No One Saw a Thing

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?

We had to be violent to 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.

The story of Skidmore was 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.

His death created a story that went on and on and on.

You can't hold a secret like that

and not have it affect the psyche of the town.

It'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.

A lot of reporters have come to Skidmore in 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.

Who pulled the trigger?

I don't know.

I couldn't tell you.

Would you turn in the person who did it?

No.

Would you, preacher?

I wouldn't.

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.

That was the one mistake that 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.

I-- 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.

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.

When 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.

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?"

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

and blood running down the highway."

We were working away 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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

I still thought they was going to kill me

when they took me up to the bank

because he told me there was women up here to 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.

And, 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.

People were afraid of 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.

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.

He must have been about 6'2" or 6'3".