“A Case Not Closed” revis­its the haunt­ing mys­ter­ies of the Osage mur­der cas­es, shin­ing a light on the unre­solved ques­tions that con­tin­ue to linger decades lat­er. It expos­es the gaps in the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion and rais­es new sus­pi­cions about the trag­ic death of W. W. Vaugh­an and oth­ers whose fates remain unclear. Although Hale and his accom­plices were con­vict­ed for orches­trat­ing sev­er­al of the Osage mur­ders, their con­vic­tions did not bring full clo­sure, as many unan­swered ques­tions still per­sist. Specif­i­cal­ly, the respon­si­bil­i­ty for Vaughan’s murder—and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of addi­tion­al per­pe­tra­tors beyond Hale’s inner circle—was nev­er defin­i­tive­ly deter­mined. This unset­tling real­i­ty sug­gests that oth­er con­spir­a­tors may have escaped jus­tice, leav­ing cru­cial parts of the sto­ry untold.

In Okla­homa City, the nar­ra­tor meets with Martha Vaugh­an, the grand­daugh­ter of W. W. Vaugh­an, who has spent years delv­ing into her family’s his­to­ry in search of the truth. With her cousin Melville by her side, she shares exten­sive research that points to a larg­er con­spir­a­cy sur­round­ing Vaughan’s death, cast­ing doubt on the offi­cial nar­ra­tive that linked it sole­ly to Hale’s crim­i­nal enter­prise. Their find­ings sug­gest that Vaugh­an may have been tar­get­ed because of what he knew—potentially expos­ing fig­ures who had a finan­cial inter­est in main­tain­ing silence. The impli­ca­tions of their research are pro­found, chal­leng­ing the long-held assump­tion that Hale and his asso­ciates were the only mas­ter­minds behind the mur­ders. If Vaugh­an was killed to sup­press incrim­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion, then his mur­der was not mere­ly an exten­sion of the broad­er Osage killings but an act of pre­med­i­tat­ed silenc­ing orches­trat­ed by indi­vid­u­als with deep­er ties to pow­er and cor­rup­tion.

The inves­ti­ga­tion then takes a cru­cial turn toward H. G. Burt, a man whose finan­cial deal­ings and prox­im­i­ty to key fig­ures in the Osage scan­dal make him a per­son of inter­est. Burt’s involve­ment in man­ag­ing Osage funds, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the guardian of George Bigheart’s daugh­ter, sug­gests he may have had per­son­al and finan­cial moti­va­tions to pro­tect him­self. His legal author­i­ty over trib­al assets placed him in a pow­er­ful posi­tion, allow­ing him to manip­u­late finan­cial trans­ac­tions with lit­tle over­sight. This con­trol over Osage wealth—and the ques­tion­able activ­i­ties linked to it—raises the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Burt played a sig­nif­i­cant role in Vaughan’s demise, whether direct­ly or indi­rect­ly. If Vaugh­an had dis­cov­ered finan­cial irreg­u­lar­i­ties impli­cat­ing Burt, it would have giv­en the lat­ter ample rea­son to elim­i­nate him as a threat.

As the nar­ra­tor unearths more his­tor­i­cal records and tes­ti­monies, the sus­pi­cions sur­round­ing Burt only inten­si­fy. News reports from the era, along with an informant’s account, indi­cate that Burt was present around the time of Vaughan’s dis­ap­pear­ance, sug­gest­ing he may have had knowl­edge of the crime or direct involve­ment. Giv­en Burt’s deep con­nec­tions to indi­vid­u­als with vest­ed inter­ests in Osage wealth, his poten­tial par­tic­i­pa­tion in Vaughan’s mur­der fits with­in a broad­er pat­tern of cor­rup­tion and cov­er-ups. How­ev­er, due to the pas­sage of time and the selec­tive reten­tion of legal records, the pre­cise details of his role remain elu­sive. Even though cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence points in his direc­tion, defin­i­tive proof that he orches­trat­ed or facil­i­tat­ed Vaughan’s killing remains just out of reach.

This chap­ter under­scores the immense dif­fi­cul­ty of untan­gling his­tor­i­cal crimes, espe­cial­ly when evi­dence was delib­er­ate­ly con­cealed or destroyed. The nar­ra­tor grap­ples with the moral dilem­ma of impli­cat­ing Burt with­out con­crete proof, acknowl­edg­ing the lim­its of inves­tiga­tive research in uncov­er­ing absolute truths. While the avail­able evi­dence strong­ly sug­gests Burt’s involve­ment, his­to­ry is rarely so black and white, and the case remains open-end­ed. Despite the advances made in under­stand­ing the Osage mur­ders, many aspects of the case remain unre­solved, leav­ing the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies with­out the clo­sure they deserve. In the end, the chap­ter reflects on the larg­er chal­lenges of achiev­ing jus­tice in crimes that were designed to remain hid­den, rein­forc­ing the sober­ing real­i­ty that his­to­ry often leaves as many ques­tions as it answers.