Article Presented by:
Harry N. MacLean
Ken McElroy was shot to death on the main street of Skidmore, Missouri, on the morning of July 10, 1981. He was sitting in his pickup, his wife at his side, when two gunmen across the street opened fire. Forty-five men witnessed the killing. After three grand jury investigations, including a federal probe in Kansas City, no indictments were issued. Twenty-five years later, still no one has been charged. McElroy was the "town bully," who had terrorized all of northwest Missouri for twenty-five years. The consensus in the community was that since the law couldn't handle McElroy, there was little choice but to take care of it themselves.
The story of Ken McElroy's reign of terror, his killing, and the ensuing silence was the subject of my first book, In Broad Daylight. (The book won an Edgar Award and was made into a movie.) I am often asked how I managed to get the story, to convince the townspeople to open up, when there were killers still in their midst and the locals were so determined not to give them up. After all, Rolling Stone and Playboy did stories, and they were for the most part shallow, sensationalist pieces. Sixty Minutes got on it early, but the story was not in depth. Another book was written, and it was so bad that it passed largely unnoticed. The people didn't trust outsiders, and I was an outsider.
One thing that helped was that I was from a small town in north central Nebraska, and I mentioned that whenever I got a chance. Another was that I assured the locals that I wasn't out to solve the crime; I had no intention of naming the killers in the book. Which was true; the first time around I really wasn't that interested in establishing the identity of the killers. In fact, there never seemed much debate as to who were on the guns. From the day I arrived, I heard the same two or three names.
Another key thing was the amount of time I spent in the town. Most media types blew in, dug around for a week or two, and then split for New Jersey or LA, or wherever they were from. I was there off and on for five years. People got used to seeing me around. It's hard to shut the door in someone's face when you've talked weather or bean prices with him at the coffee shop or sang hymns next to him in church. The people began to take me seriously.
I also had a lot of conversations with the locals in which McElroy's name never came up. If I were at a tractor pull or a bake sale, I would get into the flow of the event and never mention the killing. Sometimes the locals were the first to mention it. At a dog show at a small town east of Skidmore, a fellow came up to me and whispered that over by the edge of the water was McElroy's wife's father, whom I had never met. Others became interested in the book and provided what assistance they could, albeit often scrumptiously.
The real break came, however, when I was adopted by the Goslees, a successful and highly respected local farm family. A common technique of anthropologists studying foreign cultures is to try to connect with one of the leaders of the community. If the chief, or one of the deputies, accepted you, others were suddenly a lot more willing to talk to you. There were four Goslee sons in the area, and they all had separate groups of friends, and they all introduced me to them with a stamp of approval. By the way, I did a lot of work in the bars; booze does loosen people's tongue. The only problem was, I had to get loaded right along with them. Try typing up your notes at 2 a.m., after a long night of beer and shots at the local tavern.
By the time I left, I felt more a member of the community of Skidmore than I did my own town of Denver. I go back often to see friends and acquaintances. If there was one lesson I learned, and would pass on, it's that most people don't like being rude to others. It was up to me to find a way that allowed them to be nice to me. By the time I left that little town I was selling tickets to the Mother's Day bizarre and judging dance contests at the annual Punkin' Show. It was a long way from when I first showed up and doors were slammed in my face and curses muttered behind my back.
I listened and took notes and came back a month later and asked more questions, and came back six months later and asked more questions. Patience and persistence were the key. That and the realization that nobody in this world believes that they're listened to enough. People know when you're really listening to them, and I listened.
About the Author:
MacLean is the author of "In Broad Daylight", which tells the story of the unsolved killing of the bully in Skidmore Missouri. Learn more at: http://www.inbroaddaylightbook.com
