a fed-up town, he was shot to death in plain view of 30 to 40 people who gathered around his Chevrolet pickup outside a beer joint on Main Street.



Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/28/2183994/prosecutor-moving-on-but-mystery.html#ixzz0xyRmSMyd