Authors: Harry N. MacLean
On the ride, they passed around a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Once inside the farmhouse, Ken said he was hungry and wanted a sandwich before they set to work. He found the bread, and the two girls got baloney and lettuce and mayonnaise from the refrigerator. By this time, the mood had lightened, and the three were joking and laughing, Ken describing with delight how the blazing farmhouse would light up the darkened countryside. Then they heard a noise overhead-the squeaking of bed springs and footsteps in the hallway.
"That must be Donna's uncle," Ken said, startled. "He's not a bad ol'
guy, doesn't deserve being burned up, anyway. We'll have to come back." Disappointed, they finished making the sandwiches and walked out the door, eating and swigging from the whiskey bottle. A year or so later, Donna bore Ken a son.
Not long after McElroy returned from Colorado, he began running around with Sharon, a fifteen-year-old girl from a poor family in the St. Joe area. Sharon was sweet and unworldly and seemed drawn to Ken because of his style and strength. One night, she and Ken were quarreling in his pickup, when Ken pulled out a shotgun and told her if she didn't shut up, he was going to blow her head off. Whether by accident or design, the gun discharged and tore open the underside of Sharon's chin, leaving permanent scars. The police were called and charges were filed. Ken explained to Oleta that he would have to divorce her and marry Sharon in order to avoid prosecution for assault with a deadly weapon. Oleta agreed to the divorce, and in 1958 Sharon became the second Mrs. Ken McElroy.
In July 1959, Sharon bore Ken a son, Jerome. The family moved to the farm outside of Skidmore, living in the two-bedroom house with Tony, Mabel, and Tim. Ken was gone a lot, and the family became concerned about the baby's well-being. Once Tony almost backed his truck over Jerome, who sat unattended in the driveway. Ken's sister Helen came to visit when Jerome was just over a year old and concluded that Ken and Sharon were leaving too much of the child care to Tony and Mabel. So Helen took Jerome back with her to California. Soon afterward, Ken and Sharon left the farm and moved to a tiny house outside Burlington Junction.
Sharon seemed to both love and fear Ken. More than once she tried to get away from him, but it never lasted very long. She had neither the resources nor the strength to hold out. In 1961, she bore him a daughter, Tammy Sue.
One afternoon that year, Sharon appeared with her baby in the sheriff's office in Maryville and told a story about how Ken had locked them in the house and left them for over two days. She had finally escaped and caught a ride to town. Now, she was scared about what he would do when he found out. She described the beatings she had suffered when he became angry. A social worker came to the sheriff's office to help her, but Sharon was so frightened she could barely keep track of where she was and what she was saying. Her eyes darted constantly around the room, and she couldn't sit still. The social worker arranged for both Sharon and her baby to stay with a foster family who lived on a farm outside Graham.
Linda B. and her husband loved children, but were unable to have any of their own, so they had begun taking in foster children that year. Sharon and her baby were two of their first guests.
To Linda, Sharon seemed a sweet, shy nineteen-year-old who obviously hadn't been around much. She was anxious to learn homemaking skills and followed Linda around and watched her sew, cook, and clean house. Sharon was a conscientious mother and took good care of her baby. She had one false tooth in front that popped out every once in a while and made her look kind of silly.
Linda learned from the social worker that McElroy had brought a fourteen-year-old girl named Sally D. out to their house to live with him and Sharon. McElroy had sex with both of them and frequently beat them up. Sharon couldn't handle it and wanted out.
Sharon and Tammy stayed on the farm for about six weeks. The prosecutor had filed a complaint charging Ken with abusing Sharon, and the social worker brought her to the courthouse to sign the complaint. The sheriff's office and state patrol had been alerted and were standing by to execute the arrest warrant. Somehow, McElroy found out where Sharon was and appeared in the social worker's doorway, demanding to talk to his wife. The social worker told him he had to get permission from the judge, which was granted on the condition that the meeting take place in the prosecutor's office. Ken sweet-talked Sharon and told her that if she came home, he would bring Jerome back from California. At the end of the conversation, Sharon told the prosecutor she wouldn't sign the papers. That night, McElroy came to Linda's farm and picked up Sharon, Tammy, and their belongings. Linda heard later that when Ken got Sharon home that night, he beat her terribly,
Sally was a skinny, gawky kid with pretty strawberry blond hair, brown eyes, and light freckles. Her mother had died when Sally was very young, and she lived in Quitman with her dad, who was a butcher, and her two brothers. In 1960 she was thirteen years old and very much a child __she would believe anything someone told her and do whatever an adult said. Ken McElroy hunted coons and traded dogs with one of her brothers, and soon he was hanging around and paying lots of attention to this trusting girl-picking her up after school, giving her rides home, and buying her candy.
Kirby Goslee, Q's third oldest son, who was in junior high with Sally, thought she was cute and arranged to meet her at a school dance. But when he passed by her house the afternoon before the dance and saw Ken McElroy's car in her driveway, he decided to forget the whole thing.
One night Sally was dumped out of the Ford onto a lawn in town, screaming and bleeding, her clothes torn and ripped. The people who found her took her to the hospital. In their words, she looked "like an animal hit on her." Afterward, Ken got hold of her and threatened to kill her father if she didn't do what he said. A few days later she moved in with him and Sharon.
By this time Larry had begun stealing with Ken, and he often went out to the house where Ken and the two women lived. One night, he and Ken had been out late prowling the countryside. When they came in around 1 am, Ken undressed and climbed into one of the three beds in the bedroom. Sharon was still up, and she started complaining to Larry that Ken was always taking Sally with him when he went places, and that Ken liked Sally more than he did her.
"You better be quiet," Larry told her. "Ken might not be asleep yet."
"Hey, Larry," said Ken, hauling himself out of bed. "Have you ever seen the Saturday night fights?" McElroy then proceeded to knock Sharon around the room until she could no longer stand up.
With his two women, Ken ran the show. He did whatever he pleased, came and went at will, and had other girlfriends, but Sharon and Sally were to stay home and keep their mouths shut. If they kept quiet and did as he said, they would be all right.
Sally told a friend that sometimes McElroy would beat Sharon and her up and then have violent sex with them, using objects. Sometimes, he would simply go from one to the other. Sally grew tired of taking turns with Sharon, and after a while, she began to feel that she wasn't worth much anymore. Being with Ken made her feel like trash, a wasted piece of flesh.
Sally's friend could never understand why Sally and Sharon put up with Ken or why so many women were attracted to him. But they were-young and old, ugly and pretty, women fell all over themselves when he was around.
Sally began having Ken's children-she had Ken, Jr." in 1961, Lisa in 1963, and Jeffery in 1964. At the same time, Sharon continued having Ken's children. After Tammy Sue, she had Teresa Lyn in 1963, Tina Renee in 1964, and Debbie Ann in 1965. At one time, both Sharon and Sally were in the Fairfax hospital having Ken's babies.
During this period, the thieving became more sophisticated. McElroy developed a network of girlfriends who lived on farms in the area. These women would take the stolen animals and sell them at various markets and auctions using their own names. Ken would stop by a few days later to settle up; he would have sex with the women and give them a little something for their effort.
Larry was a heavy drinker, and he and Ken drank constantly when they were just prowling. But Ken wouldn't let him drink when they were rustling livestock, which was serious business. Once, Ken came for Larry in a truck with stock guards on the sides, and they headed off for some animals that Ken had spotted during the day. Ken pulled over by the side of the road and put on a pair of old boots he had picked up somewhere and would discard later that night. He felt for the corn knife under the seat, and then took the 12-gauge off the rack. He pumped a shell into the chamber and told Larry to begin rounding up the cattle. "If anybody comes," said Ken, "you take off and get out of the way 'cause I'm gonna kill the sonofabitch." Larry maneuvered two five-hundred-pound steers up the ramp into the truck. He and Ken headed for St. Joe to drop the cattle off at a friend's place.
After Sally had had three children, McElroy was finally done with her. Her father had died, leaving Ken without one of his holds on her, and besides, he had started spending a lot of time with a new girlfriend in St. Joe. Sally had no friends or close family left, so she moved with her three kids into a tiny apartment in Maryville. She had trouble keeping a job, but she took good care of the children. Except for one night.
A girlfriend talked Sally into going to a party in St. Joe after promising her that she had a responsible babysitter for Sally's kids. The babysitter, a high-school girl, invited her friends over, and they partied and drank and threw bottles from the rooftop, creating such a disturbance that the neighbors called the police. The police came and, finding no responsible adult, took the children into custody. When Sally learned what had happened, she went to see her children and cried when the authorities took the little baby back from her. The county filed dependency and neglect charges and the kids were placed in foster care. Without money, without friends or family, Sally didn't fight. She simply disappeared.
Linda and her husband, the foster parents, fell in love with all three of Sally's children when they came to live with them on the farm. Ken, Jr.,
was about three and had blue eyes and light blond hair. Lisa was a darling two-year-old with golden hair that framed her face in a cascade of falling ringlets. Jeffery, who was just a baby, didn't stay long. Upon discovering he had a serious hernia, they decided that, because their farm was far from any medical care, they weren't the right family for him, so he was taken away. Ken, Jr." and Lisa were bright and friendly, and apparently well adjusted. They seldom cried. They didn't seem to know who their dad was, and Linda didn't tell them. She also didn't tell people in the community, who had taken a liking to the kids.
Sally had visiting rights, but in the almost two years her children were on the farm, she never came to see them. McElroy never came around or showed any interest in them either.
Eventually, the county initiated proceedings to terminate parental rights and put Ken, Jr." and Lisa up for adoption. (One courthouse observer felt that the fact that they were Ken McElroy's kids hastened the court's decision to terminate parental rights.) When Sally showed up at court for the final hearing, in which she did not contest their adoption, Ken, Jr." and Lisa scarcely seemed to remember her. After the proceedings were over, Sally played with them in the hall outside the courtroom for a few minutes, sweet and gentle, almost like a child herself. Then the kids got excited about going, the way kids will, and Ken, Jr." said to Linda, "Come on, Mom, let's get in the car and go!" Kneeling, Sally drew her children to her and hugged and kissed them. Gently brushing the hair from their foreheads, she looked each one in the eye and whispered good-bye. Then she stood and walked alone down the long hall. As the retreating figure grew smaller in the dim light, and the kids tore down the stairs in a racket, Linda was overcome by sadness.
Preparing Ken, Jr." and Lisa for the adoptive parents who were coming to get them was difficult for Linda. The children seemed all right, but on the way to their new parents' car, Ken, Jr." reminded Linda of his younger brother, saying, "You know, you gave Jeffery away, and he never came back." Right before Ken, Jr." got in the car, he turned to give her a final hug and said, "Mom, someday you'll hear a knockin' on your door, and it'll be me."
Linda had one snapshot of the three kids, with their blond hair and blue eyes, and she put it in a special place in her album of foster kids. Later, she heard that Sally had been in a mental hospital and then became a prostitute in St. Joe, although she never learned if it was true.
By the mid-sixties, Ken McElroy was creating a common cause among lawmen in St. Joe and adjacent counties. They knew he was stealing hogs,
cattle, and coon dogs; they were convinced he ran a ring of thieves that stole grain from elevators and expensive chemicals from farmers' supply stores in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska; and they knew he carried a loaded shotgun with him at all times. They even knew how he went about his crimes.
Proving what they knew was something else altogether. McElroy had a number of places around where he stashed livestock, and the animals were usually sold in women's names. Marvin Dycus, an investigator with the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department, headquartered in St. Joe, spent a lot of time trying to nail McElroy. Dycus had an uncomplicated view of him: "He was a mean son of a bitch and a snake-you never, ever turned your back on him." He investigated McElroy many times for livestock theft, but could never make it stick. McElroy always managed to move the livestock faster than he could catch up with him. Dycus uncovered a farm at Willow Brook, a small town near St. Joe, where he was convinced McElroy was holding stolen animals. But whenever the cops showed up there, McElroy was always ready for them. He would not talk, and he would not let them look around without a warrant. "If you think you've got a case against me, prove it," he would say defiantly to Dycus.