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is out May 22nd, available wherever you

1:01

get your podcasts. This

1:05

episode of The Prosecutors is brought to you by

1:07

Huggies Little Movers. Get your baby's

1:09

butt into Huggies Little Movers. We got

1:11

you, baby. I'm

1:21

Brett. And I'm Alice. And

1:23

we are The Prosecutors. Today

1:30

on The Prosecutors. What

1:38

do you do when someone keeps committing crimes and

1:40

the law does nothing about it? Well,

1:43

this is the story of how one small town plotted

1:45

to get rid of the town bully permanently.

1:54

Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Bye.

2:13

Hello, everybody, and welcome to

2:15

this episode of The Prosecutors.

2:17

I'm Brett, and I'm joined

2:19

as always by my bully

2:22

co-host, Alice. In this instance,

2:24

I mean it in the English way,

2:26

Alice. Bully for you. Bully for you.

2:28

Bully for you. I actually knew what

2:30

that descriptor meant, so thank you for

2:32

a descriptor in a

2:34

somewhat other language-ish that I

2:37

got. We are

2:39

from England. The English would probably

2:41

say it's their language, but... Bully

2:46

for you for getting that, Alice. Yeah,

2:48

whatever. Whatever. We all know.

2:51

We all know everybody speaks American these days. It's okay. Well,

2:54

everyone speaks American these days. No, no,

2:56

no. But very good job,

2:58

Brett. I'm always so proud of you when

3:00

you pick a descriptor that is related to

3:02

our case as well because we haven't talked

3:05

a lot about bullies yet, and this is

3:07

very interesting. Look, if you guys don't know

3:09

the story, this is a fascinating story. I

3:11

mean, just one that will make

3:13

you think for a long time. We're going to go

3:15

through the story. The facts

3:18

are pretty straightforward. The mystery is

3:20

a mystery to all of

3:22

us, but not to hundreds of people. But

3:25

the implications are what I think

3:27

is most fascinating about

3:29

this case, and we want to dig

3:32

into those as well. Some

3:34

of you know exactly the story we're going

3:36

to tell today. It's the story of Ken

3:38

Rex McElroy, or McElroy,

3:41

and his untimely

3:44

end. He was a guy who, if

3:46

you wrote him in fiction, people probably

3:49

wouldn't believe it, and you're going to

3:51

see how he terrorized

3:54

a small town until

3:56

the town decided to strike back. And

3:58

look, this is a story. It's definitely

4:00

a story of vigilantism, but

4:03

it's also a story about the failure

4:05

of law enforcement and what happens when

4:08

the justice system doesn't do

4:11

its job. And at

4:13

what point are people forced to

4:15

take matters into their own hands? So we're going to tell

4:17

you a story and then I think we're going to spend

4:19

some time. Just me and Alan was talking about that and

4:23

talking about what happened here. It's

4:25

something that's been celebrated. It's something

4:27

that's been condemned. It's a

4:29

case that divides people and I think it's

4:31

one you're going to enjoy. Well, Alice,

4:34

unless you have anything else, I'll just go ahead and

4:36

dive into the facts. I think you should because the

4:38

facts are pretty terrible and you're going to see why

4:40

bully is just not a strong enough

4:42

word for Ken. It's

4:44

really not. It's really not. Bully is the

4:47

term that's often used, but terror

4:49

might be a better one. So

4:52

this goes all the way back to 1981. What

4:55

a fantastic year. Really the best year of

4:58

my birth. All you

5:00

know, it was a good year. This

5:02

is a total tangent, but I have to celebrate your decade.

5:04

I guess I was born in the 80s, but like I

5:06

came of age in the 90s. Guys,

5:09

I've been listening to like Spotify,

5:11

Alexa, all the different streaming apps,

5:14

playlists for 80s rock ballads. Just say

5:16

Alexa play 80s rock ballads. If

5:19

you're about our age, you will just lay on

5:21

the couch and be like adored

5:23

with songs for like three hours straight. It

5:25

was, I don't know how it took me

5:28

so long to find this playlist, but I

5:30

bring this up because fantastic music, a time

5:32

when music and lyrics kind of embodied

5:36

this romanticism of life,

5:38

right? Small town life, you know,

5:40

that we're going to make it big. It's going to be

5:42

okay. We start out in a small town, but we're going

5:44

to make it. And this story I

5:47

think is so interesting because it's set in

5:49

a time of a lot of romanticism and things can get

5:51

better. And yet you'll see that

5:53

it's not getting better for this particular town.

5:57

Don't stop believing, Alice. Don't stop believing. I just

5:59

love it. Well, I mean, I

6:01

gotta say, you know, 1981, the thing about being born

6:03

in 1981 is you're right on the cusp. If you

6:06

want to be Generation X, you can be Generation X.

6:08

If you want to be a millennial, you can be

6:10

a millennial. You just get to pick. So,

6:12

you know, whatever in between

6:15

me and my in-between people, we all rise

6:17

up anyway, much

6:20

like the people of Skidmore, Missouri, which is

6:22

where we're going in 1981,

6:24

Skidmore, Missouri, which is a little town in

6:26

the Northeast corner up near Nebraska in

6:28

Missouri. It is about as small town

6:30

as you can get. You know,

6:33

there was a 60 Minutes did a show

6:37

on this case back in the, and

6:39

I guess 1981, not long after that,

6:41

if it didn't, and Morley

6:43

Safer, looking basically

6:45

as old as he always looked, was down there

6:47

doing the case. But there were a lot of shots

6:50

of Skidmore and it was the typical town. Just

6:52

one road goes straight down. You know, you see, you

6:54

can see where the town begins and you can see

6:56

where the town ends and then the road goes

6:58

on forever. And that's the kind of town Skidmore,

7:01

Missouri was. There were 437 residents in

7:03

the Skidmore

7:06

metropolitan area. And this was a

7:08

small farming community. It was extremely

7:11

close knit. You know, the kind

7:13

of place you see in every Dateline episode,

7:15

everybody knew everybody. They were all close friends

7:17

and nobody locked their doors. That is until

7:20

Ken Rex McElroy

7:23

started doing his thing. Now McElroy was

7:25

born on June 1st, 1934. Like most people in town, he

7:27

was part

7:32

of a family of poor tenant farmers.

7:35

He grew up right outside Skidmore

7:37

alongside his, get this, 15

7:40

siblings. Bless

7:42

his mother. 15 siblings. I don't know.

7:45

That's a lot. That's 15 years of

7:47

being pregnant. Not to mention the

7:49

whole like raising children thing. I think it's

7:51

more than 15 years

7:53

somehow. Somehow it's more than

7:55

that. I think this is all really

7:58

interesting as well within that, right? Obviously, Obviously,

8:00

they didn't have a lot of means, but

8:03

with 15 siblings, and this is not for all

8:05

large families, but if you have someone like Ken

8:07

who we're going to talk about, and clearly, there

8:09

was no one quite like him, I think,

8:11

in most towns. I wonder how

8:13

much that played into kind of maybe lack

8:15

of oversight with many siblings, although your siblings

8:17

are supposed to look out for you too.

8:19

So I don't know. I don't know.

8:21

He really does boggle my mind in a lot of ways

8:24

because it seems like there were so many, so

8:26

many things along the way that could have

8:28

righted him in his path or at least constrained

8:31

him so he wasn't such a terror. Siblings

8:34

can be a wonderful thing in terms

8:36

of community, social support, but also like

8:39

social pressure to act a certain way, right?

8:41

My boys are the most

8:43

peer pressure on each other of acting

8:45

appropriately because they immediately tattled on the

8:47

other. So I think this is a really

8:50

interesting thing that could cut either way. You can say 15 siblings,

8:52

he didn't have enough oversight. Alternatively,

8:54

he had like 14 other people

8:57

who were his direct

8:59

community members. Well,

9:01

I think, you know, the problem probably

9:03

for him was his parents were already

9:05

struggling and feeding, clothing, and taking

9:07

care of 15 kids is a lot. And

9:11

Ken, he was often hungry. He was often neglected. And

9:13

I just wonder if there was some point in time

9:15

where he said, one day I'm going to get out

9:17

of this. I'm never going back. And whatever it takes,

9:20

I'm going to do it. And

9:22

in addition to all of this poverty

9:24

and hunger and want that he grew

9:27

up in, he also suffered a

9:29

pretty severe head injury when he was only 18

9:31

years old. He was working

9:33

at a construction site, helping to

9:35

sort of provide for the

9:37

very large family and a steel

9:39

slab fell on him, hit

9:42

him in the head kind of thing that might kill somebody.

9:44

It didn't kill him, but some

9:46

people speculated that that injury might

9:48

be the thing that we explain

9:50

some of his later behavior, but

9:52

whatever the case, and despite how he grew

9:55

up, he would eventually find quite

9:57

a bit of success for himself. He.

10:00

He started off basically

10:02

as a cattle rustler. He would steal livestock

10:04

from local farmers and sell it. And the

10:06

great thing about stealing something and then selling

10:08

it is it's pure profit. You make

10:10

a hundred percent profit on that. You don't have to worry

10:13

about the investment. And

10:15

he also gained a reputation as being a rough and tumble

10:17

guy, the kind of guy you didn't mess with. And

10:19

the kind of guy, if you noticed him walking off of

10:21

one of your sheep, maybe you just leave better enough alone.

10:24

You know, the sheep's not worth your life. And so

10:26

that's what he did. He used that money to buy

10:28

some land. And then basically he

10:30

turned the tables where he'd

10:32

grown up, tenant farmer, sharecropper. Now

10:34

he's the one, he's the landowner.

10:37

He's the one leasing the land

10:39

out. He also became very adept

10:41

at raising and training dogs for

10:43

various purposes, racing dogs and in

10:45

particular hunting dogs. And

10:47

his dogs were prized possessions. And

10:50

the people who bought them from him would

10:52

become not only loyal customers, but good friends

10:54

who in later times would be willing to

10:58

give some alibis to him that he would

11:00

very desperately need. And they would help him

11:03

out and would explain some of the things

11:05

we're going to talk about later, but very

11:07

early on and really throughout his entire life,

11:10

McElroy, he not only walked the line

11:13

between legal and illegal, he

11:15

was someone who, because

11:18

of his willingness to resort to violence

11:20

was feared and respected and

11:23

because he made a lot of money also

11:26

had that advantage going for him. And

11:28

this is really interesting because whenever you

11:30

have criminal cases, one of the things

11:33

we've talked about is the defense council

11:35

bringing mitigation evidence about the defendant. And

11:37

so you're hearing a lot of the

11:39

potential mitigation evidence for Ken, right? That

11:41

he grew up very poor, hungry, neglected,

11:44

and he had trouble reading and writing,

11:46

but not necessarily because

11:48

of low IQ, but because

11:50

he had to drop out of school in eighth grade. Maybe not

11:52

had to, but he chose to drop out of school in eighth

11:54

grade to try and help out his family. And

11:57

though we've talked about this steel slab falling on

11:59

him. his head and potentially causing brain

12:01

damage. Note that he does

12:04

continue on with his life with quite

12:06

a level of sophistication still though. The,

12:08

you know, whether, I mean, it's not

12:10

right to be stealing livestock and selling

12:13

it, but he doesn't stop

12:15

there. He's not just like some common criminal, right?

12:17

He turns that around and turns it into a

12:19

landowning business and he learns to train dogs. And

12:21

those of you who've trained dogs, I mean, there's

12:24

a level of sophistication, dedication, consistency that needs to

12:26

come with that day in and day out. It's

12:28

not something you drop in for a day, train

12:30

them really hard and then you're done, especially with

12:32

racing dogs. It has to be something every single

12:35

day. So, you know, I don't know the impact,

12:38

we don't know the impact that Steel

12:40

Slab had on his head. It

12:42

probably did do something, but I know all

12:44

this because there's another side to this. It's

12:47

not like the Steel Slab hit his head

12:49

and then he like stopped being able to

12:51

function and he was only a terror. He

12:53

clearly had the capability to do amazing things

12:55

with his life, but he didn't

12:57

choose to kind of stay on the

12:59

legal side of things. So over the

13:01

years, as you've already begun to

13:04

hear, McElroy had amassed quite

13:06

a criminal record. He had been indicted

13:08

21 times on

13:10

various charges, robbery, harassing

13:12

and assaulting women, destroying

13:14

property, threatening people, and

13:17

even shooting two people. And

13:20

we call this up until now, it's almost like,

13:22

okay, you're a bully, but when you start becoming

13:24

a trigger puller, then you've crossed the line from

13:26

just being a bully to a real danger to

13:29

your community here. And here's

13:31

the thing, despite being charged 21 times and

13:34

some of them very serious crimes such as shooting

13:36

two people, just about

13:39

point blank for both of them,

13:41

he always got off because he

13:43

had an excellent defense attorney, Richard

13:45

Jean McFadden. And even though he

13:48

had fantastic counsel, McElroy

13:50

didn't leave all of

13:52

the defense just to his attorney. He

13:54

wasn't gonna sit idly by while these

13:56

charges were pending. Rather, he had a

13:58

habit of intimidating witnesses. talking to witnesses,

14:00

stalking them, showing up

14:03

at their homes until they agreed not to testify

14:05

out of fear, and other, I guess you could say, bullying

14:08

tactics to ensure that he would get off. So

14:11

I'm not saying McFadden's not a fantastic defense attorney, but he

14:13

certainly had a client who was

14:15

doing everything he could illegally in

14:18

his power to make sure that no witnesses would

14:21

show up so that these charges couldn't

14:23

be led to a conviction. So

14:26

this is not an exaggeration when I said of

14:30

the 21 felony indictments, McElroy

14:33

was convicted zero

14:36

times, zero, meaning

14:38

he not only didn't really have a

14:40

criminal history at all, he

14:43

didn't serve any time or have any

14:45

repercussions for these 21 instances

14:47

where he clearly broke the law.

14:50

And those of you who know anything about the criminal justice

14:52

system, he didn't just break

14:54

the law 21 times, right? He harassed a

14:56

lot of people before that first phone call

14:58

and that first arrest was made. But

15:02

I mean, I would say with each one,

15:04

he got emboldened because we see this all

15:06

the time with our people. We see this

15:08

with human nature, our children. You

15:10

shoot one person, you get off, shoot another person,

15:12

why wouldn't you get off again? So what's gonna

15:15

keep you from shooting a third, fourth, fifth, sixth

15:17

person? Really nothing, because here,

15:20

this town isn't gonna do anything about it.

15:22

This justice system isn't going to do anything

15:24

about it. Even if the police arrest him,

15:26

so what? He'll go to court, intimidate all

15:28

the witnesses and get off scot-free.

15:31

By 1981, Ken McElroy

15:33

had firmly established himself

15:35

as the town bully.

15:37

And again, he is

15:40

not just a bully. The

15:43

next thing I'm going to tell you that he

15:45

did is going to make your

15:47

blood boil because it is

15:50

so bold and

15:52

so it's an affront to

15:54

the entire community of 437 people. While

15:57

it's a crime against one person, it's really a

15:59

crime against the entire. community. So

16:02

he rapes and marries a local teenager,

16:04

and by teenager I mean a young,

16:06

young girl. And then

16:08

he shoots the beloved town grocer again,

16:11

point blank. After

16:13

these kind of two things, Skidmore

16:15

had had enough. So

16:17

the residents gathered and made a

16:19

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16:21

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so now if that was enough, we're going to

19:15

get into some of the things that he did

19:17

and what happened and how he got away with

19:19

them. And I

19:21

will say this, his defense attorney

19:23

must have been incredible. And he is often

19:26

interviewed in the various documentaries that have been

19:28

done on this. I

19:30

don't think there's ever been a great documentary done on

19:32

this. I mean, this is a case that deserves the

19:35

full Netflix treatment. It hasn't been done. It should

19:37

be done, but there's a lot of different things

19:39

on YouTube you can watch. And they were checking

19:41

out. And the 60 minutes, frankly, from 1981 might

19:43

be the best thing that's been done on it.

19:46

But let's just go through the

19:48

timeline and talk about some of the stuff

19:50

he did. Now we're going to start about

19:52

10 years before 1981, but I

19:54

think as we've laid out, this man's

19:56

reign of terror goes back to the

19:58

fifties. I mean, basically from

20:00

the time he got, he got hit in the

20:03

head with the steel when he was 18, Ford,

20:06

he is doing this kind of stuff. But

20:09

let's start in 1971 and start with that

20:11

first incident that Alice

20:13

mentioned. So McElroy, he begins

20:16

harassing a local sixth

20:19

grade student, Trina McCloud.

20:22

Now he would do things like, he's married at

20:24

the time. I mean, not that that

20:27

matters, I guess, but he is married at the

20:29

time. At this point, he would follow

20:31

her school

20:34

bus around and hunk

20:36

repeatedly until the driver would let Trina out

20:38

to ride with Ken. Now, here's

20:40

the thing. I mean, this should just already tell you what

20:42

kind of person this is. What school

20:44

bus driver is going to let a

20:47

sixth grader off the bus to get

20:49

in the car with some adult, unless

20:52

there's some fear there, right? You just

20:54

don't, you don't do that kind of

20:56

thing. He's like a 40 something year

20:58

old, right? This is not like some

21:00

20 year old hanging out at the

21:02

middle school. He's a grown man. Yeah.

21:04

And so Trina would report that Ken

21:07

raped her. Now this was

21:09

a claim she would eventually drop. She would later

21:11

say when she was confronted by this, after

21:14

Ken's death, that she made it

21:16

up because she was jealous

21:18

of him and someone else. I just want to

21:20

remind you, she's in

21:22

sixth grade when he starts this

21:24

and she would drop this, this

21:27

charge, but in

21:29

case you're wondering how old she was when she made it, she was

21:31

12. She was 12 years old. And

21:34

we see this a lot, right? We,

21:36

in our, unfortunately, in our child abuse

21:38

cases, our victims are usually very young

21:40

and it is not uncommon to recant

21:43

reports of abuse like this for a

21:45

lot of reasons. You're going to see

21:47

why. Trina's life is going to get

21:49

very intertwined with Ken's, of course, but

21:52

why just common sense.

21:54

Use your mind. What else is a 40 something

21:56

year old man doing honking after a school bus

21:59

until the school bus? driver lets the 12-year-old off

22:01

the bus and into his car. Is he just

22:03

gonna like ride around and listen to 80s rock

22:05

ballads? 70s rock ballads? Probably

22:07

not, right? And just want to

22:09

like buy her popsicles. So whatever

22:12

her story is, this is

22:14

not okay. This is not her parent. This is not

22:16

a family member. He is a man who is quite

22:18

literally stalking a sixth grade girl. So by 1973, the

22:20

fall of 1973,

22:22

Trina is now in ninth grade.

22:24

So, you know, a veritable grown

22:27

woman, at which point she becomes pregnant with

22:30

her and Ken's first child. She

22:32

drops out of school at this point,

22:34

despite still being married to his third

22:36

wife, Alice Woods, Ken moves her into

22:39

their home. Now, shockingly,

22:43

this relationship takes a bad turn,

22:45

at which point Trina flees Macaroy's

22:48

house and returns to her parents'

22:50

home when she's 14 years old,

22:52

shortly after giving birth. So

22:55

in response, Ken forces

22:57

Trina to come back and then

22:59

for good measure, burns down her

23:02

family's house and shoots

23:04

their dog. So that's the

23:06

kind of guy we're talking about here. In case,

23:08

in case you, in case that the prior events

23:10

did not lead you to certain conclusions about this

23:12

man. And also, if you're wondering, I don't

23:15

know anything about Trina's parents, but this is beginning

23:17

to show you like why, you know, why would

23:19

you let Trina move into this man's house? Clearly,

23:22

this man is just an absolute

23:25

terror and he is violent,

23:27

incredibly violent. You know, Trina, who

23:29

knows what is happening in her

23:31

mind, but she's been groomed and

23:35

other things by this man for at least

23:37

two years. And you can see what happens

23:39

when she deigns

23:41

to defy her captor. He

23:44

kills the family pet, probably the most precious

23:46

thing to her. I remember my childhood, my

23:48

dog was my best friend, right? I mean,

23:51

that's just cruel. That dog wasn't going to

23:53

do anything to you. You just shot the

23:55

dog because you wanted to hurt Trina and

23:57

to make sure she never did something like

24:00

this again and burn down their family home.

24:02

Again, this is not a well-to-do place, you

24:04

know? It's not like they can just move

24:06

into the next home over. This is the

24:09

epitome of, don't you dare try this again,

24:11

it will only be worse next time. So

24:13

this time, I mean, this is a pretty

24:15

public crime. He burned down Trina's family's home,

24:18

and Ken was indicted for arson, assault, and

24:20

statutory rape because you don't need Trina to

24:22

say it wasn't consensual. She was 14 when

24:25

the child was born. Statutorily, she

24:27

could not consent. So Ken

24:30

was, despite these very serious and violent

24:32

crimes, he was still released on a

24:34

$2,500 bond pending trial. And

24:39

this is very sad and shows you

24:42

kind of the vulnerability of Trina. Both

24:44

Trina and her child were placed in

24:46

foster care because she's only 14. And

24:50

I'm sure there were questions about whether her parents

24:52

could take care of her because she ended up

24:54

in this situation. Whether it's true or not, that's

24:57

usually how the foster care system looks at it.

24:59

Now, Ken, remember? Remember how we said

25:01

he was indicted 21 times but he

25:03

had zero convictions? How are you gonna

25:05

get out of this one? Because she

25:07

definitely had your child that's like provable.

25:09

It's a walking, crawling evidence of your

25:11

statutory rape. So Ken, again,

25:13

I think he's very intelligent, which is why

25:15

I don't totally buy into this slab hitting

25:19

his head, being the reason that he does

25:21

things that are without any

25:23

sort of excuse. Ken goes on

25:25

to divorce his third wife, Alice,

25:28

and marry Trina, despite her

25:30

still being a very young teenager. He

25:33

does this so that he can avoid

25:35

the statutory rape charge. And

25:37

now kind of with that charge away, remember

25:39

that's the key. His relationship with Trina is

25:42

what leads to the burning down of the

25:44

house, the shooting of the dog, that whole

25:46

thing. Kind of with that

25:48

charge off the table, he was acquitted

25:50

of the arson and assault charges. I

25:53

think that's still a real problem

25:55

with that justice system, whatever happened there.

25:57

Like he absolutely should have been convicted.

26:00

of arson and assault at the very least, and probably still statutory

26:02

rape. I don't know that you should be able to marry your

26:04

way out of. You can't marry your way out of this. When

26:06

the age difference is that great, I mean, if it was like

26:08

a 17 year old and a 16 year old, maybe

26:11

I could be like, okay, but like. Right,

26:13

I mean, this is just fair to

26:16

say, Skidmore is terrified of Ken, and

26:18

they should be, and Ken is not

26:20

terrified of anyone, and he's certainly not

26:22

terrified of the law. So that brings

26:24

us to July, 1976. Ken

26:27

gets in an altercation with

26:29

a local farmer, Romaine Henry,

26:31

fantastic name for a farmer,

26:33

by the way, which ended

26:35

in Henry trying to chase

26:37

Ken off of his land.

26:40

So they're on Henry's land. Now,

26:43

Ken takes out a shotgun and

26:46

shot Henry twice in the stomach.

26:48

Thankfully, Henry survived, and Ken was

26:51

charged with assault with intent to

26:53

kill. But

26:55

yet again, when Ken's trial came

26:57

around, McFadden, his

26:59

attorney, had produced two

27:02

witnesses who gave him

27:04

a seemingly airtight alibi. These

27:06

two witnesses showed up and

27:08

testified that Ken couldn't

27:11

have shot Henry

27:13

because he was hunting with them the day of

27:15

the shooting, and he was nowhere near the crime

27:17

scene. Now with two

27:20

witnesses with a seemingly rock solid

27:22

alibi, it's not

27:24

really surprised that Ken was found

27:26

not guilty, although I

27:29

don't know what he did to intimidate those

27:31

two witnesses to show up and probably lie

27:33

for him. Now, Henry claimed that Ken was

27:36

outside of his house upwards of a hundred

27:38

times before trial, trying to intimidate him not

27:40

to go forward with these charges, not to

27:42

testify, all of those things. So with Henry

27:45

himself, of course, he may be biased. Maybe

27:47

he showed up one time. One time is

27:49

too many, by the way. You can't intimidate

27:51

any witnesses or the victim of your crimes

27:54

that you're being charged with. But

27:56

a hundred times, if he's doing that

27:58

too, Henry. Probably

28:00

he's doing this to the two witnesses

28:02

who showed up, intimidating them to testify

28:04

for him. We don't know

28:06

that for a fact. There's nothing on the

28:08

record for that, but we can extrapolate what

28:11

is happening because he does have this habit

28:13

of intimidating witnesses and victims. I

28:15

just want you to imagine this for a second,

28:17

that you're in a town

28:19

of 400 people and there's a guy

28:22

who sticks a shotgun in the dude's

28:24

stomach and pulls the trigger,

28:27

shoots him with both barrels. How

28:29

he survived that, that it's

28:31

a miracle they did. Ken would actually tell

28:33

a friend of his that

28:36

he was upset because he thought that would be enough to

28:38

kill him. And then obviously he wouldn't be able to testify

28:40

and he'd get away with it. So he was upset that

28:42

he didn't die. But, you know, face to

28:44

face, Ken was stealing some of his stuff. That's why I

28:46

was trying to get him off the property. He testifies and

28:48

says, I looked the man in the eye. He

28:51

shot me in the stomach at point blank

28:53

range and he gets off. What

28:56

kind of message does that send to the town? Now,

28:59

how are you feeling now about

29:01

the town's ability to

29:03

protect you? Not

29:06

great. And it's only going to get worse. And

29:08

I got to say this, Trina, we're going to talk about

29:10

Trina some more. Ken has been grooming her since she was

29:13

12, raped

29:15

her when she was 12. By this point, I

29:17

mean, she is completely under his spell. You're going to

29:19

see that as we go on. And we'd go all

29:21

the way forward to 1980. And

29:24

Trina is in the local

29:26

grocery store with one of McElroy's daughters. I

29:28

believe it's one of his daughters from a

29:30

prior marriage. He had kids from several different

29:32

marriages. What's interesting about this, it's not entirely

29:34

clear that Trina was there

29:36

initially. The witness said it was two children

29:38

who were there. Trina basically was a

29:40

child. So it's not definitive that it's

29:42

her, but we're pretty sure it was her.

29:46

The grocer and his wife

29:48

see McElroy's daughter stealing some

29:50

stuff, stealing some candy, basically.

29:54

And they confront Trina about it. And

29:56

they say, hey, she's put that in

29:59

the box. or pocket or whatever, are

30:01

you going to pay for that? And

30:03

Trina basically says, do you

30:06

know who her dad is? You're

30:08

going to meet Ken McElroy now, and

30:10

then goes off and tells him that

30:12

they accused them of stealing. Well,

30:15

he is, you know, infuriated

30:17

that anyone would, his

30:19

good, his good name is being

30:21

besmirched by this accusation. And

30:24

at that point, he flies down to the

30:26

grocery store, he tells them they're gonna, they're

30:29

gonna pay for it. And he

30:31

spends months harassing the

30:33

family, he would park outside

30:35

their house, he would yell

30:37

at them and watch them, he would

30:40

fire his shotgun into the air over

30:42

their house, just terrorizing them. And there

30:44

was nothing anyone could do about it.

30:46

The one day, Bo, who

30:48

is the owner, is

30:50

sitting on the back loading dock, he's

30:53

basically, it's the morning, he's sitting in

30:55

a chair, he's drinking some coffee. Well,

30:57

McElroy shows up with a shotgun,

31:00

he points the shotgun at him. And

31:02

the one good thing is, Bo

31:04

knew enough about McElroy that he knew this wasn't

31:07

a threat, he was going to shoot him. So

31:09

he dodges out of the way at the last

31:11

minute, he pulls the trigger, and rather than literally

31:13

blowing his head off, he shoots him in the

31:15

side of the neck. So he

31:18

ends up on the ground, McElroy jumps

31:20

in the truck speeds off, tons of

31:22

witnesses see this, including the town marshal.

31:24

Town marshal runs up, he

31:27

saves Bo's life,

31:30

and Bo survives this and

31:33

brings McElroy up on charges of attempted

31:35

murder. At which point McElroy

31:37

goes to the marshal,

31:39

the town marshal, and

31:42

says, are you going to testify against me? And

31:44

he said, well, I mean, I have to, I'm the marshal,

31:46

and I saw the whole thing. And

31:48

McElroy says, well, I'm not

31:51

in the habit of letting somebody try and put me in

31:53

prison for the rest of my life and letting that person

31:55

live. At which point the

31:57

marshal quits his job, leaves town, and and

32:00

gets a job installing cable. He was like, I

32:02

have nothing to do with this guy. So

32:04

he just like books it out of town. He's done.

32:07

So McElroy, you know, he is arrested and he

32:09

is going to be charged for this. And

32:12

for the first time, this is like 22,

32:14

number 22 on the

32:16

felony list for McElroy for the

32:18

first time, the charges are actually

32:20

going to stick. Oh,

32:23

this guy gets my blood boiling. This

32:25

guy, this guy. Okay. So,

32:28

so with this Marshall, look,

32:31

I get it. We've definitely been threatened

32:33

before. No one has quite threatened me

32:35

to end my life if I, you

32:37

know, bring a charge or something. So I, I

32:40

haven't been in his same shoes and clearly

32:42

Ken is someone who is capable of

32:46

being violent and carrying through with his violent

32:48

threats. But this Marshall, like

32:50

there, it was

32:52

a selfish thing to do for him to do this.

32:54

I understand the fear. I absolutely do. But

32:56

when we get faced with these sorts of situations and

32:58

we have face threats, you turn around and slap them

33:00

with another charge. You get

33:04

witness protection. There are things that you

33:06

can take, but it seems like everyone just decided, you

33:08

know what, he's too dangerous. Let him

33:10

be someone else's problem. And this

33:12

is going to lead us to the vigilante justice

33:14

we will see later, because this

33:16

doesn't happen overnight. The town doesn't decide, you know,

33:18

we're just going to take out one guy. So

33:21

it's helpful to see the, the kind

33:23

of progression of lawlessness

33:25

that is allowed to happen under

33:28

Ken's reign of terror. So

33:31

this brings us to 1981. Ken

33:34

utilizes his usual tactics of

33:37

intimidating the witnesses for months leading up

33:39

to this trial of him

33:42

shooting Beau point blank. But

33:45

the bone camps were sick of his

33:47

constant harassment and they held strong. They

33:49

were not going to be intimidated. They

33:51

knew what all of McElroy's tendencies were.

33:53

And they're like, no, I am

33:56

by the grace of God alive. We are pressing

33:58

charges. This guy, the 20. second time is going

34:01

to be the charm. He's not going to continue

34:03

to terrorize our community. Now,

34:05

Mackerel's trial for attempted murder

34:07

began. His defense attorney,

34:10

again, Richard Jean McFadden, tried to

34:12

paint Bowen Camp as the aggressor.

34:15

A little bit tough, but you know,

34:17

again, this has worked before, but only

34:19

one person

34:22

has a blast hole through their neck, not the

34:24

other one. And he claims that

34:27

Bowen Camp was the one who actually came at

34:29

Ken with the knife and Mackerel

34:31

had no choice but to defend himself.

34:33

So essentially this is a self defense

34:36

theory. In the

34:38

end, Mackerel was convicted, but

34:41

not of the original charge of

34:43

attempted murder, but of the lesser

34:45

charge of assault. So

34:47

instead of a serious sentence,

34:49

he received just two years.

34:54

But you may think,

34:56

well, at least two years, he can get

34:58

off the streets and stop killing people because

35:00

you can tell that his crimes are escalating

35:02

in violence. The

35:05

relief for the residents of Skidmore would

35:07

not last long because the judge allowed

35:09

Mackereloy out on bond pending an appeal

35:11

of the conviction. And

35:13

even if he went to prison, everyone knew that Mackereloy

35:15

was looking at just a few months in prison at

35:18

the most because of the way sentences

35:20

work, where if you're sentenced to two

35:22

years, you may serve a few months,

35:24

good behavior. You're out on parole. This

35:28

is not going to do it for the town of Skidmore. And

35:30

if you're feeling frustration, you should be. I

35:33

mean, this is how many people do you have to shoot?

35:35

And they were shot to be killed. These

35:39

were not warning shots. He didn't shoot them in the

35:41

foot. He tried to blow off Bone Camp's face and

35:43

he just missed because Bone Camp dodged. He

35:47

tried to kill Romain Henry and shot him

35:50

in the stomach twice. But

35:52

again, he somehow survived. These

35:55

people should have been dead. These shouldn't have been attempted

35:57

murder cases. they

36:00

should have been homicide cases. And instead

36:02

he keeps walking. And even though he

36:04

has a conviction this time, it looks

36:06

like he's going to walk and he's

36:08

quite literally walking while the appeal is

36:10

pending. And

36:13

the thing is, appeal bonds pretty rare. You

36:15

know, it's one thing to get a bond

36:17

before you're convicted. But usually once

36:19

you're convicted of any kind of violent

36:21

crime, you're going to be remanded to custody. Even if you're going

36:23

to have appeal, we talked about this and I forget when we

36:25

talked about it, we've talked about it in some

36:27

prior episode, but not in this case.

36:30

In this case, you got a guy

36:32

who's charged with attempted murder, who gets

36:34

convicted of assault. The prosecuting attorney was

36:36

a few months out of law

36:38

school and later say he had no idea how dangerous

36:40

his guy was when he prosecuted him. And they sort

36:42

of did the best they could. This is

36:45

the charge that they got to

36:47

stick, but the judge is

36:49

going to let him out. And, you

36:52

know, appeals take a while. So he's going to be

36:54

out a while no

36:56

matter what. And

36:59

even if he goes away, it's only going to be for a few months.

37:01

It's going to be a short vacation at best. And

37:04

it only is going to get worse.

37:06

So the townspeople Skidmore, they are growing

37:08

more and more concerned about the threat

37:10

and macro for this community. And

37:13

they're hearing him. He's boasting around town about what

37:15

he's going to do to Bo

37:17

Bowen camp. Now that he's out on bond this

37:20

time, you know, he's not going to miss. And

37:23

a lot of the townspeople, they

37:25

went to the courthouse and they

37:27

saw the sentencing and they saw

37:30

justice fail them. And

37:33

they decided they were going to wait on the

37:36

law anymore. So in the morning of July 10th,

37:38

1981, several townspeople met with the county sheriff.

37:41

Remember their Marshall

37:44

has flat down. So they don't have

37:46

him. So they meet with the county

37:48

sheriff at the American Legion Hall in

37:50

Skidmore to discuss what they can do to

37:53

protect themselves and the town from

37:55

McElroy. And it's

37:58

a little unclear what exactly was said. at

38:00

this meeting, there were

38:02

pretty much every male in the community

38:04

was there. Not all of them, but

38:07

most of them. And

38:09

the sheriff supposedly suggested that they

38:11

should try some sort of neighborhood

38:13

watch, but he told them,

38:15

at least he would say later on, he told them, do

38:18

not confront McElroy he's

38:20

always armed. He's always

38:22

going to be dangerous. But

38:26

at this point, the,

38:28

the residents of Skidmore, they're,

38:30

they're feeling the danger already, whether they confront him

38:32

or not. You know, they talked about

38:35

how this was a town where he didn't lock your doors,

38:37

but they started locking them now because

38:39

of McElroy McElroy at one point that there

38:42

was, you know, in a town like this

38:44

has one big church, everybody goes to McElroy had threatened

38:46

the preacher several times. And,

38:49

you know, the preacher is afraid of

38:52

McElroy. Everyone is afraid of McElroy

38:54

and it doesn't seem like law enforcement is going to do

38:56

anything. And there's kind of this, there's

38:58

also this additional thing, you know, I said

39:00

at the very beginning, when he rapes and

39:02

marries this teenage girl from the town, it's

39:04

kind of an affront to the entire town

39:06

because he's clearly been married now four times,

39:09

and if he can do it to this 12 year old girl, what's

39:12

going to stop him from going after the

39:14

next, you know, sixth grade girl, maybe younger.

39:16

So the next daughter, the next granddaughter, the

39:19

next niece of another person in this 400

39:21

person town. And

39:23

here he is, not just like

39:26

his other crimes, doing it and walking

39:28

away with it. He's getting to wear

39:30

this particular crime, what he's done to

39:32

Trina, her entire family, the dog as

39:34

a badge on his shoulder, right? He

39:36

gets to walk around with her as

39:38

his wife and the children

39:40

that they have together, the boldness of

39:43

that type of thing for this small

39:45

town is just a constant reminder how

39:47

he has crowned himself

39:50

King terror. And so the people at this meeting

39:52

made it pretty clear to the sheriff that that,

39:54

that suggestion wasn't good enough for them, that they

39:56

were, they were tired of this, that

39:58

action needed to be taken. And

40:00

so the sheriff at this point, he not

40:02

only leaves the meeting, but he

40:04

gets out of town. He leaves town.

40:07

So now you've got the people of

40:09

Skidmore, you've got Ken McElroy,

40:12

you got no law enforcement anywhere. It's

40:14

basically the wild west. And the question that

40:16

is on everybody's mind is what

40:19

do we do? How do we stop this? As

40:25

we all know, there are things in

40:27

life you have to compromise on. Whether

40:30

it's that apartment that's in your budget,

40:32

but you got the upstairs neighbor who's

40:34

constantly playing the drums or you're going

40:36

to the grocery store that's always out

40:38

of just about everything, but it's nearby

40:40

and maybe it's a little bit cheaper.

40:42

But when it comes to your health,

40:44

there is no compromise. So don't go

40:46

back to that one doctor who uses

40:48

your appointment to catch up on the

40:51

latest headlines or the gossip just because

40:53

they're available right now or take your

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42:18

So the mob headed down to

42:20

the D&G Tavern where McElroy was

42:22

having a morning drink. Not

42:25

a, not a nightcap, but a morning

42:27

drink with his wife,

42:30

Trina. When McElroy and

42:32

Trina got up to leave the bar,

42:34

the group followed him outside. Now

42:36

Trina and Ken got into Ken's Chevy Silverado

42:38

and all of a sudden shots rang out

42:41

and Ken had been hit by a bullet.

42:43

Now one of the men in the mob

42:45

opened the passenger door of the truck and

42:47

escorted Trina out of the vehicle and into

42:50

a nearby bank. They did not want to

42:52

hurt Trina. Their target was Ken. And

42:56

all that we know is that many, many

42:58

shots rang out for 20 seconds

43:00

more. McElroy had

43:02

been hit twice with bullets from

43:04

two different guns and a mob

43:06

of 30 to 60

43:09

residents witnessed the attack, but no

43:11

one called an ambulance. Instead,

43:13

they watched as the man who had

43:16

terrorized them for years bled out on

43:18

the steering wheel. When they

43:20

knew the job was done and

43:22

Ken's terror had been ended, the

43:25

mob simply dispersed, returning to life

43:27

as normal. Ken McElroy was

43:29

dead at the age of 47. And

43:32

when they describe this, when you hear people

43:34

describe this, this whole scene, it's just, it's

43:37

amazing. So they leave the American

43:39

Legion Hall and

43:42

they go down to where

43:44

they're drinking. And everybody says

43:46

that these people just walk into the bar

43:49

and surround the table where McElroy

43:51

and Trina are, but they

43:53

don't say anything. They

43:55

just stand there staring at them

43:58

while they're sitting there. until

44:00

finally, they're like,

44:03

we're gonna leave. So, Ken

44:06

and his wife, they leave, and

44:08

they just follow them out. And

44:11

then the shooting starts. And one

44:13

person said, you know, when he got shot,

44:15

his foot fell on the accelerator. So the

44:17

car's in park, the engine's

44:19

going. And like I

44:21

said, nobody does anything. So the

44:24

engine just goes until the engine burns up.

44:26

And it's like smoking. And the smoke

44:28

from the car was the first time

44:30

that anybody, because nobody, nobody called the

44:32

police train is locked up in the

44:34

bank. She can't, she can't see anything.

44:36

And they don't let her out for a while.

44:38

So it takes a while for anybody to even,

44:41

even show up. He'd

44:43

been hit twice. There were at least three

44:47

different calibers of

44:49

bullets found. So there were at least

44:51

three guns. There could have been more

44:53

than that. We just know there were three calibers. So,

44:56

you know, this was kind

44:58

of a miracle. He was only hit twice, but twice,

45:01

twice did the job and he's

45:04

dead. And as I said,

45:06

it, Trina's brainwashed at this point. Like she, she

45:08

later on will tell 60 minutes that Ken

45:10

was the perfect gentleman. He had never done anything to anybody.

45:13

She had no idea why they would want to do this.

45:15

They were just apt to get him because he was so

45:17

successful, you know, and it's remarkable

45:19

to see that in everything he had done to

45:21

her. And she's,

45:23

she's been brainwashed by him. She'll later

45:26

bring a lawsuit against the town for his death.

45:29

And even at this point, I mean, she's been with

45:31

him for 10 years, right? I mean, the

45:33

majority of her life, he's literally not just

45:36

groomed her, but been able to educate

45:38

her in, in the Ken

45:40

fashion. So it doesn't surprise me that this is,

45:42

this is not just Stockholm syndrome, but she was

45:44

a mere child when she met him and he

45:46

was able to shape her entire outlook on life.

45:49

Yeah, I think that's right. And that's, that's

45:51

why she was so under his power.

45:54

So they launched, I mean, a massive investigation has

45:56

launched into his murder. This becomes

45:58

a national story. This story goes

46:00

viral back when going viral. One thing,

46:03

you know, this is every

46:06

newscaster who was, who was alive in 1981,

46:09

who's famous, whether it's a broker

46:11

or anybody is reporting on this story. It's

46:13

on every nightly news station. It just grabs

46:15

the attention of people. 60 minutes goes down

46:17

there to do it.

46:19

Local authorities, you know, they, they canvassed

46:21

the area. Sheriff shows up back up

46:23

in town to try and figure

46:26

out what happened. They interviewed basically

46:28

everyone in town. They're knocking on doors, trying

46:31

to see if they could find any witnesses, but

46:34

no one saw anything. The

46:36

common refrain was, well, when the shot started, you know, I

46:38

took cover cause I didn't want to get hit. So

46:41

I didn't see anything. I have no idea who

46:44

did it. No idea who fired anything. And

46:47

the suspect pool was endless. Everyone in town

46:49

had some reason to want Ken dead. Now

46:51

we've said before that if more than two

46:53

people know a secret and the

46:56

only way to keep it is if one of them is

46:58

dead. This is the exception to that rule because in this

47:00

town, pretty much everyone

47:02

knew who did it. I

47:05

mentioned the preacher earlier. They asked him at one point if he knew

47:07

who did it. He said, no, he was actually out of town that

47:09

day. So he might actually have been telling the truth, but

47:11

they said, if you knew who did it, would you

47:13

turn them in? And he said, no. And he asked

47:16

him why. And he said, well, there's a verse in

47:18

the Old Testament. He sheds man's blood by man. She'll

47:20

show his blood be shed and just left

47:22

it at that. And I think that was basically

47:24

the feeling of the people in town

47:26

that this guy at

47:29

this point, this was the only solution and

47:31

whoever was brave enough to do it, it

47:34

needed to be protected. And

47:36

so everybody who interviewed said the same thing. They couldn't

47:38

spot the shooter. They had no idea where the bullets

47:40

came from. Trina claimed that

47:42

she did see the shooter and

47:46

she identified a local farmer, Dale Clement,

47:49

but there was no evidence tying Clement to

47:51

the crime. He's never been charged. She

47:53

actually could not say that she saw Clement

47:55

fire the gun. She could only say that

47:57

she saw him with a firearm. And

48:00

there's this whole legend in town about the way the

48:02

guns were dealt with. That basically at the end of

48:04

this, everyone pulled the weapons

48:06

together. They were broken up, taken

48:09

out of town, dumped in various rivers so

48:11

that they would never be found. So even

48:13

if Declamant did it, his gun would

48:15

have been gone and there was no way to tie it

48:17

to the killing. The FBI gets

48:19

involved, everybody gets involved, but nobody can

48:22

find any evidence of who killed a

48:24

man when his murder was witnessed by

48:26

60 people. Also

48:29

shows you how important it is to have trust.

48:32

The witnesses have to have trust

48:34

in the law enforcement system, right?

48:36

We've talked about this a lot

48:38

where there may be certain communities

48:40

that don't have crimes investigated or

48:42

prosecuted. While that may be true

48:44

because law enforcement may not be looking into them,

48:46

oftentimes there may be a trust factor with that

48:48

particular community who's like, why would I tell you

48:51

anything? He's like, why would I

48:53

tell you anything? Law enforcement, you've done nothing for

48:55

my community. In fact, you try to peg things

48:57

on us that we don't want. When you don't

48:59

have witnesses who talk, even

49:01

something as public as Ken's public

49:03

execution, you're not going to find

49:05

anything. Doesn't matter how good your

49:08

agents are. Doesn't matter if you bring in

49:10

the FBI and all the resources in the

49:12

world. If you don't have witnesses to talk

49:14

and you don't have evidence, you don't have

49:16

a charge. Now fast forward to 1984, three

49:19

years after her husband's murder,

49:21

Trina McCloud filed a $5

49:23

million wrongful death lawsuit against

49:25

several entities, including the County

49:28

of Notaway, the town of

49:30

Skidmore, Dell Clement,

49:32

Sheriff Dan Estes, and

49:34

Skidmore Mayor Steve Peters.

49:37

Ultimately, and this is

49:39

tough for her, right? I mean, she probably didn't

49:41

have much of an education after middle school. And

49:44

she had been living with this man who provided

49:46

for her for a decade. She had more than

49:48

one child that she had to provide for. And

49:50

all of a sudden, she

49:52

probably didn't have much means to make a living

49:54

to support her young family. And

49:56

she had been brainwashed. She thought this man

49:58

was the love of her life. the father

50:00

of her children, a perfect gentleman to everybody.

50:03

And it doesn't surprise me that

50:05

in that state of mind, she

50:07

brings this wrongful death lawsuit. Now,

50:10

ultimately, this matter is settled out of court for $17,600.

50:14

It did not lead to any information

50:17

regarding Ken's killer. I suspect that the

50:19

town just settled with her because they

50:21

felt bad for Trina and wanted to

50:23

help provide for her and her children,

50:25

but it wasn't about feeling any remorse

50:27

for Ken's death. So

50:31

what's interesting is despite

50:34

the fact that Ken was, Ken was

50:36

gone, this wasn't the end of the

50:38

troubles for Skidmore. Some people

50:40

claim that Skidmore was sort of cursed

50:43

by this whole thing. And

50:45

there have been some pretty well-known cases that have come out of

50:48

this tiny little town. Remember, we said it only had like

50:50

400 people. But

50:52

there's the disappearance of Branson Cain Perry

50:54

in 2001 and the murder of

50:56

Bobby Joe Stenet in 2004. Those

50:58

are both pretty famous cases in

51:00

the true crime world. And

51:03

the town kind of fell apart.

51:06

A lot of people, you know, there was all that attention

51:08

on the town. It became sort of a,

51:11

you know, macabre morbid tourist

51:14

attraction. A lot of people moved

51:16

out, left the town behind. There's not much

51:18

left of it nowadays and people sort of

51:20

trace it all back to this

51:23

day when this happened. And

51:25

look, are we ever going to know

51:27

who did this? I think

51:29

the answer is probably no. We're going on

51:31

what, 43 years now since

51:34

this happened. And to this day, people

51:37

will not say who did this. And

51:41

there's probably multiple people who pulled the

51:43

trigger, but none of those people have

51:45

ever been identified. And as long

51:47

as the people of Skidmore, the ones who were

51:49

left, as long as

51:51

they stay tight-lipped, this

51:53

is going to be a

51:56

mystery about what exactly happened.

51:58

But certainly, not why

52:01

it happened. And you know

52:03

if you want to see sort of, I said

52:05

this is right for a good documentary and it is.

52:07

There is a documentary on it. I believe it was

52:09

a I believe it was

52:12

a Sundance documentary. No one

52:14

saw a thing I think is what what it was

52:16

titled and it interviews some of the people who still

52:18

left. I will say this the

52:20

very first guy they interview they

52:22

do this they do one of those shots where like

52:24

the guy's standing in front of his house smiling.

52:27

One of the creepiest guys I've ever seen like

52:29

when that guy smiles at the camera it's like

52:31

straight out of a horror movie. So it's worth

52:33

watching the documentary just for that just for that

52:35

one scene. But it's a good documentary because it's

52:37

all the people who are left including

52:39

some of the people directly involved. The

52:42

daughter of the grocer talks about

52:44

this. She lived through all this and

52:46

she was around when he was threatening her her family

52:48

and she talks about it. So it's

52:50

a very interesting thing to look back

52:53

on and to see how the bonds of

52:55

silence remain intact all

52:57

these years later. And look

52:59

that's the story and that's

53:02

enough. I mean the story is

53:04

enough. It's a it's an amazing

53:06

story mind-blowing story great

53:08

true crime thing. But I think it's

53:11

something that's we're talking about a little bit. Not

53:14

so much. Normally we do theories at this point. We

53:16

don't really need to do theories. But

53:18

I do think it's worth talking about how this

53:20

happened. And I guess the

53:22

ultimate question is if you

53:25

were in these people's shoes what

53:27

would you have done? Yeah I think this raises

53:29

so many questions that are you

53:32

know it's easy to look at this just say oh

53:34

this is a vigilante justice and also this

53:36

is the 80s like with anything like this happened today.

53:39

But I think this is a real lesson

53:41

in what leads to vigilante justice. What happens

53:44

when the justice system the law enforcement kind

53:46

of break down in any sort of confidence

53:48

for the people who are supposed to be

53:50

depending on it. And also

53:53

we clearly don't want vigilante justice

53:55

on the regular but is there ever a

53:57

time when it's appropriate? This brought to mind

53:59

a recent example from my

54:01

home state, Texas. I can't remember the exact town, but it was

54:03

a more rural town. And

54:06

essentially, there was a

54:08

father who had hired this man

54:10

to do work at their farm.

54:14

And he found that man who was, you

54:16

know, I don't know, a 30, 40 year

54:18

old man, raping his young,

54:20

young toddler daughter on their

54:22

property. And it wasn't a

54:25

heat of the moment thing. He walked back

54:27

to his house, got his gun, came and

54:29

shot the man in the face, killing him.

54:31

And there was no arrest, no prosecution. That

54:33

town was a very small town. And they

54:35

were like, nope, that vigilante justice

54:37

was, it wasn't quite the same as this particular

54:39

situation. But the entire town was like, no, we

54:42

don't need to drag him through the criminal

54:44

justice system because that was righteous. But

54:47

if you extrapolate that to like, if that's how we

54:49

did justice across like all of New York City or

54:51

LA, is that

54:53

the system we want to live in? That's

54:55

an utter breakdown of law and order. And

54:57

so in some ways, though,

54:59

this story, Ken

55:01

McElroy's story, seems to be the

55:03

lack of law and order, I

55:06

would say that it was law and order lacking

55:08

this entire time for decades that leads to the

55:11

ultimate lack of law and

55:13

order. And if you want law and order, which

55:15

I think we do, because we want some sort

55:17

of due process, some sort of justice,

55:20

right, some sort of process in it so that it

55:22

isn't just someone gets to decide,

55:24

one person gets to decide whether you're guilty and

55:27

then execute the death penalty on you at

55:29

their whim, right? They get to just show up at the

55:31

bar and decide that that's the day

55:33

you die. I don't think that's the system most of

55:35

us want to live in. But the

55:38

choices that we may make that lead to an

55:40

utter breakdown of law and order, the

55:44

rational outcome is going to be vigilante justice,

55:46

which I don't think is really justice at

55:48

all. You know, the good thing about this

55:51

story is how

55:53

much it took to get

55:55

these people to this point. This was

55:57

not a one-off thing. though,

56:00

this was sort of

56:02

a catastrophic failure across the board

56:05

of every single aspect of the

56:07

justice system. You got the martial

56:09

quitting. You got the, you

56:12

know, the sheriff shows up and basically says, well,

56:14

you're on your own, whatever you

56:16

do, don't confront him because he's always armed. Yeah,

56:19

that's part of the problem there, chief. And then

56:21

he just leaves. He's like, okay, well, I'm

56:23

gonna have town I'm going back to the county seat. Yeah,

56:25

good luck. Right? Then you have

56:28

the justice system. You have juries who won't

56:30

convict. You have witnesses

56:33

who are willing to purge themselves. You

56:35

have judges who when they do have the opportunity,

56:37

I mean, the judge had to know, you know,

56:40

when you talk about bonds and whether to let

56:42

somebody out, I mean, you can bring in all

56:44

sorts of stuff if you're the prosecutor, you

56:47

know, the judge, maybe he convinced the jury that he,

56:49

you know, just assaulted the guy when he shot him

56:51

in the neck. When he

56:53

only shot him in the neck because he missed his

56:55

head. Maybe he convinces the jury of that. But

56:57

the judge should have known better. You know,

57:00

the judge should have said, you're not getting a bond for this.

57:02

I don't care if they convicted you of trespassing,

57:04

jaywalking, you're going,

57:07

you're gonna be in jail until your appeal

57:09

is done. And then you're going to prison

57:11

after you lose it. But

57:13

instead of doing that, you had this cascading

57:15

failure. And the thing about society and think

57:17

about civilization is it, it's

57:19

a fragile thing. And the most basic,

57:22

we talk about this sometimes, the

57:25

most basic reason for

57:27

societies to exist is

57:31

justice. You know,

57:33

you can you can do a pretty good

57:35

job surviving on your own, you

57:37

know, out in the woods or whatever. People

57:40

did for a really long time growing their own

57:42

food or hunting their own food or whatever. But

57:45

at some point, when enough people come together in

57:47

a certain area, you're gonna start having crime. And

57:49

when you do, how are you going to deal

57:51

with that? Is it just gonna be sort

57:54

of blood vendettas? And will you

57:57

kill my friends? So now I'm

57:59

going to kill you and then your friend's going

58:01

to kill me and then my son's going to

58:03

kill him. And the sort of

58:05

thing you saw, I can Sicily in the 1800s where, you

58:07

know, there were no men in the towns because all the

58:09

men had been killed by vendettas or whatever. Like, is that

58:11

what you're going to have? Are you going to set up

58:13

a civilization in a society with a justice system? And

58:16

this is why we talk about sometimes

58:18

how important it is that

58:21

our system is balanced.

58:24

And one of the reasons we like to bring

58:26

the perspective we did to true crime is because true

58:28

crime is incredibly unbalanced. All the

58:31

perspectives in true crime, or a lot of them are

58:33

from a perspective of the system is

58:36

corrupt and the police are always conspiring

58:38

to frame people. And you know,

58:40

it needs to be easier to win

58:43

an appeal and it needs to be easier to get a new

58:45

trial. It needs to be easier to be acquitted.

58:47

It needs to be easier to get out on bail. Well,

58:50

all of that came together in this case. You

58:52

know, this guy, yeah, he, he

58:54

benefited not from, from that. I

58:56

don't know how he managed to do everything he did, but

58:58

he couldn't be convicted. And when he was convicted, he got

59:01

out on bail and you know, and all this other stuff.

59:03

And at some point it just breaks down. At some point

59:05

people are not going to put up with it anymore and

59:07

they're going to start taking law into their own hands. And

59:09

that's never a good thing. Is it as,

59:12

as you know, people from my town where I was

59:14

growing up would say, I mean, sometimes people just need

59:17

killing. And that was the perspective of the folks in

59:19

Skidmore is that he just needed killing and they did,

59:21

they did it, they killed him. And

59:23

was the world better off when he was

59:25

dead? Absolutely. No question the world was better

59:28

off, but was

59:31

that the best thing for Skidmore? No.

59:34

Was it the best thing for the people who had to do it? Absolutely

59:36

not. Did those people break the law? Yes, they

59:38

did. The thing is, even

59:40

if they had been arrested, there was no grand jury that

59:42

would have indicted and no jury that would have convicted not

59:44

in that town. Like you were going to have to go

59:47

somewhere else if you wanted to get justice for kid, because

59:49

the people in that town were not going to give it to him. And

59:53

I think it's a story that can just be

59:55

fascinating and you can enjoy it, but it's a

59:57

warning too. It's a warning that when things get

59:59

better, it's a warning. get this bad, people

1:00:01

will not just sit on their hands. Like at

1:00:03

some point, they will act and look, you

1:00:06

know what could have happened in this case? Trina could have been killed.

1:00:09

Very easily, she could have been killed. And

1:00:11

she I don't care what she said and that she

1:00:13

defended him and all the other stuff. She was an

1:00:16

innocent victim of this man who had been brainwashed

1:00:19

by him for the better part of a

1:00:21

decade. And it would

1:00:24

have been very easy for her to have been an

1:00:26

innocent victim in this. And it was just by the

1:00:28

grace of God that she wasn't because they'd already shot

1:00:31

him once by the time they got around the car.

1:00:34

And I don't know, like, I'm

1:00:36

not going to condemn the people of Skidmore for doing this, because I

1:00:39

think they had to I think they were at a point where they

1:00:41

just had to do something. You know, Beau was gonna die

1:00:43

if they didn't do this. His family might

1:00:45

have died, his daughter might have died, more people might

1:00:47

have died. So they felt they had to do it.

1:00:49

But that doesn't make it a good thing. It

1:00:51

is it is just an awful thing.

1:00:54

And an indictment of the justice system in that area

1:00:56

at that time. The

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said. I don't have much more to say except

1:03:11

I think what you emphasize is really important here.

1:03:13

This was an interesting story. We

1:03:16

are all fascinated because my first response

1:03:18

in learning about Ken was, man, what

1:03:20

a bad dude. You're

1:03:23

right. If he had not been killed, there was

1:03:25

going to be so much more violence. He promised

1:03:27

it. He was going to go after Bowen Camp

1:03:29

because Bowen Camp had the audacity to actually bring

1:03:31

him to trial and get him convicted. This was

1:03:33

not going to be Ken's last killing, and Trina

1:03:35

wasn't going to be his last victim. He was

1:03:37

going to continue to terrorize in each crime that

1:03:39

he got away with, and I think he got

1:03:41

away with Bowen Camp's shooting because it was only

1:03:44

an assault conviction and he was walking the streets

1:03:46

and he was ultimately going to serve no time.

1:03:48

He was going to get bolder and bolder. They

1:03:50

had no choice because law enforcement failed them, and

1:03:53

I think the takeaway from what you just said

1:03:55

is this is a warning to all of us.

1:03:58

We talked about this a lot where people come to us

1:04:00

and they're like, like, tear down the justice system. And we

1:04:02

say replace it with what? Because I don't

1:04:04

think you actually want no system whatsoever. I don't

1:04:06

think you actually want vigilante justice when you don't

1:04:08

get to pick who the vigilante is. You

1:04:11

don't get to be Batman running around deciding

1:04:13

what justice is. That type of a world

1:04:15

is not one we want to live in.

1:04:17

We don't want what happened

1:04:19

to Ken to have to be the only

1:04:22

way we can get justice for our sixth

1:04:24

grade child who's being raped and impregnated,

1:04:27

right? We want real justice

1:04:29

for Trina. If that had

1:04:31

been stopped back in the sixth grade, her life would

1:04:33

be wildly different. But instead, the

1:04:35

justice system failed her and the town of

1:04:37

Skidmore repeatedly, repeatedly, until they had to take

1:04:40

matters into their own hands. And

1:04:42

I hope this is a

1:04:44

warning story and a standalone and not something

1:04:46

that we begin to see in towns and

1:04:48

cities across the world. But,

1:04:50

you know, we know our justice system the

1:04:53

most where people don't want there to be

1:04:55

police. They don't want repercussions for violent criminals.

1:04:58

And eventually the problem is the swing

1:05:00

will go over the swing set. When

1:05:03

people come for your own children, when they

1:05:05

come and rape your children, like parents are

1:05:07

not going to sit by and do nothing

1:05:09

about it. And then we really do fall

1:05:11

into utter disarray and chaos in a way

1:05:13

that will not make the society a more

1:05:16

just place. Amen. Amen. And I think that's

1:05:18

a good point to end this on. So

1:05:20

I hope you both enjoyed this this case,

1:05:22

but I hope you've also, you know,

1:05:25

some thinking about it too. I'm very interested

1:05:27

to see what the discussions about this on

1:05:29

Twitter and the gallery and everywhere else, how

1:05:32

they go, because we always have some good ones. And I know

1:05:34

there'll be people on both sides of this. I know there'll be

1:05:36

people who think this was absolutely

1:05:39

what the town had to do. And there will be some people

1:05:41

who say no, that this is you should never do this. You

1:05:44

know, this was murder. You

1:05:46

know, that's all there is to it. It was

1:05:48

an extra judicial killing. And once you start justifying

1:05:51

those, you end up in

1:05:53

a very bad place. And we've been in

1:05:55

a very bad place in our

1:05:57

nation's history when it comes to this kind of stuff. And

1:06:00

when people take the law into their own hands,

1:06:02

they can end up doing some really horrible, terrible,

1:06:04

awful things. So I'm glad

1:06:06

that this story, one of

1:06:08

the reasons it's so fascinating is because it is so rare. It's

1:06:10

not like you see this every day, but

1:06:13

it's definitely one that I think is gonna

1:06:15

be worth some discussion. Well,

1:06:17

we wanna hear what you guys think. Shoot us

1:06:19

an email, prosecutorspod@gmail.com at prosecutorspod for

1:06:21

all your social media. And

1:06:23

hello to all of you watching this on YouTube. And thank

1:06:25

you to all our patrons who are here. I forgot we

1:06:28

were recording this tonight I sent an email or I posted

1:06:30

we're gonna do it like 20 minutes beforehand and a hundred

1:06:32

people still showed up. So you guys are

1:06:34

awesome. We really love your thoughts

1:06:36

and your comments. And we love

1:06:38

hearing what you think about these cases. Thank you so

1:06:40

much for supporting us. We could not do this without

1:06:42

you. Okay, Alice, you wanna answer

1:06:44

some questions? Always.

1:06:48

Okay, the first one's gonna be easy, but

1:06:50

it's by two different people. So we're actually, we're knocking out

1:06:52

two questions. And I

1:06:54

think more people have asked this at some point, but this is

1:06:57

from Pera Vieja and Kendra. And

1:06:59

they both wanna know if we've ever prosecuted someone who turned

1:07:01

out to be innocent? No.

1:07:04

No. Not even close. I mean, not

1:07:06

even like a doubt. And that's the

1:07:08

thing like- I've actually had very few

1:07:11

cases where there were even actual innocence

1:07:13

claims. There were defenses to be made,

1:07:15

but in no violent crime, I'm

1:07:17

trying to think, in no violent crime was

1:07:19

there an actual innocence defense even. In

1:07:22

my white collar cases, yes, because they always say I didn't

1:07:24

steal the money. They stole the money. That's

1:07:27

true. That's true. They do always

1:07:29

say that. Or I didn't mean to, it was an accident. I

1:07:32

didn't know the money was flowing straight into my bank account. I

1:07:34

know you have a record of it. I just didn't know that

1:07:36

all that billions of dollars was coming straight to me. Thought

1:07:39

it was a gift from Uncle Sam. Exactly. And

1:07:41

I think, look, the vast majority

1:07:44

of cases are just very straightforward.

1:07:46

The evidence is overwhelming, and

1:07:48

the person is obviously guilty. It

1:07:51

doesn't mean, you know, we see people who are acquitted,

1:07:54

we bring charges, and people

1:07:56

are acquitted. And if that happens, they're

1:07:59

not innocent. They are not

1:08:01

guilty in the eyes of the law, but that doesn't mean

1:08:03

they didn't do it. And, you know,

1:08:06

I can think

1:08:08

when I was doing death penalty litigation, there

1:08:10

was one guy who said he didn't do

1:08:12

it. And it was, it was absurd. I

1:08:15

mean, his, his innocence claim was absolutely absurd.

1:08:17

He very clearly did it. I can

1:08:19

remember one case that was, it was

1:08:21

pretty interesting case. That was the closest

1:08:24

one where there

1:08:26

was a guy, he was a police

1:08:28

officer, state trooper I think, and

1:08:31

his wife was murdered.

1:08:33

Well, his wife was found

1:08:36

dead in her car. The

1:08:39

car had been set on fire. And

1:08:41

so most of the evidence was destroyed and all this

1:08:43

various stuff. And

1:08:45

the argument the defense made is that it was

1:08:48

some sort of accident that her, her car, you

1:08:50

know, she'd gotten into some sort of accident and

1:08:52

the car caught on fire. And then that's

1:08:55

what happened. And he was

1:08:57

convicted. He was placed on death row.

1:08:59

He appealed. He won his

1:09:01

appeal and the

1:09:03

judge vacated his conviction and

1:09:07

he was released and he moved away and everything

1:09:09

else. And the office had

1:09:11

to make a decision about whether or not

1:09:13

to appeal the judge's ruling vacating his conviction

1:09:16

and ended up appealing the ruling, overturn

1:09:19

the ruling. He was recharged. He

1:09:21

was retried and he was convicted

1:09:23

again. And that

1:09:26

one was like the one that I was

1:09:28

personally involved in. That was the closest

1:09:30

one. And I always say that because at least the defense

1:09:32

in that case had an argument. At least

1:09:34

they had like a viable story. Usually they don't

1:09:36

really even have that. Usually

1:09:38

what the defense is saying is hold the

1:09:40

prosecution to their burden, make them

1:09:42

prove it. They're not, they're not really

1:09:45

offering any kind of alternative. It's just, they

1:09:47

have to prove it. If they don't prove

1:09:49

it, you need to equip my mind. And

1:09:51

that is a remarkably successful strategy. A

1:09:53

lot of defense attorneys have a lot of

1:09:55

success there. So it's not like most of the

1:09:57

cases we're familiar with where there's this big alternative.

1:10:00

theory and that's what they're fighting it over. That's what

1:10:02

you see on, that's the famous cases you see on

1:10:04

the news. That's not usually how it is. Okay. I

1:10:06

think we've answered a similar question this, but I'm going

1:10:08

to, I'm going to, I'm going to ask it anyway

1:10:10

because Moo Gloom asked it. Okay. So

1:10:13

if you created a podcast that was not

1:10:15

true crime, what would it be about? That's

1:10:18

a great question, actually, with

1:10:20

all the time that we have. I

1:10:24

guess it would have to be something I really enjoy talking

1:10:26

about. Like, I don't know that I

1:10:28

like gloom and doom, but I like talking to you.

1:10:30

So I'd have to do something with you, Brett. What

1:10:33

do you want to talk about? I mean,

1:10:35

I know what happens. I know yours is

1:10:37

horror. I would not do that with you. I'm sorry.

1:10:39

Yeah. So what would you do? You get it? What

1:10:41

would you force me to do with you? I

1:10:43

think I would do something like productivity hacks.

1:10:46

Like I think that people can eat a

1:10:48

lot healthier than they think

1:10:50

they can without having

1:10:52

these like grand cooking things. I, all

1:10:55

my recipes are like 20 minutes

1:10:57

and under because that's my stage of life and I try to

1:10:59

make them healthy and they taste pretty good

1:11:01

to me and my kids eat them. So I think

1:11:03

I'm out before you continue, before you continue, because

1:11:07

there's another question that's been sent to you. So

1:11:09

I'm just going to go ahead and ask that

1:11:11

question so you can answer it while doing this.

1:11:13

W. M. Hunt wants to know what's your best

1:11:15

life hack. So just go ahead, tell us your

1:11:17

best life hack. That's my life hack, right? Is

1:11:19

healthy foods. Like my kids act better because there's

1:11:21

no like sugar crashes. It's cheaper, like way cheaper

1:11:23

to cook at home than to order out, especially

1:11:26

as we all know, like fast food prices are

1:11:28

rising, you know, incredibly high, even higher, faster than

1:11:30

say groceries are. And so little

1:11:32

things like that where it's like, I'm not a great

1:11:34

cook at all, but I get my kids fed in

1:11:36

a healthy manner on a budget and

1:11:39

I'm able to do it while working two full

1:11:41

time jobs essentially. Right. And it makes me happy

1:11:43

to be able to do that. And so when,

1:11:46

when people like ask me to give

1:11:48

them recipes, I'm happy to do it, but

1:11:51

I'm always like, it's not fancy. It's not

1:11:53

gourmet, but it is healthy. It's organic. You

1:11:55

know, we don't use a bunch of things

1:11:57

we don't need. They're usually super. easy

1:12:00

ingredients, things you can buy at the grocery

1:12:02

store cause Brett, we don't live in a

1:12:04

super fancy place. We don't have super fancy

1:12:07

ingredients. So basically any sort of like local

1:12:09

grocery store will have stuff like

1:12:11

that, but it's not just cooking. I think it

1:12:13

fits into all these things that help streamline your

1:12:15

day to be able, and this doesn't

1:12:17

have to be for moms. This is just for anyone who

1:12:19

is trying to juggle like having

1:12:22

full-time jobs and a social life. And if

1:12:25

you want to do a podcast, those sorts

1:12:27

of things. Like I make aggressive

1:12:29

use of alarms on my phone.

1:12:31

Like I have very short memory and have too

1:12:33

much going on. I will forget things unless I

1:12:35

have an alarm set on my phone. So three

1:12:38

minutes before anything I have to do, including coming

1:12:40

up to record, I have an alarm on my

1:12:42

phone to keep me on track of everything. I

1:12:44

try to keep everything like five minutes ahead of

1:12:46

time. So that'll only be five minutes late. It's

1:12:51

perfect, Alice. And now's the best time to

1:12:53

announce coming soon. Prosser Cookbook by Alice. With

1:12:58

all the time that I have. No, I'll just-

1:13:00

Well, in terms of you have, just put that

1:13:02

together. We'll make a fortune. With each of these

1:13:04

like questions, I'll just give another, for

1:13:07

example- The people are like screaming, take

1:13:09

my money, Alice. You need to- No, you don't

1:13:11

want- You need to do the book. You don't

1:13:13

want to pay for these recipes is the problem,

1:13:15

right? But like, for example, there's this amazing chickpea

1:13:17

curry, which you can make vegetarian

1:13:20

vegan, or you can make it with

1:13:22

meat. But like even my kids love

1:13:24

it, and it's made with like sweet potato, coconut milk,

1:13:26

chickpeas, and then if you wanted to put chicken in

1:13:29

it, you could put chicken in it. And

1:13:31

ginger, soy sauce, all these sorts of things, but

1:13:33

throw it in your Instant Pot and it's ready

1:13:36

in 20 minutes. I mean, I will forget to

1:13:38

cook dinner until like four o'clock PM and my

1:13:40

kids need to eat like at five, 10. And

1:13:43

I'm like, ah, if this can be done, if I

1:13:45

can do it, you can too. So things

1:13:47

like that- We're gonna make her do it, guys.

1:13:49

I know you all want the cookbook. She's refusing.

1:13:51

She's like, I know it's easy. I'll just tell

1:13:53

you. Very vague.

1:13:56

Vague. Well, here's some ingredients. Go forth

1:13:58

and make it and you know. You know how much

1:14:00

I made an excellent guacamole tonight and it took five

1:14:03

minutes. No, it took three minutes guys Well, that's great

1:14:05

Alice. We'd love to know the recipe, but we don't

1:14:07

have the book. So how are we gonna know? Anyway,

1:14:10

we'll work on it. We're gonna work on it Okay,

1:14:15

well That's great. We

1:14:17

did three questions just boom boom. Boom like that.

1:14:20

I don't have any life hacks. I'm You

1:14:22

do have my tax I

1:14:25

do love history podcast But I feel like there's

1:14:27

so many good history podcasts out there that I

1:14:29

don't know that I have anything to

1:14:32

add you do But I'm not sure I do there

1:14:34

are some great history podcasts out there. I listen to

1:14:36

all of them Now I would love

1:14:38

to do history podcast. I would be fantastic. It would

1:14:40

be super fun I just I don't

1:14:42

want to be noise in the wind, you know, like

1:14:44

if there's already great podcast I don't want to just

1:14:46

add to it But if I can bring some different

1:14:49

noise in the wind Alice never not sometimes noise in

1:14:51

the wind Okay.

1:14:53

Well, this one's been fun But

1:14:55

you know, we're gonna do another one next week We're gonna

1:14:57

start a little bit longer one next week These last two

1:14:59

have been one episodes for those of you who like the

1:15:02

shorter episodes But we'll do a little

1:15:04

bit longer case for I guess our summer case I don't

1:15:06

know how long it'll last but it's

1:15:08

an innocence case an actual innocence case We'll

1:15:11

leave you leave it to you to decide whether

1:15:13

or not this person is actually Innocent

1:15:16

or not apropos of nothing as we

1:15:18

record this this is the 31st

1:15:24

today, I think is the 31st

1:15:26

anniversary of the murders in West

1:15:29

Memphis 3 so You

1:15:31

know keep those those families and those boys in your

1:15:35

Memory. All right, now as well if

1:15:38

you have nothing else to add Well, do

1:15:40

you have anything else to add before we sign

1:15:42

off? I do not but this was this was

1:15:44

a really interesting case because of all the esoteric

1:15:47

questions. We were able to get into I

1:15:50

know very interesting and I can't wait to have

1:15:52

the discussions with all of you later well, we

1:15:54

will be back next week with a new case,

1:15:56

but Until then I'm

1:15:58

Brett And I'm Alice. And

1:16:01

we are the Prosely. ["The

1:16:05

Prosely." theme

1:16:08

music plays in

1:16:11

the background.] I

1:16:24

keep forgetting Crime Con is this month, because I was like,

1:16:26

oh, I have this trip next week, and then I have

1:16:29

the trip after that, but then I'm done. And

1:16:32

Mr. Alice is like, Crime Con? I was like,

1:16:34

oh, right. Yeah,

1:16:36

that's kind of a big one. It's

1:16:38

a huge one. It's just, I live, I live

1:16:41

like day by day here. We try to make through each

1:16:43

day every day. Me too. Okay.

1:16:47

Me too. Okay. Ready to

1:16:49

record whenever you are. I'm ready. Okay,

1:16:52

three, two, one. ["The

1:16:56

Prosely." theme

1:16:58

music plays

1:17:00

in the

1:17:02

background.] ["The

1:17:24

Prosely." theme

1:17:27

music plays

1:17:30

in the

1:17:33

background.] ["The

1:17:52

Prosely." theme music plays in the background.] I'm

1:17:56

talking to that CIA guy tomorrow

1:17:58

morning, but... have to point it

1:18:00

unless you want to. I

1:18:02

have a- No, I've got something to say tomorrow morning. I have

1:18:05

a depo prep at two o'clock, so I hope the call doesn't

1:18:07

go longer than 30 minutes. If

1:18:10

you have to drop off your card, I'll- Oh my gosh,

1:18:12

I'm hosting dinner tomorrow. Guys, that 20 minute dinner is about

1:18:14

to come in handy. I told you

1:18:16

about it. I'm hosting dinner tomorrow. It's

1:18:30

summertime, and with

1:18:33

all of you,

1:18:35

we'll be right

1:18:38

back. It's

1:18:59

summertime, and with Pluto TV Summer of

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