Katherine, his wife, because she knew too much about the Anna
Brown murder deal. Kelsie said that he would give me a note to
Bill Hale and that Hale would fix the arrangements.” Hale paid the
gunman and told him to “get her out drunk and get rid of her.” But
at the last minute the gunman wouldn’t go through with it, and
after being picked up on a robbery charge, he told authorities
about the plan. Still, the plots continued.
White, who had ordered his men to work in pairs for security,
received a tip that a former member of the Al Spencer Gang had
shown up in Pawhuska to kill federal agents. White told Agent
Smith, “We’d better head this off,” and armed with .45 automatics,
they confronted the man at a house where he was staying. “We
hear you’ve threatened to run us out of town,” White said.
The outlaw assessed the lawmen and said, “I’m just a friend of
Bill Hale’s. Just happened in town, is all.”
White subsequently informed Hoover, “Before this man could
put into execution any of his ‘dirty’ work, he left...as he was given
to understand that it would be healthier for him some other
place.”
White was extremely concerned about Ernest Burkhart. Hale
later told one ally that Burkhart was the only witness he was afraid
of. “Whatever you do, you get to Ernest,” Hale told him.
Otherwise, he said, “I’m a ruined man.”
On January 20, 1926, Burkhart—whom the government had not
yet charged, waiting to see the extent of his cooperation—told
White that he was sure he was going to be “bumped off.”
“I’ll give you all the protection the government can afford,”
White promised him. “Whatever is necessary.”
White arranged for Agent Wren and another member of his
team to spirit Burkhart out of the state and guard him until the
trial. The agents never registered Burkhart in hotels under his own