When White entered the box, he found Burkhart slumped in his
seat, tired and resigned. Burkhart told White that he hadn’t killed
all those people, but he knew who had. “I want to tell,” he said.
White reminded Burkhart of his rights, and Burkhart signed a
paper that said, “After being so warned, and with no promises
having been made me of immunity from prosecution, and of my
own free will and accord, I now make the following statement.”
Burkhart began speaking about William Hale—about how he
had worshipped him as a boy, how he had done all types of jobs for
him, and how he had always followed orders. “I relied on Uncle
Bill’s judgment,” he said. Hale was a schemer, Burkhart said, and
though he hadn’t been privy to all the mechanics of Hale’s plots,
his uncle had shared with him details of a murderous plan: to kill
Rita and Bill Smith. Burkhart said that he had protested when
Hale had informed him of his intention to blow up the whole
house and everyone in it, including his own relatives. Hale told
him, What do you care? Your wife will get the money.
Burkhart said that he went along with Hale’s plan, as he always
did. Hale had first approached the outlaws Blackie Thompson and
Curley Johnson to do the bloodletting. (In a later statement,
Burkhart recalled, “Hale had told me to see Curley Johnson, and to
find out how tough he was, and if he wanted to make some money,
and told me to tell Johnson the job was to bump a squaw-man”—
referring to Bill Smith.) Then, when Johnson and Blackie couldn’t
do the job, Hale sought out Al Spencer. After Spencer refused,
Hale spoke to the bootlegger and rodeo star Henry Grammer, who
promised to provide a man for the job. “Just a few days before the
blow-up happened, Grammer told Hale that Acie”—Asa Kirby
—“would do it,” Burkhart recalled. “That is what Hale told me.”
Burkhart said that Lawson had nothing to do with the explosion,