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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

10. The Beginning of the End

McElroy - Bo Bowenkamp — Bo Bowenkamp. Morbidology

By 1980, Ken McElroy had firmly established himself as Skidmore’s town bully and reigning thug. People had been intimidated into putting up with his violent antics for so long, that his depredations just became an accepted part of life in that part of Missouri. That changed in April, 1980, when McElroy, at the instigation of his erstwhile child bride, now grown up into a nasty piece of work, went after the town’s beloved elderly grocers, Bo Bowenkamp and his wife Lois.

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.