Episode Transcription

00:00 So 46 people see a man get murdered outside of a bar and no one tells the police anything. Yeah, they all kept it quiet. It seems like they might've been in cahoots. In cahoots. Yeah, this week is the, this is things I learned last night and this week we are learning about the story of Skidmore, Missouri, a town that banded together against Ken McElroy. 00:24 Well, we don't know if they maybe the account allegedly banned together against Ken McElroy, who was who's terrorizing the town and mysteriously got shot outside of a bar in front of forty six people who all saw what happened, but the FBI closed the case because no one, none of the eyewitnesses will talk about what they saw. So this is a podcast where we we learn a lot of stuff and we laugh a lot and it's a really good time. Thanks for checking it out. Awesome. This weekend, 00:54 I will be at what's that where you at today, October is October fifteenth. So this weekend I will be in the lynchburg Virginia at Liberty University and the very end liberty, bibbidi next weekend. I will be in Massachusetts and that's a great time and then the weekend after that I'll be in Canada. 01:16 Tabor, Alberta, so can and honestly Tabor, Alberta. I've been there before is a lot like Skidmore, Missouri, very small town, very small town, so interesting. Well, be careful if you know who's out of forty or forty six people. Sometimes you want to go where everyone inspires again. Bum bum bum bum. Let's get to the 01:40 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Ken McElroy, Ken? First of all, pretty sure it's called Mackle Roy. Yeah, it is Mackle. Because you know the rule on Mick right on Mick or no, what's the rule on Mick? If it's MC and then if like so it's like McDonald's right, so we don't say McDonald's. We say that's right, that's right, you're right, because whatever follows the sea. If it's a consonant, 02:10 then it's Mick. If it's a vowel, then it's Mac. Oh interesting. Yeah, I've never heard that rule before yeah. Well, can make alleroy, so we kept calling him John McCaffey, but we're saying on a cafe, Mac, a Mac, a fee should be because everyone says Mac a fee should be on the cafe. Everybody always said though with the with this software, everyone called it McCaffey. No one called it Mac a fee. It's most Mac a fee interesting. We were wrong. Yeah, well he was wrong. 02:39 So this is Macaroy. Yeah, this is Ken, Ken, Macaroy, Ken Rex, Macaroy, not to be mistaken with Ken Macaroy. This is Ken Macaroy. You don't want to mix the two don't want to talk about this guy. We're not talking about Ken. This guy, what is this guy? The Golden Bachelor? What is this close? He is a real estate investor and he's got like a podcast or something about real estate investments. He's close friends with the rich dad, poor dad guy. 03:06 Oh gosh yeah, so he's one of those you know that which I hate that guy anyway yeah, so not that can mackerell. We're talking about this can mackerell can per dog. He's the dog can rex. You don't get a name like rex without big a dog just from first glance. I'm going to guess that he's a amateur wrestler. Oh, that's an interesting guess. Ken Rex mackerell rex yeah 03:34 that's that's actually an interesting. It's Rex W R E W like he wrecked stuff. I love that well on July tenth, nineteen eighty one Ken Rex McRoy and his wife Trina. We they went to the local. I don't know what the name of the place was. It's like a local bar okay and their hometown, not their hometown, but the town they lived in Skidmore, Missouri, which have you ever heard of Skidmore, Missouri have heard of Skidmore Skidmore is a big town. 04:04 and by big town, I mean there it is. It's very small. It's it's point. I think I square miles. I think I know what happens here really interesting. Well, it's point three square miles population of two hundred and forty five. I think I know what happens cool, great thanks. It's a very, very small town, very small town, two hundred and forty people. They're at the local. Where is it at in the state of Missouri, northwest, basically Nebraska, like it's way up there. 04:34 and so they they go to this local bar and as they're walking out, yeah, they walk out, they sit down in his truck and they're sitting in his truck, waiting to leave a crowd forms outside about forty forty six people somewhere in that ball park for the forty two to forty six people are out in outside this pub and a series of shots rings out right 05:03 two of them strike can and kill him. Several, several shots get fired, but two of them strike them and kill them. They were fired from two separate rifles is what's interesting. Yeah, one was a center fire rifle. The other was a twenty two rim fire rifle. Oh, they sound bullets from different guns, different guns. Yeah, they found the casings. They found the actual bullets within him. So he lives in skidmore. Yeah, he and his wife go out to the bar. Yeah, when they leave 05:32 a crowd surrounds their car. I don't know if I would say surrounds the car. A crowd is there. A crowd is present outside the bar already. They're there when they leave and then and then shots from behind their car. Yeah, they're all from behind them, so there are cars not surrounded the whole. The crowds behind them outside the bar, they get in their car, they're getting ready to go and then the shots ring out. Okay, what's interesting is this crowd of people, dozens of people there 06:02 Nobody calls an ambulance. Nobody calls for help. And in fact, nobody identifies a shooter. The police try to do this investigation, try to look for people to come forward to identify who took the shot. No one can come forward and identify. The only person who's testifying is Trina, his wife, who was in the car. And so they're not able to get a good report of what happened. And eventually after investigating for a long time, 06:27 trying to work with the town to figure out what happens. The FBI closes the case because they say we can't get any solid evidence on what happens here and it gets down and goes down as an unsolved murder. This is in 1981 and it still hasn't been solved to this day, despite forty plus witnesses, forty to forty six people being present to watch the thing. So a crowd of forty six people, not to mention this is this is if you look at the map, 06:55 This is so if you look where skidmore city hall is there across the street, that little town like diagonal and down, that's, that's where they are. And so this town, like the, if you're going north is where they're parked. And so there's all the other things that are in this town right around there. Right. And so people who weren't in that crowd probably saw what happened, right? Because there's not much happening in the city. The rest of the city is just houses. This is where 07:23 everything happens is right here in this little block. There's probably other witnesses as well that weren't a part of that crowd, but no one comes for and forward and no one says what happened, and so it leads you to wonder why so let's take a look at the story of Ken's life and see what led us to this moment and see if we can figure out how we got here, how two separate people murdered him 07:49 Yeah, two separate people. Well, it very much looks like unless someone was holding two separate rivals and every and nobody noticed nobody in this car. Forty six was like about it the guy standing like this to guns. It might have been that guy. You see anyone with two guns that day? Yeah, no, actually I didn't see anything. Okay, so this is clearly though 08:13 So I know this story. I don't know what happens. I don't know why. What do you know this story? I just know that there was 46 witnesses. There's 46 people who saw this man get murdered and no one is talking. Yeah. For 40 plus years, no one says anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like refuses to talk about it. Yes. Yeah. And so like the whole town basically conspired together because this guy was a bully of some sort, right? Yeah, that's close. That's really close. I don't know if bullies the word I would use. I see the word bully thrown out a lot. 08:41 but I don't think bully is the right word for okay. So anyways, let's just walk through the timeline of ken's life and to see what led us to the situation, so there's a documentary about this. Yes, there's there's a lot of things about this june, sixteenth, nineteen thirty four ken is born. 09:08 okay to his parents, Mabel and Tony McElroy, McElroy. He's one of fourteen kids. Guys, holy cow man, yeah, he was born in Overland Park, Kansas, but this was nineteen thirty, so that was a rural Kansas at the time. It was not what it is today and they lived on a farm. They had a one mile by one mile farm. 09:36 some small little farm that they lived on and he spins his youth working on the farm, doing physical labor and stuff like that. As a teenager in the forties, he is a little bit of a rascal and he does like small time theft, but nothing like super serious, sure just kind of rascal behavior, especially for the forties. You know, forties, just a little bit of shoplifting was kind of what the 10:01 The soda pop guy hates when he sees Ken McElroy coming over to my soda pop shop. Cause I bet he's going to do some rascaling. He comes in, he sticks his hand in my candy jar. There's no telling how many jelly beans he took. 10:21 And after years of watching this rapscallion take my beans and bite them. 10:36 I has to have done something. So I followed he and his lady. I found out where they was living. And then I followed them for four more years. Until one day I has two rifles. 11:00 This is for stealing me SOTY props. And I loudly said, I don't care who sees me do it. I'ma shootin' Ken McElroy. But it turns out, he was stealing them people's jelly beans too. He's been stealing jelly beans all those years. And you know what happens to the jelly bean thieves. How long we going to do this character? A while. A long time. 11:32 Are you finished? I think so, so he gets into some rascaling in the forty's sure he turns eighteen and fifty two and marries his girlfriend, who at the time was sixteen and they moved to Colorado together normal in the fifty's and so they moved to Colorado. Finally, we've been trying to get her married for two years. They moved to Colorado and he that's how they had fourteen kids. They literally had to start real young 12:03 they moved to Colorado following his sister's husband who moved out to Colorado started a construction company and there were he's working construction with them out in in Colorado, okay, and while he's there and this is Trina that he's married. No, no, this is a girl named Oleda, Oleda, I wasn't going to last 12:32 What's Macaletta, O L E T A O L E D A O L E D A O L E D A O L E D A O Lita Macalroy, this is the O Lita Macalroy and Ken. There's a documentary about this. There's podcasts about this. If you don't like the way we're telling this story, find the way someone else does it. That's my message. 12:56 don't come, don't leave a review. We're not going to get better. Leave a review. Your your one star review is not making us better at this podcast. Do you understand it's making us more the way we are? I see your one star Collins. I dig my heels in and I keep doing what I've been doing. I'm going to find you in a crowd of four eyes. People I was going to find where you live. 13:27 and I was going to come over to your house and I'm going to say, Hey, did you leave a one star review of my podcast? And they say, Oh my gosh, how did you find me? Please get out of my house. Found you. 13:43 this is and eyes like a word. If you step outside, I like the concept of this. I like the concept of someone leaving a one star review on something and the person tracking the what I want to do for a TV show. What I would love to do is hate comments. I would love to do a show called hate comments. 14:03 where it's like catfish, where I track down the person who left the comment and then we have it printed on a postcard and I and this isn't my hate comments. This is somebody else somebody else's hey comments that girl who makes coffee yeah talking about yeah, the thirty year old yeah. We take her to all the people who made the hate comments and we hand them the comment that they made and we go read it to her face read it to her yeah. I had to her face that idea that we should a hundred percent do that so support on patreon so we can do this yeah there it is 14:31 That's a great show. It's a great, a great series. Yeah, you know, some people going to learn and you don't break your knees right in front of the person say, say it, say it. I think your need to say it of card 14:50 Sorry, what? I said, I think you need to say the car. Okay. So while he's working at construction. Hate from Des Moines, Iowa. We found you. And you thought we wouldn't cause you put Des Moines, but we knew you were in Cedar Rapids. 15:20 If you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. 15:32 We do monthly hangouts. There's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. 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We really appreciate you watching the show. 16:04 So while he's in Colorado, he's working for his sister's husband's construction company and he suffers a traumatic head injury and his personality starts to say about the I've told you about the girl in my hometown who I had to block on Facebook and stuff because now she would keep commenting like she was going through all my posts and just saying like 16:25 I mean, she would just take the counter of whatever I was saying. She was just being annoying, like just being like, you're a jerk, all this stuff. Eventually I blocked her, but she's a barista, the one coffee shop in my hometown. And so when I do go in there, I tip very generously. Just to, I don't know, it feels weird. Like I see her and I go. And she's like, yeah, it really does feel like that. 16:52 Yeah, because I go in, I get my little ice vanilla latte. So we guys want a nice vanilla latte and she was okay and makes it. She was looking at four dollars and I'm just like all right, yeah, and it's it's so just pretends like she didn't say all those crappy things. I don't even think she pretends it. There's a tension for sure. Oh yeah, it feels weird. Yeah, yeah, you know that's a weird small town culture thing and I think the internet has made it so much weirder because in small towns we've always known for my entire childhood. We've always known 17:21 that people talk about other people and like that's just what you know yeah. That's what they do yeah, and so there's a huge pressure when you grow up in a small town like skid more. How was the population of skin more? It's a lot of the right. Yeah, it's skid more is like Miller next to us right small town and there's always a pressure to like behave a certain way. Really, it's almost like playing a social game on Big Brother, where it's just like I can't. I don't 17:49 There's some things where I'm just going to take this behavior from you, even though I want to be like, hey, don't treat me like this. Yeah, that would cause me more problems for me to call this out. Yeah, so I'm just going to let you behave that way because it's easier for me just to deal with this and like separate. But then the internet exists where now you're just there. Commenting those things, there's kind of that security. Oh my gosh, I don't even think I don't even know what like. 18:17 I don't understand what it is. I know this is a tangent. I think it's the fact that it's like, you don't have to see the other person on the other side. You don't have to recognize that's a person. A guy in my town got something stolen from him and he knew who stole it. So he put on Facebook and he said, if anyone can give me the address for this person, I have a reward, they stole this from me and I want to get it back. Interesting. And I messaged and was like, hey man, 18:45 call the police. Yeah, that's a complaint. What kind of wild west? Yeah, you're just going to show up at the house and be like hey, I know you stole this. That's what he was. He was like if you can get this back, I will give a reward. Yeah, I'm like that's what the police are for you, dummy. Yeah, that's kind of what out online and be like hey, if someone can go get this yeah or like find it was a girl her address. Yeah, I'm like what kind of broken 19:15 Yeah, how many worms are in your brain for that to happen? You know, it's interesting. So what I'm saying is I understand the small town politics that come into skid more is what I'm trying to get at. That is interesting. I don't know if this is so much small town politics. You'll find out as we sure sure sure sure sure, but I understand. Yeah, I know what I understand there being forty people who are like we're not going to say anything. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I get how that comes to be because it's hard for some people to be like how is how did forty people see that? 19:44 It's like dude in a small town we all know each other. Yeah, yeah. And so it's like. There's no strangers. There are definitely now that I'm an adult in my small town there are definitely looks at like football games and stuff where things happen or things are said you overhear someone's and like you lock eyes with that person that you know has like been outside of your hometown. Yeah. And it's like, and you do that. You guys do that look across the, where you just go. Oof. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are quiet. 20:14 Acknowledgements of what's happening yeah a hundred percent yeah anyway, so it's fifty four he's working in Colorado for this construction company. He suffers a traumatic head injury and his personality sort of shifts for sure he gets CTE and he becomes a different person. We don't know the good CT. Now we don't know the we don't. I don't know if there was ever a diagnosis. He heard his head didn't start diagnosing that stuff later. Well, I what I'm saying is I don't know if he went to the doctor. He heard his head and he said his head hurt the rest of his life. 20:42 but like it's the fifties and he's at work at construction. He's like I hurt my head and he's like let's go back to work. They're like suck it up and he's his there hammering like the nails over here and he's like he's like why won't this nail go in and they're like get out of here. You're fired. He's got the nail and he's just something that'd be probably easier if you had a hammer in your hand. He's hitting it with a knuckle. He's just like this hair hurts. I he just think there's a hammer is just 21:12 and yeah, then they fired him because they're like they're like all of a sudden you're bad at this job. Yeah, there's something wrong. Yeah, it's like man's like why do you so bad? He isn't good at this anymore and suddenly sucks a con. Yeah, I told him to go down in the story happened in the passenger seat. That was the driver side. Yeah, and he started making the driving sounds of his mouth and I like you haven't left yet and he's like I've been gone for thirty minutes. I'm on one of the store. What are you? Yeah, 21:40 I don't know enter a word that they said back then we can't say any of them. That's a like what do you like? They were just like I he's dumb now he's out of here, so yeah, here's his head and then the next year or two and then there's the wise. I was gonna. I was gonna take my revenge for my jelly beans today, but then I saw that he got five from that job 22:08 and so I figured I got to wait a little longer, wait a little longer, stack it. I figured the head injury would do it itself, so they decided to move back home. Eventually they settle in Skidmore, Missouri, him and his wife, because he can't find work anywhere. Everyone's like you're done. Oh, let a yeah him and him and his wife, Oledo, and so in fifty eight few years later, they've been in Missouri for two or three years. Ken somehow meets another woman named Sharon 22:37 and starts seeing her. And so he divorces Oletta, marries Sharon. And the marriage wasn't a marriage because he was in love with Sharon and wanted to marry her. It was because he thought that if he was married to Sharon, then that would get him out of an assault charge because he shot at Sharon during an argument. And so he's like, let's get married so that way I can get in trouble for shooting at you. 23:08 it's a fifty. When ladies complain about dating now, yeah, it's fair, it's fair, and so he's. I did shoot at my wife a couple weeks ago, though, and she deserved it all right. Like that's so crazy. Yeah, that's why yeah, but we're married. You can't charge me for that. I have actually been a that's a civil dispute like it's a what do they call it? It's a I don't know what they call it. 23:38 I think they call it a domestic dispute, domestic abuse. Well, yeah, that's what it is, but yeah so, but I a scarer I don't want to actually behind. It's like the it's like the monkey episode. Yeah, yeah, you scared and so they're married for two years and he starts seeing another girl by the name of Sally and they're dating and he actually moves her into their house and so now Sally and Sharon both live in the house with him bro. 24:08 here is the thing about some of these things. Okay, if you're a single guy, there's somebody out there for who will just you know, just lower your standards a bit. Yeah, you'll find a Sharon, you'll find a that's because like he's not like a like a hot guy. No, no, it's not like yeah. 24:36 this is crazy to me yeah and don't worry that is crazy to me. Don't worry, it gets way worse, so so yeah. He moves in his girlfriend Sally. They're both living there, has a couple of kids, well and share both of them. He has a couple of kids with who both of them and 24:55 in sixty four, so it's been about four years or sixty four. He meets another girl by the name of Alice, so he leaves Sharon in Skidmore. Yeah, there are two hundred people in this town. It is it. This is what I'm saying. This is this defies the small town politics. You're not allowed to do this right. Yeah and so so Ken meets this other girl Alice, so he leaves Sharon moves in with Alice, his house takes Sally 25:24 with him though, after Sally has three kids though he kicks her out of the house and so now it's just him and Alice and Sally got kicked out and then their kids, I guess are still there. Okay, meanwhile he's still thieving. He's stealing beers, he's still in ears and beans, he's stealing beers, jelly beads, cigarettes, gasoline. He's just stealing stuff all around town all the time and this is again 25:53 against small town politics. You can do that crap yeah yeah yeah. That's one of the rate people are like oh you know crime is so much better in small towns like yeah dude like we can watch you drive to your house after you stole this front like yeah, your house is on the same street. I mean look at look at this town. You think you're going to get away with anything. I'm so say like you're not going to it's like to go. Oh, we have a neighborhood watch. It's like we are 26:20 a neighborhood that's talking about and we can see everything. We can see the end of the city from our block and all directions. When you're a kid, you just stare at the end of the city and you think about all the dreams of my come true and one day you might just keep walking, you know, walk and keep walking straight out of the end of the city, but then you go on. We were not even go. Where's the next closest town? I even know who I would know there. I don't have three moms in the next town, so here's a difficult part. Our here's a difficult part of the story in nineteen seventy can 26:49 becomes involved with a young girl by the name of Trina. Trina is 20 years younger than him. He's 34. And has an illegal, inappropriate relationship with her. Her parents are very against this, very, very against this. And so he does a normal thing and he burns their house down and kills their dog. And they say, okay, you can date our daughter, I guess. 27:18 What? this relationship started, the school bus driver into pulling over so he could meet her. So a very, very not okay. 27:48 and then marries her so that way it's not a legal whole thing is yeah. So marries her moves her in with him and Alice and so that's so wild yeah and so Alice is like we need to get away from this man. He's a psychopath and so Alice Trina she's a Alice takes her and Trina and they run away and so he in response goes and burns down Trina's parents new house and shoots their new dog. 28:18 And so Trina moves back in. And they're like, we didn't do any of that. This is Alice's fault. Yeah, why are you, Alice is the one who ran away. And so he marries Trina, or he already married Trina. Trina. Wow, this story got so much, sorry that I accused him of stealing jelly beans. Honestly, I wish that's what he was doing. I wish that's all he was doing, yeah. So Trina moves in with him. And it's interesting, if you see Trina tell the story, Trina's very much kind of like a lot of. 28:46 grandmas now day where you meet grandma and you're like wait, hold on, grandpa did what she's gay kicked down the door at the bar and came over, planted one on me and I didn't look back since I was married to somebody else at the time. Yeah, like and so like she talks about him like they were actually in love. Like she actually like really cared about him. He saw me walking and he swerved and hit me with his car and 29:12 And I was like, wow, any guy who was willing to go that far for my attention, you know, yeah, and I played hard to get. So I was like, oh, I'm stuck under here, you know, and I was and so you had to back out, you know, broke my hip, but you know. 29:36 but then you know the way he apologized was just any shot near me and I said you know what I've been a very that man my parents couldn't afford a fourth house. 29:53 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. Want to let you know real quick. We have an email list and it's not like a hey, we're going to send you our merch and new episodes all the time. We actually give you updates on these stories as we find out about them. So a lot of our episodes we've done a couple years ago now have updates or that the person the top was about passed away or was caught by the police or whatever updates we can find on episodes that we've done. We want to let you know about it so that our episodes just aren't 30:21 you know out there out of date. It's really fun way to keep learning new information and then every once in a while we let you know about new events coming up or new episodes and it's just a way to help us keep spreading the show. Join that email list. You can text till into six six eight six six or there's a link in the description of this episode or you can just go to till and dot com. It's very easy to join this email list. It's everywhere. It's actually really hard to not join it so 30:53 How did you know grandpa was the one? Well, when he burned down my parents' house. Wait, what? Oh, honey. You'll understand one day. 31:08 Oh, he broke up with you through text. I freaking wish if that's the worst thing that is suck it up. It's how it's so easy these days. Oh, he cheated on me. He burned out my parents house twice. This so 31:30 it faster than nineteen eighty, but yeah, you're right. We did have better mortgage rate. Wage was more of a. I will concede the fact that there were elements of my life that were easier as long as you can see the fact that there were elements of my life that were much, much worse. So by 1980 can 31:55 has been charged with twenty one felonies. Oh my and he has been convicted of zero of them because in every case he burns down the prosecutor's house. Yeah, in every case he intimidates people out of the charge and so he follows people around. He sits outside their house and I mean to be fair like look at this picture. This guy sits outside your house with his dog and you know he's burnt down people's houses. He shot at his wife like he you know who what he's done. 32:24 and so he gets away with all this, but you know he's not a good shot. 32:34 So by 1980, 21 charges, never been convicted of any of them. Claims that his lawyer is one of the mob's lawyers down in Kansas City. Whether that's true or not, we don't know. But he's like, he brags that he can get away with anything. He's like, I can do whatever I want. It would make sense that he's got connections. I mean, it's right here. Yeah. And so 1980 rolls around. He's got 10 kids now from five different wives, I believe. Or I shouldn't say wives, five different women. Not all of them are his wife. And so, 33:03 one of his a couple of his children go to the local grocery store in town and is accused of stealing by Mrs Bowen camp. The the lady who owns the store, her and her husband on the store, their husband's name. I can't find record of it. They he goes by bow, bobo and camp, which I love very small town thing, bobo and camp and so accuses them of stealing and so ken then starts threatening 33:31 the family because he's like well, of course, my kids stole. They're my kids. Yeah, I told you seen the things I do. I said just go down there, grab a handful of jelly beans, just do it or else, and so the Owen camps go to the police. They file lean legal proceeding against Ken and the kids for robbery or right whatever, and so then Ken stocks the family, the bone camp family, 33:59 and outside the store. One day he shoots at bow and he hits him in the neck. He doesn't kill him, but he does hit him and so ken finally gets arrested. He goes to trial and he gets charged with attempted murder. He spins a year over his kids getting a cue. He's like don't you accuse my kids of stealing their fine citizens. Yeah, yeah exactly shoots him in the neck and so can a sentence to two years, he for sure two years in prison 34:27 A year later, he's out on bail, awaiting an appeal hearing, because he's appealing it. Immediately, the day he gets out on bail, he goes to the local bar with an illegally acquired firearm, and he goes in there and he starts threatening Bobo and camp, like graphically threatening him. It's a M1 Garand rifle with a bayonet on it, and he's like threatening him inside the store with this rifle, in the bar with this rifle, graphically talking about what he's going to do to him. 34:58 and what he's going to do to his body afterwards, and it's like really graphic and so as a result, and I'm confused about why this happened, Bo is like I'm on drop the charges. Well, as a result, what happens is they decide to delay his appeal hearing and then turn it into a bond and schedule a bond hearing 35:25 so his appeal gets delayed. He then has a bond hearing that pops up and so now his his time out on bail is extended. I think it's like a weird legal loophole. They're like what you broke your bond or you book your yeah your yeah because you have the gun yeah and then you're not allowed and so now we have to have a separate hearing for that and then we're going to have your appeal and so I think it was like a weirdly loophole, but essentially he gets to be out for longer and so well that's good to know. So a week later on parole a week later 35:55 The first week of July, the people of Skidmore are now very frustrated about the failures of the justice system to protect them against Ken. They're like, Ken is terrorizing the town and he has been for two decades. And so... 36:15 they get together as a group and they say hey next week, July tenth, we're going to get together as a group. Yeah, they said we're going to gather at the local legion hall okay, and we're going to get together. I'll they all show up kin shows up. He's a hey. I heard about the meeting. I heard where they were like who told kind of come yeah can we're just working on a 36:39 and so we were thinking about putting a statue of the moth man down town and wanted to hold a vote all in favor. No all right. That makes sense. We've never seen him here. That doesn't. Yeah. Why would we do that here? All right, everybody go home. All right, let's let's never meet here again, especially not 37:07 especially not next Tuesday at seven. There's no chance here anyone would ever meet here for any reason ever again on Tuesday at seven coffee and refreshments provided. They will not be provided because there's nothing happening here. There's also going to be so many jelly beans. There's a lot of jelly beans on the opposite side of town. 37:31 there's an unattended jar of jelly beans. There's it's a jelly beans at the other end of town. We've just voted the July nine is jelly bean day in skidmore where we empty the water tower and fill it with jelly and then everybody all the police have to leave town. That's our bean bucket and so we we all 38:01 Bucket Bucket. Now that's a small town thing. Most people don't know that that's a we just voted jelly bean making days on the towns where it's going to be a lot of arts and crafts and the whole town goes beam bucket, beam bucket, beam bucket, beam bucket. 38:29 and then we have these little things you can buy their they're like shaped like flowers, but they're made of jelly beans. It's a bean bouquet being bouquet, being bouquet, being bouquet, you know yeah 38:46 don't even think about breaking into I bean bucket, so they're at they're at the Legion Hall and they're meeting and they're trying to come up with. What can we do? What we do get to deal with this problem and the sheriff's there? Dan Estes is his name, the local sheriff, the mayor of the town is there and the mayor and the sheriff are saying we need to come up with a pull this off without him getting win. 39:09 So they're like we need to come up with a legal way we can deal with this and so they proposed a neighborhood watch and so they're putting together plans to put together a neighborhood watch. So that way they can kind of just honestly it sounds like the neighborhood watches a we're going to watch everything Ken does and whenever we see him we're just going to tell the police where he's at and what he's doing so we can be ahead of them and then news hits. I'm not going to intervene. He's setting another house on fire. 39:38 and so someone in the Legion Hall. Remember, this is a small town. You can see everything from everywhere in this little downtown area. Someone in the Legion Hall is like hey, can just pulled up to the bar with Trina and Dan. Let's go handle this right now. Well, here's the thing. Dan, the sheriff and the mayor go, they both say I'm not kidding. They say they say all right meetings adjourn. Remember, we need to handle this in a legal manner and they leave 40:07 town. They go out of town, the mayor and the sheriff and then of course so they pulled to the bar. The gathering was them gathering to figure out what to do about him. Yeah, they were gathering to come up with a way to figure out what to do and then while they're there pull to the bar next door yeah and then everybody in the bars like forty to forty six people who were in the vicinity yeah was because they had gathered 40:36 to figure out what they were going to do about this and then the sheriff was like. I think we should handle this in a legal and safe and not killing him way. Yeah, I'm going to cruise here and I have tickets to Carnival cruise right now. We're leaving town yeah and we'll be gone for the nort out of six and so they do they leave town. They get in their car. They drive outside of town 41:05 And then the 40 people walk outside and they wait outside the bar and then they walk out. Here's the here's their car parked at the bar. And so they were waiting like right across the street. They get in their car and then of course we know what happens. And so here's the aftermath. Wow. And so they they did it. But everybody in the town. I mean and now you that you hear the story. 41:31 you're kind of like I kind of get why no one would talk about it and there's interviews after the fact like years later there's like sixty minutes and all sorts of things that have covered the story interview, Dan the sheriff and you can tell when he's I wasn't there he's like he's like I've interviewed everyone. I've interviewed all the witnesses. No one will fess up and tell me who was involved and what happened and you kind of tell by tone of voice that it's like he's like and no one's telling me like I can't do my hands are tied 41:58 I've taken the investigation as far as I can take it out of town. Yeah, I was out of town. I wasn't there. I've asked. No one will tell me like I've taken the legal process as I can take it in town and at the peak of that crisis, I, the sole person responsible for the safety of the well being of my citizens left. I went and while I was gone, something happened to the one danger to my about fifteen minutes after I left 42:26 And so yeah, the case ended up being dropped a few years later. A book was written about this and then a movie was was produced called in broad daylight. You might have heard of it. This is the true story of what happened. And yeah, that's Ken McKell. Ken Rex McElroy. Ken McKell really very different guy. Also, I mean, McElroy can Mackle Ken. 42:50 can can make a Roy, yeah, the real estate investor don't know much about him, but he's a real estate investor also probably sucks, probably sucks, but not in the same way that can wrecks can wrecks way worse. I actually did not know the rest of that. Yeah, and so I mean, if you think about it in context, he really kind of was a town bully, but also like very dangerous worse than a bully way worse. It wasn't just like he was terrorizing like he was literally burning people's houses down. He was like stealing people's daughters. Essentially like it was like not 43:18 not that's crazy yeah, a really rough guy and the whole town banded together to say we got to get rid of this guy nuts and mckelroy mackleroy, but what's mild is everybody who talks about they were there that day. Very few people will talk about what's wild yeah. What's wild? I thought you said what's mild and I was like that's actually pretty funny. What's my old though 43:46 what's mild about this is nobody would really talk about the events of what happened that day except for except for the one detail that they talk about. As I say, well, the one thing I remember we're in this crowd. There's forty to forty six of us. Well, we're in the legion. We're in the legion hall. Someone was like, is he making any ideas of what we could do to defeat him and so was like, why don't we do a fight a off and so it's fiddle, fiddle up. Thank you 44:15 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode of Things I Learned Last Night. If you liked the show and you want more of it, you can join us on Patreon and get next week's episode right now. Or you can go back and listen to our back catalog. We've got 200 episodes that have been released. One, if you like this story, there's one that's kind of similar. A guy named Mike Malloy, his friends, like Macklemore, stop good cowboy, Mike Malloy and his friends took out an insurance policy on him and then tried to kill him. But Mike, 44:45 would not die refused, refused to pass away. So it's a great episode. It's linked somewhere wherever you're listening or watching. It's somewhere there. Thanks for supporting our show. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week on things alone last night.