NOTORIOUS MURDERS > TIMELESS CLASSICS

Ken McElroy

By David Krajicek

Power over Women

He abandoned the other girls and their children and set up housekeeping with Alice, who began churning out more McElroy babies. Alice was joined in the bedroom and maternity ward in the early 1970s by Marcia, yet another of McElroy’s nubile lovers.

What did they see in him? He was no dream lover. He beat every woman he was intimate with, and one would later tell author Harry N. MacLean that McElroy’s sex tended to be violent and demeaning.

As a young man, McElroy was muscular and nominally handsome. His dark hair, sideburns and rather fine features gave him the vaguest resemblance to Elvis Presley. He had ample supplies of cash from his rustling profits. But by 1970 McElroy, like Elvis, had gone fat.   He wasn’t stupid, but he also wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought.

He carried himself like a tough guy, but only when he was armed with a gun or a knife. No one had ever seen him throw a punch—except at women. He his body was covered with awful, amateur tattoos: Mom, Ken, Love, Joan, Oleta, a dagger. His belly lapped over his belt buckle, and his wide-set eyes and beetle brow were somehow exaggerated by his expansive girth.

And in an incongruous act of vanity for a fat redneck, he began dying his hair an inky black.

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1. Keep an Eye on Him
2. McElroy’s Style
3. The Last Straw
4. Murder in Broad Daylight
5. On the Night Shift
6. He Loved Children
7. Power over Women
8. Another Teen Love
9. Saved by the Law
10. Invincible
11. Intent to Kill
12. A Mysterious Shooting
13. Fighting over Candy
14. The Last Word
15. The Law’s No Help
16. The Art of Intimidation
17. At Last, a Trial
18. The Town Reacts
19. Show of Support
20. The Investigations
21. Aftermath
22. Skidmore Shrinks
23. *New Chapter: Twenty-five Years Later
24. *New Chapter: Bowenkamp's Daughters Speak Out
25. *New Chapter: The Real Story about the Candy
26. *New Chapter: Raging Media Torrent
27. *New Chapter: Tarnish and Regrets
28. *New Chapter: Vigilantes or Necessary Justice?
29. Bibliography