Tillie died, Marvin’s father, who was three years old at the time,
became the next target, along with his nine-year-old half sister. In
1926, Morrison, while serving time in prison for killing Anna
Brown, sent a note to Hale, which was intercepted by guards. The
note, filled with grammatical errors, said, “Bill, you know Tillies
kids are going to have 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollars in a few
years, and I have those kids adopted. How can I get possession or
control of that money when I get out. You know I belive I can take
these kids out of the State and they cant do a dam thing...they
Could not get me for Kidnapping.” It was feared that Morrison
planned to kill both children. An Osage scholar once observed,
“Walking through an Osage cemetery and seeing the gravestones
that show the inordinate numbers of young people who died in the
period is chilling.”
Marvin Stepson had the judicious air of someone who had spent
his whole career serving the law. But he told me that when he first
learned what Morrison had done to his family, he feared what he
might be capable of doing. “If Morrison walked in this room right
now, I’d...” he said, his voice trailing off.
In cases where perpetrators of crimes against humanity elude
justice in their time, history can often provide at least some final
accounting, forensically documenting the murders and exposing
the transgressors. Yet so many of the murders of the Osage were
so well concealed that such an outcome is no longer possible. In
most cases, the families of the victims have no sense of resolution.
Many descendants carry out their own private investigations,
which have no end. They live with doubts, suspecting dead
relatives or old family friends or guardians—some of whom might
be guilty and some of whom might be innocent.
When McAuliffe tried to find the killer of his grandmother, he