In the town of Fairfax, Oklahoma, the fact that life was good for the Osage Indians in the late 1800s may seem like sweet justice to some.
For the reservation they had been shunted to decades earlier turned out to be brimming with oil, and the tribe made good use of it, building mansions, buying cars and sending their children to private schools.
But by the time the 1920s came, at least two dozen of them had been murdered by being shot, poisoned, and blown up—and no one knew who was responsible.
This is the true story behind director Martin Scorsese’s latest collaboration with Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio, in the upcoming movie Killers of the Flower Moon.
In what was the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)’s first major murder case, agents eventually traced the murders to a disgruntled group led by “cattle king” William Hale, who had been imprisoned for more than two decades for his part in the murders.
He had encouraged his cousin to marry the Osage tribe as part of a plot to gain their oil rights.
Rancher William K. Hale, a native of Greenville, Texas, encouraged his subservient cousin Ernest Burkhart (right) to marry Osage member Mollie Kyle (left)
New film Killers of the Flower Moon explores the gripping true story of the ‘reign of terror’ that left two dozen Indians dead. Pictured: Lily Gladstone as Mollie Kyle and Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart
The new film about the wave of murders is based on the book of the same name by author David Grann, which was published in 2017.
Scorsese’s drama, due out in October, received a rapturous nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.
The Osage tribe had become staggeringly wealthy after finding oil that brought them more than $30 million in annual income at the height of the boom.
Underground minerals within the Osage Nation reservation were tribal property and held in trust by the government.
Mineral leases provided royalties that were paid to the tribe as a whole – with each entitled party receiving an equal share, known as a headright.
But these headrights could only be obtained legally by outsiders if they married into the tribe.
It was at this time that farmer Hale, a resident of Greenville, Texas, encouraged his subservient cousin Ernest Burkhart to marry Osage member Mollie Kyle (later Mollie Burkhart).
Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and wife Mollie, played by Lily Gladstone, lived in Fairfax with Mollie’s mother Lizzie Q.
The Osage Tribe (pictured with President Coolidge) got rich almost overnight after oil was discovered under their land
William Hale, played by Robert De Niro (right), was accused of bribing and intimidating others to do much of his dirty work on his way to acquiring money and power
Lizzie was a mother of four, and in May 1921, the decomposed body of one of her other daughters, Anna Brown, was discovered in a remote canyon in northern Oklahoma.
She was found with a bullet hole in the back of her head, but because Brown had no known enemies, the case remained unsolved.
Just two months later, Lizzie herself died of suspected poisoning under suspicious circumstances, though no evidence has ever been found.
Then another member of the family, Lizzie’s cousin Henry Roan, met a similar fate in January 1923 with Hale, played by Robert De Niro, who fraudulently named himself as the beneficiary of his $25,000 life insurance policy.
But the deaths within the family didn’t stop there.
In March 1923, another of Lizzie’s daughters, Rita Smith, along with Rita’s husband William Smith, and their housekeeper Nettie Brookshire were all killed when their home was destroyed by an explosion.
In May 1921, Osage-born Anna Brown was found with a bullet hole in the back of her head – but her case remained unsolved
Her decomposed body was found in a remote ravine (pictured) in the Osage Hills of northern Oklahoma
And after their deaths, Burkhart and Mollie inherited a fortune from her mother’s and sisters’ estates.
But the murders extended beyond one family. An estimated 24 Osage Indians died in violent or suspicious deaths in the early 1920s, with newspapers at the time labeling it a “reign of terror.”
By this time, authorities were growing suspicious and an alarmed Osage Tribal Council sought the help of the US government.
Hale’s name came up early in the investigation as the mastermind behind the murders.
The so-called ‘King of the Osage Hills’ was accused of bribing and intimidating others to do much of his dirty work while seeking money and power.
The killings stopped after Hale, along with accomplices, including his cousin, were arrested in 1926.
Four FBI agents went undercover as insurance agents, cattle buyers, oil prospectors and herbalists to find evidence.
Members of Lizzie Q’s family (left) were murdered in quick succession, including her cousin Henry Roan (right)
Although the local population of Osage had initially refused to talk to authorities for fear of reprisals, the officers gained their trust.
Finally, Ernest Burkhart spoke up and then others confessed.
Reporting on the gruesome murders in January 1926, the Daily Mail said: “The wildest fiction of the Wild West is surpassed by the story revealed today by the arrest in Tulsa, Oklahoma, of the wealthy cattle king, W. K. Hale, in the popularly known as the “King of the Usage Hills,” his cousin, Ernest Burkhart, and six others.
“They are charged with conspiracy to exterminate a small paunch of Osage Indians, who have been awarded oil allocation rights worth £500,000.
“For three years the Osage area has been the scene of a series of horrific murders.
“In all, twenty prominent Indians have been murdered, with the result that Mrs. Mollie Burkhart, the Indian wife of the white cousin of ‘the King of the Osage Hills’, is now the sole owner of the tribe’s oil rights.
“The Osage tribe is the wealthiest in America.”
Hale was formally convicted of his involvement three years later, after authorities proved he ordered the murder of Anna Brown and her family to inherit their oil rights; cousin Roan for his insurance policy and others who had threatened to take him to court.
He was paroled in 1947 after serving two decades of his sentence.
At the time, investigators also found that the killers had already begun poisoning Mollie in what would have been the final piece of the crook’s master plan.
Fortunately, she recovered and divorced her murderous husband after the trial.