Killers of the Flower Moon (Adapted for Young Readers): The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

As Grann digs further into the murders, he discovers more and more unsolved aspects and holes in the investigations. After Hale was put away for life, the authorities insisted that justice had been served, but Hale was not yet tied to all 24 murders. Two of these murders, McBride’s and Vaughan’s, were still unsolved. While investigating, Grann sits down with Vaughan’s granddaughter Martha and her cousin Melville. They bring binders of their research into their grandfather's murder. While they agree that Hale wanted Vaughan gone, they think there was more to the story: after Hale went to jail, a family member who continued looking into the murder was threatened to keep quiet or meet the same fate as Vaughan. Martha and Melville ask Grann to look into H. G. Burt, a man who stole money from Vaughan’s estate after his death.

The money Burt stole was from another dead member of the Osage, Bigheart, who owed Vaughan $10,000 for helping him apply to get out of guardianship. Burt was named Bigheart’s daughter’s guardian, so murdering Bigheart gave him direct access to the headright. By murdering Vaughan, Burt kept the evidence out of authorities’ hands and the $10,000 Bigheart owed him. Grann discovers testimony and informants linking Burt to the murders, but the evidence is circumstantial. Even though Burt’s guilt cannot be fully proven, Martha sobs with relief when Grann shares his findings, finding some peace in the likely truth of the past. She dies of a heart attack shortly after.

Grann visits the Osage Nation Museum again and speaks with the woman who runs the museum. She is still collecting artifacts and evidence, such as Anna’s skull and a letter from Hale sent in prison in 1931 saying that he wants to return to Osage County and that he “will always be the Osage’s true Friend” (265). The museum curator also tells Grann the story of her grandfather, who married a white woman and was worried that she was poisoning him. He died at 46 in perfect health soon after. Grann also looks into the Charles Whitethorn murder. This case had been thoroughly investigated, but because it couldn’t be tied to Hale, investigators decided not to continue. Based on these two murders, both unrelated to Hale, Grann realizes that “Hale was not the only evil killer targeting the Osage” (271).

Grann visited the Osage nation again in 2015 and noticed that the land is now populated with windmills. The Osage population will not see any of this money because the windmills operate above ground, and the Osage had only mineral rights to the land.

While there, Grann finds a manuscript in the library detailing a vicious murder for a headright in 1918. The museum curator’s grandfather was murdered in 1931. It had been widely believed that the Reign of Terror began in 1921 and ended in 1926 with Hale’s arrest. Based on Grann’s research, this timeframe captures only a fraction of the Reign of Terror.

Grann continues his research and eventually finds a logbook that lists each guardian during the Reign of Terror. More often than not, the word “dead” is written next to the Osage name. Grann describes other chilling examples of Osage murders. A man who never drank was declared dead from alcohol use. A woman’s death from a gunshot to the chest was ruled (by her stepfather and guardian) a suicide. He even discovered unsuccessful attempts to steal Osage wealth. Kelsie Morrison killed an Osage, married the man’s ex-wife, and plotted from jail to abduct and kill his stepchildren for their money. Luckily, the children were not harmed by Morrison. An Osage woman, after marrying a white man, was imprisoned in her home, whipped, drugged, and beaten in the hopes that she would die so her white husband would inherit her headrights. Authorities thwarted his attempt on her life—and she survived—but none of the men involved were prosecuted.

To put things in perspective, from 1907 to 1923, the Osage population was dying at more than one and a half times the national rate. It seems that some agents at the bureau were aware of the systemic and pervasive nature of these murders; Grann finds a recording of an agent saying, “There are so many of these murder cases. There are hundreds and hundreds” (280). Hoover’s desire for success and a neat resolution left many cases unfinished after Hale was imprisoned.

The Osage community still feels the impact of these murders today. Some victims have been so effectively erased from history that their families will never know what happened to their loved ones. Because marriage was such an integral tool to secure headrights, many Osage descendants are forced to live with doubt and fear that their family members were involved in their ancestors’ murders. Grann expresses shock that “virtually every element of society was part of the murderous system” (286). Everyone—doctors, lawmen, judges, prosecutors, men who gave loans, mayors, attorneys, and more were involved in the execution and cover-up of these murders. Because of the lack of witnesses and the pervasive corruption, much information about the victims is lost forever. Grann notes that he “knew that in [his] own way [he] was as lost in the mist as Tom White or Mollie Burkhart had been” (287).