A REIGN OF TERROR

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12116, 18 April 1925, Page 11

A REIGN OF TERROR

RED INDIANS MURDERED BAND OF OUTLAWS AT WORK TWENTY DONE TO DEATH. NEW YORK, March 10. A message from Pawhuska, Oklahoma, states that more than a dozen witnesses are in the town to testify in the investigation into the murders of at least 20 rich Osage Indians in the last two years. The probe is being conducted by the office of the State’s Attorney-General and the United States Department of Justice.

Investigators believe that some white man. at tho head of a band of outlaws in the section is at the bottom of the crimes, and that bo has tba Indians so intimidated that they will not talk Tho Jndiails' met death in various ways. Anna Brown, a full-blood Osage, was found dead in an isolated wood about two years ago. Charles Whitehoru. alao a full-blood, was found a few days later. Ho had been shot twice in the head.

Then followed the mysterious disappearance of Henry Roan, a rich Osage boy and relative of Anna Brown. His body was found later in his car on a deserted road, the victim of a bullet. A few days later came the death of the lawyer who had been investigating the murder of Anna Brown and the Roan hoy. His body was recovered near tho Ivaty railway in the vicinity of Pershing, in Osage county. Tho town shivered again four days later, when a charge of nitro-glycerina blew from the tomb tho body of an Indian. Then followed other murders and do predations, which were taken by the citizens; of Osage county as a solemn warning from the outlaw band. A dynamite explosion killed Bill Smith, his wife, and their maid, Nettie Brookshire, at Fairfield, Oklahoma, in 1023. Mrs Smith was a sister of Anna Brown.

Eliza Biglieart, another sister of Anna Brown, died mysteriously in Oklahoma City a few weeks later. Others tyere said to have been poisoned. These Indians and many others, the records of whose deaths were not obtainable, owned estates mounting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and also had large incomes. For months operatives of tho Department of Justice have been stationed in the Osage Indian country; sometimes they passed as rum-runners or cattle buyers, but mere often as denizens of the underworld haunts of the Osage hills. Evidence thus obtain*ed was disclosed in court, and several murder indictments are expected. I The countryside is tense as the probe opens. Pawhuska is crowded with Indians and white men from the range country. Few words are spoken, for; talking has gone out of vogue since the i “reign of terror” began.