Killers of the Flower Moon

The Reign of Terror spanned 1921 to 1925, during which William Hale and his nephew, Ernest Burkhart, orchestrated the deaths of more than two dozen Osage, including the family of Burkhart’s wife, Mollie Kyle. Martin Scorsese, with the help of Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons, depicted these murders in the Academy Award nominated film, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Did Scorsese deviate from the actual events and David Grann’s nonfiction novel of the same name? Was there a larger plot against Osage Nation than what the FBI led us to believe? Listen now to find out.

Primary Source:
Grann, David. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Doubleday, 2017.

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Transcript

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[MUSIC] Welcome to Criminal Adaptations, the show where we take a look at some of your favorite movies and the true crime stories that inspired them. I'm Remi, I spent over a decade working in the film and television industry in Los Angeles, California. And I'm Ashley, I'm a clinical psychologist and forensic evaluator in the state of Oregon. Welcome back everybody to another podcast where we are going to be going into some true crime movies, analyzing them and figuring out what's true and what's false, how are you doing today, Ashley? I am doing pretty darn good. I'm excited for this movie. It is. I wouldn't say brand new, but it's fairly new. I think it came out in November, so it makes it the newest movie we've done, beaten out Miranda's victim. This week we will be discussing the three and a half hour Western epic by the man himself, Martin Scorsese starring Leo de Caprio and Robert De Niro and many, many more, the killers of the flower moon or killers of the flower moon. You can remove the the. And before we get into that, I want to make a little correction from I think last week's episode, I had mentioned that the author of this book, David Gran also wrote the devil in the white city about H.H. Holmes. The devil in the white city was actually written by Eric Larson. And I didn't realize this until I was a couple chapters into killers of the flower moon and realized like not only is this book way shorter, but it's also written in a very different writing style, like much more easier today, just and I looked up the author of devil in the white city and was like oh, it's a different person. So my apologies, different authors, but both very well written nonfiction novels. I also have to say the movie was a bit easier to digest than I was anticipating. It's a three and a half hour movie and I ended up with only nine pages of notes and I have had much longer notes for much shorter films, which genuinely surprised me with this one. I thought it was going to be a really big undertaking, but the story itself is complex, but I don't know how to say it straight forward, I guess, or I don't know. It was just shorter and more condensed than I was anticipating. Well, I'm very happy for you. I know you were not looking forward to taking notes on this movie, but it sounds like you enjoyed it more the second time around than when we first watched it when it first came out. Oh, I have opinions. I still think this movie has no business being three and a half hours long, but I do think that there are just little changes they could have made that would have made the whole movie a less arduous watch than three and a half hours is. The fact that all these directors now are in this mindset that movies have to be two and a half plus hours long is just something I hopefully get over soon, because it is a lot. It does seem like once a director reaches a certain level of success, editing goes right out the window and they're allowed to make their films as long as they want. And from what I know of most people, they don't like sitting in a theater for three and a half hours or even sitting on their couch for three and a half hours. I mean, that is a long time to be watching a film. Three hours, three and a half hours, even two hours, 45 minutes, these films, come on guys, we can cut it down to less than two and a half hours, I think. Well, I think that segues us into how did this movie come to be. Before we get into that, this movie is an interesting milestone of the first time that Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, all made a film together. And I think most of our audience might be aware that Martin Scorsese has had a long relationship with both actors. And I was just curious out of all the films that Scorsese has made with De Niro and DiCaprio. Do you have a favorite? I have a list in front of me because I know you probably can't remember them all. I do know all the ones with Leo, let's see if I can name them all at the top of my head. So killers of the flower moon, wolf of Wall Street, shutter island, the aviator, gangs of New York and the departed. You got it, that is all the movies that Leo and Marty have made together. Do you have a favorite out of those? It's so hard to pick. I like them all. I would say gangs of New York is probably my least favorite. And for favorite, I would say wolf of Wall Street or the aviator. I have always thought that the only reason to watch gangs of New York is for Daniel Day Lewis's performance as the butcher. He is fantastic. But the movie itself is a little campy and I don't know, I'm not crazy about the film style of that one. I do, however, like his more decadent movies, I guess. So wolf of Wall Street might be my favorite. I think I've watched that one the most out of all the movies they have done together. I do think the departed is great too. I think that Leo did a great job in that one, but between those two I got to go wolf of Wall Street, which is also their most financially successful film that they have made together, I believe. And one, we will be covering in the future. But out of the more older generations films, do you have a favorite amongst his deniro collaborations? I can go through them with you. I don't think you've seen all of them, but you've seen most of them because of me, I believe. First film they made together is Mean Street, so I know you haven't seen that one. Then Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, which I had you watch because it's basically the same movie as The Joker, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, The Irishman. Probably not The Irishman, I'm gonna guess. I actually haven't seen that one. You don't need to. We'll cover it on the show someday, unfortunately, I assume. I really do like Cape Fear, but my favorite is hands down Taxi Driver. I do love Taxi Driver. I also love Goodfellas a lot, but yeah, I think I'm gonna have to go with Taxi Driver as well. It is a captivating performance by deniro in a very strange story, and it shots so well and so interesting. Yeah, I think I got to agree with you, Taxi Driver, with a Goodfellas coming in close second. And I don't only choose Taxi Driver because of all the craziness that went down afterwards with Jody Foster's stalker, but it's just a very, very, very good movie. We were debating on whether or not we could fit Taxi Driver in as some sort of true crime story, but The Crime was inspired by the movie and the movie was not inspired by a specific crime. Maybe we'll do a bonus episode on it one day. Well, with that, are you ready to dive into the production of Killers of the Flower Moon? Yes, I sure am. Killers of the Flower Moon was released in 2023 and was co-written, produced and directed by the legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, with Eric Roth additionally sharing a co-writing credit along with Scorsese. Isn't he the guy that wrote Hostel? That's Eli Roth. That would be a very interesting pairing for sure. Eli Roth seems like he would write a movie with Tarantino, not with Scorsese probably. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tonto Cardinal, John Liffgao, and Brendan Frazier. Killers of the Flower Moon marks the tenth feature film collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro and the sixth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, with this being, as we said before, the very first film to feature both actors directed by Scorsese. I wonder if DiNiro is going to be in the next one that Scorsese and Leo are planning on making, which is actually another book written by the same author. We'll get into that at the end, but I think if Marty gives his old friend Bobby a call, I think he'll show up to make another film with him, even if he is 85 years old, pushing 90 or however old these two guys are. They'll keep making movies together until they can't do it anymore, I think. This is also the eleventh and final film between Scorsese and his longtime composer, Robbie Robertson, whom the film is also dedicated to and died just two months before the film's release. I also have to say that the music in this film is phenomenal. It is probably one of the best soundtracks I heard all of last year, I think. I do remember when we watched it, we commented on how good the score was. It's crazy. It's like a blues mixed with old Native American and heartbeat drum that's going almost throughout the entire film. It's an amazing soundtrack. In March of 2016, Imperative Entertainment won a bidding war by paying five million dollars for the rights to make a film adaptation of David Grans upcoming 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon. So there was a bidding war going on for this movie before it was even released. Everyone wanted to make this film for whatever reason, not really even having read the book yet. He pulled a German compote. Got the film right? It's both for anything was completed. By April of 2017, the same month as the book's release, Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro had all become involved in the film's production. Basically, right away, they were all like, let's do this guys. The initial script, which was nearly 200 pages and had originally been a much more faithful adaptation of Grans book focused primarily on the perspective of Thomas White and the FBI's investigation with DiCaprio set to star as White. However, Scorsese and Roth initially struggled to complete the script due to their unfamiliarity writing for a police procedural focused on the investigative practices of law enforcement agencies. I think it would also be really, really hard to do it based on police procedure back in the day because it's so different from what it is now. I do think that there is a way you could have done it because there are so many flashbacks throughout this movie, I think it is possible and the film could have been done differently, but that is not my main complaint about the film. I don't necessarily think that Thomas White should have been the main character, but we'll get into that in just a little bit. During pre-production, Scorsese traveled to Oklahoma to meet with principal chief Jeffrey Standing Bear of the Osage Nation and learned more about his tribe's history. A consultation was held with Scorsese and around 200 other Osage people for guidance on the film's accurate and respectful portrayal of the Osage Nation. During several meetings and dinners with members of the Osage, tribe members would often mention the marriage between Ernest Berkart and Molly Kyle, who many Osage believe had truly been in love. Based on these discussions, Scorsese and Roth would later rework the script from the perspective of the Osage community, turning the story's main focus onto the character of Ernest Berkart who would now be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, emphasizing Berkart's torn loyalties between his loving wife and his nefarious uncle William Hale. I think this is an interesting decision, as we have discussed, because Ernest is not who you would think to make the story focus on. It is a strange decision to make the entire film based around this specific character, and I believe it was done primarily because Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to play this specific character, and the producers or Scorsese or whomever still wanted Leo to be the star. In my opinion, Molly is the character that should have been the focus of this film, not Ernest. I agree. The only thing I can think of of why they didn't go that route focusing more on Molly is because we wouldn't have gotten to see what was going on behind the scenes with Ernest and Hale. I still think there would have been a way to portray those events, but I'll get into it when we come to those scenes later. Paramount Pictures felt that these changes drastically altered the film into a moody, far less commercial character study, which I agree with. After the change was made for DiCaprio to portray Ernest Burkhart, instead of white, Jesse Plemens would step in to replace Leo in the role, having to turn down the part of Ricky Goup Park in Jordan Peel's 2022 film"Nope as a result." Who was that person? That would be the role that Steven Yoon played in the film, and Steven did a great job. I also think that Jesse would have done a great job. Another movie that I think the focus should have been shifted to a different character. Yeah, we've talked a lot about our opinions about "Nope," which is a great movie I love, everything Jordan Peel does, but I think we had some better ideas for who should have been the primary focus and how they could have incorporated that damn monkey better. I don't think our ideas are anything new. I do think that Jordan Peel has also gotten to that level of director Stardom, where people don't say no to him, and he is allowed to make his movies, however he wants, and as a result, some of his latest ones have been a little disjointed. I think he maybe needs some notes from other people on some of his scripts. Still love his movies though, brilliant director. Ironically, Robert De Niro may indirectly be responsible for DiCaprio and Scorsese's successful partnership after first recommending the young actor to Scorsese decades ago after working with Leo on this boy's life in 1993, which I have not seen. Scorsese would later cast Leo nearly a decade later in 2002 in the film "Gangs of New York" based on De Niro's previous recommendation, so he remembered it all those years later. Because apparently, Robert De Niro does not recommend actors ever, but he recommended a very young Leonardo DiCaprio, and Marty took that to heart and said if this guy is recommending him, he must be really good. I mean, if anyone has seen Titanic, I know he's very good. He was just a little kid when he was getting recommended too, so De Niro clearly saw something in him. However, De Caprio's frequent style of ad-living during scenes would actually begin to annoy De Niro during their filming of killers of the Flower Moon. According to Scorsese, every now and then, De Niro would roll his eyes a little bit after a take and had to keep reminding Leo that he didn't need to add any more dialogue. Production had always planned on having a Native American actress play the role of Molly Kyle, and Scorsese first became interested in casting Lily Gladstone, who grew up on the Black Feet Nation reservation, after being impressed with her performance in the 2016 film "Certain Women", which I also have not seen. There's a lot of older movies I need to catch up on. At the time, Gladstone, who had recently given an upacting due to a lack of opportunities, was registering for a data analytics course when she received a surprise email request for a zoom meeting with Martin Scorsese. Imagine that email landing in your inbox. I would think it was spam. I would think it was fake as well, but she hopped on that call, and good thing she did, because the two discussed Catholicism, and Gladstone was never even asked to read for the part, but was still selected for the role immediately following their conversation. The Caprio also endorsed Gladstone after the two actors had their own conversation via zoom. This was during the COVID lockdown times, and Gladstone would also receive the approval of the Osage Nation shortly after. Gorsese also cast at least 40 Osage actors in the film, along with hundreds of additional tribe members who were hired on as extras. He also employed several Osage members in various production roles to further ensure accuracy during filming. I really respect that. I do as well. I think it is important, and I think it is respectful, and I think it is the right thing to do for this kind of film. Absolutely. Since the Osage people still extensively used the Osage language during the 1920s, an Osage language teacher and translator named Christopher Cote was brought in to help teach and coach the actors on how to speak the Osage language properly. I could not imagine having to learn a language that is not regularly used, and you have no grounds for similarities of words, and things like that. It must have been very, very challenging to learn this language. Yeah, when I was writing my portion of the book, all the names of Molly and her sisters are all English names that were given to them by settlers. I looked up their Osage names, and I am not even going to try to pronounce them. I know I will butcher it, and I just know I don't have the ability or knowledge to pronounce them correctly, unfortunately. We are also trying to keep this episode as respectful as possible. In May of 2020, Apple TV Plus announced that it would be co-financing and co-distributing the film, along with paramount pictures primarily due to the film's hefty $200 million dollar budget, making it the most expensive biographical film ever made, and the most expensive R-rated film ever made. However, at 206 minutes, it is only the second longest Scorsese film, following just behind 2019's The Irishman at 209 minutes. And with that, are you ready to get into the film, killers of the flower moon? I sure am, I got my coffee here. Our story begins with a ceremony being performed by the Osage nation, involving the bearing of a sacred peace pipe as an offering to the great spirit will contuh so that he may protect the memories and traditions of the Osage nation from being assimilated by the white man's colonization, the women mourn as if bearing one of their own children, as the men of the Osage dig a small grave to place the pipe beneath the earth. Moments later, the hole begins to fill with a bubbling black liquid, slowly building a pressure before finally bursting, skyrocketing up into the air like a geyser, and showering down onto the men below who proceed to dance joyously in celebration. This is the scene where the theme music that I played at the beginning is from. It is such a cool scene, the Osage dancing in this oil as it showers down on them with this music playing. It's a beautiful really brilliant scene. The following title cards read, the Osage nation, the chosen people of chance, the richest people per capita on earth, more pierced arrows than any country in the USA, and show furs to do their bidding. Through montage, we watch as the people of the Osage nation enjoy the fruits of their newly discovered oil as they begin living life like the upper one percent do, purchasing luxury cars, buying expensive jewelry, flying in private airplanes, all while being weighted on hand and foot by Caucasian underlings, which is something you don't see in many films, and I thought was really cool to see in this movie. We are then introduced to Ernest Berkhard, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, arriving by train in Fairfax, Oklahoma, where every man, woman and child seem to be connected to the oil business in some capacity. Ernest, who had previously been an infantry cook during World War I before being discharged for a medical condition, has traveled to Oklahoma to stay with his brother Byron, played by Scott Shepard, and his uncle, William Hale, played by the one and only Robert De Niro. Ernest arrives at his uncle's home, sitting amongst acres upon acres of vast cattle fields, where he is warmly welcomed by his uncle, along with several other extended family members. Ernest and Hale continue their discussion inside where we learn that Hale is a reserve deputy sheriff and a well-to-do cattle rancher with a deep-seated, close-knit relationship with the local Osage community. During their conversation, Hale comes across as intelligent and conniving, while Ernest is perceived as dim-witted and easily manipulated. We then watch a series of flashbacks illustrating the untimely demises of Osage nation members, John Whitehaire, Bill Steppeson, Anna Sanford, Rose Lewis, and Sarah Butler, all of whom died under suspicious circumstances and whose deaths had never been properly investigated by the authorities. This will be a running theme in the rest of this entire episode. It unfortunately sure will. We next meet Molly Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, who is auditing her family spending habits with her miserably old guardian, which was a position given to white men who had the authority to tell Osage nation members how they were allowed to spend their newly acquired fortunes, which is so fucked up I don't even have words for it. Well the make matters were, guardians were given to the Osage who were full Osage. If you were half white, the government decided you didn't need a guardian. That is so ridiculous and so racist and it's infuriating, it's just so fucked up what these people were put through. Even when they're successful, these white guys are doing everything they can to keep them down and control them. When we start my part, I have a brief history lesson where I'll talk a little bit more about guardians amongst other things and it made me infuriated as I was reading it and it made me just as angry when I was writing it and I'm sure I will get enraged as I am sharing it. I should also point out that Molly has head rights over a portion of land, which is the person who receives the profits from the oil drillers on their property. I think I'm explaining it correctly. Yes you're right. Every member of the Osage tribe had land that they could then lease to oil drillers and things like that but what they maintained is that they got payments for anything that was found on their land. So you can sell land but head rights which is the mineral rights, the payment for that stuff could only be inherited. It could not be sold or bought. I did not know that, very interesting. Molly is met outside by Ernest who has started working as an Osage Uber driver, offering Molly a ride and ushering her into his vehicle away from the bustling street corner. Ernest continues driving for Molly on a regular basis while Ernest's uncle William Hale encourages his nephew to begin pursuing Molly romantically with her family's Osage oil portion as an added incentive. Oh so he wasn't just pushing for his young nephew to fall in love? He was pushing for his young nephew to marry an Osage woman basically from the moment he arrives at his house. He is very focused on the Osage people and any way he can possibly get his hands on their land and their fortune. During Ernest and Molly's next drive together, Ernest unabashedly flirts with Molly giving her a bit of a chuckle in the process. That night Ernest begins reading up on the history of the Osage nation who had originally settled in Missouri, deriving their tribe's name from the calm waters of the Osage rivers. We also learned that the flower moon is when tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and the prairies look as if Wakanta looked down upon the earth, smiled and sprinkled it with sugar candy. Later that night Ernest and some of his cohorts mug a wealthy Osage couple on the street then get drunk and lose it all in a poker match before dawn. Ernest continues driving for Molly who's grown quite fond of Ernest and even buys him a brand new Stetson cowboy hat as a gift. Can you buy me a Stetson cowboy hat for Christmas this year Ashley? If it's not then, tick one. Those are quite spendy. Don't you think I would look pretty dashing in a cowboy hat though? I do, Remy. I do. Thank you. Molly invites Ernest in for dinner one evening and the two get to know one another over some whiskey while Ernest learns that Molly is a diabetic while a thunderous storm rages just outside. And fun fact insulin was not created until 1922 so people that had diabetes they was basically just unmanaged so they would have a lot more complications and illnesses and flare-ups from the diabetes than people that can manage that now with insulin. We get into that a little bit later on in the film as well. It is interesting I did not know when insulin had been invented or how expensive it was or what it was derived from but I had a little bit of a history lesson in that department. After that evening Ernest begins accompanying Molly and her family to church. Even though Molly is well aware that Ernest may only be interested in her for her family's fortune, she nevertheless still has feelings for him. Casting aside those fears just as many other Osage women had done by marrying a white man of lesser mean. Their relationship continues to grow and soon Molly and Ernest are married in a traditional Osage wedding ceremony and have their first child together shortly after. During the following months Molly's sister Mini tragically passes away from what is referred to as the wasting illness while their mother Lizzie has also fallen ill and is having visions of a mighty owl by her bedside. Sometime later an Osage man named Charlie Whitehorn is gunned down with a single shot to the head followed by Molly's sister Anna who was found murdered down by the creek in a similar fashion. The Osage hold a tribal council to discuss the latest genocide against their people being perpetrated by the white man without repercussion. Molly has even resorted to hiring a private investigator and is offering two to five thousand dollars as a reward for any information leading to their rest and conviction of her sister's murderer. That is the equivalent of 35 to 87,000 dollars. A hefty sum of money but Molly is at a loss here. I think she's pretty desperate for some kind of justice. I also wanted to add that William Hale additionally offers an extra one thousand dollars for any information about the murders but whoever has that information must come to him first to give him the information before telling anyone else they should come to William Hale exclusively to give him this information to get their reward. He also hired his own private investigator. Not surprising in the week. A representative for the Osage nation is selected by the tribal council to travel to Washington DC to speak with the Indian Affairs Commission and request additional private investigators and police to assist in a further examination into these crimes. By this time Ernest's brother Byron who had been married to Molly's recently departed sister Anna had already coupled up with Molly's other sister Reda shortly after his wife's death. Coincidentally, Reda, Molly and their mother had also just inherited an additional hundred thousand dollars from Anna's passing with grave robbers already preparing to loot Anna's recently buried corpse for valuables. Ernest and Molly speak with the private investigator she's hired and learn that Anna had been pregnant at the time of her murder. When Ernest relays this information to his uncle Hale, Hale questions if the investigator had deduced if the child had been Byron's or his own, which I found very odd for its implications. This is actually true she was pregnant and there was murmurings that Hale was actually having a ferrother which while Erler means he played a role in the death of his own child. Well, alright, yeah I don't think Hale has any qualms with getting rid of children who are in the way of his fortune. Meanwhile, the representative for the Osage nation has arrived in Washington but is knife to death in an alley shortly after his arrival. This representative was a man named Barney McBride who was also in line to inherit a good portion of Molly's family's fortune due to marriage. To prevent this, Ernest hires a man named Blackie Thompson played by Tommy Schulte to travel to Washington and murder Barney further increasing Ernest's fortune while Blackie is gifted one of Ernest's expensive roadsters as payment. Unfortunately, Blackie is later arrested after Ernest tries to collect the insurance on his stolen vehicle resulting in a further investigation that leads directly back to Ernest. Probably should have just let the guy have the car. Once Hale catches wind of his nephew's blender, Hale brutally spanks Ernest with a large wooden paddle. Side note here, Leonardo DiCaprio really was spanked with an actual wooden paddle at full strength by Robert De Niro in this scene though he did have protective padding hitting under his costume. I wonder when this was filmed. I bet if it was filmed after Leo had tried to do all of his improv, I bet Robert De Niro had a who doing that scene. It does seem like the perfect excuse to get out some of that frustration that you've been building up with your scene partner. He was just doing it for the Oscar. Hale additionally commands that Ernest regained control of his wife Molly who is still relentlessly seeking justice for the murder of her sister. Molly's private investigator is also murdered in his hotel room by Ernest and one of his cohorts not long after. During this time, Molly falls into a deep depression and starts to question Ernest's love for her. She is also given a prescription of a new drug derived from a cow's pancreas called insulin to help treat her diabetes which is paid for and comes directly from William Hale. I did not know insulin came from a cow's pancreas. I had no idea. They also mentioned that when she gets this prescription, she is one of only five people in the country that can afford it. Probably would have been beneficial if it was actually 100% the insulin she thought it was. As time passes, Molly falls ill and grows progressively more paranoid that the doctors administering her insulin may actually be poisoning her. To ease his wife's suspicions, Ernest begins giving Molly her insulin shots personally without the aid of Hale's doctors. This is just showing how much Molly still trusts Ernest throughout all this. He is literally the only person she still trusts now. And it's all just because she still loves him and I think believes he still loves her. Sometime later, Ernest hires a moonshiner to take out another Osage man named Henry Rohn, played by William Ballot, whom William Hale has taken out a $25,000 life insurance policy on. Henry is also Molly's first husband with the marriage still being valid in the eyes of the Osage nation. They were briefly married in 1902, but it wasn't like a quote unquote legal marriage. It was kind of like an arranged thing. They were friends and they just decided to go their separate ways, but didn't have to or didn't worry about getting a divorce because it wasn't like a legal marriage in the eyes of the government just within the tribe, but she was still able to depart from him amicably and go on to Mary Ernest. Hale uses that as fuel for the fire in Ernest's jealousy, even though there really is nothing to be jealous about. As you said, this was when they were both very young and it was an arranged marriage and either one of them lived together or really interacted at all throughout the film. Very young. She would have been less than 20 years old. Unfortunately, Henry is inevitably executed in a secluded pasture by Ernest's moonshiner with the intention of it appearing to be a suicide. After Molly's mother passes away, Molly and Ernest announced that they are expecting their third child together, much to the chagrin of Uncle Hale, who've used the unborn child as just another person in line for Molly's head rights. We soon learn that Henry's body had been discovered with the death being investigated as a homicide, rather than a suicide due to Henry clearly being shot in the back of the head instead of the front. Yeah, these people were trying to pin these off as suicide, but then they would shoot them in the back of the head, where it would be very hard to load a gun, not all of them, but a good handful. Meanwhile, many Osage families have begun leaving town out of fear for their loved one's safety. While Molly has become progressively more suspicious of Ernest's direct involvement in the murder, Molly's health has also continued to decline and she is now too ill for her and her family to flee with the other. Molly's sister Reddha in her husband Bill initially stand their ground, refusing to leave as well, but are both killed when their house is destroyed in a large explosion. When Reddha's body is later uncovered amidst the debris, she is miraculously unharmed from the blast with all evidence pointing to Reddha dying from a shot to the head instead of the fire. Reddha's death is the catalyst finally provoking Molly and several other members of the Osage Nation to travel to Washington DC and plead for help directly, offering $20,000 as an additional incentive. Before the FBI decides to get involved, they were literally financing the state's investigation into these murders, an investigation of which was really not one at all. Which is just appalling in so many ways that they had to pay money for help like that because they were just being ignored. Upon Molly's return, it is confirmed that Ernest has in fact been increasingly poisoning his wife's insulin under the instruction of his uncle Hale, resulting in Molly's already fragile condition continuing to slowly deteriorate at a steady pace until she is no longer capable of leaving her own bed. Molly is soon seeing visions of an owl by her bedside just as her mother had, which the Osage believed to be a sign of impending death. Side note, here, Lily Gladstone lost 30 pounds over two weeks for the scenes in which Molly is bedridden by going on an extremely strict vegan diet during filming. Holy shit, that is a lot of weight in a very short amount of time. Seriously, I would think that maybe a raw vegan diet could do that, but just a vegan diet, you lost that much weight, that can't be healthy. Then, at long last, two hours and 45 minutes into the film, Tom White from the Bureau of Investigation being played by Jesse Plemons finally arrives in Fairfax launching an investigation into the Osage murders. So nice seeing Jesse Plemons in a role where he's not like a scary redneck. I think he might have been better as the scary redneck. I was thinking during the first scene where Leo and Plemons are exchanging with each other that Leonardo DiCaprio should have been Tom White and Jesse Plemons should have been earnest. I think that that swap would have changed a lot of things for the better. I think Leo is a much more heroic looking guy and I can buy him as the FBI person coming to investigate these murders, but as a dumb redneck hillbilly country pumpkin type guy, he has to do a lot of acting for that. Jesse Plemons, I have seen play similar roles and I think he could have hit this out of the park and done a magnificent job if he was given this role. It also would have made more sense age-wise. It would absolutely have made more sense age-wise, believe it or not, Plemons is way closer to the age of the real Ernest Burkhard. Anyway, throughout the week, White is joined by several more agents from the bureau to assist in his investigation into the deaths of nearly 30 members of the Osage Nation who had passed away under questionable circumstances. White and his agents speak with several members of the Osage Nation, as well as Molly's family physician who had performed the autopsy on both her sisters. William Hale is also inevitably questioned by White, resulting in Hale attempting to have every moonshiner outlaw he had hired to kill a member of the Osage Nation, eliminated in order to tie up any loose ends. Yeah, any witness was just dropping like flies at this point. The way it was done is Hale was setting them up for failure. Like the robbers would be tipped off to an easy place to get a couple of bucks to rob and get in and out and Hale would warn the shop owners that someone was coming to rob them and they would just get shot by the shop owners the second they tried to go inside. Yes, that was in the book as well. I don't have it in my part, but that is true. There was also some suspicion that he was like tampering with the breaks of some of their cars, so some of them died in car accidents and things like that. There's nothing that Hale would not stoop to, I think, to save his own ass. Through their continued inquiries, White and his agents learned that Ernest Brother Byron had been the last person to be seen with Anna alive before she had been murdered, and it is only a matter of time before the bureau brings Ernest in for questioning. As it turns out, Ernest's sold pal, Blackie Thompson, had already spilled the beans on Ernest's involvement in the Osage murders, which the bureau uses as leveraged convince Ernest to testify against his uncle. With Ernest's cooperation, the bureau has enough evidence to finally issue a warrant for William Hale's arrest. Hale cordially turns himself into the authorities just a few days later. This is a hilarious scene in a very serious film when Hale turns himself into the police. I tried to find a clip of it, but there isn't one online, but Hale basically goes in to the police station and is like, I'm here to turn myself in, fellas, and the sheriff's like, well, what for? And Hale's a sandwich? Well, murder if you can believe it. They try to handcuff him and the sheriff is like, no, we don't need to handcuff him, it's fine. And he was like, no handcuff me, I insist it's the most polite arresting I've ever seen. No need to handcuff a serial killer. It's like someone arresting a very kindly old grandfather, who just so happened to assassinate or plan the assassination of at least 24 people. With both Ernest and Hale now in custody, Molly is finally brought to a proper hospital for treatment and slowly begins her long road to recovery. During the trial, mere moments before Ernest is set to testify, Hale's attorney, W. S. Hamilton played by the lovable Brendan Frazier in a not-so-lovable role, outrageously claims in court that Ernest is his client and demands the opportunity to speak with his client in private before he is allowed to testify. I always forget Brendan Frazier isn't this movie. He has like two scenes. He's barely in this movie. We're down to like the last 45 minutes of the movie and he's showing up. I think it's even less than that. I think he shows up in the last 30 minutes as well as the prosecuting attorney Peter Leeward played by John Lithgow, who objects on the grounds of witness tampering, but Ernest, nevertheless, agrees to speak with Hale's attorney, delaying Ernest testimony until the following day. Ernest also admits in court at one point that he has never met this man before and has never seen him before, but I guess he is my attorney if he says so. Ernest is permitted by the bureau to return home for the evening and is reunited with Molly, who has nearly made a full recovery. That night, Ernest is summoned to speak with Hale and his attorney, but is greeted by an entire room, brimming with vile, duplicitous white men, including several wealthy oil tycoons and the local sheriff, who have all been eagerly awaiting Ernest's arrival. Ernest is then berated and gaslit for hours using a series of brutal scare tactics until Ernest inevitably relents and agrees to recant his testimony. Since Ernest's cooperation with the bureau had literally been the only thing keeping him out of jail up until this point, Ernest is promptly arrested for the murder of Molly's sister Reda and her husband Bill after informing the bureau of his change of heart. While Ernest is being kept in a holding cell, just a few short feet away from his uncle Hale, Ernest learns that one of his children has tragically passed away from whooping call. There's no easy way around it. I'm to tell you that your child has died. What's your child? What's your child? I don't know the name. Oh, his cowboy? Which one? Is there a child that had some long trouble? Yeah, like the hooping cough? Yeah. What me? No, who told you this? Who told you this? It was one of our agents there in Fairfax informed me. Molly went to see to it and take it home. There's nothing it's in it. It's in it. There's no easy way around it, son. Yeah, dude! Yeah, dude! Yeah, dude, my baby! I'm gonna miss you, son. Sorry for your loss. And let me just say that Leo is just giving it his all in this scene, practically begging for another nomination from the Academy. But the Oscars just keep saying, "Nope, we'd rather nominate every single other thing in this film, except for you, Leo, just like Titanic and Genghis of New York and the departed." When we were watching this, we both looked at each other at this scene and we're like, "There he is, there's the scene where he's trying to get that nomination." And I still cannot believe he got shafted again. The Academy does not like nominating him. Even if he's not gonna win, these performances do deserve at the very least a nomination, but for whatever reason, the Oscars are really not big Leo fans. Anyway, this traumatic event devastates Ernest who feels responsible for his child's death after poisoning his wife's insulin during her entire pregnancy. During the funeral, Ernest realizes that the only way he will ever be able to protect his remaining family from further tragedy is to testify against his uncle once and for all. Back in court, one of Hale's hired guns has already confessed to murdering Mali's sister Anna with the help of Ernest's brother, Byron. Ernest takes to the stand and testifies to his participation in the Osage murders, which had all been carefully orchestrated by his uncle, William Hale, to get his hands on Mali's head right. Ernest also still claims to have always loved his wife despite his treacherous action. Do you think he loved her? I do think that he loved her, but it's a complicated love. And I think maybe he might have gotten involved initially for the wrong reasons, but I do think with time that he did love her if he didn't at first, I think that he did in the end, even with his actions really saying otherwise, I do think that maybe he was just too scared to even stand up to his uncle. He is a very, very simple-minded man. I agree, I think he did love her. I think he kind of compartmentalized the pain he was causing her and just set it aside and didn't consider it as like a slight against her until it got to the point where Hale's sights were turned on her. After Ernest's testimony, Mali is brought into a back room to meet with her husband for the final time. Mali has a deep sadness in her eyes as she asks Ernest directly if he had been poisoning her insulin the entire time. Ernest assures her he did not, but is clearly lying and Mali knows it, brokenhearted, Mali walks out of the room without saying another word. I've thought about this scene a little and I almost think that Mali would have forgiven him if he had confessed to what he had done. I think she wanted the truth and that was his only chance at redemption with her and he couldn't confess up to his part and his responsibility. And I think that's what ultimately was the final nail in the coffin for Mali and their relationship. And it's crazy to even think that she would have forgiven him, possibly even after everything. Then in a strange change of pace, we get a radio play version of the aftermath of events including Mali's obituary read by the film's director Martin Scorsese. Scorsese has said that he made the decision to appear on screen to take responsibility for his participation in adapting the murders of the Osage Nation into a form of entertainment. Oh that is deep. Right he's even admitting like I made a movie that people are going to watch on a Sunday afternoon and it is about a historical tragedy and I need to acknowledge that I am playing a part in that. It's a very bold move to do in your own film like that. We learn that the doctors, the shown brothers, were never pursued by the legal system for having certainly helped poison Mali. Ernest brother Byron Burkhardt was tried as an accomplice to Anna's murder. Kelsey Morrison said at his trial, Byron got her drunk. I did the rest. Byron was released after a hung jury. William Hale was found guilty and was sent to 11-worth penitentiary for life. Hale was released in 1947 with the parole board citing his record as a good prisoner for his early release. Hale was not supposed to set foot in Oklahoma again but according to relatives he often visited. William Hale died in Arizona in a nursing home at 87 years old. Ernest Burkhardt was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Years later he was granted a pardon for his crimes and once again moved back to Osage County where he lived out his days with his brother Byron in a trailer park north of the city and in this final part where we learn what happened to Mali Kyle after the events of film I think I will let the film's director Martin Scorsese take that part. Mrs. Mali Cobb 50 years of age passed away at 11 o'clock Wednesday night at her home. She was a full blood O Sage. She was buried in the old cemetery and Greyhorse beside her father, her mother, her sisters and her daughter. There was no mention of the murders. And that was Martin Scorsese killers of the flower moon. What do you think Ashley? It infuriates me that those two men lived to be well into their 80s and 90s and she died at age 50. It really does seem like a miscarriage of justice of some sort. I mean you can't help when people pass away but yeah these two pieces of shit seem to live for lives and 50 years old. It seems like Mali's was cut short and I do think that Mali probably became a diabetic because white people showed up with a bunch of candy and sweets and she didn't know much about it and I think the white people ended up causing her death in the end indirectly as well. And also the immense stress that this caused her for years since her first sister died in 2018 and all the way up into her death. She was essentially ostracized from the tribe and who knows the long-term effects that the poison they were giving her had on her health. Killers of the flower moon had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 20th, 2023 with the film's United States premiere taking place on September 27th, 2023 in New York City with none of the cast members in attendance due to the 2023 sag after strike. The film currently holds a rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes with a critical consensus that reads"Enormous in runtime, theme and achievement, Killers of the flower moon is a sobering appraisal of America's relationship with indigenous peoples and yet another artistic zenith for Martin Scorsese and his collaborators. Killers of the flower moon would go on to gross a worldwide total of$157 million with variety noting that under a traditional theatrical release the film would need to gross well over $500 million in order to break even." "Yeah that is a big loss." I guess after all things were said and done, Deadline Hollywood would later report that the film lost around $20 million during its theatrical run which isn't terrible but it's still $20 million and I think that might be a reason why Netflix didn't decide to make another film with Martin Scorsese after the Irishman and I will be surprised if Martin Scorsese's next film will be on Apple Plus. I think all of these companies do it once and then realize that there's not a payoff to these sort of deals." "I could see Apple doing another one, $20 million in retrospect. I mean it's obviously a lot of money but it's not as much as they could have lost. I was thinking they lost half of their total and Apple has, I don't know if they're still kind of in that stage but when they were first coming out they basically said like they expect Apple TV to lose them a lot of money because they were really focusing on original content rather than Netflix that will just take anything that they can purchase but Apple is really like they make their money up in their products anyway.""Killers of the Flower Moon received 10 nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, wow 96 please." Including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography, only to garner absolutely zero wins by the end of the evening and notice I did not say Best Actor as a nominee." "It was a tough Oscar year man there was a lot of really good movies in my opinion that were nominated across the board." Despite the film's losses, killers of the Flower Moon still made Oscar history with Lily Gladstone becoming the first Native American actress to be nominated in her category and she did receive the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture while Martin Scorsese became the oldest person to ever be nominated for an Oscar for Best Director at the Spray Aid of 81 years old. And finally in July of 2022, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio announced that they will be teaming up yet again on the big screen adaptation of David Grant's follow-up book The Wager, a tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder. And the title is very self-explanatory of what that book is about but that was Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, a epic film with a lot of thought and effort put into it. "Man before I make a couple other comments, David Grant is like well in demand. He not only had this book and his next one turned into films but he's had two other of his works adapted for the screen. There was the Lost City of Z which we have not seen but it was starring Charlie Hanum, Tom Holland I think and there's someone else." Robert Pattinson. "Robert Pattinson, yes." And he had another one, I can't remember what it's called but it was going to be I think I don't think it's been turned into a TV series yet but I think it's in the works. I can't remember off the top of my head or find it quickly what it is about but it's gonna be an Apple TV series with Tom Hiddleston. "That should be interesting. I haven't read any of his books and his film adaptations have been pretty staggering. I have not seen the Lost City of Z but I think I had it on in the background at one point back in the day and it seemed like there was a lot of information in that one too. You really have to pay close attention to these films based on his book. I do think that the film probably did a good job adapting it. How would you say this compares to the book? I know you said the book was kind of a quicker read than you were expecting?" I'm gonna save that until after I go into my part. I will say if anyone enjoyed this movie and wants to learn more even if you haven't seen this movie and want to learn more about the Osage, I highly highly highly recommend this book. It is very good, it is very well written and it's easily digestible. "Well with that do you want to take it from here and we'll get into the true story of the killers of the flower moon?" I sure do, but before we start talking about the true story behind Scorsese's killers of the flower moon, I'm gonna start with a little history lesson into the Osage tribe and how the federal government treated indigenous people. "I'm sure that this is going to be somber." Osage territory initially encompassed everything between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. That all changed once Thomas Jefferson began purchasing land from the French in 1803. Within four years Jefferson gave the Osage a choice, relinquished their territory between the Arkansas and Missouri River or be declared enemies of the United States. "So they were coming in and just kicking them off their land and kicking them out of their homes and just saying, we own the shit now, fuck you, get out." Over the next two decades, the Osage were forced to seed nearly 100 million acres, ultimately finding refuge in eastern Kansas. Land they were insured would always be theirs. Before long the Osage were under seized by a new threat, settlers and swatters who took their land and lodged by force and pilfered their graves. Among them was the family of the author who wrote Little House on the Prairie, which is based on her experiences. In 1870, the Osage agreed to sell their Kansas land to settlers for a dollar 25 and acre, which is about $30 in today's money."It's just so fucked up, I have no words. I'm sorry I keep piping in with that, but fuck man, it's just ridiculous, it's so tragic." Oh, it gets way way worse. This did not stop restless settlers from resorting to murder to get what they wanted. After they lost Kansas, the tribe, including Molly Kyle's parents, discovered unoccupied territory in Oklahoma. The land was appealing as it was deemed too rocky, hilly and unfit for cultivation, meaning the likelihood it would be seized by the government was low. By the time the Osage settled in Oklahoma, only 3,000 tribal members remained, as two-thirds of them had been murdered or killed by diseases introduced by outside forces. Although their land was safe for the time being, the government launched a new tack on Native Americans, policies of forced assimilation. The goal was to turn indigenous people into good old church-going, English-speaking citizens. One way this was done was by controlling annuity payments, the government owed the Osage for the sale of Kansas. The government initially refused to distribute any funds unless the men started farming. Even when payments were honored, it was mostly in the form of clothing and food rations. Although the ration policy ended in the 1890s, the government pushed for assimilation intensified through allotment. Under this policy, tribes were forced to divide their land into 160 acre parcels, with each tribal member being awarded one allotment. The rest of the land was open to settlers. The goal of divving up the land into essentially real estate was to end tribal communal way of living and turn members into private property owners, while also making it easier for outsiders to procure land. In anticipation of the date, this policy went into effect thousands of settlers set up camp around Native territories. This race was supposed to start with the fire of a gun, triggering a literal race for land, and in many places violence. However, many settlers tried to sneak across and snag their lots early. These settlers were given the name "Suners," which is why the University of Oklahoma is called the Oklahoma Sooners. Fun fact, when I went to the final four college basketball tournament a handful of years ago, I made a remark about the odd name as the Sooners were in the final four. I have not known what a Sooner was until this very moment. An avid fam informed me it had deep historical meaning and referred to Oklahoma pioneers who demonstrated an energetic and can-do attitude. What? Are you fucking kidding me? I apologize for my ignorance and never really thought about it again until now. Although the University and Oklahomaans take pride in the Sooner story and their pioneer roots, I argue that it completely ignores how the allotment policy contributed to the destruction of indigenous cultures through oppression, marginalization, and genocide, as well as the transgenerational trauma that is so present within this population. There are a lot of sports teams that have had extremely troublesome names and mascots throughout the years. I don't know why so many sports teams decided to take up extremely racist, offensive names and mantles for their team, but it is unfortunately pretty common and it seems like they're trying to undo a lot of that stuff the past couple of years and in some cases it really has not been very successful. Yeah, the Sooner sure are not. There have been a lot of Native American student groups that have tried to push for the name change and they are just constantly met with backlash from the community. It's pretty gross to read some of the comments out there from people. It's just a name and I feel like most fans of the team probably do not know where that name comes from. It's not a flattering name, I'll say that. Because the Osage purchased their land, it was harder for the government to impose the allotment policy. This gave the tribe more leverage as the government was eager to complete the project. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt agreed to increase the Osage Alamance to 657 acres. In the contract, the tribe also negotiated that any oil, gas, or minerals found on the land would belong to the tribe. This was a brilliant move as small deposits of oil had been found on the land decades earlier, but most of it remained unexplored. Although Osage could sell or release the surface of their land, the mineral trust aka head rights could only be inherited. I had no idea about this whole head rights thing. I assumed you could sell it to anyone you want, but I think that's a really interesting detail of it is yours and your families no matter what. Shortly after this deal was sealed, the Osage started leasing areas for oil exploration. In 1917, the largest oil deposit was discovered by George Getty, the son of Gene Paul Getty, founder of the Getty Oil Company. We'll talk all about the Getty's in Episode 9 when we discuss the true story behind really Scott's 2017 film All the Money in the World. After this massive amount of oil was discovered, and there's a picture of it in the book, it literally is like a geyser coming out of the ground like you described, the Osage started holding auctions every three months to lease drilling rights. By 1923, some of these leases climbed to 14 million dollars, which is nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in today's money, making the Osage the wealthiest people in the world. And I'm sure that the white men who forced them into that area were just thrilled to find out that information. You actually took the words right out of my mouth. A growing number of Americans, the federal government included, became alarmed by the tribe's wealth. This led to Congress enacting a guardianship program in March 1921, under the pretense that it would help the tribe manage their funds. In other words, the government believed non-white adults were incapable of managing their own money. The program required the office of Indian affairs to assign a guardian to anyone of full Osage descent, and reducing the amount that could be distributed to a few thousand per year. If more money was needed for, say, hospital bills, education, or even a tube of toothpaste, well, that was just too bad. A large portion of the guardians were exploitative. They would direct their wards to certain stores or banks in exchange for kickbacks, steal money from their accounts, or falsify documents and buy homes or land for themselves, under the guise that the larger purchases were coming from the Osage. The guardians weren't the only ones exploiting the tribe. Bank owners, merchants, government officials, lawyers, and accountants all joined in on the action. Whenever a ward tried to report their guardian, their concerns fell on deaf ears. In the film, a few of the guardians are also members of the KKK in their spare time as well. To put this into monetary terms, a government study estimated that guardians stole at least $8 million in 1925 alone. That is close to $150 billion when adjusted for inflation. Molly Kyle was born on December 1st, 1886. She had three sisters, Anna, born in 1885, Mini, born in 1889, and Rita, born in 1891. I know you said her name was Redda in the movie, but it's actually Rita. And also Ernest's brother is Brian, not Byron. I do not understand why they changed those names. We discussed that a little bit. Yeah, I have no idea why you would slightly alter their names like that. It seems unnecessary. I checked on other online sources too, and they are listed as Rita and Byron, so it's very confusing to me. It's weird. When Molly was seven, her parents informed her she had to enroll in a Catholic boarding school, a requirement forced upon the Osage by the government. If families refused to send their children away, authorities would withhold their annuity payments, leaving the family to starve. A simulation was the focus of instruction at these schools. Boys learned farming and carpentry, while girls were taught domestic arts, such as sewing, baking, laundering, and housekeeping. Things that all of these people knew how to do before, just not the specific way that these white people wanted them to. Yeah, no kidding. Students attended classes eight months out of the year and were forbidden to speak anything other than English. If a child ran away, they were swiftly brought back on horseback, often bound by ropes. Molly was just 10 years old when oil was first discovered in Osage County. Around 1917, she met, fell in love with, and married taxi driver Ernest Bercart. Ernest grew up in Texas and left home to live with his uncle William Hale, who became a surrogate father to him in 1912. He was not a World War I veteran. We discussed this as well. I came across that in my notes. Again, I'm not sure why that was added. It has no bearings on the story or the script or anything that happens. It's just thrown in there for no reason. Hale settled on the reservation two decades earlier, arriving with little more than the clothes on his back in a Warren Bible. He found work on a ranch and eventually saved enough money to buy his own herd and 45 acres. He married a schoolteacher and had a daughter. Hale was well respected by settlers and the tribe. He aided the Osage before they were flushed with oil money, donating to charity, schools, and hospitals. He was viewed as a powerful advocate in the community, and nearly every politician sought his endorsement during election campaigns. A wolf in sheep's clothing. That is exactly what this man was. Molly and Ernest seemed to have a perfect marriage. He learned her native language, cared for her when she had medical complications from diabetes, and was a devote father to their two children, James and Elizabeth, who were eight and two years old in 1921. He didn't even bulk when Molly asked to move her aging mother Lizzie into their home earlier that year. As Molly was full-blooded Osage, he was appointed as her guardian. That's how it works. If an Osage woman marries a white man or is with a white man, they're made guardian. I think they can request to have their partner be their guardian to the Indian Office of Affairs. But many, many Osage who were married to white people, their partner was made their guardian. That's still super fucked up. Tragedy first struck Molly's family in 1918, when 27-year-old Mini suddenly died from what doctors called a peculiar wasting illness. What does that mean? She just wasted away? Yeah, I guess it's like she got sick and died, and they don't know why. You'd think you would look into that a little bit more to find out if it was a contagious disease that other people could get or something, but no investigation, I am assuming. Nope, it was just closed as a death by natural causes, despite her being only 27 and in perfect health not long before. Flash forward to May 21st, 1921. Molly was busy preparing to host a lunch in for Ernest visiting Anne and two brothers, Brian and Horace. Unbeknownst to Molly, Ernest called her older sister Anna, claiming their mother needed her. Anna was intoxicated when she arrived and immediately started making a scene, offering guests drinks from her flask, arguing with her mother and sister, and flirting with Brian who she briefly dated. Since her recent divorce from her husband, Oda Brown, she had taken up drinking, spending many nights in the boon towns that had sprung up to entertain oil drillers. After lunch, Ernest planned to take his family to see a play with Hale five miles away, with Brian offering to drive Anna home and meet up with them. So Hale has gotten airtight alibi. He seems to always have an airtight alibi. Three days passed without word from Anna. Although it was not unusual for her to go on drinking and dancing sprees, she always showed back up after a day or two. Molly had reason to be concerned too, as another Osage, Charles Whitehorn, left his house on March 14th and never returned. Ernest went to Anna's home and even though the door was locked and all the lights were off, he assured his wife that her sister would be home soon. A week after Anna's disappearance, an oil worker found a body of a man who had been shot between the eyes. His body was badly decomposed, but a letter in his pocket identified him as Charles Whitehorn. The same day, a father and son found a decomposing body in a creek while hunting swirls. Molly, her sister Rita and Rita's husband Bill Smith identified Anna by her clothing and gold fillings. This scene is in the film as well, them identifying her body. The Shone Brothers, who just so happened to be long time physicians of the Burkarts and Hale, conducted a creek side autopsy on a makeshift table. This was also in the film and I was in disbelief. I have never seen an autopsy performed outdoors in public like this ever. I've never heard of such a thing. They estimated Anna died from a gunshot wound to the back of her head five to seven days earlier. Although no bullet was recovered, it was believed that she was shot with the same type of weapon used to kill Charles Whitehorn. An empty liquor bottle was the only other piece of evidence taken from the scene. The sheriff didn't take any pictures, make castings of the two sets of tire tracks, or even check her body for gunshot residue. In the film, a lot of the times it shows that they would get the Osage drunk and then take them somewhere secluded and kill them that way. And a lot of the times it was someone that they knew and didn't really suspect was out to murder them. It would be like a good friend of yours getting drunk with you one night and then killing you by the end of it. They never saw it coming. And at this time everyone still trusted Hale. He was really viewed as one of the only white people they could trust. The discovery of Anna and Whitehorn marked the official beginning of what would later be known as the brain of terror. Brian, Ernest, and Anna's ex-husband were briefly detained as they were some of the last people to see Anna alive, but they were all quickly released as there was no real evidence connecting them to the crime. The justice of the piece closed the investigations in July 1921, simply stating that killers were unknown at the same time Molly's mom's health plummeted. She seemed to be suffering from the same mysterious wasting illness that killed many three years prior. She suddenly stopped breathing and died just two months after Anna's murder. Although Molly urged authorities to thoroughly investigate the deaths of her mom and two sisters, they seemed largely unconcerned about them by August 1921. "I can't imagine what Molly must have been going through during all of this. Imagine your entire family is being taken out one by one and you can't trust anyone. It's everyone around you is out to get you. She must have been terrified and the fact that nobody will help you would just be the worst feeling in the world. I couldn't imagine." And no one with any arresting power even really seemed to care. They're closing these investigations just one two three months after they happened. Molly and Whitehorns family issued a $2,000 reward for any information. Molly also turned to William Hale for help as he was very close to her in Anna even serving as a pallbearer at her funeral. There's another Osage who he orchestrated the death of and he was also the pallbearer at the funeral because he was also close to that family too. So Hale's a psychopath sociopath. How would you describe him? The type of person who is pretending to be your best friend and then having you taken out the next minute and still pretending to be your family's best friend afterwards is that a psychopath, a sociopath, what would you call Hale? So in the psychology realm there is in a term sociopath it's psychopath it's like the same thing and I would say William Hale definitely has strong psychopathic tendencies. He doesn't seem to have really empathy. He's clearly a very very callous he's manipulative he's dishonest. I do know that they say a lot of successful businessmen are in fact psychopaths because they can disregard other people beneath them and get ahead without empathy and this guy seems like a level 10 of that sort of thing he will take out everyone to get what he wants and not think twice about it. Yeah there is actually a test I don't want to call it a testers like a rating system I guess that psychology can use to rate these different characteristics that are believed to describe a psychopath and there's kind of two buckets the first is the interpersonal style which is something that Hale and a lot of politicians and businessmen exhibit and then there's the second bucket that's more behavioral based so someone who has a lot of meaningless relationships who gets arrested a lot who is really impulsive and things like that and people can have both but what we tend to see is that someone scores highly in one and not the other because this callous and different interpersonal style requires a little bit more control to execute and actually live somewhat of a quote unquote successful life. And it unfortunately seems to lend itself very well to the business world. A lot of successful like surgeons and doctors also score high on that because it requires a lot of a person to literally cut someone up and be surrounded by death and be able to like live your life with that as your career. I never even considered that before wow okay so I guess there is a way that it could be beneficial for some people I guess. Hale vowed to get justice for Anna and offered his own reward as well as hired a private investigator. Anna's estate also hired private detectives with the permission of her and Lizzie's guardian. The only new information reported was that Anna was pregnant at the time she was killed, something she revealed to a few people and as I alluded to earlier several witnesses believed that the child was Hale's. Molly's brother-in-law Bill Smith was the first to publicly wonder if Lizzie was poisoned and if the sudden demise of Molly's three family members was connected to their wealth. Molly and Hale initially suspected Bill played a role in Minnie's death since he was married to her when she died and married Rita the following year. However he seemed determined to catch the culprit and threw himself into his own investigation. From February to July 1922 at least three other Osage were poisoned. The number of suspicious deaths continued to climb by August prompting a trusted oilman to travel to DC to ask for federal assistance. He never did make it into the capital building as he was kidnapped and brutally killed as soon as he arrived. Molly and Ernest had their third child in early 1923. In February, Henry Rohn, a close friend of Hale's, was found shot dead in his car. Hale claimed Rohn often asked him for cash advances when he couldn't get money from his guardian, which is why Rohn listed him as the beneficiary of the $25,000 life insurance policy. In the film, Rohn is portrayed as having a bit of a drinking problem and that is why he repeatedly goes to Hale for money because he has already spent his allowance or whatever you would call it and he needed more money to buy moonshine and Hale would give it to him and so he agreed to this awful deal with the life insurance thing. In the book it questions whether Rohn actually agreed to this or if Hale essentially committed fraud and forged documents to get the money. In the film, Hale brings him to a doctor to be examined for his insurance, but that may have been an exaggeration. On March 9, Bill traveled to the farm of a known bootleger and rodeo star as he heard Rohn and Anna bought whiskey from him shortly before their deaths. That same night, his house literally exploded. Instantly killing Molly's last surviving sister Rita and the Smith's 19 year old maid Nettie. Remarkably, Bill was alive and rushed to the hospital but he died from his injuries a week later. Hale was in Texas at the time of the explosion but he again vowed to avenge the family. In June 1923, attorney W. Vaughn received a call that his long term friend George Bigheart was in the hospital from a suspected poisoning and had information about the Osage murders that he would only describe to the lawyer. What Bigheart told him was enough to convince him to board an overnight train to DC. Before leaving, he told his wife where he stashed money and evidence he had collected about the crimes. But when the train arrived at the station the next day, Vaughn wasn't on it. His body was found near Railroad tracks three days later and with his widow, checked the hiding spot, everything was missing. By this point, the official death toll of the rain of terror was at least 24 tribal members and two white men who attempted to alert federal authorities. Despite the alarming death toll, the justice of the piece was no longer convening inquests and the sheriff wasn't even pretending to investigate. Come mid 1925, Molly was no longer seen at church and gave her youngest daughter to a relative to raise. She was getting insulin injections, mostly administered by the shown brothers, the same doctors who led that makeshift autopsy when Anna's body was discovered. Despite her regular treatments, she kept getting sicker. The office of Indian affairs received two letters, including one from Molly's priest, expressing concern that she was being poisoned, prompting them to reach out yet again to federal authorities. This time, the tribes plea for help did not fall in death years. Soon after, Tom White, a federal agent stationed in Houston, was summoned to DC headquarters by J. Edgar Hoover, the new boss of the Bureau of Investigation, who was also portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in a Clint Eastwood film. Which I have not seen and neither have you and we almost did as an episode for this podcast, but I insisted there was no true crime element to the film J. Edgar. White served as a Texas ranger and joined the Bureau in 1917. Roosevelt created the Bureau in 1908. At the time, the scope of the Bureau, which formally became known as the FBI in 1935, was limited. They were and still are only assigned to crimes that occur across state lines and on reservations. A primary difference between then and now is FBI agents were supposed to be solely fact-gatherers. They had no arrest authority and weren't even allowed to care guns. 29-year-old Hoover was selected as the interim FBI director in the summer of 1924. He was tasked with identifying crooked agents, but also advocated to raise qualifications to include some sort of legal training or knowledge in accounting. He became the acting director by the end of the year. Hoover selected Tom White to lead the Osage Murder investigation based on the outstanding job he did during an assignment unveiling corruption in the Atlanta State Penitentiary, the prison that would be the temporary home to Al Capone come 1932. White was told he could assemble his own team with full support from Hoover. As he was well aware, previous investigators were killed or had difficulty finding cooperating witnesses because of prejudice, corruption, and fear. He chose to be the face of the investigation with about eight other agents assigned to undercover positions. This is also portrayed in the film, although I think there are a couple other agents that everyone know are agents, but there are quite a few undercover officers as well. His men posed as ranchers who introduced themselves to Hale, an insuring salesman who went door to door under the guise of selling policies, and a Native American who pretended to be searching for long-lost relatives. All of these people are in the film. White started his investigation from scratch, as merely all evidence of the murders had mysteriously vanished, been destroyed, or just wasn't collected in the first place. He started by systematically cooperating each suspect's alibi. Finally, in August 1925, White got a lead. Despite Bryan's seemingly airtight alibi being at a musical with his family, several witnesses saw him and another unknown white man at a speedy with Anna until 3 a.m. Bryan's neighbor also claimed he came home at sunrise and bribed him not to tell anyone. That is also portrayed in the film, and it's pretty fucked up. He comes home from murdering Molly's sister and Molly's awake at the time, and she gives him a pillow and tucks him in when he arrives home. Ernest or Bryan? Bryan. Oh, God. After the private investigator, Hale hired to investigate Anna's death years earlier was arrested for robbery. He disclosed he was actually asked to manufacture evidence and generate false witnesses to create Bryan's alibi, not to solve the murder. He also claimed Ernest was well aware of what was going on. By September, White suspected Bill Smith was killed because he was conducting his own investigation. Smith's primary nurse and attorney is told White that Bill met with Hale and the shown brothers right before he died and that he was afraid of Hale and Ernest. White also talked to Ron's widow, who said her husband repeatedly refused to give Hale access to his estate before he died. Despite Hale turning in suspicious paperwork, granting him access right after Ron died. How it's described in the book is that the wife was like Hale basically kept Ron drunk for a full year and every time he would be intoxicated, he would give him these papers to try to sign for the insurance policy, but he repeatedly refused. And there was other witnesses, I think Ernest actually says this later, that Hale was practicing Ron's signature to forge those documents that got him the life insurance policy. I hate to sound like a broken record, but that is also in the film I had trouble knowing how long had passed, but it is in the film him getting a drunk and trying to get Henry's signature and yeah, all of that. She also said Hale tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to circumvent federal law, preventing him from purchasing Ron's head rights and gifted her a bottle of whiskey, which she refused to drink for fear of it being poisoned, which I guarantee you that bottle was poisoned. Oh 100% yeah, without a doubt. This prompted white to examine head right inheritance records and discover a trail leading back to Molly and her guardian Ernest Berkhardt. He also spoke to an imprisoned outlaw who in hopes of getting a shorter sentence turned on Hale. The outlaw told white his gang leader was offered $2,000 to blow up Bill and Rita Smith's house and several witnesses to the plot, including the man who built the makeshift bomb had since died under mysterious circumstances. The man who built the bomb was the one who died during the robbery at times and everyone believed that Hale told him, "Hey, this will be an easy place for you to rob" and then went back to the shop owner who was waiting for the bomb maker and blew him away as soon as he entered the shop. Concerns about Molly's health peaked in December 1925. Her pre-suspected she was being held captive by her family and warned her to not drink any liquor offered to her. The office of Indian affairs also suspected she was being poisoned because despite being treated by several doctors, including the shown brothers, she just kept getting sicker. The office noted her illness was very suspicious and strongly recommend she received treatment out of hospital far from her husband and uncle-in-law. These concerns prompted white to obtain arrest warrants for Ernest and Hale for the murders of Bill and Rita. Although agents couldn't find Hale at first, he strolled into the sheriff's office on January 4th, 1926 and turned himself in, officially marking the end of the four-year reign of terror."So yeah, exactly how it's portrayed in the movie too, just walking in, hands up, guess I'm going to jail for murder in somebody if you can believe it? Yeah, fuck this guy." Ernest was confronted with the circumstantial evidence but denied everything the day of his arrest. Hale also claimed to have proof he was in Texas on the day of the bombing. White turned to outlaw Blackie Thompson, a brief undercover operative who have scondered and killed a police officer. Although White made it clear that he would not get any sort of reduced sentence for the crime, Blackie turned on Hale and Ernest by telling White they asked him to murder Bill and Rita. Ernest continued to deny any involvement the following day, even though Blackie was brought into the room and let him know he was cooperating with the feds. Shortly after, White called it a night. He got a call from the jail saying Ernest was ready to talk pretty much as soon as he got home and got ready for bed. In the third interrogation, Ernest identified Hale as the mastermind in the deaths of Bill and Rita, Henry Rone and Anna Brown, with money being the motive. He remained cagey about Bryan's role in Anna's murder but he penned Kelsey Morrison as the triggerman. This was shocking news as Morrison was actually working with the FBI undercover but it would explain why Hale seemed to know details about the investigation. He was a double agent. White also spoke to the shown brothers as Molly started to get better as soon as she was away from Ernest and Hale."Imagine that." They of course denied all involvement and despite her rapidly improved condition, she just couldn't believe Ernest was involved in her attempted murder or those of her family."She still loved him after everything she couldn't believe it." Her loyalty to Ernest resulted in many Osage ostracizing and blaming her for bringing killers onto their land, which isn't really fair. They were there long before. Hale's attorney was given the opportunity to speak to Ernest privately during a preliminary hearing in March 1926. Unlike how it's depicted in the movie, this was just like a 20-minute conversation in the judges' chambers because Ernest was detained throughout this whole process. "The film makes it look like he is grilled from sundown to sun up by Brendan Frazier and Robert De Niro and all of the evil oil men." The next morning, Ernest shared he was being represented by Hale's lawyers and recanted all his statements about the bombing, causing the state to charge him for the murders. Kelsey Morrison, the man who Ernest said murdered Anna, flipped sides yet again and testified about how Hale plotted to eliminate all of Molly's family so Ernest could get their head rights in his states. In June, Ernest obtained new counsel without the knowledge of Hale. He then changed his plea to guilty to participating in the organization of the bombing and received a life sentence for the death of Bill and Rita. Molly filed for divorce shortly thereafter. Hale and another man went to trial for the murder of Henry Rohn in July 1926. Ernest testified about Hale's plans to kill Rohn, yet somehow the jury was deadlocked after five days of deliberation. The jury was also hung in Brian's trial for the murder of Anna. White strongly suspected Hale yet again used his influence to bribe or threaten the jury, causing him to employ extra safeguars to prevent tampering and subsequent hearings. This tactic of safeguarding the jury proved successful as Rohn's killers were convicted of murder and received a life sentence in October. A year later, Kelsey Morrison was convicted of the murder of Anna Brown. Brian testified in exchange for immunity. Although White was unable to link Hale to the other 24 O Sage murders, he did show how Hale financially benefited from them. Unfortunately, none of these cases would ever be prosecuted. Hoover used the O Sage murder investigation as a showcase for the FBI success, careful to disclose any of the lenders, such as Blackie Thompson, murdering a police officer under their watch. He never mentioned White by name when talking about the case, but the O Sage tribal council publicly praised him and his team. I think Hoover was just so desperate to make the FBI happen that he just opted to take credit for everything. Soon after, the council persuaded Congress to pass a new law preventing anyone less than half O Sage from inheriting head rights. White left the FBI shortly after Hale's trial and took a job as a Kansas prison warden. As luck would have it, it was the same prison where Hale and his co-defendant were housed. What? How is that allowed? How does that happen? What the fuck? Like, did he see people that he knew when he was behind bars and they're like, hey, warden? I don't know, but I was like that was probably really, really wild. But apparently, it didn't really affect White and he actually like went out of his way to approach Hale's wife and daughter and let them know that he wasn't gonna like get in the way of them trying to visit or anything like that. And he treated these men just like he did all the other prisoners. Wow, okay. In December 1931, White was taken hostage by a group of seven inmates who smuggled in a rifle, a shot off shotgun, and six sticks of TNT into the prison. They were apprehended after they shot White and left him to die in a ditch. Thankfully, he was found, rushed to a hospital, and transferred to a prison in Texas after he recovered. He was 90 years old when he died in December 1971. I like White. Made it to 90. Wow, that's a long life he led. Molly married John Cobb in 1928. In 1931, at the age of 44, she was finally declared competent, ending her guardianship and allowing her to spend her money as she pleased for the first time in her life. About damn time. She died at the age of 50 in June 1937. Hale never admitted to his involvement in any of the Osage murders. He even went as far as to send a letter to the tribe in 1931, claiming he would always be a true fent of the Osage and hoped to return to the reservation someday, even though his sentence banned him from sending foot in Oklahoma ever again. They read this letter during the radio play portion of the film. It is eerie. Like this guy is just still continuing to torment these people from prison. Now they are living in fear that he's just going to come back into the reservation one day and continue tormenting them and murdering them. As we said before, he's a psychopath. He was 72 years old when he was released from prison in 1947 after serving 20 years of his life sentence. I want to take this opportunity to point out the age difference with the characters in the movie and the real life versions because Robert De Niro was 80 years old when he was playing William Hale and how old was Hale supposed to be when these crimes were occurring. If he was 72 when he was released he would have been in his late 40s early 50s. So closer to de capriose age than De Niro's age. So that means that Ernest most likely was maybe in his 30s? Again much younger than how he is portrayed in the film. Not a deal breaker but just something I thought I would point out. Hale died in an Arizona nursing home in 1962. Ernest was paroled at the end of 1937, the same year as Molly's death so that means he served about 10-11 years of his life sentence. He quickly violated parole by robbing an Osage home and was sent back to prison until 1959. As he too was banned from returning to Oklahoma he initially found work on a sheep farm in New Mexico. However, he successfully appealed his ban was pardoned despite intense protests from the Osage and returned to the reservation to live with Brian in a trailer. Just two redneck brothers living out the rest of their shitty days in a shitty trailer but still wanted to be assholes about where that trailer was placed. I know right? This is a real big country move it away from these people who hate you. Seriously get the fuck out. I mean take a hint. Come on. His eldest son visited him a few times seemingly the only child to do so. Not only were his children ostracized from the tribe but they knew that they and Molly were supposed to have been sleeping at Bill and Rita's the night of the bombing meaning his kids had to live their lives knowing their father tried to kill them. He died in 1986 at the age of 94. Can you imagine how knowing that you were supposed to have been literally blown up by your father your whole life knowing this would impact who you became and just how your life played out? Let alone being ostracized by the Osage as well. I mean these kids didn't do anything and yeah that is unimaginable thinking that your own parent had planned to brutally take you out when you were a child. I couldn't imagine. Do you know anything about what happened to the kids later in life? There's a portion in the book the author speaks to Ernest granddaughter and by then two of them had died but the daughter did say that they were both deeply troubled for their remainder of their lives and I think Ernest children's life long suffering is an example of this transgenerational trauma that I mentioned earlier when I was talking about the tuners because it definitely would impact how they related to their own children their own mental health struggles which would then be ingrained into their kids and possibly subsequent lineages. The price of oil plummeted in 1931 resulting in a gradual decrease of drillers and boom towns in Osage County in 2006 the tribe had 20,000 members 4,000 of which resided in Osage County in 2015 a foreign power company built a windmill farm on the land the government sided with the company when the Osage filed suit against them for installing windmills on the land without a lease or permission. Of course they did. In 2012 David Grand the author of Killers of the Fire Moon reviewed the FBI files on the Osage murders although the FBI insisted hail and his conspirators were the only guilty parties. Grand suspected a larger conspiracy and traveled to Osage County for answers. Grand met with many descendants of the murdered Osage including the granddaughter of WWVON the man who has thrown off the train on his way to the capital after getting information from his friend George Bigheart before his death by poisoning. She believed hail was behind Vaughn's death and somehow learned about the secret information gathered about the murders. After reviewing binders of documents Grand learned Vaughn tried to help Bigheart be certified as competent so he could freely spend his head right payments. Grand also found an old article detailing how Vaughn's long-term friend and corrupt bank owner H.G. Bert boarded the train with Vaughn and was the one to report him missing. After Bigheart died Bert and Hail received thousands of dollars from Bigheart's estate and Bert became the guardian of his daughter who just so happened to inherit his father's head rights. Hail was connected to at least one other Osage murder that of William Stepson in 1922. Prior to his conviction for the murder of Anna Brown, Kelsey Morrison admitted to killing Stepson so he could marry his wife and get access to their estate. She also died from suspected poisoning. While incarcerated, a note to Hail was intercepted in which Morrison identified Stepson's children and asked his next targets. Although the FBI claimed all the Osage murders were connected to Hail, this wasn't the case. After reviewing a logbook listing Osage Guardians during the ran of terror, Grand discovered many of them had well over half of their wards suddenly die, with some having every single person they were the guardian of dying young. Guardians weren't the only people suspected of killing the Osage for head rights. Many tribal members married to whites were believed to have been poisoned by their partners and co-conspirators. Although the FBI listed 1921 to 1925 as the beginning and end point of Hail's ran of terror, Grand's research shows the murder started as early as 1918 unlasted until at least 1931. The actual number of Osage deaths, a large majority of which were never investigated or even classified as homicides, is likely well into the hundreds, not limited to 24 of the FBI linked to William Hale. Despite having the higher standard of living at the time, the Osage death rate was 1.5 times higher than the national average, which shouldn't be the case. If you have a higher living, you have more access to healthcare and good food and all that, so their death rate should have actually been way lower than the national average. Most descendants of Osage murder victims will never know what really happened to their families. They are forced to live in doubt, with some so questioning the motives of since deceased relatives. Guardians, doctors, attorneys, merchants, bankers, and politicians all benefited from the genocide and extortion of the Osage. Virtually every element of society was complicit, and that is the true story of Martin Scorsese's killers of the Flowerman. Truly a tragic heartbreaking tale, which I believe was done very respectfully by Martin Scorsese, and yeah, everything that you said, there were numerous quick scenes throughout killers of the Flowerman that covered other things that I didn't include, that you included in your portion, and the attention to detail and the level of tragedy is heartbreaking and moving, and yeah, I'm speechless, really. It's a very, very tragic story. I think the biggest difference I noticed is the movie shows earnest as having a more direct role than he claimed he had in the book. That's not saying he didn't do some of the things that was depicted in the movie, but it wasn't really mentioned in the book. He was adamant that he never directly killed anyone, but was withheld when other bootleggers and stuff were tapped to do it. Again, that doesn't mean he didn't do it, but that was the primary difference I noticed between the movie and the book. I believe the movie only shows him personally killing one person with the help of one of his cohorts, but it was a quick clip, and it also could have been Mali imagining what had happened during that murder and believing earnest, and suspecting earnest may have been a part of it. Ah, got it. Yeah, that would make sense. There's no way he wasn't there when some of these happened. I mean, Brian was, so I wouldn't earnest. He was closer to health than Brian. Brian wasn't the one that was tapped to be fully aware of everything that was going on. I'm sure he knew, but it seemed that earnest was really hell's right hand man, because in my opinion, he was married to Mali. Well, with that, we have reached the portion of the program where we give the film a rating. If this is your first time, we'll run through the rating system with you really quick. If the film got almost all of the information correct, we will give it a not guilty verdict. If it got just some of the information correct, we will give the film a mistrial. And if the film got practically nothing correct, we will give the film a guilty verdict. Ashley, do you want to start us off here today? Okay, this one was tough. I went back and forth between not guilty and mistrial. But in the end, even though it kind of shifted the focus of the movie compared to the book from White/Molly to Ernest Berkart, I think I am going to give it a not guilty. The only two things I can think of at the top of my head right now that really stand out are Ernest being a veteran and the slight name alterations. It's not even name changes. That's why it's so weird to me. It's just like he just changed a couple letters. And the ages? That's another small thing. And the ages, yeah. That's done all the time in movies. But other than that, it seemed that pretty much all the major points, including a lot more of the deaths and names of the Osage than I anticipated were in the movie. And it's also very hard to ignore and not consider the attention to detail that Martin Scorsese took to maintain cultural accuracy. And for those reasons, I'm going to go with not guilty. I am also going to give this film a not guilty verdict. The only problems I have with this film are about its length and the way the story is from Ernest perspective. But I do think that the facts and information itself is all very, very accurate. And Martin Scorsese went out of his way to get as many details and even had an actor play every single Osage who died has an actor portraying them in the film. They are never just a name. They are never just a dead body. There is always at least one shot or at least one scene of the person alive. So little things like that, I feel, are very respectful and he took his time. And I personally, if I were to change this film, I of course would have changed the perspective. And I also think you could have relayed a lot of the information through the interrogations that white does when he is learning the information because a lot of the info is given out of order already. It's given through flashbacks. It's given through small edits throughout the film that lets you piece it together. And I think switching the perspective and having the information delved out a bit differently could tighten this film up in general. But I think as it goes, it is a brilliant film. And I think it did a very, very good job of portraying that information. And despite what Martin Scorsese says at the end about his role in portraying this as entertainment, I feel as though there is a line in the movie that I'm gonna read. And it's by Robert De Niro's character William Hale. And they're discussing the Osage murders him and Ernest. And he says to Ernest, there might be a public outcry for a while, but then you know what happens, people forget. They don't remember, they don't care. They just don't care. It's just gonna be another everyday common tragedy. And I think this is a tragedy that I personally did not know about and many people did not know about until this film. And I do think that it is important to remind people that this sort of thing took place and to not forget. And I think this film does a very good job of that. And it's a brilliant movie. I just really, really wish it was shorter. I think you said that all very eloquently and perfectly. And I'm not even gonna try to follow it up. In a complete change of pace, do you want to tell us what will be covering next week? Yes, next week we are gonna tone it down a bit. This was a very heavy episode. So we're gonna switch up the pace and do a comedy. We are going to be talking about Jared Hesse's 2015 film Mastermind starring a cast of characters you surely recognize, including But Not Limited to, Zach Gellifanakis, Kristen Wigg, Owen Wilson, Jason Sadekis, Leslie Jones. Am I missing anyone? Kate McKinnon. Kate McKinnon. Yes, it is a comedy movie about a bank heist, one of the largest in American history. I may add that was perpetuated by David Gantt, Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers, among others. And it is a film. I will say that. It is, it is a comedy film. It is about as different a film from this one that we could possibly have chosen as a follow-up. It is a under two hours blue comedy film loosely based on a real world event, but we will go into all those details because a lot of this stuff I wouldn't think was true ended up actually being true, but it's interesting and it is going to be a very, very, very different episode. I promise you all that. Until then, if you like what you are hearing, please, please, please take a minute to rate review and subscribe. It really helps the algorithm and get our podcast out there. Also, refer us to your friends, family co-workers, whoever. We also have an Instagram where we share pictures of the actors and their real life kind of parts as well as some interesting photos that I have found and a tick talk where we'll post little videos about what me and Remi think are the best fun facts about both of the parts we talk about. You can find us both on those sites at criminal adaptations. And until next week, everyone, court is adjourned. True crime stories has been brought to you through the courtesy of Jay Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation