Has anyone been watching the series on the Sundance channel about the killing of Ken Rex McElroy back in 1981? Rather interesting, although they're dragging it as is usually the case about TV documentaries.

Haven't seen the series but read the book a very long time ago. Sometimes people just need killing.

The book was In Broad Daylight: A Murder in Skidmore, Missouri

I have read up on this case quite a bit. He was a bad guy. He deserved to die.

even the cops were scared of that dude

Brian Dennehy played the role in the movie; In Broad Daylight, 1991.

I didn't see that. Dennehy would have been perfect for that role. That guy was a bad, badass bully.

Dennehy did play in the first movie about it...
It's all happened not far from here...if you want to really know what happened read the book in broad daylight...it tells just how bad that guy was...and the terror ...
Shortly after the killing there were a bunch of local guys went to prison...one was a resident of my home town...he ran a small grain elevator...others grand theft and such....we all think it was part of a huge ring ...
My fatherinlaws 2nd wife was in skidmore that day...hiding under the pool table...
I watched a few min of it and seen where it was going....the guy got just exactly what he had coming...

“I didn’t see anything; I was hiding under the pool table.”

At one time I had dogs with a pro trainer that lived in Maitland, MO. He knew all about the killing and who did it. He
would never tell.

I don't know the Skidmore people directly-but have a couple of friends that do.

I had heard about McElroy before they killed him. He was a menace to that community, hard to believe things he did.

Lots of locals know more than they will admit. Don't matter. Justice was served. Good for them.

If you set out to write a novel with this story line, you could not dream up a better name for the town than Skidmore.

I can't attest to the accuracy of it, but the book In Broad Daylight, won an Edgar Award for True Crime, IIRC and is very entertaining. I've never seen a copy of the movie that wasn't effed up. A friend of mine taped it off the TV years ago and I've got a VHS copy that's not very good. Seemed like Dennehy and his co-stars did about as good of a job as they could have in a TV movie. It really needed more time to adequately tell the story. IIRC, the movie In Broad Daylight, was the second movie about it and was much more accurate and less preachy about the "vigilante" angle than the first one, which starred David Graf (Tackleberry from Police Academy), was out three years prior.

I didn't watch but a few min of it ...but did they tell how he would pull into a farmers homestead and load up his hogs or cattle and jus drive off...or how he would just stop on the road and take pot shots at farmers with a deer rifle on there tractors...the shooting of the store keeper was just the straw that broke the camels back....up till then he had never harmed anyone other than fear...no one could ever remember him in even a fist fight...probably because he was a big dood and everyone had a sence of what he was capable of...
Somthing to think about is we are a society of laws and government buy the people...when said law failed the people of skidmore they took it in there own hands...wouldn't it have been nice if they could have just arrested him themselves...oh wait he was out on bail with money stolen from the community...the system just failed in this case. Not the residents of skidmore ....

We in MO have ways most dont understand

Very . very true . I'm from an extremely old family right here where I still live and if I was up to no good , welp --- I wouldn't want to piss-off a native Missourian . They are treacherous . I am Mr. Missouri , don't jack with my state .

Been here all my life, it ain’t just Skidmore that handles business when need be. Bullies get theirs, sometimes even one with a badge. The most shocking part of the story to me was this guy living as long as he did. Been lots of folks lost in the woods or drowned in a lake for less. Sometimes a lot less. Them folks in Skidmore are a patient bunch.

You folks got more patience than I will ever understand.

Too patient. First time some son of a b**** shot at me for no damn reason he ain't going to do it again. I'll take my chances with the law

I been thru Skidmore a few times.. Creepy feeling still there.

How bout Clair McCasKill?

I actually worked with a guy that was related to him. He refused to say much but I would say the line of genes were different than most.

Sure took a long time to take care of, if all he's alleged to have done and the timeline is accurate.

That b**** ain't Missouri St Louis big difference

Dad lived outside of West Plains for several years as a boy/young man his dad was born in Mo. He lived in several other states and always said MO folks saw things somewhat different, never in a bad way just not like other places.

I remember when this happened and us talking about it, he wasn't surprised it had happened or that no one talked about it to outsiders

Same here. That's the point of my original post. That SOB would have simply disappeared earlier and for less, in most places in MO. You really piss off folks here, you got it coming, and what or who you are doesn't matter. If the lights went out here for long, we'd be back to Hatfields and McCoys in a flash. The mentality still exists, it's just under wraps with most folks.

Don't mess with my kinfolks my dogs for my dirt

The saying was that Skidmore had the largest pool table in the country, as every resident said they were hiding under the pool table when the shots rang out.

True story ...that was there story and they stuck to it...

Some reading this thread may think the Missouri attitudes described may be just bluster and baloney. I lived down in Dent County for eight years. I can assure you that the attitudes and descriptions in this thread have basis in fact. Treat folks right and with respect and they were.... for the most part....real good folks. Mess with them more than once or twice and real trouble can come your way.

Just one of dozens of stories.... I shot a snapping turtle down at my pond one morning.... an hour or two later, I had three kinda owly guys at my door asking about their recently gone missing coon dog. They were not happy and certainly accusatory. I was an outsider and they thought I might have shot the dog. Sure glad I wasn’t that guy.

The Skidmore incident fits right in with attitudes I observed.

One more comment: I was living in Missouri at that time. After the shooting, there was a certain amount of virtue-signaling outrage expressed in the St Louis news and also a fair bit on the national news.... “How could this happen? Taking the Law into their own hands? A killing?”

The FBI responded and I remember an FBI agent on television telling folks the fbi was going to camp in Skidmore and not leave until the apprehended the perpetrator. Said they would surely get to the bottom of it....Sure.....They lasted only 6 months and then left.

You know what they say about STL in the Ozark's? Sheeeeaattttt... (spit tobacco juice now).

There you go lumping everybody together down in this area we're not all alike.........
Some of us don't chew

SkidMark perhaps?

My Mom's family, a couple generations back, came from the Skidmore area. Grandfather was born in Burlington Junction, 2x great grandfather is buried in Quitman. Never met 1x or 2x great grandfathers, but if they were anything like my grandfather, they marched to the beat of a much different drum than most folks. Grandfather was a bitter, curmudgeon of a man and died in 1960. I was always told by grandmother he was that way after getting mustard gassed and returning from France in WWI. After reading some accounts of what went on in this area in this thread, I'm not so sure that was the whole story.

I moved to Missouri in 1960. History is never the whole story.

I had never heard of this before this thread. I've been doing some reading about it. Quite the interesting story.

Get the book. It is even better than online stuff.

I used to sell lots of firewood to a retired Mo State Trooper . wonderful old man .He was from over on the east side of the state and moved over to my side of Missouri . We were talking one time after I delivered him a load of oak and he said something about this area { The Burnt District ] and said , The history books sure were right --- theirs some hatred still left around here . Some of my best friends had family murdered by the Redlegs . An old woman in town , her Grandad was also shot in the back by them . Quintrell and Bill Anderson as well as the Younger brothers were very active within a mile or two frommy own farm as I write this . It's still dangerous to outside dickheads ! I sure love this place though . God Bless Missouri , the greatest state in the nation .

Another thing , there's an old graveyard a couple miles from me that has my old ancestors who have birthdates pre-1800 . Yep , I come from an old family around here .

Soooooo you're psychotic? lol

Which one is best?

Maybe you're an outsider most real folks hate

These Missouri folks sound kinda like eastern Oklahoma people. Different breed of folks down there in them trees and hills

Oh darn

I remember when it happened and followed it closely on TV. When I was a kid I lived not far from there in an area on the Missouri River called appropriately, "Little Dixie". The only book I've read on the subject is In Broad Daylight. As I said in an earlier post, it is an excellent book. Winner of the Edgar Award, IIRC. I can't vouch for its veracity as I didn't live through the events as a participant, but I highly recommend the book. You won't be sorry you read it. I don't even know where my copy is as I may have loaned it out.

The movie of the same name is decent, but again, I highly recommend the book.

In Broad Daylight

Thanks guys

Agreed and same here in s.e. Leflore county Oklahoma ld, have tried to briefly explain it a time or two only to have a couple lard assed, cheese eating saps from mennascrotum tell me I was just trying to talk tough, ya, okay.

Yeah sometimes people don't take nice hints. Even though some miles actually divide some people there still a whole lot of us and Rural America that are cut from the same cloth

I remember that...
Yea they stayed just long enough to figure out the guy got just what he had coming...and no one was going to squeal ...and they probably in good conscious couldn't arrest anyone....if they did it would have been a wast of time...they melted down the guns ...
And with out tha executioners weapons and local jury they would walk...I'm sure the fbi knows the prime suspects...

I'd guess the FBI knows who did it but have little corroborating evidence. I know a local part of the constabulary who investigated it. I worked with him later on for about 20 years at a local corrections facility. A man of great integrity, he probably, wink wink, knows who did it but doesn't say. He's a stand up guy who has your back no matter what at the prison. No one has to say it out loud but SNITCHES GET STITCHES. Not in policy and procedure manuals. It is not on paper and it doesn't happen, right? Right! And yes, I DO live in northwest Misery. And Gunner500 everytime I read your thoughts on the 'fire I admire you more. Take care and Be Well. Rusty

I was hot headed when I was younger. Now I’m zen like 🤷🏻‍♂️


Still if someone were ever to take a potshot at my grandad on his tractor or load up his livestock ?


Time to give Carlos Hathcock the sincerest form of flattery.

Sometimes things happen that cause the people to have to take the law into their own hands, when the law has failed them.


Over 50 years ago, in a nearby county, a man molested 2 little sisters. He was caught, and being a member of an influential family, turned loose. He did it again, only this time the family of the girls did not call the law. Instead, the father and grandfather of the girls went to the man's house, and put him in their car. They took him out in the country, beat the chit out of him, and told him that if the sun rose on him the next morning in that county, they would kill him. The man left, and a few months later, he decided to come back at Christmas and visit his family. The father and grandfather of the girls found out he was back, and went looking for him. The child molester left wearing his pajamas, and had to stop in nearby Clarksville TN and call home for the rest of his clothes to be brought to him. He ended up in Florida, and died there.

It was probably vigilante justice to some degree, but it worked.

Re: Vigilante justice..... I grew up in Arizona ......decades ago....before it got californicated. I was twenty years old before I figured out that most folks considered that vigilantes and vigilante justice was “wrong.” I just thought that that is what a community had to do when the law could not or would not provide justice and/or safety. Even the mines I worked at in Arizona had their own form of vigilante action. Same with the unions. Kept order.... not always right, but there was order and there was a form of accountability.

Communities, be they unions, miners, farmers, small town folks etc....seem to “require justice and require order.” If the authorities cannot or will not provide, it seems the members of that community or tribe or social group will figure out how to get it.

May still be that way in small towns, remote places and in “the hills.”

I read the book about this back when I was a kid. I thought it was a good read.

A lot of city folks don't realize how far off the beaten path some places are and just how far away law enforcement can be.

Some of those places have people that would just as soon not have any law enforcement around.

Similar situation back when I lived in Indiana. Pedophile in this instance wasn't quite as lucky. The picture in the local paper was of the emt's wheeling him out of his house. Caption said he had been emasculated.

I hope they didn't wait 20 years to do it.

We too had a pedophile in town once,, now we dont,, night marshal told some hill billies with bicycle chains an hickory clubs what went down an next thiing ya know the problem solved itself i guess,, or so we hear

I’ve met some great folks from each, but Ohio and Missouri seem to be twin [bleep] of America.

Oh well, at least they are taking some pressure off Appalachia.