By Michael Hooper
In the final chapters of Killers of the flower Moon, author David Grann visits Pawhuska, Oklahoma. There he watched a video recording of a performance of the Osage ballet Wahzhazhe. The opening statement of the film talked about the Osage walking in two different worlds, living predominantly in non-Indian society, while trying to hang onto the threads of their culture and tradition of the past. “We walk in two worlds.”
The ballet touched on the history of the Osage, including the reign of terror. In a funeral, one of the mourners, representing Hale, wore a mask to hide his face of evil. At the event the author met Kathryn Redcorn who’s grandfather divorced her grandmother and then wed a white woman in 1933 and began to suspect that he was being poisoned by his second wife. He told visitors’ relatives don’t eat or drink anything in this house; not long after he dropped dead, he was only 46 years old.
The author also looked into the death of Charles Whitehorn. It took place about the same time as Anna Brown death in May 1921, yet no evidence ever surfaced implicating Hale or his henchmen in his murder. Evidently he was last seen May 14, 1921, around 8 PM outside of the Constantine theater and then his body was discovered two weeks later on a hill about a mile down from downtown Pawhuska. He was killed by with a 32 caliber revolver. After Whitehorn‘s death, his part Cheyenne widow Hattie had married an unscrupulous white man named Leroy Smyth, the marriage had been orchestrated by Minnie Savage, a shrewd, immoral capable woman, who ran a boarding house in Pawhuska. The private eyes suspected that she and other conspirators had arranged Whitehorn’s killing in order to steal his head right fortune. Overtime many of the investigators came to believe that Hattie Whitehorn was complicit in his death.
in any event, the evil of Hale was not an anomaly. Many other people had the same motivations, to get the head rights, in chapter 25 he read a lost manuscript titled the murder of Mary Denoya Bellieu Lewis
The script was compiled by Anna Marie Jefferson, the great great grand, niece of Mary Lewis. Lewis had two marriages that ended in divorce and in 1918 in her mid-50s she was raising a 10 year old adopted child. That summer Lewis took her daughter to liberty Texas. She was accompanied by two white men, including Thomas Middleton and his companion. With Louis money they bought a houseboat and stayed on the river, then on August 18, 1918 Lewis vanished, Middleton had pretended to be her adopted son in order to cash several of checks. Witnesses said that on the day of Lewis disappearance, they had seen a few miles from her houseboat, a car heading toward a snake infested swamp. On January 18, 1919, investigators went into the swamp and pulled out her body. Middleton’s companion confessed to beating Lewis over the head with a hammer. The plot was conceived by Middleton. After she was killed. The plan was to use a female associate to impersonate her so that the friends could collect the head rate payments. Greed.
Greed, jealousy, envy, are probably the most wretchedly, abusive, destructive vices. Anyone full of envy is a miserable person. I know someone who will not go on Facebook because he says he feels jealous and envious of all these people posting photos of themselves prancing around Italy, the Bahamas, Paris. He can’t stand it, he can’t appreciate someone’s good luck or happiness.
I’ve often found that some of the most greedy people who want instant success and instant happiness and instant wealth are gamblers. You see him at the casino around the roulette table. I remember I saw this one Asian guy drop $600 and went back to the ATM and got another $600, probably lost that too.
On page 303, the author said Hale might have orchestrated, and led the bloodiest and longest killing spree of the Osage but there were countless other killings that were not included in the official estimates, many of them were never investigated, and some of them were never even classified as homicides, even though Family knew something was extremely suspicious about their loved ones death.
It turns out that Scott Mathis, the owner of the Big Hill Trading Company in chapter 26 was guardian of at least nine wards; of those seven had died and two of these deaths were known to be murderers. And the Osage had a higher standard of living than most Indians, so that you would expect them to live a little longer. Louis Burns a historian of the Osage said he doesn’t know a single Osage family, which didn’t lose at least one family member because of the head rights. There are so many of these murder cases there are hundreds and hundreds.
The author also met with Marvin Stepson the grandson of William Stepson who was a victim of the reign of terror. The likely killer was Kelsie Morrison the man who also killed Anna Brown. It turns out that William’s wife Tillie, married Morrison, but grew suspicious of Morrison, especially after he talked about the effects of poison strychnine. Tillie told her lawyer, that she wanted to prevent Morrison from inheriting her estate, and to resend his guardianship of her children but before she had those changes made, she died of suspected poisoning, and Morrison stole much of her fortune.
Grann interviewed another person by the name of Mary Joe Webb. Her grandfather Paul Peace was a victim who didn’t show up in the FBI files and whose killers didn’t go to prison in 1926. He suspected that his wife was poisoning him, Webb believes the poison came from the Shouns brothers the doctors who were evil and had messed up the autopsy of Anna Brown.
Webb said this land is saturated with blood. Quoting scripture, she says, "The blood cries out from the ground."
I want to say something about the Author, David Grann. I would say that he did extraordinary research, reading over thousands pages of old FBI files contacting and interviewing multiple people including receiving help from a woman in Topeka named Sara Keckeisen of the Kansas Historical Society.
I’ve done some limited research on various topics and people over the years including Mary Huntoon, a prominent artist and Topeka and I looked at hundreds and hundreds of documents actually thousands of pages of documents to write an article about her. Let me tell you it’s not easy to sit through all that stuff and decide what is important want to leave out.
Heather and I watched Killers of the Flower Moon last weekend. It’s more than three hours long but I recommend watching it. We actually watched it in two parts. The movie has many strong points, but should have been cut. Some of the scenes are redundant like when Burkhart is poisoning his wife, we see four or five times Burkhart sticking needles into his wife. Probably could have cut that down to maybe one or two moments. Another scene that could’ve been cut was when Hale spanked Burkhart for shooting his mouth off about something, it’s clear Hale has total control over Burkhart. We don’t need a spanking scene to prove it, and I don’t think it was in the book; Hollywood drama.
Otherwise, I thought the movie did a great job explaining the cause of the Osage nation; so much was stripped away from them, and how all of these white people came in like vultures to take advantage of them, everybody from the banks to the car dealers to the Undertakers, they were always overcharging the Osage for everything. I thought the acting was good, and I thought the portrayal of Molly Brown was good. The bankers did not work as fiduciaries when they were guardians. These people wouldn’t even allow Molly Brown to take out enough money to travel to Washington DC so she could plead for the federal government to come back to the Osage nation and investigate all these murders. I would’ve liked to seen a news clip of the creation of the FBI. The movie seems to portray a love story between Burkhart and Molly Brown, but there’s no love there, a good husband, and a loving person would never poison his wife.
One thing that is very clear is the discrimination and prejudice against the Osage people. The bankers guardians car dealers all work together to take advantage of the Osage.
How could’ve this been different for the Osage? If the leader ship structure including the sheriff, the mayor, the leaders in the banks, car dealers, grocery stores, if they were all native Americans, and particularly Osage nation members, this wouldn’t of happened.
Osage leadership could have prevented fraud, and the taking advantage of Indians in their banking affairs or financial affairs. The ownership and collection of monies from oil would have been in the hands of Osage. Then there would’ve been less rip offs, they couldn’t have been so easily targeted.
But American government did not train or elevate, talented Osage people into these positions. Indeed, it was probably difficult for them to get an education, become a lawyer, become a doctor. become a banker. Nevertheless, there were a few Osage that did rise into leadership positions, but not enough, particularly in the merchant, legal and justice infrastructure.
