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Crime Waves and Savage Fads From History That Were Just Unnatural

Khalid Elhassan June 18, 2020 35 min

8. The Final Straw

Ken McElroy’s blood-stained and bullet-riddled pickup truck. Washington Post

Bo Bowenkamp miraculously survived the shooting, and the senseless murder attempt on their beloved elderly grocer finally snapped Skidmore out of the terror spell cast by Ken McElroy. After years of intimidation and ceaseless crime, the locals had had enough. McElroy was tried and convicted of first-degree assault – his first felony conviction. However, he remained free on bail pending appeal.

The residents banded together and wrote to every authority figure they could think of. Letters went to state legislators, the state attorney general, and the governor, letting them know that Skidmore lived in fear of the psychopath in its midst, and asking the authorities to do something about it. Their pleas were ignored. In the meantime, soon after his conviction, McElroy was seen in a local bar brandishing an M-1 rifle with an affixed bayonet – a clear violation of his bond – and vowing bloody revenge on the Bowenkamps and all who sided with them. It was the final straw.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.