Killers of the Flower Moon: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

White’s team slips into Osage County one by one—all undercover. The former sheriff and the former Ranger, acting as cattlemen, soon ingratiate themselves with William Hale, while another agent, under the guise of an insurance salesman, visits the houses of several suspects. Agent Wren, claiming to be a medicine man searching for long-lost relatives, attends tribal gatherings and makes inroads with members of the Osage tribe.

White is unsure of where to begin the investigation. Many records have mysteriously vanished, and virtually no evidence has been preserved from any of the crime scenes. The undertaker, however, saved Anna’s skull after she was disinterred, and allows White to examine it. He confirms that she was shot with a .32 or .38-caliber pistol, and that there was no exit wound. Because the bullet was never turned up during an autopsy—but should have been impossible to miss—White concludes that a conspirator on the scene, or even the killer himself, must have swiped it.

White questions David and James Shoun, who both insist that they searched diligently for the bullet. Because there were so many people present for the autopsy, including the local lawmen, the undertaker, and Mathis, it is impossible to say who among them altered the crime scene.

White begins the process of methodically corroborating each suspect’s alibi—David Grann quotes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who famously stated, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, must be the truth.” White quickly rules out many suspects, including Anna’s ex-husband, Oda Brown, and Rose Osage. The woman to whom Rose allegedly confessed now comes forward to claim that a strange white man came to her house, wrote up a statement, and forced her to sign it. White realizes that the conspirators are not just erasing evidence but manufacturing it as well.