Osage County within a short period of time. Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the "Reign of Terror" on the Osage reservation. Some murders seemed associated with several members of one family. On May 27, 1921, local hunters discovered the decomposing body of 36-year-old Anna Brown in a remote ravine of Osage County. Unable to find the killer, local authorities ruled her death as accidental because of alcohol poisoning and put the case aside. Brown was divorced, so probate awarded her estate to her mother, Lizzie Q. Kyle. Kelsie Morrison, a petty criminal, later admitted to murdering Brown and testified that William Hale, a prominent local cattleman, had asked him to do so. Along with his admission, Morrison implicated Hale's nephew and Brown's ex-boyfriend, Bryan Burkhart, in her murder. Morrison testified that, after meeting Brown earlier at her sister Mollie's home, he and Burkhart took a heavily intoxicated Brown to Three Mile Creek, where Morrison shot and killed her. The body of another Osage, Brown's cousin Charles Whitehorn (also known as Charles Williamson), was discovered near Pawhuska on the same day as hers; Whitehorn had been shot to death. Two months later, Lizzie Q. Kyle was killed as well. By that time, Lizzie had headrights for herself and had inherited the headrights from her late husband and two daughters. Her heirs became fabulously wealthy. On February 6, 1923, Henry Roan, another cousin of Brown's (also known as Henry Roan Horse), was found in his car on the Osage Reservation, dead from a shot in the head. Roan also had a financial connection with Hale, having borrowed $1,200 from the cattleman. Hale fraudulently arranged to make himself the beneficiary of Roan's $25,000 life insurance policy. Over a month later, on March 10, 1923, a bomb destroyed the Fairfax residence of Anna's sister Rita Smith, killing Rita and her servant, Nettie Brookshire. Rita's husband, Bill Smith, sustained massive injuries from the blast and died four days later. Shortly before his death, Bill gave a statement implicating his suspected murderers and appointed his wife's estate. Later investigations revealed that the bomb contained of nitroglycerin. On June 28, 1923, Hale and Burkhart put George Bigheart on a train to Oklahoma City to be taken to a hospital. There, doctors suspected that he had ingested poisoned whiskey. Bigheart called attorney William "W.W." Watkins Vaughan of Pawhuska, asking him to come to the hospital as soon