← Back to the front page

Vigilante Justice and the Small Town Bully – A Crime That Shocked America

Khalid Elhassan December 7, 2024 13 min

McElroy - Ken Rex McElroy, as depicted in film — Ken Rex McElroy, as depicted in film. Pinterest

8. The Shooting of Bo Bowenkamp

Prosecutor David Baird in later years. The Movie Database

The Bowenkamps’ lack of fear – or at least pretense of lack of fear: in reality, they were terrified, even if they refused to show it – infuriated McElroy, and led him to steadily ramp things up. Finally, one July night in 1980, Bo Bowencamp was standing outside his store, when McElroy drove up, pulled out his shotgun, and shot him in the neck with a deer slug. Miraculously, he survived the shooting, and the senseless attempted murder of their beloved elderly grocer finally snapped Skidmore out of the terror spell cast by McElroy. After years of intimidation, the locals had had enough. Prosecutor David Baird tried McElroy for first degree assault and won a conviction – the town bully’s first felony conviction. Skidmore’s menace was sentenced to two years, but his lawyer Richard McFadin appealed, and the judge allowed McElroy to go free on bond, pending appeal.

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.