🎃👻 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐅’𝐒 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄!🚔

We love seeing all the little ghosts, goblins, and especially those dressed up as our Brothers and Sisters in Blue! 💙🚓

Have a fun, safe, and spooky Halloween! Stay safe, Osage County! 🎃🍬

#HappyHalloween #OsageCountySheriff #StaySafe … See MoreSee Less

𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐘 | 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 & 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

As Osage County Sheriff, I consider protecting our children one of our highest responsibilities.

Our School Resource Officer Program represents a commitment to the students, families, teachers, and school districts throughout our county.

I want our deputies to be more than a uniform standing in a hallway. I want them to know the students, build relationships with school employees, recognize potential problems early, and become a trusted part of the school community.

School safety requires a partnership between law enforcement, school administrators, parents, and students. We all have a role to play.

Our commitment is to be proactive, prepared, approachable, and present.

Every child deserves to feel safe at school. Every teacher deserves a secure place to work. And every parent deserves to know that protecting their children is a responsibility we take seriously.

— Sheriff Bart Perrier

#OsageCountySheriffsOffice #SchoolSafety #SROProgram #ProtectingOurFuture … See MoreSee Less

𝐎𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐤 — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐲 (𝟏𝟗𝟐𝟗)

In the spring of 1929, while Osage County Deputies were still wrestling with one unsolved killing in the western part of the county, another death shattered the quiet of the Wildhorse settlement southeast of Hominy.

On Saturday evening, April 27, 1929, 22-year-old Walter Leo Cannady was brought into Hominy, dead from a rifle wound in his back. He had been alive only hours earlier.

𝗔 𝗕𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

It was Maynard Madden, a 21-year-old Hominy youth, who carried Cannady’s body from the Turkey Creek area—some 25 miles southeast of town—and left it at a filling station along the Hominy-Skiatook highway before notifying officers.
Madden told authorities it had been an accident.

His first version was simple: he and Cannady were driving near Turkey Creek when they spotted a wolf. Cannady stepped from the car with a rifle to shoot it. A shot rang out. When Madden turned, his friend was on the ground.

But Chief of Police Lon Dabney noted something troubling almost immediately. The bullet had entered near the center of Cannady’s back and exited near the shoulder. It was not the wound of a man who had shot himself.

𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗱

By the next morning, Madden’s account had changed. This time, he admitted the two young men had been working at a liquor still hidden along Turkey Creek. Cannady, he said, had picked up the rifle to shoot at a wolf when it discharged unexpectedly.

Officers were skeptical.

Madden was placed under arrest, and when pressed further, he struggled even to relocate the supposed scene of the shooting. It took another day of searching with Sheriff Ben McDonald, deputies George Clower, Fred Graves, and John Mizer before the truth began to surface.

Hidden in a hollow under a camouflaged tent was a large moonshine operation—a 250-gallon moonshine still, more than thirty barrels of mash, set and ready to run.

There was no wolf.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁

A coroner’s jury convened in Hominy and returned a stark finding: Walter Cannady had been murdered by a rifle shot fired by an unknown person. Cannady—born September 29, 1906, in Kansas—had lived near Hominy for twelve years with his father, Albion Benjamin Cannady. He worked in the oil fields and resided near Wildhorse, not far from where the still was discovered.

He was buried in Hominy Cemetery, funeral services conducted by Rev. Hildebrand of the Christian Church. He was twenty-two years old.

𝗔 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗵𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱

In the days following the coroner’s verdict, officers cast a wide net. Several men were investigated and initially taken into custody as murder suspects. Among them was William N. “Bill” Madden, Maynard’s father, along with Henderson “J. H.” Tomlin and Roscoe “Slim” McMurray, all arrested after the discovery of the concealed liquor still near Turkey Creek. Federal liquor charges were filed as authorities worked to determine whether the killing was tied to the moonshine operation.

Suspicion soon centered more sharply on Bill Moore, a known offender who disappeared from Hominy immediately after Cannady’s death. Moore carried a heavy record and a string of aliases—among them R. T. Graham and Hal Buie.

Records showed a 1911 conviction for bank robbery in Roger Mills County, in western Oklahoma, followed by a later conviction in 1925 for Horse theft in Osage County.

A murder warrant was issued.

For weeks, posses searched wooded tracts and isolated farmhouses south of Hominy. Reports surfaced that Moore was hiding in the timber, slipping from place to place ahead of the law. The search finally ended in Borger, Texas, where Moore was arrested. Sheriff Ben McDonald and Deputy Bill Parker traveled there to return him to Osage County. But even with Moore in custody and other suspects behind bars, the case was far from settled.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻

In time, it was Maynard Madden who broke. In a signed statement, he admitted he had fired the fatal shot. He claimed it was accidental—that he had pointed the rifle at Cannady “to make him dance,” and the gun discharged unexpectedly.

The bullet had entered the young oil worker’s back. Murder charges against Moore were dropped. Federal charges for operating the whiskey still proceeded. Moore and Madden’s father, William N. Madden, each drew three-year sentences in Leavenworth. Others faced liquor charges.

Maynard Madden received six months in the Osage County jail for the liquor case. Soon after, first-degree murder charges were filed against him based on his confession.

Authorities remained openly doubtful of his explanation. The wound told a different story than the one Madden struggled to maintain through multiple versions. Yet the historical record shows no lengthy penitentiary term, as charges were finally dismissed for murder. Walter Cannady’s life ended in a hollow along Turkey Creek. Maynard Madden’s did not.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵

Maynard Paul Madden was born in February 1908 in Prue, Oklahoma, and grew up with his father near Wildhorse, located between Hominy and Skiatook. Thirteen years after the shooting, in August 1942, he enlisted in the United States Army during World War II. He received an honorable discharge in October 1945.

He returned home to Osage County. For decades, he lived quietly in the same land where the tragedy had unfolded. On May 20, 1980, he was injured in an automobile accident and died nine days later in Tulsa at the age of seventy-two. He was buried in Hominy Cemetery.

The boy once led officers to a camouflaged still in a Turkey Creek hollow. The man later wore his country’s uniform in wartime. History does not always divide lives cleanly into villain and hero. Sometimes it records a single violent spring afternoon—and then decades of ordinary days that follow. But along Turkey Creek, where mash once fermented in hidden barrels, and a rifle cracked in the distance, one truth remains: Walter Leo Cannady never came home. … See MoreSee Less