Lizzie Cue

Osage
Big Hill Band

Biography

• Married James 'Ne Kah Es Sey' 1874 in Gray Horse, Osage, Oklahoma
• Their children: Anna 'Wah-Hrah-Lum-Pah', Mollie 'Wah-Kon-Tah-He-Um-Pah', Minnie 'Me-se-moie' and Reta 'Nah-shah-shah' Kyle
• Stepchildren: Grace 'Hlu-Ah-To-Me' and Me-Grah-Tah Kyle
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26127140/lizzie-ne_kah_es_sey
• Lizzie was a victim of the Osage Murders during the Reign of Terror. In David Grann's book, Killers of the Flower Moon, she is often referred to as Lizzie Q.

  ---

The Osage were known as the richest people on earth. Their reservation sat on the largest oil field in U.S. history. The wealth of the Osage was legendary and everybody wanted a piece of the action. Osage tribal members became the target of every thief and con-man for miles. The Osage appealed to the FBI whose investigation uncovered a conspiracy that involved a whole family. Lizzie Q, an Osage woman, and her three daughters held between them 6 headrights. The first step in the conspiracy was to ensure that her daughter, Mollie, inherited all the family’s headrights. The first to die was Mollie’s younger sister, Anna Brown. Lizzie Q’s family wasn’t the only one that suffered the loss of land, money and loved ones. Every Osage was touched by what history remembers as the “Reign of Terror”. https://www.pbs.org/filmfestival/films/osage-murders

Oil in Osage

In the late 1800s, oil was discovered on the Osage Indian Reservation in present-day Osage County, Oklahoma. The members of the Osage Nation earned royalties from oil sales through their federally mandated “head rights,” and, as the oil market expanded, they became incredibly wealthy.

As word spread, opportunists flocked to Osage lands seeking to separate the Osage from their wealth by any means necessary—even murder.

The Reign of Terror

It was May 1921 when the decomposed body of Anna Brown—an Osage Native American—was found in a remote ravine in northern Oklahoma. The undertaker later discovered a bullet hole in the back of her head. Anna had no known enemies, and the case went unsolved.

That might have been the end of it, but, just two months later, Anna's mother Lizzie Q suspiciously died. Two years later, her cousin Henry Roan was shot to death. Then, in March 1923, Anna's sister and brother-in-law, Rita and Bill Smith, were killed when their home was bombed.

Anna's last living sibling, Mollie Burkhart, was left devastated—and suspiciously afflicted with an ongoing illness.

One by one, at least two dozen people—including Osage Native Americans, a well-known oilman, and others—in the area inexplicably turned up dead.

And anyone who shared suspicions and accompanying evidence about what may be going on was met with death threats—or killed, like attorney W.W. Vaughn, who was thrown from a train.

Newspapers described the murders and fear during this time as the Reign of Terror.

The Investigation

Who was behind all the murders?
That's what the terrorized community wanted to find out. But a slew of private detectives and other investigators turned up nothing, and some were even trying to sidetrack honest efforts.

The Osage Tribal Council asked the federal government to send detectives to investigate. After receiving the petition in April 1923, the newly created Bureau of Investigation (the agency that would become the FBI) assigned agents to the case.

Early on, all fingers pointed at William Hale, the so-called King of the Osage Hills. Hale arrived in Oklahoma as a local cattleman, and he bribed, intimidated, lied, and stole his way to wealth and power. He grew even greedier when oil was discovered on the Osage Indian Reservation.

Hale's connection to Anna Brown's family was clear: His nephew, Ernest Burkhart, was married to Anna’s sister Mollie.

And if Anna, her mother, and two sisters died—in that order—all head rights would pass to Ernest, and Hale could take control. The prize? Half-a-million-dollars a year—or more.

Solving the case was another matter.
The locals weren’t talking; Hale had threatened or paid off many of them, and the rest had grown distrustful of outsiders. Hale also planted false leads that sent our agents scurrying across the Southwest.

Tom White led a team of four agents who went undercover as an insurance salesman, cattle buyer, oil prospector, and herbal doctor to turn up evidence. Over time, they gained the trust of the Osage as they built the case.

Finally, Hale's nephew talked. Then others confessed. Agents proved that Hale ordered the murders of Anna and her family to inherit their oil rights, cousin Henry for the insurance, and others who had threatened to expose him. It's alleged they attempted to kill Mollie by poisoning her, but their attempts were unsuccessful.

In January 1929, Hale was convicted and sent to prison. His henchmen—including a hired killer and crooked lawyer—also got time. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osage-murders-case

One by one, members of the family turned up dead. Kyle’s sister Anna Brown was found shot to death in May 1921, and two months later, Lizzie Q died of a suspected poisoning, according to Dennis McAuliffe’s book Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation. In March 1923, another of Lizzie’s daughters died, along with her husband, when their home was destroyed by an explosion. https://www.biography.com/movies-tv/a43965892/killers-of-the-flower...

The headrights belonging to Lizzie Q. and her descendants eventually passed to Lizzie’s last living daughter, Mollie, and Mollie’s white husband, Ernest Burkhardt. Burkhardt was the nephew of William Hale, a wealthy white rancher known as “King of Osage Hills.” As for Mollie, she was exhibiting signs of poisoning, in danger of being the next Osage murder victim.

An eventual investigation by the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), the precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), uncovered the conspiracy at the heart of all this death—with William Hale as the ringleader.

Under Hale’s orders, John Ramsey, a local rancher, killed Henry Roan. Not so coincidentally, Hale was the beneficiary of Henry Roan’s $25,000 life insurance policy.[14] Ramsey also confessed to bombing the Smith home and named Henry Grammar and Asa Kirby as his accomplices, again all hired by Hale. Suspiciously, Grammar and Kirby had both been murdered.[15]
Hale, Ramsey, and Burkhardt were arrested and tried for the murder of Henry Roan. Ernest Burkhardt confessed,[16] pled guilty, and turned state’s evidence, implicating his brother in Anna Brown’s murder. Burkhardt maintained that William Hale was the mastermind behind the Osage murders. https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2022/11/oil-greed-and-the-osage-mu...

Sources

• https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osage-murders-case
• https://vault.fbi.gov/Osage%20Indian%20Murders
• https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/osage-discussion-spotlights-relati...
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Osage-murders
• https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/09/14/killers-of-the-flow...
• https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2022/11/oil-greed-and-the-osage-mu...