"The Great Depression had wiped out many Osage fortunes that had already been diminished by guardians and thieves. The reservation encompasses all of Osage County, about a million and a half acres. By David Grann. At one point Hoover wanted to get out of it and turn it back to the state, but after the scandal he didnt have a choice., Tom White and Hoover. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Grann's focus on the Osage murder investigation as the "Birth of the FBI" is a sad joke. But with the arrest of William K. Hale it all stopped. DAVIES: Two white men were arrested and brought to trial, people with access to resources and money. 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. He changed his plea to guilty and asked to be sentenced to life imprisonment rather than receive the death penalty. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? On February 6, 1923, Henry Roan, another cousin of Brown's (also known as Henry Roan Horse), was found in his car on the Osage Reservation, dead from a shot in the head. He came to believe that Woodward was responsible for her death. Nevertheless, impatient settlers massacred several of the Osage, mutilating their bodies and scalping them. About the film. And what that meant is they would receive a check for any royalties or any leases that derived from the oil money. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? They had servants, many of whom were white. GRANN: You know, Tom White is in many ways like Mollie Burkhart in that he is a transitional figure in this country. So the Osage Tribe was allotted. Osage in automobile. And so while some of the Osage still receive royalties from oil money, it's nothing like the fortune that they had once had during the 1920s and the beginning of the 20th century. And then the Great Depression came and a good deal of the money was lost. The Osage were shot and poisoned in staggering numbers. . After a break, Ken Tucker will review the new album by the Philadelphia band The Menzingers. Generally speaking, what are they finding? Attorneys who have been following the six-week-long Alex Murdaugh double-murder trial say the outcome remains uncertain, but that a guilty verdict or hung jury is likely. They had become the wealthiest people per capita in the world. This equal share was called a headright. It's about the size of Delaware. Although Walton later pardoned Davis, the investigation of Bigheart and Vaughan was never completed. Driven from their lands in Kansas, the Osage had bought a swath of northeast Oklahoma in the early 1870s. It should be noted though that number of homicides increased slightly from 2014 to 2017, although figures. It was said at the time whereas as one American might own a car, each Osage owned 11 cars. First, choose a theme and. 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. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Defense attorneys move on to other cases in which clients' lives can still be saved. 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]. And then something happens to her sister, Anna. DAVIES: And so how helpful, how beneficial was this to the Osage? He had been stabbed, I think, at least 20 times. But it had only a few investigators. And they took him out of jail, and he was supposed to work for them. Mollie Burkhart married Ernest Burkhart, a white man who was very typical of the kind of people who was kind of drawn to this area because there were these kind of wild boom towns at the time. GRANN: Yes. DAVIES: So the Osage looked to the federal government - let's get a federal investigation of this. And she had to sit through the trials and listen to the evidence presented and learn the secrets of her husband, that the secrets of this murder were right inside her house. All Rights Reserved. Hale lived to be 87 and is buried in Wichita, Kansas. In 2011, the U.S. government settled with the Osage for $380 million. history.[4]. [17] Over a month later, on March 10, 1923, a bomb destroyed the Fairfax residence of Anna's sister Rita Smith, killing Rita and her servant, Nettie Brookshire. 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. The tribe appealed for help directly to the relatively new Bureau of Investigation (which would be renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935). 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. Interview by Keith Donohue. Osage murders. It was the FBI's first murder investigation under Director J. Edgar Hoover. Posted national youth concerto competition. He had been thrown off the speeding train, and his neck was broken. And she had spent years doing her own investigation, gathering evidence trying to pinpoint the killers. DAVIES: There's a part of the story that's not so well-known of an initial effort. It would later become Oklahoma. are now White (Albino) or Mulatto. [c] By that time, Lizzie had headrights for herself and had inherited the headrights from her late husband and two daughters. John Ramsey confessed to participation in the murder of Roan as soon as he was arrested. And the Osage would receive a check every four months. The incentives for criminality were overwhelming; such guardians often maneuvered legally to steal Osage land, their headrights or royalties; others were suspected of murdering their charges to gain the headrights. In 1923 alone, the Osage received what today would be worth more than $400 million. They were also often susceptible to corruption. Hale was formally charged with the murder of Roan, who had been killed on the Osage Reservation land, making it a federal crime. And they enlist the help of a guy named Barney McBride. It has gone on to become an award-winning book, and is reportedly being adapted in a movie directed by Martin Scorsese. The U.S. government continued to manage the leases and royalties from oil-producing lands, and the tribe became concerned about these assets. he said he needed to see him right away. did cora jakes coleman have a baby; is disjunctive syllogism deductive or inductive; 1968 pontiac executive station wagon; nebraska board of education lands and funds DAVID GRANN: Mollie is a fascinating person. The second level of tension is that they were being murdered, seemingly randomly. 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. It literally looked as if the sun had burst into the night. GRANN: This had now become a national story. July 3, 2022 . Children were not allowed to wander the streets. This is FRESH AIR. Theyre scalping our souls out here, complained one exasperated Osage. GRANN: So - yeah. 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. Both Grammer and Kirby were killed before they could testify. But the typical sheriff back then had no training in scientific detection, and there was also a great deal of corruption back then. Her body seemed to wither and become more insubstantial each day. "Killers Quotes" Written Portion Below are 9 thematic threads. 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. Between 1921 and 1926, at least 24 members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma were brutally murdered. (Credit: David Grann). How many Osage murders might there possibly have been? 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. And she looked down in the direction of where her sister's house had stood, and she could see a large, orange fire rising into the sky. Once there, they discovered the immense wealth of members of the Osage Nation from royalties being paid from leases on oil-producing lands. 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. But what is part of America is that you have these descendants living side by side in the same communities. He went to Oklahoma City to meet with an Osage who was dying of suspected poisoning. In March 1923 an alarmed Osage Tribal Council sought U.S. government intervention in the . [11] Roan also had a financial connection with Hale, having borrowed $1,200 from the cattleman. Mollie recovered from the poison she had already consumed and (after the trials) divorced Ernest. That's why they went on for so many years. 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]. His father had been a frontier lawman, a local sheriff. 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 was in the 1920s after oil was discovered on the reservation of the Osage Indian Nation and members of the tribe became wealthy. White oil men are blowing fortunes and going bankrupt. Appointed the director of the FBI in 1924, Hoover set about cleaning up and streamlining the department. The United States Congress changed the law to prohibit non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage with half or more Native American ancestry. 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. The power structure was able to buy off lawmen. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? 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. DAVIES: In this period in which whites in Osage had a lot of social contact, a lot of intermarriage, many whites that were trusted by members of the Osage Nation - this FBI agent Tom White and his team begin to discover some pretty sinister stuff going on. [13][b] Along with his admission, Morrison implicated Hale's nephew and Brown's ex-boyfriend, Bryan Burkhart,[14] in her murder. The forced migrations had depleted their numbers. And he had also stored away the evidence he had been gathering because he was afraid for his life. Osage County officials sought revenge against Pyle for his role in bringing the murders to light. Randy Krehbiel paints him as a "shady character involved in blackmail and possibly embezzlement, armed robbery, and even murder." After securing Tulsa's top law enforcement spot in April 1920, Gustafson still moonlit as a private detective, working "cases that might have been more properly handled by the police." In 1926, Ernest pleaded guilty to being part of the conspiracy. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, occurred between 1921 and 1923. They were eventually bunched onto a reservation in Kansas and then once more were under siege. "[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. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? So this was just one of the many means of targeting the Osage in these very systematic and brutal ways. These invariably brutal killings eventually fell under the jurisdiction of J. Edgar Hoover's nascent Bureau of Investigation. Journalist David Grann tells the story. What was he looking for? DAVIES: There was an attorney, local attorney named W. W. Vaughn, a man with 10 kids, looks into things, thinks he has some evidence that might be helpful GRANN: Yeah, so W. W. Vaughn was a local white attorney. 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. Walton assigned Herman Fox Davis to the investigation. 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. All rights reserved. How'd that happen? She's in her 80s now. Osage is a tribe in North America who suffered deeply on the hands of greedy people. It could also explain why 77 percent of all killings last year involved a gun more than in any previous year. The trials received national newspaper and magazine coverage. Burkhart was eventually pardoned by Oklahoma Governor Henry Bellmon in 1965. "The Osage Murders" is a historical documentary focusing on the events that occurred on the Osage reservation in the 1920s. A week later . how many osage murders might there possibly have been? I'm coming back. The second chronicle is told from the perspective of one of the investigators. He recruits a man who once sold insurance and now will sell insurance as his fake identity when he's in Osage County. Curtis, Gene. DAVIES: Mollie is married to a guy named Ernest Burkhart. [1] The Bureau of Investigation (BOI), the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), found a low-level market in contract killers to kill the Osage for their wealth. Of course, this was an easier way for settlers - white settlers - to get their land. Then local whites began targeting the tribe. GRANN: So so much of the Osage wealth was stolen. And there was a complicity to these killings because they involved not only the perpetrators. $28.95. Register now and get started. You slowly can't breathe, but you're conscious throughout until finally you mercifully suffocate. Had there been no intervention, in all probability Mollie, who was already ill from poison, and Ernest would have soon died, with the manipulative Hale receiving the Kyle-Burkhart estate. Some sixty or more wealthy, full-blood Osage Native Americans were reported killed from 1918 to 1931. And they've taken enormous efforts to protect themselves from this kind of criminal conspiracy again. DAVIES: So word of this spread. They would refer to him as kind of Boy Scouts, who looked - had very clean-cut images and were very presentable. Unlike state and local investigators, Hoovers agents provided the Osage with some relief from their Reign of Terrorbut also a bill for more than $20,000 for their services. And what a headright was essentially a share in the mineral trust. His accomplice, Bryan Burkhart, another nephew, had turned state's evidence. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. You know, it's fascinating because you spoke with grandchildren of this era, and they would bring you documents and in some cases stories that they had heard of crimes that we didn't know about. (Credit: David Grann), The Osage became the richest people per capita in the world. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Hale, Ramsey, and Ernest Burkhart later received parole despite protests from the Osage.
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