From the archives: The Osage murders and "Killers of the Flower Moon"

in an out of the way corner of Oklahoma called greyhorse down a road you wouldn't take unless you knew what was at the other end sits a small Cemetery it's unremarkable in many respects until that is you look at the dates 1923 seems to have been a particularly bad year and when you look at the ages it appears few died of old age exactly what happened out here on the Great Plains has captivated New Yorker magazine writer David Graham for The Last 5 Years and what he's written killers of the flower moon has left him with a discomfort he still can't quite shake this is a story that has real evil in it evil like I've never covered or ever experienced really was that dark yes the villain in this story or one of the villains and and the the people complicit are as evil as anybody I've ever encountered his quest took him to the oage nation a remote territory in Oklahoma about the size of Delaware like much of the area that was set aside for Native Americans it wasn't exactly Prime real estate but in the early 1920s something happened out here that no one expected an oil rush most White ERS saw it as the ground as being Rocky and infertile and then lo and behold this land turned out to be sitting above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States almost overnight the oage who owned the land's mineral rights went from being among America's poorest to the richest people per capita in the world one oage writer later described them as the quades of the 1920s like how much money were we talking oh they were drawing Millions so by 1923 the Osage collectively received that year more than $30 million which today would be worth the equivalent of more than $400 million and this was being split up by a group of about 2,000 people with the oil royalties the Osage built Mansions they hired white servants they drove the finest cars oage towns like Pusa became bustling cities flushed with cash and the biggest oil barings of the day in the 1920s this was just one of the most booming towns in all the West it was famous across the West because there was so much money here the US government however didn't let the oage control that money each Ward as the oage were called was assigned a white Guardian supposedly to protect the oage from mismanaging their Newfound wealth but the law actually just invited abuse there were Kickbacks there was skimming and in many cases there was just outright stealing where they would just abcon with millions of dollars from these oage and the oage never saw this money again but the worst of the worst conspired to do far more than steel as Gran found out when he uncovered a Dusty Ledger in the archives and I opened up the book and it had the name of again of of the guardian and then underneath it had the names of the Wards next to many of the names of the wards it simply said the word dead and then you go down to another oage Ward and next to the name it said dead dead skip a few more dead dead dead one by one the Osage were being murdered between 1921 and 1925 the official number was 27 it became known as the Osage reign of terror there were shootings there was poisonings one man was thrown off a speeding train the terror was enormous because nobody knew who would be next but also nobody was doing anything to stop it few families suffered more than Molly burkhart's she looks kind of looks kind of sad doesn't she her eyes look sad Margie Burkhart is her granddaughter you'd have to be incredibly incredibly strong to even face half of what she went through her grandmother had married a young Texan named Ernest Burkhart who was the nephew of the most powerful man in oage County William K hail hail wasn't entitled to any oage oil money but as Molly's husband his nephew Ernest was they hadn't been married long when Molly's older sister Anna was found murdered in this ravine she was last seen heading here with two white men one of the killers held her up the other killer shot her right in the back of the head two months after that Molly's mother Lizzy died suspiciously Molly believed she had been poisoned two years after that another Sister Rita died when her house exploded the cause a homemade bomb the family's oil rights ended up in the hands of the only family members still alive Molly and her husband Ernest It's just sad the whole family just wiped out for nothing more than somebody's greed because at least one of the murders took place on Federal Land the FBI was brought in it was the young agency's first case and a young J Edgar Hoover wanted it solved it was so high-profile it was even featured in a movie starring Jimmy steart so there's only one little Indian left Mr McCutchen Molly the wife of your nephew here the real life agents began to zero in on Molly's husband he was arrested and brought here for trial but the courthouse hasn't changed at all no it looks just the way it looked back in 1926 when the trial took place here what unfolded at the old Pusa Courthouse was Sensational to say the least this would have been in its day consider the trial of the century under oath Ernest admitted it was his own brother who' murdered Molly's sister Anna and that his uncle that benign looking William K hail had ordered it along with the murder of Molly's Other Sister Rita worst of all the plan it seemed was for Ernest himself to finish the job by murdering Molly getting sole possession of the oil rights when Molly realized that her husband her husband who had helped search for The Killers was in fact the killer she could never look at him again many of the that's hardly where the story ends Gran believes there were far more murders than the FBI ever investigated and when I began researching the story I thought of it as a traditional mystery you know you think about your stories right who done it and by the end I realized this wasn't a who done it it was who didn't do it meaning so many people were part of this the whole town almost at least the white part of town was complicit was complicit the gush of oil eventually slowed The oage Mansions were abandoned even the oage school is now a forgotten overgrown mess but the oades themselves never forgot even if history did there are still Killers Who Remain unknown there's still conspirators whose names have not been identified and so some of these secrets unfortunately will probably remain lost to history

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 847,286

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Id: HYllsqLcgik

Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023