In the winter of 1989, a prominent Osage couple, Joseph “Buck” Cheshewalla and his wife Maude, were found murdered in their home on an Indian allotment near Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Joseph Edward 'Buck' Cheshewalla was 69 years old at the time of his death. The grim discovery sent shockwaves through the community, as Maude was a respected tribal historian and craftswoman.
The scene within their Osage County residence was one of violence and brutality; Maude had been blindfolded, and Joseph was bound with a belt and duct tape. Both had been shot in the head twice.
The investigation into the double homicide led authorities to two men, Billy Gene Harris and Eugene Mervin Sides. The motive for the horrific crime was determined to be a robbery that had gone terribly wrong. The two men were subsequently charged and convicted for the murders of the Cheshewalla couple. Both Harris and Sides received two concurrent life-without-parole sentences for their roles in the deaths.
In the years following their convictions, both Billy Gene Harris and Eugene Mervin Sides unsuccessfully appealed their sentences. One of Harris's appeals centered on a jurisdictional technicality, arguing that he was incorrectly charged under a law governing murders committed by Indians in Indian country, as he is not an Indian. However, the courts repeatedly upheld the convictions, ruling that while the indictment might have had a jurisdictional error, it was harmless in terms of the outcome. The brutal murder of Joseph and Maude Cheshewalla left a lasting scar on their community, a tragic end to the lives of two respected members of the Osage Nation.
