DAVIES: It was in fact Mollie Burkhart's own husband Ernest Burkhart who was found to be a part of the conspiracy. One night, there was a loud explosion in the community. Between 1920 and 1925, an estimated sixty Osage were murdered in shootings, poisonings, stabbings, in fires, even in a bombing; a number of white investigators were also slain. And then it turned out that lo and behold, this land was sitting upon some of the largest deposits of oil then in the United States. She's one of the Osage elders, and I got to her house. DAVIES: So plenty of jury tampering and all. The tribe appealed for help directly to the relatively new Bureau of Investigation (which would be renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935). (Credit: David Grann), Prejudice provoked a scapegoating of the Osage for their wealth, and the U.S. Congress literally holds hearings about what the country could do in response, Grann says. 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. What kinds of men does he pick? So the government in - really looking back, just an outrageous system - decided somehow that the Osage were not capable of handling their money. The attorney's name is given as W.W. Vaughan in some sources (e.g. More than two dozen members of the Osage tribe had been shot, stabbed, beaten and bombed in one of the bloodiest crime sprees in American history. And the murderers, it turned out, were local whites who had befriended and in many cases married their victims. (Credit: David Grann), The Osage became the richest people per capita in the world. They had to pay for justice.. The second chronicle is told from the perspective of one of the investigators. A man standing 5 feet 8 inches, weighing 165 pounds . KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? These were men who were kind of struggling to adapt to the new bureau to adapt to new scientific forms of detection which were slowly emerging such as fingerprinting, handwriting analysis. and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and . GRANN: This had now become a national story. But there was also a great deal of corruption. ["The Data Are Pointing to One Major Driver of America's Murder Spike . DAVIES: And you describe there was another kind of lawman who he would employ at times loosely described as cowboys. [5][7], At that time, eight lawyers were working in Pawhuska, the Osage County seat, which had 8,000 residents; the number of lawyers was said to be as great as Oklahoma City, which had 140,000 residents. And it's what makes this so barbaric. The governor quickly pardons him, and then he goes and commits an unrelated murder. This is in the 1920s. 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. It features songs about getting older, a love letter to their 20s. Doubleday. They had a deed to it. So we have a situation where Mollie Burkhart, this woman who is a wealthy member of the Osage Nation married to a white man, Ernest Burkhart, discovers her sister, Anna Brown, has been shot to death and found in a ravine some distance away - a horrible crime. And Ken Tucker will review a new album by the Philadelphia-based band, The Menzingers, which features songs about getting older. Follow the Osage Nation on Facebook Follow the Osage Nation on Instagram Follow the Osage Nation on LinkedInFollow the Osage Nation on Twitter Subscribe to the Osage Nation on Youtube, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program. He talks about his research into a spree of murders of oil-rich Osage Indians in 1920s Oklahoma. . And so that was one of the problems the bureau had. He quickly takes a bribe, you know, from a bootlegger. And there was a complicity to these killings because they involved not only the perpetrators. And for someone like Mollie Burkhart to have to reckon when she begins to discover that the very people she knew enough and trusted were the very people who were targeting her family. And maybe most heartbreaking is that this involved a man who had become very close to even married Osage women and had betrayed those relationships. And one day in 1921, her sister, Anna Brown, disappears, and Mollie looks everywhere for her, searching along the prairie. At the time Hale, originally from Texas, was considered to one of the most prominent citizens of the area. This Scottish-born boy came to America at the age of 16 after his father died. Between 1920 and 1925 there were more than 60 mysterious or unsolved murders in Osage County, all dealing with Osage headright holders. Who would investigate this kind of murder at the time? He said that Hale had promised him five hundred dollars and a new car for killing Roan. 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. Her body seemed to wither and become more insubstantial each day. What was he looking for? It was then Indian Territory. "The Osage Murders" is a historical documentary focusing on the events that occurred on the Osage reservation in the 1920s. His doubts arose from a variety of conflicting evidence. And you realize when you speak to someone like Margie Burkhart how much these crimes still reverberate in the present, how much this history is still living in the present. GRANN: So her family becomes a prime target of a conspiracy. GRANN: Yeah. Unlock with LitCharts A+ Active Themes The house has been reduced to ash, and as dawn arrives, the justice of the peace, Mathis, and the Shoun brothers search alongside neighbors of the Smiths for bodies. DAVIES: Right - a terrible, dramatic crime and a mystery around it. Some of the murders were committed for the purposes of taking over land and wealth of Osage members, whose land was producing valuable oil and who each had headrights that earned lucrative annual royalties. Hale was formally charged with the murder of Roan, who had been killed on the Osage Reservation land, making it a federal crime. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? And they imposed restrictions. 7. "With the help of independent producers, Dan Bigbee and Lily Shangreaux, we were . GRANN: Well, by now, this was known as the Osage reign of terror. It wasn't just Mollie's family that was being methodically killed on Oklahoma's Osage Nation Reservation in the early 1920s. 3 Luglio 2022; common last names in kazakhstan; medical careers that don't require math in sa . One of the most prevalent means of murder and of killing the Osage was poison because of the lack of training. They lived in mansions and had chauffeured cars. The Reign of Terror was a frightful time for the Osage people. GRANN: Yes, not just Osage women, all Osage - or all full-blooded Osage. Rita and Bill Smiths house after blast. I'm Terry Gross. 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. [11][a] Brown was divorced, so probate awarded her estate to her mother, Lizzie Q. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? GRANN: Well, early on when - in the early 20th century, there was just a little bit of oil. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. 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 fraudulently arranged to make himself the beneficiary of Roan's $25,000 life insurance policy. Somebody had planted a bomb under the house, killing everyone in it, including Mollie's sister Rita, including her - Rita's husband and a white servant who lived in the house. 338 pp. 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. Somebody put a bag over his head. In 1925, to prevent another Reign of Terror, the United States Congress passed a law prohibiting non-Osages from inheriting headrights of tribal members possessing more than one-half Osage blood. 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. When the first gusher sprang from beneath the Osage feet, the Osage got filthy rich. how many osage murders might there possibly have been?splash cafe clam chowder recipe. DAVIES: We're speaking with David Grann. This was a deeply racist system, and it literally was based on the quantum of Osage blood. The U.S. Department of the Interior managed leases for oil exploration and production on land owned by the Osage Nation through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and later managed royalties, paying individual allottees. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Thought that involved a certain level of forgiveness and understanding. Wiki, Osage Indian Murders. By 1925, at least sixty wealthy Osage had died and their land had been inherited or deeded to their guardians, who were local white lawyers and businessmen. In 1923 alone, the 2,000 tribe members collectively received $30 millionthe equivalent to $400 million today, according to Grann. [10] Unable to find the killer, local authorities ruled her death as accidental because of alcohol poisoning and put the case aside. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? GRANN: Yeah. They had servants, many of whom were white. The setting was the Osage Indian Nation in the 1920s when oil deposits had brought enormous wealth to the members of the tribe. 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. By David Grann. He then called the local sheriff and said, I've got enough evidence against one of the killers. And they enlist the help of a guy named Barney McBride. So there were only about 2,000 Osage who were registered on the tribal roll. 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. There was an enormous amount of prejudice. On May 27, 1921, the partially decomposed body of a 25-year-old Osage woman named Anna Brown was discovered in a ravine in Osage County, Oklahoma, dead from a bullet to the back of the head. It was a ruthless band of killers who terrorized the Osage from the 1890s through the 1920s, led by a man who enjoyed being called the "king of the Osage Hills". The U.S. murder rate in 2020 was 42% lower than the suicide rate (13.5 deaths per 100,000 people) and 71% below the mortality rate for drug overdose (27.1 deaths per 100,000 people, as of the third quarter of 2020), the CDC data shows. . He was born on 18 May 1869 in Knox County, Kentucky; died on 29 June 1923 in Oklahoma; and was buried in Pawhuska Cemetery in Pawhuska, Osage County, Oklahoma. But ultimately their devious activity would catch up with them. DAVIES: David Grann's book is "Killers Of The Flower Moon." Tell us about his history. It would later become Oklahoma. By 1906 there were only 2,229 Osage, about half mixed-bloods and half full-bloods. how many osage murders might there possibly have been?homelux mosaic tiles By In eberhardt reisen insolvenzverfahren Posted June 11, 2022 facts about aries woman NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Osage County officials sought revenge against Pyle for his role in bringing the murders to light. Posted national youth concerto competition. Weren't they? GROSS: We're listening to the interview FRESH AIR's Dave Davies recorded with David Grann about his new book "The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI" (ph). He can be found online at www.christopherklein.com or on Twitter @historyauthor. Over two decades, they would have to cede more than 100 million acres of their land. These invariably brutal killings eventually fell under the jurisdiction of J. Edgar Hoover's nascent Bureau of Investigation. In 1870, the Osage-expelled from their lodges, their graves plundered-agreed to sell their Kansas lands to settlers for $1.25 an acre. They once controlled much of the Midwest of the country. Tell us that story. He went to Oklahoma City to meet with an Osage who was dying of suspected poisoning. By 1925, 60 wealthy Osage had been killed, and their land had been inherited or deeded to their guardians: local white lawyers and businessmen. DAVIES: Yeah. The Osage Tribal Council suspected that Hale was responsible for many of the deaths. Working for two years, the agents discovered a crime ring led by Hale, known in Osage County as the "King of the Osage Hills". GRANN: So so much of the Osage wealth was stolen. The Osage - he was a friend of the Osage. They were all frontier lawmen. The Osage oil murders were a series of murders based on Native American discrimination that took place in the 1920's, in order to steal the wealth of the Osage tribe. How did whites in Oklahoma react to seeing Native Americans with all that money? The bodies would lay unclaimed and unmourned on the prairies, sometimes for weeks.. he said he needed to see him right away. Talk about what services you provide. And you often didn't quite know who they were working for, who they were leaking to. Here they were able to track and follow a man all the way to Washington, D.C., had enough information to know he was going and had the power to follow him and to kill him, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from Oklahoma. Kyle. And you could not sell or buy a headright. in many ways he is like mollie. The BOI sent Tom White to lead an investigation. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, were reported between 1921 and 1923. And reporters would go out and describe how they lived in these terra-cotta mansions, how they had chauffeured cars, how they had servants, some of whom were white. (Credit: David Grann). Tell us a bit about her. There was one champion steer-roper Osage who got a call one night. GRANN: There was a great deal of lawlessness then in the United States, and particularly in this region, which was really the last remnant of the Wild West or the frontier. Once there, they discovered the immense wealth of members of the Osage Nation from royalties being paid from leases on oil-producing lands. You slowly can't breathe, but you're conscious throughout until finally you mercifully suffocate. They were driven off their lands. And then the Great Depression came and a good deal of the money was lost. And what that meant is they would receive a check for any royalties or any leases that derived from the oil money. To try to prevent further criminality and to protect the Osage, in 1925 Congress passed a law prohibiting non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage who had half or more Native American ancestry.[13][23]. Hale and Ramsey were later convicted of Roans murder, and Burkhart accepted a plea deal for the murder of Smith. Swindling the very people they were assigned to protect, guardians forced the Osage to purchase goods from them at inflated prices and received kickbacks by directing them to do business with certain stores and banks. Her sister Anna had been discovered in a ravine in May 1921 with a bullet wound to the back of her head. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, occurred between 1921 and 1923. He was part of a tribe of lawmen. By that time, there were only a few thousand left. "Serial killer" was not yet a term in the crime lexicon, but as a reader, you arrive at that conclusion quickly. Vaughan complied, and the two men met that night. That night, when he arrived at his boarding house, he received a telegram, and it said be careful. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. But then it continually grew. He was a master bureaucrat. White oil men are blowing fortunes and going bankrupt. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? And each one of them received a headright. His doubts arose from a variety of conflicting evidence. Defense attorneys move on to other cases in which clients' lives can still be saved. His earlier book, "The Lost City Of Z," was adapted into a new feature film. Oil had been discovered in the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma, but with that boon came a terrible series of deadly crimes. This is FRESH AIR. Theyre scalping our souls out here, complained one exasperated Osage. In this new half-hour documentary from OETA, the team from Back In Time presents the story of the Osage in their own words. While being investigated for the murder of Henry Roan, Burkhart tied Hale and Ramsey to the murder of Roan and confessed to the murder of William E. Smith. And they took him out of jail, and he was supposed to work for them. [11] Roan also had a financial connection with Hale, having borrowed $1,200 from the cattleman. He grew up at a time and became a lawman at a time when justice was often meted out by the barrel of a gun. His father had been a frontier lawman, a local sheriff. They have to suddenly file paperwork and wear suits, things that none of them were accustomed to, but they were very experienced lawmen including a man like Tom White. The other agents recruited were: a former New Mexico sheriff; a former Texas Ranger; John Burger, who had worked on the previous investigation; Frank Smith; and John Wren, an American Indian of the Ute Nation who had previously been a spy for the Mexican revolutionaries.[20]. He was looking for agents who were college-educated. In the late 1600s there were possibly seventeen thousand Osage. And by the 1920s, the Osage collectively had accumulated millions and millions of dollars. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. And she issued rewards, and she hired a team of private investigators. GRANN: Yeah. And she had pulled out a box of documents, and she told me about the death of her grandfather who had been run over, who had been poisoned. 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. The Osage Indian murders were a series of murders of Osage Native Americans in Osage County, Oklahoma, during the 1910s1930s; newspapers described the increasing number of unsolved murders as the Reign of Terror, lasting from 1921 to 1926. "[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 involve neighbors who would never speak out, reporters who would not dig into the crimes. The rocky, barren reservation promised to yield littlewith the exception of their desire to be left aloneuntil the discovery of one of the largest oil deposits in the United States below the surface. Hoover was in a rush to close the casereally the case was closed prematurely, Grann says. None of these people had college educations or whatnot. By the early 20th century, because of this kind of clash of cultural forces, so many whites were coming into the area because of the well, so many oil workers and oil men. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. We're now over 20 victims at this point. And gradually, a lot of the oil was depleted. Many Osage moved to California. The Osage would hang lights around their houses so that at night they would be illuminated. And the white man won't be able to farm there, and they'll finally leave us alone. In The 1920s, A Community Conspired To Kill Native Americans For Their Oil Money. An oil well in Osage County, Oklahoma, home to the Osage Nation. [3] The law firm representing the Osage said it was the largest trust settlement with one tribe in U.S. William Hale, the "King of the Osage Hills," was found guilty for conspiracy to commit murder and was transferred to Leavenworth Prison. Obviously, a lot was stolen in these crimes. In 2017, New Yorker staff writer David Grann publishedKillers of the Flower Moonabout the Osage Murders. Children were not allowed to wander the streets. In 1870, the Osage people had purchased nearly 1.5 million acres Somebody had slipped him what was believed to be strychnine, which is just a horrible poison. But hundreds of millions of dollars was swindled. How'd that happen? Juni 2022. DAVIES: We're speaking with David Grann. Fearing for his life, Pyle and his wife fled to Arizona, where he again served as an officer of the law. So he puts together an undercover team of these cowboys. Nick Vivarelli, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mar- . He had rushed - he had been - began to try to kind of fill in this void, this kind of corrupt void, to see if he could try to catch the killers and stop them. Vaughan's body was later found with his skull crushed beside the railroad tracks near Pershing, about five miles south of Pawhuska. GRANN: There are about 4,000 who still live in the area. Often they had criminal backgrounds. Vaughan's body was so badly disfigured that the coroner could not be certain whether the man had fallen off the train or else been beaten first and then pushed off. GRANN: At one point, they released an outlaw, a man named Blackie - very appropriately - who they hoped to use as an informant. Bloodhounds ran through the prairie. A week later . There are some real characters among them. An Indian Affairs agent said, "The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?" With $3,000 from his mother, he first went to Texas where he purchased a herd of cattle, but a drought . [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. You see all the seeds of his characterparanoia, ambition and manipulation. The Kyle family murders were featured as a dramatic part of the 1959 film, John Hunt portrayed this period in his novel, This page was last edited on 5 January 2023, at 22:20. [21] Hale then arranged for the murders of Mollie's sisters, her brother-in-law, her mother, and her cousin, Henry Roan, to cash in on the insurance policies and headrights of each family member. [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]. Investigators who probed the case too deeply also had a propensity for turning up dead. It's called "Killers Of The Flower Moon." And Barney McBride went. He shows up to look into the killings. [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. (Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images). He died there in 1942. So you get a sense just of the quality of the legal establishment who is supposed to be solving these crimes. And it is the first hint that Mollie's family has become a target of this conspiracy and that her tribe has also become a target of this conspiracy. DAVIES: Now, you used the word victims - plural. Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the "Reign of Terror" on the Osage reservation. And if you're just joining us, we're speaking with David Grann. In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson hosted a delegation of Osage chiefs who had . Accuracy and availability may vary. The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I. he was born in a cabin in texas. And eventually, the whites tried to find ways to get their own hands upon this money. I mean, it was literally asked, and there was a belief that white men would not be convicted for these crimes and that white jurors would not find them guilty. GRANN: What they begin to discover is that there is a enormous criminal enterprise to swindle Osage money and that the system of guardians, for example, these white men - they were always men, usually men, often prominent members of society, they were lawmen, prosecutors, businessmen, bankers - were systematically stealing and skimming from the Osage money. In the early 1900s death was all too common in the . There were so many willing executioners. She had two children with him, and she learned that he was one of the many willing executioners. This story begins with a woman who is really at the heart of this tale, Mollie Burkhart. All rights reserved. Then Ramsey shot Roan in the head. Because of the large number of leads and the perception that the police were corrupt, White decided he would be the public face of the investigation while most of the agents would work undercover. Curtis, Gene. As the body count rose in the early 1920s, the Osage saw no action from local and state law enforcement personnel. It should be noted though that number of homicides increased slightly from 2014 to 2017, although figures. Her children inherited all of her estate. GRANN: You know, Tom White is in many ways like Mollie Burkhart in that he is a transitional figure in this country. Even worse, it led to an entire criminal enterprise that had been sanctioned by the U.S. government.. In the early 20th century, the members of the Osage Nation became the richest people per capita in the world, after oil was discovered under their reservation, in Northeast Oklahoma. The bureau - the Bureau Investigation, the FBI had been formed in 1906 under Theodore Roosevelt. Non-Osages were able to inherit an Osage headright, and this was the motive for the Reign of Terror. Rita's husband, Bill Smith, sustained massive injuries from the blast and died four days later. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Hale, Ramsey, and Ernest Burkhart later received parole despite protests from the Osage. To gain part of the wealth, Hale persuaded Ernest to marry Mollie Kyle, a full-blooded Osage. Our guest David Grann's new book tells the story of one of the biggest serial murder cases in American history and one of the most forgotten. "[7], In 1925, Osage tribal elders, with the help of local law officer James Monroe Pyle, sought assistance from the BOI when local and state officials could not solve the rising number of murders. First moved to a reservation in Kansas, the Osage in 1870 sold their Kansas lands for $1.25 an acre to settlers and were driven to land in northeastern Oklahoma that, until 1866, had belonged to the Cherokee. John Ramsey confessed to participation in the murder of Roan as soon as he was arrested. He had been a longtime private eye, had a criminal history. Instead, he slipped away, robbed a bank and murdered a police officer. There was a great deal of lawlessness. The bureau didnt reveal a deeper, darker conspiracy, and as a result many were able to escape justice., Workers strike oil in Osage territory. His real name was William Hale, and by all accounts he had no scruples when it came to his desire to acquire riches and power. In icare graduate program. Later investigations revealed that the bomb contained 5 US gallons (19L) of nitroglycerin.[12]. January 12, 2014. And by 1923, just to give you. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. In 1929, $27 million was reported as still being held by the "Guardian System", the organization set up to protect the financial interests of 883 Osage families in Osage County.[9]. These private investigators were often, though, sordid characters. DAVIES: So this becomes a federal investigation. DAVIES: So each of the Osage families that owned a plot of land had what was called a headright, which means what? how many osage murders might there possibly have been? You tell some fascinating stories about that. They resettled there. Grann's focus on the Osage murder investigation as the "Birth of the FBI" is a sad joke. 0. what episode does buck and eddie kiss south whittier school district board meeting. See. The trials received national newspaper and magazine coverage. 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. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? [11] Two of his accomplices had died before the BOI investigation was completed. The forced migrations had depleted their numbers. She's in her 80s now. 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 an Osage chief had stood up, and he said we should go to this territory. I mean, like many Native American tribes, they were uprooted and pushed around from one reservation to another. It was the FBI's first murder investigation under Director J. Edgar Hoover. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Hoover instead turned the case over to Tom White, an experienced investigator who lived in the saddle. These were crimes committed by people who the victims trusted, many cases thought they loved, and it involved a level of betrayal, an almost Shakespearean level of dishonesty of hiding your face, hiding the conspiracy. The case shifted from a question of who did it to can you actually convict them? I'll be on the train. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and National Geographic Traveler. Local whites befriended them, in some cases, married them and targeted them for their money. 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."
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