-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July

In Denver witness murders have becoming an almost common occurrence: the witnesses to a gang killing are themselves killed. In one recent instance, the witness to a gangland slaying was killed only days before she was to testify. In the killing of Denver Bronco Darrent Williams, which has been tied into the earlier killing, the police have run into a wall of silence. Those who might know something also know what happens to those who “snitch.’

The criminal justice system depends on witnesses. Most cases aren’t solved by forensic evidence alone, but depend on a live human being to point the finger. No one understood this better than Ken Rex McElroy, the “town bully” who was shot to death as he sat in his pickup on the main street of Skidmore, Missouri, on July 10, 1981. I told the story of McElroy’s reign of terror in northwest Missouri, his killing and the ensuing silence in the book, In Broad Daylight, which was published by HarperCollins in 1989 and won an Edgar Award for Best True Crime. (And which was also turned into a movie starring Brian Denehey).

Uneducated, McElroy instinctively understood that without witnesses to his crimes there would be no case. “No witness, no case,” could have been his motto. McElroy raped and kidnapped and burglarized and robbed and assaulted his way across northwest Missouri for over twenty years with near impunity. Time and again the witnesses to his crimes either failed to appear or changed their minds as to what they’d seen. He stalked and threatened them publicly. The cases went away.

At one point he was charged with twenty-three counts of raping and kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July

at happens to those who “snitch.’

The criminal justice system depends on witnesses. Most cases aren’t solved by forensic evidence alone, but depend on a live human being to point the finger. No one understood this better than Ken Rex McElroy, the “town bully” who was shot to death as he sat in his pickup on the main street of Skidmore, Missouri, on July 10, 1981. I told the story of McElroy’s reign of terror in northwest Missouri, his killing and the ensuing silence in the book, In Broad Daylight, which was published by HarperCollins in 1989 and won an Edgar Award for Best True Crime. (And which was also turned into a movie starring Brian Denehey).

Uneducated, McElroy instinctively understood that without witnesses to his crimes there would be no case. “No witness, no case,” could have been his motto. McElroy raped and kidnapped and burglarized and robbed and assaulted his way across northwest Missouri for over twenty years with near impunity. Time and again the witnesses to his crimes either failed to appear or changed their minds as to what they’d seen. He stalked and threatened them publicly. The cases went away.

At one point he was charged with twenty-three counts of raping and kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July

or in northwest Missouri, his killing and the ensuing silence in the book, In Broad Daylight, which was published by HarperCollins in 1989 and won an Edgar Award for Best True Crime. (And which was also turned into a movie starring Brian Denehey).

Uneducated, McElroy instinctively understood that without witnesses to his crimes there would be no case. “No witness, no case,” could have been his motto. McElroy raped and kidnapped and burglarized and robbed and assaulted his way across northwest Missouri for over twenty years with near impunity. Time and again the witnesses to his crimes either failed to appear or changed their minds as to what they’d seen. He stalked and threatened them publicly. The cases went away.

At one point he was charged with twenty-three counts of raping and kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July

roy raped and kidnapped and burglarized and robbed and assaulted his way across northwest Missouri for over twenty years with near impunity. Time and again the witnesses to his crimes either failed to appear or changed their minds as to what they’d seen. He stalked and threatened them publicly. The cases went away.

At one point he was charged with twenty-three counts of raping and kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July

-old girl. He used his Kansas City lawyer to get a quick divorce, and then burned down the house of the girl’s parents in a successful effort to get them to consent to his marrying the girl. Shortly after their marriage, all charges were dropped. The parents moved faraway. As the girl grew into a woman, she joined McElroy in his reign of terror.

Forty-five witnesses saw Ken McElroy shot to death that July morning. All testified in front of three grand juries and were questioned extensively by the FBI. They all said they didn’t see a thing. Twenty-five years later, I returned to Skidmore to update the story for a new epilogue to In Broad Daylight, which St. Martins Press recently republished in a 25-year anniversary edition. The witnesses still haven’t talked. The DA said he will still prosecute if witnesses come forward, but no one expects that to happen, not after all this time. Several have died, taking their secret to the grave. No “deathbed confessions” here.

There is of course great irony in the fact that the very rule McElroy lived by—no witness, no case—is the one that is ensuring that his killers are not brought to justice. Whether one agrees, as many do, that McElroy had it coming, and that that the town really had no choice because of the failure of the law to deal with him, it is still a dangerous precedent whenever witnesses to a crime do not come forward to tell what they’ve seen. In the end, even with DNA and all the fancy forensics, without witnesses, the criminal justice system won’t work, and when it fails we are all at risk.