Killers of the Flower Moon

White now focused his attention on the murdered Bill Smith, Rita’s husband. White wondered whether figuring out who the murderer was had led to Smith’s death; after all, it was Smith who first suspected that Lizzie had been poisoned. Agents asked the nurse who had cared for Smith in the hospital whether he had mentioned anyone in connection with the bombing of his house. He had muttered different names in his sleep, but never specifically identified anyone. However, when the two Shoun brothers and a lawyer visited Bill Smith, they asked the nurse to leave the room.

Under questioning by federal prosecutors, the Shoun brothers continued to deny that Smith had named his killer. The lawyer, however, let slip that Smith had mentioned he had only two enemies in the world: William Hale and Ernest Burkhart. The reason for their hospital visit soon became apparent: James Shoun was named executor of Rita’s will after Bill Smith’s death, so the lawyer came to present the necessary paperwork. Managing the Smith estate would, of course, be lucrative for James Shoun.

Having white administrators and guardians for Osage tribe members held seemingly endless possibilities for corruption: “One government study estimated that before 1925 guardians had pilfered at least $8 million directly from the restricted accounts of their Osage wards” (154). One Osage woman, a widow with two young children, was swindled out of virtually everything she owned by her guardian. Even when her baby became ill, he gave her no money for food or medicine, and the child died.

White also delved into William Hale’s life and finances. Hale was the beneficiary of the life insurance policy of Henry Roan, the man found dead in a car in a ravine in 1923. White found it curious that the sheriff had never investigated Hale after Roan was killed, despite Hale standing to gain much from Roan’s death. Hale had always claimed that Roan had named him beneficiary because Roan owed him so much money—a spurious claim, since Hale could have collected on Roan debts by presenting his claims to the guardian of Roan’s estate. When White examined how the policy was obtained, he learned that one company had turned down Roan and Hale’s first application for life insurance. At a second company, Roan and Hale falsified paperwork to gain a policy. The application also required approval from a doctor. When one doctor claimed Roan was at risk of early death due to his heavy drinking, Hale found two others who approved him—including James Shoun.

White also learned that before obtaining the life insurance policy, Hale had tried to purchase Roan’s headright. By law, headrights could not be purchased, only inherited, but Hale and others believed it was only a matter of time before the law changed; the life insurance was a fallback method of getting at Roan’s fortune. White guessed that resentment over the headright system might play a role in the conspiracy. The pattern of the killings led to Mollie Burkhart: Her family members had been killed one by one, so she had inherited all their headrights. Mollie’s finances were controlled by her guardian: her husband Ernest, Hale’s nephew. The only question was whether Ernest had been part of the plan before he married Mollie or had been persuaded to join it afterward.

Despite the progress White made on the case, he lacked both hard evidence and witnesses to bring a case against Hale, and “without an airtight case White knew that he’d never be able to bring down this man who hid behind layers of respectability” (164). A Bureau report from the time listed the numerous officials and prominent citizens whom Hale controlled in some way; it seemed that no one was outside his reach.

Meanwhile, Hoover was getting anxious for some kind of resolution. He needed this case to burnish the Bureau’s reputation. To reorganize the Bureau, Hoover borrowed tactics from Progressivism, a modernization movement popular in the previous decades. One example was the efficiency theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor, who had applied scientific methods to industry, quantifying work and breaking it down to its smallest elements so it could be analyzed for improvement. Hoover created a rating system for agents, streamlined paperwork, and introduced standards—all collected in a hefty manual for reference. White, similarly exacting but “more forgiving of frailty than Hoover” (169), sometimes shielded his agents from Hoover’s wrath.

In the fall of 1925, since the white citizens in the area seemed reluctant to implicate fellow white residents in the killing of Indigenous people, White turned to outlaws. Rumors abounded that some of them had information about the killings; however, everyone who might have firsthand knowledge turned up dead.

A young member of the Al Spencer Gang named Dick Gregg, now in jail, told White that Hale had tried to pay Spencer and him to kill Bill Smith. When White tried to locate Spencer to corroborate the story, he learned that the outlaw had been killed in a shootout with the authorities. Another outlaw named Curley Johnson knew about Smith’s death as well, but he too ended up dead. Johnson’s widow believed he had been intentionally poisoned by Hale or someone working for him. In another lead, White sought out Henry Grammer, a rodeo star and bootlegger who was supposedly with Hale at the time Smith’s house was bombed. The two had gone to Texas together for a livestock show. Again, though, the trail fell cold: Grammer had died three months after the bombing, when he lost control of his car and crashed. Grammer’s friends thought his brakes or steering mechanism had been tampered with. An associate of Grammer’s, Asa Kirby, may have designed the explosive device that killed Smith. However, he had been killed as well.

All roads in White’s search led to Hale. Yet Hale seemed to be untouchable. One of White’s undercover agents reported that Hale knew the investigators suspected him. Hale remained confident, however, saying, “I’m too slick and keen to catch cold” (178).

White finally broke the case when he received a tip from an inmate named Burt Lawson. In prison, Lawson confessed to blowing up Bill Smith’s house; Hale and Ernest Burkhart had provided him with nitroglycerin, dropped him off at Smith’s house, and picked him up afterward. White was relieved to finally get some solid evidence, but questions remained—Hale was supposedly in Texas at the time of the explosion with Henry Grammer.

Still, White felt it was time to arrest Hale and Ernest Burkhart. He was concerned that Mollie, who now held all her family’s headrights, might be next in Hale’s sights. She had secretly gotten word to her priest that she was afraid she was being slowly poisoned. What’s more, the Shoun brothers were supposedly treating her diabetes with insulin injections, but her condition had only gotten worse. Finally, in early January 1926, White obtained warrants. Ernest Burkhart was picked up at a pool hall, but Hale simply strolled into the sheriff’s office in formal attire and said, “Understand I’m wanted” (183).

At a jail in Guthrie, White and his agents worked to wear down Burkhart, who seemed far more likely to break. They interrogated him all day and into the night, but he stood firm and denied everything. Meanwhile, Hale said he could prove he had been in Texas during the bombing because he had signed for a telegram there. This caused White to question Lawson’s account—perhaps Lawson was lying to shorten his jail time. Then White thought of someone who might help: Blackie Thompson, the outlaw whose services the Bureau had enlisted during its investigation in 1924, before he killed an officer and robbed a bank. Questioned, Thompson said that Hale and Burkhart had asked him and Curley Johnson to kill Bill Smith. White now had someone who could corroborate Burkhart’s involvement. The agents brought Thompson to confront Burkhart; later that night, Burkhart was finally ready to confess.

Burkhart detailed what he knew for White. He wasn’t involved in all of the murders, but Hale had included him in the plot to kill Bill and Rita. Burkhart had grown up idolizing his uncle and always just did what he was told. However, Lawson hadn’t exploded the Smiths’ house—it was John Ramsey, who worked for Henry Grammer. Ramsey had also shot Henry Roan. White then wasted no time in having Ramsey picked up and brought in. Finally, Burkhart identified Anna’s killer—the third man who had remained a mystery—as Kelsie Morrison, the outlaw working for White undercover.

After learning all this, White arranged for Mollie to be treated by a new doctor at a hospital in Pawhuska, where she improved markedly. The Shoun brothers were brought in and interrogated, but they denied doing anything harmful to her. When White confronted Hale with all this evidence and the fact that two people involved in the murders had confessed, he wouldn’t budge, vowing to fight all charges.