aPARA YPAR@ ` TEXT ` Starr, Belle1848╨1889outlawBorn in or near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848, Myra Belle Shirley grew up in obscurity. After the death of an elder brother, who early in the Civil War had become a bushwhacker and had perhaps ridden with William C. Quantrill╒s raiders, and following also the burning of Carthage in October 1863, the family moved to a farm at Scyene, near Dallas, Texas. At the end of the war the remnants of Quantrill╒s gang turned to undisguised outlawry, becoming notorious as the gangs led by the Younger brothers and the James brothers. They occasionally sought refuge at the Shirley farm, and Belle apparently bore a child by Thomas C. ╥Cole╙ Younger. Soon afterward she eloped with Jim Reed, a Missouri outlaw, and became his common-law wife. They lived in Los Angeles for a time and then returned to Texas. Reed was killed not long after his sensational holdup of the Austin╨San Antonio stage in April 1874, and Belle Shirley was named an accessory, although not a participant, in the indictment for that crime. She operated a livery stable in Dallas for a time and continued to have sundry unsavory associations, both personal and professional. Later she moved to Oklahoma Territory, where in 1880 she married Sam Starr, a Cherokee and long a friend of the Youngers and Jameses. Their cabin at what Belle Starr named Younger╒s Bend on the Canadian River (near present-day Eufaula) became a favorite hideout for outlaws of every sort. Jesse James holed up there for several months. Gradually she acquired the reputation, not certainly warranted, of a criminal mastermind whose gang preyed on travelers, ranchers, and cowboys throughout the region. In 1883 she and Sam Starr were indicted for horse stealing, and in March they were convicted by Judge Isaac C. Parker, the ╥hanging judge╙ of Fort Smith, Arkansas. They served nine months in the federal penitentiary in Detroit. She was indicted three more times in the next few years, once on a charge of taking part in a post office robbery disguised as a man, but she was never again convicted. After Sam Starr was shot and killed in December 1887, a young Cherokee named Jim July moved into her cabin. Belle Starr was shot in the back and killed at the cabin on February 3, 1889; there were several possible suspects, but no indictment was ever issued. Her gravestone, erected at Younger╒s Bend by her daughter, featured a carved bell and star. A few months after her death, Richard K. Fox, publisher of the National Police Gazette, issued a purported biography of Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen; or, The Female Jesse James. Fox╒s picture of the beautiful Belle of Old Southern heritage who turns to crime to avenge the death of her brother, a dashing Confederate officer, long remained the popular image of her. &styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ !I ñ 5¬ Ñ !I Æ 5¬ ô !I ╥ !I Θ !I
