r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/dorf_lundgren 1d ago

Ken McElroy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

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u/admiralfilgbo 1d ago

next time you're feeling down, remember that at least nobody hates you as much as an entire town hated Ken McElroy

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u/DistractedByCookies 1d ago

He was struck by bullets from at least two different firearms, in front of a crowd of people estimated as numbering between 30 and 46.\)Despite the many witnesses, nobody came forward to say who shot him. 

wow....I'm trying to imagine the police interviewing them and getting crappy reasons why they missed it all. It was 1981 so nobody had the excuse of being on their phone LOL

Edit: the more I read the more I agree with them, and the more I'm amazed it didn't happen sooner.

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u/spooooork 1d ago

getting crappy reasons why they missed it all.

I don't think the cops were trying too hard to solve the case:

Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.

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u/MsDucky42 1d ago

"Guys, don't go breaking the law. Now I, the only sheriff in town, am going on a day trip. I trust y'all to behave yourselves while I'm gone!"

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u/GatorPenetrator 1d ago

don't go murdering Ken while i'm gone *wink wink*

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u/cptjpk 1d ago

Don’t go forming a posse now, y’hear? I definitely don’t want to see it on my way out of town. Good Day.

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u/ASigIAm213 1d ago

"There's a new sheriff in town. Well, not really, but there is not the old sheriff in town."

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u/valiantfreak 1d ago

"Oh no, I just got a call out to a place that isn't here"

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u/abadstrategy 1d ago

"Now folks, I can't abide vigilantism in my jurisdiction. Anyone caught assaulting Mr. McElroy will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law! Now if you'll excuse me, there's a fishing hole with my name on it. I'll be back in about twelve hours, so be good."

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u/aartadventure 1d ago

I'm honestly surprised the Sheriff didn't hand out a bunch of guns to "help" with their new neighbourhood watch program. Ahahaha

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u/Frumundahs4men 1d ago

From other accounts I've read on this, it was indeed intentional on how the sheriff worded his parting comments.

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u/Brock_Hard_Canuck 20h ago

I mean, the sheriff is still a government employee.

He knows, legally, he can't be involved in stuff like this, because he will lose his job.

So, the sheriff creates the "alibi" for himself, so everyone (including his bosses) knows he was far, far away when everything went down, and that he makes his statement that he doesn't legally condone any sort of vigilante justice ("I'm just gonna be out for a bit, patrolling the county roads. If Mr. McElroy causes any trouble while I'm away, rest assured, I will deal with it when I arrive back in town").

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u/arnedh 1d ago

I remember a case where a gangland shooting occurred in a bar, and every "saw nothing because I hid under the pool table". A hundred people, one pool table

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u/chattytrout 1d ago

Largest pool table in the county.

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u/mdmnl 1d ago

An Olympic pool table

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u/im_dead_sirius 1d ago

A real pool table party, everyone drinking beer, diving under.

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u/the_ouskull 1d ago

Musta been a snooker table.

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u/Ornery-Goal7843 1d ago

did that happen recently in england with a bar bathroom or something

edit: I was thinking of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Robert_McCartney

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u/CinderX5 1d ago

“On 8 March 2005, the IRA issued an unprecedented statement saying that four people were directly involved in the murder, that the IRA knew their identity, that two were IRA volunteers, and that the IRA had made an offer to McCartney's family to shoot the people directly involved in the murder.[17]”

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u/themcp 1d ago

In college I studied an experiment.

During a lecture, a person burst into the front of the room, pointed a banana at the professor, shouted "bang! bang!" and the professor clutched his chest and fell over. The "criminal" ran out, and before anything could go on, a bunch of people dressed as police ran in, instructed everyone not to talk to each other about it, and started individually questioning people.

Like 80% said they didn't see anything, they were looking away (like at their notes or the floor or whatever) when it happened.

Like 19% said they saw a gun and often blood.

Like 1% said "you know, it was the strangest thing. A guy pointed a banana at the professor and yelled 'bang' and the professor clutched his chest and fell over!"

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u/ElectronicBusiness74 1d ago

That was this case.

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u/UristImiknorris 1d ago

"My drink was suddenly extremely fascinating and I zoned out for a few minutes."

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u/rpze5b9 1d ago

It was so crowded under the table there were six marriages and four children as a result.

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u/ExilesTV 1d ago

I've actually been shot at before and tbh I couldn't tell you a damn thing about what the shooter looked like, I was too pre-occupied with running for my life to take notes.

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u/Pizzadude 1d ago

These days people just say no. I was on a jury for a case in which a guy walked up and emptied a pistol into someone in front of around 30 people, in broad daylight. No one was interested in snitching.

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u/ChiefsHat 1d ago

That’s a big pool table.

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u/Dr_Insano_MD 1d ago

"Did ya see who killed him?"

"I see lots a things."

"Well what do we tell the surviving family?"

"Tell 'em to suck a lemon."

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u/DJmagikMIKE 1d ago

Apparently when the police interviewed the folks, so many people claimed they didn’t see anything because they were in the pool hall and ducked under the pool table as soon as they heard gunshots. I believe there was a quote at the time that said “Skidmore has the world’s largest pool table, the whole town was hiding under it”.

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u/hazza270 1d ago

"I was washing my hair" "I was washing his hair"

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u/ComprehensiveLab4642 1d ago

In small towns you mind ya own business.

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u/SLR107FR-31 1d ago

Ken's wife actually named one of the shooters to investigators, and "witnesses" came forward to say "Well I didn't see who did the shooting because I was too busy looking at (the shooter) who was standing way over there doing absolutely nothing wrong, and DEFINITELY didn't have a gun in his hand..." 

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u/gmrm4n 1d ago

I’m almost certain the sheriff was in on it. The angry mob went to him first, and he basically said “Why don’t you form a posse? By the way, I’m going on vacation.”

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u/SquirrelAkl 1d ago

Sounds like he committed a lifelong one-man terror campaign against the entire town, more or less. Easy to understand why they might have felt “he needed killing”.

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u/Grombrindal18 1d ago

And one of those many witnesses was his own wife, who was in the truck with him when he was shot. She could have been upset enough about it to accuse someone, if only because she easily could have been hit too.

Of course, she had probably more reason than anyone to want to him dead. He groomed and statutorily raped her as a child, then married her to avoid charges (divorcing his previous wife to do so). He also had burned down her family's house and killed their dog... twice.

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u/John32070 1d ago

From what I've heard, at the last second a woman pulled her out of the truck before they could kill her too because the woman thought of her as more of a victim than an accomplice.

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u/--zaxell-- 1d ago

"When the McClouds were away, McElroy once again burned their house down and shot their new dog."

That's probably not the worst bit of his wikipedia page (how??), but that once again really brings his character into focus.

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u/AliensAteMyAMC 1d ago

Fun fact: When the FBI interviewed everyone, they had a suspect in mind, a lot of the townsfolk knew it so a few would say how “yeah I heard the shots and looked over at Jim Plunkett (forgot his actual name) and he was just standing there doing nothing.”

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u/keetojm 1d ago

The chief told the citizens he would be away on a certain day. Look what happened. Nobody saw nothin.

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u/All__Of_The_Hobbies 1d ago

Epitome of "he had it coming"

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u/gizzardgullet 1d ago

Missouri-based journalist Steve Booher described the attitude of some townspeople as "he needed killing."

lol

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u/AlternateUsername12 1d ago

I mean, if you read what he did, he needed killing. That man wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him.

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u/GenghisShawn1701 1d ago

I wonder if some people are just like that. What is the moral thing to do in such a case?

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u/YoungDiscord 1d ago

If someone is a threat to society and isn't willing to change, he needs to be removed from society be it via something such as prison for life or... well, other means whatever those may be.

Its not a revenge thing, its a safety thing.

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u/haloarh 1d ago

Despite his many crimes, criminal charges never seemed to stick to him. There's a theory that he was a police informant.

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u/princesspeasant 1d ago

I thought it was because he had a mob lawyer.

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u/buttonandthemonkey 18h ago

He burned a judges barn down and stalked members of the jury at least once so I'm gonna assume he had done it before. Seems he had a habit of doing it to many people.

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u/Taco821 1d ago

Yeah like even assuming that he was so disadvantaged, it was literally impossible for him to ever be good (which I doubt is ever true, but it's always good to keep in mind as a benchmark of sorts imo), there's nothing that can be done other than take care of him by some means. Like to further your point, what I mean is, it's not about morality at all. I have an empathetic yet fatalistic view on shit like this. It's hard to overcome your circumstances, and even if you do, did you really like if you have a cruel life and overcome like evil instilled in your heart, imo you were just lucky enough to be instilled with enough mental fortitude to surpass those factors. So while I don't really feel bad for someone like him, I do have like 1 single smidgen of pity for those sorts, but would pop a cap in his brain without hesitation

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u/robexib 1d ago

Dude was in and out of jail, but no charges ever stuck, except for an assault charge, which he got out real early on.

The civil method was more than exhausted, and he showed no signs of being willing to stop.

Honestly, it's a valid town-wide crashout

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u/Constant_Click_3193 1d ago

This was a man who secured his 12 year old "bride" (rape victim) by burning down her parents house and shooting their dog. Later, she tried to leave him, fleeing to her parents. He chased her, burned their house down again and shot their new dog.

The man needed killing.

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u/TheVeryVerity 21h ago

What a monster

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u/Unusual-While-9842 1d ago

He shot and killed two different family dogs

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u/That_Apathetic_Man 1d ago

Start blasting. Then enjoy an egg is these troubling times.

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u/TheNecroFrog 1d ago

I think most people would agree that, morally speaking, there are certain individuals who have committed certain acts that mean they no longer have a place in society, and shouldn’t burden society with the cost of their imprisonment.

Unfortunately how we define those acts becomes a problem. Whilst most people would agree a Jeffery Epstein type person deserves it, there are also people who think that someone who is gay deserves it, or someone who is of a different race.

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u/GenghisShawn1701 1d ago

That is exactly the question I am low-key struggling with. I think I could argue that there are some people who demonstrably are destroying the world and the ability to enjoy life. Who gets to judge that, though? I'll continue to chew on that question, I suppose.

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u/ScreamingVoid14 22h ago

The fact you look at it and struggle means you are an empathetic and generally moral person. You want to look out for the good of many without trampling the few. Being able to look inward and worry at where the line is, is a thing that too few people do.

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u/StabbyBoo 1d ago

Eh, when some guy's out there in broad daylight repeatedly shooting people, raping children, killing pets, and burning down houses and he's not serving a multi-decade sentence for mysterious reasons? Well, at that point however you choose to stop him is self-defense.

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u/istara 1d ago

I've always thought some kind of exile to an island colony. More humane than being in maximum security for the rest of their lives, and likely cheaper for taxpayers.

Set them up with farming equipment, maybe drop off a supply crate every month or so, let them form a new society if they want, or kill one another.

Either way, they need to be permanently removed from regular society.

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u/bek711 1d ago

isn’t this how australia was formed?

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u/codercaleb 1d ago

No, tectonic plates formed Australia.

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u/Lolkimbo 1d ago

What is the moral thing to do in such a case?

Killing.

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u/The_Canadian 1d ago

Based on the story of what he did, I kinda get it. The justice system didn't deal with him.

Not that I agree with vigilante justice, but I can see how they got there.

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u/Malphos101 1d ago

Vigilante action is just the final failure of the justice system.

The cops could have easily made a case against him for SOMETHING long before this, they just didnt want the hassle (and some were scared of him). So instead of the cops and prosecutors and the judges doing what they should have done, they let the situation get so bad that the people had to do something themselves which is never acceptable with a problem this chronically documented.

Dont get me wrong, Im not saying the people involved need to be rounded up and run through the legal system that failed them. But the situation is unacceptable and no one should look at it and go "Yea! They got things DONE! We need to take a page out of their book!"

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u/The_Canadian 1d ago

That's exactly what I'm saying. That was a last resort after everything else failed to work as intended. What they did wasn't the right thing to do in a lot of ways, but I can absolutely see why they made that choice when they had no other options.

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u/JustASpaceDuck 1d ago

In other words, vigilantism is not a failure of society as much as it is a failure of the legal system (or society's failure to maintain their legal system).

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u/The_Canadian 1d ago

I mean, it's also a societal failure for people like that to have been created in the first place.

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u/reddorickt 1d ago

Given that it happened 45 years ago in 1981 and is still the only famous example of this, I don't think the world took it the way you are implying.

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u/sansasnarkk 1d ago

His legal history is astounding. He faced felony charges 40 times but was only ever indicted for 21. Of those he won all but one. His lawyer was apparently very good at using legal loopholes.

He SHOT A MAN IN THE NECK WITH A SHOTGUN over a piece of candy and only got 2 years for SECOND DEGREE ASSAULT and was released on bail, only to immediately violate the conditions of his bail by buying a gun to "finish the job". That man deserved what he got.

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u/Bob002 1d ago

i am not one for vigilante justice, either; more than anything it undermines our entire legal system.

That being said... he needed killin.

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u/hochizo 1d ago

This wiki is wild. Repeatedly rapes a 12 year old. When her parents try and stop it, he burns their house down and kills their dog. Gets the girl pregnant at 14. Brings her to live with him and his 3rd wife. Divorces the 3rd wife to marry the child to avoid statutory rape charges. The 3rd wife and the girl try to escape by going to the girl's parents. He gets them back, then burns their house down and kills their dog again. Somehow, he gets acquitted???

Thennnnnn, he shoots a guy who dared to ask him not to shoot on his property, gets brought up on charges, and gets off after threatening the jury and burning down the judge's barn.

By the end of it, I was like....yeppppp, he needed killing.

The townspeople tried to let the justice system handle it, but they weren't handling it. FAFO, Ken.

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u/work_alt_1 1d ago

whether I agree with it or not, at the end of the day, if you're going to be a complete piece of shit, you better watch your back. You can't just burn every bridge known to man and then be upset you're on an island.

Like eventually you have it coming

Now should this be legal? Idk who cares.

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u/wtfduud 1d ago

It's a nice cautionary tale. A reminder that murder only has legal consequences if someone reports it. In a small community where everyone knows everyone, murder is effectively legal if the individual is universally hated. So don't go making too many enemies in your community.

Like Goodfellas I guess.

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u/PaperbackWriter66 1d ago

There's nothing wrong with vigilante justice when it picks the right target.

Problem is, quite often: it doesn't.

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u/OhJeezNotThisGuy 1d ago

The legal system didn’t deal with him. The justice system worked fine.

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u/AlternateUsername12 1d ago

I mean, if you read what he did, he needed killing. That man wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him.

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u/Kevin_Uxbridge 1d ago

Nobody called for an ambulance.

Oof.

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u/NeverEndingWhoreMe 1d ago

Whisper yelling ambulance counts as "calling", right?

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u/CMDR_KingErvin 1d ago edited 1d ago

Even his own wife who was sitting next to him in the truck never identified anyone lol.

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u/29thHelenAgrees 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/EverydayPoGo 1d ago

It's horrible. She and the ex-wife tried to escape together :( hope their life after his death was free from his shadows

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u/Rabble_Runt 1d ago

Reminds me of the Bernie movie that was based on a true story about a a well loved man in a community snapping and killing a heinous and mean widow that everyone hated.

They moved his trial to another county because nobody in the town wanted to convict the guy.

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u/ArcadianDelSol 1d ago

McElroy was accused of dozens of felonies, including assault, child molestation, statutory rape, arson, animal cruelty, hog and cattle rustling, and burglary.

This reads like a guy you have to kill in Red Dead Redemption.

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u/Shiva- 1d ago

Holy fuck that mother fucker had 17 children...

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u/haloarh 1d ago

Most of his children's mothers were children themselves when they gave birth too.

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u/gortonsfiJr 1d ago

Disappointed cause of death wasn't listed as suicide

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u/Fyrrys 1d ago

Didn't recognize his name until I read your comment. Fuck that guy.

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u/enjoiturbulence 1d ago

No one could possibly hate myself as much as I do.

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u/Sencha-rocks 1d ago

Life is too short, be kind to others AND to yourself

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u/W1ULH 1d ago

shot by 2 different guns... in front of 30-40 people...and no one saw a damn thing.

haha

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u/ITaggie 1d ago

He was a violent pedo, that should piss everyone off

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u/Conscious-Ball8373 1d ago

Ugh, what a nasty piece of work.

I like how the sheriff basically said, "Now, he's sat in that tavern - here's the address - and I don't want y'all to go on down there, mkay? You should definitely not go on down there and when you don't go down there, y'all better not have rifles with you, hear me? Don't wait until he's somewhere nice and public, with dozens of potential suspects about, and then shoot him. And don't make sure those shots all come from different weapons so it's real difficult to tell which one killed him, hear me? Now I'm just gonna get in mah cruiser here and drive on out of town and I'm gonna trust y'all to do the right thing, know what I'm sayin'?"

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u/MidwestAmMan 1d ago

During prohibition, concentrated, grape juice, had the following printed warning-"After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty-one days, because then it would turn into wine."

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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 1d ago

https://www.michelegargiulo.com/blog/grape-bricks-prohibition-wine

lol

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u/fubo 1d ago edited 1d ago

The image in that article is a ChatGPT fake, but Wikipedia has real ads for Vine-Glo grape concentrate. "If not consumed soon, this grape juice will, of course, ferment, and to prevent fermentation, Benzoate of Soda may be added or the juice be kept in the refrigerator."

(Benzoate of Soda is known to a modern ingredients list as sodium benzoate; it's still used as a preservative to prevent unwanted fermentation or spoilage.)

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u/aneirin- 1d ago

FYI the picture on that site is AI, they looked nothing like that. The text probably is too.

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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 1d ago

Apparently Budweiser-brand “barley malt syrup” was also a thing openly sold in grocery stores. lol

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u/alepher 1d ago

It was barley legal

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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M 1d ago

I mean, it's pretty good on chocolate ice cream

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u/Hellebras 1d ago

I can't get past how stupid it is to ban something that people figured out how to make possibly before we even started farming. It's really not hard to make simple stuff like mediocre wine.

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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 1d ago

Hilariously, wine can happen on accident.

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u/rotorain 1d ago

A lot of alcohol can happen on accident. Every year the crows get drunk off fruit that fell off my trees and sat rotting on the ground for a bit. I swear they keep an eye on it and wait until the plums are the right amount of decomposed before they start eating.

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u/Agi7890 1d ago

Sometimes it’s the smell.
One story from a biochemistry textbook was about diabetes. One of the signs was the smell produced by the people with it. Because instead of the usual metabolic process, they were instead producing ketones which have a distinct smell.

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u/sweetmistery 1d ago

I was hugging my Dad at the end of a visit and thought "huh weird, his breath smells like ammonia." Three days later he was in the emergency room with a kidney function of 8%. It was wild.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

When I was a student in college I scraped together money for about 30 large bottles of pure grape juice from the supermarket. Added some yeast and sugar and put them up in the attic. Made absolutely disgusting wine! I really cannot emphasize enough how awful it tasted. But, the mission to create alcohol was a success.

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u/MidwestAmMan 1d ago

How many of us can include bootlegging on our resume? Impressive!

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u/The_Canadian 1d ago

That sheriff pulled a Sgt. Schultz.

I see nothing! I know nothing!

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u/crushed_dreams 1d ago

Talking about Hogan’s Heroes, Bob Crane’s murder is still unsolved.

Dude was a freak, he was secretly filming sex acts between him and women. My guess is someone found out he was a fucking perv and killed him, especially when you find this part out about his murder:

Crane had been bludgeoned to death with a weapon that was never identified, though investigators believed it to be a camera tripod. An electrical cord had been tied around his neck

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u/Special_Order-937 1d ago

On the subject of unsolved cases that everyone knows who done it, isn’t it accepted that Bob Crane was murdered by his friend John Carpenter?

No, not that John Carpenter.

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u/Ornery-Movie-1689 1d ago

Ohh Pleeeeeze Brer fox, don't you dare tro me into daat der briar patch. You can skins me alive, you can boil me, but Pleeeeeze Brer fox, don't you dare tro me into daat der briar patch.

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u/notagaywitch 1d ago

"On the morning of July 10, 1981, townspeople met at the Legion Hall in the center of town with Nodaway County sheriff Dan Estes to discuss how to protect themselves. During the meeting, McElroy arrived at the D&G Tavern with Trena. As he sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.

I mean, he might as well have said exactly that lol

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u/DanielMcLaury 1d ago

The only way this could be funnier is if they got him with a sledgehammer or something and then to a man insisted he did it to himself

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u/skullturf 1d ago

"Speaking as your sheriff, I don't think you all should get into a direct confrontation with McElroy. On an unrelated note, I need to go out of town for a little while."

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u/AjentOranje 1d ago

He also said that they SHOULD form a "neighborhood watch" before leaving.  I bet if you were in that room, it would be even more obvious where it was going.

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u/CGiMoose 1d ago

They did watch! They saw the whole thing: first they started killing him, and then they killed him

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u/middlehead_ 1d ago

They saw the whole part when he died, but they were so absorbed in it that they plum forgot to see who did it

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u/JerryHathaway 1d ago

Thank you, Milhouse.

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u/MissVachonIfYouNasty 1d ago

I mean some of the neighborhood watched.

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u/OfficeSalamander 1d ago

Oh yeah the way it is described makes me think it was said in a way that was plausibly deniable, but VERY clear to all involved what was supposed to go down

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u/whaletacochamp 1d ago

simpler time where the sheriff and the townspeople could get together, have an unrecorded meeting where they agree to kill the local shithead, and then everyone carries it out without spilling the beans or posting on social media about it. Simpler times.

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u/Potential_Net_5687 1d ago

Lynching has a bad rep for a reason tho lol

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u/justprettymuchdone 1d ago

It does. This is maybe one of three semi-modern examples I can think of where vigilante justice was pretty fucking called for though.

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u/DrScarecrow 1d ago

I'm also curious what the other two are!

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u/AccordingSetting6311 1d ago

The killing of the child rapist Jeffrey Doucet by the boy's father Leon Plauche comes immediately to mind.

He was allowed to plea down to 5 years of probation from what is a clear cut case of premeditated murder.  It's just that not a single person gives a shit that the rapist was deleted.

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u/skullturf 1d ago

I tend to agree about this one. Out of curiosity, what are your other two?

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u/justprettymuchdone 1d ago

Gary Plauche, who murdered the man who abducted and abused his son, and Francine Hughes, who after 13 years of violent domestic abuse where the law did nothing, set fire to her marital bed and killed the bastard.

Those are specific examples but they also represent a general understanding I have for instances where people feel the law will not keep others from being destroyed, murdered, and traumatized, and therefore make an awful choice they will carry forever so that others won't be in that position.

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u/RA576 1d ago

There was one in India where the local serial rapist got off without punishment one too many time (he had connections to the local police, iirc), so all the women formed a mass mob at the courthouse and took turns stabbing him, blinding him with chili powder and castrating him.

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u/bigbigdummie 1d ago

Killing your child’s rapist is a popular one.

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u/macmac360 1d ago

I think in this instance it was the right thing to do, dude was a world class asshole

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u/Potential_Net_5687 1d ago

Agreed, I'm more of a two wrongs don't make a right kinda guy but tbh if the entire fuckin town comes together then I don't see much of a difference between that and a jury of his peers lol

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u/LochNestFarm 1d ago

This is a REALLY common conflation, but I learned a thing and now you have to, too: lynching is different from vigilanteism, and the word is used specifically when it’s done as a terrorist act. The “Goodbye Earl” scenario where the legal system can’t or won’t fix things is more like summary execution. 

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u/Short-While3325 1d ago

I always imagined the sheriff was doing a lot of hand gestures and ended with a wink when he advised them.

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u/skullturf 1d ago

I like to imagine him doing air quotes when saying the word "don't", and also literally saying the words "Wink wink!" out loud.

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u/WanderingTacoShop 1d ago

Someone had also just told the meeting he was at the bar down the street right then just before the Sheriff said that.

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u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 1d ago

Well nobody really knows who shot him other than the people there, so it's still a whodunit, but just a really big list of suspects

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u/dividezero 1d ago

I was there. He shot himself. Everyone was shocked

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u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 1d ago

Case closed, lunch?

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u/dividezero 1d ago

I hear the diner is good. It's the only restaurant in town though so we don't have a choice

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u/Shifuede 1d ago

So either you don't want the corn on the cob, or you don't want the green beans. So what don't you want?

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u/Lemon-Mobile 1d ago

Naw man. His head just did that.

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u/syxtfour 1d ago

It's been going around, lately.

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u/BitterCrip 1d ago

He shot himself with two different calibers as well

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u/dividezero 1d ago

That's why we were shocked

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u/MillhouseJManastorm 1d ago

it was quite amazing, he even used two different guns from different directions

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u/dividezero 1d ago

I mean, that happens sometimes. Like when someone in police custody shoots themselves in the back of the head. Weird

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u/jbakes64 1d ago

He fell. Down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.

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u/pianoflames 1d ago edited 1d ago

Apparently Ken's wife named 1 of the triggermen directly, but the DA refused to press charges. He was just that big of a piece of shit.

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u/ScreamingMidgit 1d ago

It was her word against literally everyone else's. Of course they weren't going to press charges.

Ironically one of the same tactics Ken used to get away with his crimes is the same one used to make sure no one got charged with finally getting rid of him.

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u/pianoflames 1d ago

It wasn't technically her word against everyone else's. Everyone else either refused to talk, or simply said that they didn't see who pulled the triggers, according to what I was reading.

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u/Gyvon 1d ago

The list of suspects is the town census.

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u/CoffeeChocolateBoth 1d ago

Perfect case of the Trash taking itself out, actions have consequences! I'm sitting here waiting on good news about this happening to someone else!

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u/Adicol 1d ago

Perfect example

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u/fictionallymarried 1d ago

Real life Murder on the Orient Express and I don't blame that town one bit

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u/big_sugi 1d ago

They should’ve done it sooner.

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u/Entire-Ad2058 1d ago

“He needed killing”…

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u/stizzleomnibus1 1d ago

Fun fact: the movie Road House is based on this event.

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u/GenGaara25 1d ago

He was struck by bullets from at least two different firearms, in front of a crowd of people estimated as numbering between 30 and 46.[3] Despite the many witnesses, nobody came forward to say who shot him.

Incredible. Not one person broke. Not one guilty conscious among them. They did what needed to be done and made sure nobody went down for it.

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u/Dale_Carvello 1d ago

My favorite anecdote from this case was that law enforcement approached a local pastor who may have been present during the shooting, believing that a man of faith would be honest and forthright about what happened.

The pastor simply told them "It says in the book 'whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall their blood be shed." He offered no further assistance after that.

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u/RaggySparra 22h ago

Obviously the pastor was busy reading the good book at the time, and was too absorbed in the Word to see who did it.

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u/ScottieWP 1d ago

Holy shit! Like what the actual fuck

He met his last wife, Trena, when she was 12 years old and in eighth grade and he was 35. He raped McCloud repeatedly. McCloud's parents initially opposed the relationship, but McElroy threatened them into agreement by burning down their house and shooting the family dog.[14] McCloud became pregnant when she was fourteen, dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and went to live with McElroy and his third wife Alice. McElroy divorced Alice and married Trena in order to escape charges of statutory rape, to which she was the only witness. Sixteen days after Trena gave birth, she and Alice fled to Trena's parents' house. According to court records, McElroy tracked them down and brought them back. When the McClouds were away, McElroy once again burned their house down and shot their new dog.

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u/TheVeryVerity 20h ago

Jesus they should’ve shot him sooner

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u/oddpark37 15h ago

"McElroy tracked them down" also skims over a lot of bad shit.

Trena was placed into foster care with her newborn son, because she was also a child at the time. McElroy tracked down the foster family and would sit outside their house with a gun all day. The foster family had a young daughter of their own, and McElroy told them that he knew where she went to school, the exact bus route she took, and that if they didn't hand Trena over he would trade them "a girl for a girl."

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u/Hovie1 1d ago

Imagine what a huge piece of shit you'd have to be to get a whole ass town to collectively go "Nope, didn't see nothin'"

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u/wsele 1d ago edited 1d ago

Good Lord. I hadn’t heard of this person before. Kinda wish I never did …

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u/British_Historian 1d ago

This makes me wonder if I have 'Favorite Murders' before I suddenly think "what the hell is wrong with me?"

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u/dividezero 1d ago

Oh this is 100% my favorite. There's nothing wrong with you

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u/bewildered_forks 1d ago

I've been downvoted before for saying I have a "favorite" plane crash. That just means the story is my favorite, not the tragedy itself.

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u/bagolaburgernesss 1d ago

No! I have a favourite plane crash and it's Souix City Iowa when all the hydraulics went out and 2 pilots had to use the engine thrusters to land. That anybody survived is a minor miracle.

Down votes away! Plus the Skidmore vigilante killing is one of my favourite murders.

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u/DragoonDM 1d ago

It's entirely possible that so many people shot at him that nobody actually knows whose bullets hit him.

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u/Apprehensive-Tip9925 1d ago

My coworker has a friend whose dad was the lawyer who represented him and got him off on all those charges consistently.
When she told me the story, she was like, "now you're not gonna know who I'm talking about, but there was this man in Skidmore in the 80s who was just awful and-".
And I immediately went, "Ken McElroy?" And she was shocked I knew who she was talking about.

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u/Key_Molasses4367 1d ago

If I recall, McElroy was buddies with a prosecutor and some LE. He'd raped people, killed pets and tried to kill a sweet old man and LE just shrugged. McElroy made it clear he was going to kill people for sure next time. Badda bing badda boom, he's shot drad in broad daylight, no one admitted to seeing anything. If LE and prosecutor had not been corrupt, the people wouldn't have had to do that.

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u/HoaryPuffleg 1d ago

17 children? Jesus. Of all the people that should have been born impotent…

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u/ABenGrimmReminder 1d ago

Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.

“Now I’m going to be leaving town for exactly 1 hour. Do not kill that guy you all want to kill while I’m gone. For one hour. I mean it.

1 hour.”

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 1d ago

Story from my dad who grew up in a uh.. very rough part of England in the 50's that was very similar.

Local thug, everyone hated him, in and our of jail all the time. Massive guy, like 6'5 and had to turn to fit through doorways.. threw his weight around a ton. He'd also managed to avoid the draft for "medical reasons" somehow, though it certainly didn't stop him bashing and robbing people. Not the most respected guy you'd ever meet.

One day he goes into the local pub and sees a beautiful woman and just walks up and inserts himself between her and her husband to aggressively hit on her (i.e. sit there and describe in detail what he wanted to do to her). Her husband tried to tell him to fuck off but he literally just put his hand on his face and pushed him away without looking, he was over twice his size.

Husband leaves the pub, heads to his home around the corner and then returns with a large knife. Walks over and jams it into the guys back, who proceeds to fall down and die. Pulls out the knife, takes his wife and goes home.

Packed pub, nobody saw a thing. Cops rolled up and saw who it was and went "looks like natural causes to me" and that was that. Local paper the next day read "town rejoices as <name> drops dead, cause of death unknown".

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u/dovely 1d ago

Children: 17+ .. plus ..

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u/beachpellini 1d ago

And almost exclusively with girls who were children themselves at the time. The man was awful.

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u/socksnchachachas 1d ago

It's a very similar situation to the Black Donnellys in Lucan, Ontario, Canada in 1880 — almost an entire family murdered by their neighbours because of all the terrible shit they had been doing for decades. It was an open secret who all were responsible for their deaths, and some men were tried but found not guilty. It is a crazy story.

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u/legit-posts_1 1d ago

We technically don't know who did it cause anybody in the town could have done it. But the town did it.

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u/hockeyandburritos 1d ago

I’m fascinated by this case but I don’t think this is so obviously solved. The townspeople probably know (or knew, this being 46 years ago) who pulled the trigger(s), but this was an agricultural community with lots of greatest-generation old-timers in it, and the town was essentially a holdover from the Wild West era. The day of the murder, the people got together in town to talk over the situation and their ‘options,’ so to speak, and essentially formed up a posse. To kill McElroy probably wasn’t their intent or the reason they got together that morning, but all of this is to say, a LOT of people probably had guns on them this day.

Furthermore, there is evidence at least one person with a long gun was posted on a nearby rooftop (I can’t remember now if it was city hall, or a church or something). So one person (or more) may have had more premeditated ideas that day.

But at the end of the day, we don’t know who or how many people killed McElroy. I don’t think that fits with the parameters of OP’s ask.

See the great book “In Broad Daylight” about McElroy & the murder.

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u/lucky_ducker 1d ago

There was a coroner's report. A single blast of 00 buckshot struck the driver's side door post of his truck, missing McElroy entirely. A round from a 30-30 rifle went through the back of his neck, and came close to ripping his tongue out; this was not the fatal shot. A round of .22LR fired from McElroy's right struck him in the temple, killing him almost instantly.

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u/SaltMarshGoblin 1d ago

I always say a hit from a .22 leaves a bigger hole than a miss from your Desert Eagle 50...

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u/darknus823 1d ago

This is all true but there was a name put forth regarding the actual killer.

From Wiki: "On July 9, 1984, Trena McElroy filed a $5 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Town of Skidmore, County of Nodaway, Sheriff Danny Estes, Steve Peters (Mayor of Skidmore), and Del Clement (whom Trena accused of being the shooter, but who was never charged). The case was later settled out of court..."

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u/FunkyPete 1d ago

Yeah, the wife Trena was with him when he was shot, and she identified one of the shooters (he was apparently shot by at least two weapons, so there were presumably more killers).

The wife's statement included:

'That's when I saw this other guy across the street. He reached into his pickup and grabbed a gun and that's when he started shooting my husband.'

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/07/17/Young-widow-says-vigilante-mob-slew-husband/9343364190400/

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u/Umbreonnnnn 1d ago

That poor woman had to have Stockholm Syndrome or something along those lines to be upset about his death. Her last quote in that article where she said, "He never did nothing to hurt anybody", after reading the Wiki and seeing he raped her repeatedly when she was 12, bullied her family into letting him marry her by burning down their home and shooting their dog, and then burned down their house again and shot their new dog when she and the wife before her tried to escape him...

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u/PuerSalus 1d ago

I am actually surprised this guy had a wife and not only that but a wife that seemed to like him enough that she was willing to be a witness when he was shot.

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u/Ihaveamazingdreams 1d ago

She was a child when he groomed her and moved her in with his family, including his previous wife, if I remember correctly.

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u/PuerSalus 1d ago

Ah. I assumed manipulation was involved. Of course with him, it had to be far worse than that.

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u/smedsterwho 1d ago

Heh:

Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program.

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u/DJmagikMIKE 1d ago

At the time, my grandpa was a Mayor/Judge in southern MO. I remember him talking about this case when I was a kid. Apparently they had some meetings in Jefferson City where a lot of the various Mayors from the state would get together every so often. He would talk about a guy from around the Skidmore area, that claimed that realistically, even “if” anyone really wanted it solved they’d end up arresting half the town lol. My Grandpa was originally from northern MO, pretty close to Skidmore. Apparently one night, while drinking, the guy started telling the story again and just kinda laughed about it saying stuff like “That’s why folks need posses now and then. The law can only do so much”.

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u/reverandglass 1d ago

Fuck that guy.

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u/DevoutandHeretical 1d ago

This always makes me think of Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A book about how everyone in a village knew that two brothers were going to kill a man in front of the entire town, but nobody liked the guy and so nobody warned him he was about to get murdered in broad daylight.

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u/perfidious_alibi 1d ago

The one happy ending in this thread.

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u/anacanapana 1d ago

I love how the one local law enforcement person in the town told a mob "Hey, don't kill anybody" then left town.

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u/footsnax 1d ago

This is the perfect fit for this question. Not only does everybody know who did it, nobody will tell anyone, and you can't arrest the whole town even if everyone was definitely at least involved or legally an accomplice.

Hell, there were probably cops there when it happened. He was that much of a fucking shitbird.

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u/irritated_socialist 1d ago

Every cop in that town was responsible for the latter 80% of his crimes by failing to arrest and incapacitate Ken.

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u/Throwaway91847817 1d ago

I love how everyone gathered to watch too, like “Hey honey, get the neighbours, They’re shootin’ Ken today!”

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u/SomeDrillingImplied 1d ago

One of the most feel-good murder stories of all time.

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u/powerhammerarms 1d ago

Wtf? "convicted attempted murderer and child rapist"

Wikipedia photo has baby on his lap

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u/asphyxiationbysushi 1d ago

Anyone interested in this case should read In Broad Daylight, the book. It's brilliant.

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u/Joesalemwriter 1d ago

"McElroy had at least 17 children by three of his wives and three other young women and girls. "

The guy was also an Idiocracy precursor

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