Killers of the Flower Moon

“Undertakers charged the Osage exorbitant rates for a funeral, trying to gouge them, and this was no exception. The undertaker demanded $1,450 for the casket, $100 for preparing and embalming the body, and $25 for the rental of a hearse. By the time he was done tallying the accessories, including gloves for the grave digger, the total cost was astronomical. As a lawyer in town said, ‘It was getting so that you could not bury an Osage Indian at a cost of under $6,000’—a sum that, adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of nearly $80,000 today.”

This illustrates the system of graft that was in place in Osage territory, in which white people swindled the Osage people out of millions of dollars. This was in addition to the killings that took place to get control of the headrights to oil wealth. The entire society was designed so that white people could feed like parasites on Osage wealth.

“And few places in the country were as chaotic as Osage County, where the unwritten codes of the West, the traditions that bound communities, had unraveled. By one account, the amount of oil money had surpassed the total value of all the Old West gold rushes combined, and this fortune had drawn every breed of miscreant from across the country.”

This shows the lawlessness, outlaws, and great wealth that existed in Osage territory, creating the mix that would lead to the territory’s horrific crimes. While all of the American West was, at this point in history, less controlled than the country’s East, Osage territory was a thing unto itself, a deadly amalgam of riches and corruption.

“Mollie’s brother-in-law, Bill Smith, was one of the first to wonder if there was something curious about Lizzie’s death, coming so soon after the murders of Anna and Whitehorn. A bruising bulldog of a man, Bill had also expressed deep frustration over the authorities’ investigation, and he had begun looking into the matter himself. Like Mollie, he was struck by the peculiar vagueness of Lizzie’s sickness; no doctor had ever pinpointed what was causing it. Indeed, no one had uncovered any natural cause for her death. The more Bill delved, conferring with doctors and local investigators, the more he was certain that Lizzie had died of something dreadfully unnatural: she’d been poisoned. And Bill was sure that all three deaths were connected—somehow—to the Osage’s subterranean reservoir of black gold.”

Bill Smith gave one of the earliest warnings about what the mysterious deaths were all about. His suspicions of the murders being related to the oil wealth proved correct. Unfortunately, he became a target, not only because of his prescient warnings, but also because he was married to Mollie’s sister, Rita. Hale was trying to consolidate all the headrights under Mollie’s control so he could get at them through his nephew, Ernest, who was Mollie’s husband and guardian.

“Like others on the Osage tribal roll, Mollie and her family members each received a headright—essentially, a share in the tribe’s mineral trust. When, the following year, Oklahoma entered the Union as the forty-sixth state, members of the tribe were able to sell their surface land in what was now Osage County. But to keep the mineral trust under tribal control, no one could buy or sell headrights. These could only be inherited.”

This passage explains the system that made the Osage Nation targets. While surface land could be bought and sold, headrights were transferred solely by inheritance; the only way to obtain a headright, then, was through the death of the person who owned it. Thus, unscrupulous white people decided to kill tribe members after installing their allies as heirs (for example, through marriage).

“The U.S. government, contending that many Osage were unable to handle their money, had required the Office of Indian Affairs to determine which members of the tribe it considered capable of managing their trust funds. Over the tribe’s vehement objections, many Osage, including Lizzie and Anna, were deemed ‘incompetent,’ and were forced to have a local white guardian overseeing and authorizing all of their spending, down to the toothpaste they purchased at the corner store. One Osage who had served in World War I complained, ‘I fought in France for this country, and yet I am not allowed even to sign my own checks.’ The guardians were usually drawn from the ranks of the most prominent white citizens in Osage County.”

This shows another way the system was set up against the Osage Nation. Although the Osage people owned the land and accompanying mineral rights that brought them great wealth, this wealth was often controlled by white guardians—a racist system instituted by the federal government that deemed virtually all full-blooded Osage members “incompetent” and unable to manage their fortunes in order to prevent them from amassing wealth.

“On March 26, 1922, less than a month after Stepson’s death, an Osage woman died of a suspected poisoning. Once again, no thorough toxicology exam was performed. Then, on July 28, Joe Bates, an Osage man in his thirties, obtained from a stranger some whiskey, and after taking a sip, he began frothing at the mouth, before collapsing. He, too, had died of what authorities described as some strange poison.”

The Reign of Terror quickly ramped up in 1922. After several murders in 1921, these three mysterious deaths (William Stepson also died from suspected poisoning) of Osage people who were young and otherwise healthy led to the feeling of terror throughout the community. Tribe members felt they were being targeted, but no one knew why yet.

“A growing number of white Americans expressed alarm over the Osage’s wealth—outrage that was stoked by the press. Journalists told stories, often wildly embroidered, of Osage who discarded grand pianos on their lawns or replaced old cars with new ones after getting a flat tire. Travel magazine wrote, ‘The Osage Indian is today the prince of spendthrifts. Judged by his improvidence, the Prodigal Son was simply a frugal person with an inherent fondness for husks.’ A letter to the editor in the Independent, a weekly magazine, echoed the sentiment, referring to the typical Osage as a good-for-nothing who had attained wealth ‘merely because the Government unfortunately located him upon oil land which we white folks have developed for him.’ John Joseph Mathews bitterly recalled reporters ‘enjoying the bizarre impact of wealth on the Neolithic men, with the usual smugness and wisdom of the unlearned.’”

The role of the press in promoting racist stereotypes of Indigenous people is seen here. The Osage tribe members are portrayed as unworthy of their wealth and unable to handle it. It’s important to remember that the Osage people would never have been on this land to begin with, had white Americans not forced them to move there in the first place.

“White had no doubt what would happen if he didn’t succeed: previous agents on the case had been banished to distant outposts or cast out from the bureau entirely. Hoover had said, ‘There can be no excuse offered for […] failure.’ White was also aware that several of those who had tried to catch the killers had themselves been killed. From the moment he walked out of Hoover’s office, he was a marked man.”

This shows the high stakes for Tom White as he took over the Osage murders case. Personally, it was a dangerous position since other investigators had been killed; professionally, it was risky because Hoover staked the Bureau’s reputation on the case.

“White knew that Wren would bring an essential perspective to the team. Some of the previous agents on the case, including Burger, had betrayed the kind of casual prejudice toward the Osage that was then commonplace. In a joint report, Burger and another agent had stated, ‘The Indians, in general, are lazy, pathetic, cowardly, dissipated,’ and Burger’s colleague insisted that the only way to make ‘any of these dissolute, stubborn Osage Indians talk and tell what they know is to cut off their allowance […]and if necessary, throw them in jail.’ Such contempt had deepened the Osage’s distrust of the federal agents and hindered the investigation.”

Even some of the agents working to solve the case of the Osage murders held racist views toward Indigenous people—such was the widespread nature of Anti-Indigenous Racism and Prejudice at the time. Agent John Wren was part Ute, so White thought he was uniquely qualified to gain the trust of the Osage and thus help the Bureau solve the case.

“One government study estimated that before 1925 guardians had pilfered at least $8 million directly from the restricted accounts of their Osage wards. ‘The blackest chapter in the history of this State will be the Indian guardianship over these estates,’ an Osage leader said, adding, ‘There has been millions—not thousands—but millions of dollars of many of the Osages dissipated and spent by the guardians themselves.’”

This quote indicates the level of theft that occurred through the guardianship system, which helped unscrupulous white guardians siphon off enormous sums of money. Keep in mind that the $8 million in 1920s would be over $120 million in 2023. This represents what was taken directly, excluding the amount swindled from the Osage through inflated prices.

“White studied the pattern of deaths in Mollie’s family. Even the chronology no longer seemed haphazard but was part of a ruthless plan. Anna Brown, divorced and without children, had bequeathed nearly all her wealth to her mother, Lizzie. By killing Anna first, the mastermind made sure that her headright would not be divided between multiple heirs. Because Lizzie had willed most of her headright to her surviving daughters, Mollie and Rita, she became the next logical target. Then came Rita and her husband, Bill Smith.”

As he combed through the details of the killing spree, Tom White realized that the timing of the murders was designed to concentrate the headrights with Mollie Burkhart, whose husband, Ernest, was her financial guardian. Rita and Bill Smith were killed in a bombing because their will stated that if they died at the same time, Rita’s headright would go to Mollie. As Grann explains in the text, since Bill actually survived Rita by a few days, he inherited the headright and then passed it on to his relatives.

“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. Reports from agents and informants like Morrison suggested that several of these desperadoes had knowledge about the murders. These men might not be any less racist. But because some of them had recently been arrested, or convicted of crimes, White would at least hold some leverage over them.”

Again, the level and extent of prejudice against Indigenous people is shown in this quote. White had to turn to criminals for help in the investigation because seemingly law-abiding white citizens were so reluctant to provide information that incriminated their fellow white people.

“White observed the way Ramsey kept saying ‘the Indian,’ rather than Roan’s name. As if to justify his crime, Ramsey said that even now ‘white people in Oklahoma thought no more of killing an Indian than they did in 1724.’”

John Ramsey was convicted with William Hale for the murder of Henry Roan. Here, he openly voices what others thought but would not state—that white people placed little value on the lives of their Osage neighbors.

“Burkhart once described Hale as the best man you ‘ever saw until after you found him out and knowed him,’ adding, ‘You could meet and you’d fall in love with him. Women were the same way. But the longer you stayed around him, he’d get to you. He’d beat you some way.’”

This quote by William Hale’s own nephew gives a sense of Hale’s duplicity and the terrifying charm he could deploy to reel people into his schemes. He presented himself as an upstanding citizen and gentleman, even signing his name with the title “Reverend” sometimes, but that turned out to be a front to hide his ruthless and murderous side.

“There was one question that the judge and the prosecutors and the defense never asked the jurors but that was central to the proceedings: Would a jury of twelve white men ever punish another white man for killing an American Indian? One skeptical reporter noted, ‘The attitude of a pioneer cattleman toward the full-blood Indian […] is fairly well recognized.’ A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: ‘It is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is murder—or merely cruelty to animals.’”

This passage highlights the issue of racism as the case went to court. The prosecutors wanted to avoid trying the defendants in a state court because of Hale’s influence and reach in Oklahoma, worried that they would not be able to find an unbiased jury pool. However, as Grann points out, the larger question was whether any white jurors would convict another white man for killing an Indigenous person.

“White was stunned. More than a year of his work, more than three years of the bureau’s work, had reached an impasse. The jury was also hung when Bryan Burkhart was tried for the murder of Anna Brown. It seemed impossible to find twelve white men who would convict one of their own for murdering American Indians. The Osage were outraged, and there were murmurings about taking justice into their own hands. White suddenly had to deploy agents to protect Hale, this man whom he so desperately wanted to bring to justice.”

Despite all the evidence that White had amassed, and Ernest Burkhart admitting his guilt and testifying for the prosecution, the trials did not go well at first. Hale and Ramsey’s trial, as well as Bryan Burkhart’s, both ended in a hung jury. White’s fear of white jurors protecting their own seemed to be coming true—though it was also possible that Hale had managed to reach some of the jury and bribe them into derailing the deliberations. Justice for the Osage Nation was elusive.

“For Hoover, the Osage murder investigation became a showcase for the modern bureau. As he had hoped, the case demonstrated to many around the country the need for a national, more professional, scientifically skilled force. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote of the murders, ‘Sheriffs investigated and did nothing. State’s Attorneys investigated and did nothing. The Attorney General investigated and did nothing. It was only when the Government sent Department of Justice agents into the Osage country that law became a thing of majesty.’”

This illustrates that it took the federal government to solve the case. The local and state authorities had been ineffective primarily because they were under the sway of Hale; their interest in getting control of Osage headrights and their prevailing prejudice against Indigenous people prevented them from being effective at their jobs. Just as the Osage had suspected, it would take outsiders to bring the killers to justice.

“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.”

J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Bureau of Investigation, used the Osage case to burnish the Bureau’s (and, by extension, his own) reputation. There was more than a little propaganda involved, however, as the above quote shows: Hoover omitted parts of the story and shaped it with half-truths to position his agency in the best possible light.

“And so when the authorities caught up with Boxcar and the other escapees, Boxcar shot his two companions, then put a bullet in his own forehead. The other inmates prepared to kill themselves by detonating the dynamite, but before they could light the fuse, they were apprehended. One of them said, ‘The funny part is that when we got back to the institution they never laid a hand on us. Warden White was a hell of a man. He left strict orders, “No hands on these people, leave them alone. Treat them just like the rest of the prisoners.”’ He added, ‘Otherwise we’d have got our heads broken in.’”

This passage highlights the compassion and character of Tom White—a historical figure that Grann clearly admires and later bases his depiction of his own investigation on. The inmates of Leavenworth who broke out of the prison and took White hostage expected harsh treatment once they were apprehended, which is why some killed themselves rather than go back. However, White held no grudges and made sure they were not mistreated by the guards.

“Red Corn did not know more than these fragmentary details relayed to her by relatives, and she hoped that I could investigate her grandfather’s death. After a long pause, she said, ‘There were a lot more murders during the Reign of Terror than people know about. A lot more.’”

Kathryn Red Corn is the director of the Osage Nation Museum; when Grann talks with her, he gets a sense of how widespread, long-lasting, and all-encompassing the Reign of Terror really was—information that was not reflected in the official record. This prompts Grann to do further research to see what else he may be able to uncover about suspicious deaths not mentioned in the Bureau’s case.

“Yet, in hindsight, the fact that Hale appeared to have played no role in the Whitehorn plot was the very reason the killing was so important. Like the suspicious death of Red Corn’s grandfather, the plot against Whitehorn—and the failed plot against his widow—exposed the secret history of the Reign of Terror: the evil of Hale was not an anomaly.”

As Grann reviews the evidence and looks at the big picture, he discovers that the picture painted by the Bureau—that Hale was behind all the murders, and he was convicted and jailed—was not the full truth; rather, the Bureau did its best to solve aspects of the case in time for Hoover to broadcast victory, but left other deaths uninvestigated. As Grann does more research and talks to more tribe members, he learns that Hale could not have masterminded all the murders. The last phrase of the quote is chilling: The entire white community was involved in the evil.

“After I finished reading the manuscript documenting Lewis’s murder, I kept returning to one detail: she had been killed for her headright in 1918. According to most historical accounts, the Osage Reign of Terror spanned from the spring of 1921, when Hale had Anna Brown murdered, to January 1926, when Hale was arrested. So Lewis’s murder meant that the killings over headrights had begun at least three years earlier than was widely assumed, and if Red Corn’s grandfather was poisoned in 1931, then the killings also continued long after Hale’s arrest. These cases underscored that the murders of the Osage for their headrights were not the result of a single conspiracy orchestrated by Hale.”

Further proof of the extent of the killings comes from a manuscript in the public library that details one family’s victimization as early as 1918. The Reign of Terror involved so many more people—as both killers and victims—than the official record showed, impacting generations who did not know with certainty why family members had died. In some cases, deaths that were not classified as murders should have been; in other cases, individuals were targeted but escaped being killed. The Pull of the Past on the Present hangs over the Osage community.

“Indeed, virtually every element of society was complicit in the murderous system. Which is why just about any member of this society might have been responsible for the murder of McBride, in Washington: he threatened to bring down not only Hale but a vast criminal operation that was reaping millions and millions of dollars.”

All of Grann’s research culminates in this unfortunate fact: The Osage Reign of Terror was not an isolated incident committed by a few bad men, but instead was perpetrated by virtually the entire white community against the Osage tribe.