Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on her father's farm near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848.

Her father, John Shirley, prospered raising wheat, corn, hogs and horses, though he was considered to be the "black sheep" of a well-to-do Virginia family which had moved west to Indiana, where he married and divorced twice.

[3] In the 1860s, Belle's father sold the farm and moved the family to Carthage, where he bought a livery stable and blacksmith shop on the town square.

Myra Shirley received a classical education and learned piano, while graduating from Missouri's Carthage Female Academy, a private institution that her father had helped to found.

During the American Civil War, Myra's older brother, John A. M. "Bud" Shirley, was an active Jasper County "bushwhacker", fighting for the Confederacy.

[6] Soon after,"sick at heart over Bud’s death and his business ruined by the theft and destruction, [John Shirley] disposed of his property, loaded his family and household goods into two Conestoga wagons, and set out for Texas ... Shirley’s destination was Scyene, a small settlement ten miles southeast of Dallas.

[4] Reed turned to crime and was wanted for murder in Arkansas, which caused the family to move to California, where their second child, James Edwin (Eddie), was born in 1871.

While Reed initially tried his hand at farming, he would grow restless and associated with the Starr clan, a Cherokee family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), as well as the James and Younger gangs.

[11] The pair were tried before "The Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker in Fort Smith, Arkansas; the prosecutor was United States Attorney W. H. H. Clayton.

"[12] In 1886, she eluded conviction on another theft charge, but, on December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with his cousin Law Officer Frank West.

Eddie Reed, Belle's son, was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889.

Belle's daughter Rosie Reed, also known as Pearl Starr, became a prostitute to raise funds for Eddie's release.

Suspects with apparent motive included her new husband and both of her children as well as Edgar Watson, because he was afraid she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida with a price on his head.

Although she was an obscure figure outside Texas throughout most of her life, Belle's story was picked up by the dime novel and National Police Gazette publisher Richard K. Fox, who made her name famous with his fictional novel Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, published in 1889 (the year of her murder).