Stuff You Should Know
SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Strange Unsolved Murder of Ken McElroy
26 Sep 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Just one page as a Google doc and send me the link. Thanks.
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.
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The murder of Ken McElroy is an example of the kind of small-town justice so well-served that it seems like it's gotta be a movie. And it was a movie, not a very good one, starring Brian Dennehy. But the actual crime came first, and it was true. Hence its inclusion on this playlist. At any rate, the town of Skidmore, Missouri doesn't play around if they're pushed too far. You can bet on that.
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Chapter 2: What is the background of the murder of Ken McElroy?
Either way, at a young age, he started taking up crime. You get the impression not just out of necessity, but also probably out of a certain amount of pleasure. Yeah, and this was, to frame it, in the 1940s. He was born in 34. So by the time he was criming, it was the 1940s.
One thing we should mention is, and I'm glad Livia dug this up, and this is no way excusing any of his behaviors, but when he was 18 years old, he was working construction, and there was an accident where some very heavy cribbing fell about 30 feet and hit him in the head. Oh. He had a construction helmet, but it cut his scalp, so it clearly, you know, provided minimal protection.
And he said that he had a steel plate implanted and had episodes of like blackout episodes and pain throughout the rest of his life. And it should be noted that one common denominator in many cases of, you know, sick people who do awful things is head injury when they're younger. Uh-huh. So that very well may have been the case.
Again, not excusing anything he did, but we're trying to paint a full picture here. He was like a modern-day Phineas Gage. Yeah, exactly. And like you said, it seemed like he enjoyed criming from a young age. He was a pretty – I mean, this is before the accident even. He was a pretty disturbed young man. Yeah. Safe to say? Yeah, I would say I would definitely agree with that.
But he did do stuff. He wasn't just like a layabout. Like he was a kind of an industrious criminal. He also trained hunting dogs. He was a dealer of antiques, a buyer and seller.
Mm-hmm.
But more than anything, he was a cattle rustler. Apparently, the year before his death, the county that Skidmore's in, Nottoway County... Mm-hmm. The cattle thefts were six times that of any other place in the state. It led the state in cattle thefts. And apparently a lot of that was Ken McElroy. He was flush with cash. He he would buy new cars. He could support.
He ended up having at least 10 kids, could support them all. Um, he, he had a lot of money and all of it essentially was from crime because he had a tiny little farm and he wasn't making much, if any money off of that, he was making it from, from stealing. Yeah. And when we say he had a lot of money, it's not the kind of it's not wealth.
He had the kind of money for a criminal in the 1960s in Skidmore, Missouri.
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Chapter 3: What were the early life and criminal activities of Ken McElroy?
Right.
That's what I heard.
That's part of the deal with the documentary. So this is going on. He's terrorizing this town. Everyone knows he's an awful guy. He's just – it can't be overstated what an awful – creep that he is, and I mean, creep isn't even, that's way too soft to describe a guy like this. Finally, in 1980, He sort of pushes his luck, as Livy would call this section.
Things kind of come a little bit to a head. There are these local shopkeepers. They ran the B&B grocery there in town, Lois and Ernest Bowen Camp. And apparently his kids would go in there and shoplift all the time, his very young kids. And one of his young daughters, her name was Tonya or Tonya. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. I'm guessing Tonya.
Tanya, was like four years old and was stealing candy from the store. They confronted this young girl. And of course, McElroy wouldn't stand for that. So he starts up with his usual routine, parking outside their store, staring them down, brandishing a shotgun and carrying it around with him. And in July of that year, McElroy approached Bo Boenkamp, the grocery store owner.
They had a brief conversation, and he shot this 70-year-old man through the neck, again, not killing him, but wounding him. Yeah. And so Bo and Lois Boenkamp were, like, beloved in the town. Oh, yeah. This is a big deal. He had assaulted a beloved elderly shopkeeper, grocer, who fed the town. And even McElroy knew it was a big deal. He fled. He tried to get out of the state.
And you mentioned Richard Stratton, the Missouri Highway Patrolman, who had run-ins over and over and over again with Ken McElroy. Well, he was out on patrol that night when that happened or that day, I guess. And he got the all points bulletin or the beyond the lookout for Ken McElroy.
And at the time, the sheriff's office, the rest of the highway patrol, they were setting up roadblocks, looking on every highway that they could for Ken McElroy. But Richard Stratton said, no, I know this guy. He's got a police scanner. He knows exactly where they are. He's going to take every back road he can find to get to Kansas and get out of the state and lay low for a while.
And Richard Stratton said, I know he's going to have to go through Fillmore, Missouri, to get to Kansas, and I'm going to stake that place out. And in short order, Ken McElroy came driving through in his Silverado with Trina in the seat, and he ended up getting busted by Richard Stratton. He was caught. And this, again, even he knew this one was a big deal. Yeah. Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How did Ken McElroy evade justice despite multiple arrests?
And yet, whoever said that they saw Del Clement speed off was probably telling the truth because Trina, Ken's wife, who by this time is 24 and looks a lot like somebody who would have been friends with Eileen Wuornos,
It says that she turned around right before the shooting started and saw very clearly Del Clement, owner, co-owner of the D&G Tavern, taking aim and shooting Ken McElroy in the head with his deer rifle. Yeah, he was not only the owner of the tavern, but he had livestock that had been pilfered. Apparently it was a big hothead.
And I get the sense took great pleasure in pulling that trigger is the sense I got. There was a lady in the documentary. And again, this is the grain of salt that said that the main gun was thrown in a river. So I was like, oh, very interesting. I hadn't heard that anywhere else. But she also said right after that she heard that they had McElroy's head in a head somewhere in a freezer thing.
So they couldn't do like more, I guess, bullet ballistics work or whatever. You couldn't find it because it was stolen by a monkey. Yeah, I don't think that happened. There was another guy in there named Britt Small. And I get the feeling they just kind of gathered up whoever was still around and was like, you know, talk to me.
And Britt was a local guy, a Vietnam veteran, who was like, you know what? The only mistake they made is that they let Trina live. I would have killed him in his driveway. I would have ambushed them both. Killed her and him and burned his house down. That's what I would have done.
Well, she if you read newspaper accounts like immediately after the Kansas City Star had a couple of articles like the week after, like she's scared to death or she sounded scared to death that she was going to be next or that her kids were going to be murdered. And then, of course, the townspeople that they interviewed for the same article are like, no one wishes her any ill will. Right.
You know, she's not in any danger. But she swore that she was told to stay out of Skidmore, don't ever come back or else she was going to get it and her kids would be after that. It's I don't know. It probably just depends on which town person you talk to. I mean, both things can be true. They could have felt like she was a victim, but also please leave. Yeah, exactly.
And apparently when she was hustled off to the bank, whoever did that saved her life because even if they hadn't have been aiming for her, she probably would have gotten hit by a stray bullet after that second round.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What led to the community's decision to take matters into their own hands?
A good worst-case scenario and good pre-planning. And that's from Noah. That sounds like a very reasonable assertion. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Noah. I'm not going to challenge him on it. Heck no. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you want to be like Noah and be like, hey, I got you guys. You have a question, I'm a Noah. Then get in touch with us. Do it like Noah did. Do everything like Noah did.
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Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.
Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com for your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan?
Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.
But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here.
My best-selling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of the US housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, The Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, and now I'm bringing it to you for the first time. as an audiobook narrated by yours truly.
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