The Deaths of Sybil Bolton Oil, Greed, and Murder on the Osage Reservation

For those seeking a true family story of the Osage Reign of Terror portrayed in Killers of the Flower Moon

Journalist Dennis McAuliffe Jr. grew up believing that his Osage Indian grandmother, Sybil Bolton, had died an early death in 1925 from kidney disease. It was only by chance that he learned the real cause was a gunshot wound, and that her murder may well have been engineered by his own grandfather.

As McAuliffe peeled away layers of suppressed history, he learned that Sybil was a victim of the systematic killing spree in the 1920s—when white men descended upon the oil-rich Osage reservation to court, marry, and murder Native women to gain control of their money.

The Deaths of Sybil Bolton is part murder mystery, part family memoir, and part spiritual journey. 

Dennis McAuliffe Jr. worked at the Washington Post as an editor for more than twenty-five years. He taught journalism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and at the University of Montana in Missoula, where he created and directed a journalism training and mentoring program for Native American college students across Indian Country. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.