Court, but with a ruling not expected for months, Hale and
Ramsey would have to be released. “It appeared that Bill Hale’s
lawyers—just as his friends predicted—had clipped the
government’s tail feathers good,” one writer observed.
Hale and Ramsey were celebrating in the courtroom, when they
were approached by Sheriff Freas. He shook hands with Hale, then
said, “Bill, I have a warrant for your arrest.” White and prosecutors
had worked with the Oklahoma attorney general to keep Hale and
Ramsey behind bars by filing state charges against them for the
bombing murders.
White and the prosecutors had no choice but to initiate the state
case in Pawhuska, the Osage County seat and a Hale stronghold.
“Very few, if any, believe that we can ever be able to get a jury in
Osage County to try these parties,” White told Hoover. “Trickeries
and all methods of deceit will be resorted to.”
At a preliminary hearing, on March 12, Osage men and women,
many of them relatives of the victims, crammed into the
courtroom to bear witness. Hale’s wife, his eighteen-year-old
daughter, and his many boisterous supporters clustered behind
the defense table. Journalists jostled for space. “Seldom if ever has
such a crowd gathered in a court room before,” a reporter from the
Tulsa Tribune wrote. “Here are well-groomed business men,
contesting standing room with roustabouts. There are society
women sitting side by side with Indian squaws in gaudy blankets.
Cowboys in broad brimmed hats and Osage chiefs in beaded garb
drink in the testimony. Schoolgirls crane forward in their seats to
hear it. All the cosmopolitan population of the world’s richest spot
—the Kingdom of the Osage—crowd to catch the drama of blood
and gold.” A local historian later ventured that the Osage murder
trials received more media coverage than the previous year’s
Scopes “monkey trial,” in Tennessee, regarding the legality of