When Lou Anna Red Corn left her prominent role as a prosecutor to reconnect with her Osage roots, she ignited a powerful conversation about heritage and justice. Our latest episode welcomes Lou Anna as she shares her transformational journey with us, revealing the profound influence of the Osage Nation's history on both personal and cultural identity. We're transported to a poignant moment when Osage performers graced the Oscars stage, a scene that underscores their relentless spirit amidst a history marred by tragedy.
Our exploration takes us on a voyage through time, retracing the steps of the Osage people from the lush Ohio Valley to the oil-rich lands of Oklahoma. Lou Anna expertly outlines the complex tapestry of Osage land ownership, head rights, and the disturbing legacy of greed that led to the guardianship corruption following the oil boom. Her insight provides a backdrop for understanding the societal upheaval that wealth brought to the Osage, setting the stage for a somber chapter in their story—the Osage murders.
The sovereignty and modern-day pursuits of the Osage Nation stand as a testament to their resilience and enduring quest for justice. Delving into contemporary challenges, governance, and social initiatives, we shed light on the tribe's progress, such as reclaiming land and combating domestic violence. Luanna's reflections on the cultural resurgence catalyzed by the film "Killers of the Flower Moon" encapsulate the episode, honoring the Osage Nation's past and their unwavering spirit that continues to shape American history.
Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.
See what you have been missing on YouTube!
When Lou Anna Red Corn left her prominent role as a prosecutor to reconnect with her Osage roots, she ignited a powerful conversation about heritage and justice. Our latest episode welcomes Lou Anna as she shares her transformational journey with us, revealing the profound influence of the Osage Nation's history on both personal and cultural identity. We're transported to a poignant moment when Osage performers graced the Oscars stage, a scene that underscores their relentless spirit amidst a history marred by tragedy.
Our exploration takes us on a voyage through time, retracing the steps of the Osage people from the lush Ohio Valley to the oil-rich lands of Oklahoma. Lou Anna expertly outlines the complex tapestry of Osage land ownership, head rights, and the disturbing legacy of greed that led to the guardianship corruption following the oil boom. Her insight provides a backdrop for understanding the societal upheaval that wealth brought to the Osage, setting the stage for a somber chapter in their story—the Osage murders.
The sovereignty and modern-day pursuits of the Osage Nation stand as a testament to their resilience and enduring quest for justice. Delving into contemporary challenges, governance, and social initiatives, we shed light on the tribe's progress, such as reclaiming land and combating domestic violence. Luanna's reflections on the cultural resurgence catalyzed by the film "Killers of the Flower Moon" encapsulate the episode, honoring the Osage Nation's past and their unwavering spirit that continues to shape American history.
Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.
See what you have been missing on YouTube!
and in our museum there was a big one of the walls. There was this. You know they used to. You've seen them, these panoramic pictures of all the Indians lined up. It's like three cameras and they put it all together. So they've got this big panorama of Osages, probably in the 19, 1920, maybe late 19, 19-teens, and there was a piece missing out of it. He can see that a section is gone out of the panel and he says, well, this is nice, but what was there? And she says the devil was standing there.
Wendy Lyons:Warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police
Lou Anna Red Corn:And then the other one is that you know there's just some other things that I wanted to do. I'm from Oklahoma, that's where I was born, that's where my parents grew up, that's where my heart is, and I'm a citizen of the Osage Nation. That's where our nation is and I wanted to be there. I wanted to be more involved in tribal government and affairs and to be more involved with my family, my extended family, who's all still there. So you can't do that when you're working full time as a prosecutor, going to crime scenes at night, going to court still and doing all the other things that are required of a Commonwealth attorney. So those things went into my decision to retire and I'm still doing a bunch of stuff. I'm doing a lot of training still for prosecutors.
David Lyons:I would hope so.
Lou Anna Red Corn:I am, and I've spent a year volunteering for our Osage Attorney General, doing some projects for him. That's over now, and I'm teaching co-teaching a capital punishment class at the University of Kentucky College of Law. So I am, as I heard Professor Allison Conley say, I'm not retired, I've refired myself and just doing some new things.
David Lyons:How fun. Well, that's one thing I wanted to talk about too is because we can roll into you celebrating your heritage a lot A couple of times on the show. We've talked about on my side, my dad's side of the family, the Irish heritage, to the point where I actually years ago drug Wendy in to do Irish dance with me, I did oh boy. Yeah, exactly, she did good. She had her own unique choreography. It didn't match the rest of the troupe, but it was pretty entertaining too.
Wendy Lyons:Well, you know, I like to stand out. It's like a team of one.
David Lyons:Yeah, we just called it an impromptu solo, and so I did my own moves and my own solos.
Wendy Lyons:And when he says we got to get back to it.
David Lyons:So I've always been big on that too and whatnot, and I think that I'd communicate with you a little bit. I travel a lot and whenever I'm out, specifically in Oklahoma, in the West, especially if I have to drive to the gig I'm going to all I can think of is the frontier, and not just the people that settled it, but the people that were there when it was getting settled.
David Lyons:I've spent some time at some of the cultural museums in Oklahoma and stuff like that, and on the heels of a fantastic movie that just recently came out that had tons of award nominations. Unfortunately, I don't think it brought any home.
Lou Anna Red Corn:It didn't get any. No gold man went home with anyone related to that movie. But the Osage singers, the men singers, the women singers, performed because Washaji, a song for my people, was nominated for an Oscar.
Wendy Lyons:Oh, wow, and the Osage.
Lou Anna Red Corn:many Osage people performed that live at the Oscars and that was a huge win for us. Big time Huge win.
David Lyons:Yeah, and the movie being Killers of the Flower Moon.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Yes.
David Lyons:And watching that again I'm pretty sure I was in Oklahoma when I watched it is start with, uh, uh, your recognition of your heritage. Uh, maybe when you, when, that really grabbed you I don't know how old you were when they came or what the influences were what you do now. And then, uh, let's, let's, if you don't mind, because I know you give presentations on it if we could talk about the, uh, the, the whole thing with the solved and unsolved murders during that time period that the, the killers of the flower moon compressed in there so, okay, well, um, well, thank you for asking, because this is really important stuff to me.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Uh, well, in terms of you know, my heritage, I mean, this is just what I was born into. So, um, you know, that's it's been a part of my life since I was born, um, even though when I was a child, we moved away from pwhuska. We always returned several times a year and that's where all the family is and that's where the, the nation is. So, you know, we were always a part of the culture. I've worked really hard my husband and I worked really hard to make sure that our children are part of the culture. Both of our boys dance during our inlonshka, which is our ceremonial dances. Let me just give you a like the you know Reader's Digest version about the Osage Nation.
David Lyons:Okay, Sure please.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Okay, so we are sitting on ancestral lands of the Osage. They were in this land probably before 1300. Probably before 1300, kentucky, the Ohio Valley, mississippi, arkansas, all through that area, and then, probably around the 1300s, migrated to the Missouri area, which is where they were for a very long time and that's where first contact came with Europeans.
Lou Anna Red Corn:During the time that we were in Missouri we entered into several I think seven treaties with the United States government and seceded millions of acres to finally end up on 150, I mean 1.5 million acres in Oklahoma, 1.5 million acres in Oklahoma.
Lou Anna Red Corn:When we went to Oklahoma we bought our reservation, which was something that if anybody watched the movie or read the book would realize was an important thing, because most reservations were trust lands given to Indian nations to live on. I mean, we all know the stories from history that the government removed many Indians from the southeast you know the five civilized tribes to Oklahoma and others. But Osage bought their reservation and owned it in fee, simple, which was important because when it came time to allot the land it made a big difference in how they could deal with the government on that. So we moved from Kansas our Kansas reservation to Oklahoma. We buy the reservation from the Cherokee Cherokee are already there because they've been removed and we fight allotment Now for people that don't know what allotment is. When the government took native land and then put the Indians on reservations, they then divided up the reservations so that each person would own a piece of land. Remember, originally these reservations were owned communally Gotcha.
David Lyons:Not a piece of land.
Lou Anna Red Corn:So the originally these reservations were owned communally, not a piece of land. So the Osage fought allotment until 2006, right before Oklahoma statehood, and so in fighting allotment they were able to negotiate more land. So in the end every Osage that was on the Osage allotment roll ended up with about 650 acres of land, but the tribe continued to own what was underground. So we basically had an underground reservation and that's where all the wealth came from and that's kind of what the Okay 229, 2,229 Osages that were on the allotment roll and gave each of them something called a head right, and that head right entitled them to a part of the mineral estate, the oil and gas estate. That was underground and resulted in quarterly annuity payments to each individual. Whether you were a man, woman or child, anybody that was alive in 2006, 1906, when the role was created, got a piece. It was just really kind of interesting in a way, because women were on the same footing as men.
David Lyons:I kind of grasped that in the movie.
Lou Anna Red Corn:I mean women are on the same footing as men because they have the same amount of wealth that men had, and so did children, although children had guardians. So that's kind of the basis of what that book is about. That book and then later the movie by Martin Scorsese, is about the murder of several Osages for their head rights, of several Osages for their head rights. And then you get some idea from the book in the movie about really the overall corruption that was going on, because after all the money came, congress decided that full bloods were incompetent.
Lou Anna Red Corn:So on the Osage allotment roll, the first I think it's like 871 are full bloods and then the remaining people on the roll are mixed bloods or it's not clear whether they had any degree of Osage blood in them but they got on the roll, so full bloods, were declared to be incompetent and had to have a guardian and there was probably good guardians, but there were many corrupt guardians who took their ward's money or directed their wards where to spend their money or charge fees for doing things for their wards and just gave them a pittance.
David Lyons:Yeah, imagine that A little bit of money floating around and we'd have a pittance. Yeah, imagine that A little bit of money floating around and we'd have corruption.
Lou Anna Red Corn:It brings out the best in everybody.
David Lyons:It does. It does for sure. Let's talk about the murders to the degree that you can on that, because, again, I guess when you watch the movie it's a long movie.
Wendy Lyons:But when you get to it, you're so captivated.
David Lyons:Yeah, but when you're watching it it's compressed and probably a little bit of poetic license into it. It felt like it was prehistorically accurate, or at least they portrayed it that way. How many of those came back to Bad Guardians? And then what else was going on?
Lou Anna Red Corn:Right? Well, let me just step them back. The movie is based on the book. The book is all historical fact. The book is fact.
Lou Anna Red Corn:The writer, david Grand, came to Osage gosh I can't remember like 2011. He called my aunt, catherine, who was then the director of the Osage Tribal Museum. He had heard from someone else about this. He'd never I mean, he didn't know anything about it but he'd heard about these murders. So she says, well, why don't you just come down to Pawhuska? That's where the nation is located and I can introduce you around and stuff.
Lou Anna Red Corn:So he comes down to the museum and in our museum there was a big one of the walls. There was this you know they used to. You've seen them these panoramic pictures of all the Indians lined up. It's like three cameras and they put it all together. So they've got this big panorama of Osage. Is probably in the 19, 1920, maybe late 19-teens, and there was a piece missing out of it. He can see that a section has gone out of the panel and he says, well, this is nice, but what was there? And she says the devil was standing there. And he says, well, what do you mean? And she tells him that, then shares with him that this man who murdered all these people and was responsible for the death of a number of people was that in that panel of the picture, and so they she removed it out of the museum um, you know not the death he had no place.
Lou Anna Red Corn:No place there gotcha, so so that was what sparked grand to write the book. He spends gosh I don't know five, six years researching it. I mean, he goes, he digs deep, writes the book, and the book is so compelling. Um, and so martin scorsese decided to make a movie out of it, and the rest is history for the Osage people.
David Lyons:Yeah, well, for everybody.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Yeah.
David Lyons:Because I'll have to get the book now too, for sure. But just from the opening part of it, most of that I never knew. Yes, I never knew about the oil boom, the influx of the economy out there and the wealth. I never knew that. Of course when we're growing up, we get a different.
Lou Anna Red Corn:History is written by the winners.
David Lyons:Yes, exactly what a good way to put it. What a good way to put it. So back to the murders. Do you have information on the particular ones?
Lou Anna Red Corn:unsolved, unsolved, oh well, you know, one other thing you don't really get so much from the movie but you really get from the book is the involvement of the bureau of investigation, which was the agency that preceded the fbi. Okay, so this, the invest, uh, so for the people start dying, some suspicious, some appear to be poisoned, some are just outright murdered. I mean, we're talking, you know, gunshot wounds. There's no question, these are homicides. And you know local and state officials, whether they're unable or won't, nothing happens. I mean nothing happens for several years.
Lou Anna Red Corn:And so, in frustration, the tribe contacts, you know, through the channels, the federal contacts Washington and asks for someone to come and help us down here in the Osage. And that's when the Bureau of Investigation stepped in. By the time the FBI got in there, the case was probably the early murders were years old. So they were going back and trying to recreate and look at. You've been there looking at cold cases, other people's work, questions that weren't asked, files that have gone missing. You know the things that make it really difficult to do investigations. Plus, we're not, you know, we weren't necessarily dealing with informants, but you know, some people just don't want to talk because people are turning up dead.
David Lyons:Yes, that's a pretty good incentive to keep your mouth shut, keep your mouth closed. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Lou Anna Red Corn:But the Bureau comes in and eventually three people were ultimately convicted. Now you all, I think probably about 24, 26 murders brought the Bureau in. At least 60 or more Osages died mysteriously, and maybe even more than that, Because we're talking about an unreasonable percentage of Indians dying compared to the total population. So I think there's, I know, strong belief that many more people were murdered than cases were ever prosecuted or ever investigated. I mean, this is the time of you know we didn't have the coroner was whoever volunteered to be the coroner. Maybe it was a physician. This is before any of the modern things that we know today that happen in criminal investigations happen. You know, they pull together a coroner's inquest and you pulled whoever happened to be standing there and they would be the ones to decide whether this was act of man or act of God.
David Lyons:True. Take that and the lack of information highways that we have now. I mean, one of the things right now is that everything is digitally recorded and processed out. You've got nothing and we're talking about big stretches of land where people just could disappear. I mean, just so there we go. And I agree with you that when you start looking at those numbers, just percentage-wise, the probability is not real high that most of those would be natural. And throw in the money. Yeah, there we go. The back to the money thing again too. So when they convicted those three, what kind of sentences did they get?
Lou Anna Red Corn:Well, I think what helped in the convictions, david, was that several of the murders were all in one family. Okay, so remember I talked about head rights. That was where you got paid because of the murders were all in one family. So remember I talked about head rights. That was where you got paid because of the mineral estate. Well, those head rights could be passed on to your heirs. So if you died, your children or your spouse would get your head rights.
Lou Anna Red Corn:So the movie and the book focuses on one particular family. So the movie and the book focuses on one particular family, the family of Molly Burkhart, rita Smith, lizzie Q and Anna Brown. This is Lizzie Q is the mom, and the other three women are her daughters, and one of her daughters dies mysteriously in her early 20s. She's married to a man named Bill Smith. Bill Smith then marries her sister, her sister's home, along with Bill Smith, blows up, and then the other daughter, the third sister, a woman named Anna Brown, is shot in the head.
Lou Anna Red Corn:All of these head rights are all going to one woman, which is a woman named molly burkhart. That's the fourth sister, and so the movie in the book focuses on on molly and her marriage to a man named ernest burkhart. In the end, ernest is one of the individuals that ends up getting convicted of his involvement in the murder. The other person that ends up getting convicted of his involvement in the murder, the other person that ends up getting convicted and it was probably the mastermind of the whole of that group of murders is the devil, the one that was in the panel Hale. He was the father or the uncle excuse me, the uncle of Ernest Burkhart and had a lot of control over his nephew and, I'm sure, had a role in his nephew marrying Molly.
Lou Anna Red Corn:And they portrayed that in the movie and they portrayed that in the movie, yeah, and so he was instrumental in getting a man by the name of John Ramsey to be involved in the other murder for which Hale got convicted, and that was a man named Henry Roanhorse or Henry Roan, who was also an Osage who was murdered. Hale had bought a life insurance policy on him so he would be able to gain from his death, and you know. So the three of them all got convicted. Ernest pled guilty, eventually, admitted his role in the murders and was sentenced to life, the other two. It's an interesting story and it's interesting to me at least as a lawyer, because it was a matter of jurisdiction.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Originally they prosecuted Hale and Ramsey in federal court because Henry Rohn had been killed on Osage land. It was allotted land that had never been sold and the judge dismissed it, saying there was no jurisdiction. You know there's certain rules about where you have to have a trial and they have to have federal jurisdiction. It has to be on federal land or a federal crime, and so the judge dismissed it. So they tried to try them in state court. That never worked out and then eventually the United States Supreme Court said oh, said oh, no, there's federal jurisdiction. So they went to trial. There was a hung jury. Turned out that jurors had been bribed. So no, no conviction no figure yeah, they went to trial.
Lou Anna Red Corn:it was a um conviction but it got reversed, so they went to trial again and ultimately both both Hale and Ramsey were convicted and I think I can't remember 99 years. I think is what they ended up with. In the end everyone got paroled. Ernest ended up living the rest of his days in Oklahoma. I think Hale died in Arizona or somewhere and Molly, who was incompetent because she was a full-blood, ultimately became competent and lived out a few more years and remarried and had a good life. But the community was obviously permanently and forever impacted by those times because it was way more than just the ones that I've talked about today. I mean, there's hardly any families that were not impacted by murder and, if not murder, by fraud and fear and everything else. So it's a. I think the most Osages were pleased with the book and pleased with the movie, for mainly just because the story is told. I mean, you know that this is something that happened and people should know about it.
David Lyons:No, I agree, it's powerful stuff. What lessons would be for somebody that's in a prosecutorial business? Are there any lessons taken forward from that that you've found in that?
Lou Anna Red Corn:Well, I don't know so much has changed since that time.
David Lyons:Sure.
Lou Anna Red Corn:I have used David Grand's book to talk about ethics. I mean, if you went back and looked at the book and read further about it, you would see how far we have come as a government and legally in terms of making sure that people are treated fairly, etc. There are certainly lessons about how to treat victims in the movie, because I mean it's clear that the Indians were considered less than human in the way that they were being treated.
Lou Anna Red Corn:So I mean it's hard for me to draw some real clear lessons because so much has changed in the way that we investigate and prosecute things, I think the more fundamental lessons are probably just have to be are related to knowledge and awareness of our past. I know sometimes it's not popular to want to know about the wrongs that this country was built on, built on, but I think you pointed out yourself that, with law enforcement, that we want to have the best law enforcement and criminal justice system that we can have, and we do that by correcting mistakes and by widening our points of view and by understanding the ways of other people.
David Lyons:There we go.
Lou Anna Red Corn:You know, it's not all the way that we think it is because everybody's looking at it through a different lens.
David Lyons:Absolutely. Yeah, it's that whole thing of memorializing in the current memory, not so much to commiserate or to anything like that, but to me that's how you protect from having what we'd call the predictable surprise.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely.
David Lyons:If you don't look at that and then you have to share it, you have to distribute it and it has to be learned from. I wouldn't say you could still have somebody slide off the ethical wagon and have ridiculous.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Stuff happen somewhere. We're just people, that's it. We're just people, that's it of stuff happens somewhere. We're just people, that's it, we're just people.
David Lyons:That's it, yeah, people, yeah, what it is. You've got to take the best thing in the world and add people and you'll screw it up, right, but yeah, I think that's a powerful thing Inside the now present day. You spend a lot of time going out to Oklahoma.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Yes, correct.
David Lyons:What's life out there like?
Lou Anna Red Corn:now of your listeners to come out and experience the Osage. Of course, since the book and since the movie, there's a lot of interest out there. This is non-Osage and it's not related to murder. But we also have a woman named Reed Drummond who's the pioneer woman on the Food Network, and so we have many people travel to Pawhuska to go to her restaurant there, and we just opened a casino to Pawhuska to go to her restaurant there. Okay, and we just opened a casino in Pawhuska. So there is lots of stuff to do in the Osage.
Lou Anna Red Corn:This is where our nation is. This is where our tribal museum is. We're just reopening our welcome center. We just bought Ted Turner's ranch. It's kind of a take land back program, so we bought back his ranch a couple years ago. So the Osage Nation for people that you know just no reason. People should understand this. But federal recognized Indian tribes are nations, they're sovereign.
Lou Anna Red Corn:I mean in and of themselves. They have a trust relationship with the federal government that was established at the time that that land was taken, and so we have our own government. I mean, we have an elected chief, we have a Congress, we have a criminal justice system, we have an attorney general, we have trial judges, we have social services, we have Indian health, we have social services, we have Indian health and you know, with things like the Ted Turner Ranch and the farm.
Lou Anna Red Corn:But because finally we have the ability to define our own future, I mean it wasn't until 2006 that we became actually sovereign, that there wasn't the government telling us who we were. We got to elect and vote for ourselves who we are.
David Lyons:Yeah, I think I've told you. When I travel too, I've always been fascinated when I meet tribal police officers because of the nuances of how that's all managed.
Lou Anna Red Corn:It's very complicated.
David Lyons:Super, super. Yeah, I try to pick their brains for hours and I can't walk away with a clear understanding. But that whole part of what that's like to work and the rules of engagement and disengagement and things like that Right, whether you're dealing with native, non-natives, where it happens, jurisdictional issues.
Lou Anna Red Corn:It's complicated, but it's okay because this is what we've created and we need to do it as best we can.
David Lyons:I think it works. I've never met anybody that said it's not working, that it's not there. Now, one thing I do see there's a lot of social media advocacy out there on American Indians period is there's a lot of talk and I don't know if you can speak to it or not about domestic violence on indigenous women or missing indigenous women.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Do you have any data on that or anything? I do not, I don't. Fortunately, it hasn't been a huge issue for Osage. Okay, and I mean this is just me kind of anecdotally saying this, but you know, some of these Indian reservations are huge. I mean like so they're very spaced out and not a lot of people, not a lot of resource, not a lot of resource. We're, osage, are pretty fortunate. We have some good resource, not so much from the oil, but we, you know, from the gaming, and so I think that a lot of that is in areas where there is lack of resource, lack of law enforcement Probably. But yes, women, yes, native women are disproportionately victims of domestic violence as to other non-Native women.
Wendy Lyons:Well, Luanna, thank you so much for coming and sharing with us about being a Commonwealth attorney and your Osage Nation. It was so interesting to watch the movie and then to have somebody sitting right here with us.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Well, thank you, I really appreciate that and thank you for watching the movie it was really good.
Wendy Lyons:I do encourage our listeners. If you haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon, it is long, like David said, but it was so worth it. I, I was. I didn't get up. Usually I get up a few times in a movie. I didn't get up not one time.
Lou Anna Red Corn:It was very captivating well it's a story worth watching and, uh, and it's a story that you should watch yeah, absolutely.
David Lyons:And again, thanks for coming too and it's like a reunion from from back in the day too and and for sharing that, that, uh, personal perspective on that piece of history. That, again, we don't always get told.
Wendy Lyons:And for your work as Commonwealth attorney.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Thank you all, both very much.
David Lyons:The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolicePodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of murder police podcast swag. We are also on facebook, instagram and youtube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the murder police podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review. On Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts, make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends.
Lou Anna Red Corn:Lock it down, Judy.