Authors: Harry N. MacLean
The men went back inside and asked McElroy how he knew about the books.
"I saw them through the scope on a high-powered rifle," McElroy replied nonchalantly, a slight grin crossing his face.
McElroy was locked up for the night, and Stratton wrote his report. He described his captive: Ken McElroy, 5 feet 10 inches, 240 pounds, eyes blue, occupation "farmer," tattoo "Oleta" on his left arm.
Stratton headed for home. By the time he arrived, Margaret was scared and angry.
The following morning, July 9, 1980, Sheriff Estes and troopers Riney and Richards transported McElroy from Savannah to Maryville, about twenty-eight miles. Afterward, Trooper Riney drove to Skidmore and retraced McElroy's route from the B & B Grocery to his farm on the Valley Road and then to Fillmore, verifying that McElroy could have made the drive in the time that had elapsed between the shooting and the arrest.
Robert Nourie, the prosecuting attorney for Nodaway County, filed a felony complaint against Ken McElroy, charging him with the class A felony of assault in the first degree. The complaint alleged that on July 8, 1980, Ken McElroy had "attempted to kill or to cause physical injury to Ernest J. Bowenkamp by shooting at him with a shotgun causing wounds to the neck and shoulder and defendant committed this offense by means of a deadly weapon."
At a hearing that morning, Nourie strongly urged the magistrate to set a surety bond in the amount of $50,000. The magistrate instead approved a bond for $30,000. Under Missouri law, a surety bond required only a written promise by two qualified citizens to produce the defendant at the preliminary hearing and all future court hearings. If the defendant failed to appear, the sureties would have to pay the state the amount of the bond. In this case, as usual, the sureties were Tim and Mabel, the record owners of the 175-acre farm on Valley Road. Thus, McElroy was released from custody and sent back into the community on the written promise of his mother and brother that he would appear for the preliminary hearing.
McElroy and his sureties also signed a document entitled "Additional Bond Conditions," stating that he would "keep the peace and be of good behavior until the case was finally disposed of." The document said nothing to prevent McElroy from carrying firearms or returning to Skidmore. The magistrate set McElroy's preliminary hearing for August 18, more than five weeks away.
July was often the hottest month of the year. Temperatures slid effortlessly up to 95 or 100 degrees by noon and hung there until well into the evening. The south wind rose in late morning and blew hard by midday, alternating between steady blasts and gusty swirls. On humid days, the hot, moist air was suffocating. Sometimes, when nature relented, the rain fell in the late afternoon, washing the heat and dust from the air and leaving the evening light and cool.
For the farmers, this was a good time of year, a time for "laying by." The planting had ended, the weeds had been sprayed, and the corn and beans had turned the countryside a bright, shiny green. Plenty of work remained to be done, as always. Winter wheat planted the previous October was ripe and ready for harvesting in early July, and if the wheat was combined early enough, the farmers could plant beans in the same fields. A second cutting of hay might be ready to cut. But the long days on the tractor, from seven in the morning until nine or ten at night, had passed. Now, the farmers quit early and played softball or took their kids to fairs or bought fireworks. The small towns held their annual festivals, civic organizations sponsored fund-raising barbecues, and families had picnics on Sunday afternoons. Teenagers roamed the blacktops, driving from Skidmore to Maitland and Graham and back three or four times a night in a never-ending search for excitement.
In the fields, the corn was pollinating. The stalks had tasseled, and the wind and insects carried the pollen to the shiny yellow corn silk. The process was delicate; if the wind blew too hard, the pollen would fly away, leaving blank spots on the cobs; if no rain fell, the cobs would be stubby and the kernels small. The farmers could only worry and wait.
Mom's Cafe opened at 6 am every day. The pickups began collecting at first light, parking at whatever angle to the broken curbs pleased the drivers. Inside, the men walked to the counter, helped themselves to coffee, and signaled the waitress for a breakfast of bacon and eggs. The center tables filled first, then the smaller ones along the walls. The worn spots on the linoleum floor underneath the chairs told of work boots resting on and rubbing the same places year after year. The bulletin board on the west wall announced auctions and sales, calf-roping contests, and specials on seeds. The screen door opened and closed with a long creak for each new arrival. A few flies buzzed around, hats stayed on heads, and people smoked wherever they sat.
At this time of year, the talk usually centered on the lack of rain, the early morning forecast from station KMA in Iowa, the price of cattle, the Kansas City Royals' latest victory, or the plans for the Punkin' Show, which was less than a month away. But on July 9, 1980, the talk was of the previous night's violence.
Most everyone knew that McElroy had shot Bo with a shotgun and that Bo had survived. The conversation continued all morning, with each newcomer asking questions and adding twists, creating a version of events that was continually taking new form.
The mood was curious. Anything like a fire or a fight always created a stir in the community, and provided a welcome break in the monotony of small-town existence. There was a little of that feeling on July 9, but people were mainly subdued, uncertain what to make of the shooting. They rehashed the details again and again, pinpointing where Bo was standing, naming the boys that McElroy had sent inside, and describing the nature of Bo's wounds. Everyone had a favorite part.
"Ol' Stratton nailed his ass around Fillmore, right off H going south."
"Took him by himself, I guess. Ran him down and dropped a shotgun on him before he could twitch. Got Trena, too."
"I hear he slapped those cuffs on so tight that McElroy whined all the way to jail."
"Stratton is a tough son of a bitch. He probably would have loved to blow ol' Ken away."
"McElroy's goddamn lucky to be alive. Stratton could have dropped him on the spot."
"McElroy knew better than to fuck with Stratton."
The community was stunned at McElroy's brazenness. Before, the townspeople had always been able to ignore McElroy, or to somehow rationalize his behavior. (Even when he shot Romaine Henry, many people speculated that Romaine had given him a reason.) But now that had changed. McElroy, the illiterate son of a poor farmer, had turned from a barn-burning braggart and hog thief into a murderous renegade.
The craftiness of the attempted murder also unnerved the community. McElroy had gone about his crime quite methodically-sitting in his truck and watching Bo on the dock, noting the empty streets, getting rid of the boys. If Bo hadn't jerked to the right, he would have died, and McElroy would surely have gone free. If a jury wouldn't convict him in the Romaine Henry case with an eyewitness, it certainly wouldn't convict him without one.
But if McElroy's actions were methodical, his crime was crazy. Bo was not some lowlife who had provoked McElroy by slurring a member of his family in the tavern. Bo was a nice old man who had never met Ken McElroy until the confrontation in the grocery store and, even then, he had had nothing to do with the little girl and the candy. The arbitrariness of the attack was frightening. If it could happen to Bo, it could happen to you, or your brother, or your daughter.
But, although the shooting appalled the townspeople, they did nothing more than they had when McElroy had been simply harassing Bo and Lois. Perhaps they thought this was the end of the feud between McElroy and the Bowenkamps; maybe now he would go back to stealing hogs and cattle and running crazy in Savannah and St. Joe. Besides, what could you do? If you proposed something, if you did anything, you would be hanging out on a limb the way the Bowenkamps were. The safest course of action was to watch and wait and look out for yourself.
Ken McElroy now stood unmasked. The hatred and jealousy he felt toward the rich farmers, the ones who inherited their land and then looked down on him and his family, the rage that consumed him when he heard they were talking about him, calling him a thief, had boiled over. In a way, he must have felt relieved. Everything was in the open now. It was him against the community, and he was strong and it was weak. The days of brooding and agonizing and thinking about what he should do, the days of stealing the farmers' tools and throwing them in the river, the days of firing shotguns in the air, those days were over. No one would ever call him or his kids thieves again.
McElroy wasn't worried about the criminal case. McFadin hadn't failed him yet. The only witness was still in the hospital, and maybe he would die. Whatever happened, McElroy knew one thing for sure-he wasn't going back to jail. He'd rather die than spend another night locked in a cage.
The D & G Tavern usually experienced a midafternoon slump. A few lowlifes, sucking beer and spitting tobacco juice in cups, might hang around after lunchtime, but the pickups didn't start arriving at the tin building until four or four thirty. By six on the evening of July 9, about twenty people were inside, some playing pool, others playing Ping-Pong, and some sitting at the bar drinking beer and shooting the breeze.
An hour or so later, the door swung open and in walked Ken McElroy, with Trena a step behind him. The place stopped in mid stroke People froze as if they were all wired to the same circuit and somebody had just thrown the breaker. Without missing a beat, McElroy walked up to the bar, ordered a beer, and settled on the same stool he had sat on the previous night, before he shot Bo.
McElroy turned and spoke to the man next to him and drank his Budweiser. The electricity came back on, and people began moving around. The crack of the billiard balls and the click of the Ping-Pong balls sounded again. But everything-people, movements, voices-angled away from the malignancy sitting at the bar, as if anyone who came too close or looked at it would be infected. A few conversations started up, mainly to alleviate the awkwardness of the silence. After serving McElroy's beer, Red Smith walked to the other end of the bar and perched on the cooler.
Marshal David Dunbar wondered whether McElroy had broken out of jail. In reporting the previous night's shooting, he had mentioned Ken McElroy as the probable assailant. McElroy had undoubtedly been listening on his CB. Perhaps McElroy had come for him.
Jim Jones, who had applied the T-shirt to Bo's neck, felt strange vibrations the minute McElroy walked in. This is pretty weird, Jones thought, a guy sitting at a bar drinking beer not thirty yards from where he shot a person the night before.
In a loud voice, McElroy asked, "What was all the commotion about last night? Was there a burglary in the grocery store?" When no one answered, he chuckled and turned to Trena.
A few people left, trying to walk out nonchalantly, as if they had been intending to leave anyway. More trickled out, until only two or three remained.
Word had not reached town that McElroy had been released on bail that morning, so when he appeared at the D & G, he might as well have been an evil apparition returned to its haunt. The townspeople couldn't believe that after the cops (or one cop, anyway) had finally done their job and put McElroy in jail, the court had turned around and released him back into the community. Bill Everhart, a former town marshal, spoke for many when he said simply, "If a man shoots an unarmed man at point-blank range, he ought to be kept in jail until trial." To Lois Bowenkamp, the question was simple: "What the hell was he doing back on the street?"
Missouri law provided that, with the exception of people charged with capital crimes, every person was entitled to be released on bail, regardless of the nature of the crime or the threat posed to the community. The court could not consider the fact that the defendant might commit further crimes or intimidate witnesses before the trial. The reasoning behind the law was that the defendant had a constitutional right to be presumed innocent and, therefore, should not be punished before conviction.
Several states and the federal government had adopted the concept of "preventive detention," which allowed courts to consider factors such as the seriousness of the offense, the strength of the prosecution's case, and the defendant's criminal record, in deciding whether to set bail. But in Missouri, as in most states, the court had to set bail without regard for the welfare of the community.
McElroy knew this, of course, just as he knew what effect his appearance in the tavern would have on the town. He had come back to shove those farmers' faces in their own weakness, and he had enjoyed doing it. Their hero Stratton could bust him, but the courts would turn him loose, and the people in Skidmore couldn't do a thing about it.
The people who were already targets, who could find no shadows to fade into, took what precautions they could. Across the street from the Bowenkamps, Evelyn Sumy loaded her shotgun. West of town, Cheryl Brown got out the 4-10 shotgun, loaded it, and began carrying it on the seat beside her in the car.