Blackie Thompson

Blackie Thompson enters the investigation as both a liability and a potential source: a former Bureau informant who had murdered a police officer, he was a disgraced prisoner whose testimony might connect William K. Hale and Ernest Burkhart to a plot against William Smith and Rita Smith. T. B. White’s decision to bring him into the case—without consulting J. Edgar Hoover—was a high-risk attempt to recover evidence when Hale’s apparent alibi threatened to unravel the prosecution.

Identity and Record

During the Bureau’s early investigation, Blackie was released from prison to serve as an informant. He later murdered a police officer and, after being caught, was confined in the state penitentiary. His history made him an embarrassment to the Bureau and left investigators wary of him; by the time White sought him out, Blackie had become a figure best kept out of sight.

He was also openly hostile and bigoted. In a complaint about Hale and Ernest Burkhart, he used an antisemitic slur and accused them of wanting everything for nothing. That prejudice complicates his value as a witness: his account could be useful, but it came from a man whose own animosities were plain.

White’s Risky Appeal

White suspected from early Bureau reports that Blackie might know something about the Osage murders. With Hale’s lawyers poised to produce evidence that Hale had been in Texas when the Smith house bombing occurred, White needed information quickly. He arranged for Blackie to be brought from the state penitentiary to Guthrie without first asking Hoover. If Blackie escaped or harmed anyone, White believed his own career would be over.

The precautions were extraordinary. White put Luther Bishop, the state lawman who had shot Al Spencer, in charge of the transfer. Blackie arrived at the federal building in chains, accompanied by a small force of guards, while a rifleman on a nearby rooftop kept him in view through a window. White’s security arrangements underscored the contradiction at the heart of the encounter: the Bureau regarded Blackie as dangerous, yet White needed him to speak.

The Alleged Smith Plot

Agents told Blackie they could not bargain away any part of his sentence in return for information. He began reluctantly, then disclosed more. He said Hale and Ernest Burkhart had approached him and his old associate Curley Johnson about killing William Smith and Rita Smith. The proposed payment, according to Blackie, included the chance to steal Ernest’s car.

Blackie said he had taken the car from the Burkharts’ garage one night while Ernest was at home in bed with Mollie Burkhart. The law later picked him up for the car theft, and he never carried out any of the proposed killings. His account therefore offered White an alleged link between the conspirators and a would-be participant, but not proof that Blackie had completed an attack or that he would repeat the account in court.

Confrontation with Ernest Burkhart

White hoped the information would be enough to save the case, though he did not know whether Blackie would testify. He left the outlaw under guard and returned with an agent to question Ernest again. When Ernest agreed to have Blackie brought into the room, the two men faced one another while the rooftop rifleman continued to watch Blackie through the window. Ernest looked stunned.

The agent asked Blackie whether he had told the truth about the propositions Ernest had made, and Blackie answered that he had. The questioning then focused on whether the proposed killing was that of William Smith. The encounter gave Blackie’s allegation immediate force in Ernest’s presence, but the available account establishes neither a court testimony nor the ultimate effect of the confrontation. His role in this episode is that of a compromised witness whose dangerous past made him suspect, while his reported knowledge offered White a last-minute lead.