Osage Indian Murders - Murder in Osage County

Murder in Osage County

In the early 1920s, the West was shaken by the murders of eighteen Osage Indians and three non-natives in Osage County, Oklahoma within a short period of time. Regional Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the “Reign of Terror” on the Osage reservation. Some murders seemed to be taking members of one family.

In 1921, locals discovered the body of 25-year-old Anna Brown. Unable to find the killer, local authorities put the case aside. Her mother Lillie Q. Kyle and sister Rita were later killed as well. By that time, Lillie had headrights for herself, her late husband and two daughters, making her heirs fabulously wealthy. In February 1923, Henry Roan, a cousin of Brown, was found shot in the head, in his car. A month later, a nitroglycerin bomb demolished the house of Anna's sister Rita Smith and her husband Bill, located in Fairfax, Oklahoma. The blast instantly killed Rita Smith and her servant Nettie Brookshire. A week later, Bill Smith died of massive injuries from the blast.

Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, occurred between 1921 and 1923. By 1925 60 wealthy Osage had been killed, and their land had gone to their guardians: local white lawyers and businessmen. The FBI found a low-level market in murderers for hire to kill the Osage for their wealth. In 1995, the writer Robert Allen Warrior wrote about walking through an Osage cemetery and seeing "the inordinate number of young people who died during that time."

In 1925 tribal elders of the Osage Nation hired the assistance of the newly organized Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under its director J. Edgar Hoover. Bureau of Indian Affairs police from the Department of Interior had not solved the murders.