9. A Campaign of Terror
Ken McElroy offered the elderly Lois Bowenkamp cash to fight his much younger and stronger wife, Trena. When she refused, he commenced a crime spree intended to turn the Bowenkamps’ life into a hell. His antics included parking his pickup truck outside the Bowenkamps’ home at all hours of the day and night, and firing off his gun into the air.
The Bowenkamps put on a brave face and tried to go about their normal lives. That lack of fear – or at least pretense of lack of fear: in reality, the Bowenkamps were terrified, even if they refused to show it – infuriated McElroy, and led him to steadily ramp things up even more. Finally, one July night in 1980, Bo Bowencamp was standing outside his store, when McElroy drove up, pulled out his shotgun, and shot him in the neck with a deer slug.