Chap­ter 2: An Act of God or Man? In a des­o­late ravine in the ear­ly days of 1921, a com­mu­ni­ty inquest was held to deter­mine whether Anna’s sud­den death was an unfor­tu­nate acci­dent, a nat­ur­al death, or if it was indeed a heinous crime. The pro­ceed­ings, led by a jus­tice of the peace, were held in line with a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of com­mu­ni­ty jus­tice, a sys­tem that pre­dat­ed offi­cial law enforce­ment in the region. As the jury mem­bers, includ­ing Math­is, exam­ined the evi­dence, the focus quick­ly turned to whether this death was a mur­der orches­trat­ed by those who had their sights set on the Osage wealth, or whether it was sim­ply a nat­ur­al tragedy exac­er­bat­ed by the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances the Osage were liv­ing under. The com­mu­ni­ty, torn between sus­pi­cion and fear, demand­ed answers as to whether Anna’s death was caused by the hands of man or fate itself.

The Shoun broth­ers, two local doc­tors with a long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship with Anna’s fam­i­ly, per­formed the autop­sy on her body. They worked in an envi­ron­ment far from the clean, con­trolled con­di­tions of a mod­ern morgue, their meth­ods more rem­i­nis­cent of a time when med­ical sci­ence was less advanced and foren­sic tools were lim­it­ed. Dur­ing the exam­i­na­tion, they dis­cov­ered a bul­let hole in Anna’s skull, hid­den beneath her scalp, which had been missed until the scalp was shifted—this dis­cov­ery marked a major turn­ing point, lead­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion to shift from a sim­ple cause of death inquiry to a more seri­ous mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion. Based on the wound’s size, Math­is and oth­ers sur­mised that the bul­let came from a .32-cal­iber weapon, a detail that sug­gest­ed pre­med­i­ta­tion and vio­lence, mark­ing this as no ordi­nary death.

The fig­ure of Sher­iff Harve M. Freas, who was involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion, adds anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to the case. Although Freas was wide­ly feared and held pow­er in Osage Coun­ty, his rep­u­ta­tion was taint­ed by whis­pers of cor­rup­tion and asso­ci­a­tions with crim­i­nal ele­ments. In a region where the lines between law and law­less­ness were often blurred, this raised doubts about the true moti­va­tions of those in charge of inves­ti­gat­ing Anna’s death. Freas, with his strong ties to influ­en­tial fig­ures in the com­mu­ni­ty, was both a guardian of the law and poten­tial­ly a fig­ure who could influ­ence the direc­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion, depend­ing on which side of the moral fence he chose to stand.

The inves­ti­ga­tion was hin­dered by the rudi­men­ta­ry foren­sic meth­ods avail­able at the time, which were no match for the com­plex­i­ty of a homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tion. Despite a thor­ough search, no bul­let was recov­ered, which left inves­ti­ga­tors with only the bul­let wound as phys­i­cal evi­dence of foul play. A moon­shine bot­tle found near the scene sug­gest­ed a pos­si­ble link to ille­gal alco­hol pro­duc­tion, which was ram­pant in the area dur­ing Pro­hi­bi­tion. How­ev­er, no direct evi­dence tied the moon­shine to a sus­pect, leav­ing inves­ti­ga­tors with many unan­swered ques­tions and strug­gling to make sense of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Anna’s trag­ic death.

For Anna’s fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly her moth­er, Lizzie, and her sis­ter Mol­lie, the grief was immea­sur­able. Not only did they have to con­tend with the emo­tion­al dev­as­ta­tion of los­ing a loved one, but they also faced the finan­cial bur­den of arrang­ing Anna’s funer­al, which was often a sig­nif­i­cant expense for Osage fam­i­lies at the time. In many cas­es, funer­al costs were exor­bi­tant, adding fur­ther pres­sure to fam­i­lies already strug­gling with the impacts of a cor­rupt eco­nom­ic sys­tem that exploit­ed their oil wealth. Mol­lie, with the sup­port of her hus­band, Ernest, was forced to nav­i­gate these pres­sures while also grap­pling with the deep emo­tion­al toll that the mur­der of her sis­ter had on her. The weight of loss, grief, and finan­cial strain com­bined, cre­at­ing a heart­break­ing ordeal for the Burkhart fam­i­ly.

The funer­al itself became a sym­bol­ic event for the Osage peo­ple, blend­ing both tra­di­tion­al Osage cus­toms and Catholic rit­u­als, reflect­ing the cul­tur­al cross­roads the com­mu­ni­ty was endur­ing. As Mol­lie and her fam­i­ly said good­bye to Anna, it was more than just a cer­e­mo­ni­al farewell—it was a moment of deep reflec­tion on the seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able chal­lenges the Osage faced in pre­serv­ing their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty while liv­ing under the threat of exploita­tion and vio­lence. The tomb­stone inscrip­tion, “Meet Me in Heav­en,” spoke vol­umes about the hope for reunion in the after­life, a sen­ti­ment that tran­scend­ed the imme­di­ate tragedy and offered a glimpse into the endur­ing faith and strength of the Osage peo­ple, who, despite every­thing, held onto a belief in a bet­ter future beyond this world.

This chap­ter reveals not only the per­son­al tragedy of Anna’s death but also the broad­er soci­etal and spir­i­tu­al impact of the Osage people’s strug­gle. The lay­ered nar­ra­tive expos­es the cul­tur­al ten­sions between the Osage’s tra­di­tion­al ways and the increas­ing­ly hos­tile exter­nal forces, includ­ing white set­tlers, cor­rupt offi­cials, and even crim­i­nal syn­di­cates. Through the lens of Anna’s mur­der, we see how a com­mu­ni­ty that had once flour­ished was now entan­gled in a web of deceit, vio­lence, and sys­temic oppres­sion, where even death seemed to be a com­mod­i­ty to be con­trolled by out­side forces.