[3] Newer investigations indicate that other suspicious deaths during this time could have been misreported or covered-up murders, including those of individuals who were heirs to future fortunes.

In 1906 and subsequent years, US Congress passed a series of laws, ostensibly intended to help the Osage retain wealth, that created a system of guardianship for "minors and incompetents", as determined by and under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma's local county probate courts.

For example, a guardian was appointed for one Indian woman on the basis that her savings suggested a lack of spending which was evidence that she did not understand the value of money.

The Osage found minimal assistance from local law enforcement to investigate the deaths, as it was dominated by powerful whites working in their own interests.

Several others involved were convicted of lesser charges, such as perjury, witness tampering, and contempt of court, for attempting to impede the investigation.

In 2000, the Osage Nation filed a suit against the US Department of the Interior, alleging that it had not adequately managed the assets and paid people the royalties they were due.

[16] As part of the process of preparing Oklahoma for statehood, the federal government allotted 657 acres (266 ha) to each Osage on the tribal rolls in 1907.

The tribe held the mineral rights communally and paid its members money from leases by a percentage related to their holdings.

As the writer Robert Allen Warrior characterizes them, some were entrepreneurial, and others were criminal, seeking to separate the Osage from their wealth by murder if necessary.

Unable to find the killer, local authorities ruled her death as accidental because of alcohol poisoning and put the case aside.

[15] Kelsie Morrison, a petty criminal, later admitted to murdering Brown and testified that William Hale, a prominent local rancher, had asked him to do so.

Vaughan's body was later found with his skull crushed, beside the railroad tracks near Pershing, about 5 miles (8 km) south of Pawhuska.

By 1925, at least sixty wealthy Osage had died and their land (and headrights) had been inherited or deeded to their guardians, who were local white lawyers and businessmen.

[3] In 1995, writer Robert Allen Warrior wrote about walking through an Osage cemetery and seeing "the inordinate number of young people who died during that time.

Because of the numerous leads and perception that the local police were corrupt, White decided he would be the public face of the investigation, and most of the agents would work undercover.

[1][35] Hale and his nephews, Ernest and Byron Burkhart, had migrated from Texas to Osage County to find jobs in the oil fields.

[1] Hale's goal was to gain the headrights and wealth of several tribe members, including his nephew's Osage wife, Mollie Burkhart, the last survivor of her family.

[36][32] Hale arranged for the murders of Mollie's sisters, her brother-in-law, her mother, and her cousin, Henry Roan, to cash in on the insurance policies and headrights of each family member.

Hale and his associates were convicted in state and federal trials from 1926 to 1929, which had changes of venue, hung juries, appeals, and overturned verdicts.

In 1927, a lawyer working in the interest of Hale, William Scheff, was convicted of furnishing whiskey for a witness in an attempt to get her to change her testimony.

Theodore Cavalier, a local farmer, said Irving Hale had approached him and offered him money to sit on the jury and vote for an acquittal.

[42] Various residents of Pawhuska petitioned Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton to conduct a full investigation of the deaths of George Bigheart and his attorney, William Vaughan.

[30] On November 9, 1923, Davis and three other men, Frank Brumley, Eustace Knight, and Tom Rudolph, robbed and murdered Paul J. McCarthy, a prominent attorney.

In 1940, he and a woman named Clara Mae Goad robbed the Osage home of Lillie Morrell Burkhart, his former sister-in-law, stealing $7,000 in valuables, equivalent to $150,000 in 2023.

US District Judge Franklin Elmore Kennamer granted Ernest's request not to be sent to the USP Leavenworth, where Hale and Ramsey were serving their life sentences.

During his parole hearing, he downplayed his own involvement in the murders, referring to himself as an "unwitting tool" of his uncle: "All I did was deliver a message.

Citing his cooperation with the investigation (White had credited his confession as vital for the convictions of Hale and Ramsey), the Oklahoma Parole Board voted 3–2 in favor of a pardon, which was granted by Governor Henry Bellmon.

[49] In the early 1990s, journalist Dennis McAuliffe of The Washington Post investigated the suspicious death of his grandmother, Sybil Beekman Bolton, an Osage with headrights who died in 1925 at age 21.

[17] McAuliffe found that when Bolton was a minor, the court had appointed her white stepfather, attorney Arthur "A.T." Woodward, as her guardian.

[14][15] This was after a major class-action suit had been filed against the departments of Interior and Treasury in 1996 by Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) on behalf of other Native Americans, for similar reasons.