In 1920s Oklahoma, where black gold bubbled from the earth and turned the Osage Nation into the richest people per capita in the world, a chilling wave of terror unfolded. “Killers Under the Osage Moon: The Rise of the FBI” uncovers the harrowing true story of systematic murders that claimed dozens of lives, driven by greed for oil fortunes and headrights that could only be inherited through death.
Drawing from exclusive FBI files, court records, and survivor interviews, Baughman reconstructs the Reign of Terror: the disappearance of Anna Brown, found shot in a ravine; the bombing that obliterated Rita Smith's home; the slow poisoning of families like Mollie Burkhart's. At the center stands William Hale, the self-proclaimed “King of the Osage Hills,” orchestrating a conspiracy of betrayal involving husbands, doctors, and lawmen. As local sheriffs turned a blind eye amid racial prejudice and corruption, a fledgling Bureau of Investigation—led by a young J. Edgar Hoover and agent Tom White—stepped in, forging modern forensic techniques and federal jurisdiction that birthed the FBI as we know it.
This gripping narrative exposes the dark intersection of Native American exploitation, federal trust failures, and the birth of American law enforcement.
