Looking at a crime over cultural or economic divides can be challenging. Secrets, in-crowd status, outsider vantage points become mixed up with things like facts and understanding. They can hinder quick solutions and prosecutions of the guilty.
In the 1920's in Oklahoma a widespread series of crimes occurred targeting members of the Osage Tribe. The cases would result in the first involvement of the new FBI in a murder case. The cases would highlight the depths to which greed can drive some people and the way that members of Native American society were too often viewed. Young women were murdered by husbands, strangers and friends to acquire control of their land (headrights). Others were targeted as well in this mad, greed infused time.
To this day people will recall, in hushed voices, the crimes committed in those days. Small town memories are both long and selective.
One book on this 'reign of terror' period of history is The Osage Indian Murders. Another book is The Death of Sybil Bolton, where the author explores the real cause of his grandmother's death. A follow-up title was Bloodland. The FBI has digitized files of the investigation available in their 'vault'.
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