$\"Actor$ <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section>

It\u2019s important to understand, says Grann, that the 1920s was a remarkably lawless time in the history of the United States. There were very few competent local police forces, meaning very little training and hardly any forensic evidence, and all operating inside a fragile legal system. The bureau had been created in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, hoping to bolster federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n

White joined the bureau in 1917, having previously wanted to enlist in the army, though he was unable, due to a previous surgery. \u201cHe did not quite fit the image of the new hires at the bureau under Hoover,\u201d says Grann. \u201cHe was not college educated, but Hoover was desperate to get results [in the Osage case].\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time White joined the case in 1925, the bureau had already made several errors, including using an informant who escaped and killed a police officer, and the young, new director J Edgar Hoover was facing a scandal. It was a situation that Hoover dubbed \u201cacute and delicate\u201d.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s life embodies, in many ways, the emergence of the country of the United States as we will come to know it, says Grann.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the 1920s, when he\u2019s leading the [Osage murders] investigation, he\u2019s struggling to use fingerprints. He is learning about handwriting analysis, which becomes a pivotal part of this case. He is wearing a suit and a fedora, rather than riding on horseback carrying a pearl handle pistol. And the thing that he hates most is that he must file lots of paperwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Warning: spoilers for Killers of the Flower Moon ahead*<\/em><\/p>\n

White assembled a team of undercover agents to crack the mystery of who had been killing Osage for their oil money.<\/p>\n

After nearly two years stationed in Oklahoma, White and his assembled team cracked the case, sifting through murky facts, uncovering the scant physical evidence, and leveraging a complex web of informants, which finally them to a chilling criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Though the bureau was able to resolve many of the cases, says Grann, and White was \u201cin many ways a very good man, who was quietly a good man. But even with the bureau\u2019s efforts, the breadth of the conspiracy was far wider and far darker than the bureau ever exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened to the real Tom White?<\/h2>\n
After the case, White was commended by the Osage and the FBI, though in the years that followed, J Edgar Hoover took much of the overarching credit for the bureau\u2019s cracking of the case.<\/p>\n
White retired from the FBI shortly afterwards, taking the job of warden of Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. He would go on to preside over convicts that included William K Hale and other accomplices in the Osage murders, and was regarded as a strict warden but guided by a fair hand.<\/p>\n
Tom White died in December 1971 following an apparent stroke, at the age of 91. Grann reported in his book one friend\u2019s words: that he had \u201cdied as he lived, quietly and with a calm dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Grann was speaking on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast<\/a>. Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI<\/em> is out now, published by Simon and Schuster<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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