True Crime: Missouri

Eleven stories of deadly doings in Missouri by “a standout writer of terse, staccato prose and vivid details” (The Omaha Reader).

Missouri has a bloody history dating back to frontier days—not just in St. Louis or Kansas City but in small towns and rural hamlets where one local summed up how Missourians prefer to handle conflicts: You shoot, you shovel, and you shut up. In this book, David J. Krajicek recounts eleven true tales of shocking and infamous crimes in the state, among them:

• The St. Louis barroom murder that inspired the popular song “Stagger Lee”
• The vigilante killing of Ken McElroy, the “town bully” of tiny Skidmore, MO
• The heartless kidnapping and murder of millionaire Robert Greenlease’s son in Kansas City by a couple of St. Joseph barflies
• The Kirkwood City Council massacre
• The “throwaway” serial killings of over a dozen young prostitutes in Kansas City by a garbage collector
• The forgotten story of “Cockeyed” Cook, a lost soul from Joplin who massacred an entire family and dumped them down a mineshaft
• The “American Gothic” killers, farmer Ray Copeland and his wife, Faye, who murdered their farmhands near Chillicothe in a bizarre plot to make money—but made the mistake of planting their human crop too shallow
• And more