In the winter of 1931, the town of West Plains, Missouri, was gripped by a sense of unease following a brazen robbery at a local men's clothing store. Two nights after the McCallon's Men Wear was pilfered by thieves who carefully selected their loot, a fateful encounter would leave the community mourning its top lawman. On the morning of December 19th, Howell County Sheriff C. Roy Kelly, a 46-year-old male, was alerted to the presence of suspicious men in a blue De Soto at a downtown garage.
Responding to the tip, the sheriff approached the vehicle to question its occupants.
As Sheriff Kelly neared the car, he was met with a sudden hail of gunfire. Shot four times with a. 45 caliber pistol, with at least one bullet piercing his heart, he was killed instantly. The gunmen, later identified as Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis of the notorious Barker-Karpis Gang, made a swift escape. One of the bandits fled on foot over the sheriff's fallen body, while the other sped away in the De Soto. The brazen murder of the well-regarded sheriff in broad daylight sent shockwaves through the community, sparking a massive manhunt for the killers.
The investigation that followed connected the blue De Soto to the recent clothing store burglary and ultimately led to a farm in Thayer, Missouri, that served as a hideout for the Barker Gang. However, the fugitives had already vanished from the area. The relentless pursuit of justice for Sheriff Kelly would span several years and cross multiple states. Fred Barker, along with his mother Ma Barker, was eventually killed in a shootout with FBI agents in Florida. Alvin Karpis was apprehended in New Orleans and spent many years in prison before being paroled and deported to Canada; he later moved to Spain, where he died in 1979. In the wake of her husband's tragic death, Lulu Kelly, his wife, was appointed to serve out the remainder of his term as sheriff of Howell County.
