White and his agents took the stand to refute the allegations.
Still, William B. Pine—a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who was a
wealthy oilman and had defended the guardianship system—began
to lobby government officials for White and his men to be fired
from the bureau.
At Ernest Burkhart’s trial, tempers could no longer be
contained. When a defense attorney alleged that the government
had committed fraud, a prosecutor shouted, “I’ll meet the man
who says it out in the courtyard.” The two men had to be
separated.
With the government’s case in trouble, prosecutors eventually
called a witness who, they believed, could sway the jury in their
favor: the bootlegger and former bureau informant Kelsie
Morrison. White and his men had earlier confronted Morrison
after learning of his deception. Morrison seemed to have only one
guiding force: his own self-interest. When he thought that Hale
was more powerful than the U.S. government, he’d served as a
double agent for the King of the Osage; once he was caught and
realized that the government controlled his fate, he flipped sides
and admitted his role in the conspiracy.
Now, as rain fell and thunder clapped outside the courtroom,
Morrison testified that Hale had plotted to eliminate all the
members of Mollie’s family. Hale had informed him that he
wanted to get rid of “the whole damn bunch” so that “Ernest
would get it all.”
As for Anna Brown, Morrison said that Hale had recruited him
to “bump that squaw off” and had given him the weapon—a .380
automatic. Bryan Burkhart had acted as his accomplice. After
making sure that Anna was good and drunk, they drove out to
Three Mile Creek. Morrison’s wife at the time, Cole, was with
them, and he told her to stay in the car. Then he and Bryan