At first, it all appeared to be just a normal household PC with ordinary activity. But when he explored chat room use, a clear clue erupted from the idle banter: a mention of a woman, north of Fairfax, Missouri, who was supposed to meet that day with Bobbie Jo.
He typed in a keyword search for “Fairfax.” An Internet conversation between [email protected], xgringo @hotmail.com and [email protected] popped up. The Happy Haven Farms address belonged to Bobbie Jo Stinnett. The Fischer 4 Kids address belonged to a woman self-identified as Darlene Fischer. This woman talked about her four kids, her need to get out of the chat room and into the kitchen to make supper for her children. And she chatted about her plans to drop by the Stinnett house to see Bobbie Jo’s puppies the next day—today, December 16, 2004.
The possibility of a dark double meaning to the Fischer 4 Kids address did not cross Detective Howard’s thoughts. All he envisioned was a woman who’d planned to come to Bobbie Jo’s home on the same day that she was murdered. A woman who may have seen something relevant during her visit—she may have observed the perpetrator without knowing it. He knew they needed to talk to that woman immediately.
Espey, Merrill and every available highway patrol officer in the vicinity headed to Fairfax in neighboring Atchison County. No matter how hard they searched, they could find no record of Darlene Fischer in the area—no phone number, no address, no indication that she’d ever lived anywhere near the town. Still they persevered—looking, questioning, prodding the community’s memory. The name did not sound familiar to anyone they encountered—not to law enforcement or the public at large. They had to find this woman. And they had to find her now. They radiated out from the town center probing memories along the way.
Around midnight, they thought they caught a break. Highway patrol encountered a car going at high speed in Atchison County just twenty-two miles from Skidmore. It matched the description of the vehicle seen in front of the Stinnett house early that afternoon. Sheriff Espey abandoned his futile search for Darlene Fischer and joined in the pursuit. As they streaked through the night at dangerous speeds, they feared their target would lose control of the fleeing car, causing it to wreck. Bobbie Jo’s baby could be in that car—and the infant could still be alive. If they could effect a stop without harming anyone inside, they might be able to rescue the child tonight.
It was more than a professional objective for Espey. Just six days before, his daughter Jennifer gave birth to his grandson, Benjamin Wyatt. It took little use of his imaginative powers to conjure up a parallel between Bobbie Jo and Jennifer in his mind—to imagine little Benjamin Wyatt as the missing child. He visualized the possibility that it could have been his daughter in a pool of blood—it could have been his grandson fleeing with a madman through the darkness of the night. He fought the rising edge of desperation as he pursued the speeding car he had in his sights.
When, at last, law enforcement succeeded in halting the racing driver, Espey’s high hopes plummeted. There was no baby—just a reckless driver who made a bad judgment call. In disgust and discouragement, they showered him with tickets and went back to their frantic search.
At 12:30 A.M., on December 17, the Amber Alert—at last—streaked from coast to coast. The work of Congressman Graves hurdled the last bureaucratic barrier. The statement asked people to look out for and report any abandoned or discarded bloody clothing or towels. It warned that the infant could have health issues and would have a freshly cut umbilical cord.
The release of this information nationwide eased Espey’s anxiety a bit. He doubted that the kidnapper and the baby were inside the boundaries of the state of Missouri any longer. Now, he would have eyes searching everywhere.
The Amber Alert brought more than an army of observers to the cause. It also was a clarion call to media across the nation. This story was as hot as they get. Broadcast and cable networks scrambled to get reporters and camera operators on the scene. As they booked flights and made arrangements to head to Missouri, many of them wondered: Skidmore? Where have I heard that name before? One by one, their memories resurrected the old news from the small Missouri town.
More than twenty-three years ago, the nation recoiled from the horror emanating from the northwest corner of the state. Another person died in the middle of the day in Skidmore. Although there were thirty-five witnesses to that crime, the case remained unsolved.
4
Ken McElroy was a bully, a stalker, a drive-by shooter, a livestock rustler, a wife-beater and a pedophile. He dominated the town of Skidmore like a gangster. To know him was to fear him. But it was not the way Ken McElroy lived that put Skidmore on the map. It was the way he died.
He was born in 1934, the fifteenth of sixteen children. He grew up in the Skidmore area, where he dropped out of school without mastering the ability to read or write.
As a teenager, McElroy spent many nights tramping through the woods with his buddies and his hunting dogs searching for hapless raccoons. His passion for coon-hunting worked well for a man who felt most comfortable lurking in the dark of the night. It was an inclination that served him well in his other nocturnal occupation—stealing from his neighbors.
He wasn’t particular about what he stole—from gasoline to antiques—if he could fence it, he took it. Livestock theft, though, was his specialty. There was no branding requirement in the state of Missouri, making it easy for McElroy to bribe auction houses to sell his ill-gotten goods. After his successful plunders, he often taunted his victims by flashing wads of money he’d obtained at their expense. He loved to visit the D&G tavern and laugh in their faces as they cried in their beer.
McElroy was just 18 when he married his first teenage bride, Oleta. The couple moved to Denver for a short time. McElroy found no financial success in Colorado—not in legitimate work or in criminal activity. They moved back to northwest Missouri.
McElroy strayed from the marital bed early and often. He liked to spend time on junior high school grounds assessing the “young meat” at play. He wooed and bedded many young girls from poor, uneducated families. If one of his victims got pregnant, he used a combination of payoffs and threats to discourage the girls’ parents from pressing criminal charges.
After a few years, when Oleta was no longer the sweet young thing he wed, he tossed her out of his home, divorced her and went on the hunt for another wife.
Using his rough, hillbilly good looks and cheap tokens of affection, he snared 15-year-old Sharon. His fidelity to his marriage vows did not last long. As soon as Sharon was pregnant, he wooed 13-year-old Sally. The young girl at first refused his sexual advances, but when McElroy threatened to kill her father, Sally acquiesced and moved in with Ken and Sharon.
By 1964, McElroy was the father of seven children, courtesy of Sharon and Sally. With both women caring for newborns, and Sharon pregnant again, McElroy’s eye roamed to another teenager, 15-year-old Alice Wood from St. Joseph, Missouri.
* * *
After years of getting away with his outrageous thieving behavior, McElroy faced his first livestock rustling charge in 1972. His Kansas City lawyer Richard McFadin got the case dismissed. It was the first time McElroy teamed up with McFadin. But it would not be the last.
5
McElroy abandoned Sharon, Sally and his houseful of children in the early 70s. He moved into another home with his newest conquest, Alice. Soon he encountered another naive girl, Marcia. In no time, he once again had two females in his household sharing his bed. But two girls were not enough to slake his lust. He still had the energy and desire to pursue a blonde eighth-grader named Trena.
After a childhood in poverty, 12-year-old Trena McCloud was easy to impress with cheap trinkets and rides in McElroy’s new pickup truck. To counter the spread of his aging paunch, he tried to recapture his youth and gain access to this new adolescent heart by dyeing his hair a deep Elvis black.
He hired a boy her age to pick her up at her home and walk her over to a designated meeting place. Wh
en McElroy was through with Trena for the day, the boy escorted her home. McElroy designed these convoluted arrangements to keep Trena’s parents unaware of his seduction of their daughter. Whispered rumors of the relationship spread through Skidmore, but no one dared anger McElroy by telling the girl’s parents. The truth, however, could not remain a public secret for long. In ninth grade, Trena became pregnant and dropped out of school. She left her parents’ home and moved in with McElroy. Upon her arrival, he shoved Marcia out of the household.
Even with one rival gone, neither Alice nor Trena were pleased with the arrangement—both wanted to be the only woman in Ken’s bed. They bickered day in and day out. Despite the beatings administered by McElroy to bring them in line and return peace to the home, the girls simply could not get along.
Alice had enough. She wanted out. Sixteen days after Trena gave birth to her son, Alice made her move. She took refuge in the one place she knew she’d find sympathy—the home of Trena’s mother and stepfather. Although McElroy discarded lovers like burnt-out disposable lighters, he could not tolerate it when one walked out on him. He tracked Alice down and brought her back to his house at gunpoint.
McElroy beat Alice with a brutality that was extreme even by his vicious standards. Then, he turned his gun on Trena and ordered her to strip naked. While Alice watched, he then engaged in sex acts with Trena designed to humiliate her and terrify Alice.
When he finished punishing the girls, he forced Trena out of the house and into his pickup. They drove to Trena’s mother’s house. Fourteen-year-old Trena trembled in fear as she sat in the cab of the truck watching McElroy go inside with a gas can and a rifle. She feared hearing her mother’s scream. Or her stepfather’s shout. But all she heard was a rifle blast. Followed by a brief yip. No one was home but the family dog. McElroy shot him dead. He sloshed gasoline throughout the house and in a trail running out the door. Safely outside, he tossed a match toward the entryway. Trena watched in horror as the flame blossomed and raced inside.
McElroy slammed the truck into gear and zoomed away from the scene. Out the rear window, Trena saw the flames lick the sky before her mother’s home faded from view. The house burned to the ground—the structure and its contents a total loss.
Two days later, Trena traveled to Mound City to take her son to the doctor there. Her darting eyes and shaky voice told the physician that all was not well in this young woman’s life.
At his prodding, the words tumbled out of Trena’s mouth. Between sobs, she told the story of the arson, abuse and intimidation that led to the destruction of her parents’ home. The doctor contacted authorities. Trena’s son was placed in foster care and the doctor admitted her to the hospital where she was heavily tranquilized—in part because she was emotionally distraught and in part to keep her safe from her tormentor. After her release from the hospital, Trena found safe haven at the home of her son’s foster parents. There Trena answered the questions posed to her by law enforcement. In June 1973, they arrested McElroy on charges of arson, assault and rape. He was released on a $2,500 bond.
McElroy made a beeline to the Kansas City office of his attorney and plunked $15,000 cash on his desk—$5,000 for each felony count. McFadin informed his client that with Trena’s testimony, these charges might be impossible to beat.
The Maryville safe house location of the two refugees from McElroy’s wrath was supposed to be a well-protected secret. Nevertheless, McElroy soon hunted them down and began a campaign of harassment and threats.
He parked outside the home for hours staring at the windows. He called at all times of the day and night, threatening everyone in the home. In one call, he promised to kidnap the family’s daughter from her school so that he could make a trade with them for Trena. He committed no overt act of violence, though. In this time before stalking laws, all law enforcement could do was talk to him and try to persuade him to leave the people in that house alone. They were impotent to stop him. And McElroy was not one to listen to reason or to be intimidated by an officer of the law.
Trena’s nerves were rubbed raw, and her level of fear elevated with each passing day. Ultimately, the pressure McElroy applied broke the young girl’s resolve. She relented to his demands and moved in with him once again.
McElroy knew he was almost home free. Trena was back under his control. His unflappable lawyer, high-profile Kansas City attorney Richard McFadin, was geared up to beat the arson and domestic violence charges. One more maneuver would make it a sure thing. McElroy’s third wife, Sharon, was all that stood in his way.
On cue, Sharon paid a visit to McFadin to request a divorce from McElroy. The second the divorce was final, McElroy obtained the signature of Trena’s mother on an affidavit authorizing marriage. McElroy and 15-year-old Trena were married that same day before a judge with attorney McFadin as their witness.
After the service that mocked the sanctity of marriage, the defense lawyer called the prosecutor and informed him with glee that the wedding was a fait accompli. Trena—now McElroy’s wife—could no longer be compelled to testify against his client. Trena was the linchpin of the prosecution case. They had other evidence against McElroy, but without Trena’s cooperation, success in the courtroom seemed impossible. The charges were dropped. It was just one more set of criminal charges that McFadin brushed away for his felonious client.
A couple of years later, Skidmore resident Romaine Henry was outside working in a shed on his 1,000-acre farm when he heard gunshots ring out nearby. He hopped into his pickup and followed the sound. On a gravel road that bordered his property, Romaine encountered McElroy standing by his own truck with a shotgun in his hands.
McElroy pointed the barrel inside Romaine’s vehicle and asked, “Were you the dirty son of a bitch over at my place in a white Pontiac?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, McElroy.”
McElroy pulled the trigger, shooting Romaine in the side. As the terrified farmer dove out of his truck to seek shelter, McElroy pulled the trigger again, lodging buckshot into Romaine’s forehead and right cheek. After that shot, McElroy’s shotgun jammed and he made a hasty retreat.
Following a trip to the hospital in Maryville, Romaine pressed charges. Authorities arrested McElroy the next day. Facing charges of assault with intent to kill, McElroy denied being at the scene of the crime, got bailed out of jail and headed straight to McFadin. His lawyer got a change of venue and McElroy faced a jury unfamiliar with any of his past escapades.
In his defense, two of his coon-hunting friends took the stand and swore that McElroy was nowhere near Romaine’s farm during the time the shooting occurred. The jury found those men more credible than the victim and others who testified that they saw McElroy speeding away from the scene.
The jury acquitted McElroy, and the folks of Skidmore went into shock. McElroy rubbed it in deep—telling anyone who would listen that he could have killed Romaine Henry and gotten away with that, too.
6
It looked like, with McFadin’s help, things would always go McElroy’s way. In July 1981, though, after McFadin helped McElroy walk away from twenty-two felony charges unscathed, prosecutor David Baird actually got a conviction in the shooting of 70-year-old Bo Bowenkamp.
The argument that resulted in Bo’s shooting started over a piece of candy. A few of McElroy’s children stopped in Bo’s B&B grocery store. The kids made their candy selections and jostled each other at the register. One of the littlest girls walked out of the shop without paying for the piece of candy in her hand. When the clerk shouted out to the child, the oldest McElroy girl grabbed the candy from the little one’s hand and tossed it on the rack. Robbed of her candy without understanding why, the child burst into tears.
Bo and Lois Bowenkamp figured it was all a big misunderstanding and attempted to patch things up. Their efforts were in vain. It all ended in a stalemate—the McElroy children swore never to shop there again, and the Bowencamps banned all McElroys from their store.
Ke
n McElroy and Trena showed up twenty minutes later, bellowing, cursing and issuing threats. After this badgering, Bo refused to sell McElroy the pack of smokes he wanted to buy.
That night, McElroy’s truck drove past the Bowencamp home again and again. A deputy sheriff told the elderly couple not to worry. McElroy “won’t do nothin’,” he said.
McElroy showed up at their home and knocked on the door. “Lois, I’ll give you one hundred bucks if you challenge Trena to a street fight and then we can call it all quits.”
“That’s absurd,” Lois said.
The next morning, Ken and Trena were outside the Bowencamps’ door taunting Lois to come out and fight. Lois called the cops. On his police scanner in his truck, McElroy heard the dispatcher sending officers his way. He was long gone before the state highway patrolman and a deputy sheriff pulled up at the Bowencamps’ home.
Once again, the law was on McElroy’s side. As long as he committed no overt act, law enforcement was powerless to stop his harassment. Even when the Bowencamps reported that McElroy was shooting off his shotgun in front of their house, no report was filed.
The shop was closed for the day on July 8 while Bo met with an air-conditioner repairman. He was out back cutting up cardboard boxes when McElroy pulled up and commenced harassing Bo again. Bo tried to ignore him, but that only enraged McElroy. He pulled a shotgun out of his truck, pulled the trigger and dropped Bo where he stood.
McElroy was arrested that night. He claimed innocence and the next morning was released on a $30,000 bond. That night, Ken and Trena sat in the D&G Tavern sipping beer and daring anyone to mention Bo.
Bo, meanwhile, spent ten days in the hospital recovering from the gunshot wound to his neck. For a full year after that, he was unable to speak above a whisper. It was more than a year before the last of the shotgun pellets rose to the surface of his neck like a boil. Doctors lanced the ugly red protrusion and removed the pieces of metal.
Baby Be Mine Page 3
