New Play 'Kenrex' Revisits Kenneth Rex McElroy's 1981 Unsolved Murder in Skidmore
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 3
New Play 'Kenrex' Revisits Kenneth Rex McElroy's 1981 Unsolved Murder in Skidmore
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 3
Summary
A new stage work, “Kenrex,” returns to the 1981 daylight killing of Kenneth Rex McElroy, a feared Skidmore, Missouri, man whose murder remains unsolved 45 years later.
The case has endured because McElroy, 47, was shot multiple times in his pickup outside the D & G Tavern on the town’s main street, with numerous witnesses nearby.
Witness Cheryl Huston said she saw the shooting from her parents’ grocery store and feared McElroy would kill others if he survived; her father had been shot in the neck by McElroy a year earlier.
McElroy had been accused of crimes including sexual assault and hog rustling, and the public killing of a widely feared local bully has echoed through Skidmore and popular culture ever since.