Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 399 - Osage Murders: The True Story Behind Killers of the Flower Moon

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

The Osage Reign of Terror - dramatized recently in the 2023 award winning Martin Scorsese film, Killers of the Flower Moon based on the 2017 book of the same name - has been described as an epidemic of murders and mysterious deaths among the people of the Osage Nation. This is a wild story of a preposterous amount of corruption, conspiracy, and cold-blooded killing. Most experts state that at least sixty murders - and quite possibly HUNDREDS - were committed between 1918 and 1931, with the majority of murders taking place between 1921 and 1926 in just one rural county in Oklahoma. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/miS0DxTcqRMMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

The Osage Reign of Terror, dramatized recently in the 2023 award-winning Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the 2017 book of the same name, has been described as an epidemic of murders and mysterious deaths among the people of the Osage Nation. Most experts state that at least 60 murders, quite possibly hundreds, were committed between 1918 and 1931, with the majority of the murders taking place between 1921 and 1926. In the late 19th century, the Osage had been displaced from their land.

Again, they purchased roughly 1.5 million acres in modern day Osage County, Oklahoma. The land was rocky and barren, and unbeknownst to anyone when they bought it, there was black gold below the surface. A lot of black gold. In the 1890s, a vast oil reserve was discovered under their new reservation land and oil companies were soon fighting for drilling rights.

In 1906, the Osage Nation negotiated a new deal with the U.S. government that allowed them to retain the rights to this oil. The tribe now sold leases to drilling companies, some of which were worth over a million dollars. A million dollars just for the right to drill on the land. And then tribe members received quarterly checks for their share of the leases and for a percentage of profits on the continued sale of the oil. Quarterly payments were thousands of dollars each, which is equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars today. So much money began flowing in that for most of the 1920s, the Osage were the wealthiest people per capita in the entire world.

And that didn't sit well with many. Pissed at somebody else. People they believed to be racially inferior were making so much money they didn't have to actively work for. And a lot of white settlers, landowners, local government officials, and even the federal government itself conspired regarding how they could take all this fortune away from the Osage. The US government passed laws requiring the Osage to pass a so-called competency test to prove they knew how to manage their own finances. These tests were designed so that the Osage would almost always fail. Those who failed were appointed a guardian, a white male guardian who now had tremendous

incentive to steal from their ward or their wards. failed were appointed a guardian, a white male guardian who now had tremendous incentive to steal from their ward or their wards. Countless guardians embezzled money from their wards, but the real prize was the head rights, the shares of the profits off of the oil. Head rights could not be bought or sold. They could only be inherited once a tribal member died. Cue so many tribe members dying and so many white men ending up with their head rights. Some deaths were obviously murders, but others were classified as accidents, suicides, or mysterious illnesses. The murderous guardians were typically well connected with local doctors and law enforcement who ensured the deaths were almost never investigated. It's hard to say how many

settlers in Osage County conspired to take away these head rights from the Osage by any means necessary, but it feels like hundreds, if not thousands. Like the majority of local white settlers were either actively pursuing these head rights in various nefarious ways, or were on the take from those who were. The Osage nation, once they realized that their new friends were not their friends and that they could trust almost no one in Oklahoma, they reached out to the Bureau of Investigation, the organization that became the FBI for help. And what followed was the uncovering of a major, our kids should now be taught about this dark chapter of history conspiracy involving a prominent

landowner with connections to a wealthy Osage family whose members just kept up ending up dead. And what was happening to this one family was happening to many. Just the tip of the iceberg when it came to corruption, greed, and murder in Osage County. This week's episode will focus on the Osage people, how they acquired their oil rich land, the reign of terror that followed and led to the investigation that exposed a broad and evil conspiracy in this week's History Meets True Crime, Careful Who You Place Your Trust In. broad and evil conspiracy in this week's history meets true crime. Careful who you place your trust in. Sometimes the person who seems to be your greatest champion is the most evil person

you'll ever come across. The West was Still Wild in 1920s Oklahoma edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the Master Sucker, Kellogg's Frosted Cock cage critic, guy who loves coconuts but doesn't want to live on only coconuts, like a coconut and you are definitely listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, praise B to Good Boy Bojangles and Glory B to Triple M. Only one

announcement and it's a fun one. Next week is the 400th episode. I'm excited. Thanks for sticking around this long. Not doing episode previews anymore to have more flexibility from week to week but I will tell you what next week's episode is gonna be. It's going to be Molly and Michael Jackson rolling on the King of Pop. I have a feeling they will be singing. And based on how much Molly I'll be on, probably crying as well. I want to feel so much, for better or for worse. It's going to get real weird. And I can't wait to tell you all how much I love you. Probably way too many times times probably an uncomfortable amount of times and that's it and now we're off to a topic to explore a topic I knew

almost nothing about and honestly reluctantly agreed to let our research team explore because I just didn't actually realize what the Osage murders were about when I heard that term here in the name for whatever reason I initially thought it was a series of maybe more recent unsolved murders and while I thought that that could be an interesting topic, you know, a few unsolved murders, it's not my favorite topic. Having done a few, it often leaves me feeling unsatisfied. As far as like no resolution.

This is not that. This is a I cannot believe that this happened just a century ago. I can't believe I didn't know about this already. This is fucking crazy type of story a broad conspiracy centered around a man a white man who truly seemed to own Fairfax Oklahoma and the surrounding communities in a way we've almost never come across here before Through bribes and intimidation he and others like him created an atmosphere where it became all too easy to steal con and kill literally hundreds of newly very wealthy Osage people.

And no one seemed to care what was happening. Not for years. Not in Oklahoma. Not until some tenacious federal agents finally stepped in and shut it all down. Some really cool law enforcement work in this one. I decided to finally jump into this topic after settling on preliminary or settings, excuse me, on preliminary research for months after Lyns and I just watched Killers of the Flower Moon. And then I was like, oh wait a minute, this is about the Osage murders. Watching the movie and working on the research the same weekend, man, Scorsese crushed it, as did the cast. The writers, oh my god, the movie very closely follows the true story. And of course, the running time is 206 minutes. There is just so much story here. Hope you are as captivated and horrified by it as I am.

Also just regarding the name flower moon, because I was like what does that even mean? Here's the explanation. The Osage refer to May, the month of May, as the flower-killing moon because of the spring flowers that bloom in May. They're then replaced by taller plants that suffocate them. The Osage described the process as small flowers emerging in April then being eclipsed by larger plants in May when the moon appears in the sky. Taller plants like spiderworts and black-eyed susans creep over the smaller blooms stealing their water and light. The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away and before long they're buried underground

Well the killers in this story. They're the taller plants trying to suffocate and destroy all the Osage people Who had been there before them? Let's get started First we'll start off with an overview of how the FBI was founded since the Osage murders were the agency's first major homicide case. And then I'll share a brief history of the Osage Nation, followed by an introduction to the reign of terror and a full timeline of the Osage murders case. And before I begin, quick note, this episode won't be full of as many jokes and commentary

as most of the episodes here. It felt too distracting. It was a conscious choice not to do that. There's just a lot to unpack in less than three hours. And I don't want it to be, you know, muddy and confusing. There's just a lot of characters, a lot of important characters, a lot of twists and turns, especially in the timeline. So I spent most of my time and energy with this one just making sure I didn't fuck up a naturally compelling story as opposed to reacting to

stuff as insane as all the health nut craziness I was talking about last week with August Engelhardt's coconut madness or like when I'm trying to make what I consider to be a little bit of a drier subject more interesting. So here we go. We covered the history of the FBI quite a while back now in episode 203 BSU, the FBI's serial killer catchers. The following is a brief summary of how the FBI came to be. The FBI was founded over a century ago now in 1908 and they were needed. They needed to be founded. As the turn of the you know 20th century the United States was expanding rapidly at the turn. Just before the turn of the 20th century, the United States was expanding rapidly at the turn. Just before the onset of the Civil War back in 1860, the population was just over 31 million.

In just 40 years, that population more than doubled to over 76 million. And then it would increase by another 20% in just the next decade to over 92 million in 1910, then jump by another 15% over the subsequent decade to more than 106 million in 1920, and with all these extra people came, you know, good and bad. And some of the bad was a lot of extra criminals. Criminals whose power would then increase greatly during the Prohibition era of 1920 to 1933 thanks to all that bootleg money. Criminals who were growing more organized thanks to the mafia and other organized crime syndicates making that bootleg money. Criminals who were growing more organized, thanks to the mafia and other organized crime

syndicates making that bootleg money. And these new criminals with deeper pockets, often had better weapons than law enforcement, than the law enforcement officers that were trying to stop them. Lots of bribe money to convince law enforcement not to try and stop them, but to work with them instead. And thanks to the recent proliferation of the automobile, they were more mobile than ever. And it was getting easier and easier to avoid apprehension by just blasting away with a Tommy gun, jumping into a getaway car, fleeing across county or state lines, and out of pursuing cops' jurisdictions. So a

new more effective arm of law enforcement was very much needed. There was a need for law enforcement that had jurisdiction outside of their respective counties and states. And actually this need had been growing since before Prohibition thanks to a little wave of anarchy. Anarchy in the US and elsewhere. Surgeon anarchism, an offshoot of Marxism that opposes any form of government, was actually what initially led to the founding of the precursor to the FBI. On September 6, 1901, US President William McKinley was shot by 28-year-old Leon

Chigos, an Ohio nut job who'd left his factory job and had been reading anarchist writings for years. And McKinley died on September 14, 1901. He was actually one of several world leaders assassinated over a period of just a few years by various anarchists. After McKinley died, his vice president, Theodore motherfucking Roosevelt, Teddy took a bullet to the chest, shrugged it off to keep delivering a 90-minute speech, succeeded him, and Roosevelt believes society needed the guiding hand of the federal government. Just really quick regarding taking that bullet. Look up Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 assassination attempt.

I talked about it in his episode. It is insane how tough he was. In 1906, Roosevelt appointed Charles Bonaparte, progressive lawyer and civic reformer as his second attorney general. Bonaparte, the grand nephew of the Napoleon. Bonaparte, as head of the justice department, felt that he could not properly fight crime and corruption in the U.S. under current laws. If he needed to send an investigator out to gather facts or help prepare a case, you know, he had to borrow Secret Service agents who were not under his direct authority. They had to report to the chief of the Secret Service. Secret Service, my god, not a great system. Another not-so-great option for the Justice Department to fight crime

was hiring private detectives. In 1906, the DOJ would borrow 60 Secret Service agents to work cases. In 1907, they DOJ would borrow 60 secret service agents to work cases. In 1907, they borrowed 65 and also pulled from a list of 300 private investigators who applied and were vetted by the Treasury Department. Congress was seriously questioning this system by 1906. None of these guys had any sort of standardized training needed for the type of investigating they were now doing. In his 1907 annual report, Charles Bonaparte asked for Congress to create a federal detective force specifically for the Justice Department. In January of 1908, he appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee to submit his request

in person. That same year, after a lot of debate, a sundry civil appropriation bill was passed, a law that provides budget authority to an agency, allowing said agency to make payments and incur obligations from the U.S. Treasury for specific purposes, and it provided funding for a new federal law enforcement agency. It took effect on July 1st. Bonaparte created a team of investigators immediately to serve the Justice Department. In late June, he had hired nine borrowed Secret Service investigators, plus 25 more investigators to form this special agent force. And Bonaparte would lead this force for seven months until he stepped down with Roosevelt

in March of 1909. On March 16, 1909, U.S. Attorney General George W. Wickersham named the group of investigators the Bureau of Investigation. The FBI reports on their website, during his first 15 years, the Bureau was Investigation. The FBI reports on their website, During its first 15 years, the Bureau was a shadow of its future self. It was not yet strong enough to withstand the sometimes corrupting influence of patronage politics on hiring, promotions, and transfers. New agents received limited training and were sometimes undisciplined and poorly managed.

Still, the groundwork for the future was being laid. Some excellent investigators and administrators were hired, providing a stable core of talent. And the Young Bureau was getting its feet wet in all kinds of investigative areas, not just in law enforcement disciplines, but also in the national security and intelligence arenas. Well, the first agents primarily dealt with white-collar crime and civil rights cases. In 1915, Congress increased their personnel to 360 agents and support staff. Then the new bureau got involved with national security leading up to World War I. 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation. And now shit would

really ramp up. Hoover was a lot of things, but he was no slouch. He was made director permanently in December of that year. New Attorney General Harlan Fisk Stone hoped Hoover would transform the Bureau and he did. Agents were still not allowed when Hoover started to make arrests or carry firearms unless they were deputized by local law enforcement, but they were credible investigators in many cases. Agents would not be allowed to carry firearms or make arrests until June 18, 1934. Following year, the Bureau of Investigation changed its name to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI.

But a decade earlier, despite having very limited powers in the early 1920s, the Bureau of Investigation began working its first major homicide case, the Osage Murders. And by making some important arrests and convictions in a very complex series of cases that local law enforcement couldn't handle for a variety of reasons, multi-corruption, they established themselves as a new agency more than capable of taking down criminals whose enterprises overwhelmed local law enforcement capabilities. The federal government had received a plea for help from the Osage Nation, whose members were dying in beyond suspicious ways, in rapid succession for several years.

The tribe believed with good reason that their people were being murdered for their oil money and that they couldn't trust just about anybody in Oklahoma to help them. Let's now discuss a brief history of the Osage people. According to the Osage Nation Foundation, a non-profit that promotes development of the reservation communities, the vibrant history of the Osage is that of a proud spiritual people who have weathered hardship to emerge as a leading force in Native America. Part of the Northern Plains tribes, the Osage were known for being bold warriors, skilled hunters and farmers, and preservers of family life. The Osage people had lived off the land of modern-day US, of the modern-day US, for thousands of years prior to the arrival of colonizers.

For most of that time, the Osage territory ranged from the Fork of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh all the way over to the Mississippi River and beyond. By the 17th century, a good portion of the Osage had settled near the Osage River in the western part of present-day Missouri. The Osage called themselves, and still do, people of the Middle Waters. Their spiritual beliefs are based on the great mystery spirit or power called Wakanta. The Osage possessed great reverence for the sun who bathed them with light and warmth each morning,

giving sustained life to the creatures of the earth. The moon gave them, among other things, a measurement of time upon which they built their calendars. They read meaningful things from the arrangements of the planets and stars. They referred to the sun as grandfather sun. The moon as the moon woman. In fact, they visualized themselves as having once been stars in the universe and believed they would be again if they lived in peace and harmony with the Great Spirit. In praying and supplicating Wakanda, the Great Spirit, the big and mighty Osages humbled themselves and called themselves the Little Ones. The Osage warrior believed himself a brother of all other animals created by Wakanda.

He usually refused to kill or harm them unless attacked by them or for the sustenance of himself and his tribe. As opposed to the teachings of Christianity, the Osages believed that all of Wakanda's creatures possessed an immortal soul, and they prayed and left offerings and sacrifices to Wacanta. When I could go on, but their spiritual beliefs aren't very relevant to today's story, I just found them interesting. I wanted to share a bit. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Osage lived a hunting, gathering, farming lifestyle. They lived in villages along rivers and their homes were arched oval structures, often over 15 feet tall.

They typically held two big bison hunts a year. They had a summer hunt, meant for meat and fat, and a fall hunt to replenish food supplies but also get fur for coats, robes, moccasins, and other clothing. The Osage engaged in an untold number of territory wars with other tribes for control of land. They were fierce and a formidable force. By 1750, the Osage controlled over half or more of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Around this time, the Osage took France's westernmost outpost along the Arkansas River. By 1790, the Osage were conducting raids all the way over in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and may have gone as far west as the Palos Verdes Peninsula in California to South Los Angeles.

Spanish governmental communications in New Mexico and Texas showed that the Osage were established in Oklahoma by 1750 possible that over a thousand Osage lived in Oklahoma before 1800. In 1763 the French transferred Louisiana to Spain and now the Osage battled the Spanish. Half century later, they were put on a collision course with the U.S. military when their land was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In 1804, a delegation of Osage leaders met President Thomas Jefferson at the White House and he told them, It is so long since our forefathers came from beyond the great water that we have lost the

memory of it and seem to have grown out of this land as you have done. We are all now of one family. On your return tell your people that I take them all by the hand, that I become their father hereafter, and they shall know our nation only as friends and benefactors." Okay, that comes across frankly as some creepy shit to say, Jefferson. That's like some early 19th century version of who's your daddy? Who's your daddy Osage? It's me, it's Big Tommy.

Say it, fucking say it. Say you're my daddy Big Tommy. Between 1808 and 1825 treaties with the U.S. resulted in the Osage losing most of their land in Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. When Missouri became a state in 1821 over 5 5,000 Osage people, along with many people from other tribes, were forcibly relocated, forced to move west to Missouri and Arkansas. In total, the Osage ceded almost 100 million acres

of ancestral land and ended up first moving into a 50 by 125 mile area of Kansas, then known as the Cherokee Strip. But then Kansas opened settlement in 1854, and indigenous people were relocated once again. In 1870 the Osage agreed to sell their land in what was now Kansas to the government for a dollar twenty-five an acre. And with the sum of the cash from that sale the tribe lived communally when it came to property ownership, the Osage purchased almost 1.5 million acres from the Cherokee in so-called Indian territory, modern-day

Oklahoma. A lot of land. But this land did not appear to be good land. Actually, to most, when the Osage bought it, it seemed utterly worthless. It was an area bigger than the state of Delaware, considered broken, rocky, sterile, and utterly unfit for cultivation. And its seeming lack of worth, ironically, considering what comes next, was part of the initial appeal.

The Osage chief, Watienka, said at a council meeting, "'My people will be happy in this land. White man cannot put iron thing in ground here. White man will not come to this land. There are many hills here. White man does not like country where there are hills, and he will not come. If my people go west where land is like floor of lodge, white man will come to our lodges and say,

We want your land. Soon land will end, and oh sages will have no home." How fucking sad is that? They intentionally purchased a bunch of seemingly worthless, extremely undesirable land, land not suitable for farming specifically so that the white man wouldn't want it bad enough to try and steal it from them, like the white man had done so many times before. The Osage purchased the territory for 70 cents an acre and moved in 1871. Extra sad, a lot of Osage, whose numbers were already dwindling significantly, lost an untold

number of additional tribe members in this move, the majority of those they lost, mothers and infants. By the time the tribe had resettled in Oklahoma, their population was down to about 3,000, less than a third of its numbers from 70 years prior. Once in Oklahoma, the Osage built several camps. The largest one was Pawhuska, Oklahoma, just down the road from where the bulk of our story takes place today. The Office of Indian Affairs established a field office in this community that would become quite the boomtown when oil was discovered in the area. At the time of

this move the US federal government was intent on forcing indigenous people to assimilate into white Christian culture and the government withheld payments for the sale of Osage land in Kansas until able-bodied Osage men began farming using European methods. Until they changed their ways, the government would only supply clothing and basic food rations, meager rations. Despite the meager rations, many of the Osage not used to these farming techniques, not properly trained in them, began to actually starve because they couldn't produce enough

food. In response to this, the Osage Senate delegation including chief Watianca to Washington DC to petition the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to abolish this ration system The Commissioner tried to dismiss the men by saying he had another appointment, but Watianca blocked him from leaving Dropped the red blanket. He was wearing to reveal that he was fully naked Had war paint on his face as a gesture of intimidation, and he had an interpreter tell the commissioner essentially to sit the fuck down.

I love this, and he did. And the delegation got the commissioner to agree to end this ration system. That's a power move, man. Whipping your dick out in someone else's office for negotiation. Hey, yo, shit has to change. Let's talk. And he goes, no, no, I got another appointment. Nothing's changing. And then whips dick out, points at has to change. Let's talk. I'm gonna like now I got another appointment Nothing's changing and then whip stick out points and exposed a hard cock now, bro

Shit, just change right now. Sit the fuck down. Listen suck it Moving into the 1890s now the old stage. I love that really happened. He really just threw off his blanket I was like nah sit down. We're talking Moving into the 1890s now the old stage began to lease their land to more and more white ranchers who were moving into the area and this to their surprise actually worked out real well for a while. It wasn't good land for farming, it was good land for grazing. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs called the tribe the richest people on earth based in profit from these grazing leases prior to all the oil money that's to

come. Everything changed in 1894 when crude oil was discovered under the Osage reservation. An unnamed Osage tribal member showed trader John Flohr a rainbow-like substance floating on the surface of a creek. They confirmed it was oil, and Flohr and a business partner soon obtained a lease to drill. And while this was the first discovery of oil

on the tribe's land, it wasn't the first discovery of oil in the area. Two decades prior, back in 1875, a man named George B. Keeler, who came to the territory to work at a trading post near the Osage Indian Agency, saw oil just seeping from the ground along the south bank of the Candy River on Cherokee land. Keeler and his business partner William Johnstone opened a trading post, wanted to have a well drilled to boost the economy. The men obtained a lease from the Cherokee, hired the Cut-A-Hey Oil Company to start drilling in Bartlesville, which was close

to the Osage border. And that marked the beginning of the commercial oil industry in Oklahoma. But the well was capped until 1899, when the Kansas, Oklahoma Central, and Southwestern Railway was built to ship the oil. Then it wouldn't be plugged for half a century, not until 1948, over 50 years and millions and millions of dollars of black gold. Success of that well during its early years is what primarily led to more drilling on the Osage reservation. In 1895 Henry Foster, a man from Kansas, acquired a blanket lease covering the entire Osage reservation. When Foster died his brother Edwin took over that lease. In The entire Osage reservation, when Foster died, his brother Edwin took over that lease. In 1896, Edwin organized the Phoenix Oil Company, later reorganized it into the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company.

On April 15, 1897, a well called Nellie Johnstone, number one, began producing oil. That was the first commercial oil well drilled in Indian Territory. The oil industry on the Osage reservation was slow going at first due to poor transportation and low oil prices. By 1903 only 40 wells had been completed. But then in 1904 a pipeline was built that led to a standard oil refinery in Neosho, Kansas, which cut transport costs by almost 40 percent. And by 1905 there were over 300 wells in operation. Originally, the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave oilmen drilling rights with just a 10% royalty being paid

back to the Osage. Fucking straight up robbery. In 1906, the Osage able to negotiate a better deal. The Osage Allotment Act of 1906 would ensure that the Osage would retain their mineral rights to the land. Before we talk about that allotment act we have to backtrack to establish a bit more context. And before we do that here is today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thank you for sticking around. If you don't want to hear these ads get the entire catalog ad free and more by signing up to be a space lizard on Patreon for $5 a month. And now here's an explanation of the way land was allocated to the Osage very differently from any other tribe at the time. The Osage were not subject to the Dawes Act of 1887,

like most tribes, because they actually purchased land to their new home, as opposed to being awarded it. The Dawes General Allotment Act was created to force indigenous people to shift into individual farming culture instead of sharing land with the entire community. The act distributed reservation land into 160 acre plots that would be given to each head of household or 80 acres for unmarried adults. Based on this act, in the 1890s the the U.S. government had proposed a policy that would divide the Osage reservation into 160-acre parcels. Each member would receive an allotment and the rest would be open to settlers. This policy had already been imposed on other tribes like the Cherokee.

In that instance, the government had purchased what was called Cherokee Outlet, part of their territory near the western border of the Osage Reservation. The government announced that it would open that to settlers beginning noon September 16th, 1893. Anyone could claim a parcel of land and keep it as long as they got there first. And tens of thousands of people rushed to Oklahoma from all over the country and they became known as Sooners. And shit got crazy.

A few who tried to sneak in early were shot. One paper reported that various men, women, and children were trampled to death in the rush that people, you know, were fighting to get this, you know, land. And then once the land was settled, well now the Cherokee were once again a minority in their own land. And the Osage chief, James Bigheart, was able to stall the government for several years to prevent this situation from happening on his reservation. By the early 20th century, the Osage could no longer stop the enforcement of some sort of allotment policy. The Osage would be the last tribe in Indian territory to have their land

allotted. But thanks to legal actions on the tribes part, it would not be allotted in nearly the same way. James Bigheart and a half Osage lawyer named John Palmer negotiated the terms of their unique allotment. Huge win for the Osage. It was agreed that the land would be divided huge win for the Osage, it was agreed that the land would be divided amongst members of the tribe only, which increased individual allotments far beyond 80 or 160 acre parcels to 657 acre parcels. The Osage also added in the following agreement that the oil, gas, coal, or other minerals covered by the lands are hereby reserved to the Osage tribe. And they added that because they had known about the oil under the reservation for over a decade now.

Under the Osage Allotment Act 1906, subsurface minerals within the reservation were held in trust by the U.S. government, but were tribally owned. There was no extra land on the reservation after this allotment deal was signed, meaning the Osage owned their entire reservation and no one, no white settlers, could take any land from them under the Homestead Act. The tribe then distributed the royalties from any oil leases on their land equally among a few thousand enrolled members, right between two and three thousand, native shares in their oil

leases were called head rights. And these head rights will become such a double-edged short in this story. Like truly both a blessing and a terrible curse. Collectively, all proceeds from oil revenue initially went into the Osage Trust Estate that was made up of cash from treaty settlements, land sales from the Kansas reservation, and accumulated interest money. And income from grass and mineral leases was distributed quarterly to each head-right holder. Tribe members could sell their land, let someone else buy it and ranch it, build homes on it, lease it for grazing, you know, whatever.

But they could not buy or sell their head rights, which helped keep resources within the tribe, right? Smart, very smart. This would be very beneficial for the Osage because the oil industry grew exponentially from 1906 to 1907. 1907, the oil fields produced over 5 million barrels. Oklahoma also became a state on November 16, 1907. The reservation was located in what was now called Osage County.

Beginning in 1912, the Osage began holding quarterly public auctions for 160-acre drilling leases. These auctions were highly competitive. Oil companies tried to outbid each other for the best piece of the land. The highest bid ever made was just under $2 million for a 160-acre tract. The highest total collected at a single auction? Almost $14 million. This is hundreds of millions to say. That'd be more than just shy of a half a billion dollars today. Each auction, of course, brought in more and more oil production. One of the most productive areas, productive areas in Osage County was a place called Burbank Field developed in the 1920s

by the Marlin Oil Company led by future Oklahoma Governor Ernest W. Marlin. Burbank produced over 103 million barrels in 1926 alone and Burbank is in the center of the area of Osage County where our story will take place. Due to all this oil, several boom towns in Osage County shot up, just like the Gold towns had shot up in California over 70 years earlier with the 49ers and such, to house and cater to all the people coming to the area to work in these oil fields, make money from those working in the oil fields. Some of these towns like Pawhuska, Hominy, Fairfax, Gwinnola, Bartlesville are still around today.

Most of the events in today's story will take place in Fairfax in the surrounding area. Fairfax, Greyhorse, then Pawhuska. Now let's talk about how much money all this oil, this black gold was put into the pockets of the Osage. Initially when production was just beginning, the quarterly checks were just a few dollars, but as more and more oil was drilled,

the checks grew into thousands and then into the tens of thousands. For example in 1923 there were 2,000 tribe members collectively receiving 30 million equivalent to around a hundred or excuse me equivalent around 400 million today. Just that year. Which would mean that those 2,000 tribe members each received the equivalent of $200,000. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, by 1926 the average Osage family with three kids received over $65,000 a year, which is over $1.1 million dollars today. And that doesn't count any additional money they made off of the

land through leasing, their grazing rights, through selling the land, through any other business ventures. And guess who fucking hate it? Seeing the Osage get all that money. The white settlers who worked in the oil fields or in the new boom towns or for the Osage in some other capacity. The oil companies doing the drilling. The federal government who signed the deal that made this all possible. A report and then just ran appeal around the country. A reporter from Harper's Monthly Magazine once wrote, where will it end? Every time a new well is drilled, the Indians are that much richer. The Osage Indians are becoming so rich that something will have to be done about it.

What a fucking weird attitude. Why? Why would something ever need to be done about that? How did the Osage having extra money in their pockets affect the pockets of that dipshit reporter? Zero, not at all. They struck it rich, you didn't, tough shit. Take that jealous energy and shove it up your ass, right? You want to try and strike it rich? Get entrepreneurial, go do something yourself. The Osage won't stop you.

They didn't take your oil money. It's fucking crazy. The image of the wealthy Osage was just hard to stomach for many. It contradicted what most white Americans thought about indigenous people. Papers reported on Osage people who lived in mansions, wore diamond rings and fur coats, rode in chauffeured cars. They sent their daughters to the best boarding schools. And good for them!

They also hired servants, many of whom were black or Mexican but also, sometimes white. And the white servants, often immigrants to America from Ireland primarily it seems, who worked for the Osage were called derogatory names by other whites who looked down on them for you know working for natives. No one was angrier about all this than poor whites who consider themselves racially superior to natives. Seeing them become rich while they were still poor, aww really chapped their asses. Felt to them like it was a slap in the face to what they believe was supposed to be the natural order of things. So a lot of them got to scheming about how they could take this wealth from the Osage

and soon they found a way to steal their head rights. As I mentioned, oil head rights could not be bought or sold, but they could be inherited. If you as a white person married an Osage person or became their legal guardian through a super shady new legal mandate I'll mention here in just a minute and then I don't know something tragic happened to them and they just kind of up and died well now you inherited that head right and got to cash those quarterly checks until either you died or the oil money ran out what a fucking deal wouldn't you know it around the time the white Americans discovered this loophole in the system a suspiciously large number

of Osage started to die. And that would become known as the Reign of Terror. From 1921 to 1926, there were over 60 mysterious unsolved murders in Osage County, at least that many. And now here's how that shady law I referenced just a minute ago came to be. March 3rd 1921, Congress passed a law requiring the Osage to pass a measure of competency to prove they could manage their own money. If they failed, this is self-fucked out, if they failed they would be appointed a white male guardian to control their finances who had like carte blanche basically to run their money for them. And the test was designed for them to

fail because it wasn't really a test. Any Osage under the age of 18, they were automatically deemed incompetent, needed a guardian, and adult Osage had to appear before members of Oklahoma's notoriously corrupt at this time county probate courts and court officials would just ask them whatever the fuck they wanted to ask them when it came to determining their, quote, competence.

There was no standardized test, no standardized system. The Oklahoma courts routinely found Osage to be incompetent without even considering their mental capacity. For example, a guardian was appointed for one Osage woman on the basis that her savings suggested a lack of spending. Read, she was being too responsible with her money and not just wasting it. This woman's local court officials took her healthy savings as a sign of, quote, incompetence. Evidence, she just didn't understand the value of money. Oh boy. So she had to have a guardian assigned by the court, cue so many shady motherfuckers, bribing court officials to get these guardian

appointments. So much corruption was going on now. Many, many guardians would abuse their appointments to gain control over their ward's wealth for their own personal benefit. This whole system was rigged. If you were full-blooded Osage, you could be the smartest person on earth, but you would still be deemed incompetent because corrupt court officials and corrupt locals paying those officials wanted that full-blood oil share of yours. And what led to that law being passed? Yeah, just in a word racism, truly. Journalists writing stories about Osage people doing things like throwing grand pianos out on their lawns when they got tired of playing them or buying new cars when they got a flat tire. Members of Congress based on this reporting gathered together to examine all of the Osages spending. How dare they waste money?

Like newly rich members of any race or want to do. An investigator who sent a report to a House subcommittee literally believed that the devil, the devil was controlling the government when they had negotiated the oil rights agreement with the tribe. This real intelligent investigator wrote, I have visited and worked in and about most of our cities of our country and I'm more or less familiar with their filthy shores and iniquitous cesspools. Yet I never wholly appreciated the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Any time somebody brings up Sodom and Gomorrah, by the way, I'm like, that's probably not somebody I want to talk to.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah until I visited this Indian nation. Every white man in Osage County will tell you that the Indians are now running wild. The day has come when we must begin our restriction of these monies or dismiss from our hearts and conscious any hope we have of building the old state into a true citizen. I Mean that's just preposterously condescending and racist Imagine that happening to you Your neighbors they just they don't like how you are legally spending your own fucking money

And they get a new law passed putting one of them in charge of now giving you an allowance from your own money. Some congressmen did try to stop this guardianship arguing that the government should not control how the Osage spent their money. One judge who served as a guardian said at a hearing that the Osage spent their money the same way wealthy white people did. Yeah not all white folks to be clear we're trying to fuck over the tribe. Unfortunately most were. Friends of the tribe were far outnumbered by supporters of the guardianship. In this new system, guardianship was based on the percentage of indigenous ancestry a person had. One Supreme Court justice

referred to this, my god, as racial weakness. Oh, a fully indigenous person was always appointed a guardian. They never passed the test. While a biracial person who might not even have a lucrative head right was appointed a guardian less often. Basically, if you had a head right, you're getting a guardian. Those with guardians were only allowed to withdraw a few thousand annually from their trust funds even if they needed to pay medical bills or wanted to get like a quality education. They were not allowed to use their own money even for their education.

Once again, the government was stealing what was legally belonged to them. The guardianship law led to an influx of lawyers in the area, most of them shady as fuck, who wanted to work for the Osage and make a healthy profit, wanted to scam, you know, grift from them, straight up steal. According to a 1924 study by the Indian Rights Association, a policy and advocacy group founded by non-Indigenous people, an estimated eight million had already been stolen by guardians from the restricted accounts of their wards. Eight million in just three years when eight million was a lot more than eight

million is now. The study called it an orgy of graft and exploitation. The study described guardianships as the plums distributed to the faithful friends of the judges as a reward for their support at the polls. It was all this, you know, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, but in like, you know, illegal bribery ways, it was just disgusting. 1924, the Interior Department would charge two dozen lawyer guardians with corruption in Osage County. All those cases would be settled with plea deals. No one would go to prison. No real restitution would be paid to the Osage who'd been swindled. Guardians who were business owners often forced the

Osage to do shit like buy goods from them at very inflated prices if they wanted to get their withdrawals. Guardians were not just business owners and lawyers. They could also be spouses. Marriage became the main grift, in fact, because this new law, intermarriage between white and indigenous people, skyrocketed in Oklahoma. According to author Dennis McAuliffe, Jr., who wrote, the deaths of Sybil Bolton, oil, greed, and murder on the Osage reservation, single Osage women became objects of hot pursuit. Men sent a flood of letters to the Osage agency, part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, hoping to marry women they had never seen before. A Missouri man named C.T. Plimmer wrote,

I want a good Indian girl for a wife. For every $5,000 she is worth, I will give you $25. If she is worth $25,000, you will get $125 if I got her. Okay? A Nevada man named Richard Bird wrote, I am very sexual. I need woman for release five or six times a day. I will need to be spanked with spatula. I will need sister hairbrush inserted deep into rectum. I will need strong tree with solid branch for which upon I can stand and jerk. Sincerely Dick Turd.

No, no, come on. Richard Burr didn't exist, not at this time. A white woman who married an old sage man told local reporters regarding all this. A group of traders and lawyers sprung up who selected certain Indians as their prey. They owned all the officials. These men had an understanding with each other. They cold-bloodedly said, you take so-and-so. So-and-so and so-and-so, and so-and-so, and I'll take these. They selected Indians who had full head rights and large farms.

Man, just some seriously gross-ass people doing all this. Not long after this guardianship policy was instituted, wouldn't you know it, a lot of the Osage who had guardians started to die. Botten paid for members of law enforcement often blamed the victims in murder cases. Poisonings were frequently labeled as drinking bad liquor. Blatant shootings were classified as suicides, even if the angle and entry point of the bullet made it literally impossible for the person to do it themselves. Autopsies were simply not conducted in many cases. Death certificates routinely falsified.

Estimates on how many people were killed during the reign of Teraveri. The official number from the FBI is 24. Osage Nation and National Archives historian Jesse Kratz estimates the total was closer to around 60. Many, if not most, historians who have looked into this in recent years, however, believe the true death toll climbs into the hundreds. In 1923, two years after the Guardian Law was passed, after a lot of blatant murders had been committed and not properly investigated, the tribe sent representatives to Washington D.C. to appeal to President Calvin Coolidge and the Bureau of Investigation for help.

And soon, help would come. The Osage murders were the FBI's first major homicide case, as I've said, since there was just too much to cover in one episode if we don't limit our scope. Today's timeline here coming up will focus primarily on the murders of just one particular family and people in their periphery. From 1918 to 1923, an Osage woman named Molly Burkhart watched most of her family get murdered, one after another, leaving her as the sole beneficiary of all their head rights as through inheritance it all trickled down to her and her husband.

All the while, her money was being controlled by her white husband, Ernest Burkhart. During the investigation into the murders, the Bureau focused on Ernest's uncle, William King Hale, described as a prominent land baron. Hale portrayed himself as the best friend of the Osage, and he was not. He was the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing. A man described by the Killers of the Flower Moon author David Grand as truly evil, as evil as anyone he had ever encountered. William King Hale was born December 24, 1874 near Greenville, Texas, born into a large,

respectable and wealthy family, according to one acquaintance. His father was a farmer and rancher. At the age of 16, Hale decided to move away from home to become a cowboy. He traveled between Texas and Oklahoma territory buying and selling cattle. He was accused of stealing some of them and I imagine he for sure did that. He was a fucking sociopath. Hale settled in Osage County around 1902 when he would have been 28. When he arrived, he was almost broke, lived in a tent with his wife, and soon went bankrupt.

Hale then worked for other ranchers for several years before he formed a partnership with two local bankers and started leasing grazing lands from the Osage for their own herd of cattle. He acquired leases on 45,000 acres. He would own 5,000 acres. Also was able to add financial interest in a bank, general store, and funeral home. Over the course of two decades, he went from being bankrupt to being wealthy. By the 1920s he was so rich that he was known as the King of the Osage Hills, partially a plaintiff's middle name, right? He was known to many

as King. Hale was also named reserve deputy sheriff from Fairfax, which allowed him to carry a badge and gave him an in with law enforcement. He was close with a lot of local politicians as well. He was close to a lot of people through a combination of bribes and intimidation. He was close with a lot of local politicians as well. He was close to a lot of people through a combination of bribes and intimidation. He was both generous and ruthless. Hale gave financial aid to the Osage by donating to their charities, schools, and hospital.

He once wrote to an assistant chief, I never had better friends in my life than the Osage. I will always be the Osage's true friend. And such a snake. A snake with the money, access, relationships to orchestrate a whole bunch of murders and keep getting away with them. When the FBI discovered a massive amount of corruption within Osage County, they learned that it all seemed to revolve around William King Hale. And Hale was currently mostly focused on Molly Burkhart's head rights.

The following timeline, full of unexpected twists and tragedies is largely focused on Hale's attempts to completely erase Molly's entire family, just so he could get his greedy fucking paws on her head rights. Just so an already wealthy man could become wealthier. But first, how about we knock out that second of our two mid-show sponsor breaks, leaving our timeline so fresh and so clean. I'm back time for a massive tragic and historically fascinating timeline. The main source for today's timeline, although many different sources were used, is Killers

of the Flower Moon. With the Osage Murders and the birth of the FBI by David Grant. Grant spent years painstakingly researching the Osage Murders, digging through historical archives in order to tell the following story and hail David Grant. Without his work, we would not have many of these details. Molly Burkhart was born December 1st 1886. Molly and her sisters were members of the Osage tribe. Her Osage name was Wakanta Hiumpa. Her sister Anna was called Wahah Lumpa. Minnie was called Washashi and Rita was called Massimo. Her father was born in 1844.

His name was Nikaisei. He was a prominent warrior who defended the tribe from numerous attacks and he was elected one of three judges of the tribe's first court system. He and Molly's mother Lizzie lived with the tribe in Kansas before they were forced to sell their land, moved to Oklahoma. Lizzie and Nikiasea then of course moved to Oklahoma and lived in a settlement called Greyhorse in the western part of the territory. Not much left of Greyhorse today. Smattering of houses in the community center just over four miles outside of Fairfax where again a lot of today's action takes place. Fairfax only had a few thousand people during the events of

today's story. It's close to a thousand now. Back then it had a lot more jewelry stores, fancy restaurants, speakeasies and such catering to people with a lot of cash thanks to all the oil money. Molly was around 10 years old when oil was discovered on the reservation. She'd grown up around white people trying to assimilate her into American culture. In the 1880s John Flohr, that guy who was a shown that first trace of oil on the Tribesland I mentioned earlier, he established the first trading post in Greyhorse. And Nkayaseh sold animal pelts outside the post.

According to the son of a trader who talked to Molly often, a trader started to call him Jimmy, and that just stuck as his white name. So now Molly's dad is Jimmy. Other white settlers did the same thing to the girls, which is how Molly would get her name. In 1894, Molly's parents were told they had to enroll her in the St. Louis School, a new Catholic boarding school in Pawhuska. If they did not comply, as I referenced earlier, the government would withhold annuity payments and they wouldn't be able to afford food. At the boarding school, Molly was taught how to become an ideal woman, according to white American standards. Some students would try to escape from this school. When they did, they'd be hunted down by lawmen bound with ropes and dragged back.

Molly attended this school eight months out of the year. At some point earlier in her life, she was diagnosed with diabetes. Her condition would play a significant role in the later murder investigation. As an adult, Molly lived a wealthy lifestyle thanks to those quarterly head rights payments. She lived in a nice home near Greyhorse, owned several cars, had a staff of servants. In 1913, when she's 26, her dad Jimmy dies. Just something related to old age it seems. He was 80 years old, nothing nefarious here. That's all coming next. Sometime in 1916 or 1917, when she would have been 29 or 30, she meets Ernest Burkhart and soon thereafter they get married and as the white man he now becomes her guardian which is so crazy right it's her money she should have been his guardian if

anything Ernest was originally from Texas the son of a poor cotton farmer born in Greenville September 11th 1892 who was enchanted by tales of the Osage Hills tales told largely by his wealthy uncle. In 1912, with the age of either 19 or 20, he leaves home to go live with his uncle, William King Hale, in Fairfax, Oklahoma. Ernest once said about his uncle, he was not the kind of man to ask you to do something. He told you. Now this guy was a crime boss. He ran errands for Hale and sometimes worked as a livery driver. He met Molly when he was chauffeuring her around town.

David Grand wrote in his book, Ernest had a tendency to drink moonshine and play Indian stud poker with men of ill repute. But beneath his roughness, there seemed to be a tenderness and a trace of insecurity, and Molly fell in love with him. Molly spoke little English, not much. Ernest studied her language so he could talk to her. And he would take care of Molly when her diabetes made her sick. Maybe, kind of.

Maybe took care of her, maybe he was trying to poison her. We'll get to that much later. Many of Ernest's friends ridiculed him for marrying an indigenous woman, even though this was fairly common in the Oklahoma territory. All of Molly's sisters would marry white men. Molly originally wanted to have an arranged marriage, like her parents had, but her parents wanted her

to find love. And my oh my, how that beautiful thought will backfire tremendously. Molly and Ernest will have three children, Elizabeth, James, and Anna. Molly took care of her children, or at least the oldest two, and was also a caregiver to her mother Lizzie, who moved in after her husband passed away, who was often ill. The year after she gets married, in 1918, Molly's 27-year-old sister Minnie dies of quote, a peculiar wasting illness. She'd been perfectly healthy her whole life, suddenly gets sick not long after getting married, huh, then she dies.

And her head writes, transfer to her guardian, her husband Bill Smith. Her death was unexpected and strange, but no one would question it at the time. Later, anyone with half a brain will realize she had been murdered, very likely poisoned. Another one of Molly's sisters, 34-year-old Anna Brown, disappears May 21, 1921. The family noted that Anna often went on sprees, where she'd go out dancing and drinking with her friends. But this time it felt different. She's gone multiple days, the family started to go really worried. Anna had been going through a hard time recently because she had divorced her husband Oda Brown, a white settler. And she started spending a lot more time in the reservation's boom towns, which were hot spots for gambling, drinking, and sex. Molly had hosted a luncheon on the day of Anna's disappearance.

She was busy preparing and taking care of her children, and she wasn't able to watch over her mother who was sick and resting in bed. Molly asked Ernest to call Anna, see if she'd come over and take care of Lizzie. Anna answered the phone, said she'd get a taxi and head on over, and when she got there, she was noticeably drunk. Molly was upset because some of her guests had already arrived, including two of Ernest's younger brothers, Byron and Horace Burkhart. Some of Ernest's extremely racist family members were also coming over and Molly didn't want them making comments about Anna. How fun to have super racist family members shitting on your wife's family.

Crazy that more people don't stand up to family like that just kicking the fuck out of your house. When she arrived Anna started to make a scene by opening her flask saying she needed to drain it so she wouldn't get caught by the police. She was also flirting gratuitously with Byron, whom she had dated in the past. However, Byron, not interested, and he asked one of the servants to go to the dance with him that evening instead of Anna. Anna now threatened to kill him if he fooled around with another woman.

According to a servant, Anna continued stirring things up that afternoon. Real dramatic. The servant recalled she was drinking and quarreling. I couldn't understand her language but they were quarreling. They had an awful time with Anna and I was afraid. Molly had planned to take care of Lizzie in the evening while Ernest and the guests went to Fairfax to meet King Hale and watch a musical together. Yeah, these little towns are like theaters and stuff.

They have a lot more than you expect from a town of a few thousand people because of all the money. Byron Burkhart offered to drop Anna off at home now. Molly washed Anna's clothes for her, gave her some food to have that evening. Despite their tensions earlier, they had a nice moment together before she left. Byron said that he took Anna home and then went to the show and then no one had seen her since. You know now no one's seen her since. By May 24, Molly begins to suspect that something terrible has happened to Anna. Byron sticks to his story, took Anna home, went to the musical. Others will back up his story.

After the third night that Anna was missing, Molly presses everyone into action. Ernest went to Anna's house, tries to get in through the front door, but it's locked. House is dark inside. Anna's head servant now comes out from her home next door, reports that Anna had not been seen since the day of Molly's luncheon. Molly thought that maybe she left home again after Byron dropped her off maybe went to Oklahoma City or went to Kansas. Ernest tried to assure Molly that she'd come back soon. Anna wasn't the only one missing in town. 30 year old Charles Whitehorn, an old sage man, had went missing earlier that month. He left home

on May 14 to go to nearby Pawhuska, never came back. The police were notified about his disappearance around May 18. But then on May 28, 1921, the dead bodies of Anna Brown and Charles Whitehorn are both found. Charles was found in the morning, Anna found in the afternoon. An oil worker on a hill a mile north of downtown Pawhuska saw something sticking out of the brush near the base of an oil derrick. Upon closer inspection, it was a human body. The man had been shot in the head twice, but the body was so decomposed He could not be identified visually but inside one of his pockets was a letter addressed to one Charles Whitehorn That afternoon a man was out squirrel hunting by Three Mile Creek near Fairfax with his son and a friend Son saw squirrel shot at it chased. Squirrel fell down a ravine, looked down

the ravine and spots the body near spots a body near the edge of a creek. It was a woman lying on her back with her hair in the mud. The men searched for law enforcement officers in Fairfax found none so they spoke to Scott Mathis, proprietor of Big Hill Trading Company, a big wig in the community with ties to King Hale and the guardian of Molly's mother Lizzie. He told the Undertaker about the death and they went to the creek. They dragged the body to the top of the ravine and the Undertaker put it in a wooden box. The coroner tried to determine if the body was the missing Anna Brown, but it was too

decomposed. Scott Mathis now contacted Molly Burkhart. She, Ernest, Byron, her sister Rita, and Rita's husband, Bill Smith, who had previously been married to her sister Minnie, come to the scene. Molly and Rita initially have a hard time making the identification, but in the end they recognize Anna's blanket and the clothes she was wearing. They also looked inside her mouth and saw some distinctive gold fillings. A coroner's inquest to determine her cause of death will strangely take place at the ravine, which was not to Norm.

Norm would have been to take her to an examination room. James and David Shone, Fairfax's most well-known doctors, were called in to perform the autopsy. They estimated that Anna had been dead five to seven days, and when they shifted Anna's head, part of her skull, or scalp, excuse me, came off, which revealed a hole in her skull and the cause of death. Looked like a 32 caliber caliber bullet wound. The bullet entered in a downward trajectory but showed that she was murdered and had not shot herself. The local sheriff Harvey M. Freese was already working on the White Horn case and he sent out one of his deputies to collect evidence and the

Fairfax town marshal joined him. David Grand wrote to these early law enforcement officers were not forensic wizards in any way shape or form. They were amateurs, mostly expected to deter crimes. Officers were paid very little and were prized for being quick draws. Therefore, Grand wrote it's not surprising that the boundary between good lawmen and bad lawmen was porous. Yeah, they were easily bribed and often in like these kind of parts of the country. There were rumors that Sheriff Freese was very corrupt. He turned a blind eye towards gamblers and bootleggers operating in the county pretty much continually. One of those bootleggers, Henry Grammer, former rodeo champion, convicted murderer and moonshiner, later admitted to other

authorities that he had been assured if he was ever arrested, Sheriff Friese would release him within minutes. Just handed him a get out of jail free card. A group of citizens from Osage County had previously issued a resolution about the sheriff saying that the people who believe a sworn officer of the law should enforce the law are hereby urged to see or write Sheriff Friese at once and urge him to do his sworn duty. Do your fucking job, Sheriff Freese. Meanwhile at the ravine, the Shone brothers saw through Anna's skull, lifted her brain out to try and extract the bullet but couldn't find it or claimed they couldn't find it, maybe hit it.

These guys are also super corrupt and tied to King Hale. The officers went down the bank to try and find it. One of the lawmen found a bottle on the ground partially filled with clear liquid that smelled like moonshine. They theorized that Anna was sitting on a rock drinking when someone, who knows who, came up behind her and shot her. There were two sets of car tracks between the road and the Gulch. Cars came from the southeast and circled back. The officers did not make a cast impression of these tire tracks to try

to match it to any cars in the area. They also didn't check for prints. They didn't check Anna's body for gunpowder residue, they didn't photograph the crime scene, and they should have done all that. But they weren't serious about solving this murder. The two murders were the talk of Pawhuska and Fairfax. Everyone was speculating who could be responsible. Pawhuska is 28 miles from Fairfax and a bit bigger. It's the county seat and while less than 3,000 people live there now, over 6,000 people live there at this time. Very hustling bustling community. Theater, movie theater, high-end shopping, car dealership and more. The bullets from Whitehorns Skull appeared to be 32 caliber

which was likely the same weapon that killed Anna. Molly pushed for an investigation but law enforcement didn't seem frankly too concerned about either murder. So now Molly reached out to the worst person she could have reached out to. She just didn't know it. Her husband, Ernest's uncle, William King Hale. King was considered a powerful advocate for God-fearing souls. He pretended to be a great Christian man helping to hide the ruthless, greedy murderer he really was, and he vowed he would get justice for Anna.

After Anna was buried, Molly gave evidence at a hearing in Fairfax arranged to help determine who could have killed her. She said that Anna left her house in a car with Byron Burkhart. Molly was eager to answer any questions but the justice of peace and the jurors didn't ask much from her. Didn't seem that interested. Again, it just didn't seem like many people, white people at least, cared what had happened to Molly's sister Anna. Byron Burkhart was at least questioned because he was the last person seen with Anna. Byron was already known to local law enforcement. He had once stole cattle from his uncle Hale.

Byron said that after he dropped Anna off around 5 o'clock he went to town to see a show with his family. Byron and Ernest, Byron's brother, Molly's husband, and guardian were both detained to suspects and released for lack of evidence. The main theory at the time was that Anna's killer came from outside the reservation. Another theory was that the killer was Anna's ex-husband, Oda Brown. When Anna divorced Oda, she left almost all of her money in her will and her head rights to her mother, Lizzie.

After she was buried, Oda hired a lawyer, tried to contest the will, but was unsuccessful. An investigator concluded he was, quote, absolutely no good and capable of doing almost anything for money. He was just one of so many dirty rotten scoundrels in the story. July 23rd 1921, Oda Brown's arrested and jailed for the murder of Anna Brown. A man named Asa Thomas had been jailed in Kansas for check forgery and he had mailed a letter to the Osage Sheriff claiming he had info about the murder. The Sheriff and King Hale went to talk to him. He said that Oda Brown paid him eight grand to kill Anna and he described how he shot her and dumped her body by the creek.

A posse then arrested Oda Brown and Pauska. The family thought this was it. Her killer had been found but days later Brown was released due to lack of evidence because that informant was full of shit. There was no evidence that Asa Thomas was in Osage County at the time of the murder or that Oda Brown had ever contacted him. King Hale now started conferring with local with local prosecutor about the murder. It was said that the county prosecutor owed his election to Hale. Also that other guy that Asa Thomas, good friend of Hale,

when he ran for office this guy was told he needed Hale's endorsement once he was able to see Hale in person, Hale promised to turn out the vote for him. Sure enough, he won every precinct in that part of Osage County. The prosecutor decided to do another exam of Anna's body now, to look for the bullet. Her remains were exhumed, but nothing was found because that's probably what King wanted to happen. The Justice of the Peace closed the inquiry in July of 1921 with the conclusion that Anna was killed at the hands of parties unknown. The same determination was made in the Charles Whitehorn case. And then that same month, now there's another suspicious death. Molly and Anna's mother Lizzie became very sick and passed away.

Bill Smith, the husband of Molly's sister Rita, now thought something was off because how close Lizzie and Anna's deaths were. He was frustrated with how the investigation was handled with Anna and was looking into it himself. He also thought it was odd that no doctor could diagnose Lizzie's illness. He came to believe that Lizzie had been poisoned and then all three deaths Lizzie's, Anna's, Minnie's three years prior all connected to their oil head rights. Bill sounds like a good dude here right? Maybe not. Bill Smith also a suspicious character. Grant wrote, the 29-year-old Smith had been a horse thief before attaching himself to an Osage, to their fortune, first by marrying Molly's sister Minnie, then only months after Minnie's death from a mysterious wasting illness in 1918 by wedding Molly's sister Rita.

Also it was said that Bill was physically abusive to Rita when he drank, which was often. Rita threatened to leave him but never did. One person who was involved abusive to Rita when he drank, which was often. Rita threatened to leave him but never did. One person said that Rita's judgment was clouded by a love that was truly blind. Molly now secretly wondered if Bill was responsible for Minnie's death and maybe for her mother's and sister's as well. King Hale also proclaimed that he didn't trust Bill and a local attorney speculated that he was prostituting the sacred bond of marriage for sordid gain. A lot of people were doing that then.

In August, Molly's family decided to offer a $2,000 reward now for any information because of the foulness of the crime and the dangers that exist to other people. The Whitehorn family also offered a $2,500 reward in this case. And William King Hale promised an additional reward of an amount not specified in sources to anyone with information that led to the killers. He also decided to hire a private detective to look into it. Private detectives, useful resource this time, but the quality of these detectives varied wildly.

They weren't all top notch ace detectives like our Sonny Hollister. They can't all be solving crimes faster than you can say, bang, bang, chicken and shrimp. Grant explains in his book, during much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, private detective agencies had filled the vacuum left by decentralized, underfunded, incompetent, and corrupt sheriff and police departments. They were untrained and unregulated and often had criminal records themselves. Yeah. Hale hired a PI from Kansas named Pike. Molly's family hired some PIs as well, using money from Anna's estate, which was administered by Scott Mathis, owner of that Big Hill Trading Company. Mathis, again Lizzie's guardian. Both

women had been legally deemed incompetent to manage their own finances, for fuck's sake. The agents working for Mathis identified themselves only by their numbers. Agent number 10 traveled with Mathis to the crime scene. Another agent interviewed Anna's main servant. The servant said that after Anna was found, she got a set of keys, went to Anna's house with her sister Rita. No one had done a search yet. Some investigation.

Everything was how they left it, but Anna's alligator purse that she took to Molly's luncheon was lying on the floor with everything torn out of it. Nothing in the house was stolen. This indicated that Anna had likely come home at some point and left. Agent number 10 looked at Anna's phone records at 8 30 p.m. on the night she disappeared. Someone called her house from a phone that belonged to a business in Ralston, which is just six miles southwest of Greyhorse. Greyhorse, Ralston, Fairfax, Behuska, all clustered in the same area. None more than about a half hour drive at most from any of the others. Wollaston, the only one not in Osage County, but in neighboring Pawnee County, Oklahoma.

Back to Agent 10 looking through Anna's phone records, someone answered the phone, which meant Anna was likely still home at that time, which actually supported Byron Burkhart's statement. Although, a servant could have also answered the phone. The PI went to the business where the call originated from. The proprietor said he had not called Anna, and no one would have been allowed to make a long-distance call from his phone. No operators in Raulston had a record of the call being sent to the Fairfax operator.

Agent 10 wrote in a report, this call seems a mystery. He suspected that an operator had been paid to destroy the original call log ticket. Detective number 46 was sent to find Oda Brown in Ponca City 25 miles northwest to Greyhorse. Brown wasn't there. He was in Perry, Oklahoma visiting his dad. Number 46 went to Perry the next day. Couldn't find Brown. Moved on to nearby Pawnee County. Detective finally found Oda, followed him and his new wife. One day agent 46 or PI 46 approached tried to befriend Oda, followed him, and his new wife. One day, Agent 46, or PI-46 approached, tried to befriend Oda when Oda mentioned that his ex-wife was murdered at number 46, tried to get information from him about where he was

when she died. Brown said he was away with another woman but wouldn't say where. Meanwhile, Detective number 28 learned that a woman from the Kaw tribe who lived near the western border of Osage County had signed a statement claiming that Rose Osage, a woman from Fairfax, admitted that she had killed Anna after Anna tried to fuck her boyfriend Joe Allen. Rose said they were riding in a car and she shot her in the top of the head. Joe helped her dump the body by Three Mile Creek. Rose tossed her clothes in the creek because they were bloody. Number 28 wrote that he spent several hours with Mathis and Sheriff Friese pursuing this lead, but they could not corroborate her story.

No one saw Anna with Rose or Joe. No clothing was found in the stream. Sheriff Ries thought their story should be discounted. He noted that two men from some oil camps were reportedly seen with Anna shortly before she died and that they had left town afterwards. Why would Rose lie? Well, the PIs installed a listing device to eavesdrop on Rose and Joe. They used a dictograph, which could be hidden in items like a clock or a chandelier. Detectives hid in other rooms, listened to headphones. But the secret operation was not fruitful. Which I had me some dictographs.

I should dictograph the shit out of my house. She and my wife, Lindsay, is really up to. With her constant refusal to submit. Who knows what she's getting into. Anyway, the cab driver who took Anna to Molly's home on the day she disappeared told the private detectives that Anna asked to stop at the Greyhorse Cemetery on the way. She visited her father's grave before standing near her pre-purchase lot. She returned to the cab, asked the driver to send someone to bring flowers to her father's

grave. On the way there, Anna leaned towards him, said she was going to have a little baby. Two people close to Anna also reported she had confided to them about her pregnancy, but no one knew who the dad was. The father of her unborn child and her murder continued to be a mystery. Over the summer, still in 1921, a man named A.W. Comstock shows up in Greyhorse to offer assistance to detectives. Comstock was a in Greyhorse to offer assistance to detectives. Comstock was a local attorney and guardian to several Osage people.

Comstock's contacts told him about rumors that Charles Whitehorn's widow Hattie, a half-indigenous woman, wanted her husband's money and was jealous he had a relationship with another woman. Many wondered if that woman was Anna Brown and if Charles was the father of the baby. Detectives began to surveil Hattie Whitehorn in an attempt to gather evidence, but nothing will come from that either. The case went cold. By February of 1922, Pike, the PI hired by William Hale, now off the case, and Sheriff

Freese was expelled from office that month for reasons unknown, but guessing it was related to corruption. Also this month, another mysterious death plagues Osage County. 29-year-old William Stepson, an Osage champion steerroper, received a phone call that caused him to leave home. When he came back, his wife and two kids saw he was visibly ill, and then he died just a few hours later. Authorities who examined his body quickly suspected someone had poisoned him with strychnine. Described as a bitter white alkaloid that according to a 19th century medical treatise, was endowed with more destructive energy than virtually any other poison. That suspicion not confirmed though. By the early 1920s

scientists could detect poisons and toxins in people's bodies by testing tissue after death, but those methods not applied consistently, and Osage County did not have a coroner who was trained in forensic methods like that. So how convenient. His death will not be treated as a homicide. He probably poisoned himself. March 26, 1922, another Osage, a woman this time, dies of suspected poisoning. And again, no toxology test is performed. No investigation into her suspicious death is done. July 28th an old sage man named Joe Bates dies shortly after taking a sip

of whiskey given to him by a stranger. Another poisoning, no investigation. Early the following month following these deaths under suspicious circumstances a tribal leaders asked Barney McBride, a 55 year old white oil man and friend of the tribe, to travel to Washington and try to get federal investigators involved.

Right? Some investigators with no ties to this corrupt as fuck area. McBride was asked because he was married to a Creek woman and trusted by the Osage because of his history of interest in Indian affairs. He'd never tried to take anybody's oil rights and he also had connections in Washington. Then what a weird coincidence right after this guy makes it to Washington DC 60 year old Barney McBride is found dead August 10th 1922. No possible murder this time. He was definitely murdered.

The police believed he was killed the night before following plane billiards at the Elks Club. After checking into his hotel he received a telegram warning him to be careful and he was not careful enough. When he left the Elks Club, somebody snuck up behind him, threw a burlap sack over his head and then they fucking beat the shit out of him. His body was found in a culvert in Maryland. He had been stabbed over 20 times and his skull had been, quote, beaten in.

He was also naked except for his socks and shoes. It was thought that there was more than one assailant and police suspected that the killers had followed him beaten in. He was also naked except for his socks and shoes. It was thought that there was more than one assailant and police suspected that the killers had followed him from Oklahoma. The Washington Post wrote that the murder was the most brutal crime in the crime annals was the most brutal in crime annals in the district. Who found out that he was heading to DC and why did they have him killed right to stop the investigation. After some more murders, not necessarily connected to the characters in this story take place, an Osage man named Henry Rohn is now found dead, February 7th, 1923. 40-year-old Rohn had been missing since January 30th. Two hunters near Fairfax spotted a car at the bottom of a rocky swale

and then they went into Fairfax to find help. The deputy sheriff and the town marshal came to the scene. There were curtains covering the car windows, but they could peek through a small opening on the driver's side. They saw a man slumped over at the wheel. When they opened the door, they found blood on the seat and on the floor. He was shot in the back of the head. Another definite murder case. Henry Rowan had a wife and two kids and a close relationship with King Hale.

Henry, at least, always thought they'd been good friends. As another full-blooded Osage, Roane had also been prevented from accessing his money due to the wildy racist guardianship program. He had received some loans from Hale recently, loans he would have never needed had he just been able to access his own money, and he listed Hale as the beneficiary of a $25,000 life insurance policy instead of his family. A couple weeks before he died, Rowan allegedly called Hale, told him he found out his wife

was having an affair with a man named Roy Bunch. Hale then met with him, tried to console him. Several days later, Hale sees Rowan at the bank in Fairfax. Rowan asked to borrow some money to buy a drink. Hale, such a good man, said he warned him that the Prohibition men were coming to get him. He tried to help his good friend. Then after King, good friend didn't give him any money. He didn't see his friend again. What a shame. At the coroner's request, or inquest, it was determined that Roan had died about ten days before his body had been found. And Molly

Burkhart, shocked by this news, she actually had been married to Roan briefly in 1902 when she was 15. Molly never told Ernest about this marriage. She also now didn't want to tell the police because then she'd have to tell her husband. By this point the whole community was terrified. Well the whole Osage community was terrified since only the Osage were dying. I don't think anyone else was too worried. At least not about themselves. Only the Osage or people trying to help the Osage I should say. Many were turning their suspicions towards their neighbors and friends. One reporter wrote, travel in any direction that you will from Pahuska and you will notice at night Osage Indian homes

outlined with electric lights, which a stranger in the country might conclude to be an Austin tenchus display of oil wealth. But the lights are burned as every Osage knows as protection against the stealthy approach of a grim specter, an unseen hand that has laid a blight upon the Osage land and converted the broad acres which other Indian tribes endlessly regard as a demi-paradise. The perennial question the Osage land is who will be next? Meanwhile Molly's family is still trying to find Ennis killer and her brother-in-law Bill Smith has told several people that he's getting warm In that regard he is still investigating but now pretty soon he and Rita will start to fear for their lives One night Bill and Rita report hearing something moving around in their house at night a few nights later. They hear it again

They end up fleeing their home actually moved to the center of nearby Fairfax where they thought that they'd be safer surrounded by a bunch of neighbors who had watchdogs. But then soon after they move, a man comes to their new house and tells Bill he heard he was selling his farmland. Bill told the man he was mistaken. Bill was also suspicious and thought this guy looked like an outlaw. Maybe just trying to confirm his identity. Then shortly after moving in early March 1923, the neighborhood dogs start to die, and Bill thinks they're being poisoned.

He now tells a friend he doesn't expect to live very long. Somewhere around the same time, Ernest and Molly also move from Greyhorst into Fairfax down the street from Bill and Rita. March 9, 1923, Bill goes with a friend to Henry Grammer's ranch on the western edge of the reservation. Grammer, he was that former rodeo star I mentioned, turned killer, turned moonshiner and bootlegger. Bill knew that Grammer was the keeper of a lot of local secrets. He also knew that Henry Rohn said he was going to get whiskey at Grammer's ranch shortly before he disappeared and that Anna got her whiskey from him as well. Well, Grammer wasn't home that day, but Bill purchased several jars of whiskey from his workers, drank some on the property, dropped off his friend, and, and went home.

Then spent the evening with his wife Rita and their 19-year-old servant, Nettie Brookshire. Just before 3 a.m., that same night, early in the morning hours of March 10, 1923, a neighbor heard and felt a loud explosion. An explosion was felt actually throughout the neighborhood. Bent trees and shattered windows, a night watchman at a hotel in Fairfax was hit by broken glass and knocked to the ground. The force knocked down other hotel guests. Molly and Ernest felt the explosion in their home. Bill and Rita's house completely destroyed. Volunteer firefighters and other citizens came together to search the rubble for survivors and they

heard a faint voice calling for help and were able to dig Bill Smith out of the rubble. Rita was beside him, but she was dead. Back of her head had been crushed by the force of the blow, shooting her through the air. No one could find Nettie Brookshire because she had literally been blown to pieces. Eventually, searches were able to find a few of those pieces and bury them. My god! Bill Smith lost consciousness at the hospital before he could be questioned by police. One investigator later wrote that, The time of the deed was deliberate, because the town marshal and other officers had all gone to Oklahoma City for court.

Bill, still delirious from the amount of pain he was in, said, They got Rita and now it looks like they've got me. Bill regained full consciousness two days later, but never disclosed anything that he might know, and then died the following day, March 14th. In April of 1923, Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton now sends in state investigator Herman Fox Davis to Osage County. Many thought that local law enforcement was working with the killers, and somebody on the outside needed to investigate the murders. They were still waiting for federal help because no one had talked to any feds yet, right? The one guy who tried to get old fucking Barney brutally murdered in DC.

And now sadly this guy sent down by the governor would turn out to be also corrupt as shit. Within days of his arrival, Davis was seen, quote, consorting with some of the county's notorious criminals. Another investigator soon caught him in the act of taking a bribe from a gambling syndicate. Very hard to find a decent man in Oklahoma in this episode. June of 1923 Davis would plead guilty to bribery and receive a two-year prison sentence. Then he'll be pardoned by the governor just a few months later because the governor also corrupt. Davis and some conspirators upon his release will rob and murder a prominent attorney. He'll be sentenced to

life in prison. Then in November the governor will be impeached for abusing the system of pardons and parole and for receiving illicit contributions from an oilman, so bribe, that he had used to build a house. Backing up just a bit, what a place to live. The Osage Nation sends new emissaries to the federal government for help in the spring of 1923 and they don't get murdered this time. The case is assigned to the new Bureau of Investigation, aka the FBI, and it will become, as we've said, the FBI's first major homicide investigation.

FBI Director William Burns sends an agent to Oklahoma. The agent spends a few weeks in Osage County. Then concludes any continued investigation is useless. Other agents will be sent out. Can't solve the case either. Now the Osage are forced to pay for that investigation. The bill will eventually reach $20,000, around $300,000 today. When J. Edgar Hoover takes over 1924, he'll decide to transfer the case back to state authorities so the Bureau doesn't look like they've failed.

However, the Bureau continued to maintain a level of involvement in the case. Agents persuaded the governor of Oklahoma to release a convicted bank robber to work undercover for them to gather evidence on the murders. And holy shit, will that move backfire? The agents that were supposed to be watching this guy lost him in the Osage Hills and then he runs off and immediately robs another bank and kills a police officer. Whoops! Took months to recapture him. Sorry about that. Hoover managed to keep the bureau's role in this incident out of the press, but now the state attorney general sends him a telegram informing him that he held the Bureau responsible for the failure of this investigation.

June 19, 1923. Osage Nation suffers another devastating and suspicious as hell loss. 46-year-old George Bigheart dies. George was the nephew of Chief James Bigheart, one of the men who negotiated the tribe's allotment that allowed them to keep these oil rights. Before he died, Bigheart was admitted to a hospital in Oklahoma City for, can you guess? That's right, suspected poisoning. Even more suspicious before he died, he told a friend that he had information about the

murders, but he would only talk to W.W. Vaughan, an attorney from Pawhuska, who once worked with the P.I.s who tried to solve the Osage cases. Big Heart's friend called him and asked him to meet George in the hospital. Vaughn still had his records from his involvement in the investigation. Before he left, he told his wife where he was hiding some evidence. He said if anything happened to him, clearly he's worried too, that she should give it to the authorities. George Big Heart was still conscious when Vaughn made it to the hospital.

Big Heart shared what he knew with Vaughn, including some documents, right? Hail Nimrod, some progress. Maybe not. Vaughn stayed with him for several hours until he died. Then he called the new Osage County Sheriff to inform him he had information that he needed about the murders and he was taken the first train back. Well, the Sheriff asked if he knew who killed George Big Heart and Vaughn said, oh, there's more to it than just one killer. Then motherfucker, Vaughn disappears on the train. On the night of June 29th, he takes the train from Oklahoma City to Pahuska. Vaughn was seen boarding the overnight train, but wasn't there when the train arrived in the morning.

His birth was found empty except for his clothing. Interesting. The search for him now starts on June 30th. His dead body is found the next day, just 36 hours after he disappeared, lying by the railroad tracks 30 miles north of Oklahoma City. He'd been thrown off the train after somebody had broken his neck and taken off his clothes, likely to make it harder to identify him. And he of course does not have any of the documents that he'd gotten from George Bigheart. Those have been taken. Those are missing. And when Vaughn's widow now goes to his evidence hiding spot, it's empty. By this point, at least two dozen tribe members have either been straight-up murdered or died very suspiciously over the past several years since the shitty guardianship program went into effect.

Two more men now try to help with this investigation also quickly end up dead. Everyone who tries to get involved ends up dead. One was an Osage rancher who fell on a flight of stairs or maybe was pushed hard after he'd been drugged. Other was shot down in Oklahoma City while on the way to brief state officials about the case by an unknown assailant. Huh! I don't think we've ever covered something quite like this here before. Anyone who gets close to the bottom of these murders gets murdered, no matter who they are it seems. This is like Al Capone, Godfather level of violence and control, or maybe more than that. This is Al Capone, if Al Capone had ran a rural county with a few small towns in the middle of Oklahoma instead

of Chicago. The local justice of the peace now receives several anonymous threats and is forced to stop convening inquest about the murders. He now was so scared he would not even talk about the murder cases without first locking himself in a room with whoever he was speaking to to make sure that no one else could come up and sneak up and shoot him or hear him. The new sheriff is also now too scared to investigate. He said I don't want to get mixed up in it. Read I don't want to be killed please. John Palmer the half Osage lawyer who helped

with the original head rights negotiations now sends a letter to Charles Curtis, US Senator from Kansas. Curtis was part Ka part part Osage, currently the highest US elected official with acknowledged indigenous ancestry. Palmer told him that if they didn't get the Department of Justice involved, the killers are going to keep on killing and escape justice. Now let's return to Molly. Her siblings have all been killed, as has her mother, and she thinks that she's next to be murdered.

Molly's become a recluse. Can't blame her, right? She started staying at home, stopped seeing guests or attending church. She's getting sicker and sicker, doesn't know why. Doctors tell her it's her diabetes. She's now so sick she gives a relative custody of her recently born third child. Not sure why her husband Ernest couldn't watch his own kid here. Did I mention he's a fucking bum? He doesn't work or do a lot with his kids. Just lives off his wife's oil money. And maybe he's poisoning her. William King Hale continues to promise Molly he'll get justice. He's been working as a reserve deputy sheriff trying to solve crimes in the area or make sure

they don't get solved. Around this time, he said he heard that a band of outlaws was planning to rob a shop that had some diamonds. Just to show what kind of guy this is, he informs the store owner about the robbery. He's able to stop the robbers and kill one of them. The dead man was an associate of Henry Grammer, that bootlegged murdering former rodeo star. Hale also wasn't immune to the crime spree. You're going to see that this is later all stage. Hale also wasn't immune to the crime spree in Osage County. Someone set his pastures on fire which killed his cattle.

But maybe he wasn't quite a victim there. In the summer of 1925, a special FBI agent in charge of the Houston field office, Tom White, received an order from Washington informing him that J. Edgar Hoover wanted to speak to him in person. The BOI won't call itself the FBI until 1935, but I'm just going to refer to them from here on out as the FBI since that's how we know them. White has served with the Texas Rangers at the beginning of the 20th century He joined the FBI in 1917 because he couldn't join the army due to a recent surgery When white met Hoover in Washington Hoover told him he needed to discuss the Osage murders Hoover wanted white an experienced agent to solve this case to protect the Bureau's reputation

White was sent to Oklahoma City to command the field office there, and Hoover told him there could be no excuse offered for failure. Let's fucking go, finally! Someone has given some real incentive to help these people. And spoiler alert regarding Agent White, not corrupt. Super awesome, in fact. Finally, the right guy is assigned to this case. White got to the Oklahoma City field office in July of 1925,

began reviewing the Bureau's case files, going back to their first investigation in 1923. White was shocked that no agents had ever spoken to Molly Burkhart. He thought multiple killers were involved because of the different methods of murder. He suspected that someone was hiring people to commit the murders and putting a lot of effort into planning and covering up the crimes. I like Agent White. White noticed that the sources of information were private detectives and local law enforcement

who he reasoned might have been paid to spread misinformation. While White acted as the public face of the investigation, most of his agents worked undercover due to that making it easier to get information and out of fear of them also being killed. They weren't going up against some rogue outlaw. They were going after the equivalent of a mafia don, the head of a crime syndicate. John Berger was the only agent retained from the previous case. Also, one agent with Native Heritage was brought in, a man named John Wren. The agents assumed their undercover roles, one as a cattleman, one as a rancher, one as a business owner, and John Wren as a medicine man. The two cattlemen got friendly with King Hale, he liked them because he said they were from

Texas, and he introduced them to some of the town leaders. Agent Wren tried to make connections amongst the Osage. White noticed that the records of the coroner's inquest into Anna Brown's death were missing. Justice of the Peace in Fairfax said his desk had been broken into and they had been taken, which I don't doubt a bit. There was almost no evidence left except for the skull, her skull which the undertaker saved. White examined the skull, saw the entry wound but no exit wound, which meant the bullet

should have been recovered during the autopsy but wasn't. So now he reasons someone involved with the autopsy was either a conspirator or the killer. And the Justice of the Peace, nervous as shit to speak to White, I'm sure, said he had the same suspicions. Agent White now questions the Shone doctors, those brothers who performed the autopsy, who insisted they had searched for that bullet. White and Agent Burger go around now, folks,

and are verifying all the suspects' alibis. While also, I'm sure, being hyper-fucking vigilant so they don't end up getting killed themselves. White was now able to rule out a lot of people including Anna's ex-husband, Oda Brown. The agents looked into that Rose Osage tip from before, the statement from the woman who said Rose confessed to killing Anna. The Fairfax town marshal shared that around the time of Anna's murder, he had found a dark stain on the back seat of Rose's car. Looked like blood. During the

original investigation, Agent Berger questioned Rose and Joe Allen separately, Joe being Rose's boyfriend, who Anna supposedly tried to seduce, and they gave the same alibi. On May 21, 1921, they were together in Pawnee and stopped at a rooming house. The owner of the rooming house supported their claims. White now thought that the car woman's statement pointing to Rose being the killer was very puzzling. She said that Anna was shot in the car and that Rose discarded her clothing at Three Mile Creek when they dumped Anna's body. At this time, criminologists knew that blood coagulates at the lowest point of the body after death and leaves dark spots on the skin. If the splotches are found on the higher regions, it shows someone moved the body. Doctors did not make a note of that and there was no trail of blood at the crime scene.

the body. Doctors did not make a note of that and there was no trail of blood at the crime scene. White now visits this unnamed woman from the Caw Tribe who lived near the western border of Osage County and interrogates her about the initial statement. And she admits she lied. Dun dun da! She said that a strange white man had come to her house, written the statement, and forced her to sign it, you know, made it clear that bad things were going to happen if she didn't. Now FBI Director Hoover weighs in on the investigation. The Osage murders finally truly getting some proper attention. Although Hoover did not travel to Oklahoma, he reviewed all the agents' reports and he came to believe that a white woman named Nesia Kenney, who was married to an Osage man, had info about these murders. Kenney had told agents that attorney A.W. Comstock,

a guardian for several Osage people, was very likely part of the conspiracy. Hoover liked to hear that. He personally disliked Comstock because Comstock had criticized the Bureau when they investigated all this originally. However, Nesia Kenny had a history of quote mental instability. She'd once attempted to murder a local attorney. Still, Hoover convinced her to travel to Washington D.C. and interviewed her twice. Also, arranged for an expert on mental diseases to evaluate her. The doctor found that she was paranoid and perceives items which would escape the observation of the average individual. So, she probably had schizophrenia. According to Hoover, she was now of greater value to us in furnishing

leads than she would be as a witness. Back in Osage County, Agent White could not substantiate Kenny's allegations. He'd found the lawyer helpful actually at first, but then he does get suspicious. A.W. Comstock was originally one of the few white citizens in Osage County willing to assist investigators. He told agents he felt sure he could get the evidence they wanted if he just had access to their files. If he could just look at their files, then he could help them. White refused to share records, thought that that suggestion was very suspicious. Now he didn't like that Comstock often came to see White to check on the investigation, and he comes to believe that Comstock is a rat, that he is part of this. At the end of July 1925, White now shifts his investigative focus over to

Byron Burkhart and his ex-boyfriend, Ernest's younger brother, King Hale's nephew. As a reminder, there's a lot of shit going on this episode. Byron said he took Anna home from Molly's house, dropped her off between 4.30 and 5 p.m. Said he went to Fairfax, was seen with William Hale, Ernest Burkhart, and an aunt and an uncle at a musical there. He had a strong alibi. He wouldn't have had time to shoot Anna and return to Fairfax before the show started. But were those who gave him that alibi lying? Agent White sent Agent Berger to Campbell, Texas where the aunt and uncle lived. The aunt was home, invited the, actually they both went, White and Berger both went

there. Aunt invited the investigators inside. Then she went on some extremely racist rant about how disgusting it was that Ernest had married an indigenous woman. When Berger asked her about tonight and it disappeared she said she'd heard rumors that Byron was the killer but insisted it wasn't true. That's when the uncle shows up. He's reluctant to talk but reluctantly confirms Byron's alibi. Says that after the show they spent the evening in the same house with Byron and he was there the whole time. Still, Agent White thinks that Byron is the guy who killed her. Also, he really wishes that agents Hot Dog, Mustard, Cheese, Bacon, Ketchup, and Relish would have been signed to Agent Perger for

storytelling purposes. August 1925 undercover agents were sent to Ralston to investigate a tip now that Anna Brown may have seen in it been seen in The car there by a group of white men sitting in front of a hotel on Main Street Ralston just six miles from Fairfax if I haven't already said that Previous investigators spoke to these men, but they seemingly then buried what they had learned At least one witness had vanished white suspected the people were being paid to disappear White agents did find a witness an elderly farmer who did who did not leave. During his initial interview, it seemed like he had dementia, but now he said he was faking that to make sure the investigators were legit because he was scared and didn't want to be killed for

speaking to the wrong person. This sharp-ass farmer now testified under oath to White and his men. He said that he remembered what happened because he talked about it often with friends. The car stopped by the curb. He could see Anna through the open window. Anna said hello. One of them said, hello, Annie. The farmer's wife was with him. She felt certain that the woman was Anna. She said Anna was sitting up straight, not slumped over like she'd been drinking. When asked if anyone else was in the car, she said Byron Burkhart. Byron was driving, wearing a cowboy hat. Another witness said they saw Byron in that car there as well. Using these new details from Agent Berger's informants and witnesses found by undercover agents,

White makes a new timeline for that night. And he determines that Byron and Anna went to a speakeasy and stayed until 10 p.m. Then they went to another hell joint, so-called hell joint, north of Fairfax, where William King Hale was seen with them. The owner told agents that Byron and Anna drank together until about 1 a.m. So Byron's relatives had lied to give him an alibi, sure seems. One witness said that afterwards they went to another Speakeasy near Fairfax. Others said they left the Speakeasy with a third man who was not King Hale. They were last seen together around 3 a.m. This is the night she's murdered. A witness said she heard a car stop near her home in Fairfax. A man whom she thought was Byron shouted,

Stop your foolishness, Annie, and get in this car. Byron's neighbor saw him coming home at sunrise, and then Byron later told him not to say shit about what time he had come home and actually bribed him to stay quiet. At the end of summer of 1925, Agent White is feeling like he's coming close to making some arrests and cracking this case. He now also thinks they have a mole in their investigation. One of his agents was questioning a seedy local attorney who was trying to strangle the probe per an informant. The attorney revealed knowledge of the case and admitted he had seen parts of the reports made by the Bureau and had an opportunity to see more of them. According to Killers of the

Flower Moon, David Grin, the Bureau's probe had long been plagued by leaks and sabotage. One agent complained that information in the reports was given to an unauthorized and unscrupulized persons. A US attorney reported that his reports had been stolen from his office. One prosecutor demanded that no copies of his reports be given to literally anyone in the entire fucking state of Oklahoma. Clearly the Osage, far from the only tribe being taken advantage of in this former Indian territory. Oklahoma as an entire state sounds like it was just preposterously corrupt in the 1920s. White's main suspect regarding who the mole was, was that private detective named Pike. A man in Osage County once approached Agent Burger, said he was a go-between for Pike,

and agents knew that Pike had been hired by King Hale, of course. The intermediary said that Pike withheld information he discovered during his investigation. He knew the identity of the third person he was seen with by her on the end of the night she disappeared, but Pike said he would only share that information for money. When agents then demanded that Pike talk to him, he fled. So they launched a manhunt for him. Pike was soon caught committing highway robbery in Tulsa, private investigator and armed robber. Nice. Wild West was lingering a little longer in Oklahoma than it did in most places. Mike now named a local gambler as the third man.

And agents did confirm that this gambler was at one of the speakeasies on May 21st. But he went home too early to be the third man in the murder. As agents continued pressing Pike, he revealed that William Hale didn't to be the third man in the murder. As agents continued pressing Pike, he revealed that William Hale didn't really hire him to solve Anna's murder. He was asked instead to hide Byron's whereabouts. He was supposed to manufacture evidence and generate false witnesses to help Byron form a solid alibi. This is a big one for Agent White and his team. He's looking for a mastermind in all of this, someone

pulling the strings and it's sure looking like King could be that guy. Pike said that Hale never told him explicitly that Byron was involved in killing Anna, but that it was obvious he was, based on what Hale wanted Pike to do. Pike also noted that when he met William Hale and Byron Burkhart, Molly's husband, Ernest, was also present.

Man, poor Molly, just surrounded by so many coyotes. September of 1925, Agent White still investigating King Hale and the Burkhards. He now thinks that Bill Smith might have figured out the truth about who's behind the recent rash of murders and that's why he was blowing the fuck up. After all, Bill was the first one to suspect that his mother-in-law Lizzie was poisoned and he looked into the possibility of a conspiracy surrounding the family's oil money. Agents now questioned the nurse on duty when Bill was in the hospital before he died. She said that Bill did say some names before

he died but she just couldn't understand him. Sometimes he woke up seemed worried that he said something he shouldn't have as well. Shortly before he died he met with the Shone brothers, those shady-ass doctors and his lawyer and they asked her to leave the room and she suspected that he made a statement about who was responsible. Maybe those doctors also killed him White had everyone who was in that room questioned federal prosecutors questioned them as well David shown acknowledged that they summoned the lawyer because they believe bill might name the killers, but he didn't Or he did and David was lying

Real hard to trust these fuckers One of the prosecutors pressured David shown about why they wanted the nurse to leave. He said that nurses often leave when doctors enter a room. James Shown also insisted that Bill did not name the killer. The lawyer told the agents that while Bill didn't name the killer, he did say, you know, I only had two enemies in this world, and those enemies were William King Hale and Ernest Burkhart. The agents later went back to James Shown, questioning him again. This time he said, I would hate to say positively that he said that Bill Hale blew him up, but he did say Bill Hale was his only enemy.

At the hospital, one of the Shown brothers told the nurse that Byron Burkhart was sick and asked her to see him at his house. Hale showed up while she was there. He made a small talk, then asked her if Bill named his killers and the nurse said if he did, I would not be telling it. More and more it's looking like Hale was connected to all this. Maybe Hale did something to him at the hospital. The agents learned that during the meeting at the hospital that James Shone was named administrator of the estate of Rita Smith, which allowed him to execute her will, a big

money opportunity. But I think the Shone brothers are definitely in all, you know, they're in on this in some way. David Sheldon was now questioned about this. He said he was not trying to get a dying declaration from Bill and was asked if Bill was even lucid enough to sign the estate paperwork. Also in September of 1925 more info comes in about King Hale from another source. An undercover agent posing as an insurance salesman struck up a conversation with the woman working at a gas station in Fairfax He told her he wanted to buy a house in the area and she mentioned that he should talk to William Hale because Hale

controlled everything She said that she herself purchased her home from Hale. She also said that one night she saw thousands of his acres had been burned Most people didn't know who started the fire But she said that Hale himself had his workers start the fire so he could collect $30,000 worth of insurance money. He was no victim of that wave of crime after all. Agent White also wanted to know how Hale had become the beneficiary of Henry Rohn's $25,000 insurance policy. White talked to the insurance salesman who told him that Hale explained that Rohn had made him a beneficiary

because he loaned him a lot of money over the years. Salesman found it suspicious that Hale pushed so hard for the policy, even promised to pay an extra premium. Salesman said he could only be the beneficiary if he was Hale's creditor, to which Hale responded, well, he owes me a lot of money. He owes me 10,000 or 12,000. White didn't believe Roan actually owed him money he couldn't pay. Hale could have just been paid off by Roan's estate to repay the debts. Salesmen admitted that Hale submitted no proof of debt and that he just wanted a commission to

make that sale. Digging further into this, Agent White found Rohn was a heavy drinker and once wrecked his car while drunk driving. Hale had to take Rohn to several doctors until he found one at Pawhuska willing to recommend Rohn for a life insurance policy. Dr. James Shone, sketchy-ass doctor, would second that recommendation. The insurance company rejected the first application, so Hale went to another company and lied when he asked if he'd been turned down before. An insurance agent who reviewed the application later admitted he knew that Hale had answered the questions falsely. Hale was able to produce a creditor's note to prove that Roan owed him money. He originally said it was, you know,

$10,000 to $12,000. Now, suddenly, it was $25,000. The note was signed by Rohn and dated January of 1921. Agents will show this creditor's note to a handwriting analysis or analyst, excuse me, from the Treasury Department, who found that the date originally typed was June. Somebody rubbed out the U and the E. White suspected Hale wrote the document and then altered it when he realized he messed up the date. A federal official questioned the man Hale said typed the note and he denied, ever having seen the document. When asked if Hale was lying, that guy said yes without question. These federal agents are so thorough. I love this. And then Agent White got some serious evidence that Hale had just taken out this insurance policy on ron just to kill him

The second insurance company approved the policy after hail took ron to the same doctor in pahuska who approved him for the first policy Doctor now said he literally asked hail if he was going to kill him That's why he was getting this policy and hail laughed and said quote hell. Yes And why wasn't hail questioned after ron's Well, because local law enforcement is in his pocket. Originally after Rhone died, local law enforcement tried to implicate Roy Bunch, right? Who was having an affair with Rhone's wife. Bunch insisted he was innocent and said that after Rhone was killed, Hale came up to him and said, if I were you, I'd get out of town because people thought he killed Rhone.

He even offered him money to leave. He was going to pay him to leave town. Bunch talked to a friend who persuaded him not to leave because that would make him look guilty. Because it was clear that King Hale was trying to make him look guilty. Bunch was ultimately ruled out as a suspect by the agents. Agents learned that Hale then visited Rone's widow several times after his death to try and get her to sign papers on claims against his estate. But she wouldn't.

He even left a bottle of whiskey as a gift. But she said she refused to drink it because she assumed it was poison. Unfortunately, this was all circumstantial evidence and it was only one case. Hale could not be connected to the other murders. Agent White didn't want to move in on Hale quite yet, not until he had more. So he continued looking into this case, found that before Hale got the life insurance policy, he attempted to buy Rowan's head right, but was unsuccessful. Also discovered that Hale and other powerful local white men had put pressure on the government to end the prohibition of buying head rights, and that Hale thought it was just a matter

of time before Congress changed the law. Now White also realizes that as Molly's family is dying, she is inheriting more and more of these coveted head rights. White noted that the killer was very strategic with her family regarding the order of the deaths. Anna Brown was divorced, had no children. She left almost all her money to her mother Lizzie. Lizzie then left most of her estate to her surviving daughters, Rita and Molly. And the wills of Bill and Rita Smith stipulated that if they died simultaneously most of their head right would go to Molly and

Tracing things back a little further before Bill was married to Rita right he was married to Molly's third sister Minnie So many dies of a mysterious illness very likely if not certainly poisoned her head right goes to Bill Then Anna dies her head right goes to Lizzie Then Lizzie dies her head right which now includes Anna's goes to Lizzie. Then Lizzie dies, her head right, which now includes Anna's, goes to Rita and Molly. So Bill and Rita now have Rita's head right, Minnie's head right, and half of Lizzie and Anna's head rights. The other half going to Molly. So when Bill and Rita now die, their half of Lizzie and Anna's head rights, I know I feel like I need a chart, go to Molly, and all of Rita and Minnie's head rights go to Molly.

So Molly has a fuckload of head rights now. And all of this, of course, goes to her guardian as well, Ernest Burkhart, William King Hale's nephew. He now has the whole fucking family's head rights. And now Hale has to make sure that he is the beneficiary of his nephew's will so that when he can kill his nephew, presumably, he'll get everything. But when he can kill his nephew, presumably, he'll get everything. Or would have all that if Bill had died just a bit earlier like he was supposed to. But because Bill had technically outlived Rita by a few days, he inherited most of the head right.

And after he died, that money went to one of his relatives. How pissed Hale must have been. However, Molly still has most of the family's money, which is controlled by Ernest. And Ernest is again controlled by Hale. White now writes in a report to J. Edgar Hoover, Molly appears to have been the first means to draw Hale, through the Burkhards, the assets of the entire family. White couldn't tell if her marriage was part of the plot or if Hale convinced Ernest to kill his wife after they were married.

Still, White had no physical evidence or witnesses to prove his suspicion that Hale was not only involved in these murders but orchestrated them. So he keeps looking. And he and his agents continue finding evidence that suggested Hale was involved in all kinds of corruption in Osage County. In one report, agents noted that Scott Mathis, that owner of the Big Hill Trading Company, was a crook and in the power of Hale. One of his associates served as a quote spy for Bill Hale and the Big Hill Trading Company and does all the framing for them in their crooked deals in skinning the Indians. The agents learned the chief of police in Ponca City, 30 miles from Fairfax, took money from Hale and the chief of police in Fairfax would allegedly never act against him. A local

banker would not talk against Hale because Hale had quote, too much on him. And the mayor of Fairfax described as an arch crook was a good friend of Hale's. The county prosecutor also no good and crooked. And a federal official with the Office of Indian Affairs was in the power of Bill Hale and will do what Hale says. Dude is straight up running shit in Osage County, truly the godfather of this entire area. By the fall of 1925, White reassures Hoover that he's still gathering evidence that will lead to security conviction against William Hale and his

accomplices. He said he has an undercover agent on the ranch spying on him right now. David Grand wrote about this phased investigation. White had come to understand that prejudiced and corrupt white citizens would not implicate one of their own in the killing of American Indians and so he decided to change his strategy. He would try to find a source instead among the most disreputable dangerous group of Oklahomans, the outlaws of the Osage Hills. White thought he might have leverage over these men if they'd been recently arrested or convicted and he was given the name of Dick Gregg to look into first. Glad we finally have met a new dick in this suck.

Dick Gregg was 23 years old and serving a 10-year sentence in Kansas for robbery. Gregg told Agent Berger that he knew something about the Osage murders but he said he couldn't betray a confidence. The attorney A.W. Comstock had provided legal counsel to Gregg family, and Comstock now used his relationship with Greg's father to help persuade him to cooperate with the FBI. White met Greg for an interview, and Greg was reluctant. Nervous.

Probably scared to go against William Hale. But he also wanted to reduce his sentence. He said that once in the summer of 1922, an outlaw named Al Spencer told him that Hale wanted to meet with their little outlaw gang. Spencer, Greg, and others met Hale in one of his pastures. Hale asked to speak to Al Spencer privately. After they returned and the outlaw separated from Hale, Spencer told the gang that Hale offered to pay them at least $2,000 to kill a married couple, a white man and an Osage

woman. Spencer asked Hale who they were, he straight up said Bill Smith and his wife. Al told him he wouldn't kill a woman though, not even for money. Hale said he hoped Greg would go through with it but Greg also wouldn't kill a woman. This statement was not as valuable as it seemed at first though. Greg could have been lying just to shorten the sentence and Al Spencer had been shot since this supposed conversation by a posse of lawmen and could no longer talk. Greg told the agents they should contact another outlaw now named Curly Johnson, who should be able to corroborate Hale wanting Bill and Rita dead.

Curly reportedly knew about the bombing and would squeal if he was forced to, but what do you know it, Curly also dead. He had died less than a year earlier, rumored to have been poisoned. Interesting how many people possibly connected to this scam are dead. Agent White and his men had to have been sleeping with one eye open and a loaded gun in their hand every night. Like if I was one of those agents, I would imagine I would want to load a gun under my pillow,

another one in every room of wherever I'm staying, maybe a little hidden one in my boot when I went out. I would want to be armed to the teeth and just constantly monitoring my surroundings. However, these guys did have the power of the federal government behind them. I mean, if they turned up dead, J. Edgar Hoover isn't just gonna be like,

oh well, shrug his shoulders and just move on. Their deaths would bring more heat down on King Hale and his cronies and I'm sure they knew that. White was now led back to Henry Grammer, murderer, former rodeo star, current bootlegger. Turns out Grammer and Hale had known each other for years, even competed in a rodeo contest together back in 1909. Just before the bombing, Hale told his friends he was leaving town to attend the Fat Stock

Show in Fort Worth, Texas. When White looked into it, he learned that Grammer went with him, and a witness overheard Hale talking to Grammer about being ready for that Indian deal. Then on June 14, 1923, Henry Grammer died in a car crash. Weird. Now the guy dead connected to this, so he can't talk either. White now obtained still more new names. One was a man who was a safecracker.

The safecracker said that Asa Kirby, an associate of Henry Grammer, was a soup man, aka an explosive expert, and had designed the bomb that killed Bill and Rita Smith. Now the plot thickens further. Just a few weeks after Henry Grammer died, Asa Kirby broke into a store in the middle of the night to steal diamonds and was shot dead by the store owner. Remember back in the summer of 1923 when William Hale warned a local shop owner that a band of outlaws was going to rob his store of diamonds and the owner then waited for the outlaws and killed one of them? Well another outlaw informed Agent White that Hale set up the whole robbery so he told Ace of Kirby about the diamonds, suggested the best time to break in, then

tipped off the shopkeeper in hopes that he would kill Kirby. He clearly wanted another guy who had done some of his dirty work, a guy who could implicate implicate him in some serious crimes to go away for good. Then when Agent White decides to really dig into Henry Grammer's car crash, he's told that people believed his wheel and brakes had been tampered with. Still more! When White discovers yet another potential witness in the Roan case, he learns that dude had recently been bludgeoned to death. Doing business with King Hale was real bad for your health. Sure seemed to Agent White that Hale knew agents were on to him. In one report an agent wrote that Hale was also making all the propaganda he can to favor himself by giving out gifts,

clothing, loans to all kinds of people in the area. Buying friends, buying silence. The more Agent White zeros in on King Hale, the more dead giveaways he's finding pointing towards his guilt. When will that button get old? Never? Yeah that's what I was thinking as well. Agent White won't give up. Failure not an option. Hoover made that clear. Now he receives a promising tip in late October of 1925. He was meeting with the governor to discuss the case and after the meeting an aide told him that a prisoner at the state penitentiary claimed he knew about the murders. Burt Lawson, a man from Osage County, serving

a seven-year sentence for second-degree burglary. Over several interviews Lawson said he started working as a ranch hand for Bill Smith back in 1918. Through his job he got to know Hale and the Burkhart brothers. Lawson signed a statement that said, sometime around the early part of 1921 I discovered an intimacy between my wife and Smith which finally developed in breaking up my family and caused me to leave the employment of Smith. Yeah I bet. Ernest Burkhart knew how much Lawson hated Smith and over a year later in 1922 he approached Lawson and said he had a proposition for him. I want you to blow up and kill Bill Smith and his wife

his brother excuse me and sister-in-law. When Lawson didn't agree to it William Hale then offered him 5,000 for the job. Hale said he could use nitroglycerin and could put a fuse under the house. But Lawson still wouldn't do it. However, just after this Lawson was charged with murder. And after he was arrested, Hale visited him in prison. Said he didn't have, you know, in jail I guess with the trial, said he didn't have any money for an attorney. He said he'd pay for his lawyer, a guy who could help get him acquitted. He still wanted Lawson to do the job and now he finally agrees. And Lawson will be acquitted by the way. But before that happens, one night a

deputy sheriff opens up Lawson's cell, leads him to William Hale, who was waiting outside in his car. King Hale drives him to a building in Fairfax where he meets Ernest Burkhart. Ernest brings out a wooden box that contains a jug of nitroglycerin in a fuse. Hale and Burkhardt drive away after dropping him off at the Smith House. Lawson went into Smith's cellar, put the box in a corner, laid the fuse out, waited until he thought

everyone was asleep, then lit the fuse and ran. The explosion happened moments later. Hale and Burkhardt picked him up, brought him back to jail, and Hale warned him that he'd be killed if he talked. That's fucking wild. Talk about some clout. King Hale is able to head over to the jail, have the sheriff loan him an inmate to commit a murder. First I've ever heard of that happen, and then just drops him back off after they're done. Also, how evil is Ernest Burkhardt? Is he actually the worst person in this story?

Sleeping in bed with his wife every night, a woman he's had several children with, three, a woman who I'm sure cries her eyes out and wails with grief every time another one of her family members is killed, a woman who is said to truly love him, and he is the devil. He is one of the main orchestrators of these murders. October 24th, 1925, White now sends a telegram to Hoover. Have confession from Burt Lawson that he placed and set off the explosive that blew up Bill Smith's home. That he was persuaded, prompted, and assisted to do it by Ernest Burkhart and William King

Hale. White and the agents were now feeling the pressure to arrest Hale and keep other witnesses safe, like the attorney Comstock who feared for his life. He once found sticks of dynamite behind his curtain and also Molly Burkhart. Agent John Wren spoke to Molly's priest who said she stopped coming to church, heard she was being kept away by her family. Soon after he said this, he received a secret message from Molly that she thought she was being poisoned. The priest warned her not to drink any liquor, but several people, as several people had died from poisoned whiskey. Agent White now worries that the poison is actually in her insulin. One Justice Department

official notes it was urgent to get Molly to a reputable hospital for treatment immediately and away from her husband. At the end of December 1925 White seeks arrest warrants for William Hale and Ernest Burkhart for the Smith and Brookshire murders. Nettie Brookshire was that Smith's maid who literally got blown to bits. The warrants issued on January 4th. The Bureau had to get US Marshals and other law enforcement to make these arrests since, as I mentioned earlier, they still are doing all this without the power to make arrests themselves. Federal and state officers traveled to Fairfax on the afternoon of January 4th, 1926 to arrest Hale and Burkhart. Burkhart found at a pool hall in Fairfax.

Hale had vanished. An agent learned Hale ordered new clothes said he was going to leave town at any moment. Authorities thought he was gone. But then he surprises everybody by walking into the sheriff's office in one of his spiffy new suits and just turns himself in. Fucking cocky. I'm sure he thought there was just no way that he could be nailed for any of this. Not in Osage County. Not when he owns his place. Not when everyone is in his pocket, it seems. Agent White and the local prosecutor now decide that they will try to break down Ernest Burkhart to get a confession out of him. Get him to turn on his uncle. He was taken to a federal building in Guthrie for his interrogation with Agent White and Agent Frank Smith. He, of course, started off by saying he didn't know anything about what was going on.

He didn't know anything about the Smith family and Brown, none of it. White told him that he spoke to Bert Lawson, who said Ernest did know about the murders. Ernest insisted he'd never had any dealings with Lawson. Who is this guy? This man hours talking to him about the circumstantial evidence they had against him.

Seemed like Ernest would want to talk, but whenever Hale was mentioned, he would stiffen up, look a little scared, wouldn't talk. And the agents gave up after midnight. Next day Hale said he could prove he was in Texas when the Smith House exploded. He received a sign for a telegram there. If this was true it meant Bert Lawson was a lying witness. Agent White now worried that the whole case was about to fall apart.

King Hale was a hard man to take down. He decided to go to an outlaw named Blackie Thompson for more info. Thompson was the outlaw who was released from prison to act to an outlaw named Blackie Thompson for more info. Thompson was the outlaw who was released from prison to act as an informant and then went rogue and ended up murdering that police officer. And he was currently locked up in a state prison. Thompson was willing to talk. Slowly but surely he revealed more and more info. Of course he did. He was told he could get a deal if he talked. He said that Ernest Burkhart and William Hale once approached him and an outlaw named Curly Johnson to ask if they'd kill Bill and Rita Smith. As a form of payment, they proposed that he steal

Ernest's car. And Thompson did steal the car. Molly and Ernest were both woken up one night by noises outside their home. Thompson said he was then later arrested for car theft. White then left Thompson, went to question Ernest again with Agent Smith. They told Ernest they weren't satisfied with his answers, thought he was withholding information. They said they had another witness who would testify he was involved in the plot to kill the Smiths. The agents didn't actually know if Thompson would testify. Ernest said he didn't believe him. So now they bring Blackie Thompson into the room and Ernest looks a little surprised, a little bit nervous.

Agent Smith asked Thompson if he told the truth when he said Ernest Burkhart propositioned him to kill Smith in exchange for a vehicle. He said yes and then he looked over at Ernest and said, Ernest, I have told them everything. Ernest now seemed quote defeated, but he still wouldn't talk. Each time White thought he would confess, he would stop himself. They end the session again at midnight. But then just a few hours later, White receives a call informing him that Ernest is now ready, but he'll only speak to Agent White. Ernest now tells White he did not kill the Smiths

but he knew who did. He said he didn't know all the details but he knew his uncle King Hale had a plan to kill Rita and Bill. He said he protested when Hale told him about the plan to blow up their house, but that also in the end he did go along with it. He said that Hale first went to Blackie Thompson and Curly Johnson to do the job when they wouldn't do it He went to Al Spencer our refused So Hale now talked to Henry Grammer who told him he could get somebody to do the job and Grammer said that AC Ace of Kirby would do it Ernest insisted that Lawson didn't know shit and Lawson later admitted that he had lied According to Ernest Hale and Henry Grammer went to Fort Worth to establish an alibi He said that Lawson didn't know shit and Lawson later admitted that he had lied.

According to Ernest, Hale and Henry Grammer went to Fort Worth to establish an alibi. Before he left, he told Ernest to send a message to bootlegger John Ramsey who worked for Grammer. He wanted Ramsey to tell Kirby it was time for the job. King Hale was diabolical. Ernest was home with Molly when the explosion occurred, giving him an alibi as well. Ernest also now said that John Ramsey was the one who killed Henry Rhone, and that this murder was arranged by William Hale. John Ramsey was now arrested but insisted he didn't know anything,

until White presented him with Ernest's statement and brought Ernest in the room to confirm. Ramsey then said, I guess it's on my neck now. Get your pencils. Ramsey now told agents that in early 1923, Henry Grammer told him that William Hale had a little job he wanted done. That Hale wanted an Osage man killed. Ramsey agreed to do it and lured Henry Rhone into the canyon by promising him whiskey. Ramsey said, we sat on the running board of his car and drank. The Indian then got in his car to leave.

I got him in the back of the head. I suppose I was within a The Indian then got in his car to leave. I got him in the back of the head. I suppose I was within a foot or two of him when I shot him. I then went back to my car and drove to Fairfax." Ernest still wasn't done talking. While he wasn't willing to talk about his brother Byron's potential role in the murder of Anna Brown, he did say that the third man who was seen with Anna was Kelsey Morrison, an undercover informant who'd been working with the agents. Ernest claimed that Morrison was the one who shot Anna. Kelsey Morrison was one of the county's most notorious bootleggers and dope peddlers, according

to David Graham. This county was fucking loaded to the gills without loss. Agent John Berger, one of the original investigators, now sought him out for an interview. He was on the run after assaulting an officer. Why not? And he went to Texas where he was arrested and offered a deal to work there as an informant. A deal that led to his release. Agents were now sent to arrest him once again.

Agents also sent a doctor to check on Molly who appeared to be dying now. The feds believed she was slowly being poisoned via her insulin shots as I mentioned earlier. Ernest claimed he had no knowledge of his wife, Molly, being poisoned. The Shone brothers were brought in for questioning because they were the ones who had been treating Molly, those fuckers. A prosecutor asked James Shone if he was giving Molly insulin and he responded, quote, I may have been. Oh, you don't know what you've been doing? Upon further questioning, he said, I don't want to get balled up. I don't want to get in bad. So he was part of the plot to murder her and now he's worried about being killed. He was evasive and he denied any wrongdoing.

Unfortunately while Agent White suspected James was crooked as fuck and knew damn well what he was doing he had no proof that he or his brother were poisoning her. When Molly started feeling better at the hospital in Pawhuska away from the Shone brothers and her old insulin injections, she now answered some questions. She was told that Ernest admitted that he knew about the murder cases and that William Hale was behind it. She said that Ernest never told her anything about the plot and that she wanted the people who killed her family to be punished. However, she also didn't believe Ernest could be involved. A writer

quoted her as saying, my husband is a good man, a kind man. He wouldn't have done anything like that and he wouldn't hurt anyone else. He wouldn't even hurt me or ever hurt me. And what a nightmare for this poor woman. It's like she is finding out that she is married to a serial killer. Or that she's been sleeping in the same bed with him night after night, had had kids with him, except it was worse than that because this serial killer was focused primarily on just killing her family. Now agents White and Smith go to talk to William Hale and before the interrogation White learned some important info. Anna and William Hale had an affair. Hale was the

father of her unborn child. This is a soap opera. Agent White told Hale, we have unquestioned signed statements implicating you as the principal in the Henry Rohn and Smith family murders We have the evidence to convict you Held and seemed bothered in the least as they told him everything they had on him. I mean, why would he be? I'm guessing he assumed he would just have their witnesses killed or bribe the judge You know just whatever it took to get his way and he always got his way in Osage County January 9th 1926 William Hale and John Ramsey are indicted for the murder of Henry Rohn.

The FBI is not able to connect Hale to all 24 murders and mysterious deaths of Osage people they felt he was connected to, or to two of the witness murders, but they were also able to show that Hale benefited from the suspected poisoning of George Bigheart. Hale was seen with Bigheart before he was sent to the hospital. And after he died, Hale made a claim against his estate for $6,000, with a forged creditor's note. Ernest said that Hale practiced making his handwriting look like Bigheart's. Hale was also connected to the poisoning of Joe Bates in July of 1922.

After Bates died, Hale magically produced a deed to his land. His widow wrote to the Office of Indian Affairs, Hale kept my husband drunk for over a year. Hale would come to the house and ask him to sell his inherited shares in land. Joe always refused no matter how drunk he was. I never believed that he sold that land. He always told me he would not even up to a few days before his death. Well, Hale got the land.

Hale's corruption was so widespread that a federal prosecutor warned it was not just dangerous but, quote, useless to try him in state court. However, there were some jurisdictional issues because the crimes involved the Osage. Normally, if a murder occurred on Indian territory, then the federal government had jurisdiction. However, the Osage territory had been allotted in a way that meant it was not under tribal control, which meant it had to be a state case. But Henry Rohn was killed on an Osage allotment that had not been sold to white people. And the Osage person who owned the property was considered a ward of the government because of guardianship.

Prosecutors decided to go with the murder of Henry Rohn first because they hoped they could prosecute it in federal court. Kingpin Hale and Bootlegger and Gunn for Hire John Ramsey charged with the murder. The prosecution and defense were made up of skilled lawyers. Hale even hired a lawyer for John Ramsey, who got him to recant his confession. Ernest Burkhart told Agent Wyatt that Hale assured Ramsey not to worry, that he, Hale, was on the inside, had everything fixed from the road overseer to the governor. Probably did. The grand jury proceeding started in early January. A pastor associated with Hale

ends up getting charged with perjury. At a later court proceeding, an associate of Hale's is arrested for trying to intoxicate witnesses. As he got closer to trial, private detectives, certainly hired by Hale, started following witnesses. One of them was strongly believed to be an assassin. Someone was hired to kill Catherine Cole, the former wife of Kelsey Morrison, who agreed to testify. That shooter recalled,

Kelsey said that he wanted to make some arrangement to get shed of Catherine, his wife, because she knew too much about the Anna Brown murder deal. Kelsey said that he would give me a note to Bill Hale and that Hale would fix the arrangements. Hale paid him, told him to get Catherine drunk and get rid of her. He decided not to go through with the dough and made his confession after he was arrested for robbery. Then agent White received a tip that a former outlaw gang member who was

involved with Al Spencer came to Pawhuska to kill federal agents. Everyone was worried that Ernest was going to be murdered before he could testify. According to author Grant Hale told one of his associates that Ernest was the only person he was afraid of. He reportedly said, whatever you do, you get to Ernest. That's his fucking nephew. On January 20th, 1926, Ernest told Agent White that he felt sure he was going to be killed. White promised him protection, arranged for him to be taken out of state and guarded until the trial. His name was never registered in hotels, he was moved around, he was referred to as E.J.

Ernest. Uh, okay. Seems like they could have come up with a better pseudonym than one that involves his name. What do you want your fake name to be, Ernest?, how about uh, how about EJ? Oh, uh EJ Ernest Brilliant Molly still didn't believe that Ernest was intentionally guilty though She was worried when he didn't come home agent white promised that she could correspond with him poor Molly

Interestingly Molly's health condition has improved greatly Since she has been away from earnest and the insulin shots by those dirty fucking doctor brothers. She felt better than she had in years. But all is not well with her. As if life needed to fucking punish Molly any more than she's already been punished, she's now shunned from her community by white people and Osage people. Whites hated her for going against Hale and the Osage hated her because they blamed her for bringing the killers into their community. March 21st 1926, a judge now ruled

that although the Roan murder occurred on an Osage-owned allotment, that did not count as tribal lands and the case had to be tried in state court. Hello more corruption! King wins again. The prosecution appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it would be months until they got a ruling, meaning Hale and Ramsey were supposed to be released. And they thought they were going to be released, but Sheriff Fries now approaches Hale at the court hearing with a warrant for his arrest. Agent White and Oklahoma Attorney General's prosecutors filed state charges against both Hale and Ramsey for the Smith bombing murders.

Hale Agent White. He is playing this chess match against King very well. However, they had to try the case in Pawhuska where Hale had basically paid everyone off. A preliminary hearing will take place March 12th, 1926. Ernest Burkhart attends the hearing to testify. Prentice Freeling, Hale's lawyer and the former Attorney General of Oklahoma, demands to speak privately with Ernest and tells the judge Ernest was his client. Ernest said, no I'm not, but he's willing to speak with him even though you know he claimed he was terrified of Hale and his associates. They were gone for 20 minutes, I don't know why this was allowed, when the bailiff brought them out, Freeling

asked the court to give Ernest until the next day so he could talk to the defense. Well, the next morning, prosecutors announced that Ernest now was refusing to testify. He testified he'll testify for the defense instead instead of the state. He said he had never spoken to Hale about any murders of Osage people and Hale never asked him to hire anyone to kill Henry Rowe. Fucking Unc got to him. King bent him to his will again. He's a fucking super villain Clearly made some threat that scared him

Maybe let him know that his kids will be killed before you know, he was killed if he didn't keep doing his uncle's bidding Prosecutors now filed charge against earnest for being a co-conspirator in the bombing May 1st 1926 earnest brother Byron Burkhart is now arrested for the murder of Anna Brown. It'll be a while until he goes to trial. May 6, 1926, it's announced that Ernest Burkhart charged with the murder of Bill Smith will go to trial first. Prosecutors were worried about the outcome because the confessions from Ernest and John Ramsay had now been recanted. Opening statements start May 26. William Hale testifies that agents White and Smith tried to coerce confession out of him by pointing a gun at him. They put the gun in his face. They threatened to beat him. He claimed agents put him in a chair, attached wires to his

body. They placed a hood mask over his face. They even electrocuted him a little bit. Uh-huh. Then Ernest Burkhart and John Ramsey testified they were also mistreated. That's why they confessed. Hale is good. He's a good little mastermind. Why did his team deny these allegations in court? The prosecution called on Kelsey Morrison, who admitted his role in the conspiracy now. Morrison testified that William Hale planned to kill all of Molly Burkhart's family. He told him he wanted to kill, quote, the whole damn bunch so Ernest would get it all. And I have to think King's plan was

then to have Ernest make him the beneficiary of his will and then kill his nephew Otherwise why bother with all this? Morrison said that Hale recruited him to kill Anna Brown gave him a 380 automatic Morrison testified that Byron Burkhart was his accomplice. He made sure Anna was good and drunk drove her to Three Mile Creek Morrison's wife was with him. He said he told her to stay in the car his wife He and Byron grabbed Anna who was too drunk to walk, carried her down into the ravine. Byron helped Anna sit on a rock by the creek. Morrison told him how to hold her and he shot her in the head. After Morrison shot her, Byron let her go. She fell over and

they left her body. Morrison's wife will testify that she didn't go to the police because Morrison threatened to stomp me to death. She confirmed that she stayed in the car for 25 to 30 minutes and the men returned without Anna. June 3rd, 1926. Molly is called away from trial because her daughter Anna has died. My God! She hasn't done shit to anyone and just continues to be pummeled in this story. Meanwhile, although still in prison, King Hale's doing great. Healthy, wealthy, evil, and wise. Not losing family members. Anna had been sick recently with whooping cough. She was only four when she died. Doctors do not suspect foul play in this case, and it wasn't the Shone brothers doing the examination. As mentioned, relatives have been raising Anna for her

safety and because of Molly's depression regarding all that she had been through, and because, you know know for a long time she didn't feel good because she was being poisoned. June 7th as Ernest was being escorted from County excuse me from court back to jail he slips a note to the deputy sheriff. The note is addressed to prosecutor John Lee and asked him to meet Ernest in jail that night or John Leahy. Ernest told the prosecutor he was done lying. This comes out of nowhere. All of a sudden he does not want to continue with his trial. He said he couldn't talk to his own

lawyers. They're probably corrupt. Asked Leahy to contact Flint Moss, another attorney to come see him. Does this piece of shit still have a bit of conscience left in him? June 9th, 1926, Ernest Burkhardt pleads guilty to the murder of Bill Smith. Not sure how he could plead guilty to just his murder and not all three in the bombing. But this is what, you know, we've verified this numerous times, this is what the old newspaper accounts say, just to this one murder. Your Honor, I want to be clear that I intended to bomb only Bill. I like Rita.

Bomber helped arrange to be exploded under her house. Not supposed to blow up Rita or Nettie Brookshaw. I was just supposed to blow up Bill. Nettie and Rita sounds to me like they did not get exploded quite the same, your honor. They got, how would I put this? They were accidented. You can't convict a man of being a participant in an accident or a death, something like that. Who knows?

I don't know what the fuck was going on in this county. Ernest went straight to the judge, spoke to him quietly, then told the court that he wanted to discharge his attorneys and will be represented by Flint Moss. The judge agrees. Moss then tells the court that Ernest wants to change his plea to guilty. And Ernest tells Moss, I'm sick and tired of all this. I want to admit exactly what I did. Ernest reads the statement admitting that he delivered a message from Hale to John Ramsey.

The message was to tell Ace of Kirby that it was time to kill the Smith family. Ernest said, I feel in my heart that I did it because I was requested to do it by Hale, who is my uncle. The truth of what I did I have told to many men and as I see it the honest and honorable thing for me to do was to stop the trial and acknowledge the truth." The judge asked Ernest if federal agents forced him to sign a confession under threat. Ernest said that all they had done was keep him up late. After Ernest pled guilty, the Supreme Court ruled that Henry Rohn was murdered on Indian

land which meant Hale and Ramsey could now be prosecuted in federal court. Double win for Asian White. He's winning the chess game now. June 21st 1926, Ernest Burkhart sends to life in prison. While King Hale is awaiting trial, he's housed in a separate tier from the outlaw Blackie Thompson and he passes him a note through a hole where a radiator pipe goes to the ceiling. Blackie reported that Hale asked him what he wanted in order to not testify against him. Blackie wrote that he wouldn't testify if Hale asked him what he wanted in order to not testify against him.

Lackey wrote that he wouldn't testify if Hale could get him out of prison. Hale said he could arrange his escape if Thompson would then kidnap Ernest and make him disappear before he could testify. He wanted his nephew killed in Mexico so the body would never be found. God Hale would have murdered his own wife and kids if it got him out of trouble or a decent payday. King Hail and John Ramsey's trial opens in Federal Court, July 26, 1926. Opening statements start on July 29.

Ernest testifies against his uncle on July 30. He said that the original plan was for Henry Rhone to drink poison moonshine. Author Gran wrote, Burkhardt's testimony finally made public what the Osage had long known. Members of the tribe had been systematically killed with intentionally contaminated alcohol. Ernest said that Hale was furious when he learned Ramsey did not fire the gun into the front of Rhone's head to make it look like a suicide, and also didn't leave the gun at the crime scene. Ernest testified, Hale said to me if John Ramsey had done it the way I told him, nobody would have known but that Roan had attempted suicide. The prosecution rested on August 7th. The defense called William King Hale to the

stand and he did something unconventional. He stood up in the witness box, slowly surveyed everyone present, started laughing, unzipped his pants and started pissed on the floor. He said, I ever remember this jury killed and you too judge If I'm not acquitted, you know, you know who the fuck I am. I'm the king of the old sage hills They shook off his dick. Zipped his pants back up and added and that's all I have to say today He walked back to his seat next to his attorney No, but I wouldn't been surprised if that happened. No, he said I never devised the scheme to have rone killed I also never desired his death The jury began deliberating August 20th No, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. No, he said, I never devised a scheme to have Roan killed.

I also never desired his death. The jury began deliberating August 20th. On August 25th, the jury was excused after failing to reach a verdict after almost 50 hours of deliberation because King got to some of them. Prosecutor Roy St. Louis told the judge he was informed at least one jury had been bribed. The judge ordered the two defendants to be held for further trial. Agent White was now asked to investigate the corruption that occurred during this trial. This guy must have started to think he was never going to fucking leave Oklahoma.

He was going to be stuck in Osage County for the rest of his life trying to pin something on William King Hale. Well White uncovered both bribes and perjury. One witness said defense attorney Jim Springer offered him or excuse me offered him money to lie. When he first turned him down he said Springer pointed what looked like a gun in his pocket at him and threatened to kill him. Oh my God! In early October 1926 a grand jury recommends filing charges against Springer and other witnesses for obstruction of justice. Several witnesses will be indicted and convicted but but not Springer because again, corruption. Hale and Ramsey's second trial starts in Oklahoma City, October 21st, 1926.

At the retrial, the prosecution presents the exact same case. Testimony lasts just eight days. One prosecutor gave the following closing statement, The time has now come for you men to stand for law and order and decency. Time to uncrown this king. You should say by your verdict as courageous men, decent men, that they shall hang by the neck until they are dead. October 29th, William Hale, John Ramsay both found guilty in the murder of Henry Rohn.

Unfortunately, not sentenced to be hanged or sentenced to life in prison. Byron Burkhardt's trial is supposed to finally begin in Pawhuska, February 10th, 1927 for the murder of Anna Brown, but that trial again delayed. Kelsey Morrison goes to trial for the murder of Anna Brown, November 15th, 1927. Kelsey recanted his confession. Authorities seized a note he sent to Hale in prison promising to burn down the authorities if he got the chance. Byron Burkhardt is promised immunity in exchange for his testimony here, so that's why the trial was delayed.

Byron testifies about returning to the crime scene to identify Anna's body a week after they killed her. November 19th, Kelsey Morrison is convicted of the murder of Anna Brown and sentenced to life in prison. Molly divorces Ernest after Morris' conviction. December 14th, the charges against Byron are dropped because of his cooperation. So that's cool. So he just gets away with helping murder at least one innocent woman for his uncle. March 27th, 1928 the United States Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the federal district court of Oklahoma's decision in King Hale's murder conviction. The fucker gets another trial.

He still got plenty of bribe money apparently. The king of Osage County not down yet. He still got plenty of bribe money, apparently. The King of Osage County, not down yet. Jury selection for William Hale's third trial starts January 15th, 1929. Ernest Burkhart will testify January 18th and 19th. And on January 26th, King Hale found guilty again for complicity in the murder of Henry Rohn, sentenced again to life in prison. Finally it seems like the Osage murders are over, like they've been solved. Hale only went down for one murder when he was likely behind a dozen or more, connected

to other assholes possibly behind 200 or more murders, but it seems like the main dude who created this web of corruption and greed that allowed for the continual killing of the Osage, the guy who made sure everyone could just keep getting away with it all was now finally locked up. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI praised for their work in the murder case. Grant wrote, Hoover was careful not to disclose the Bureau's earlier bungling. He did not reveal that Blackie Thompson had escaped under the Bureau's watch and killed a policeman, or that because of so many false starts in the probe other murders had occurred. Instead Hoover created a pristine origin story, a founding mythology in which the Bureau, under his direction, had emerged

from lawlessness and overcome the last wild American frontier. The Osage Travel Council was the only governing body to publicly thank and name FBI agents who solved the case. Osage also persuaded Congress to pass a new law that barred anyone who was not at least half Osage from ever inheriting head rights to take away incentive for the continued killing. And then just months after putting all these killings to an end, the Osage will suffer again along with most other Americans when the Great Depression hits. Many of the Osage lost their fortunes, especially after guardians had stolen much of it for themselves. The price of oil dropped from over $3 a barrel to 65 cents in 1931. The annual headright payment decreased to less than

800. Oil fields also were becoming depleted. As the 1930s wore on, the once bustling boom towns became ghost towns, early shadows of their former selves in Osage County. Three wells across the reservation only generate less than 15 barrels a day currently. The Osage eventually did receive some funds that were mismanaged by the government. In 2011, the government agreed to settle with the tribe for 380 million. Auctions continued, but the land value was nothing compared to what it once was. An auction held in 2012 where three leases were sold made less than 15 grand. In 2014, the government issued new regulations for oil drilling, which are expensive to satisfy.

Oilmen stopped drilling new wells in Osage County because so little oil was being produced and it was expensive. However, according to David Grand's 2017 novel, the Osage now have seven casinos on their territory that generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the tribe that fund government, education, and healthcare. If you feel like losing some money to Casino, I gotta say those seven might be some of the most deserving in the nation after all the Osage went through. I'll share a few more dates regarding where some of the characters in the story ended up in today's fifth takeaway.

Right now it's time to get out of this timeline. Good job, soldier.'ve made it back. Barely. And now after all that just a brief discussion of some other Osage murders, so many others, the FBI never looked into countless suspicious deaths. According to author Gran, Hoover was in a rush to close the case. Gran's book discussed a larger conspiracy that infected all of Osage County. A man named H.G. Burt for example, suspected of running at least one similar murder for headright scam. H.G. Burt, born in

Missouri in 1874, 1910 moved to Pawhuska, opened a trading store, eventually became a president of a bank. Burt ran a loan business that targeted Osage people, exploited the shit out of them. During a 1915 congressional hearing, a tribal attorney said Burt borrowed money from whites, then re-lent it to the Osage at insanely high interest rates, like up to 50% interest. He was a loan shark, amongst other things. Grant went to the National Archives in Fort Worth and found a log book from the Office of Indian Affairs that listed the names of guardians and their wards with notes about

who died while under their guardianship in Osage County. H.G. Burt had one ward die under his guardianship. Scott Mathis, the owner of that Big Hill Trading Company who we met, seven out of his nine wards died. At least two of the deaths murdered. Another unnamed guardian. Eight out of nine wards died, at least two of the deaths murdered. Another unnamed guardian. Eight out of eleven wards died.

Another had over half of their thirteen wards die. And on and on and on. Most of those cases never investigated. King Hale was one of many soulless, evil assholes who clearly did not see the Osage as human, saw them as prey no different than a deer. Something to be hunted for money instead of meat. Gran wrote about several more cases of attempted murder and suspicious deaths, including the case of Sybil Bolton, who died November 7, 1925, after being shot in the chest.

She was just 21. Her stepdad reported the death as a suicide, and the case was quickly closed. But her grandson, Dennis McAuliffe Jr., investigated her death and wrote a memoir titled The Death of Sybil Bolton published in 1994. The evidence in her case suggested she was killed outside her home with her 16-month-old baby beside her. Her guardian had four other wards who died. One agent wrote a report regarding how less obvious murders were committed.

In it he stated, In connection with the mysterious deaths of a large number of Indians, the perpetrators of the crime would get an Indian intoxicated, have a doctor examine him and pronounce him intoxicated, following which a morphine hypodermic would be injected into the Indian, and after the doctor's departure the killers would inject an enormous amount of morphine under the armpit of the drunken Indian, which would result in his death. The doctor's certificate would subsequently read death from alcoholic poison. So

fucking just shady. Other suspicious deaths labeled as consumption, wasting illness or unknown. Dennis McAuliffe read the authentic Osage Indian Rollbook which reported the deaths of the original allotted tribe members and he wrote over the 16-year period from 1907 to 1923, 605 Osage's died, averaging about 30 a year, an annual death rate of 19 per a thousand. The national death rate in the 1920s averaged almost 12 per thousand for whites.

Because the Osage had a higher standard of living in the 1920s than literally anyone else on earth, they should have had a lower death rate, but they were dying at more than one and a half times national rate. One agent who worked the case before, Agent White, said in an interview transcript, there are so many of these murder cases. There are hundreds and hundreds. That's his quote, hundreds and hundreds. And almost the overwhelming majority of the people behind those deaths never even went to court. Forget convicted, never charged.

The Osage reign of terror was a sad chapter in American history. An epidemic of murders and mysterious deaths plaguing the Osage nation in the early 20th century. After being displaced from their land, the Osage people moved into a reservation in modern-day Osage County, Oklahoma. What they thought was barren land was sitting on top of a vast oil reserve. The Osage became outrageously wealthy thanks to a deal with the federal government that allowed them to retain their mineral rights. In the early 20s, a few thousand Osage were the richest people per capita on earth. The tribe distributed the royalties from the leases equally among enrolled members. Shares in the oil leases were called head rights. Eager to access this money, the government forced all Osage members to pass a

highly subjective competency test to prove they could manage such wealth. Those who failed, which were all full-blood Osage, were assigned to Guardian. The Osage head rights could not be bought or sold. They could only be inherited. So outsiders had to marry in or become a legal guardian of an Osage person. One study found that guardians stole an estimated eight million dollars from their ward in just a few years. What was more concerning was the high death rate amongst the Osage people. Deaths were classified as natural deaths,

accidents, suicides with no investigation. Autopsies were skipped, death certificates falsified. Historians and investigators believed that guardians worked with local law enforcement so no one would discover the truth, that they were killing their ward by the dozens to inherit those head rights. FBI got involved in the case in 1923 and 1925.

That was the Bureau's first major homicide investigation. They estimated that 24 Osage people were killed, but their scope was pretty limited as far as what they're looking. That's the official number, but again, the real number, you know, believed to be in the hundreds. The FBI primarily focused on the murders of Molly Burkhart's family, and they discovered that Molly's husband, Ernest Burkhart, and his uncle, William Hale, King Hale, were at the murders of Molly Burkhart's family and they discovered that Molly's husband Ernest Burkhart and his uncle William Hale, King Hale, were at the heart of the conspiracy. Hale and Burkhart worked with multiple

conspirators to have the family killed which would leave Molly as the sole beneficiary of her family's head rights. With Ernest as her guardian they planned to kill her so that he could get all the money and it was suspected that Ernest was having Molly poisoned via her insulin injections on behalf of Hale. William Hale, Ernest Burkhart, some conspirators were convicted and sentenced to life in prison but it is believed that the FBI only discovered the tip of the iceberg in the Osage murder case. And now time for some takeaways. Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways

Number 1. The Osage people were displaced from their home three times in their history. The third displacement took place in 1871. They purchased what they thought was barren land in Oklahoma territory, but it was sitting on top of a lot of black gold. Oilmen were vined for drilling rights to the Osage land and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for leases to drill. Number 2. At the same time, the federal government was planning to force the Osage land and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for leases to drill. Number two, at the same time the federal government was planning to force the Osage territory into

160 acre allotments, Osage leaders reached a deal with the government that would allow the allotments to span the entire reservation and guaranteed the tribes rights to the oil and minerals underground, all of it. The Osage became extremely wealthy from their oil proceeds. Number three, no one knows for sure how many people were killed during the Reign of Terror. FBI's official numbers get 24. But it's believed that the true number could be in the hundreds. Countless guardians conspired with corrupt officials to kill their wards and cover up the deaths as accidents or suicides.

Historians have discovered records that showed individuals who had multiple wards die under their guardianship. Those guardians then inherited the precious oil head rights. Number four, Agent White. The guy who finally cracked the case. In the summer of 1925, special FBI agent in charge of the Houston field office, Tom White, received an order from Washington informing him that J. Edgar Hoover wanted to talk to him personally.

White, who had previously served with the Texas Rangers, had joined the FBI in 1917 when he couldn't join the army due to a recent surgery. And then Hoover sent White to Osage County to get shit done. And he did. He made it to Oklahoma in July of 25 and he finally arrested William King Hale after he and fellow agents worked their asses off in January of 26. Six solid months of pursuing lead after lead after lead, interviewing witness after witness after witness, in addition to his men doing a bunch of dangerous undercover work. Hoover had told him there can be no excuse offered for failure, and he did not

fail. Number five, new info. What happened after the trials? Well, Agent Tom White left the Bureau of Investigation to serve as the warden of Leavenworth Prison. John Ramsay and William Hale were actually transferred there. I'll be fucked with Hale on a regular basis. I won! I did get you! Look where you are!

Look where I am! In the late 1950s, when White was in his 70s, he thought about writing a story about the Osage case because he didn't want people to forget about it. He wrote a few pages himself. Then in 1958, he started working with author Fred Grove, who was part Osage, and was in Fairfax during the murders. White wanted the story told in the third person so it wasn't all about him. But sadly, publishers didn't think it would sell.

Grove later released a fictional version titled The Years of Fear, but White's historical account was never published. White suffered a stroke in October of 1971, died on December 21st at the age of 90. William King Hale was first assigned to work in the tuberculosis ward, too bad he didn't come down with some consumption, and later the prison farm. He would never admit to organizing any of the murders. Hale was given a neurological exam in prison, psychological exam as well. There was no evidence of mental illness, but one doctor found doctor found that quote he had extremely vicious components in his makeup. Hale

spent years trying to get out of prison. He allegedly arranged to bribe an appeals court but failed. Still he bragged per his evaluator about his probable release through my influence and friends. On July 31st 1944 William Hale was released. He was granted parole after serving 22 years in prison at the age of 72. The parole board made the decision based on his advanced age and his good behavior in prison. He was forbidden from returning to Oklahoma. However, his relatives said he visited them once and said if that damn Ernest had kept

his mouth shut, we'd be rich today. These pieces of shit. That tough old bastard would live another 15 years, dying in Phoenix. At the age of 87 he lived in a nursing home the last several years of his life. A 1956 memo addressed to J. Edgar Hoover reported that Hale was living in Montana working at a drive-in restaurant. Also worked as a dishwasher and on a ranch in some capacity. He never again would attain any semblance of the wealth power influence he once had. He would die broke and alone. So a little bit of good news.

Molly Burkhart married a half-white, half-Creek man named John Cobb in 1928. On April 21st, 1931, a court ruled that Molly was no longer under guardianship. She could now manage her own money and she was recognized as an American citizen. In 2012, David Grant spoke to Margie Burkhart, Molly's granddaughter. He learned that Molly lived on the reservation with John Cobb until she died June 16, 1937 at the age of 50 and then her head rights passed on to her two surviving children. Ernest Burkhart granted parole on December 22, 1937. He was only 45. The Osage Travel Council issued a resolution 1937. He was only 45. The Osage Travel Council issued a resolution protesting his parole, arguing that anyone convicted of such vicious and barbarous crimes should not be freed to

return to the scene of these crimes. Agreed. According to his granddaughter Margie, Ernest soon robbed an Osage home after his release and was sent back to prison. Ernest was released from prison again a dozen years later, 1959. He was barred from returning to Oklahoma now. He ended up heading all the way down to Mexico, where he worked on a sheep farm. Ernest was released from prison again a dozen years later in 1959. He was barred from returning to Oklahoma now. He ended up heading all the way down to Mexico where he worked on a sheep farm. Ernest then returned to the U.S. applied for pardon in 1966. In his appeal, he argued that he had cooperated with the Bureau. The board granted him a pardon and the governor confirmed it. Now he was allowed to return to Oklahoma, came back to Osage County, stayed with his brother and fellow murderer Byron. It's a shame that vigilantes didn't kill them both. His granddaughter Margie met him after his return to Osage County.

She told Gran, When I met Ernest, I had just become a teenager. I was very surprised. He looked so grandfatherly. He was very slight with gray hair. His eyes looked so kind. He wasn't rough even after all those years in prison. And I couldn't fathom that this man had done all that.

It was so hard on my dad. He and Liz were ostracized by the tribe and that hurt so much. They needed family and support and they didn't have any. Ernest eventually moved into a trailer just outside the county where he died in 86. He was impoverished. I like this little note on him. His ashes were given to his son James and he had asked to have his ashes spread around the Osage Hills. But James, still angry, still hurt by his father's actions, threw them, just fucking yeeted the ashes over a fucking bridge instead. Ah, fuck this guy. I love it. According to Margie, Molly and her son James were actually supposed to spend the night with Bill and Rita on March 9th, 1923, but James had an earache so they stayed home. to spend the night with Bill and Rita on March 9th, 1923, but James had an earache so they stayed home.

So yeah, Ernest was going to blow up, not just his brother and sister-in-law that night, but his wife and son too. And Margie told Gran, my dad had to live knowing that his father had tried to kill him. Time Shuck Top Five Takeaways The Osage Murders, the true story behind the killers of the flower moon or behind killers of the flower moon has been sucked What a fucking crazy story Thanks to the bad magic productions team for the help of making time suck Queen of bad magic Lindsay Cummins running operations around here Logan Keith recording this episode designing merch for the store at bad magic productions comm Thanks to Olivia Lee doing a great job with providing initial research this week. Awesome suggestion as well. Thanks also to the all-seeing eyes moderating the

culture, the curious private Facebook page, the mod squad making sure discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck subreddit and Bad Magic subreddits. And now for this week's updates. Starting things off this week with some therapy. Or with a therapist rather who was Cumminslawed. I'll keep her name private for obvious reasons. S sent in a subject line of, I, a therapist got Cumminslawed during a session. This is good. S wrote, damn motherfucking middle-name Cummins, I cannot believe that

I was Cumminslawed and it was by the damn April Fools episode. I've always been as diligent as possible at keeping my personal professional lives separate. I think that I'm extra careful around podcasts. I even have safe for work and not safe for work podcasts. You sir are not a safe for work podcast. It's fair except when it comes to my self-employment. See I work as a therapist for a publicly funded mental health organization and evenings and weekends. I have a little side private practice. It's all virtual. I've recently gotten a new cell phone after eight years my old one. The old one never connected with the car Bluetooth for my

office so I assumed the same with this one. Wrong. I'm in a session almost wrapping up and my partner comes home from work. My phone must have connected then to the Bluetooth. It started playing at full blast. Excuse the paraphrasing. His sister woke him up releasing on her or his sister woke up to him releasing on her and saw him run away with the hairbrush she had lost up his ass. My damn mic picked it up. My client's face froze. I panicked. I cannot get my fucking phone to turn off. When I turned it off, I returned to the session. I put on my best professional demeanor and just said, well I guess it's time to book your next appointment. And just pretended I wasn't red as fuck and sweating from the panic. Hail, Lucifina. Yes.

Yes, I laughed so hard when I pictured this, that Lindsay stopped in her crossword puzzle and asked if I was okay. Why are other people going through such uncomfortable moments? So funny to me. So funny to so many of us. I mean, movies like Borat, it's just one long series of uncomfortable encounters. Anyway, thanks for being able to laugh about it and extra thanks for doing what you do. Man, grinding extra on the weekends after helping people throughout the week. I hope you still have

time to take care of yourself after taking care of so many other people. And now a message from a cool sack I talked to once on the phone at a concert when I was high. I'll let Kenneth Rowe explain who sent in the subject line of I think Dan just killed me. Well hello suckers. So last night I just got home from my first date night with my wife in probably a year. We have two small kids and it's hard to find just us time. We went to see Chad Daniels. Awesome. And I got pretty hammered by the end of the night. When I got home I listened to the newest scared to death episode, What's in the Basement? and Dan's story he talked about Honda strip clubs. I'm sure

research was fun. Hey, Lucifino. Hmm? It was. When I was in my rare buzz state of mind I randomly heard Dan explaining the murder of Kenneth Rowan. My mind completely melted. I think Cummins lock can happen to anyone but having Dan on a podcast say your full name and referencing a murder feels like another level. I had to relisten next morning just to make sure I didn't make it up. I just want to say I feel honored to stay alive long enough to send in this email and express my overall gratitude for everything Bad Magic. I also have a kind of Time Suck update. I was lucky to have Dan call my phone while he was tripping at the

Dead and Killed concert. My brother was working in the show and got a pic with him. After my brother told him I was a big fan and Dan called me. He was definitely feeling pretty good and we talked for a good few minutes. I might have actually hung up on Dan. I was nervous but talking to Dan did feel like talking to an old friend for a quick catch up. I'll always appreciate your kindness and ability to stay grounded. I didn't know what I was talking about. I do remember to talk to you but I have no idea how long I talked or what I said. Time was moving different. I want to say that all the bad Magic Productions have helped me give have helped provide me a good source of escapism after I lost my dad in January. His name was also Kenneth

Rowan. He didn't get murdered either. I've had a lot of ups and downs and felt like it was a nice blessing to have Time Suck and STD to look forward to. I love the short sucks and I'm blown away by nightmare fuel. Your creative writing skills are incredible. That's very nice. I urge all fans of Time Suck to check them out if they haven't. Also, I totally got tricked by Richard Bird, but having a new Time Suck release on my birthday, April 3rd, made up for it. I hope one day Dan does a suck of the Philadelphia bombing

of the Move cult. I don't know the odds of this making the podcast, but if it does, I'd like to give a shout out to my amazing wife, Sondra, and also shout out to my gremlin chunky... You wrote chunky doll. I bet you meant to write Chucky doll. Chunky doll is kind of funnier though. And shout out to my gremlin chunky doll, little brother Cory, and a message to my recently sober older brother Steve that

I'm proud of him. You got this man. Thanks BMP team. Thanks. The very much not murdered in strip club Kenneth Rowan. Kenneth first off, so sorry about your father. Glad we could provide some escapism as you have grieved and I'm sure continue to do so. Also thanks so much for your kind words. It's very fun right now to creatively focus on a little less in some ways while not touring. Yeah it feels good. Glad you were not the Kenneth Rowan killed in the strip club. Also hi Sandra, you got a good dude.

I'm pretty sure he was very nice when we talked. Corey Steve, chunky gremlins, you got a good brother. Glad you were able to do what you needed to do Steve to live a better life for yourself and others. You know, just so I'm saying it, even though I mess around recreationally with certain drugs and we'll talk about it, I also don't think they're for everyone. We're also similar yet so different you know what works for some of us truly destroys others and I've always been irritated by the person who's like oh you have to try this. No you

don't. Do what works for you. Now just one more quick one, a silly one that just struck me as cute from Liza with the lime eyes who sent in the subject line of sack of cells. Uh, Liza wrote when I was 17, my sister who was 23 was married and became pregnant. She was incredibly hormonal looking back on it. I think maybe she should have been put away for a while. So the public, or for the public's safety for some reason, and I really don't remember why I was pissed that she was pregnant. Our family was discussing the baby probably about names or something like that.

I looked at my sister and said, why do you care so much? Just a sack of cells. She picked up a 1990s era TV remote. Like it was like a brick. She started beating me with it. She kept slapping with it as hard as she could. But that fucking hurt. She got me in a corner, would not stop beating me.

I couldn't defend myself because she was pregnant. I had a remote shaped bruise on my left cheek forever. Oh my god. True story. So before you had meat sacks, I coined the term sack of cells and paid dearly for it. That sack of cells is named Christian and he's 27 now. Liza with lime eyes. Sack of cells. I like it Liza. That's what we are. Sacks of meat, sacks of cells, sacks of meat and cells with a little magic added to it all. Also I find the visual of one sister while pregnant beating the shit out of another sister with a remote pretty satisfying. Sibling rivalry is fun to watch. Sibling angst. Kyler Monroe 18 and 16 now, they still attack each other literally every day when they're around

each other. Like full on we're on on the floor, wrestling around, slamming each other into shit attacks. And it cracks me up every time. Unless they're by sharp corners, then it scares me. But for the most part, funny. Anyway, thank you, Liza, and to all you other sacks of cells, thank you for riding in. ["Sick of It", by The Bachelorette plays in background.]

Next time, suckers, I needed that. We all did. Thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to Death, Time Suck each week. Short Sucks and Nightmare Fuel on the Time Suck and Scared to Death podcast feeds some weeks. Please don't try and marry anyone so you can kill their family. Just put some money in your pocket this week. Less murdering this week more keep on sucking

So, how do you think next week's episode is gonna go? Will I be able to get through an entire episode? How much will I sweat? Will the room become impossibly hot or impossibly cold? Will I be able to deliver an ad for Kellogg's Frosted Cock cages? Because I am going to try. How many times on Molly will I try to sing Billie Jean is not my lover. She's just a girl claims that I am the one. But the key is not my son. It's gonna be something next week. It might not be something good, but it's gonna be something.