The Creepiest Small Town In America | Yore Town Podcast Episode 27

10/09/23 • 22 min

12 Listeners

Every once in a while I stumble upon a story that leaves me thinking wow there is no way this is true. This story is one of those. From stories of the past to some a little more present dark and twist might be an understatement. If you read the title you know what town this is. If you haven’t well it’s Skidmore Missouri. This town puts the misery in Missouri.

Skidmore is a city in Western Missouri. The population in the latest census is 245 people. When you look up this town everything that it’s known for is not good. Not good at all. We use Wikipedia for a lot of stuff and you know this place is pretty dark based on it’s Wikipedia. It’s legit the shortest Wiki page I have ever seen. There are multiple major stories this town has seen I’m not even sure where to begin. Talking with a friend from near the area he suggests starting with the town bully.

The town bully is officially known as Ken Rex McElroy. He was born in 1934 the 15th of 16 kids born to a poor migrant tenant farming couple Tony and Mabel. He dropped out of school at 15 and was known as a thief, cow rustler, and womanizer. For over 20 years he was suspected of being involved in theft of anything from grain to gas to booze to livestock. Somehow was never charged in any of the 21 convictions. He ended up having more than 10 kids with multiple women.

In the ’60s and ’70s, he was more than the town bully and often referred to as a dictator. He ran the town from everything I have read and heard. He legit raped and pillaged for over 2 decades. If he thought you were pretty you were now his. It didn’t matter if you were 12 or older. He would steal whatever, whoever, whenever, and if you didn’t like it, watch out. He stole a 12-year-old girl that he did terrible things to and married and made her have his child at 14. The parents fought back he stalked them, burned their house down, and killed their pets. When the girl escaped and went back home he did the same exact thing to that family again and took her back.

Just like myself, you are thinking how in the heck could he do this? He had such a stronghold over anyone who wanted to press charges. He had a mob-connected lawyer, he would harass you like no other. He would stalk you, shoot you anything he wanted and so feared the police wouldn’t do anything. There is a story that in the summer of 1973 he was arrested for arson, assault, and statutory rape. He was released on a 2500 bail. His very young wife and their maybe fled and were put into foster care in a nearby town. When he got out he sat outside the foster home for hours at a time. He then told the foster family that they would trade him a girl for a girl so he could get his child back. He even threatened the foster family as he knew where their biological daughter went to school and which bus she rode. A few weeks before the dust settled on this he then shoots a farmer twice with a shotgun after the farmer told him to stop shooting on his property. He was charged with assault with intent to kill. He was acquitted after some locals came to his rescue.

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Previous Episode

Terror In The Adirondacks | Yore Town Podcast Episode 26

12 Recommendations

Let’s stick with the 1970s a wild time not only in the US but NY. There is a lot of good but even more bad that is going on not only in the US but the world. As mentioned in a previous episode the Texas Killing Fields was going on and so were some other serial killers. This one is fairly close to home. The Adirondacks.

The Adirondack Mountains are a massif of mountains in Northeastern New York that form a circular dome approximately 160 miles wide and covering about 5,000 square miles. Not an ideal place to have to have a manhunt. Especially in the 70’s when technology was not nearly as good as it is today.

12 crazy nights are something that these residents had to go through. This story starts in a heavily wooded area near the intersection of Route 8 and 30 in the town of Wells. Wells is in Hamilton County in NY with a population of 674 according to the last census. Four kids were camping when an unidentified man with a rifle tied them up and then proceeded to stab 18-year-old Philip Domblewski.

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Next Episode

The Attica Prison Riot | Yore Town Podcast Episode 28

13 Recommendations

For whatever reason I cannot stay away from the 70’s and NY jails so here is another wild story from the 70’s in a little place called Attica NY. I wonder if I was a prisoner in my past life in the 70’s in a jail or something.

Attica is a town in Wyoming County, New York, United States. The population was 7,702on the last census. The Department of Corrections is a major employer, as both the maximum security Attica Correctional Facility and medium-security Wyoming Correctional Facility are located here.Since the 1930s Attica had been a prison town, and most correctional officers live here or nearby with their families.

The Attica Prison Riot, also known as the Attica Prison Rebellion, the Attica Uprising, or the Attica Prison Massacre, took place at the state prison. it started on September 9, 1971, and ended on September 13 with the highest number of fatalities in the history of United States prison uprisings. At the time it was the 10th of notable prison riots from 1929 to 1971. What was wild there were 4 prison riots in 1971 and 6 in the ’70s.

In this riot, 43 men died. 33 of them were inmates and 10 were employees of the jail. all but one guard and three inmates were killed by law enforcement gunfire when the state retook control of the prison on the final day of the uprising. The Attica Uprising has been described as a historic event in the prisoners' rights movement.

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