Killers of the Flower Moon

As legal proceedings against Hale and Ramsey began, given Hale’s power in Oklahoma, White and the prosecutors wanted the murder trial to take place in federal, rather than state court. Some of the murders, including Anna’s, had not taken place on Osage land, but since Henry Roan had been killed on an Osage allotment, prosecutors decided to try this case first.

As the grand jury proceedings got underway in January 1926, witnesses were threatened and endangered, presumably by people working for Hale. Even the Bureau agents worked in pairs for safety. White was most worried about Ernest Burkhart, on whose testimony so much of the case rested. He was taken out of state by federal agents, hidden and protected until the case began. A judge ruled that the defendants could not be tried in federal court because an allotment of land was not the same as tribal territory. Prosecutors appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court, but that would take months. To prevent Hale and Ramsey from going free, prosecutors resorted to the state courts, even if a fair trial was questionable.

In early March, a preliminary hearing brought all the players together in court for the first time.