Welcome back to week three discussing Chronicle Two: The Evidence Man in Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. This section focuses greatly on Tom White, a former Texas Ranger who joined the Bureau in 1917. He and his younger brother J.C. “Doc” White were known as “the Cowboys” and didn’t exactly live up to Hoover’s idealized image of what his team should look and act like.
When Tom takes on the case he’s aware that many of the former agents involved were fired or killed while investigating. Honestly, why do you think Tom accepted the case? Did he have a choice? If you were in Tom’s shoes would you have investigated the murders or would you have quit?
I enjoyed Grann’s descriptions of Tom’s character. We learn that he’s no-nonsense and that he doesn’t stand for the mistreatment of others, including prisoners. While technology is improving in their field he also relies on the most basic methods of gathering evidence. “As White strove to be a modern evidence man, he had to learn many new techniques, but the most useful one was timeless: coldly, methodically separating hearsay from facts that he could prove.” He definitely had his work cut out for him in separating hearsay from facts.
By the time Tom and his team are involved there’s very little physical evidence remaining from the crime scenes, and not much paperwork to go off of. In Anna’s case, the undertaker secretly kept her skull because he felt uneasy about the investigation and crime scene. Tom’s team starts with many members of the team going undercover in the town posing as ranchers, business owners, and John Wren, the only American Indian on the team, as a traveling medicine man.
In order to gather more information, Tom recruits an informant named Kelsie Morrison. Kelsie ends up playing an important role throughout the rest of the story. Do you think you’d ever be able to trust someone like Morrison? What if your life depended on it? Soon after Morrison gets involved, Tom learns that Rose Osage lied in her original statements. She admits that a white man came to her house with a statement and forced her to sign it. This makes the team realize “the conspirators were not only erasing evidence, they were manufacturing it.”
After a lot of work, Tom and his team learn that the private investigator William Hale had hired wasn’t supposed to solve Anna’s murder, he was supposed to come up with an alibi for Bryan Burkhardt, and that when he would meet with Hale and Bryan there was almost always one other man there: Ernest Burkhardt. We eventually find out that Hale received headrights to other local men like Henry Roan, had forced his employees to set fire to his own fields to get insurance money, and was a known enemy to Bill and Rita before their deaths.
It was so frustrating reading how little concrete evidence there was to tie Hale to the Osage murders, along with his influence he had over politicians. Even when he and Ernest are both arrested and the trials start it was nearly impossible to get a jury, attorney, and judge who would not be bribed or influenced by Hale. After numerous trials and juries Ernest, Bryan, and Hale are given life sentences. Do you think it’s ever truly possible to get a fair trial in a small town?
My heart broke for Mollie over and over again. Grann describes how she was essentially an outcast from both the Osage and white communities, sitting alone during the trials. It took a long time for her to believe her husband Ernest had knowingly been involved in any of the murders, or had taken part in making her ill. One of her daughters died at four years old and Mollie returned to the courthouse after the burial. When Ernest was on the stand at Hale’s trial he admits that Mollie’s only living relatives are the children they share together. It was a relief to read that within a few years she fell in love again and remarried a man named John Cobb and that they fought to end the corrupt guardianship system that played a large part in the murders. As of 1931, Mollie was no longer a ward of the state and could spend her money as she wished.
Years after the case ended, Tom accepted a position as warden of Leavenworth prison in Texas. Soon after, Hale and his coconspirator Ramsey ended up at the same prison. In December 1931, seven of the prisoners took Tom hostage and tried to escape town. Tom was shot and left to die while trying to protect children they came across in the escape. In the end, none of the convicts escaped town, were sent back to prison, and Tom survived.
When all was said and done, Hoover never publicly thanked or honored his team for closing the case of the Osage murders, but he used the case to showcase his methodical and successful organization. The Osage Tribal Council thanked each member of Tom’s team with a resolution citing each person’s name.
Now that we’ve reached the end of Chronicle Two and finished the primary part of the story, what do you think of Mollie and Ernest’s relationship? Do you believe their connection was a natural one, or do you think William Hale planned this series of murders with Ernest from the very beginning?
If this was a fictional story, would you have criticisms that the amount of drama is unbelievable or over-the-top?
Come back next week to discuss the final part of the book, Chronicle Three: The Reporter.
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