In 2000, the Osage Nation filed a suit against the Department of the Interior, alleging that it had not adequately managed the assets and paid people the royalties they were due. government continued to manage the leases and royalties from oil-producing lands, and the tribe became concerned about these assets. The United States Congress changed the law to prohibit non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage with half or more Native American ancestry. Most of the murders were never prosecuted, but some men were convicted and sentenced including William Hale, who ordered the murders of his nephew's wife and other members of her family, to gain control of their oil rights. Investigation by law enforcement, including the Bureau of Investigation (BOI the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI) also revealed extensive corruption among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program. Some of the murders were committed for the purposes of taking over land and wealth of Osage members, whose land was producing valuable oil and who each had headrights that earned lucrative annual royalties. However, newer investigations indicate that other suspicious deaths during this time could have been misreported or covered up murders, including people who were heirs to future fortunes. Some sixty or more wealthy, full-blood Osage Native Americans were reported killed from 1918 to 1931. The Osage Indian murders were a series of murders of Osage Native Americans in Osage County, Oklahoma, during the 1910s–1930s newspapers described the increasing number of unsolved murders as the Reign of Terror, lasting from 1921 to 1926.

Sisters of the Moon by Molly Burkhart