There are no statistics about how many American-Indian agents were in the bureau at the time, but I suspect he was the only one. DAVIES: OK. That said, there was a lot of wealth controlled by the Osage. GRANN: And the tragedy and shocking to Tom White was that it ended in a hung jury, and evidence later revealed that there had been a elaborate conspiracy to obstruct justice including buying a juror. There is no way to tell how many of more than 1, 500 people executed in the U.S. since 1976 may have been innocent. It should be noted though that number of homicides increased slightly from 2014 to 2017, although figures. But this is a case where there's a great deal of intrigue and mystery early on. These private investigators were often, though, sordid characters. became one the osage of the fbi's first major homicide cases. But with the arrest of William K. Hale it all stopped. The trials received national newspaper and magazine coverage. GRANN: So the Osage issue a tribal resolution where they plead for federal investigators to come in, those who will not be tainted or connected to the local power structure. About the film. "[6] People across the U.S. read about the Osage, called "the richest nation, clan or social group of any race on earth, including the whites, man for man. They literally imposed a system where guardians - white guardians - were placed in charge of overseeing how the Osage spent their money. GRANN: You know, it's - what's interesting and is, in many ways, the story of America, there are descendants of both the murderers and descendants of the victims who still live in the same community. It was, he said, about how, in early 1920s, swaths of the Osage Nation, in Oklahoma, were systematically slaughtered. In 2000, the tribe filed a lawsuit against the department, alleging that federal government management of the trust assets had resulted in historical losses to its trust funds and interest income. The second level of tension is that they were being murdered, seemingly randomly. His head had been beaten in. Hale was even the self-proclaimed King of the Osage Hills. He was a wealthy rancher with several banking and business interests throughout Osage County. Hale fraudulently arranged to make himself the beneficiary of Roan's $25,000 life insurance policy. And gradually, a lot of the oil was depleted. And eventually a very obscure branch of the Justice Department which was then known as the Bureau of Investigations, which would later be renamed the FBI, take up the case. On June 28, 1923, Hale and Burkhart put George Bigheart on a train to Oklahoma City to be taken to a hospital. He also alerted one of the FBI agents. Morrison received a life sentence in 1926, for his participation in the Brown murder. [17][h], In the case of the Smith murders, Ernest was soon convinced that even his wife's money and his uncle's political influence could not save him. The Osage Tribal Council suspected that Hale was responsible for many of the deaths. GRANN: Certainly. [1] McAuliffe learned that his grandmother's murder had been covered up by a false death certificate. He came to believe that Woodward was responsible for her death. So within just two months, Mollie Burkhart had lost her sister to a gunshot, her mother to poisoning. "The Reign of Terror." Posted national youth concerto competition. Hoover was in a rush to close the casereally the case was closed prematurely, Grann says. (Credit: David Grann), The Osage became the richest people per capita in the world. And then within about 30 years because of oil deposits under her land becomes one of the wealthier people in the United States and is living in a mansion and married to a white husband, has a couple children. He was abducted. She said, in many cases, they don't fully know even what their ancestors did, but we live side by side. Menu does allegiant fly to dallas texas. Between 1920 and 1925 there were more than 60 mysterious or unsolved murders in Osage County, all dealing with Osage headright holders. (Credit: David Grann). And it's what makes this so barbaric. A headright was hereditary, passing to the immediate legal heir of the deceased allottee. GRANN: So, yes, the Osage were typical of many American-Indian nations. Vaughan is correct. in 1925, the new boss, j edgar hoover, summoned tom white to washington. And a fascinating little moment is that they send a lawyer, John Palmer, to Washington as they're negotiating this arrangement with the U.S., and he gets something. Tell us about that. I mean, what is amazing is that - and this was an open question. David Grann, author of the New York Times Bestselling "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI", is my guest on this week's episode of Most Notorious. Hale's goal was to gain the headrights and wealth of several tribe members, including his nephew's Osage wife, the last survivor of her family. So in this case, there was a bunch of kind of wild or frontier lawmen who were very experienced including a man named Tom White. This is FRESH AIR. Generally speaking, what are they finding? And what allotted meant - this happened to many American tribes in that period - where the federal government was forcing them to break up the reservations, break up their communal way of life, turn them into, quote, unquote, "private property owners." John Ramsey confessed to participation in the murder of Roan as soon as he was arrested. [12], In the early 1990s, journalist Dennis McAuliffe of The Washington Post investigated the suspicious death of his grandmother, Sybil Beekman Bolton, an Osage with headrights who died in 1925 at age 21. And there was a complicity to these killings because they involved not only the perpetrators. He had been a longtime private eye, had a criminal history. [5] His book about his investigation, Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation (1994), presents an account of the corruption and murders during this period.[1]. GRANN: So not only was Anna Brown murdered, not long after Anna died, Mollie Burkhart's mother, who was kind of one of the last of the Osage elders who still practiced many of the old traditions, became mysteriously sick. This was a deeply racist system, and it literally was based on the quantum of Osage blood. Osage murders. And I think that's certainly true when you visit Osage Nation, you meet with the Osage and you see what a remarkable place it is and the strength of its government institutions. What happened there? GRANN: Yeah. And it probably made this more possible. Before he went, he told his wife that he had put money in a safe for her in case anything happened to him. "The Osages, who were forced to sell . In Killers of the Flower Moon, Grann picks up the case and reveals the even wider conspiracy in the Osage murders, which may have numbered in the hundreds. And what it showed, though, and what is so important, is the reach and the power of the people who are carrying out these murders. Somebody had slipped him what was believed to be strychnine, which is just a horrible poison. Vaughan boarded a train that night to return to Pawhuska,[19] but turned up missing the next morning when the Pullman porter went to awaken him; his berth on the train had not been used. GRANN: So her family becomes a prime target of a conspiracy. The forced migrations had depleted their numbers. "The Great Depression had wiped out many Osage fortunes that had already been diminished by guardians and thieves. history.[4]. It began in the early 1920s, a time that should have been a prosperous one. These three books deal with the absolutely despicable history of the Osage Indians being cheated out of their oil rights in the 1920s in Oklahoma. Local whites befriended them, in some cases, married them and targeted them for their money. In order to maintain tribal control, shares of the oil money could not be sold by the Osage to white settlers, but they could be inherited. GRANN: At one point, they released an outlaw, a man named Blackie - very appropriately - who they hoped to use as an informant. What are we talking about? in many ways he is like mollie. Thats one of the more outrageous details, Grann says. And one day in 1921, her sister, Anna Brown, disappears, and Mollie looks everywhere for her, searching along the prairie. Here was a population being systematically murdered one by one. And then something happens to her sister, Anna. And because of that, justice was often privatized, that if you had money and resources, you had to turn to private investigators. [12] Kelsie Morrison, a petty criminal, later admitted to murdering Brown and testified that William Hale, a prominent local cattleman, had asked him to do so. He went to Oklahoma City to meet with an Osage who was dying of suspected poisoning. The first chronicle is told largely from the perspective of an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart, whose family had become a prime target of the murder conspiracy. And they imposed restrictions. I've never encountered crimes like that before. One attorney with information on the case was thrown off a speeding train, while the body of Barney McBride, a wealthy white oilman who agreed to go to Washington, D.C., to ask federal authorities to investigate the murders, was found stripped, beaten and stabbed more than 20 times in a Maryland culvert in what the Washington Post called the most brutal in crime annals in the District., Osage Indians in Washington D.C., with President Coolidge. They released an outlaw named Blackie Thompson hoping he would work as an undercover informant, but he instead robbed banks and killed a police officer. And she's really somebody who is straddling not only two centuries, but in many ways two civilizations. The oil boom was in full swing, and the Osage people were prosperous due to ownership of mineral rights. In 2000, the Osage Nation filed a suit against the Department of the Interior, alleging that it had not adequately managed the assets and paid people the royalties they were due. It was very easy for the powerful to buy the law, to tilt the scales of justice. "Killers Quotes" Written Portion Below are 9 thematic threads. What was the state of federal law enforcement in the day? They had become the wealthiest people per capita in the world. Hale was Bigheart's neighbor and friend, and had recently been designated by the court as Bigheart's guardian. DAVIES: So the Osage looked to the federal government - let's get a federal investigation of this. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles . By 1906 there were only 2,229 Osage, about half mixed-bloods and half full-bloods. They once controlled much of the Midwest of the country. Investigation by law enforcement, including the Bureau of Investigation (BOI; the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI) also revealed extensive corruption among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program. DAVIES: David Grann's book is "Killers Of The Flower Moon." And he said, if you speak to the Osage, will you please tell them that for me? Best-selling author David Grann talks about his new book that details one of the most chilling murder conspiracies in American history and the FBIs first major homicide case. January 12, 2014. 8. And the Osage would receive a check every four months. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. And each one had a headright or a share. The power structure was able to buy off lawmen. DAVIES: And it's worth noting that I guess particularly Osage women - their control of these assets were restricted in some ways. Hes very insecure in his career at the time, Grann says. It wasn't just Mollie's family that was being methodically killed on Oklahoma's Osage Nation Reservation in the early 1920s. The priest told her not to touch liquor under any circumstances. nycha employment verification. An Indian Affairs agent said, "The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?" So one of the things that happened back then because - you know, we think of ourself as a country of laws, but these institutions back in the '20s in the United States were very fragile. June 21, 2022 how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Members of the Osage Indian Nation became very wealthy in the 1920s after oil deposits were found on their land. Both Grammer and Kirby were killed before they could testify. They involve neighbors who would never speak out, reporters who would not dig into the crimes. This sordid episode has been revived recently by Killers of the Flower Moon, which as of June 2021 is being made into a movie on location in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. And it terrified people. And Mary Jo Webb, who's an Osage elder who I spoke to, you know, said, we try not to hold those descendants responsible. DAVIES: Mollie Burkhart and relatives of the other victims would turn to private investigators. This is FRESH AIR. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Doubleday. Mollie Burkhart obviously pleaded for justice, crusaded for justice, but the white authorities really did nothing early on - or very little. DAVIES: There's a part of the story that's not so well-known of an initial effort. An oil well in Osage County, Oklahoma, home to the Osage Nation. Many of the old traditions of the Osage were disappearing at this period, and there was a great deal of intermarriage. All Rights Reserved. The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI By David Grann Doubleday, New York, NY, 2017 352 Pages, $28.95 Reviewed by Hannah Laufe In The Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann recounts the terrible and al-most inconceivable story of the injustice and violence inflicted upon the Osage Nation. What was the kingpin's sentence? "With the help of independent producers, Dan Bigbee and Lily Shangreaux, we were . Anna would be merely one of the first victims in a five-year-long Reign . There were other murders happening throughout the community, other Osage being targeted. The price of a barrel of oil, which reached more than $3 during the boom years, plummeted to 65 cents in 1931, and an annual headright payment fell to less than $800. By . And this was a time of great instability within the Osage Nation because of so much wealth, and it was a period where many of the traditions were disappearing. He was sometimes called "Will". Whites were made the caretakers of the Indians, but many of these whites married Osage, and then killed their spouses, thus . He is somebody who is born around the same time on the frontier in a log cabin in Texas. As best-selling author David Grann details in his new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the Osage reservation was soaked in blood because it was awash in oil. This equal share was called a headright. Woodward also served as the federally appointed Tribal Counsel,[22] and he had guardianship of four other Osage charges, each of whom had died by 1923. One by one, Mollie Burkharts family turned up dead. To gain part of the wealth, Hale persuaded Ernest to marry Mollie Kyle, a full-blooded Osage. The reservation encompasses all of Osage County, about a million and a half acres. . The documents Bighorn had given him were missing. The Osage were being shot and poisoned in staggering numbers. And the challenges that Tom White and his men faced were just enormous, almost Herculean in that, one - there was enormous corruption. DAVIES: David Grann, thank you so much for speaking with us. Fearing for his life, Pyle and his wife fled to Arizona, where he again served as an officer of the law. This really was about a clash of two civilizations, the emergence of modern law enforcement and how important it is to be a country of laws. And they enlist the help of a guy named Barney McBride. . Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR contributor Dave Davies recorded with David Grann, author of a new book about one of the biggest serial murder cases in American history. They bought it. That loophole proved the genesis of a calculated, cold-blooded plot to gain inheritance rights from tribe members before killing them. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? It features songs about getting older, a love letter to their 20s. Hale was sentenced to life in prison on January 27, 1929, and served only 18 years of his sentence before being paroled in 1947. He wanted to remake the FBI. Initially it was for maybe $100, and then it grew to 1,000. GRANN: So her family becomes a prime target of a conspiracy. And Barney McBride went. She got up, and she went to her window. And what a headright was essentially a share in the mineral trust. In the 1920s an oil boom brought millions in profits to the Osage Nation, but white guardians assigned to guard the Native Americans' wealth brought abuse, theft and murder instead. [13], Various residents of Pawhuska petitioned Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton to conduct a full investigation of the deaths of Charles Bigheart and his attorney, William Vaughan. In 1870, the Osage-expelled from their lodges, their graves plundered-agreed to sell their Kansas lands to settlers for $1.25 an acre.