Killers of the Flower Moon is a new movie from Martin Scorcese. It’s based on the book by David Grann. We reair a conversation from 2022. ~~~ Matt Olien Reviews “Killers of the Flower Moon.”~~~ News director Dave Thompson is here for our weekly news chat. ~~~ Gilby is the recipient of a special award: 2023 North Dakota City of the Year. Gilby was chosen as the 2023 City of the Year by the North Dakota League of Cities during its 2023 Annual Conference
David Grann Transcript
Ashley Thornberg: What prompted you to tell this story? It goes back to the 1920s at a time when the Osage - this is a people group that had been reduced from their ancestral homelands to a reservation in Oklahoma that was discovered to have a lot of oil wealth - at the time they were the richest people per capita in the world. And I'll let you take it from here.
David Grann: Somebody had mentioned a little bit about this story and these events, and I had made a trip out to the Osage Nation, which is in Northeast Oklahoma…When I was there I had visited the museum, the Osage Nation Museum, and there was this kind of a great picture on the wall…It was taken in 1924 and it showed members of the Osage Nation along with white settlers…I noticed that a portion of that photograph was missing and I asked the museum director what had happened to it, and she said it had contained a figure so frightening she had removed it. She then went down into the basement and…the missing images showed one of the killers of the Osage…In the 20s, when the Osage had become among the wealthiest people per capita in the world because of these oil deposits, they began to be serially murdered…When I saw that missing photograph and heard the way the museum director spoke about it, it just seized me because the Osage had removed the picture because they couldn't forget what had happened…These crimes in which dozens and dozens, scores of Osage were killed for their oil money, and really one of the most sinister crimes and racial crimes and injustices in American history…Yet there were so many people, including myself, who really were unaware of these…We had not been taught this history, and we had never learned it, and so that was the moment that really propelled me to want to tell the story, to share it with others, but also…address my own ignorance that I had never learned about these events.
Ashley Thornberg: It is a very difficult, but important, book to read. These mass conspiracies, betrayal at the ultimate levels, the impacts even on law enforcement now 100 years later. What do you remember about having to do the research on topics…that…were pushing 100 years old when you started writing this book? …Often including the perspectives of people whose stories weren't written down at the time - or at least not accurately?
David Grann:
Telling any story in the present, but certainly historically, the challenge is to be able to find the materials to tell the story…In fact, when I…first wanted to tell the story, I never had a question of wanting to tell it. The real question was, could I tell it? Could I find the materials and uncover documents and descendants that would help me bring the story to light and reveal it and get as close to the truth as possible?...That's why the project took very long. Thankfully, there was a good deal of archival material I was able to find both in state and federal archives, court archives, police records, Osage Nation archives that have been stored, including some oral histories. And then also, one of the things I did was I tried to track down the descendants of both the murderers and also the victims. Many of whom still live side by side in the same neighborhoods to this day, which is really part of the story…Many of them had their own records and letters and had oral histories. Many of the Osage had conducted their own investigation into kind of mysterious family deaths…their families trying to figure out who is the culprit and responsible…or at least to prove it and to identify the killer. And so…they shared that material with me.
At the center of this story in my book I tell is about a kind of remarkable woman named Molly Burkhardt. She was…born…in an Osage community, living out on the prairie speaking Osage, practicing Osage traditions…Within a few decades, because of the oil money and other forces, she was living in…a large house and she had married a white man and her family begins to be targeted one by one.
…First her older sister disappears and then is found shot. Her mother is poisoned…It's really just appalling and horrific. And, in the course of my research, I tracked down her granddaughter, a woman named Margie Burkhardt, who's just lovely. She really shared a good deal with me and she took me around…to the cemetery where so many of her ancestors are buried, and to places where many of these crimes have taken place…it was speaking to her which, not only did I learn a great deal about the family, but also was just a real reminder about how this is still living history.
…In some cases the murders are less than 100 years old. It's not that long ago…We're not talking about the early founding of the country or back in…colonial times. We're talking about the 20th century. Time of trains and cars and telegraphs when these incredibly sinister crimes were taking place. Speaking to her and other Osage descendants was very important to me, because it was a reminder to me of how this history still lives and reverberates today.
Ashley Thornberg: We're visiting today with author and journalist David Grann about his book Killers of the Flower Moon, the Osage Murders, and the Birth of the FBI, which was a National Book Award finalist when it came out in 2017. David, what is the reaction to the book specific to the Osage people? Have you kept in touch?
David Grann: I have - one of the things you do when you spend so long on a project…I lived in a boarding house when I [did] the research and I would usually stay for about a month…I would do it twice a year and this went on for five years. You slowly develop, not just people who are helping you with the story when you spend that much time, you really develop…good friendships. And, so I have kept in touch. I continue to go back…
I can't say how every Osage reacted to the book…obviously, leave that… to them to respond, but one of the things I did when the book came out…I said to the publisher, “The one thing you have to do is…send me to Osage County, and you're gonna have to send me to some of these small towns where I did my research…Some of these towns, there's only a few hundred people, but you're gonna have to send me there because these people help[ed] me.” And I remember when I showed up in Fairfax I was with somebody from the publishing house and they were really kind to call the chancellors. He said, “Of course we'll do that.”...They were with me and I said, “Now I just have to... tell you, there may not be anyone there.”…A couple of friends had said they wanted to hold an event there for me…in Fairfax…and when I got there, there were just so many Osage and so many people who I had spoken with and work[ed] with in their families who had lined up and were there…Later that day I met and presented a lot of my findings to the Osage community, out by where they hold their dances…in Grayhorse, which is a really central place to where a lot of these events took place and a lot of the crimes took place…They presented me with a blanket and I shared with them my findings…I've been a writer and an author and, doing this now - I'm getting old, so I've been doing it…I guess more than 30 years now and…I don't think I've ever had an experience quite like that, and I don't think I'll ever have one again quite like that.
Ashley Thornberg: Let's talk about the subtitle line of the book here, The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Very much a fledgling operation at this point. As the writer of the book, how do you classify how this case specifically helped to shape the FBI?
David Grann: Sure. The FBI at that time, and they weren't even known as the FBI yet, they were called the Bureau of Investigations. And they were really a rag tag operation at that time, had only kind of a smattering of offices across the country, a very limited jurisdiction over crimes.
In fact, one of the jurisdictions happened to fall on reservations at that time, American Indian lands, and because these crimes had taken place there, that's why this case fell to them…It really became one of their first major homicide cases….Ultimately they sent in an undercover team - a guy named Tom White was in charge and some posed as an insurance salesman and others posed as cattlemen - and gradually they were able to unravel at least some of the elements, some of the conspirators, in the case. And it happened at a time when the Bureau was trying to develop more modern techniques and professionalize itself.
…These were all manifest in this case in many ways and…when some of the killers were caught, J. Edgar Hoover was in charge - really used the case to mythologize the FBI. But one of the central tenets of the book that I try to show is how the FBI really closed the case prematurely…and didn't reveal a really much darker and deeper conspiracy that lay at the heart of this - which is that this was really not about one evil figure and a few henchmen who had done these crimes, but really about a culture of killing.
And that's one of the things that many of the Osage share with me and that is a really important tenant of the book. So the record of the FBI is a very complicated and mixed one in this case and Hoover [in] many ways had bungled the operation. A few agents did do some good work, but the lead agent then retired and the Bureau really closed the case prematurely…For me, one of the most unnerving parts of researching this history was when it became clear to me from talking to this agent, from digging up records and archives, that it's much easier to think of a crime like this being done by kind of one sociopathic figure, rather than…there really was this kind of culture of killing where many individuals were perpetrating these crimes for wealth…and most of them escaped justice…That's a very haunting, haunting prospect. And many Osage live with that lack of resolution to this day, which is why many of them had conducted their own investigations into these cases, their own private research, and shared, in many cases, their findings with me.
Ashley Thornberg: As a writer, you have to turn over your work to an editor as part of getting a book published. And now in this case, you turned your book over to a screenwriter. Eric Roth, a writer on movies such as Forrest Gump, has adapted this. And let's just mention some of the names attached to this here. Perhaps you've heard of these people. Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese. Big names attached to a book like this. How does that feel?
David Grann: Yeah, it's very unexpected. I remember when I finished the book and my wife said to me before it went out into the world, “You spend all this time…” she said, “You never know if anyone will even read it, let alone they'll make a movie about it. But if anyone will even read it…you just be proud of the work you did.” And then the book did start to find an audience and then something like this happens…and it's very unexpected and a bit overwhelming for me…My goal…with something like this is I don't really pretend to know about movies other than consuming them and try to get a project like this into the hands of people who know what they're doing. And of course, in this case, I could not be more fortunate that the people who pick[ed] this up are just all at the top of the field… Most important to me…[they've] really been sensitive to the complex nature of the story and to the sensitivities involved. That was really important to me…Among those stars, there's a…number of indigenous actors and actresses. Lily Gladstone is, yeah, she'll be playing Molly and I got to see a bit of her and she's just remarkable…I think they have an opportunity to do something really special…for me, your hope is when you tell a story that this history…will lead people to tell more stories and to go to the Osage Nation Museum and learn the history from the Osage…While I'm not naive about the power of books and literature, movies have a chance to reach even more people and hopefully make this even more of our consciousness…That's my hope with something like this.
Ashley Thornberg: Tatanka Means, one of the sons of the late Russell Means, who is of course a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, also cast in the film. David, were you very involved in...the movie making process at all?
David Grann: I'm always so busy on my books. [In] this case…the main thing I wanted to do early on was just make sure that there was communication directly between Osage Nation and the movie production people…help set that up, so that if…they had questions that they could learn from the Osage, and the Osage were involved in the process…That got set up really early and it gave me a great deal of comfort…That's where a lot of …things developed…I was always there for lots of research questions and findings and digging up documents…In talking to…Scorsese to DiCaprio to Lillie, to anyone I spoke with…all these kind of voracious learners who wanted to know everything about the story and the history and immersing themselves in it…any way I could…help with doing that.
Ashley Thornberg: Best selling author and journalist David Grann, the author of several books, including The White Darkness, The Old Man and the Gun, [and]The Lost City of Z. David, thank you so much for your time today.
David Grann: Thank you. My pleasure.
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