For the next two days, Miller claimed, he and Rhoades drove through the countryside with Alice and Marty, who pointed out the farms they had burglarized or stolen hogs from. The two cops developed a cooperative, supportive relationship with the women, taking them to dinner and breakfast and asking about their children. The cops had a list of all the recent thefts, and as they drove by the farms, one of the women would say, “Oh, there’s one, that’s where we stole some hogs,” or “Over there, we broke into that house and stole some furniture.”
At one farmhouse, according to Miller, Marty got out of the car and showed them exactly how they had helped Ken steal the hogs. Marty even pointed out the tracks where they had walked the animals through the gate, and explained that they quieted a squealing pig by sticking a finger
up its ass. At another place, one of the women told Miller, they had served as lookouts by sitting on a hill across the road from the hog barn, where they could see approaching vehicles and signal Ken with flashlights if there was any trouble. The farmer who lost four hogs that night found the blanket the women had been sitting on. What burned him almost as much as losing the hogs was the human excrement he found-not far from the blanket on the hill.
At another farm, Alice told Miller, they were hiding in the bushes when he drove by in his sheriff’s car. “We were sure you saw us,” she said. Until then, Miller hadn’t realized he had ever been that close to Ken McElroy.
Shortly thereafter, Marty signed two statements reflecting question-and-answer sessions with Rhoades.
Rhoades: Marcia, you showed me a house in Andrew County which is one mile south of Highway 59 on Route K approximately one-half mile west. . . . Can you tell me if you were ever at this house and with whom?
marcia: I was there with Ken McElroy. He took several items out of the house and out of the cellar. He took several picture frames and a rocking chair out of the house.
rhoades: How did he get into the house? Was it locked?
marcia: He took a crowbar and pried open the back door. rhoades: Was there anything unusual about the shapes of the frames?
marcia: They were oval . . .
rhoades: Was one of the items an old-type chum?
marcia: Yes, but he got them out of the cellar. He got some jars.
rhoades: Was there anything else he got out of the buildings at the same time?
marcia: He got two gunny sacks of corn out of the corn crib. rhoades: Was it a wooden or metal corn crib?
marcia: Metal bin I guess it was.
rhoades: Would this have been about a year ago or more? marcia: This was more than a year ago—about one and a half or maybe two years. I know this was last year in the fall . . .
66 Harry N. MacLean
rhoades: Do you know what has since happened to these
items?
marcia: Bill . . . came over and he sold them to him. He has an auction company. He owns an antique place and I think he took some of them there.
rhoades: Did Ken tell you that Bill . . . bought some?
marcia: Ken told me Bill . . . came out and beat him out of all his stuff is the way he put it. He said he didn’t give him enough money for it or something.
rhoades: From your knowledge do you know if Bill . . .
knew these items were stolen?
Marcia: Yes, he did. I was there when Ken told him.
Marcia gave a second statement on hog theft:
rhoades: Marcia, last Friday, which would have been October IS, 1971, we were driving at your direction to a location north and east of Fillmore and you pointed out a lot or field which lies in the northeast corner of the intersection as being a place where you were when some hogs were stolen there. This is in Andrew County and Herschel Clizer owns this property. Will you tell me what transpired when you were there and who you were with?
marcia: Well, Ken McElroy, Glen . . . and I were coon hunting and on the way home Ken said that we might as well stop and get a load for the sale. We went down to this place and they left me parked on the road and they walked up to this hog lot and they walked one at a time down to the corner of the fence and then walked back to the car and put it in the trunk of the car.
rhoades: When you make a reference to getting a load of it, what do you mean?
marcia: Getting a load of hogs. They took the hog by the tail and walked it to the trunk of the car.
rhoades: About how many hogs did they take this time?
marcia: They made two trips but only had two at a time. Two out of there. They drove them up and took them to his dad’s place in Skidmore. Then they went back and got two more.
rhoades: Were you with them both times?
Marcia: Yes.
rhoades: Were these fairly large hogs?
marcia: Yes, about 275 pounds, I think. They were really big. That is why they only got two at a time. Had to make two trips back. Reason they only made two trips was because it was getting daylight. rhoades: Do you know the color of these hogs?
marcia: I think they were black and white. I couldn’t be positive. There was so many different colors.
rhoades: Where were the dogs after the hogs were loaded?
marcia: They were still hunting.
rhoades: Did you ever pick the dogs up from hunting that night?
marcia: Not that night. We went back the next day. Ken left his coat on the side of the road and the dogs would come back. We went back the next day.
rhoades: Is this very far from the hog lot?
marcia: We were coon hunting around Graham.
On the basis of statements made by both women, Andrew County Prosecuting Attorney Alden Lance filed four separate felony informations against Ken McElroy on February 4, 1972. The charges included stealing four hogs on July 1, 1971; breaking and entering a dwelling house and stealing various items on August 27, 1971; breaking and entering a dwelling house and stealing various items on September 23, 1970; stealing four hogs on September 13, 1971.
The records indicated that Alice and Marcia took several hogs to the auction barn in Oregon, Missouri, and received receipts made out in their names, which they turned over to Lance. Lance and Miller decided to wait for McElroy to come to the auction barn on the day of the sale to pick up his money. When he showed up, they arrested him for hog theft and took him to jail.
Because Lance had filed four separate informations, Miller decided to issue four separate warrants and arrest McElroy three more times. That way, he would be picked up, put in jail overnight, and bonded out four separate times. The only drawback was that the law had a hard time catching Ken McElroy. Few cops were eager to execute the warrants.
In one instance, Miller came upon McElroy by accident on a gravel
road at night. After pulling him over, Miller trained the spotlights on the rear of his car and radioed the patrol. He held his .357 Magnum on McElroy and spread-eagled him at the trunk of the car until the patrol arrived. The patrolman tried putting the cuffs on him, but they lacked an inch of making it around his wrists.
“What’ll we do now?” the patrolman asked.
‘Tell you what,” Miller replied, “I’ll put him in the passenger seat of my car and you follow behind.”
Miller slid behind the wheel and put the barrel of the .357 Magnum, which had no safety, under his left leg.
“Ken,” he said, “if you grab me or make a move, I’ll kill you.”
“I won’t do nothing,” said McElroy.
“I hope not,” Miller said, “because if I don’t get you, the trooper behind us will.”
“I won’t do nothing.”
The ride in was easy. McElroy was overly friendly, seemingly intent on convincing Miller that there would be no problem.
“I’ll be out in a few hours,” McElroy told Miller while being booked. McFadin was called, a bond hearing was held, and McElroy was out the next morning.
By the third arrest, catching McElroy was taking so long that Miller decided to serve the fourth warrant at the same time. For some re
ason, McElroy stayed in jail for two days this time before making bond. The lawmen decided to see if they could trick McElroy into admitting the thefts and burglaries. The prosecutor arranged for a patrolman to come to the jail looking and acting like a drunken cowboy. Badly in need of a shave, the patrolman wore a dirty shirt and greasy hat, stank of whiskey, and even had cow shit on his boots. He and Miller put on quite a show in the sheriff’s office where McElroy could hear it. The cowboy yelled and cursed the sheriff for picking him up, claimed he wasn’t drunk, and called Miller a stupid cop. Miller swore and banged into the desk as he tried to get the cowboy under control and relieve him of his personal possessions. After about ten minutes of this, Miller put the cowboy in the cell with McElroy. The poor cowboy-cop stayed up all night talking to McElroy, trying to get him to open up about what he was in there for, but McElroy didn’t utter so much as a complete sentence. When Miller let the patrolman out in the morning, the man shook his head in frustration, cleaned up, and left.
During McElroy’s stay the sheriff discovered some loose bricks in the wall of the common room, where the prisoners spent time during the day. The mortar between the bricks had been dug out, apparently with something like a spoon. Prosecutor Lance filed a new charge against McElroy for feloniously attempting to escape while lawfully imprisoned. McElroy denied the charges, but later admitted to Alice that he had dug the mortar out. He wasn’t trying to escape, he told her, he was just trying to provoke the sheriff by proving how easily he could undo his building.
Lance and Miller’s sole objective in these prosecutions was to nail Ken McElroy. Because the whole case rested on the women’s testimony, Lance granted Alice and Marty immunity from prosecution in return for their cooperation. Even so, the case was precarious—Lance had little confidence that the two women would hold firm and actually testify under oath in front of a judge.
Richard McFadin had been admitted to the practice of law in Missouri in 1956. He specialized in litigation and built his reputation in criminal cases, which made up 40 percent of his caseload. Not modest, he claimed to have won approximately 90 percent of his trials, the more glorious of which he would willingly recount in detail with only the slightest encouragement. A short, heavyset man of ruddy complexion, he was easygoing and affable, with a sophisticated type of country charm. He made some people uneasy, probably because they sensed that, behind the easy laugh and relaxed manner, a shrewd and calculating mind was sizing them up and probing for a way to pick their psychological pockets. They were right, and McFadin made no bones about it. He liked to repeat, with a self-promoter’s pride, a description of himself as “cunning and devious.” “You can call me cunning and devious,” he would say with a chuckle, “just as long as you don’t call me dishonest.” He loved the law and he loved the game—the strategy, the moves and countermoves—and he was good at it, particularly in front of a jury. Like all good performers, he knew his audience.
But like every good lawyer, he also knew that most cases were won by thorough preparation. He sent investigators out to interview every witness, follow up every lead, read every document, and look under every stone. Sooner or later, he usually found something, some discrepancy or contradiction, to hang his case on. And he pushed the law to its limit: His obligation to his client was to uncover and exploit every loophole and
every technicality in the law, to use every trick in his bag, while staying within the bounds of legality, if only by one millimeter. He was not morally concerned about or responsible for his client’s behavior—he was, in his own words, a “hired gun.” His sole concern was keeping his client a free man (and getting paid).
In the burglary and theft cases, McFadin saw clearly that there would be no case against his client without the testimony of Alice and Marty. McFadin took their depositions more than a year after the charges were filed, and both women completely recanted their earlier statements. Alice swore that Miller and Rhoades had threatened and coerced them into making the statements, and that none of the information was true. She and Marty had said what they said because they were mad at Ken and wanted to get even with him. (Their earlier statements confirmed that they had indeed been mad at him.) Lance was not surprised, but he was angry. He knew he had no choice but to dismiss all the charges, including the one for jail breaking. Right then and there at the deposition, he threatened to file perjury charges against the women. Alice asked McFadin to represent her, but he declined because of the obvious conflict of interest. The cases were dismissed, confirming for McElroy the rule of “no witnesses, no case.” Nothing came of the threatened perjury charges.
The only good thing resulting from all of this, in Sheriff Miller’s mind, was that the hog theft and cattle rustling came to a complete halt.
11
Alice returned to the McElroy farm near Skidmore. Not much had changed—Ken was gone most of the time, leaving Timmy to look after her and Juarez. Ken had a fear about being trapped on the farm, being unable to move. If a heavy snow began falling, or he heard that a bad storm was coming, he would take off and stay gone until the storm had passed and the roads were clear and dry. When he did come back, there was no telling what might be in store for her.
Tony died in 1970, and Mabel and Timmy moved to the small house down the road. Mabel took Tony’s death hard, and some family members feared that she wouldn’t last long, but they underestimated her strength. Alice turned to Mabel for comfort, talking to her about her problems with Ken, and Mabel listened by the hour. She cared about people in an old-fashioned way, and Alice knew Mabel could feel what Alice was feeling and understood her in her heart. Mabel consoled and encouraged Alice, and did what she could to make things better at home.
If Ken told anyone how he was feeling, if he confided to anyone his fears and anxieties about how his life was turning out, he talked to his mother. Others in the family tended to stay away from him, to leave him alone, but Mabel encouraged him to come to her and talk. She knew about some of his activities and what he was becoming—she had to go to court and put up the surety bond every time he got arrested, and she could see the marks on Alice. She talked to him about it, particularly about what he did to Alice, but she never judged him or shunned him. The most upset
she ever got with Ken was when she learned that Alice and Juarez were
going to leave the farm because he was going to marry the blond girl
from Graham.
12
Transcript of Trena’s Testimony,
February 5, 1985.
Attorney: Your father’s name was—your real father’s name was what?
trena: Clarence Otto.
attorney: Clarence what?
Trena: Otto.
attorney: Otto was his last name?
trena: I think it’s his middle name. attorney: Last name?
Trena: McCloud.
attorney: Is he alive?
trena: I don’t know.
attorney: Do you know where he lives?
Trena: I never have.
attorney: Was he married to your mother when you were born?
Trena: Uh-huh.
attorney: Never asked your mother where he was?
Trena: Uh-huh.
attorney: Did she know?
Trena: Huh-uh.
74 Harry N. MacLean
Trena Louise McCloud was born in the small prairie town of Whiting, Kansas, on January 24, 1957. Her mother, Treva, was the second child in a family of eight girls and four boys. In her early twenties Treva met Clarence McCloud, a county road worker, and moved in with him not long afterward. In the spring of 19S6, when they had been together about a year and a half, Treva became pregnant. One October afternoon in the seventh month of Treva’s pregnancy, Clarence told her he was going out for a few things and would be back shortly. He was never seen or heard from again. Treva would later tell Trena that the reason her father left her was “because he didn’t want you.”
Treva wasn’t ready to settle down, either, and she and her younger siste
r Brenda set off for St. Joe to seek their fortune, leaving Trena behind in the care of her grandparents in Whiting. Eventually, the two sisters migrated north to the Skidmore and Quitman area, where Treva met Ronnie McNeely.
Ronnie was a slight, almost skinny man. A nice enough guy and a decent worker, Ronnie wasn’t a strong personality. His nickname was “Muscles.” Growing up, Ronnie had done what a lot of poor boys did in rural northwest Missouri: He trained and traded dogs and hunted coons. In the fall hunting season, he would go out in the timber five or six nights in a row, hunting coon for the sport and to earn, sometimes, decent money for the pelts. He became good friends with another coon hunter and dog trainer, a man who preferred running his dogs through the timber and over the creeks on a moonlit night to doing anything else, except perhaps running women.
In Broad Daylight (Crime Rant Classics) Page 8