EMMIE BOESE
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Author David Grann spoke about the plot of his #1 New York Times best-selling book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. He presented the description of the plot into a deeper issue, that of systemic racism, at the Ray and Stella Dillon Lecture Series on Tuesday morning.
"It raises the question of who gets to tell their story and who has the means to tell their story," Grann said. "How is that story told? It's why I believe it's so important. I don't believe in definitive histories. I don't believe in anyone person tells the history and that is the definitive version. I think history is told from a multiplicity of perspectives, and the key is to encourage that multiplicity and perspective and for the stories to also be told in different fashions."
Killers of the Flower Moon details as what Grann would call "sinister crimes." The basic plot of the nonfiction novel is about Mollie Burkhart a member of the Osage Nation, whose goal was to advocate for justice against a slew of mysterious murders against the Osage community that is fueled by greed after oil is discovered on the Osage land.
Burkhart's sisters and mother were systematically killed along with other Osage families. In 1923, Grann said it had been historically declared that more than two dozen Osage Nation members had been murdered which created the name "The Osage Reign of Terror." The case was taken up by the FBI and was one of its first major homicide investigations.
Grann visited the Osage County Museum and noticed that a panel from a photo of Osage nation members among the white settlers was missing. He asked the museum director why the panel was missing and she said she removed it because the devil was in in the photo. The missing panel was later discovered as one of "the killers" in the photo.This discovery led to Grann's focus for Killers of the Flower Moon.
"The book really grew out of trying to understand who that figure was and the anguishing history that he embodied and the search led me to one of the most mysterious and sinister crimes in American history, one that I think tells a much larger story about this country," Grann said.
Mollie's husband Ernest Burkhart was a not of Osage blood. She later learned that he and his uncle William Hale orchestrated the entire reign of terror. Hale convinced Ernest Burkhart to marry Mollie as a part of his orchestrated plan to receive Osage wealth through murder.
Grann said Hale was known as "the king of the Osage hills", was commissioned as deputy sheriff, offered rewards for the killers of the Osage dead or alive and was even a pallbearer for Mollie's sister Anna Brown's funeral.
"This man of God fearing soul had actually orchestrated the plot and was behind it," Grann said. "One of the elements that made these crimes so sinister was that they had involved an intimate level of betrayal."
In 1923 alone, the Osage Nation tribe received more than $400 million. They were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world among the public.
"As Osage wealth increased, it sparked an insidious backlash across the country," Grann said.
Killers of the Flower Moon was adapted into a major motion picture that was directed by Martin Scorsese and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons. Gladstone, who portrayed Mollie Burkhart in the film, received a Golden Globe award for best actress in a motion picture. Gladstone is a member of the native american tribe Blackfeet.
Grann is also a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His most recent novel is titled "The Wager: A tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder.
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