Killers of the Flower Moon

by David Grann

  “After being so warned”: Statement by Ernest Burkhart, Jan. 6, 1926, FBI.

  “I relied on”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “Hale had told”: Statement by Ernest Burkhart, Feb. 5, 1927, NARA-CP.

  “Just a few days”: Statement by Ernest Burkhart, Jan. 6, 1926, FBI.

  “You have got”: Grand jury testimony of Frank Smith, NARA-FW.

  “All that story”: Transcript of interview with White, NMSUL.

  “When it happened”: Statement by Ernest Burkhart, Jan. 6, 1926, FBI.

  “I know who killed”: Grand jury testimony of Frank Smith, NARA-FW.

  “There’s a suspect”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “like a nervy”: Tulsa Tribune, March 13, 1926.

  “I guess”: Grand jury testimony of Smith, NARA-FW.

  “a little job”: Statement by John Ramsey, Jan. 6, 1926, FBI.

  “white people”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “It is an established”: Memorandum by M. A. Jones for Louis B. Nichols, Aug. 4, 1954, FBI.

  “Weren’t you giving”: Grand jury testimony of James Shoun, NARA-FW.

  “We are all your friends”: Testimony of Mollie Burkhart before tribal attorney and other officials, NARA-FW.

  “My husband”: Macon, “Mass Murder of the Osages.”

  “ever saw until”: Quoted in Gregory, Oil in Oklahoma, 57.

  “We have unquestioned”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “money will buy”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Feb. 2, 1924, FBI.

  “We don’t think”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “I’ll fight it”: Ibid.

  19: A TRAITOR TO HIS BLOOD

  “an evidently”: Literary Digest, Jan. 23, 1926.

  “more blood-curdling”: Evening Independent, Jan. 5, 1926.

  “King of the Killers”: Holding, “King of the Killers.”

  “Hale kept my husband”: Lizzie June Bates to George Wright, Nov. 21, 1922, NARA-FW.

  “OSAGE INDIAN”: Reno Evening-Gazette, Jan. 4, 1926.

  “OLD WILD WEST”: Evening Independent, March 5, 1926.

  “The Tragedy”: White to Hoover, Sept. 18, 1926, FBI.

  “We Indians”: Bates to Wright, Nov. 21, 1922, NARA-FW.

  “Members of the Osage”: Copy of resolution by the Society of Oklahoma Indians, NARA-FW.

  “When you’re up”: Quoted in Irwin, Deadly Times, 331.

  “Townspeople”: Lima News, Jan. 29, 1926.

  “not only useless”: Edwin Brown to A. G. Ridgley, July 21, 1925, FBI.

  “ablest legal talent”: Sequoyah County Democrat, April 9, 1926.

  “When a small-natured”: Sargent Prentiss Freeling vertical file, OHS.

  “I never killed”: Lamb, Tragedies of the Osage Hills, 174.

  “not to worry, that he”: Statement by Burkhart in deposition, Feb. 5, 1927, NARA-CP.

  The bureau put: One night in December 1926, Luther Bishop, a state lawman who had assisted on the Osage murder cases, was shot and killed in his house. His wife was charged with the murder but was later acquitted by a jury. Dee Cordry, a former police investigator and an author, examined the case in his 2005 book, Alive If Possible—Dead If Necessary. He suspected that Hale, in a final act of revenge, ordered the killing.

  “Long face”: Report by W. A. Kitchen, March 2, 1926, FBI.

  “Kelsie said”: Report by Smith, Feb. 8, 1926, FBI.

  “get her out”: Grand jury testimony of Dewey Selph, NARA-FW.

  “We’d better”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “Before this man”: White to Hoover, March 31, 1926, FBI.

  “Whatever you do”: Report by Burger, Nov. 2, 1928, FBI.

  “bumped off”: Grand jury testimony of Burkhart, NARA-FW.

  “I’ll give you”: Transcript of interview with White, NMSUL.

  “We think”: White to Hoover, June 26, 1926, FBI.

  “intentionally guilty”: Wright to Charles Burke, June 24, 1926, NARA-CP.

  “That is all”: Testimony of Mollie Burkhart before tribal attorney and other officials, NARA-FW.

  “Dear husband”: Mollie to Ernest Burkhart, Jan. 21, 1926, NARA-FW.

  “It appeared”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “Bill, I have”: Ibid.

  “Very few, if any”: White to Hoover, July 3, 1926, FBI.

  “Seldom if ever”: Tulsa Tribune, March 13, 1926.

  “new and exclusive”: Bismarck Tribune, June 17, 1926.

  “Hale is a man”: Tulsa Tribune, March 13, 1926.

  “Judge Not”: Quoted in Hogan, Osage Murders, 195.

  “Your honor, I demand”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “traitor to his”: Tulsa Daily World, Aug. 20, 1926.

  “This man is my client”: Tulsa Daily World, March 13, 1926.

  “He’s not my attorney”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “high-handed and unusual”: Leahy memorandum, clemency records, NARA-CP.

  “nerve went”: White to Hoover, June 5, 1926, FBI.

  “I never did”: Testimony from Ernest Burkhart’s preliminary hearing, included in U.S. v. John Ramsey and William K. Hale, NARA-FW.

  “Hale and Ramsey”: Transcript of interview with White, NMSUL.

  “I looked back”: Tulsa Tribune, May 30, 1926.

  “quite a tyrant”: Quoted in Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 117.

  “PRISONER CHARGES”: Washington Post, June 8, 1926.

  “ridiculous”: White to Grove, Aug. 10, 1959, NMSUL.

  “fabrication from”: White to Hoover, June 8, 1926, FBI.

  “I’ll meet the man”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “the whole damn”: Kelsie Morrison testimony, in State of Oklahoma v. Morrison, OSARM.

  “bump that squaw”: Morrison’s testimony at Ernest Burkhart’s trial, later included in ibid.

  “He raised her”: Ibid.

  “I stayed in the car alone”: Statement by Katherine Cole, Jan. 31, 1926, NARA-FW.

  “Don’t look”: My description of Burkhart changing his plea derives from trial coverage in local papers, Grove’s nonfiction manuscript, and a 1927 letter written by Leahy and held at the NARA-CP in Burkhart’s clemency records.

  “I’m through lying”: Tulsa Daily World, June 10, 1926, and Grove’s nonfiction manuscript.

  “I wish to discharge”: Tulsa Daily World, June 10, 1926.

  “I’m sick and tired”: Unpublished nonfiction account by Grove with White, NMSUL.

  “I feel in my heart”: Daily Journal-Capital, June 9, 1926.

  “Then your plea”: Tulsa Daily World, June 10, 1926.

  “BURKHART ADMITS”: New York Times, June 10, 1926.

  “was very much”: White to Hoover, June 15, 1926, FBI.

  “Too much credit”: Quoted in a 1926 missive from Short to Luhring, NARA-FW.

  “That put us”: Transcript of interview with White, NMSUL.

  “whose mind”: Tulsa Daily World, Aug. 19, 1926.

  20: SO HELP YOU GOD!

  “The stage is set”: Tulsa Tribune, July 29, 1926.

  “not testify against him”: Report by Burger, Nov. 2, 1928, FBI.

  “The attitude of”: Tulsa Tribune, Aug. 21, 1926.

  “It is a question”: Ibid.

  “Gentlemen of the jury”: Tulsa Daily World, July 30, 1926.

  “the veteran of legal battles”: Tulsa Tribune, July 29, 1926.

  “Hale said to me”: Tulsa Daily World, July 31, 1926.

  “I never devised”: Lamb, Tragedies of the Osage Hills, 179.

  “the ruthless freebooter”: Tulsa Daily World, Aug. 19, 1926.

  “The richest tribe”: Daily Journal-Capital, Aug. 20, 1926.

 
; “five to one”: Tulsa Tribune, Aug. 21, 1926.

  “Is there any”: For this quotation and other details from the scene, see Oklahoma City Times, Aug. 25, 1926.

  “I will kill”: Report by H. E. James, May 11, 1928, FBI.

  “Such practices”: Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 8, 1926.

  “this whole defense”: Oscar R. Luhring to Roy St. Lewis, Sept. 23, 1926, NARA-FW.

  “Will you state your name”: U.S. v. John Ramsey and William K. Hale, Oct. 1926, NARA-FW.

  “Your wife is”: Ibid.

  “I don’t work”: Statement by Ernest Burkhart at his 1926 trial, NMSUL.

  “The time now”: Closing statement of Oscar R. Luhring, U.S. v. John Ramsey and William K. Hale, Oct. 1926, NARA-FW.

  “There never has been”: Ibid.

  “Hale’s face”: Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 30, 1926.

  “A jury has found”: Tulsa Daily World, Oct. 30, 1926.

  “ ‘KING OF OSAGE’ ”: New York Times, Oct. 30, 1926.

  “one of the greatest”: Leahy to U.S. Attorney General, Feb. 1, 1929, FBI/FOIA.

  “if I ever get the Chance”: Morrison to Hale, included in State of Oklahoma v. Kelsie Morrison, OSARM.

  “watered”: Testimony of Bryan Burkhart, State of Oklahoma v. Kelsie Morrison, OSARM.

  “Did you go out”: Ibid.

  “Sheriffs investigated”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 4, 1926.

  “There is, of course”: Hoover to White, Jan. 9, 1926, FBI.

  “NEVER TOLD”: Newspaper article, n.p., n.d., FBI.

  “Look at her”: Memorandum by Burger, Oct. 27, 1932, FBI.

  “So another”: The Lucky Strike Hour, Nov. 15, 1932, accessed from http://www.otrr.org/.

  “a small way”: Hoover to White, Feb. 6, 1926, FBI/FOIA.

  “We express”: Quoted in Adams, Tom White, 76.

  “I hate to give up”: Mabel Walker Willebrandt to Hoover, Feb. 15, 1927, FBI/FOIA.

  “I feel that”: Hoover to Willebrandt, Dec. 9, 1926, FBI/FOIA.

  “giant mausoleum”: Earley, The Hot House, 30.

  “Why, hello”: Daily Oklahoman, n.d., and transcript of interview with White, NMSUL.

  21: THE HOT HOUSE

  “How do you raise”: Adams, Tom White, 84.

  “ugly, dangerous”: Rudensky, Gonif, 32.

  “Warden White showed”: Ibid., 33.

  White tried to improve: Believing it was imperative for prisoners to keep busy, White allowed Robert Stroud, a convicted murderer, to maintain an aviary in his cell with some three hundred canaries, and he became known as the Birdman. In a letter, Stroud’s mother told White how grateful she was that someone who understood “human nature and its many weaknesses” was in a position of authority over her son.

  “The Warden was strict”: Adams, Tom White, 133.

  “I had a ray”: Rudensky, Gonif, 27.

  “I have no”: Autobiography written by Carl Panzram, Nov. 3, 1928, Panzram Papers, SDSUL.

  “I could hang a dozen”: Nash, Almanac of World Crime, 102.

  “He does high”: Leavenworth report on Hale, Oct. 1945, NARA-CP.

  “treated as”: White to Morris F. Moore, Nov. 23, 1926, NARA-CP.

  “Would I be imposing to ask your”: Mrs. W. K. Hale to White, Sept. 29, 1927, NARA-CP.

  “It was a business”: Deposition of Hale, Jan. 31, 1927, NARA-CP.

  “evidence of repression”: Leavenworth report on Hale, Aug. 1, 1941, NARA-CP.

  He allegedly arranged: Hale appealed his conviction, and in 1928 an appeals court shockingly overturned his verdict. A man who had assisted the defense team subsequently confessed that Hale had someone who had “done the fixing.” But Hale was promptly tried again and convicted, as was Ramsey.

  “IT IS FURTHER”: Probate records of Mollie Burkhart, File No. 2173, NARA-FW.

  On December: My descriptions of the escape attempt are drawn primarily from FBI records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act; a transcript of an interview with one of the convicts that was conducted by the author David A. Ward; Tom White’s letters; newspaper accounts; and Adams, Tom White.

  “I know you’re going”: Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dec. 12, 1931.

  “Shoot him”: Adams, Tom White, 114.

  “White asked me”: Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 14, 1939.

  “I am sure”: Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dec. 12, 1931.

  “come back”: Ward, Alcatraz, 6.

  “The funny part”: Ibid.

  “He had begun”: Adams, Tom White, 109–10.

  “The experience affected”: Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 14, 1939.

  “The days of the small Bureau”: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 169.

  “I looked up”: Quoted in ibid., 58.

  “We do not have to”: White to Hoover, July 1, 1938, FBI/FOIA.

  “appreciate a personal”: Special Agent in Charge in El Paso to Hoover, Feb. 12, 1951, FBI/FOIA.

  “I would be glad”: White to Hoover, Sept. 3, 1954, FBI/FOIA.

  “certainly bear”: Hoover to White, Sept. 9, 1954, FBI/FOIA.

  “confronted with”: Gus T. Jones to Hoover, June 16, 1934, FBI/FOIA.

  “unjust, unfair”: Wren to Hoover, Aug. 2, 1932, FBI/FOIA.

  “Often when I read of you”: Wren to Hoover, Oct. 4, 1936, FBI/FOIA.

  “After the Director”: White to Hoover, Nov. 10, 1955, FBI/FOIA.

  “I would like to keep”: White to Grove, Aug. 10, 1959, NMSUL.

  “I hope this”: White to Hoover, March 20, 1958, FBI/FOIA.

  “We should furnish”: M. A. Jones to Gordon Nease, April 4, 1958, FBI/FOIA.

  “Sickness of any kind”: Bessie White to Grove, Sept. 21, 1959, NMSUL.

  “I am hoping”: Tom White to Grove, Jan. 4, 1960, FBI/FOIA.

  “I am sincerely sorry”: J. E. Weems to Grove, June 28, 1963, NMSUL.

  “born on this land”: White to Hoover, Feb. 15, 1969, FBI/FOIA.

  “He died as he had lived”: Adams, Tom White, in postscript.

  “militate against”: Special Agent in Charge in El Paso to Hoover, Dec. 21, 1971, FBI/FOIA.

  22: GHOSTLANDS

  “Stores gone”: Morris, Ghost Towns of Oklahoma, 83.

  “only shreds and tatters”: Louis F. Burns, History of the Osage People, xiv.

  Over several weekends: For more detailed information on Osage dances, see Callahan, Osage Ceremonial Dance I’n-Lon-Schka.

  “To believe”: Louis F. Burns, History of the Osage People, 496.

  “Mrs. Mollie Cobb”: Fairfax Chief, June 17, 1937.

  “anyone convicted”: Copy of Osage Tribal Council Resolution, No. 78, Nov. 15, 1937, NARA-FW.

  “The parole of Ernest”: Kansas City Times, Dec. 21, 1937.

  “should have been hanged”: Daily Journal-Capital, Aug. 3, 1947.

  “It will be a far cry”: Oklahoma City Times, Oct. 26, 1959.

  “HEADRIGHTS KILLER”: Daily Oklahoman, Feb. 14, 1966.

  “OSAGE OIL WEALTH”: Literary Digest, May 14, 1932.

  “In five years”: Hamilton Evening Journal, Sept. 28, 1929.

  “Because she died”: Paschen’s “Wi’-gi-e,” in Bestiary.

  “I think somewhere”: Webb-Storey, “Culture Clash,” 115.

  23: A CASE NOT CLOSED

  “PAWHUSKA MAN’S”: Daily Oklahoman, July 2, 1923.

  “sufficient evidence”: Report by Smith, Sept. 28, 1925, FBI.

  “Mr. Burt is one”: Hearings Before the Joint Commission of the Congress of the United States, 1505.

  “very intimate”: Report by Weiss and Burger, April 11, 1924, FBI.

  “split on the boodle”: Ibid.

  “murderer”: Report by Wren, Nov. 5, 1925, FBI.

  “I think Herb Burt”: Report by Smith, April 3, 1926, FBI.

  24: STANDING IN TWO WORLDS

  “He had property”: Tallchief, Maria Tallchief, 4.

  “firebombed and everyone”: Ibid., 9.

  “I am in perfect health”: Hale to Wilso
n Kirk, Nov. 27, 1931, ONM.

  “This dope is”: Report by Findlay, July 13, 1923, FBI.

  “Vaughan who is”: Ibid.

  “Mr. Comstock had”: Ibid.

  “shrewd, immoral”: Report by Burger, Aug. 12, 1924, FBI.

  “prime mover”: Report by Findlay, July 13, 1923, FBI.

  “He could hear”: Ibid.

  “Minnie was making”: Ibid.

  “From the evidence”: Report by Burger, Aug. 12, 1924, FBI.

  “I am as smart”: Report by Burger, Aug. 13, 1924, FBI.

  “unprincipled, hypocritical”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Jan. 10, 1924, FBI.

  “We are strongly”: Ibid.

  “liable to die”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Dec. 26, 1923, FBI.

  “refusing to allow”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Jan. 2, 1924, FBI.

  “under his influence”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Jan. 10, 1924, FBI.

  “she does know”: Report by Weiss and Burger, Dec. 26, 1923, FBI.

  “isolated murder”: Report by Burger, Aug. 13, 1924, FBI.

  25: THE LOST MANUSCRIPT

  “We don’t disturb”: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, U.S. v. Osage Wind, Enel Kansas, and Enel Green Power North America, Sept. 30, 2015.

  “defendants have not”: Ibid.

  “For the first time”: Tulsa World, Feb. 25, 2015.

  “scarcely stepped”: Pawhuska Daily Capital, Jan. 30, 1919.

  “GREWSOME FIND ENDS”: Quoted in “The Murder of Mary Denoya-Bellieu-Lewis,” PPL.

  26: BLOOD CRIES OUT

  “knew that was”: E. E. Shepperd to U.S. Attorney’s Office, Jan. 8, 1926, NARA-FW.

  “Members of the family”: Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 25, 1926.

  “drugs, opiates”: Quoted in Wilson, Underground Reservation, 144.

  “one of the most beautiful”: Quoted in McAuliffe, Deaths of Sybil Bolton, 109.

  “In connection with”: Bureau report titled “Murder on Indian Reservation,” Nov. 6, 1932, FBI.

  “Over the sixteen-year period”: McAuliffe, Deaths of Sybil Bolton, 251.

  “I don’t know”: Ball, Osage Tribal Murders.

  “There are so many”: Interview by F. G. Grimes Jr. and Edwin Brown, June 17, 1925, FBI.

  “Bill, you know”: Report by Smith, Oct. 30, 1926, FBI.