In Broad Daylight

Because the book was mentioned in the article that I opened this thread with, I got a copy of "In Broad Daylight" to add to my collection of books on psychopathy.

When I first began to read, I thought it was going to be rough going because it was about your pretty basic psychopath, the low-life kind. It was a decent length book (390 p. paperback), and I could not imagine what anyone could have to say about a low-life psychopath that could take that long.

I didn't realize that this was going to keep me up for a couple of late nights!

Why?

Well, the descriptions of the behaviors of the psychopath were not nearly as interesting as the descriptions of how people around him reacted!

There is almost no way I can describe it without simply quoting long passages of the book, so if you don't want to buy it, you can get the story HERE.

It was also interesting to observe exactly how the legal system in the United States is designed by and for the preservation of psychopaths and not for the protection of ordinary citizens nor for justice.

He was an ardent stalker long before the word was popularized on crime blotters. He used a form of drive-by shooting for intimidation. He was a ravenous pedophile.

And an analysis of his vast criminal oeuvre should also include abused-spouse syndrome, another more modern concept. He beat every woman-and girl-he was with, and they came back for more until McElroy discarded them like dirty dishrags when something younger came along.

He avoided theft and livestock rustling convictions by intimidating witnesses. He pointed guns at people-including a town marshal and a deputy sheriff-and got off scot-free. He shot a man, point-blank. The victim lived to finger McElroy, but a jury turned him loose unpunished.

He raped adolescent girls without repercussion. Once, he even burned down the house of a couple who protested the rape of their 13-year-old daughter. The owners dropped charges and allowed their adolescent child to marry the 30-year-old monster, a move that essentially nullified statutory rape charges.

No one could make a charge stick against this Teflon-coated hick-until the summer of 1981.

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And that's when something changed. This is another thing that interested me. For years this man was the scourge of several counties - a veritable one-man crime spree - and the people were all sheep, unable to stand up against him.

It was a murder in broad daylight on a small-town Main Street that was witnessed by up to four dozen people. But the sheriff soon learned that nobody saw a thing, even the men Trena McElroy said were standing just a few steps away when the shooting began.

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As I read this book, I realized that this whole situation in the town of Skidmore described exactly the conditions of the U.S. under the rule of its corrupt government, presently represented by the criminal neocon gang. And so, observing the moment that the "worm turned" was quite instructive.

The postmaster, Jim Hartman, said McElroy's killers should get a medal, not a noose. He likened them to the inventors of penicillin. "Nobody tried to hang them for finding a way to kill a germ," Hartman said.

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That is what we face with psychopaths and the criminal government of the U.S.

What is really scary is the reproductive profligacy of this man:

During his 20s, McElroy became famous among his coon-hunting buddies for his eye for what he called "young meat"-adolescent girls. He bedded a series of teenagers, sometimes finding his quarry by hanging out at junior high school playgrounds. He befriended adolescent boys to gain entrée to their female peers.

He typically preyed upon children from poor, uneducated families. He charmed the girls with dime-store gifts and rides in his truck. Several of his victims became pregnant, and McElroy used payoffs and threats to assuage hard feelings by parents.

McElroy dumped Oleta after a few years and married a 15-year-old girl, Sharon.

With Sharon pregnant, McElroy began romancing a 13-year-old named Sally. When she balked at sex, he beat her and threatened to kill her father. She acquiesced, then moved in with Sharon and McElroy.

He had his first harem. The teenagers gave birth to a total of seven of McElroy's offspring. Sharon had children in 1961, '63, '64 and '65, and Sally in '61, '63 and '64.

In late 1964, with Sharon again pregnant and both young women with newborns, McElroy took up with Alice, a 15-year-old from St. Joseph, Mo., 50 miles south of Skidmore.

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.

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Now, just think about all those babies with psychopathy genes out there...

Scary thought.

> It was also interesting to observe exactly how the legal system in the United States is designed
> by and for the preservation of psychopaths and not for the protection of ordinary citizens nor for justice.

That is everywhere, not only in the U.S. - just read attentively the laws and procedures of *any* country, or, if you will, go to the district court nearest to where you live and sit in as some cases are 'shown' before court. The MO is similar but the actual methods they use vary, are adapted to the sensibilities and ways of their respective host populations.

Yeah, however I don't really think killing is the answer, there is a difference between justice and revenge, clearly some people are a real danger to society and should be locked up...forever... until they die..But then the cynics would say why should taxpayers pay for their accommodation a lot easier to kill him. Cynicism leads to despair.

Hi,
As well as the reproductive aspect, it has often been the case & I have been witness to this myself, that in order to defeat some psychopaths, one also comes to employ psychopathic tendencies in doing so. Note the postmaster's comments about awarding medals' not nooses. So even if the original psychopathic is removed or nullified, the tendency survives in its opponent. It is almost like it is infectious & one ought to guard against it.

Cassandra-Alexandra said:

Hi,
As well as the reproductive aspect, it has often been the case & I have been witness to this myself, that in order to defeat some psychopaths, one also comes to employ psychopathic tendencies in doing so.

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Well, that depends on whether you have psychopathic tendencies in yourself or not. If you have them, and if you do not have knowledge and understanding, then it is what can happen. If you are a developed being, knowing yourself, and being able to apply this knowledge, then nothing like this needs to happen. It is much like with killing the mosquito. It bites you, you smack him, and it is ower. You do need to get angry at the mosquito to do it.

Or so I think.

The post from Laura concerning the psychopath at work as detailed in this book is genuinely chilling.

Throughout my earlier life I had come into contact with many, many young women in relationships with guys like this. I used to call them nasty SOB's as I did'nt have a better understanding of what they really were. The funny thing I found in hindsight was that I had always used to try and "Help" these women in various ways by giving them time, support and someone to talk to about their relationship problems. It used to drain me terribly.

The one thing I never seemed able to understand about these young women was that they were being beaten, used, humiliated, raped and worse...but they always kept going back for more. They would usually claim that somewhere deep down the guys who were being the aggressors really loved them, although they were being treated worse than animals, and that they also loved them back wholeheartedly in the face of this type of treatment.

It wasn't until I read the 9/11 Ultimate Truth book that I realised in part why they were acting in such a way to put their lives knowingly in mortal danger. In part I think it was due to the disease of psycopathy being leeched into their own systems from the psychopathic guys they were spending their time around.

However I also noticed that in almost every case the young women I've been talking about were almost completely devoid of any self confidence and form of self worth. I may be wrong here, but I do believe that one of the traits of the psychopaths I had been seeing in common was to deliberately demean and put-down the women in their lives to an extent that any confidence and self worth they had was sucked away. This meant that the women then thought in most cases that they were so wretched a being and such a low form of life that they were in fact lucky to be with these psychopaths!!! Also it led to the women thinking that they would never be looked upon as the type of woman any other human (be it man or woman) would ever be interested in or spend any time with as they were in some way tainted, dirty or unfit for love from any other.

Needless to say this behaviour enraged and disgusted. Even when I had tried to point out to these women that they were being obviously and deliberately hurt to make their companions feel better or gain a hold over them, they would deny the plain facts and rigorously defend the psycho's they were in relationships with. As I got older I begun to learn (much to my disappointment and chagrin) that these women simply could not and would not be helped or indeed help themselves. I also realised the amount of time and energy I had expended trying to make other people's wrongs right was draining me, and stopping me from living my own life.

It was a lesson I took years to learn, but started to look at my own relationships with women who's actions seemed designed to simply hurt or use me for their own ends, and realised that I was a living example of such a process, although I hadn't been aware of it at the time. This fact alone shocked me to my core (as I had always believed all people were in essence good people).

Nowadays I apply a simple rule to my life and that of those around me. I look at peoples actions and say " If anyone is deliberately hurting anyone else in a relationship, and after they have been told that they are having such an effect, continue this type of behaviour, then they are already a lost cause and no amount of anything (Love or time) will help them". If anyone who claims to love you or have your best interests at heart seeks to deliberately hurt/control or use you, and they are then told that this type of behaviour is unacceptable, then I make my mind up that there is a psychopath our midst, and they can never learn to anything but feed in this way.

This has helped me vastly and my thanks to all on site for the continued work in pointing out the behavioural pattern of the Psychopaths and their allies the OP's.

garethjross said:

Yeah, however I don't really think killing is the answer, there is a difference between justice and revenge, clearly some people are a real danger to society and should be locked up...forever... until they die..But then the cynics would say why should taxpayers pay for their accommodation a lot easier to kill him. Cynicism leads to despair.

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Read the book and you'll understand why, for those people, in that particular situation, there was no other option.

As for psychopaths in general, I agree. Killing is not the answer. I don't know what the answer is. There are some experts who say that they can be "trained" in such a way that their genetic component is "redirected." It's a troubling problem for sure.

Since a few movies have been recommended recently, I am revamping this old thread to second Laura not only on her recommendation of the book, but also the movie that was made based on this case. Both are chilling, and IMO one of the best examples of what psychopaths are like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSYStizSVr4
(I don't think it's available on DVD...)

I still preferred the book, and couldn't put it down once I started reading it. It was ponerology at a microcospic level. And the reaction coming from Ken McElroy's victims and the people around him were just flabbergasting. In particular one of the young girls he seduced and abused, who was about to give testimony against him, but instead, he convinced her of marrying him. Their relationship was just unbelievable. And yet, according to some testimonials I've read, the story was quite accurately depicted by the author.

I think it is really worthwhile reading it, and then watching the movie. Very educational.