had gotten her sister drunk and then propped up her body while
Morrison shot her in the back of the head—or, as Bryan put it,
“watered” her.
Bryan recalled that a week after the shooting he had returned to
the scene of the crime with Mollie and her family to identify
Anna’s rotting corpse. The memory had lingered with Mollie, but
only now could she fully comprehend the scene: Bryan was
standing near her, staring down at his victim while feigning grief.
“Did you go out to see this body?” an attorney asked Bryan.
“That is what we all went for,” he said.
The shocked attorney asked him, “You knew Anna Brown’s dead
body was out there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Morrison had been among the onlookers. Ernest had been there,
too, comforting Mollie, even though he had known that Anna’s
two killers were standing only a few feet away from them.
Similarly, Ernest had known from the moment Rita and Bill
Smith’s house exploded who was responsible; he had known the
truth when, later that evening, he had crept into bed with Mollie,
and he had known the whole time she had been desperately
searching for the killers. By the time Morrison was convicted of
Anna’s murder, Mollie could no longer look at Ernest. She soon
divorced him, and whenever her husband’s name was mentioned,
she recoiled in horror.
For Hoover, the Osage murder investigation became a showcase
for the modern bureau. As he had hoped, the case demonstrated to
many around the country the need for a national, more
professional, scientifically skilled force. The St. Louis Post-
Dispatch wrote of the murders, “Sheriffs investigated and did