Ernest Burkhart’s confession, recantation, and guilty plea

Ernest Burkhart’s confession, recantation, and guilty plea turned testimony into the central contest in the prosecution of William K. Hale. Burkhart first described his role in a conspiracy against the Smith family and named John Ramsey as the gunman in Henry Roan’s murder. Then, after contact with Hale and Hale’s lawyers, he repudiated his accusations in court. His later return to the prosecution’s account—ending in a guilty plea—made the instability of his testimony part of the story of the case itself.

The First Confession

When T. B. White entered the room, Burkhart was slumped in his seat, tired and resigned. He told White that he had not killed all the victims but knew who had, and said, “I want to tell.” White reminded him of his rights. Burkhart then signed a statement affirming that he had been warned, had received no promise of immunity, and was speaking of his own free will. The formal declaration mattered: it placed Burkhart’s account on record as a voluntary statement, even as the events that followed would expose how vulnerable that account was to pressure.

Burkhart traced his obedience to Hale back to boyhood. He said he had worshipped his uncle, performed jobs for him, and followed his orders; in explaining his dependence, he said, “I relied on Uncle Bill’s judgment,” Hale, he reported, had told him about a plan to murder Rita Smith and Bill Smith. Burkhart said he protested when Hale explained that the whole house, including relatives, would be blown up. Hale’s answer, as Burkhart recounted it, was that Burkhart’s wife would get the money. Burkhart said he nevertheless went along with the plan, presenting his compliance not as a single decision but as another instance of doing what Hale asked.

His account also outlined how Hale had sought someone to carry out the bombing. Hale first approached Blackie Thompson and Curley Johnson; when they could not do the job, he turned to Al Spencer, who refused. Hale then approached Henry Grammer, who promised to provide a man. Burkhart said he learned that Asa Kirby would do it through Hale. He also denied that Burt Lawson had taken part, telling White, “You have got the wrong pig by the tail.” In a later admission, Lawson acknowledged that his earlier story was a lie and that he knew about the bombing only from what he had heard in jail.

Burkhart placed Hale and Grammer away from the bombing by saying they had gone to Fort Worth to establish an alibi. Before leaving, Hale instructed Burkhart to pass a message to John Ramsey, who was to tell Kirby that it was time for “the job.” Burkhart said he delivered the message and was at home with Mollie Burkhart on the night of the explosion. He recalled seeing a light on the north side of the house; Mollie went to the window and thought a house was on fire. Burkhart said he immediately understood what the light meant. He also claimed to know who killed Henry Roan and identified Ramsey as the gunman, extending his account from the Smith bombing to a second murder tied to Hale.

The Recantation in Court

Burkhart’s accusations did not hold once he was brought into court. He arrived unsteadily and told a prosecutor beforehand that he feared he would be killed if he testified. Hale’s supporters filled the courtroom with noise, while Hale’s lawyer denounced Burkhart as a traitor to his own blood. When a defense lawyer claimed Burkhart as a client, Burkhart said, “He’s not my attorney…but I’m willing to talk to him.” He left the stand to meet Hale’s lawyers in the judge’s chambers. After a private conference, he was given until the following day to speak with the defense; Hale personally buttonholed him as he left.

The next morning, Burkhart refused to testify for the state. Instead, he took the stand for the defense and denied having spoken with Hale about Roan’s murder or any other Osage murder. Asked whether Hale had told him to hire someone to kill Roan, he answered, “He never did.” Step by step, in a quiet monotone, he recanted. White later described Burkhart’s nerve as having failed after he was allowed to see Hale and once more came under his influence. The reversal stripped the prosecution of one of its crucial supports: the confessions of Burkhart and Ramsey had crumbled, and Hale and Ramsey responded with triumphant grins. White remembered the moment as “The King on top again.”

The Return to the Truth

Prosecutors tried to strengthen their case against Hale and Ramsey by charging Burkhart separately as a co-conspirator in the bombing and scheduling his trial first. During that trial, Burkhart’s young daughter died. Mollie attended the funeral and watched Little Anna’s small plain box disappear into the grave. The loss preceded a change in Burkhart’s conduct. On June 7, as he was escorted from the courtroom to the county jail, he slipped a note to a deputy sheriff and told him not to look at it yet. The note, addressed to prosecutor John Leahy, asked him to come to the jail that night.

Leahy found Burkhart pacing in his cell, with deep circles around his eyes. Burkhart said he was through lying and did not want to continue the trial. He called himself helpless and asked Leahy to arrange for attorney Flint Moss to visit. Two days later, Burkhart returned to court without sitting at the defense table with Hale’s lawyers. He asked the judge to discharge them and said Moss would represent him. After the defense protested, the judge granted the request. Moss announced that Burkhart wanted to withdraw his not-guilty plea and plead guilty. When the judge asked if that was his desire, Burkhart said it was.

The Plea and Its Consequences

Burkhart then read a statement admitting that he had carried Hale’s message to Ramsey: Kirby was to be told that it was time to blow up the Smith house. He said he had acted because Hale, his uncle, requested it, and that stopping the trial and acknowledging the truth was the honest and honorable thing to do. Before accepting the plea, the judge asked whether federal agents had forced Burkhart to sign a confession at gunpoint or threatened him with electrocution. Burkhart said the agents had treated him well, apart from keeping him up late. The judge accepted the guilty plea.

The plea publicly restored the account Burkhart had withdrawn in court and fixed his own participation in the bombing as more than a message passed between others. The New York Times reported his admission on its front page, emphasizing both that he had hired a man to dynamite the Smith home and that his uncle headed the plot. T. B. White reported that Burkhart, in tears, said he had lied and would testify to the truth in any court in the United States. The sequence did not erase the recantation; it made the reversals themselves consequential. Burkhart’s testimony had first opened a path from the bombing to Hale, then seemed to close it, and finally became a guilty admission of his own role in carrying the plot forward.