Here’s how horse theft became the family business for one of the Wild West’s most notorious female outlaws.
The wanted poster read “Cattle and Horse Thief,” listed her aliases as “unknown,” and identified her crime (among others) as heading a band of rustlers in Oklahoma. So began the legal trouble for Belle Starr, nicknamed the “Bandit Queen.”
Ornery was in her blood. Her father, John, ran an inn, and her mother, Eliza, was related to the infamous Hatfield family—of Hatfields and McCoys fame. Starr was born Myra “Belle” Shirley in Carthage, Missouri, in 1848. Young Belle went to a fancy private school in Carthage where she learned Latin, Greek, math, and even how to play the piano.
The Shirleys were Confederate sympathizers (John Shirley owned several slaves), and one of their sons was killed during the Civil War. Belle aided the Confederacy during the war, too—the teenager spied on and reported back about Union troops. It was during this time that she made her first illicit connections: she met outlaw Cole Younger, his brothers, and Jesse and Frank James.
Eventually, the Shirley family moved to Texas, where Belle married a farmer named Jim Reed. The couple had two children: Pearl (there are rumors her father was really Cole Younger) and Ed. There wasn’t much money in farming, though, so Jim Reed began working with the Youngers, the James brothers, and a cattle-and horse-thieving Cherokee clan called the Starrs. Over the next three years, Jim Reed robbed stagecoaches, killed at least one person, and went on the run with his family. The police suspected Belle was in on the crimes, too—she started gambling in saloons, wearing a Stetson, and carrying pistols, which added to her outlaw image. But there was never any direct evidence that she helped her husband. Still, when Jim was killed by a sheriff’s deputy, Belle took his place in the Starr clan. (She sent the kids to live with relatives.)
Here’s where the story gets murky. In 1880, Belle married Sam Starr, and by some accounts, she became the brains behind the family’s criminal operations—in particular, horse thievery and cattle rustling. Others paint Belle as a victim of circumstance . . . a woman who fell in with the wrong crowd and just wanted to “live out [her] time in peace.”
Either way, both Belle and Sam were soon caught and charged with horse theft, cattle rustling, and various other crimes. Finally, they ended up before Texas’s notorious Isaac “Hanging Judge” Parker, who sentenced them to one year in prison. (They each served nine months.)
The time in jail didn’t halt Belle’s criminal activities. In fact, she continued to be part of the Starr family business even after Sam was killed in a gunfight in 1886. Her next husband and her teenage son were also both indicted for horse stealing during the 1880s.
Finally, in February 1889, her outlaw life caught up with her. After a shopping trip alone (her husband was at the county courthouse facing yet another horse-stealing charge), Belle rode home. But before she arrived, a mysterious shotgun blast from the woods beside the road threw Belle from her saddle. Her spooked horse raced back to the Starr house, and his arrival alerted Belle’s daughter Pearl, who went looking for her mother. But the Bandit Queen’s story was over. Belle Starr was dead just two days before her 41st birthday. Her killer was never caught.
January 1 is the universal birthday for all horses registered in North America, no matter when during the year they were actually born.