Grisly killing adds to town's notoriety
Theft of fetus is latest violence in Mo. community
- How, wonder the people still left in this small town getting smaller, could such horrible things happen in a place they treasure for its friendly rural charms?
First came the notorious "Skidmore bully," Ken Rex McElroy( photo at left), whose death made national headlines. He had so terrorized the town that when somebody gunned him down in broad daylight in 1981, nobody would
admit to seeing a thing.
Then on Oct. 16, 2000, Wendy Gillenwater( photo at left) was stomped to death by her boyfriend. Locals take comfort in knowing the killer is serving life in prison.
The next year, a 20-year-old resident,Branson Perry vanished. Many think he was murdered.
And now the police cars and media crews are back. On Thursday, somebody killed 23-year-old Bobbi Jo Stinnett,
( photo at left) butchering her body to pull out the little girl who was due next month to be Stinnett's firstborn. Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., has been charged.
"Why do they all come to Skidmore to do this?" decadelong resident Pauline Dragoo asked on Friday, her 91st birthday. "I'm going to move out of this town."
Other residents see the violent history as random and inexplicable.
"It's just a freak thing," said Roland Langford, who works as a custodian in nearby Maryville. "It's a real nice town. People get along. That's what you like about it here -- the people."
Skidmore's crime rates are enviably low most years, but residents concede that the town's reputation is a grisly one.
Travel somewhere and mention that you live in Skidmore and faces usually show a blank. But mention the McElroy case -- the basis for books, movies, and TV documentaries that still run on cable -- and there is a light of recognition.
"People look at you funny," said M. C. Derr, the town's postmaster.
Skidmore is a collection of small houses and mostly shuttered businesses at the junction of Missouri 113 and Route DD. Its Little People's Park has four working swings, one small bench, and a basketball backboard with no rim.
With only about 330 residents -- estimated in 2003 for the census (the postmaster and others think the total is closer to 250) -- Skidmore has lost more than a quarter of its population since July 10, 1981, when the killing of McElroy, 47, drew nationwide fascination.
Dozens of witnesses are thought to have kept quiet all these years after someone settled an old score with McElroy, who had a history of threatening his neighbors, chasing girls, and pilfering livestock.
Burly and hard-drinking, McElroy was free on bond after a second-degree assault conviction when he was shot in his truck outside Skidmore's only bank. The townspeople clammed up. The national media streamed in to report on the town's "vigilantes," which many locals considered a slur, citing a legal system that kept a belligerent McElroy on the streets.
Even sightseers drove through. A TV movie followed. Just months ago, an independent filmmaker from Connecticut released "Without Mercy," a graphic dramatization of the McElroy story that won a top prize at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
"What's happened now is going to be shock for them all over again," said Harry MacLean, a Colorado author. His book "In Broad Daylight," an account of the McElroy case, reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list.
The domestic violence that claimed Gillenwater in 2000 drew little media attention. But a year later the town was tied to another macabre mystery that remains unsolved.
Branson Perry, 20, disappeared in 2001, never to be seen again.
Branson was last seen by his friend on April 11, 2001 at approximately 3:00 p.m. They were cleaning house for his father before he came home from the hospital. He told his friend he was putting jumper cables in the shed & would be right back. He has not been seen since. He left behind his van and personal belongings. The jumper cables weren't in the shed, but a few days later, they were placed there by an unknown person. Last seen at his home at 304 West Oak Street, Skidmore, MO.
Still, overall, crime is perennially low in Skidmore and surrounding Nodaway County. The county's crime rate in 2003 was less than half the statewide average, according to the Missouri Department of Public Safety. Authorities recorded only 23 violent offenses, mostly for aggravated assault, in the county of nearly 22,000 people
"They're quiet people . . . mostly farmers who all knew each other since kindergarten," said MacLean, who while doing research for his book in the mid-1980s lived with a family outside Skidmore.
"Even then, they had sort of an 'us vs. the world' approach" to outsiders, he said.
"As in any rural town, I think a lot of people there feel isolated," said Horton, Kan., Police Chief Dick Luzier, who as a Nodaway County sheriff's deputy investigated McElroy's killing. "When bad stuff happens, some don't feel they have anybody they can turn to -- not even to authorities -- because they may feel threatened by retaliation," as many felt when McElroy stalked the streets.
A place typical of the rural terrain of northwest Missouri, Skidmore is a town few people would move to, even though a home sells there for about $30,000, according to US Census data.
The nearest hospital is 15 miles away. Skidmore children are bused to school in either Maitland or Graham. The town's elementary school closed three years ago.
That was about the time the bank branch closed, as did Mom's Cafe -- the place outside of which McElroy died. The cafe was converted to the Newton Hall Community Building.
This fall marked the first time anyone can remember that the fall Pumpkin Show was canceled. Not enough people were interested.
But the town still puffs up its chest about its Freedom Festival -- a tribute to veterans and patriotism that draws people from 20 states every year the weekend after Labor Day. Heather French Henry, Miss America 2000, showed up in 2002. Light-heavyweight prizefighter Rob Calloway of St. Joseph came this year.
"This is a really great little town," said Carla Wetzel, a chief organizer of the Freedom Festival and the mother of school-age girls who plans to lock her doors more often.
"We moved back here because it was a safe place. And it is a safe place."
Wetzel got calls on Friday from Freedom Festival visitors from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Florida, all sending condolences to the town.
On KMBZ radio in Kansas City, drive-time talk-show host Russ Johnson wondered aloud, "Maybe there's something in the water there in Skidmore."
But residents rejected the idea that anything more than coincidence explained Skidmore's violent history.
"It's not a matter of where they lived," said JoAnn Stinnett, Branson Perry's grandmother and a distant relative of Bobbi Jo Stinnett. "All this just happened to hit here. It could have happened anywhere."
Thu Jun 11, 2009, 07:52 AM CDT
