Chilling black and white photos shed light on the Native American tribe who were killed off one-by-one… with the 60 murders becoming the FBI’s first ever case
Members of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma were killed off one by one after oil was discovered underneath their land
THEY were the Native American tribe that were killed off one-by-one after oil was discovered underneath their land.
And chilling black and white photos have shed light on the people and area involved in the mysterious crime that captivated a nation and became the FBI's first ever case.
The Osage Indian nation based in Oklahoma in the US, were the among the richest people in the world.
They lived in mansions, rode in chauffeured cars and even sent their children to study in Europe.
But after it was revealed they were living on a fortune in the 1920s, the tribe became a target and were killed off.
The investigation into more than 60 deaths became one of the FBI's first major homicide investigations.
And the rare pictures connected to the real-life murders have been published in a book called Killers of the Flower Moon by author David Grann.
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It details how the the family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target and how her relatives were shot and poisoned.
More and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances and even many people who dared investigate the killings were murdered.
The Bureau of Investigation, later renamed the FBI, took up the case as the death toll climbed after a former Texas Ranger badly bungled the investigation.
To solve the cast, the first FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover asked Tom White to unravel the mystery.
Mr White put in place an undercover team, who alongside the Osage, exposed a chilling conspiracy.
In its undercover investigation, the FBI found that several murders in one family were found to have been committed by a gang led by William "King of Osage Hills" Hale.
His goal was to gain the oil royalty headrights and wealth of several tribe members, including his nephew's Osage wife, the last survivor of her family.
Three men were convicted and sentenced in this case, but most murders went unsolved.
The investigation also uncovered extensive corruption among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program.
As a result of the case and the subsequent investigation, Congress changed the law to stop non-Osage from inheriting headrights from the tribe with half or more Native American ancestry.
Last week, we brought you fascinating black and white photos revealing a vibrant pre-Blitz London in the 1930s.
And we also told you about amazing vintage photos showing the brutal lives of gun-toting Depression era gangsters in America.