The Osage Murders: The True Story Behind "Killers of the Flower Moon"

[Music] recently i was able to read the book killers of the flower moon by david grann i had not heard about it previously but i saw it at a bookstore and bought it because it was about the 1920s i found out later that not only was it acclaimed it is also currently being made into a film by none other than martin scorsese so the story is especially relevant now this is a story involving native americans oil conspiracy and murder and it's going to be a wild ride [Music] in the early 1920s the osage tribe in oklahoma was in a unique position to say the least like so many other native american tribes they had been forced off of their land during the indian wars of the previous century and sent to live on a reservation in the middle of nowhere on land that seemingly provided nothing of real value until one time it did the osage negotiated with the u. s government over their tribal lands which resulted in an agreement that the osage would have the rights to any minerals including oil gas and coal that were found on the land of course it was expected that there would not be anything useful a lot had developed in the u. s in the nearly 50 years since the osage had begun living on their oklahoma reservation one of the biggest changes was the massive boom of the automobile industry to fuel this industrial monster a lot of oil was needed and the osage got very very lucky a huge amount of oil had been discovered on their land which was now their legal property and it seems like there could be no blatant violation of property rights by the white man as in the past the osage became very wealthy leasing the land to white people to get the oil and the money was distributed to all members of the tribe the osage enjoyed a high standard of living and sharp contrast with other native american tribes on other reservations even having white servants under their osage employers reversing the racial hierarchy that had been established and perpetuated in the rest of the country even compared to well-off white people their newfound wealth was staggering however there was a catch most osage tribe members were considered legally incapable of handling such a large amount of money for no other reason except that the fact that they were seen as ignorant indians this required them to have someone almost always a white man oversee their finances they couldn't always freely purchase things though many still bought things like automobiles although there were exploitative overseers there were also white allies of the osage who were considered protectors in a sense one of these people was william hale a former cowboy who had been with the osage since before the oil boom and was probably the biggest benefactor in the community he often donated large amounts of money to schools and the local hospital hale called himself a friend of the osage and signed his name with the title reverend at the beginning not because he was ordained but because he was such a positive influence on the community a few osage women who had married white men thought themselves fortunate because at least their overseer was their own spouse these men were a bit less colorful than hail but were also seen as reliable for the safety of the osage's financial interests among the osage was anna brown a young woman recently divorced from her white husband anna took her share of the oil money and lived the quintessential flapper life dancing at parties all night and going to clubs and she had also developed a liking for bootleg liquor while her lifestyle was slightly looked down on by older tribe members there didn't seem to be too much harm in it in may 1921 anna went missing at first the family assumed or hoped that she had simply gone out on a lengthy dancing and drinking binge perhaps in a city in a different state but that theory was dashed when on may 27th about a week after she had gone missing her badly decomposed body was discovered near a creek blackened bloated and worm infested upon autopsy it was discovered that anna had been shot in the back of the head with a small firearm from above execution style the only evidence that had been found at the scene was a bottle that had probably contained illegal alcohol and two sets of tire tracks anna had two living sisters molly and rita a third sister had died years before from a strange illness molly was married to a white man named ernest burkhart and rita to an osage man named bill smith their mother lizzie was of an old breed who was suspicious of the newfound wealth and more content to continue with the ancient traditions of the osage despite anna's rather reckless modern lifestyle she had been lizzy's favorite daughter less than two months after anna's death lizzie would also die many thinking it was from heartbreak very shortly before anna's disappearance a young osage man named charles whitehorn had also been found dead with two bullet holes in his head in february some months later an osage man named william stepson also died unexpectedly and things would only get stranger from there between march and august 1922 three more people related to the osage community died suddenly and mysteriously the third was a white man sent to washington dc as a representative of the osage to investigate the string of murders on the osage lands his body was found naked and he had been stabbed nearly two dozen times in february 1923 another body was found a 40 year old osage man named henry rohn whose car was found at the bottom of a ravine and he had a bullet hole in the back of his head more than two decades before he had been briefly married to molly burkhart but that wouldn't be the last connection to molly in this story shortly after this murder molly's last sister rita and her husband bill smith's house blew up at three in the morning killing rita and a young white female servant bill survived the initial blast but after going in and out of consciousness for four days he died at a hospital it's likely that bill had been targeted because he had been very outspoken about catching the murderers of the previous killings in less than two years molly's last two sisters were brutally murdered and her mother had also died now it was considered whether her mother had actually been poisoned by this point this series of connected murders were being called the osage reign of terror things were not helped by the complete failure of local law enforcement and politicians the local sheriff had been ousted from his position for failing to uphold the law and letting bootleggers operate in the area initial outside investigators were often corrupt with one being caught colluding with known criminals and accepting bribes even the governor of oklahoma jack c walton couldn't be relied on he was impeached out of office after serving for less than a year for accepting under the table contributions from an oil man there was however one white man who was determined to find out who was murdering all of the people in and around the osage tribe this man was w.

w vaughan an upstanding local citizen and attorney who had been secretly collecting evidence on his own in june 1923 he was summoned to the bedside of a nephew of a famous osage chief who was dying in a hospital from an apparent poisoning after making the trek partly by train von was able to get there in time the dying osage man specifically chose van to tell him what he knew about who poisoned him von wrote down all that the man said and seemed satisfied that this new information was a big break in the case but after vaughn hopped on the next train back he was never seen again about two days later his body was found beside the railway tracks having been thrown from the moving train and his neck broken to make things even stranger his secret stash of evidence had been cleared out von left behind a wife and 10 children who were all supported by the osage though still lived in poverty for a long time i haven't mentioned all of the murders individually but by this point 24 osage tribe members had been killed along with a few white men who had tried to help them or had possible inside information then there was also the revelation that anna brown had been pregnant at the time of her death things were already out of hand and the terror was widespread in the osage community people were suddenly dying everywhere and no one really knew why it seemed that the killer or killers were omniscient if someone knew something they would be hunted down and murdered without the killers leaving a detectable trace and local authorities had been effectively frightened into an action having received multiple threatening anonymous messages the osage needed something bigger than local or even state support and they eventually received it from the relatively new bureau of investigation which later became the federal bureau of investigation the osage murders had gone all the way up to j edgar hoover himself the lead investigator on the case was tom white a former texas ranger with a very perceptive mind only months after white took up the case progress seemed to be going well the investigation also involved a number of undercover agents who tried to befriend suspects and glean information from them casually first white was suspicious about the fact that the bullet that had killed anna brown had never been found despite there being no exit wound the local doctors the shown brothers claimed that they had searched the inside of brown's head white believed they had purposely disposed of the evidence then it was discovered that the brothers had talked privately with bill smith as he was languishing on his death bed in the hospital it turned out that they were trying to get smith to sign legal papers giving one of the brothers the rights to his osage wife's estate this was taken as evidence of the widespread and sleazy financial and legal corruption involving of sage finances but that did not necessarily connect to the murders this led to a wider investigation of the extensive corruption it was discovered that judges appointed those who had supported them during elections as overseers of osage tribe members as a reward when an overseer funneled osage money into their own pockets and the case went to the local judge the case was ignored many overseers and judges were in cahoots in this way during the investigation into this part of the case white found a trail of insurance policies and financial documents some of which had been illegally altered and this trail led directly to one man william hale the so-called friend of the osage it also became an important fact that molly's husband ernest burkhart and his brother brian were hale's nephews and were said to be fiercely loyal to him to the point of being his minions it soon became apparent what the motive was perhaps unsurprisingly it was the osage's wealth the fact that many of these murders seemed to surround molly burkhardt and her family was also no coincidence white discovered that hale was funneling individual tribe members shares of the osage mineral trust to molly burkhart's family then with those family members dead the shares would go to molly herself these shares in the mineral trust were inherited by another tribe member though it was possible to pass them down to others not part of the tribe this could be accomplished easily if a tribe member was married to an outsider if this was a white person then they could act as the overseer of the finances and also inherit the shares upon the tribe member's death and who was the overseer of molly's finances none other than her husband ernest burkhart the unusually loyal nephew of william hale and if molly died all of the accumulated money would go straight to him tom white believed he had the culprits now it was just a matter of getting enough evidence to take them down for this white had to talk with local criminals who it was rumored halod collaborated with for some of the murders first was a young outlaw named dick gregg greg had been a member of the outlaw al spencer's gang before spencer was gunned down by a lawman in september 1923. in exchange for reduced jail time greg recalled that hale had approached him and spencer about killing bill and rita smith for a hefty sum of money spencer had refused saying that he didn't believe in murdering a woman for money and greg agreed with his leader it also became apparent to white that many of the criminals and bootleggers that hale had supposedly worked with later died under mysterious circumstances moreover the undercover agents uncovered a network of local white men secretly in league with hale tipping him off about the activities of others and white knew that hale knew he was getting closer hale began giving away more money to locals trying to further cement his reputation as a friend of the osage while he was possibly plotting more of their murders then there was another promising lead a criminal in jail named bert lawson claimed to have information about the smith murders in an interview with white he said that hale had approached him with an offer to blow up the smith's house which he did and he directly implicated ernest burkhart meanwhile molly burkhart had become reclusive which ernest blamed on her worsening diabetes but there was more to it than that it seemed a local priest became concerned when molly an avid churchgoer stopped attending services he also heard rumors that she was being held against her will the priest received a secret message from molly who said she believed someone was trying to poison her knowing that poisoned liquor had been a common mo for the murders the priest was able to send a secret message back to her telling her not to drink any liquor that was offered but even with that information her condition was apparently getting worse then there was the realization that the insulin shot she was receiving from local doctors including the previously mentioned shown brothers might be poisoned the worried priest broke the convention of secrecy between priest and parishioner and divulged the information to white white acted fast and secured warrants for the arrest of hale and burkhart despite not having all that much direct evidence but molly was in very grave danger since agents with the bureau of investigation could not arrest anyone themselves they were assisted by local law enforcement which oddly enough included the formerly disgraced local sheriff who had miraculously been re-elected to office but to really be able to prove hale and burkhart's guilt white and his team desperately needed more evidence another local criminal named blackie thompson who was serving time for murdering a police officer told wyatt that halen burkhart had also approached him about killing bill and rita smith this evidence was far more reliable than what lawson had said since he was promised reduced jail time because thompson's crime was so severe white had already told him that a reduced sentence was impossible so it seemed he had less reason for an ulterior motive though it should be noted that thompson had previously been used as an undercover informant in the same case previously but had escaped and went on a crime spree which is when he murdered that police officer white had singled out burkhart for questioning rather than hail ernest being the follower was more likely to spill his guts under pressure than the common collected hail ernest burkhart had not willingly given any useful information about his or hale's role in the murders and it didn't seem like he would budge thompson was brought under armed guard to meet with burkhart face to face thompson said he had told white everything after this meeting burkhart was visibly shaken and it wasn't long afterward that ernest burkhart confessed he confirmed that lawson had been lying so it was fortunate for wyatt that he had gotten testimony from thompson molly burkhart had been transferred to a hospital where her health rapidly improved adding more fuel to the theory that she was being poisoned through her insulin treatment white believed the shown brothers had been a part of the job but he couldn't prove it and neither of them confessed to anything importantly in his confession ernest burkhart included a man named john ramsey in the conspiracy who turned out to be the much sought-after gunman of henry rohn and possibly other murders as well despite his risky confession molly refused to believe her husband had been involved in any of the killings then there was the next hurdle the trial william hale had many connections among locals and among local and state government officials due to hail's behind-the-scenes meddling it was decided that the case would be tried by the state of oklahoma where he had more influence rather than a federal court which would normally have applied to tribal lands then things got worse for white before ernest could present his important witness testimony hale's attorney successfully coerced him into agreeing to delay his testimony for one day which the judge agreed to the next time he took the stand he retracted his statements against hale and claimed along with hale and ramsay that he was coerced and tortured by white and his agents and that he was forced to confess this left white's best witness as kelsey morrison a local criminal whose loyalty had flip-flopped between the federal agents and hail morrison still testified against hale but his history didn't make him a very reliable key witness but just when things were looking bad for the prosecution something unexpected happened ernest burkhart came around again burkhart had secretly spoken with the prosecuting attorney ditching hale's defense attorney and hiring his own lawyer and changed his plea from not guilty to guilty he also confirmed that white and his agents had not coerced or abused him hale or ramsay then the supreme court decided that the murder of henry rohn had occurred on tribal lands and therefore the case would be sent to a federal court where hale had far less power even though ernest burkhart was sentenced to life in prison plus hard labor he reportedly looked relieved like he had finally purged the guilty demons from his conscience after there were fairly reliable reports that at least one juror had been bribed and that one witness had been threatened with death by hale's defense attorney the judge dismissed the jury and a new one was assembled these reports were later confirmed though the prosecution decided not to charge the defense attorney with obstruction of justice in order to not delay the current trial against hale and ramsay there were understandable concerns that an all-white jury would not care about the murder of indians but the new jury found hale and ramsay guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of henry rohn although the usual punishment was execution they were instead sentenced to life in prison whether that means they got off too lightly is up to you the next year came the trial for anna brown's murder ernest's brother brian burkhart was given immunity so he would testify against kelsey morrison who had once again switched his loyalty to hail brian testified that he had helped get anna drunk and held her in place while morrison shot her and that's where the trials ended while the culprits had not been tried for all of the victims murders they had been caught and would be punished despite all of the bumps in the road during the investigation and the prejudice that many involved had towards native americans in the end the federal justice system hadn't completely failed this time as it had so many other times in the past after the onset of the great depression the osage wealth and oil rapidly decreased as the oil was depleted and eventually led to the abandonment or near abandonment of many of these oklahoma boom towns the osage could no longer be rich without working there's a cruel and bitter irony in all of this the osage were killed for their money then when the murder plot was solved and the culprits punished there was no more money it was almost as if they had died for no reason not even one as selfish and greedy as material wealth before this video ends let's take a quick look at what happened to the main players in this case in the following years first molly burkhardt the most tortured person in this whole story her last two siblings had been brutally murdered her mother had died shortly afterward her husband had committed the ultimate betrayal and during the trials her four-year-old daughter had died it's difficult to imagine putting yourself in any situation that even remotely reaches such levels of pain after the trial for the murder of her sister anna she finally came to the hard realization that ernest was telling the truth that he had assisted in the murder plot that claimed her family and friends her affection and trust for him quickly evaporated and she quickly divorced him unfortunately her two surviving children were stigmatized for the rest of their lives for their blood relation to earnest now considered one of the most hated people in the community and it was something that they couldn't possibly escape from molly married another man in 1928 and by all accounts it was a happy marriage in 1931 molly was finally able to be legally deemed competent to manage her own finances and became a full american citizen she died six years later in 1937 at the age of 50. tom white left the bureau of investigation shortly after the conclusion of the osage murder case going on to become the warden of leavenworth prison in kansas where one of his prisoners was none other than william hale in 1931 white was nearly killed when rioting prisoners kidnapped him at gunpoint took him away for leverage and ended up shooting him point-blank with a shotgun and left him for dead in a ditch but miraculously white survived though had a limp left arm for the rest of his life he later became the warden of another prison he died in 1971 at the ripe age of 90.

william hale the evil kingpin in all of this believe it or not was actually released from prison in 1947 after serving 20 years at leavenworth due to good behavior and being a model prisoner he lived more than a decade as a free man though he wasn't allowed to go to oklahoma he died in 1962 at the age of 87. even while in prison he had still referred to himself as a true friend of the osage people and never admitted to orchestrating any of the killings ernest burkhart perhaps the most complex character in this story was released from prison in 1937 but was sent back for reportedly robbing an osage home he was released again in 1959 and was barely able to get an official pardon from the state of oklahoma in 1965 which allowed him to live in the state again he moved back to osage county then moved again to another county nearby he lived more or less destitute in a trailer until he died in 1986 at the age of 94. brian burkhart ernest's brother who had also assisted in at least one of the murders died in 1985 at the age of 86.

for some reason i couldn't find any information on john ramsey after he was paroled in 1947 the same time as william hale dick gregg the outlaw who had testified that hale had asked him to kill bill and rita smith was shot and killed after he murdered two tulsa policemen in 1929. a similar fate awaited blackie thompson the outlaw that implicated ernest burkhart when he was also killed by lawmen in 1934 understandably many in the osage nation were upset that hale burkhart and ramsay didn't serve out their life sentences and believed this to be a severe lack of the maintenance of justice from the same justice system that had so rightfully convicted them in the first place despite the severity and cold-bloodedness of the osage murders the case has been largely forgotten outside of the osage community for over a century but it looks like that is about to change as i mentioned at the beginning of this video one book titled killers of the flower moon focused on the case and was well received it was published in 2017 by journalist and author david grann and suddenly sparked more interest in the case and right now as i speak a movie based on the story is being made directed by martin scorsese and starring leonardo dicaprio as ernest burkhart and robert de niro as william hale i'm very interested in how this film will turn out since i'm a big fan of scorsese and his collaborations with leo and de niro just like the bath school massacre this story needs to be told despite the upsetting content especially because they have been so wrongly forgotten and while i didn't talk about it in this video there are still many unanswered questions in the osage murder case the main one surrounding the other murders no one was charged for and whether or not they're related to william hale david graham dug up some of the old case files and notes from private detectives and they do seem to indicate that there might have been murders isolated from hale's scheme for example that of charles whitehorn though the motive for his and the other deaths would almost certainly have been the same their shares in the mineral trust hail was only proven to be connected to the killings of anna brown henry rohn and bill and rita smith and perhaps indirectly to that of w.