Authors: Harry N. MacLean
Trena: Yeah.
mcfadin: Well, you allowed him many other times to have intercourse with you, have you not?
Trena: Yes, but he didn't have no gun either.
mcfadin: Well, would that have made it, let me ask you this, I am not trying to be argumentative, but, as I say, you have had intercourse with him many times, but he didn't have a gun then, now you still would have had intercourse with him on that particular time if he hadn't had a gun, wouldn't you have?
Trena: No.
mcfadin: And why not?
Trena: Because he hit me all the time.
Trena's parents also had to be taught a lesson. On the afternoon of the same day, McElroy told Trena to get in the pickup, they were taking a trip.
fraze: Well, after you got to your parents' house what happened there?
Trena: Uh, well, we stopped at the station first after we went to my mother's house to tell her, he had a can, I remember a can. He got some gasoline in it and took it in the house and I never saw him pour any of it, but I saw him pour it in when he was walking out the door just on the steps and he lit the house and it started smokin'.
the court: Who is he?
Trena: Ken McElroy ...
fraze: When you arrived at your parents' house that day was there any smoke coming from the house?
Trena: No.
fraze: Was there any flames?
Trena: No.
fraze: Did Mr. McElroy go inside the house?
Trena: Yes.
fraze: And you mentioned a gasoline can, did he take that with him when he went in?
Trena: Yes.
fraze: Did you at any time, while you were there, see him pour any gasoline or any other substance out of the can onto the house or in the house or anywhere about the house?
Trena-YeS.
mcfadin: Now, I am going to object to that because she testified a few minutes ago that she did not see him actually pour anything. I think the question is repetitious.
the court: I wish you would tell exactly what happened at that time, seeing this fellow McElroy, and now who else was with you?
Trena: Alice Wood.
the court: All right. Now, where did you, what station did you stop at,
where was that? Trena: Lawson's. the court: In where? Trena: Graham.
the court: And what happened there? Trena: He had a can, and the guy came out and put some gasoline in the can. Then he threw it in the back, 'cause it was a truck. the court: OK, now just what happened after that?
Trena: We went to my folks' house and uh, we parked on the gravel road there and he got out and took the gun with him and took the gasoline and went in the house and poured out-the court: Just exactly what did you see? Did you see him go in the house with the can? Trena; I saw him go in the house with the can and the gun and then I saw him come out and when he opened the door he was still pouring and then when he come out the door he had the gun and my dog barked and he shot the dog. the court: He shot the dog? Trena: Yeah.
the court: Well, there is a lot more to this than-fraze: All right, after that did you leave immediately or did you sit there for a while or what did you do?
Trena: Well, we left and then we turned around and came back. fraze: Did you ever see if the house was actually burning or not?
Trena: Yes.
With their house destroyed, Ronnie and Treva moved out of Nodaway County to Ravenwood, Missouri, about twenty miles east of Maryville, leaving Trena firmly in the clutches of Ken McElroy. But even that was too close for McElroy. A few weeks later, Brenda stopped to visit her sister and found the front door hanging open. Wash hung on the line, and the furniture was inside, but Ronnie and Treva were gone.
A day or two after the raping and burning, Trena went to a doctor in Mound City for treatment. After hearing Trena's story, the doctor notified the Nodaway County juvenile authorities and welfare department. He also prescribed tranquilizers for Trena, because she was so frightened. Trena was placed in the custody of the county and taken to the mental hospital in St. Joe, presumably to keep her safe from Ken McElroy while the authorities sorted out the situation. Her baby was placed in a foster home.
Trena remained at the mental hospital for about three weeks. She spent the first night in a cell and then moved into a private room. She did not have contact with other patients, nor did she receive any counseling; the hospital was simply a safe house, a place to stay until they found a permanent place for her. Finally, the social worker told her she was going to stay with a foster family at the air force base in Knob Noster, Missouri. No one talked to her about her baby, how he was doing, or whether she could take him with her. She left without seeing him.
On June 19, 1973, primarily on the basis of Trena's testimony, Prosecutor Fraze filed three criminal charges against Ken McElroy: rape,
arson, and flourishing a deadly weapon. Fraze later filed an amended complaint alleging that McElroy had also assaulted Trena on June 12 by "kicking and slapping her, by pulling her hair, by exposing her to vulgar and obscene language, and by causing Trena ... to exhibit herself nude before him ..."
For the first time in his life, Ken McElroy found himself in extreme jeopardy. He was subject to arrest at any moment for the four felonies, each of which would be tried separately, and he faced the possibility of a death sentence on the rape charge. However, he had the best lawyer money could buy, and three of the four cases, including the most serious ones, depended entirely on the testimony of one person. No witness, no case.
McElroy and Alice decided to clear out of Nodaway County and lay low until things settled down. They went to Kansas City, leaving the kids at the farm in the care of his sister Dorothy. A few days after they left, the sheriff came out to the farm and told Dorothy that, because McElroy had left his kids, the authorities were going to declare them neglected and take them away. When McElroy learned of the visit, he went into a frenzy and called McFadin. McFadin explained that the authorities couldn't take the children; the cops were probably trying to smoke him out into the open so they could get their hands on him. McElroy finally surrendered. He was arrested and released on a $2,500 bond.
The main problem for the prosecution was keeping the chief witness safe and secure, which meant out of McElroy's way. No one doubted that he would try to get to Trena. When they first took her to Knob Noster, McElroy lost track of her. Furious and desperate, he told his friends there was $2,000 in it for the man who located her. For days he scoured Maryville and the small towns around looking for her, often borrowing friends' cars so he could travel unrecognized.
Meanwhile, Trena was talking. Her juvenile officer listened in shock and sympathy as she described how McElroy had sex with her violently and often, coming after her wherever he wanted-on the dining room table, on the couch, in the kitchen. She told the officer there was oral sex and anal sex, and that McElroy once told her he was going to buy a ring of sausages and find out exactly how much she could take. Her parents were too afraid of McElroy to help her. He frightened her, too, and she just wanted to get away from him. She willingly went wherever the authorities took her.
Trena and the juvenile officer made numerous trips to different foster homes and to Maryville for court appearances, and the officer never felt that she was trying to manipulate him, to use her girlish sexuality to exploit the situation, the way some adolescent girls did. She was what she appeared to be-a young, country girl with no worldly exposure, who had been overwhelmed by a charismatic, powerful man.
Trena liked it at Knob Noster. The husband was a lawyer, and both he and his wife were nice to her. The woman talked to Trena about her baby, and asked if she wanted to get him back. Yes, Trena told her, she very much wanted to have her baby with her, and the woman said she would help. The family was soon transferred, so Trena had to leave, but not before retrieving her boy.
Ginger and George Clement (no relation to Del and Greg) lived in a large house with their two daughters in Maryville. As foster parents, they had taken in many unwed mothers over the years, and never had any problems. Ginger, an attractive woman of earthy speech and manner, and George, a tall man with a milder personality, found it to be a rewarding experience. When the welfare and court people talked to Ginger about taking in Trena and her baby, they told her the whole story: The baby's father was being prosecuted on charges of raping and assaulting the girl; he was also charged with burning her parents' house down; Trena had been taken into custody after her parents had fled the county; and she was the primary witness in all these cases and must at all costs be kept safe. The officials also explained that McElroy would undoubtedly come looking for Trena and the baby. Ginger talked it over with her husband, her daughters, the neighbors across the street, and the police, who understood the situation and said they would be around to help if McElroy showed up. The social workers were desperate-they had no other place to put Trena and the baby-so Ginger decided to take them in.
Ginger had a room ready in the basement, and the social worker brought a separate bed for the baby. But now that Trena had her baby back, she wouldn't let him go. She insisted that he sleep with her, and when Ginger came to awaken her in the morning, she found the baby sleeping comfortably inside Trena's curled figure.
At first, Trena wouldn't let go of him for any reason; if she went to the bathroom, he went with her, and when she sat at the dinner table, he was there on her lap. Often, when Ginger came home from work in the after noon, she would go to Trena's room and find her huddled in a chair in the corner, holding the baby closely in her arms. In those first few days, Trena explained to Ginger several times that the baby's real name was Jerome, but that Ken already had a son named Jerome and she wanted to change her baby's name to Jeffy. So that was what she called him-Jeffy.
The county officials were adamant that Trena was never to be allowed out of the house alone. This turned out not to be a problem, because for months Trena was too frightened to leave the house at all. She told Ginger again and again that Ken McElroy would find her. The search might take him awhile, but sooner or later, he would track her down. Her worst nightmare was that he would come in the window, kill her, and take her baby.
The officials also insisted that Trena wasn't to have any dates or be alone with any boys. When McElroy went to trial on the rape charge, the prosecution had to be able to say that no other man had had access to Trena. Ginger, in fact, might be called upon to testify that while living in her house, Trena had not been with any man.
The first two or three weeks passed with no sign of Ken McElroy. Ginger kept expecting him, though, undoubtedly because Trena kept saying it was impossible to hide from him, that he would always find her and the baby. One afternoon, when Ginger came home from work, a large, white Oldsmobile sat about thirty yards down the street. Inside, behind the wheel was a heavyset man with black slicked-back hair, thick sideburns, and bushy eyebrows. She found Trena in the basement, sitting on the floor of her bedroom, holding her baby tightly to her chest, crying and screaming that Ken was going to come in the window and kill her and take Jeffy. After calling the police, who said they would come immediately, Ginger tried to comfort Trena. Trena explained through the tears and the sobbing that she had just happened to look out the window, and there he had been. He had sat there for more than four hours, never moving or doing a thing except staring at the house.
The police came and talked to McElroy, and a few minutes later he left. They explained to Ginger that McElroy knew the law, and that as long as he didn't trespass or do anything else illegal, there was nothing they could do.
The phone calls began not long after McElroy's visit. A man would demand to speak to Trena, and when Ginger refused, he would call her a bitch and tell her that if she knew what was good for her, she better turn Trena back over. He didn't say to whom, just "turn her back over." He said he was going to kill Trena.
"Tell my little bride that I'm coming to get her," he would say menacingly. He always called her his "little bride."
Sometimes he would ask, "Wanna trade girl for girl?"
"What are you talking about?" Ginger asked, by now recognizing the voice.
"I know where your girls go to school and what bus they take. I think we oughta trade girl for girl, don't you?"
Ginger knew the caller was McElroy, because one of the first times he called, Trena came over and stood close to the receiver. When she heard his voice she backed away, got real panicky and began shaking all over. She grabbed Jeffy and mouthed the word Ken to Ginger. Then she went and got a blackboard, wrote the word Ken in big letters, and held it up for Ginger to see. Whenever one of those phone calls came in, Ginger knew she would spend the night sleeping in Trena's room with her.