Three Mile Creek valley

Three Mile Creek valley, near Fairfax town, is the place where Anna Brown’s body was discovered and where investigators searched for evidence of her killing. Its role in the account extends beyond the initial discovery: the creek became the setting for an early examination of the scene and for a later, unverified claim about how the body was left there.

Setting and Discovery

A man, his teenage son, and a friend were squirrel hunting by Three Mile Creek when the boy came upon a dead person in a ravine. The boy called his father over, and the party hurried out of the ravine and toward Fairfax town. They found no lawmen on the main street, so they went to the Big Hill Trading Company, where proprietor Scott Mathis alerted an undertaker and several men to go to the creek.

Recovery and Investigation

At the creek, the men brought the body up from the ravine and placed it in a wooden box beneath a blackjack tree. The undertaker tried to determine whether the deceased was Anna Brown, whom he had known. The discovery thus connected this secluded place to the investigation of her death before the circumstances of the killing were clear.

Lawmen later searched the creek bank. They found smears of blood beside a rock, but no bullet; they also noticed a bottle partially filled with clear liquid that smelled like moonshine. From these clues, they inferred that Anna had been sitting on the rock and drinking when someone approached and shot her at close range, causing her to fall. The inference was part of the early scene investigation, not a confirmed account of who killed her.

A Later Account

While another operative was investigating Anna’s killing, a young Kaw woman who lived near the western border of Osage County gave a signed statement describing a different account. She said that Rose Osage had admitted killing Anna after Anna tried to seduce Rose’s boyfriend, Joe Allen. According to the statement, Rose said she shot Anna while the three were riding in a car, then she and Joe dumped the body by Three Mile Creek; the account also alleged that Rose discarded clothing in the creek after it became bloodstained.

The statement records an allegation, not an established finding. Set beside the physical clues at the creek, it shows how the location acquired competing explanations: investigators inferred events from the blood, bottle, and rock, while the later statement attributed the killing and disposal to named people. The evidence here does not establish that the allegation was verified.