Here's what really happened to Mollie Burkhart, the woman at the center of 'Killers of the Flower Moon' (2024)

Based on the 2017 nonfiction book of the same name by investigative journalist David Grann, "Killers of the Flower Moon" focuses on Mollie Burkhart (née Kyle) (Lily Gladstone) and her wealthy Osage family. When she marries Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a World War I veteran who arrives in Oklahoma to live with his uncle and work in the oil fields, she finds herself at the heart of a murder plot to kill her family.

In real life, Ernest and his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), a prominent and well-respected community member, conspired to kill Mollie's sisters, mother, and entire family to inherit their money. Between 1920 and 1925, Mollie's family was among over 60 Osage people murdered in mysterious ways for their oil money in a short period of time that became known as the "Reign of Terror."

By the film's end, Ernest testifies against his Uncle Hale in court admitting his role in the death of two of the sisters, Anna (Cara Jade Myers) and Reta (JaNae Collins), and a cousin, Henry Roan (William Belleau). The movie makes the circ*mstances around Mollie's mother, Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal), and sister Minnie (Jillian Dion) appear more mysterious so they can be easily explained away as natural causes. (Lizzie is older and Minnie dies of wasting illness.)

But the film also implies Mollie was a target, suffering from a mysterious illness of her own as those around her died.

Despite claiming to love his wife dearly, Ernest and doctors (provided by Hale) appear to slowly poison Mollie while administering insulin shots for diabetes, adding something to her insulin.

Mollie never voices suspicions of poison aloud, but tells her priest she fears for her life and becomes wary of food she's served.

It's not until the film's final scene between Mollie and her husband that she questions the contents of her insulin shots and whether or not she was poisoned. Ernest denies the accusation and she walks out on him.

The rest of the movie is relayed in a radio broadcast presented as a play, quickly telling viewers that Mollie divorced Ernest, remarried, and then died a few years later.

If the ending left you with more questions than answers about her illness and fate, here's what really happened to Mollie.

Was Mollie Burkhart being poisoned by her husband and doctors?

The film never makes it clear what Ernest and the doctors mix into Mollie's insulin. Hale told Ernest, who's portrayed as a suggestible simpleton, the co*cktail would slow her down.

The movie makes it look like Ernest isn't even sure what's in the vials he pours into his wife's insulin, giving him plausible deniability. Late in the film, Ernest adds some of the clear liquid into his liquor. It's hard to believe that Ernest would have knowingly consumed poison.

In Grann's book, he writes that Mollie was more forthcoming with her priest about a concern that someone was trying to poison her: "Then, in late 1925, the local priest received a secret message from Mollie. Her life, she said, was in danger. An agent from the Office of Indian Affairs soon picked up another report: Mollie wasn't dying of diabetes at all; she, too, was being poisoned."

Grann reported that government officials working for the Office of Indian Affairs were concerned Mollie was slowly being poisoned from "injections of what was supposed to be insulin."

When authorities later checked on a gravely ill Mollie, they assessed that someone was secretly and slowly poisoning her.

Ernest really never admitted having any knowledge about his wife being poisoned. Grann wrote that Ernest's uncle may not have believed he could kill his own wife. According to National Geographic, Ernest also gave Mollie poison-laced whiskey to drink, but Grann's book says it couldn't be proven who was responsible for poisoning Mollie.

Mollie divorced Ernest and remarried

According to Grann, Mollie divorced Ernest shortly after learning that he knew the truth about her sister Anna's murder, writing that she "could no longer look at Ernest."

From that point on, Mollie "recoiled in horror" at Ernest's name. Ernest was sentenced to life in prison at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester after pleading guilty to murdering Rita's husband, William Smith.

In 1928, Mollie married John Cobb and the two lived on the Osage reservation until her death in June 1937 at the age of 50. Grann wrote that her death wasn't considered suspicious.

Ernest was paroled that same year and received a full pardon in 1966.

Mollie is survived by her granddaughter, Margie Burkhart, who told People her grandmother was shunned by many in the community for initially standing by Ernest. Margie met her grandfather as a teenager before his death in 1986, describing him as someone who "looked like a sweet little man," but aware of what he did to her family.

"I have a lot of anger towards him," Margie told People. "He took away my whole family. He took away potential cousins."