Front Burner - The true story behind ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

In the 1920s, something nefarious started happening to members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. Within four years, at least 60 people were murdered or disappeared. Journalist David Grann takes us through the true crime story that inspired his book, and now a movie, Killers of the Flower Moon. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. In 2012, journalist David Grand took a trip to Oklahoma, to where the indigenous tribe, the Osage, call home. He visited their museum there, and as he looked through an exhibit, Grand came across a dramatic photograph. It took up the entire side of a room room and it stopped him in his tracks.

Members of the Osage were in it, along with white settlers. The photo seemed innocuous initially, except Grand noticed it was missing a panel. And when he asked the museum's curator about it, she said that they had removed it because it was too painful to show. That, quote, the devil

was standing right there. The devil, it turned out, was one of the people responsible for the systematic murders and disappearances of at least 60 members of the Osage throughout the 1920s. The story has been adapted for film by Martin Scorsese, and it's out today in theaters across North America. So today I'm going to be talking with journalist David Grant about his book, Killers of the Flower Moon, the true story behind the movie. Hey, David, thanks so much for coming on FrontBurner. Oh, I'm happy to do it. Before we get into the murders you write about in your book, I first want to give some context.

I want to get into what was happening for the Osage Nation around the time of these murders. So I know that in the decades prior to when the story takes place, they'd been driven off their land in Kansas, forced to resettle in Oklahoma. So what was happening at the time then? Yeah, they had been driven off their lands. They went to lay claim to much of the central part of the country, an area that stretched all the way from Missouri to the edge of the Rockies. And eventually they moved to an area in what was then Indian territory and later became part of the state of Oklahoma. It was a large area. It was about the size of Delaware. But many white settlers considered it worthless because it was rocky and infertile for farming. our people should move there because we'll be happy there because the white people will finally leave us alone. And then not long after, you know, they had moved there, these vast oil deposits were found under their land. And by the 1920s, there were about 2000 or so members of the Osage Nation on the tribal roll began to receive vast sums of wealth from oil leases and royalties. In the year 1923 alone,

they received the equivalent today of what would be worth more than $400 million. And this wealth belied long standing stereotypes of Native Americans, which went all the way back to the very first brutal contact with white settlers. The Osage had large terracotta houses, they had servants, many of whom were white. It was said at had large terracotta houses. They had servants, many of whom were white. It was said at the time, whereas one American might own a car, each Osage owned 11 of them. And then they began to die under very mysterious and sinister circumstances. And I want to get into that in just a second. I think what I'm interested in, is that you talk about their wealth, and it sounds like they were off the charts wealthy by comparison to pretty much anyone in the world at the time.

But they were also prevented from accessing that wealth directly. Can you tell me about this whole guardianship system that you write about? Yeah, I'm glad you asked about that because I think it's a really important part if you're going to understand this history. Their wealth provoked an insidious backlash across the country. And members of the US Congress would hold hearings for hours and hours a day debating, what are we going to do with these Native Americans with all their money? And eventually, they went so far as to pass legislation requiring many Osage to have white guardians to manage their fortunes. And this system was not abstractly racist. It was literally racist. It was based on the quantum of Osage blood. So if you were more than a half-blooded Osage, or if you were

a full-blooded Osage, you were deemed, quote-unquote, incompetent. And you were suddenly given one of these guardians who would tell you whether you could get this toothpaste down at the corner store or buy this car. And not only was the system racist, it also ushered in one of the largest government-sanctioned criminal enterprises as many guardians began to steal millions and millions of dollars from the Osage through this system. So what was the, it's hard to say rationale with such a racist underwriting this idea, but what was the rationale at the time in the eyes of the government officials who came up with this policy, this idea of incompetence?

Yeah, they justified it through, and when you read the records, through prejudice and paternalism. You know, this idea that somehow the Osage were childlike and incapable of handing their money. I mean, the absurdity of this, you have to remember, this is the 1920s. So if you read the Great Gatsby, there were a lot of white people who were not handling their fortunes. And of course, there were many oil barons, you know, who went belly up too, who were white. But somehow the Osage were targeted. They were treated as somehow incapable, inferior to other humans. And so they were given these white guardians. And you could be an Osage chief leading a nation, and you're suddenly being told how you

could spend your money. I mean, it is and was absurd. And it shows that Native Americans at that time, even wealthy Native Americans were deprived the full-fledged rights of American citizens. Okay. So with that as the backdrop, then enter your story in the early 20s, members of the Osage start disappearing, dying under suspicious circumstances. Some are more obviously murder victims from the start. What did folks suspect was going on?

Well, they knew, I mean, pretty early on that they were being targeted. I mean, there was one Osage family that I write about, the family of Molly Burkhardt, whose family is being systematically targeted. And her older sister is shot in the back of the head, and her mother is being poisoned, and another sister is blown up in the house. So the killings were so, especially in that case, were so flamboyantly brutal. There was no mistaking that they were being targeted for their money, oil money. And really the question was simply who was behind it and tracking these killers. At one point after the death toll had climbed to more than 24, the official death toll, the Osage had sent a man to Washington, D.C. to try to get federal authorities to investigate. And he checked into a boarding house.

He carried with him a Bible and a pistol. He received a telegram from Oklahoma that said, be careful. He left his boarding house later that day, and he was abducted, and he was beaten and stabbed to death. And the Washington Post carried a headline which said what the Osage already know. It said, Conspiracy to Kill Rich American Indians. Right. And these murders in this period kind of got labeled the Reign of Terror at the time, right? Yes, it was known as the Osage Reign of Terror.

And because of prejudice and because of corruption at the time, the authorities for many years did absolutely nothing. Many of them were complicit. And the Osage were hiring private detectives. They were issuing rewards, all the while putting bullseyes on their back. And as you know, it also caused the diaspora, as many Osage were forced to move away and relocate for fear for their children. and relocate for fear of further children. If you were an Osage and you had money and you were full blood, you might as well have been walking around

with a target on you. Everybody in the world descended into this area to try to find every possible way to separate the Osage from their money. They called it the reign of terror because you didn't know where it was gonna strike next. You don't know whose household going to be blown up next. You didn't know who was going to be killed next. You talked about Molly Burkhart, one of the central characters or central figures rather in your book, a member of the Osage Nation.

Can you just tell me a bit more about her? Yeah, she was a really remarkable woman and is really the soul and conscience, I thought, of the book I wrote. She was somebody who was born in an Osage lodge in the 1880s out on the prairie, speaking Osage, practicing Osage traditions. And just a little girl, she was forcibly uprooted from her home and made to attend one of these missionary boarding schools where she could no longer speak Osage language. She had to capture what was referred to as the white man's tongue. She couldn't wear her blanket. And then within a little more than a decade and a half or so, she was extremely wealthy because of the oil money. She was living in a large house. She had married a white settler from Texas named Ernest Burkhart,

whom she had met because he had been her chauffeur, driving her around. And so Molly, in many ways, straddled not only two centuries, but also two civilizations. And she was somebody also who was determined as her family is being targeted to try to get justice and a crusade for justice. And so can you give me a sense of what she thought was happening? and devastated by these killings that were eliminating her family member one by one, based on the records. So when you do history, you could sometimes be limited what you know. But there is no indication early on that she knew whom precisely was behind the killings. She was clearly deeply suspicious. And she knew that she was being targeted for oil money. That was unmistakable. But who precisely was masterminding at least the plot to eliminate her family, she didn't know early on. But at a certain point as she is crusading for justice,

a target is put on her back and there are efforts to silence her. You've said conspiracy mastermind, and those are heavy questions. But then when you write about this, it really is this incredibly elaborate and just downright diabolical scheme, right? Yeah. When the authorities, the federal investigators, members of the Bureau of Investigation, which later became known as the FBI, come in. They eventually follow the money. And in particular, they follow the money in the case of Molly's family to see who was profiting from these murders. And they looked especially at the wills. And what is important to understand is the way the Osage would receive their money was through a headright.

And a headright was essentially a share in the mineral trust that the Osage had. So when they would receive profits, you would receive, if you had a headright, a share in that trust. And these shares were worth millions of dollars. And so as I looked at these wills, they realized that even the order in which the killings took place seemed to follow a systemic chronological order and that the money was being funneled to Molly. But Molly really couldn't control her fortune back then. And it led them to a suspect whom Molly not only knew, but whom she thought loved her and with whom she had had three children with.

It led them to her own husband, Ernest Burkhardt. What's more, Burkhardt's uncle had been the mastermind of this particular plot. And this is William Hamm. He was a deputy sheriff and he used to campaign for what he referred to as God-fearing souls. You know, I spend most of my life debunking conspiracies as an investigative reporter and historian. You know, most of the times when you look into conspiracies, they quickly fall apart. This is one of the rare cases where the more you dig deep into the case, the more you saw the sinister tangles of this conspiracy. While Hale would be caught and eventually serve time in prison, and so would Burkhart and another henchman,

there was this much deeper and darker conspiracy that the Bureau never exposed, and that this was really less of a mystery of who had done it than who didn't do it, and that there really was a culture of killing at the time, and that there were many other conspirators who committed these kinds of crimes in their own families, killing a spouse or a loved one to try to inherit a head right. And this was really a story about morticians who were covering up bullet wounds and doctors who were administering poison and lawmen and bankers and guardians who were complicit in these crimes and many others who were complicit in their silence. And so to me, that is the most disconcerting and rattling part of this history, because it is much

easier for us to think of this as kind of a singular evil figure who is different than the rest of us who committed these crimes. But that was not the case. There were many ordinary and seemingly respectable citizens who participated. So this was one of the FBI's first big homicide cases. And I think it wasn't even the FBI then, it was just the Bureau of Investigation, if I'm remembering correctly. So what impact did the investigation into the Osage murders have on the eventual development of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Yeah. So at that time, the Bureau was still a really fledgling organization. It had been around for a while, about a decade or so, but it still had very limited jurisdiction over crimes. decade or so, but it still had very limited jurisdiction over crimes. Its agents just had a smattering of offices across the country. Its agents weren't authorized to carry guns.

In fact, they couldn't even make an arrest. They had to go to a local police officer or sheriff to make an arrest. But they did have jurisdiction over American Indian reservations. And Hoover would soon be named during the period of the reign of terror, the new director. That's just a very young, young man. He wasn't even 30 years old. On May 10th, 1924, the day young J. Edgar Hoover became acting director, he was told, clean up this mess. And there was a mess, not only in the Bureau, but throughout the nation, where millions were revolting against the Prohibition Amendment in a mass disregard for the laws of the land. And this case fell to the Bureau because of their jurisdiction.

And the initial investigation had been plagued with disasters and they had failed to make a single arrest. Not only that, they had gotten an informant out of jail and they hoped to use him as an informant, but instead he robbed the bank and killed a police officer. So Hoover was afraid of a scandal and he actually wanted to dump the case because he didn't think he could solve it. And so eventually he will turn the investigation over to an old frontier lawman, a man named Tom White, because Hoover was hoping basically to save his career. I guess I'm curious to what extent this was kind of a proving ground for Hoover's new conception of what the Bureau should be, to what extent it was good press for him, and to what extent it was actually important in shaping the institution the way it actually ended up evolving.

You know, the case kind of paralleled and reflected many of the transformations that the Bureau was undergoing at that time, which was to try to kind of professionalize the Bureau. undergoing at that time, which was to try to kind of professionalize the Bureau. The other element that was important is that Hoover, after the Bureau was able to capture at least one of the killers and a couple of his henchmen, Hoover promptly closed the case. And he really did use it at least early on to try to mythologize himself and the Bureau and to burnish his old reputation. And he left out and kind of offered a much,

a really sanitized version of what had happened. And it would become the widely accepted version of history, but it was deeply inaccurate because the version that was accepted was that these crimes were committed by a singular mastermind, a single evil mastermind, with a couple of henchmen, and the Bureau had completely solved the case, ending the reign of terror. And yet, in fact, there were many other killings that were never properly investigated or never solved. There was one Bureau agent who said there were so many of these cases and speculated

there were hundreds and hundreds. and speculated there were hundreds and hundreds. And so, part of this case reflected is the way history is told and often mistold and who gets to tell it. Well, it's interesting too because, I mean, I certainly hadn't heard of this before discovering your book and it certainly wasn't widely known when you first started writing about it and you've brought to a bigger audience, the film's going to widen that audience even more. I'm curious about the legacy of the history today. I think it's really important to understand how recent these crimes were. We are not talking about colonial times. We're talking about the early 20th century. They took place a century ago.

early 20th century. They took place a century ago. And when I interviewed a descendant of Molly Burkhart, Margie Burkhart, she took me out to the graveyards where so many of her ancestors are buried. She said to me, I didn't get to grow up with a lot of cousins because of these killings. And speaking to her and other Osage elders, you realize that this is still living history. People who are watching the film from the Osage community, you realize that this is still living history. People who are watching the film from the Osage community are watching their ancestors, their grandfather or great grandfather or great uncle or great aunt being killed on screen. So these are people who they've heard stories about and have photographs of in their houses. And I think on another larger level, their houses. And I think on another larger level, it still reflects the fights over history we have today. This history was once systematically erased from most history books. And now there

are still efforts to kind of control what history can be told. So I still think we're having that battle. And I think it reveals something very important for us to understand about American history, about not just the treatment of Native Americans, but on even a broader level, what happens when we dehumanize another people? What is the legacy of history and what's not told. But you mentioned the sense that you were chasing history or trying to get it down as it was slipping away. I know you did a lot of archival research. I'm curious about the limitations of archival research in terms of telling the story of the Osage murders. Yeah. Many of the records only reveal so much.

And many of the records may be coming from prejudiced investigators. So you're getting things from their perspective. But I think most profoundly, the gaps in the record have to do with the fact that there were so many of these other killings that were never investigated. Because the witnesses, the eyewitnesses are deceased, the suspects are deceased. And because there is not enough evidentiary material, you cannot bring closure to those cases. And so you realize that in many of these cases, the perpetrators had not only eliminated the lives of the victims, but in many cases, they had also eliminated their history and wiped it away.

It's all in, all the families have stories, all of the families have tragedies, and all of the families have account of being taken advantage of. It's just, it's a part of our history now, and hopefully we're making progress of not being victims any longer. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together.

To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So, the movie's out on Friday. It's directed by Martin Scorsese, of course. And it's different in the sense that you follow the investigation as the kind of through line of the book. Now, what Scorsese's done, he's kind of focused on the relationship between Molly Burkhardt, who we talked about earlier, and Ernest, former chauffeur and husband. What did you make of that decision? I thought it was the wise decision. You know, my book is told in three parts. The first part is told from the perspective of Molly Burkhardt, this Osage woman whose family is being systematically targeted. The second part is told from the perspective of Tom White, an FBI agent, and his investigation. And then the third part is told from the present to show where the Osage Nation is today and to also show how there really was this much deeper and darker conspiracy that the FBI had never resolved and how there were all these other killings and perpetrators, many of whom had gotten away and never received justice.

And I think the movie very wisely hones in on the relationship between Molly and Ernest and on that first part of the book, because that relationship is very representational of the crimes that took place. And I think gets at the larger themes and power. And, you know, in a work of history, you can't make anything up. I mean, you are wedded to every fact and every document. And with a movie, you can do a really intimate character study. And you will have actors suddenly inhabiting the roles of these people. And so I think it was a really wise decision to focus on that relationship,

because I think it really does illuminate what happens. The book and the movie aren't replicas of each other, but they are, I think, wonderful complements to each other. And they're both moving at the same deeper truce through the rigors of their own medium. You talked about the importance of telling the story the way Scorsese has in his film through relationships. I guess I'm curious what relationships you developed with members of the Osage Nation over the course of writing your book. Yeah, I spent more than five years working on the book. One of my first conduits into the community was a man named Charles Redcorn, an Osage elder, who wrote a book called The Pipe for February, a novel. It's a beautiful novel. It actually covers this time period. I really highly recommend

it. And then he began to kind of, over time, introduce me to other members of the community. And many of the elders began to tell me their stories and tell me their stories about the family members whom they had lost, about the reign of terror. Those friendships as time went on have just deepened and they continue to this day. But I did often feel like I was chasing history as it was disappearing. And some of those elders who are so central to the book have now passed away. Charles has passed away. Mary Jo Webb, she was another Osage elder. I remember she went to her closet when I was visiting with her, and she brought out a little box,

and it was filled with these documents. I said, what are those? And she said, these are records of my own investigation into one of the suspicious deaths in her family that she had spent years trying to resolve and figure out who was responsible. And she shared them with me. And I remember she led me out on the porch. And even though this took place, you know, probably about a decade ago now, I still remember it so clearly. We're standing out on our wooden porch and the sun was going down and the blackjack trees were rattling. And she quoted scripture. And then she said, the blood cries out from the ground. I'll never forget those words. And I knew when she said that that would be the end of my book. David, thanks so much for chatting with me today. Oh, it's my pleasure. It was my pleasure. That's all for now. This week, Front Burner was produced by Shannon Higgins, Rafferty Baker,

Joyta Shingupta, Matt Mews, Lauren Donnelly, and Derek Vanderwyk. Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening. FrontBurner will be back on Monday.

For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.