All language subtitles for Episode 1 - The Killing of Ken Rex McElroy

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newspapers, book writers,
tourists

come from all over the world
to see Skidmore, Missouri

and where Kenneth Rex McElroy

was shot down on the streets.

It happened 40 years ago.

People are still coming.

People are still asking
questions.

Everybody wants to know
why or how

a town can keep quiet
for 40 years,

and not naming the people
they-- that shot him.

Does anybody know
what happened?

Does anybody really know
what happened?

(man 2) We had to be violent
\hto settle this country.

This was a very wild country.

We still have places in this
country that are totally wild.

Sometimes violence
is necessary.

In Skidmore,
we just had a bad guy.

(woman) The story of Skidmore
\hwas more like the Old West.

They call him a bully,
a big guy. A bully.

So these others here
in town got together
and killed the man.

(man 3) His death
\hcreated a story
\hthat went on and on and on.

You can't hold
a secret like that

\hand not have it affect
the psyche of the town.

(woman 2)
\hIt's still such a secret.

I know that there
are people who know

who shot Ken McElroy.

But, in all those years,

no one has ever talked.

They've shaken the tree
and shaken the tree,

and nothing has fallen out.

People don't understand

what drove a whole town
to the point

where they felt like they
had no other choice.

Skidmore's secret.
Skidmore, Missouri.

It is said that there are
no secrets in a small town,
but in Skidmore,

those who know who killed
Ken Rex McElroy, won't say.

Ken McElroy terrorized
the town of Skidmore, Missouri
for more than ten years.

The locals called him
"Bad Dog."

He raped a 13-year-old girl
and then married her,

so she couldn't
testify against him.

He set fire
to her parents' barn.

He murdered a man
in cold blood.

Then, in broad daylight,

with more than
45 people watching,

Ken McElroy
was gunned down and killed.

But nobody looked up,

until the shooting stopped.

Nobody saw a thing,

and nobody did anything.

He's held a gun to my family,
to my mom,

to my brother and me.

He tried staring you down.
He tried making you crawl.

(man) A lot of reporters
\h\hhave come to Skidmore
\hin the past five months,

and people here
are getting sick of them.

Tired of having their town
portrayed as some

vigilante village,
hiding a dark secret.

(man 2) Who pulled the trigger?

I don't know.

I couldn't tell you.

(man 2) Would you turn in
the person who did it?

No.

(man 2) Would you, preacher?

I wouldn't.

(man 2) If they catch somebody,

and he's tried,
and he's found guilty,

would you feel
that justice has been done?

No.

No, because it was
the whole town.

(man) That was the one mistake
\hthat they made

was that they
didn't kill his wife.

I would have killed his wife.

I probably would have ambushed
him in his driveway.

\h\h\hI-- I'd have waited for hm
in the cornfield

and let him have it
in his driveway.

And then I'd have
set his house on fire.

I'd have burned everything.

When we moved here,

it was a movin' town.

It was a hoppin' town.

There were three gas stations,

there was a convenience store
up on the corner.

The bank was catty-corner
to that gas station.

You know,
after the McElroy shooting,

everything
pretty well folded up.

And it was a shame.
You know, it's a shame.

It killed the town.

It did, it poisoned
everybody's life.

(man) Skidmore is home.

I'm fifth-generation, here,

of farmers.

Working the land,

following
in my father's footsteps.

-What're you doing, young man?
-Hanging out.

-Hanging out?
-How are you, Ken?

-All right. How's Kurt?
-Doing good.

\hWhen you're put
into a situation

that you're not
used to being in,

you don't know
what you're going to do.

Countless times,

the law enforcement
had been called

for some help.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

So it comes to a point

where the people feel,

well, it's you or me.

(woman) Well, 41 years ago,

we moved here--
I think it's been about 41.

I didn't want
to come to Skidmore,

but my husband got a job.

And from there on, that's...
that's when things

really, you know,

was happening.

My husband was a smoker,

and he was sitting
out in the garage,

fairly early that morning

He was out there smoking,
and I said,

"Leland, did you hear?"

(gunshots echoing)

And I said, "Sounds like
a big firecracker or something."

He said,
"That wasn't no firecracker,
that was a gunshot."

So my husband went up to town,

and when he come back,
he was pretty well shook up.

He said, "Call the kids

and don't let them be out
on the street or nothing

because there's
a whole mess up there.

And McElroy
is sitting in the truck

with his head shot off

\hand blood running
down the highway."

(woman 2) We were working
\haway at the store.

And Mom had gone to the bank.

And then I heard a shot,
and I told my dad--

He was back there
at the meat case.

I go, "Dad,
he's shooting somebody."

And then I looked again 'cause
I saw his head go forward.

I go, "No, they shot him."

(man) I was working at the farm.

My dad came out to the field,

stopped me in the tractor.

Looked up, and he said,

"Well, they blew him away."

I said, "What?"

He said, "They shot Ken Rex."

I thought, "Wow."

(man) McElroy came into town,

parked in front of the bar,
walked into the bar.

The guys who were inside said,
"You know,

you need to get the hell out
of town right now."

And he went out
and got in his truck,

and then they opened up on him
from behind.

(woman) His wife, she was
sitting in the truck with him.

She sat right there
and seen his head blowed off.

And they were
shooting right around her.

We left the D&G
and went to our pickup.

And as soon as
we walked out the door,

everybody else
walked out the door behind us.

And they gathered around
on my side over here,

on my passenger side
of the truck.

I seen a man go across
the street, go to his pickup,

take the gun out,
and I seen him shoot it.

(engine revving)

When he got shot,
his foot froze on the gas pedal,

so the engine was going maxed
out, and it started smoking.

Finally, the engine blew,
and then it was just silence.

The ambulance had pulled
across the street,

and I saw the ambulance drivers
go from McElroy's pickup,

back to the ambulance,
and back again,
with some equipment.

And I told whatever lady
was standing there beside me,

if he's still alive,
they're just gonna have
to shoot him again

because he'll kill
all those people.

(woman) I was in the pickup,

and this man told me
to stay in there,

or they was gonna shoot me too.

A couple of guys
helped, uh, Trena out of here,

she'd wet her pants,
and walked her up
to the top of the hill

to get her out of harm's way.

(Trena) I still thought
\hthey was going to kill me

when they took me
up to the bank

\h\hbecause he told me
there was women up here
\h\hto take care of me.

Of course, there was
a little blood and a few teeth

and stuff laying around.

My brother went around
and picked up his teeth.

Then the people started coming
out of the pool hall, and...

everybody left town.

Everybody cleared the town.

Everybody was
in their houses and stuff.

Nobody was up there
on that street.

That truck
was just sitting there.

I went across the street
to make sure there was a sheet
up over his head.

\h\hAnd, of course, then everybody
went back about their business.

And then, somebody stopped,
opened the door of the store
and said,

"It's over.
You can sleep tonight.
Now just stand behind us."

Killing him was the only way
it was going to stop.

(man) People were afraid
\hof Ken Rex.

They knew he would shoot you.

He was definitely a bully.

If somebody crossed him,
he'd burn their house down.

They had a whole problem
with that.

(man) He was a monster.

Unlike the fish
that you caught,

it passes hands
and gradually gets bigger
as the story's told.

Ken Rex was already there.

(man 2) He must have been
\habout 6'2" or 6'3".

(man) Jet-black hair,
\hlong sideburns.

Steely blue eyes. He just
stared right through you.

(woman)
\hReally, really cold eyes.

He could make my legs
turn to Jell-O.

He was picking on people
who were smaller than he was.

He was picking on women.

He probably picked on kids.

He was a career criminal.

(man) We just knew
\hhe was a bad man.

You never heard of Ken Rex
getting in a fist fight.

It always had to do with a gun.

(man 2) Romaine Henry remembers
\h\h\h\h\hwhen McElroy shot him

and says X-rays
show his stomach

still has the buckshot in it
from the incident,
more than a decade ago.

One of the local farmers,
riding in the pickup truck,

shoots him in the stomach
with a shotgun.

Excuse me?

(man) One of the boys
\hcome out and said

\hthat he heard somebody
shooting down the road.

When I got pretty close,
well, I recognized
it was Ken McElroy.

And then next thing I knew,
I was looking right down
the barrel of that shotgun.

He said that
I was a dirty SOB

and had been over to his place
in a white Pontiac.

I don't even have
a car like that.

And he said,
"Well, you're a lying SOB,"

and pulled the trigger.

(woman) And when they brought
\hhim into the hospital,

just like, they went,

Romaine Henry's
been shot in the stomach.
We think McElroy got him.

And that was
all over the hospital.

Of course, it laid
my flesh all open and blew
my flesh into this door here.

And I just figured
I was as good as dead.

(man) Yet, when he
\hwent to court,

he had two witnesses
said he was somewhere else.

McElroy had two dozen felony
charges over the years.

Cattle rustling, hog rustling,
molesting a child,

assault with intent to kill,
burglary, theft and on and on.

The lawyer who got him out
of those scrapes with the law

was Richard McFadin
of Kansas City.

(McFadin) I looked
\hat this fella, who was huge.

I had a pair of old jeans on and
an old shirt. And I said, "Well,

I don't think that you
probably could afford to hire
me. I'm kind of expensive.

And he said, "Well, let me be
the judge of that, counselor."

He got his load of bills
and put the money on the table,

\hand I have to tell you,
it was kind of humorous,

I said, "Mr. Ken... McElroy,
sir, you hired yourself
a lawyer." (laughs)

(man) McFadin, he was what we
called a nickel-slick lawyer,

fast talker, worked for cash...

(man 2) The consensus seems
to be that whoever killed him
did Skidmore a favor.

And you know, that disturbs me.
I'm appalled by that.

There have been all kinds
of articles that call him

"The Brute of Nodaway County,"

"The Bully of Nodaway County."

The point is,
as bad as allegedly he was,
and I'm not saying he was,

what they did was worse
than anything they could
say about him.

They went outside
that system of justice,

and they took the law in
their own hands, in my opinion,

and they decided they were
going to get rid of him.

We just pulled
onto Missouri 113,

and I'm going to stop
in front of the D&G Tavern,

where Ken Rex was shot dead.

I was the first police officer
dispatched over here.

Pretty much, I'm parked
where Ken Rex's truck was at,
on the day I saw it.

I knew this was significant.

Danny asked us--
He was the sheriff,
he was a friend of mine.

Good guy, very courageous man,
Vietnam combat vet.

He was-- He was visibly upset.

Very, very upset
that this had happened.

(man) Sheriff, what kind of
calls did you get on McElroy?

Did you get a sense that he
was intimidating those people?

I think that calls
for an opinion, and
I don't want to give one.

I'd had people discuss it
with me, dealing with McElroy.

'Cause they wanted me
to just take the badge
and go shoot him.

You know. We're going
to make you our policeman,

you're gonna be
the town marshal, have at it.

And I just--
It didn't fit my plan.

I was out in Vegas
and saw it in the newspaper,

and I saw his picture
on the newspaper.

And, when they
asked the sheriff,

what about this
Vietnam veteran out here?

Uh, the sheriff said,
"No, I know it wasn't Brett."

If it was Brett, there'd
have been a hole right between
McElroy's eyes."

People know that, if they
push us the wrong direction,

it's gonna come back in lead.

(Trena) There's a lot of people
that seen it, 50 or 60.

People's afraid to say what
they seen 'cause they're afraid

what's gonna happen to them
and their family.

(man) And that's
\hkind of what small towns do.

They just kind of band together
and do what's best
for the town.

In the aftermath of that,
you have to use all the
resources at your disposal.

Well, in Skidmore,
they're non-existent.

Nobody in the town
would even give a name.

After the murder,
a task force was put together

of area and regional
law enforcement,

And they engaged the case.

They investigated,
they talked to witnesses.

And they were coming up empty.

All of a sudden, in newsrooms
across the country,

people were looking at maps,

trying to determine
where Skidmore, Missouri was.

We had a reporter
from the London Times

stop by our newsroom
and politely ask

to see our dossier
on the Ken Rex shooting.

Tonight, Gary Wilson reports
on a northwest Missouri town

on the threshold
of the national spotlight.

And I think that's kind of
when it dawned on people here

that this was something big.

This was something so unusual,

that it captured
the attention of media outlets
all over the world.

Reporting live from
Skidmore, Missouri, Tracy Toft,
Action 4 News at five.

(man) As more and more media
\houtlets reported on this,

the bigger and bigger
the story got.

And I'm sitting there
having my coffee,

and all of sudden, Skidmore,
Missouri comes on the news.

And they tell me about
the murder of Ken Rex McElroy.

Right away,
I knew who the man was.

My thought was, well,
Dad won't lose any more pigs.

Was Skidmore more violent
than other communities?

I hate to say
they're more violent,

but it seems like, yes.

There was a culture of violence
in the area.

McElroy, who was known
as the town bully,

was killed,
while dozens of people watched.

Investigation into the
vigilante-style slaying
\hof Ken Rex McElroy...

(man) Because it
\hwas so unusual,

because it was so violent...

(man 2) Camera roll 27,
\htake 55...

(man) ...CBS sent a crew in
\hto do a story.

Some hot-shot reporter
that, I'm sure, thinks
he's going to break the case...

There's more to Ken Rex McElroy
versus the town of Skidmore

than just the story
of a local bully
and frightened townspeople.

It's not gonna happen.
Skidmore will never give up
who they think did it.

(man) There was a lot of
\hangry people, townspeople,

that didn't want
reporters here.

But I didn't mind
talking to them.

I mean, it happened,
you got to deal with it.

If your rights
are violated to the point

that you fear your life
or your friend or family's life,

then you're gonna take
somebody else's.
That's basic law of nature.

Having so much of a spotlight,
on this tiny, tiny, little town,

it had to be traumatic.

(man) He was just a bully,

had everyone scared to death,
all over the county.

He was pretty vicious.
He shot this man

at the store
over a two-cent piece of gum.

(man) Richard Bennett thinks
\h\heveryone knows who did it.

Far as I'm concerned, everybody
in this town is guilty.

\hI am scared that they
will do the same to us

that they did to McElroy.

If you open your mouth
too much.

And it's not right.
One murder is not right.

They was proud they did it.

That's how they felt,
a lot of them.

They was proud
they had killed him.

(man) Nobody deserves
\hto be murdered.

However,

something had to be done,

for the safety
of this community.

If everything else failed,

then the murder was the answer.

Some of them, probably,
shook their heads and said,

"OK, we killed a bully.
Big deal."

There's an old saying,

you know, "He needed killing."

People were scared,

and it just kept escalating,
and escalating.

And I don't know about you,

but, you know,
everyone has a limit.

You get pushed so far,

law or not,
something's gonna happen.

(man) Well, this is
\hthe back of the grocery store

and the alley where Bowenkamp
was shot by McElroy.

A bad day
in Skidmore's history,

but you can't change it.

It was on a Friday,
two little girls come in.

Now, one of them
wasn't so little, she was
about 14 or 15 years old,

and then the smaller one,
which was about four years old.

The little girl had picked up
two or three
little pieces of candy.

We didn't have any idea who
either one of the children were.

(woman) Ken McElroy got mad

when they accused his children

of stealing bubble gum.

(Trena) The lady that worked
\hin the grocery store,

accused my little girl

of taking some candy,

and raiding the store.

She had my girl really upset.

She was bawling
when she came home.

She was only four.

(woman) Trena McElroy walked in,

and Trena wanted to know

who accused their kids...

And I'm cleaning up
the language, quite a bit.

...of raiding the store,
and of course, no one had.

(woman) The door opened again,

and she said, "Well, you're
about to meet Kenneth McElroy."

I went out
and tried to straighten it out,

and she didn't want-- She wanted
to have no part of it.

That's pretty much
what started the ball rolling.

McElroy started driving past
Mom and Dad's house
and cruised slowly by,

and then during the day,

they would sit in the pickups
outside the store

and just watch the store
all day.

(man) One day, McElroy turned up

at the loading bay
behind the store,

where Mr. Bowenkamp
was sitting,

watching the world go by.

He just rolled up his sleeves,
like this,

he says, "Do you want to fight?"

I said,
"I have no reason to fight."

I turned around.
Well, I was looking down
a double-barrel shotgun.

(man) When I
\hwalked up the stairs,

Bo was laying
on the wooden floor,

all stretched out.

There was blood
just pumping out of his neck.

\hAnd there was a pool of blood
that streamed across the floor

probably six or eight feet.

He was gurgling,
and he was trying to tell me--

I know he said "McElroy."

(cocks gun)

(man) Shortly after the
shooting, McElroy was arrested.

(woman) He was caught by
one of the troopers, down here.

Then they put him in jail,
down here

at Savannah, overnight.

(man 2) They did take him in,

and again, they let him go.

He bonded out.

(man 3) The next day,
\hMcElroy was back out
\hon the street again.

Not only that, he was
back here in the pool hall,
bragging about it.

(man) He was still out free.

And after, he drove into town,

and shot a man that owned
a little grocery store.

He actually shot the man.

And he never was
put in jail for it.

(woman) That was one
\hof the hardest things
\hfor Skidmore to accept.

We had grown up good people,

believing, that
if you did the right thing,

the law would be there for you.

But we pretty much
were on our own over here.

Miraculously,
Bo survived his wounds

and continued
at the grocery store.

But he and his family
hadn't heard the last
of Ken McElroy.

(woman) After Dad got out of the
\h\hhospital, it still continued.

McElroy would be
sitting in front of the store,
when they left the store,

and then he'd pull up
in front of the house later
and just sit there.

Fired their shotgun
into the air.

(man) Must have been a nightmare
for you and your folks.

Constant fear. You wake up
scared, you're scared all day,

you go to bed scared,
and then you start all over
again the next day.

(woman) And every time

the Nodaway County Sheriff's
Department was called,

if they came at all,
it would be three days later.

Dave Dunbar, he was the marshal
when McElroy was around,

\h\htill he quit because
they started threatening
\h\h\hhim and his family.

He goes, "Are you gonna testify
in the Bowenkamp trial?"

And I said, "Yeah, I'll be--
I'm the marshal,
I was there that night.

Sure, I'll be over there,
you know, that's my job."

And he goes, "Well, I believe
in killing any son of a bitch

that tries to put me in the pen
the rest of my life."
That's his exact words.

(woman) For almost a year,

it was just our family
that had to deal with it.

It was hell.

Scared, every single minute
of your entire life.

(man) A year after shooting
\hgrocer Bowenkamp,

McElroy finally comes to trial.

He is charged with first-degree
assault with a deadly weapon.

He faces a minimum
of ten years in prison

and possibly
up to life in prison.

His adversary was prosecutor,
David Baird.

Only three years
out of law school,

just months as prosecutor.

Once they did that,
we went to trial.

I was probably
too young and naive

to be intimidated.

The defense team
for Mr. McElroy,

they tried to make
the argument that, somehow,

Mr. McElroy
was acting in self-defense,

relative to Mr. Bowenkamp.

(man) At that time,
you had David Baird

who is a very young
and inexperienced prosecutor.

But Ken was actually
found guilty of that crime.

Ken Rex McElroy,
I think I read somewhere,

he was charged
with 37 felony crimes

and convicted of none,
until the very last one,

when he was convicted
of shooting Bo Bowenkamp.

But his attorney,
filed an appeal

and then requested
of the judge

that Ken be released on bond.

The judge agreed,

and there was a caravan
of people from Skidmore

that drove over
to be in the courtroom.

They drove back to Skidmore,

and when they got back,
Ken Rex was already there.

It had to have been
pretty traumatic.

(woman) Not even probably a week
\h\hafter that, he was in the bar

with an old Army rifle
with a bayonet.

You know, a fixed bayonet is--
That's war.

You know,
you don't even discuss it.

Walking into the bar
with an M1 and a fixed bayonet

and sitting in the corner...

You know, if I had been
the marshal, at that point,

and they called me on the phone,

he'd have been dead.

Because I'd walked into the bar,

I'd walk right up to him
and put a hole in him.

but I think some people do.

It was necessary, at the time,
for the situation.

A man comes up

and shoots your father.

He doesn't kill him,
but he shoots him.

And his mentality was

that he could get away
with anything.

All you can do is run.

Cow down and get beat some more

or stand up and fight.

(man) These guys
\haround here carry

Winchesters or Henrys,
you know, saddle guns.

They're cowboys.

That's the way it is
around here.

Everybody's got a gun.

You know, everybody does.

(man) You put things
\hin your own hands.
\hI know that's vigilantism.

But you've got to
take care of yourself.

You've got to protect
yourself, at times.

That's our American
gun mentality.

And that's what
the Skidmore people did.

(man) Was there fear that,
if McElroy remained a free man,

he would do further damage
in the town?

Yes, there was
a feeling like that.

(man) Fear is
\han emotion that takes energy.

Most tired people
\hdon't feel fear,

except when faced with evil.

And by all accounts,

Ken Rex McElroy was evil.

Anyone who doesn't understand
and hasn't lived
through this fear,

just can't understand
the pressure

that has been on,
the emotional strain.

We have never, ever, as Ken
said, never locked our doors.

But now, we never go to sleep
without the doors locked.

(man) You had people
\hwho were on-edge.

Townspeople had lost their
\hfaith in the court system

because Ken was found guilty
but released on bond.

These people are
crying out for justice,

they finally get justice,

and it does no good,
it has no affect.

\h\h\h\hThat was a tipping poin,
in that town.

And that's why they
called the town meeting.

So, what they did
was decide to get everybody
into the Legion Hall

\hand have a meeting,
trying to figure out

how they were going
to protect themselves.

(man) It was
\ha hotly-contested meeting.

There were rumors
of money changing hands

for the death
of Ken Rex McElroy.

\hOh, we heard a lot of rumors,
what they was gonna do to him.

(man) Were you at the meeting?

(man 2) No, I was
in Boulder, Colorado.

-(man) Were you at the meeting?
-I was not there, no.

-(man) Were you at the meeting?
-Yes, I was at the meeting.

They don't know my husband.
All they know is what they hear.

(man) I had my five-year-old
\hdaughter with me.

And everybody was
gathering around, you know.

It was pretty wild
and crazy and hectic

and all kinds of emotions.

And I thought,

I don't need
my five-year-old daughter,

you know, around this.

(man) There were
\ha hundred people.

That's almost
every adult citizen
in the city of Skidmore.

They lured him into town
\hso they could kill him.

(man) The town had no choice

because they had gotten together
at the Legion building

and had a meeting,
and the sheriff was there.

And the sheriff
drove out of town,

and just as he drove out of
town, McElroy drove into town.

\hThat meeting, the morning
of July 10th, in Skidmore,

you were at that meeting,
what was the mood of the place?

(sigh) They were
concerned about the welfare

of the people
who had signed statements,

uh, concerning
the bond-revocation hearing.

-(man) And they were
concerned about their safety.
-Right.

(man) About 60 townspeople
\hwere gathered
\hin the American Legion Hall.

The red brick building.
They were talking about
what to do with the town bully.

At about that time,
Ken Rex McElroy
showed up at the bar.

They followed him
inside the bar.

(man) And what
\hwas the atmosphere
\hin the bar that morning?

It was strange.

I mean, 'cause everybody
\hwas getting free beers.

And no way that many people
would come in like that.

It was all different.

(man) So were you made to
feel uncomfortable in there,

that morning?

Yeah, we've-- We figured
that they had a meeting.

(man) Just tell me
what happened.

We left the D&G
and went to our pickup.

As soon as we
walked out the door,

everybody else
walked out the door behind us.

My husband, he hadn't started
the pickup yet.

We were just sitting there.
I looked at them,

to see what they
was looking at.
See if they wanted anything,

and they was just
staring and laughing.

It was the whole town.

\hand around McElroy's pickup
at the time of the shooting.

Or there may have been
as many as 50 or 60.

How many bullet holes?

That's part of the investigation
that I can't tell you.

\h\h\hI've heard reports
there were two guns used,
\h\h\h\htwo weapons used.

That is also
part of the investigation,
and I can't tell you.

Do you have any suspects?

Not at this time.

I mean, they had nothing
to work with, ballistics-wise.

All they had was
fragments from his body,

but you couldn't
pair it with a weapon
because they had no weapons.

(man) There were
\hthree different calibers.

So at least three people.

(man 2) Two people,
\hI believe, shot him.

(woman) There was
\hprobably at least
\hthree to four shooters.

(man 3)
\hFour, in my estimation.

(man 4) Six shooters.

Well, I think there were three.

I know who two of them are.

(man 5)
\hThere was eyewitnesses.

It doesn't mean
they all saw it.

It doesn't take long to go,
boom, boom, boom.

To put your gun away,
just a few seconds.

(man 6) One other person

that I was told was a shooter
left town.

Then I don't know
who the third person is.

(woman) There are some people
\hthat aren't even convinced

it was totally from Skidmore
because so many rumors abound,

like, it was a Mafia hit
and all that.

The shooters were probably
across the street, up here.

Because the
little Quonset building,

it had some bullet holes in it.

But nobody knows which caliber
of weapon was the fatal blow.

They never found any weapons.

They couldn't prove anything.

They can't even prove
who's got what kind of a rifle

because we don't...
we don't register the rifles.

And right now, we're not even
registering the handguns.

Can't find the guns.

Not even a shell,
they picked them all up.

(man) I can't
\hreally go into that

because that's where
the conspiracy problem is.

But, you know,
the weapons were disposed of

in an interesting way.

(woman)
\hThe guns was put in a van.

If I remember the van,
it might have been blue.

They had planned
where the van would be sitting.

And they took the guns
out to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Except one.

And that gun was the main one,

my brother told me,
before he died.

The main one
was throwed in the river.

I don't know
if this is true or not,

but I was told they have
still got McElroy's head

in a freezer thing,

and that case was never closed.

If they ever could find
the shell or the gunner thing,

then they could prove
which one's gun it belonged to.

(man) If you try to think about
it from a motive perspective,

well, hell,
everybody had a motive.

If you start thinking about
who benefits from
Ken Rex McElroy's death,

jeez, maybe everybody benefits,
I don't know.

People in small towns
don't call the cops, anyway.

They handle things themselves.

That's a legacy that goes back

to when this part
of the country was settled.

This town was so full of sin.

My kids are afraid for me

because some of them
that helped

murder McElroy,
some of them are still alive.

You better keep quiet.

No.

(stammers)

I thought it was
kind of a brutal way

of doing away with the man.

(choking back tears)

If he needed put to death,
I think the law
should have done it.

(man) The killing of Ken Rex
\hMcElroy opened up something

that needs to be closed.

I think I counted nine
mysterious,

horrible, strange deaths
since Ken Rex died.

One of them was
a young woman named Wendy.

(man 2) Her boyfriend
\hattacked her and killed her,

literally stomped her to death.

(man) Another young woman
\hhad a baby cut out

and was strangled to death.

A young man
who just disappears.

One person committed suicide
with a shotgun.

One, supposedly,
committed suicide by hanging.

It's a town of 280 people.

It's hard to reconcile that.

(man 2) The question is,

if Ken Rex was such a bully,

if he was a monster,

then why didn't the violence
end with his death?

Because it hasn't ended.

Horror and mayhem

have visited that town

over and over and over again.

Maybe they're cursed to live

with the existence
of these bad things
always happening to them.

There's no limit
on murder or conspiracy.

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