the county’s notorious criminals. Another investigator then caught
Davis taking a bribe from the head of a local gambling syndicate in
exchange for letting him operate his illicit businesses. And it soon
became clear that the state’s special investigator in charge of
solving the Osage murder cases was himself a crook.
In June 1923, Davis pleaded guilty to bribery and received a two-
year sentence, but a few months later he was pardoned by the
governor. Then Davis and several conspirators proceeded to rob—
and murder—a prominent attorney; this time, Davis received a life
sentence. In November, Governor Walton was impeached and
removed from office, partly for having abused the system of
pardons and paroles (and having turned “loose upon the honest
citizens of the state a horde of murderers and criminals”) and
partly for having received illicit contributions from the oilman E.
W. Marland that were used to build a lavish home.
Amid this garish corruption, W. W. Vaughan, a fifty-four-year-
old attorney who lived in Pawhuska, tried to act with decency. A
former prosecutor who vowed to eliminate the criminal element
that was a “parasite upon those who make their living by honest
means,” he had worked closely with the private investigators
struggling to solve the Osage murder cases. One day in June 1923,
Vaughan received an urgent call. It was from a friend of George
Bigheart, who was a nephew of the legendary chief James
Bigheart. Suffering from suspected poisoning, Bigheart—who was
forty-six and who had once written on a school application that he
hoped to “help the needy, feed the hungry and clothe the naked”—
had been rushed to a hospital in Oklahoma City. His friend said
that he had information about the murders of the Osage but would
speak only to Vaughan, whom he trusted. When Vaughan asked
about Bigheart’s condition, he was told to hurry.
Before leaving, Vaughan informed his wife, who had recently