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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

11. A Cunning Illiterate

Ken McElroy was illiterate – he had dropped out of school at age thirteen, before he had mastered reading and writing. However, he was quite cunning. He knew that his intimidating reputation was his greatest protection, so he carefully cultivated and enhanced that rep. As the author of a biography that chronicled McElroy’s life and death put it: “He knew which people to pick on — the weak people — and he followed through on his threats just often enough to make people believe he was going to do what he said he was going to do. He had a legendary status, and it all got to be bigger than he was. Somebody would hear his name, and the legend grew bigger. When he got off on a trial, it grew even bigger. It went beyond just hammering people and being mean-spirited“.

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.