calsfoundation@cals.org
June 21, 2010
Born Myra Maybelle Shirley in Carthage, Missouri, in 1848, this “Bandit Queen” of the West is better known in history as Belle Starr. She numbered among her friends the likes of Cole Younger, Jesse and Frank James, and other outlaws of the time. In 1883, she and her outlaw husband, Sam Starr, were sentenced by Judge Isaac Parker to one year in prison for horse theft. She was shot and killed in 1889, but her murderer was never discovered.