In the early 1980s, 27-year-old Legal Aid lawyer David Baird of Maryville in Nodaway County, Missouri, was at a crossroads. He had graduated law school only two years ago, and now h was asked to become the prosecuting attorney for Nodaway County. Baird was not too eager to take the job. At the time, he was unsure of what kind of law he wanted to practice, but knew that he could go anywhere and do anything, instead of stay in smalltown Maryville. His father, however, convinced him to stay with the advice that it would be an easy job, noting that “nothing much happens around here anyway“. So Baird took the job. Three months later, a shocking vigilante murder in nearby Skidmore, within his area of responsibility, rocked America and made headlines across the country. Below are some fascinating facts about that notorious event that became big news for a time, but is now all but forgotten by most.
18. A Small Town’s Deadly Dilemma
In 1981, the people of tiny Skidmore, Missouri (pop. 441 then, 245 in 2020), got together to figure out what to do with a town bully who had terrorized them for too long. For years, this local public enemy had rustled livestock, committed arson, chased women, preyed upon underage girls, and threatened to shoot anybody who dared offer resistance, complain, or testify against him. Now, that menace, who lived in a farm and raised coonhounds, had shot the town’s kindly old grocer, Bo Bowenkamp, over a piece of candy. Worse, it seemed that he would get away with it, just as he had gotten away with so many other crimes. What the good, but now fed up, people of Skidmore decided to do and did was to mete the town bully lethal justice, in public, in front of dozens of witnesses. And they got away with it.
