WEBVTT - Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders from Cautionary Tales 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.636 Pushkin, wealth, greed, desire, murder. These are just some of 0:00:21.636 --> 0:00:25.516 the plagues that befell the Osage people after vast oil 0:00:25.596 --> 0:00:29.156 reserves were discovered beneath their land. Killers of the Flower 0:00:29.196 --> 0:00:32.276 Moon tells a story of the disregard for human life 0:00:32.636 --> 0:00:36.876 and betrayal and greed. Today on Revision's History, we're presenting 0:00:36.956 --> 0:00:40.756 a special episode of Cautionary Tales. You'll hear the story 0:00:40.796 --> 0:00:44.356 behind David Grant's book Killers of the Flower Moon, which 0:00:44.356 --> 0:00:47.156 has been adapted for the screen by Martin Scorsese and 0:00:47.276 --> 0:00:51.276 is now exclusively in theaters. Plus hear about the investigation 0:00:51.396 --> 0:00:56.396 that began almost ninety years later. Here's the episode. Listen 0:00:56.476 --> 0:00:59.916 to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:00.636 --> 0:01:04.556 This cautionary Tale is based on David Gran's book Killers 0:01:04.676 --> 0:01:08.196 of the Flower Moon and produced in association with Apple 0:01:08.316 --> 0:01:11.476 Original Film. The film of the same title is now 0:01:11.636 --> 0:01:29.236 exclusively in theaters. Once upon a time, the O Sage 0:01:29.316 --> 0:01:32.796 Nation stretched across the center of the North American continent, 0:01:33.636 --> 0:01:36.876 from the Rocky Mountains through to what is now Missouri, Kansas, 0:01:36.916 --> 0:01:41.956 and Oklahoma. President Thomas Jefferson viewed the O Sage people 0:01:42.036 --> 0:01:46.156 with where we respect When in eighteen oh four, he 0:01:46.236 --> 0:01:49.196 met with a group of towering O Sage chiefs at 0:01:49.196 --> 0:01:52.796 the White House. He remarked that they were the finest 0:01:52.876 --> 0:01:58.756 men we have ever seen. The wary respect did not last. 0:01:59.996 --> 0:02:03.316 By eighteen seventy, the O Sage people had been pushed 0:02:03.316 --> 0:02:08.236 into buying land that one observer described as broken, rocky, 0:02:10.036 --> 0:02:15.876 and utterly unfit for cultivation. Ravaged by smallpox, the death 0:02:15.916 --> 0:02:19.556 of the buffalo, and brutal attacks from settlers, only a 0:02:19.596 --> 0:02:24.236 few thousand of them remained alive. The O Sage chief 0:02:24.556 --> 0:02:28.756 wati Ankhar, tried to look on the bright side. My 0:02:28.916 --> 0:02:32.676 people will be happy in this land. He said, there 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:36.916 are many hills here. White man does not like country 0:02:37.156 --> 0:02:41.476 whether a hills, and he will not come. But the 0:02:41.476 --> 0:02:46.596 white man did come. O Sage children were forcibly enrolled 0:02:46.596 --> 0:02:50.236 in Catholic boarding schools, days travel away from their parents, 0:02:50.756 --> 0:02:52.996 and made to change their names and their clothes to 0:02:53.036 --> 0:02:57.516 the European style. The United States policy was that the 0:02:57.596 --> 0:03:01.996 Indian must conform to the white man's ways peacefully if 0:03:01.996 --> 0:03:13.596 they will, forcibly if they must. In nineteen oh six, 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:18.036 the US government wanted to create a new state, Oklahoma 0:03:18.676 --> 0:03:22.276 and hand it over to white settlers. They pressed the 0:03:22.316 --> 0:03:25.476 Osage nation to agree to a new deal concerning the 0:03:25.556 --> 0:03:29.636 rights to the land they had purchased. The Osage negotiators 0:03:29.676 --> 0:03:33.516 played a weak hand well. Under the deal that they agreed, 0:03:34.036 --> 0:03:37.796 the entire tribe of two thousand, two hundred and twenty 0:03:37.876 --> 0:03:42.636 nine souls collectively held the rights to whatever lay beneath 0:03:42.716 --> 0:03:48.036 their land. And what lay beneath, as the Osage negotiators 0:03:48.076 --> 0:03:52.756 suspected and the white Man had not guessed, was oil 0:03:53.836 --> 0:03:59.836 vast reserves of black gold. As the oil started to flow, 0:04:00.436 --> 0:04:04.236 so did the money. Every quarter, every member of the 0:04:04.276 --> 0:04:07.756 Osage tribe received a check to reflect the money being 0:04:07.836 --> 0:04:10.636 paid by the oil men. At first, it was little 0:04:10.636 --> 0:04:16.036 more than pocket money. Soon each check each individual was 0:04:16.036 --> 0:04:19.436 the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars in today's 0:04:19.436 --> 0:04:25.476 money every quarter, and the checks kept growing. Newspapers couldn't 0:04:25.476 --> 0:04:29.716 get enough of stories about what they called the red millionaires. 0:04:30.396 --> 0:04:33.916 O Sage girls dressed in the latest Parisian fashions. O 0:04:34.076 --> 0:04:38.876 Sage cookouts a circle of expensive automobiles surrounding an open 0:04:38.916 --> 0:04:42.436 campfire where the bronzed and blanketed owners are cooking meat 0:04:42.516 --> 0:04:46.636 in the primitive style. O Sage elders arriving for a 0:04:46.756 --> 0:04:52.916 ceremonial dance in a private plane. Luck had finally smiled 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:59.956 on the o Sage Nation, or had it. I'm Tim 0:05:00.036 --> 0:05:28.436 Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Minnie Smith was 0:05:28.516 --> 0:05:32.636 the first of the four sisters to die. She'd been young, 0:05:32.996 --> 0:05:37.796 fit and healthy, and then she'd grown ill quite suddenly. 0:05:38.636 --> 0:05:42.196 The doctors in Osage County were baffled by her death, 0:05:42.516 --> 0:05:47.556 but of course they had a diagnosis, a peculiar wasting illness. 0:05:48.276 --> 0:05:54.276 Maybe peculiar, it certainly was. Minnie left behind a husband, 0:05:54.916 --> 0:05:59.156 a white man called Bill Smith. A few months after 0:05:59.196 --> 0:06:04.836 Minnie's death in nineteen eighteen, Bill married another of the sisters, Rita. 0:06:06.236 --> 0:06:09.516 Then there was Anna. She had also married a wife man, 0:06:09.716 --> 0:06:11.876 but she had divorced him, and at the age of 0:06:11.916 --> 0:06:15.316 thirty four, she had a habit of disappearing on wild 0:06:15.476 --> 0:06:19.236 nights of drinking and dancing. She had plenty of places 0:06:19.276 --> 0:06:23.476 to go as the oil flowed in Osage County. Once 0:06:23.596 --> 0:06:28.556 modest settlements became bustling towns full of oil workers, bootleggers, 0:06:28.636 --> 0:06:33.756 and gangsters. One overnight oil rush town was named wiz Bang, 0:06:34.116 --> 0:06:39.556 where people whizzed all day and banged all night. Anna 0:06:39.796 --> 0:06:43.516 enjoyed such places that they were risky. She always kept 0:06:43.516 --> 0:06:48.156 a small pistol in her purse. And then one night 0:06:48.476 --> 0:06:52.756 in nineteen twenty one, she went out partying and didn't 0:06:52.796 --> 0:06:57.476 come home. Not the first night, not the second, and 0:06:57.556 --> 0:07:04.116 not the third. Which brings us to Sister number four, Molly, 0:07:04.796 --> 0:07:08.076 the serious, responsible sister, the one who ended up taking 0:07:08.156 --> 0:07:11.196 care of all the other and their mother too. In 0:07:11.236 --> 0:07:14.156 her hunt for her missing sister, Molly could call on 0:07:14.316 --> 0:07:19.556 perhaps the most influential man in Osage County, her husband's uncle, 0:07:20.276 --> 0:07:24.356 William Hale, the man they called the King of the 0:07:24.396 --> 0:07:28.716 Osage Hills. Hale had been a cowboy when he was young. 0:07:29.356 --> 0:07:33.036 Now he was a bespectacled, three piece suit wearing pillar 0:07:33.196 --> 0:07:38.076 of the community. Behind his owlish glasses, he remained a 0:07:38.116 --> 0:07:41.476 formidable character. He was not the kind of man to 0:07:41.596 --> 0:07:45.156 ask you to do something he told you, said Molly's 0:07:45.236 --> 0:07:50.916 husband Ernest. But although Hale was rich, powerful and domineering, 0:07:51.356 --> 0:07:54.516 he was also a reverend and a deputy sheriff, and 0:07:54.796 --> 0:07:59.516 widely regarded as the most public spirited man in Osage County. 0:08:00.236 --> 0:08:03.716 He had supported local schools and charities before the Osage 0:08:03.756 --> 0:08:08.356 people struck oil. One doctor said, I couldn't begin to 0:08:08.436 --> 0:08:12.436 remember how many sick people have received medical attention at 0:08:12.476 --> 0:08:16.596 his expense, nor how many hungry mouths have tasted of 0:08:16.596 --> 0:08:21.436 his bounty. William Hale himself once wrote, I never had 0:08:21.556 --> 0:08:26.356 better friends in my life than the o Sages. Uncle 0:08:26.396 --> 0:08:30.596 William was like a guardian angel for Molly's family. If 0:08:30.596 --> 0:08:45.556 anyone could help Molly find her sister, it would be him. 0:08:45.876 --> 0:08:49.676 In the second half of the twentieth century, economists began 0:08:49.756 --> 0:08:54.796 to observe a pattern striking oil is not the guarantee 0:08:54.836 --> 0:08:59.516 of national prosperity that you might expect. Indeed, the reverse 0:08:59.596 --> 0:09:04.516 is often true. Think of Iraq and Iran, Venezuela and Nigeria. 0:09:04.756 --> 0:09:08.236 There are plenty of countries with vast reserves of oil, 0:09:08.356 --> 0:09:11.396 and few of them seem to have flourished as a result. 0:09:12.636 --> 0:09:16.636 Even the wealthy exceptions, such as Saudi Arabia often have 0:09:16.756 --> 0:09:21.276 a thin and brittle kind of wealth. It's a challenge 0:09:21.316 --> 0:09:25.476 to build foundations for enduring prosperity for something that will 0:09:25.556 --> 0:09:30.116 last longer than wiz bang when the oil money is gone. 0:09:30.276 --> 0:09:34.516 Economists debate the causes and cures of this problem, and 0:09:34.596 --> 0:09:38.316 they call it the resource curse, But I prefer a 0:09:38.356 --> 0:09:43.116 more lyrical description by a former minister of oil, Rich Venezuela, 0:09:43.516 --> 0:09:46.236 when he was asked to describe the effect of all 0:09:46.316 --> 0:09:52.476 that black gold on his country. It is the devil's excrement, 0:09:53.196 --> 0:10:01.836 he declared. We are drowning in the devil's excrement. The 0:10:01.916 --> 0:10:05.236 Oce age had never heard of the resource curse or 0:10:05.276 --> 0:10:09.516 the devil's excrement, though one of their elders, it seemed 0:10:09.556 --> 0:10:15.276 to anticipate the idea. Someday this oil will go, he said, 0:10:16.156 --> 0:10:18.916 and there will be no more fat checks every few 0:10:18.956 --> 0:10:22.516 months from the Great White Father. There'll be no fine 0:10:22.556 --> 0:10:28.836 motor cars and new clothes. Then I know my people 0:10:28.876 --> 0:10:35.916 will be happier. But were those fat checks involved in 0:10:35.996 --> 0:10:39.956 the peculiar death of one sister and the disappearance of another? 0:10:41.156 --> 0:10:45.756 Uncle William Hale had quietly expressed his doubts about Bill Smith. 0:10:46.636 --> 0:10:51.276 He'd married Minnie, remember then she had died suddenly and mysteriously. 0:10:52.476 --> 0:10:57.516 Months later he married her sister Rita. Marrying one o 0:10:57.676 --> 0:11:01.996 sage woman would set a man up for life. Marrying two. 0:11:02.516 --> 0:11:06.796 You had to wander about Bill's motives. But then it 0:11:06.956 --> 0:11:10.036 wasn't as if Bill had stood to gain financially from 0:11:10.076 --> 0:11:14.076 Minnie's death. Under the system of head rights, it wouldn't 0:11:14.116 --> 0:11:18.756 be Bill who'd keep getting those fat checks. Instead, Minnie's 0:11:18.796 --> 0:11:24.156 head right passed to her mother, Lizzie. So would Anna's 0:11:24.196 --> 0:11:28.516 head wright if anything had happened to Anna. And after 0:11:28.556 --> 0:11:31.556 Anna had been missing for a week, there was news 0:11:32.356 --> 0:11:38.156 a rotting corpse had been discovered. The undertakers scattered salt 0:11:38.316 --> 0:11:41.956 and ice on it to reduce the swelling and the stink. 0:11:43.436 --> 0:11:46.916 By the time the sisters Molly and Rita arrived, the 0:11:47.036 --> 0:11:53.116 vultures were wheeling overhead. Was it Anna? The face of 0:11:53.156 --> 0:11:58.556 the corpse was unrecognizable, but Molly knew the traditional blanket 0:11:58.636 --> 0:12:02.436 and the clothes were Anna's. She had washed them freshly 0:12:02.476 --> 0:12:05.436 for her sister the last time she saw her alive 0:12:05.516 --> 0:12:10.956 a week ago, and there was anna distinctive gold filling. 0:12:11.836 --> 0:12:19.756 It was her for sure. Rita wept. Molly was resolute. 0:12:19.996 --> 0:12:23.196 She hired private detectives, and she had help from her 0:12:23.276 --> 0:12:27.596 husband's uncle, William Hale, who swore he'd get justice for Anna. 0:12:28.236 --> 0:12:32.036 He got his personal doctors to perform an autopsy. They 0:12:32.116 --> 0:12:36.356 found a bullet hole in the woman's skull. Although even 0:12:36.396 --> 0:12:40.476 after chopping her brain into mints, they never could find 0:12:40.516 --> 0:12:47.116 the bullet. Curious, but as both the sheriff and the 0:12:47.196 --> 0:12:51.396 private investigators started to look into the mystery, it wasn't 0:12:51.476 --> 0:12:54.636 just Minnie's and Anna's deaths that they'd have to solve. 0:12:56.236 --> 0:13:00.196 Another one of the sisters did not have long to live. 0:13:03.116 --> 0:13:11.796 Cautionary tales will return in a moment. The Indian must 0:13:11.836 --> 0:13:16.396 conform to the white man's ways. But not like this, 0:13:16.716 --> 0:13:20.956 decided the federal government. Not with luxury cars and private planes. 0:13:21.796 --> 0:13:26.716 Congressional committees took to pouring over reports of O Sage expenditure, 0:13:27.476 --> 0:13:31.756 like disapproving parents, scrutinizing the bank account of a teenager, 0:13:32.516 --> 0:13:35.636 and their devised a system just like the one you'd 0:13:35.636 --> 0:13:39.356 impose on a child. If the US Department of the 0:13:39.396 --> 0:13:43.676 Interior decided that a member of a Native American tribe 0:13:44.196 --> 0:13:48.556 wasn't competent to manage their own affairs, their finances would 0:13:48.596 --> 0:13:52.916 be handed over to a guardian. The idea of competence 0:13:53.356 --> 0:13:57.876 was a sham. In truth, the system of guardianship was 0:13:58.036 --> 0:14:02.076 purely a matter of racism. Full blooded O Sage people 0:14:02.436 --> 0:14:10.076 would always be pronounced incompetent and assigned a guardian guardianship 0:14:10.276 --> 0:14:14.996 was supposedly intended to protect O sage people from themselves. 0:14:16.476 --> 0:14:20.956 In fact, and of course, and by design, it made 0:14:20.996 --> 0:14:25.636 them easy to exploit. Guardians had to approve any item 0:14:25.676 --> 0:14:30.436 of expenditure down to toothpaste and groceries. The guardians were 0:14:30.476 --> 0:14:33.876 the ones writing the checks, and it was the easiest 0:14:33.876 --> 0:14:36.556 thing in the world for a guardian to steal from 0:14:36.596 --> 0:14:40.876 their O sage ward. One's gam for example, was for 0:14:40.956 --> 0:14:43.476 a guardian to buy a car for a couple of 0:14:43.636 --> 0:14:48.116 hundred dollars, then parted onto their ward for a thousand. 0:14:48.916 --> 0:14:52.276 Since O sage people were forbidden to have direct control 0:14:52.316 --> 0:14:55.236 of their own money, they might not have known about 0:14:55.236 --> 0:14:59.476 the deception, but in any case they were powerless to 0:14:59.516 --> 0:15:07.476 do much about it. At least, some O sage people 0:15:07.556 --> 0:15:11.156 had white friends. Molly didn't have to rely on some 0:15:11.396 --> 0:15:16.596 exploitative stranger for guardianship. Her own husband, Ernest was her guardian. 0:15:17.236 --> 0:15:19.676 That meant she had as much control over her money 0:15:19.676 --> 0:15:23.036 as most women of the day, and just as you'd 0:15:23.036 --> 0:15:27.316 expect from the nephew of the upstanding William Hale, Ernest 0:15:27.556 --> 0:15:31.956 took good care of Molly. She suffered from diabetes. He 0:15:32.036 --> 0:15:35.676 made sure she went regularly to his uncle's trusted doctors, 0:15:36.316 --> 0:15:40.276 the ones who had performed Anna's autopsy. They gave her 0:15:40.316 --> 0:15:43.876 the regular injections of insulin she needed to stay alive. 0:15:45.596 --> 0:15:49.516 But the private detectives that Molly hired weren't making much 0:15:49.596 --> 0:15:53.396 progress in figuring out who had shot Anna and why. 0:15:54.396 --> 0:15:58.236 They interviewed Ernest's brother, the last person who'd seen her alive. 0:15:58.996 --> 0:16:02.876 Anna's ex husband was grilled too, but he had nothing 0:16:02.916 --> 0:16:07.116 to gain from her death. Anna's money went to her mother, Lizzie. 0:16:07.236 --> 0:16:13.156 The evidence to charge anyone seemed thin anyway. The local 0:16:13.236 --> 0:16:17.236 sheriff and his deputies were busy, busy taking bribes, busy 0:16:17.316 --> 0:16:21.196 colluding with bootlegging gangs, and soon enough they were busy 0:16:21.316 --> 0:16:26.876 dealing with other untimely deaths. A mood of fear set 0:16:26.956 --> 0:16:32.036 in o Sage. People began to install electric lights outside 0:16:32.076 --> 0:16:36.596 their homes, pushing back the darkness in the hope of 0:16:36.676 --> 0:16:43.036 dissuading the creep of the assassins who would be next. 0:16:44.276 --> 0:16:47.556 At one stage, even the powerful friend of the Osage, 0:16:47.916 --> 0:16:52.316 William Hale, seemed to be a target. Unknown men set 0:16:52.356 --> 0:16:55.996 fire to his pastures, and the flames spread for mile 0:16:56.116 --> 0:17:00.756 upon mile. If the King of the Osage Hills could 0:17:00.796 --> 0:17:08.476 be attacked. Nobody was safe. Rita's husband, Bill Smith, developed 0:17:08.476 --> 0:17:12.076 his own aspisions about what was going on. He hired 0:17:12.076 --> 0:17:16.716 his own private detectives. He told friends he was determined 0:17:16.996 --> 0:17:20.196 to get to the bottom of the killings and that 0:17:20.236 --> 0:17:24.476 he was getting warm, but perhaps his enemies were getting 0:17:24.516 --> 0:17:29.156 warm too. On several nights, Bill and his wife Rita 0:17:29.516 --> 0:17:34.596 were awoken by movement outside the house. It sounded like 0:17:34.756 --> 0:17:39.796 intruders scouting around getting the lay of the land. Rita 0:17:39.876 --> 0:17:44.556 and Bill were scared. Leaving many of their possessions behind, 0:17:44.916 --> 0:17:48.596 they abruptly moved to a neighborhood in the town of Fairfax. 0:17:49.516 --> 0:17:53.436 Most people there had a guard dog, but over the 0:17:53.476 --> 0:17:57.836 course of a few days, one by one the neighborhood 0:17:57.836 --> 0:18:04.716 guard dogs began to sicken, lay down, and die. In 0:18:04.756 --> 0:18:09.276 the early hours of March tenth, nineteen twenty three, the 0:18:09.516 --> 0:18:18.836 entire town was jolted awake. Close to the blast, windows shattered, timber, snatched, 0:18:19.276 --> 0:18:24.556 doors flew from their hinders. People were not flat further away. 0:18:24.996 --> 0:18:30.396 The town shook and shook and wouldn't stop. A rush 0:18:30.436 --> 0:18:35.316 of bewildered townsfolk headed towards the epicenter. It was Bill 0:18:35.556 --> 0:18:39.956 and Rita's new house. There was nothing left of it 0:18:41.036 --> 0:18:47.876 but rubble and choking black smoke. Apparently Bill Smith's investigation 0:18:48.796 --> 0:18:55.876 had got a little too warm. Molly was the only 0:18:55.996 --> 0:19:00.796 one of her sisters left, and despite regular injections to 0:19:00.836 --> 0:19:06.716 treat her diabetes, Molly herself was getting sicker and sicker. 0:19:14.596 --> 0:19:20.956 In nineteen twenty five, a lawman strode into Osage County, Oklahoma. 0:19:21.356 --> 0:19:24.996 Tom White was a movie caricature of a Western hero. 0:19:25.556 --> 0:19:31.956 Six foot four, square jawed, incorruptible, and fearless. He wore 0:19:31.996 --> 0:19:35.556 a big cowboy hat even when in the office. The 0:19:35.596 --> 0:19:40.316 office itself was the Bureau of Investigation of Washington, DC, 0:19:41.156 --> 0:19:45.436 a new organization run by an ambitious young man, j 0:19:46.036 --> 0:19:49.876 Edgar Hoover. Hoover wanted to make the reputation of his 0:19:49.956 --> 0:19:54.036 new bureau by solving a high profile case, a case 0:19:54.196 --> 0:19:58.396 that had gripped the nation, so he had sent Tom 0:19:58.436 --> 0:20:06.476 White to Osage County. The authorities in Oklahoma had made 0:20:06.716 --> 0:20:10.956 no progress in solving any of the craft Tis, neither 0:20:11.116 --> 0:20:15.516 the deaths of Molly's family, nor around twenty other murders 0:20:15.556 --> 0:20:20.156 of the Osage and their allies. There were too many 0:20:20.196 --> 0:20:25.996 possible suspects, too many rumors and stories and no hard evidence. 0:20:26.596 --> 0:20:31.556 Witnesses had a tendency to die in strange circumstances, the 0:20:31.636 --> 0:20:37.436 car crash, bad whiskey falling down the stairs. When the 0:20:37.556 --> 0:20:41.316 cowboy hatted Tom White agreed to go to Osage County, 0:20:41.676 --> 0:20:45.396 he knew that investigations had been stalled for years, that 0:20:45.436 --> 0:20:50.036 the local officials were corrupt, and that some previous investigators 0:20:50.476 --> 0:20:54.316 had been murdered themselves. If he took the job, he'd 0:20:54.356 --> 0:20:59.676 have a target on his back. It wasn't going to 0:20:59.716 --> 0:21:04.796 stop him. Tom White summoned a posse of undercover agents 0:21:04.836 --> 0:21:08.796 to join him in Oklahoma City. The only member of 0:21:08.836 --> 0:21:12.676 a Native American tribe who worked for the Bureau, John Wren, 0:21:12.876 --> 0:21:16.956 who was part ute several experienced gunslingers who could easily 0:21:16.996 --> 0:21:22.556 pose as cowboys or rustlers, a former insurance salesman whose 0:21:22.596 --> 0:21:29.356 cover story was that he was an insurance salesman. More 0:21:29.396 --> 0:21:32.636 than twenty o Sage people had been murdered, along with 0:21:32.756 --> 0:21:37.236 several other locals. White decided to focus on a few, 0:21:38.036 --> 0:21:44.116 including the sisters, Anna who was shot, Rita whose house exploded. 0:21:47.876 --> 0:21:51.836 In his book Killers of the Flower Moon, David Gran 0:21:52.196 --> 0:21:57.476 describes Tom White's investigation as taking place in a wilderness 0:21:57.676 --> 0:22:03.916 of mirrors, evidence inexplicably vanished. Why hadn't the doctor has 0:22:03.956 --> 0:22:08.036 managed to find the bullet in Anna's skull? Useful looking 0:22:08.116 --> 0:22:12.996 leads turned out to be deliberate deceptions. One woman initially 0:22:12.996 --> 0:22:16.196 said Anna had been killed by a jealous wife after 0:22:16.236 --> 0:22:20.076 fooling around with the husband, but later admitted that a 0:22:20.196 --> 0:22:24.276 strange White man had come to her house and forced 0:22:24.316 --> 0:22:28.836 her to sign a fake statement. And Tom White realized 0:22:28.876 --> 0:22:34.316 something else. Some unknown person in his team was a 0:22:34.356 --> 0:22:40.476 double agent, leaking the bureau's internal reports, feeding back everything 0:22:40.716 --> 0:22:45.156 to the men they were pursuing. Who were those men? 0:22:46.116 --> 0:22:49.756 After spending the summer of nineteen twenty five trying to 0:22:49.876 --> 0:22:54.276 navigate the wilderness of mirrors, Tom White started to piece 0:22:54.356 --> 0:22:58.636 together a theory. One of the murdered o Sage men 0:22:58.836 --> 0:23:03.276 had a life insurance policy for twenty five thousand dollars, 0:23:03.556 --> 0:23:08.156 a huge sum, but rather than naming his wife as 0:23:08.156 --> 0:23:14.676 a beneficiary, he had named his wealthy friend, William Hale, 0:23:15.596 --> 0:23:21.596 the King of the Osage Hills. That seemed strange, although 0:23:21.836 --> 0:23:25.276 Hale explained to White that the poor man had discovered 0:23:25.276 --> 0:23:28.836 his wife was having an affair and Hale had comforted 0:23:28.916 --> 0:23:34.396 him in his distress. That would explain everything. Then, a 0:23:34.436 --> 0:23:39.116 woman who lived near Hale's farm told investigators that when 0:23:39.276 --> 0:23:43.636 Hale's land had been set ablaze, it was by Hale's 0:23:43.636 --> 0:23:49.236 workers on Hale's orders. He had collected thirty thousand dollars 0:23:49.276 --> 0:23:54.276 in insurance money. Hale controlled everything around here, she told 0:23:54.316 --> 0:24:00.756 the agents. White looked more and more closely at Hale's affairs. 0:24:01.556 --> 0:24:06.196 Those head rights, the unbelievably lucrative rights to the money 0:24:06.276 --> 0:24:10.916 from o Sage County's oil fields, couldn't be bought or sold. 0:24:11.396 --> 0:24:15.916 They could only be inherited. Minnie's and Anna's head rights 0:24:16.356 --> 0:24:21.156 had gone to their mother, Lizzie. Then Lizzie herself had 0:24:21.236 --> 0:24:26.236 died from a mysterious illness, all of her accumulated head 0:24:26.316 --> 0:24:31.636 rights went to Molly and her sister Rita. This slow 0:24:31.796 --> 0:24:36.396 burning family tragedy started to develop a remorseless logic in 0:24:36.556 --> 0:24:40.596 Tom White's mind, even the use of a bomb to 0:24:40.756 --> 0:24:45.596 murder Rita and her husband Bill, because their will specified 0:24:45.636 --> 0:24:50.196 that if they died simultaneously, everything would pass to Molly. 0:24:51.596 --> 0:24:57.356 Molly herself was very ill, despite the close attention she 0:24:57.476 --> 0:25:03.516 was receiving from William Hale's personal physicians. She hadn't died, 0:25:04.196 --> 0:25:08.196 not yet, but perhaps the killers weren't in a hurry, 0:25:08.636 --> 0:25:13.516 since Molly's money was all controlled by her husband, Ernest, 0:25:14.396 --> 0:25:21.516 a man who was absolutely loyal to his uncle William Hale. Earnest, 0:25:21.716 --> 0:25:25.916 it seemed, might be complicit in the plot to murder 0:25:26.276 --> 0:25:33.276 every member of his wife's family and presumably his wife herself. 0:25:39.716 --> 0:25:44.636 Solving the mystery was one thing, Securing a conviction was 0:25:44.756 --> 0:25:50.276 quite another. In an Oklahoma court, everyone from the sheriff 0:25:50.316 --> 0:25:53.556 to the juries would be bought and paid for by 0:25:53.556 --> 0:25:57.436 William Hale. Even if Tom White could get the case 0:25:57.516 --> 0:26:01.636 tried in a federal court, would a white jury convict 0:26:03.156 --> 0:26:07.156 as one O sage elder commented, The question for them 0:26:07.196 --> 0:26:10.436 to decide is whether a white man killing an O 0:26:10.596 --> 0:26:22.396 sage is murder or merely cruelty to animals. The trials 0:26:22.636 --> 0:26:27.196 were a sensation, I say trials, since there were several 0:26:27.276 --> 0:26:32.396 murders and several murderers working for Hale. One was declared 0:26:32.396 --> 0:26:35.476 a mistrial after it became clear that members of the 0:26:35.556 --> 0:26:40.756 jury had been bribed. Ernest made a full confession of 0:26:40.836 --> 0:26:45.596 his and his uncle's crimes, then withdrew it and agreed 0:26:45.636 --> 0:26:51.116 to testify for his uncle's defense, then repented and confessed again. 0:26:52.476 --> 0:26:55.996 It's hard to know why he changed his mind, but 0:26:56.236 --> 0:27:00.396 perhaps it was the sight of his wife, Molly, sitting 0:27:00.516 --> 0:27:07.036 silently in the courtroom day after day, solemnly watching as 0:27:07.076 --> 0:27:10.436 it became clear that the man she had loved had 0:27:10.476 --> 0:27:18.276 conspired to murder every member of her family, including her. Finally, 0:27:18.716 --> 0:27:24.796 a jury reached a verdict. The clerk read it out 0:27:25.316 --> 0:27:30.236 to the charge of first degree murder. William K. Hale 0:27:30.476 --> 0:27:37.156 had been found guilty, but the jury ruled out the 0:27:37.196 --> 0:27:41.516 death penalty that would normally be of foregone conclusion. Hale 0:27:41.756 --> 0:27:52.876 and others would serve long prison terms for their appalling crimes. 0:27:54.156 --> 0:27:57.836 Orson Wells once said that if you want a happy ending, 0:27:58.676 --> 0:28:02.796 it depends on where you stop the story. It's tempting 0:28:02.836 --> 0:28:06.956 to stop the story. On November seventeenth, nineteen twenty six, 0:28:09.796 --> 0:28:13.476 Tom White has gone out on a high, retiring from 0:28:13.476 --> 0:28:16.596 the Bureau to take a more settled job does the 0:28:16.676 --> 0:28:20.796 wardens and Leavenworth Prison, and he's just learning the rope 0:28:20.876 --> 0:28:25.836 of the new job when some new inmates, shackled, pale 0:28:26.276 --> 0:28:30.196 and blinking in the sunlight, are warped up the prison 0:28:30.276 --> 0:28:36.956 driveway are the US Marshals. White recognizes the distinctive round 0:28:37.036 --> 0:28:44.356 face of William K. Hale, and Hale recognizes him too 0:28:44.636 --> 0:28:51.836 by Hello, Tom offers Hale, Hello, Bill says Warden Tom White. 0:28:52.476 --> 0:28:57.076 He shakes William Hale's hand and watches as Hale is 0:28:57.196 --> 0:29:04.916 marched off to his cell. But I can't end the 0:29:04.956 --> 0:29:08.996 story there. When Tom White and the Bureau of Investigation 0:29:09.436 --> 0:29:14.676 convicted Hale and his immediate conspirators, they declared victory and 0:29:14.796 --> 0:29:19.396 got out of town. But the killings didn't stop. Then 0:29:20.396 --> 0:29:24.316 you can still drown in the devil's excrement, even if 0:29:24.316 --> 0:29:31.156 the devil himself has gone to jail. Cautionary tales will 0:29:31.196 --> 0:29:45.636 return after the break. This cautionary tale relies on David 0:29:45.716 --> 0:29:51.236 Grand's magisterial book Killers of the Flower Moon. When I 0:29:51.276 --> 0:29:53.916 told David I was hoping to base an episode on it, 0:29:54.356 --> 0:29:57.836 he told me take a look at the final section 0:29:57.956 --> 0:30:01.556 of the book. That's the part of the history that 0:30:01.756 --> 0:30:06.876 often gets left out. The final section begins in twenty twelve, 0:30:07.796 --> 0:30:11.556 almost ninety year years after our comic book hero Tom 0:30:11.596 --> 0:30:16.876 White strode into town. Another investigator followed in his footsteps. 0:30:17.676 --> 0:30:22.316 He wasn't a former Texas Ranger, standing tall, packing heat 0:30:22.396 --> 0:30:26.116 and wearing a cowboy hat. He was a bespectacled writer 0:30:26.276 --> 0:30:32.036 from New York, David Gran himself. Gran had questions in 0:30:32.076 --> 0:30:35.196 his mind about the murders, and he wanted to see 0:30:35.316 --> 0:30:38.756 Osage County to meet some of the twenty first century 0:30:39.156 --> 0:30:44.356 O Sage people. The oil boom ended in the nineteen thirties. 0:30:45.076 --> 0:30:49.876 The boomtowns of the area are depopulated now. Wizbang is 0:30:49.956 --> 0:30:54.996 long gone, the clues that it ever existed covered by grass. 0:30:55.556 --> 0:30:58.556 There's still a little oil and steal a little money 0:30:58.556 --> 0:31:01.356 for the people with head rights, but not enough to 0:31:01.476 --> 0:31:09.796 change a life or to end it. Under the head 0:31:09.836 --> 0:31:13.476 right system, some of that money remains in a trust, 0:31:14.036 --> 0:31:17.636 and some things don't change. It isn't managed by the 0:31:17.676 --> 0:31:22.436 O Sage Nation, but by the US government, mismanaged, the 0:31:22.476 --> 0:31:27.036 Osage say, and their legal struggle over the money continues. 0:31:29.996 --> 0:31:33.716 The O Sage Nation is twenty thousand strong, of whom 0:31:33.916 --> 0:31:38.236 four thousand still live in Osage County, in and around 0:31:38.316 --> 0:31:43.116 their capital, Poor Huskar. The Osage have an elected government 0:31:43.396 --> 0:31:46.756 and ratified a new constitution in two thousand and six. 0:31:48.156 --> 0:31:52.596 In some ways, the Sage Chief's prophecy has come true. 0:31:54.556 --> 0:31:59.156 Someday this oil will go and there will be no 0:31:59.276 --> 0:32:02.916 more fat checks every few months from the Great White Father. 0:32:04.076 --> 0:32:09.796 Then I know my people will be happier. The terror 0:32:09.876 --> 0:32:13.796 of the nineteen twenties is a low bar for happiness. 0:32:14.916 --> 0:32:20.716 One O Sage historian Lewis F. Burns wrote, to believe 0:32:20.796 --> 0:32:25.876 that the Osages survived intact from their ordeal is a 0:32:25.916 --> 0:32:30.956 delusion of the mind. What has been possible to salvage 0:32:31.716 --> 0:32:35.956 has been saved, and is dearer to our hearts because 0:32:36.276 --> 0:32:40.116 it survived. But much of what the O Sage nation 0:32:40.316 --> 0:32:54.476 had now exists only in memory. David Grant visited the 0:32:54.516 --> 0:32:58.316 region several times to meet people and hear their stories. 0:32:59.476 --> 0:33:04.036 He attended a ceremonial dance, watching the drummers and the singers, 0:33:04.796 --> 0:33:12.676 the dancers in headdresses stepping together counterclockwise, intensity building. At 0:33:12.676 --> 0:33:15.716 the dance, a woman came up to David gran and 0:33:15.836 --> 0:33:19.996 introduced herself. She was in her fifties wearing a blue 0:33:20.076 --> 0:33:24.596 dress with long black hair in a ponytail. She seemed 0:33:25.116 --> 0:33:32.756 familiar somehow, Hi, she said, I'm Margie Burkhart. She was 0:33:32.796 --> 0:33:38.316 the granddaughter of Ernest and Molly Burkhart. Mollie who'd watched 0:33:38.316 --> 0:33:44.396 her sisters and mother die one by one, Ernest, who'd 0:33:44.476 --> 0:33:51.956 conspired in their murder. Margie talked about her father, Cowboy Burkhart, 0:33:52.556 --> 0:33:55.876 how much he had doted on his mother, Molly, and 0:33:55.956 --> 0:33:58.636 how haunted he had been by the crimes of his father. 0:34:00.316 --> 0:34:03.476 She drove David Graham to the site of the bombed house, 0:34:04.236 --> 0:34:07.356 and as they sat outside in the car, she told 0:34:07.396 --> 0:34:10.796 him that little Cowboy and his sister had been due 0:34:10.876 --> 0:34:14.436 to visit their aunt Rita the night her house blew up, 0:34:15.676 --> 0:34:22.076 but Cowboy had earache, so it didn't go. Ernest would 0:34:22.076 --> 0:34:25.156