In Feb­ru­ary 1923, dur­ing a bit­ter­ly cold win­ter in Fair­fax, Okla­homa, two men made a grue­some dis­cov­ery when they stum­bled upon an aban­doned auto­mo­bile lodged in a rocky ravine. This trag­ic event, which could be likened to the unfold­ing of This Thing of Dark­ness, became even more har­row­ing upon clos­er exam­i­na­tion when law enforce­ment uncov­ered the mum­mi­fied body of Hen­ry Roan, a forty-year-old Osage man who had been shot in the head at close range, exe­cut­ed with the pre­ci­sion of some­one ensur­ing his death. Roan’s mur­der was par­tic­u­lar­ly chill­ing due to his past con­nec­tions to both the Osage and white busi­ness elites, includ­ing William Hale, who had posed as a bene­fac­tor to the Osage while secret­ly orches­trat­ing schemes to defraud and kill them.

Roan had once been mar­ried to Mol­lie Burkhart, and despite their sep­a­ra­tion, he had main­tained friend­ly ties with sev­er­al key fig­ures in Osage soci­ety. In the months lead­ing up to his mur­der, Roan had been strug­gling with mount­ing debts and per­son­al betray­als, includ­ing his wife’s rumored infi­deli­ty, which fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed the motives behind his death. Mol­lie, already haunt­ed by the unex­plained deaths of her fam­i­ly mem­bers, felt an over­whelm­ing sense of dread but remained silent about her past con­nec­tion to Roan, fear­ing how her hus­band, Ernest Burkhart, might react to any lin­ger­ing attach­ment she held for her for­mer spouse.

The Osage Trib­al Coun­cil, alarmed by the steady and sys­tem­at­ic elim­i­na­tion of their peo­ple, plead­ed for fed­er­al inter­ven­tion, rec­og­niz­ing that local law enforce­ment had failed to pro­tect them. Many believed that cor­rupt offi­cials, in col­lu­sion with white busi­ness­men, had delib­er­ate­ly ignored or even par­tic­i­pat­ed in the crimes, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to trust the author­i­ties to bring the mur­der­ers to jus­tice. The trib­al lead­ers, fac­ing mount­ing fear and frus­tra­tion, turned to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, demand­ing that the full force of the law be brought upon those respon­si­ble for the relent­less killings.

As ten­sions esca­lat­ed, ter­ror struck again in Fair­fax when a mas­sive explo­sion rocked the home of Bill and Rita Smith, reduc­ing it to charred rub­ble and instant­ly killing Rita and their ser­vant, Net­tie. Bill, though severe­ly injured, clung to life for a few days, but his final moments offered no rev­e­la­tions about who had orches­trat­ed the attack, leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with­out answers. The bomb­ing sent a clear and bru­tal message—those who stood in the way of pow­er­ful men seek­ing Osage wealth would be elim­i­nat­ed with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

The brazen­ness of these mur­ders drew nation­al atten­tion, prompt­ing Gov­er­nor John Wal­ton to inter­vene, yet his efforts were ulti­mate­ly inef­fec­tive, as cor­rup­tion had infect­ed every lev­el of local and state gov­ern­ment. His even­tu­al removal from office only con­firmed what many Osage peo­ple already suspected—those in pow­er were more inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing the per­pe­tra­tors than bring­ing them to jus­tice. The mur­der­ers seemed to act with­out fear of con­se­quences, using bribery, legal loop­holes, and sheer bru­tal­i­ty to main­tain their grip on Osage for­tunes.

Fur­ther proof of the con­spir­a­cy emerged when W.W. Vaugh­an, an attor­ney who had gath­ered incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence, was found dead under sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances after attempt­ing to expose key con­spir­a­tors. Vaugh­an had risked every­thing to bring jus­tice to the Osage, but his mur­der sent an unde­ni­able mes­sage that no one—no mat­ter how pow­er­ful or well-intentioned—was beyond the reach of the killers. The Osage com­mu­ni­ty, gripped by fear and help­less­ness, took dras­tic mea­sures, installing “fraid lights”—gas lanterns that burned through the night—outside their homes, hop­ing to deter fur­ther attacks.

Despite these efforts, the cycle of vio­lence per­sist­ed, leav­ing the Osage trapped in a night­mare where death was inevitable and jus­tice seemed impos­si­ble. The stark con­trast between the pros­per­i­ty brought by their oil wealth and the unchecked bru­tal­i­ty they endured high­light­ed a dark real­i­ty of greed-fueled genocide—where mon­ey was worth more than human life. As the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment final­ly began to take notice, many won­dered whether it was too lit­tle, too late, and if the pow­er­ful forces behind the Osage mur­ders would ever tru­ly be held account­able.