Daryl J. Hobbs

Media explanations of small-town vigilante murder

According to media accounts of the events leading up to the apparent vigilante-style murder, McElroy had been arrested at least eighteen times in the area for offenses including the shooting of a local farmer, rape, arson, and theft of livestock. Each time he was arrested, with the aid of lawyers from nearby Kansas City, McElroy was able to escape conviction and usually a trial would not even occur. McElroy allegedly terrorized those who were to appear in court to testify against him, leaving the prosecutor without witnesses and without a case. The critical event for the community occured when McElroy allegedly shot the loca170-year-old grocer after the latter had accused McElroys daughter of stealing a piece of candy from the store. The grocer survived after a lengthy hospital stay. Because the local minister had visted the grocer in the hospital, McElroy had telephoned him and threatened to maim his children and rape his wife. These phoned threats were nothing new for McElroy for he had frequently threatened local women with rape. In the case of shooting the grocer, as had happened orten in the past, McElroy threatened all potential witnesses; and almost a year later at the trial, the only witnesses were McElroy and the grocer. McElroy admitted shooting the grocer, but claimed that he had done

The Community in Rural America.

Preface Introduction: Studying the Community in Rural America The Community: An Interactional Approach The Rural-Urban Variable in Community Research The Community and Rural Well-Being Rural Community Development In Search of the Community in the Changing Countryside References Index