Authors: Harry N. MacLean
McElrcy had prevented Sue McNeely, Trena's step-grandmother, from seeing Trena since he took her over in the early 1970s, and Mrs. McNeely had missed her. She had always been afraid of Ken, but the way the killing happened bothered her. She couldn't grieve for Ken, but she felt that he shouldn't have been shot down like a dog.
The wife of one of McElroy's friends had a similar feeling. She had listened to McElroy joke about harassing Bo, and she knew that he had done a lot of bad things, but she felt that he deserved a better death than to be shot in the back of the head like a stray dog in an alley. She knew that the people of Skidmore would feel guilty for a long time for having killed him that way.
Ray Ellis, whom McElroy had asked for help in bribing a juror, was watching television when a newscaster announced that a Skidmore farmer had been shot to death as he sat in his truck on the main street of town. Although the details were sketchy, Ray turned to his wife and said, "That's Ken they're talking about, he got shot!"
Ray felt bad. In the nearly twenty years he had known Ken, nobody had ever treated him better. Although he didn't like the way Ken behaved toward his wife, Ray still considered him a friend, a good' friend. Ray felt no anger toward Skidmore. From what he knew, Ken had it
When Charlie, the reformed troublemaker who had talked to Ken about his soul, learned that Ken had been killed, his heart felt hollow. What a waste, he thought; if Ken had given himself to God, he would have shone bright as a witness, like Eldridge Cleaver or Charles Colson. Whatever Ken said when he went before the throne of God, he couldn't say that nobody loved him. Charlie loved him. Charlie had gone to Ken in love, when there was no gain in it for him, and he had driven twenty miles and used his own gasoline. Yes, Ken would have to admit to God that Charlie loved him.
On the morning of July 10, the clerk of the court in Bethany had begun calling the jurors in the Bowenkamp case to warn them that McElroy or one of his representatives would be coming by to question them about what had gone on in the jury room. Although the clerk explained that they didn't have to answer the questions if they didn't want to, several jurors were upset by the call. Having learned the truth about McElroy, they didn't want anything to do with him or his people.
One juror was watching the evening news when the story of the killing came on. He saw the picture of the truck, the same one they had heard about at the trial, being towed away. The newscaster kept describing McElroy as a "farmer from Skidmore." The juror couldn't believe McElroy wasn't locked up. We did our job, the juror thought, tried, convicted, and sentenced him, and here he never went to jail!
Daryl Ratliff, the juror whom Ray Ellis was supposed to have tried to bribe, was also upset when he heard that the McElroy people were going to be around trying to get him to change his mind about the verdict. When he saw the news of the killing on TV, he became angry. The system had worked the way it was supposed to: McElroy had had a good lawyer, perhaps too good; Donelson had been a decent judge; the jury had done its job, listening to the evidence and applying the law as the judge had said, and had found McElroy guilty. So what was he doing out on the street when he was killed? Why wasn't he in jail? How come the judge let him out? What was the point of the jury spending two days trying and convicting McElroy if the judge set him free?
Ratliff was so upset that, at one point, he considered going to Skidmore and explaining to the people that it wasn't the jury's fault that McElroy had been turned loose on their streets, that the jurors had done what they could. The way he felt about it, if McElroy had done all that people said, then he deserved killing.
Katherine Whitney, who had taught Trena McElroy, Debbie McElroy, Del Clement, Steve Peter, Cheryl Brown, Romaine Henry's kids, the Goslees, and others, had a hard time believing that anyone in Skidmore could actually shoot McElroy in cold blood. If it was true, then the law was responsible for turning a bunch of decent farmers into killers. She was doubtful that Del Clement could have done it; in her opinion, Del thought too much of his own skin, and she doubted he was that good a shot. As for McElroy's death, she felt that it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
A reporter and a photographer from the Maryville Forum arrived in Skidmore around noon on the day of the killing, and a news team from Channel 2 in St. Joseph followed close behind. By 1 p.m. the reporters had left to file their stories, and the police had gone to Maryville to organize their investigation. The Silverado, the most visible evidence of the murder, had been towed away. The town was left to itself. Perhaps for a few hours, the community believed that its worst problem had been solved.
Like many people in shock who pick up their routines and go on with their lives as if nothing has happened, the farmers went home that afternoon and told their wives and children what had occurred-or at least some version of what had occurred-then climbed on their tractors and went to work in the fields, or drove their trucks to Maryville for inspections, or scattered fresh straw for the pigs, or began repairing fences. The clerks went back to work at the bank, Cheryl Brown checked groceries, and the Sumys pumped gas and changed tires. If everyone acted normal, maybe life would be normal. Maybe the cops and the press had everything they needed and wouldn't come back. Maybe the nightmare really was over.
Few believed it. They might not have known exactly what was in store for them, but at least those in town that morning knew that life in Skidmore would never be as before. Images slipped too easily into their minds, one after the other, with extraordinary clarity-the shattered glass, the blood, the still figure with a hole in his neck, the Silverado hanging on the hook.
They also knew that the legal system, which had so utterly failed the town, would now try to find and punish the killers.
NO MIS established its headquarters in the basement of the Savings and Loan Building in Maryville, and by 2 p.m. on the day of the killing, more than twenty officers from five counties had gathered, under the supervision of Sergeant Robert Anderson of the highway patrol. Assignments were made, and officers fanned out to interview all of the people who had been at the meeting in town that morning. Four officers, including patrolman Boyer, were assigned to interview Del Clement. They found his wife, Lisa, at home. She didn't know where Del was, but his father, Jack, was asleep in one of the bedrooms. She tried unsuccessfully to rouse him, then told the cops they were welcome to try. They went to the bedroom and woke him up. Startled and angry at the sight of four cops in his bedroom, Jack Clement said that neither he nor Lisa would have anything to say to them, and he told them to get out.
Meanwhile, Del had apparently gone to a small town in Iowa to play in the Clement Brothers Band. When the cops finally found him and brought him to Maryville for interrogation, his position was simple. He pushed his straw cowboy hat back on his head, put his feet up on the desk, and said, "Boys, I wish I could say that I done it, because he sure had it coming, but I didn't. He stole our livestock, shot our horses, and raped our women." (Deputy Kish shook his head at the hierarchy of crimes in Del's mind.)
Dave McLain, a city cop in Maryville assigned to work with NO MIS knew McElroy mainly as the gun-toting character who bullied Skidmore and got away with everything he did. Not until McLain got out into the countryside that afternoon and talked to the farmers did he come to (understand how far McElroy had pushed the people of Skidmore. Most of them seemed calm at first, but as the questioning progressed, some became resentful that the officers were there at all. The good of the community had finally been served, they said, and they should be left alone in peace. A few farmers got irritated, almost angry, with him, but most were polite and blunt: "I didn't see anything, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you." As a lawman, McLain became frustrated over his inability to develop any information. As a human being, he came to respect the people for their strength and the way they stood together. By the time the sun went down, he knew the cops were up against a stone wall.
For the community, the feeling of relief was muted by the fact that a murder had occurred in town, and by anxiety over what was coming next. Being interrogated as if they had done something wrong gave rise to anger -an ugly, unattractive anger, directed, at least on the surface, at the judges, cops, and lawyers for leaving the town with no alternative. A vague, undefined sense of shame also flickered around the community, perhaps because the killing had happened in the heart of town, or perhaps because McElroy had been shot in the back.
But the events of the day had a coalescing effect on the community, drawing it closer together. Before the month was out, Skidmore would develop a rock core and an impenetrable outer shield. Richard Stratton was right when he predicted that a lot of people would say they saw nothing, would say they knew nothing, and that attempts to open them up would only tighten the seal and bind them further to the common good.
Stratton was a permanent member of the NO MIS squad, but he and his sergeant agreed that because of his past dealings with McElroy, he shouldn't be involved in the investigation. The decision was probably for the best; Stratton had a few ideas on how to go about unraveling the truth were he to be assigned to the investigation. (Oddly, another patrolman stayed on the squad even though the man suspected of holding the shotgun was his third cousin.)
Patrolman Boyer sensed the wall that afternoon. He felt as though the minute the rifles had stopped blazing, an unspoken bond of incredible strength had formed among the people. What happened might not have been right, they apparently felt, but what had happened before wasn't right either, and by God, you could walk the streets of Skidmore now without fear. In interview after interview, Boyer heard the same story: "I heard a couple of shots, hit the ground, and didn't see nothing."
As Boyer thought about it that afternoon, he knew other feelings would surface as the memory of the fear faded and the threat lessened
Deputy Sheriff Kish drove from the Price Funeral Home to St. Joe to witness the autopsy. At the funeral home, the employees had treated^ McElroy with care-undressing him, washing him, combing his hair, laying aside his personal effects (a watch, a knife, and comb)-almost as if he would wake up when they were finished.
The approach was different at St. Joe. The pathologist took a large knife and cut McElroy's scalp in a circular motion on top and then peeled it down over his face, exposing his skull. The pathologist next sawed a large hole in the top of the skull, removed the circular piece of bone, stuck his hand in and lifted out McElroy's brain. There was no steel plate. Dictating while he worked, the pathologist laid the brain on scales that reminded Kish of those used in supermarkets, and weighed it, as if it were a vegetable. Picking up the brain, he described the shape, size, and condition, mentioning the massive hemorrhaging and damage to the brain stem. Then he began slicing the brain like a cucumber, describing the bullet fragments he found as he went. Dumbstruck, Kish stared at McElroy's hollow skull with the hair hanging over his face. Then the pathologist set the brain aside, stuffed paper towels in the skull cavity, replaced the bone fragments, lifted the flap back into place, and casually stitched up the skin. Kish felt strange staring at McElroy with the top of his head back on, his hair in place, looking as if he were merely asleep-his head filled with dreams rather than paper towels.
The pathologist put the knife on McElroy's shoulder and sliced through the tissue at an angle to the center of his chest, and then down to his pubic bone. When he bore down, the fat almost exploded, as if he had cut open an overripe watermelon. The smell was foul when he opened the chest and the stomach. He reached into the cavity and took out the organs, one by one. The heart. The liver. The kidneys. Weighing and slicing them, he described their condition and noted whether they contained any foreign objects. As he finished with each organ, he placed it on the table beside the brain. At the end he scooped up all the organs, including the brain, and stuffed them into the stomach cavity.
How degrading, thought Kish, to have your body used as a garbage can.
Although vague and incomplete, the autopsy report concluded that the bullet that killed McElroy entered his head about three inches above the right ear, leaving a wound less than an inch long and half an inch wide. The impact of the bullet caused multiple skull fractures in a starburst pattern before penetrating the right hemisphere of his brain and lodging in the cavity that held his pituitary gland. The bullet essentially obliterated the right side of his brain, and the shock waves slammed the brain up against the left side of his skull, causing similar destruction in the left hemisphere. The front half of his skull was fractured in several areas, leaving most of the pieces movable.
The shot in his neck left a wound an inch and a half high and less than a quarter of an inch long. This wound connected linearly with the exit wound slightly beyond the left corner of his mouth. The exit wound was two and a half inches high and nearly an inch wide in its midsection. Beginning at the base of his skull, the bullet tore an angled groove along his tongue before smashing into his left jaw near his mouth and exiting. All portions of the lower jaw were fractured. This wound involved no vital organs and was considered survivable.