Myra Maybelle Shirley was born February 5, 1848, near Carthage, Missouri, the third child of John Shirley and Elizabeth Pennington. Her family nickname was May. John Shirley, from Virginia, had married twice prior to meeting Elizabeth Pennington and marrying her May 11, 1837 in Indiana. The couple soon moved to a farm near Carthage to raise their family. After May, they added several more sons and moved from the farm into town, running a string of adjacent businesses in Carthage. As May grew, she studied piano and received an education at the Carthage Female Academy in her home city.

May adored her elder brother John “Bud” Shirley who was six years older. It was Bud who taught her to ride a horse and shoot. Skills that would later become useful to her in practical ways but would also bolster her infamous image. With the Civil War looming and Missouri a divided border state, the family’s calm existence soon changed. About the time of 1861’s Battle of Carthage, May’s father encouraged Bud, nearly twenty years old, to become active in the Confederate efforts in southwest Missouri. Soon Bud was riding with Quantrill’s Raiders, a group who were called partisans by some and bushwhackers by Union sympathizers. May’s brother continued as a Raider until he was killed in 1864 at Sarcoxie, Missouri, when Union troops surrounded a house of a Confederate sympathizer. Bud attempting to escape, was shot and killed. It was through the association of Bud with Quantrill that May became acquainted with other members of the Raiders, including Frank James, Cole Younger, and Jim Reed.

After Carthage was attacked and losing their businesses, the Shirley Family moved to a more hospitable area with likeminded citizens. Located in southeast Dallas County, Texas, the town of Scyene (annexed to Dallas in 1950) was not only a place to start over, but it was here the family again met up with the James, Younger, and Reed men from Missouri. Just one year after the end of the war, May, now about eighteen, married Jim Reed November 1, 1866. Her father John died the next year.

Jim and May Reed made a try at farming in the Sceyne area, and she gave birth to their first child, Rosie Lee (aka Pearl), two years later. However, Jim had not completely stopped his marauding, continuing to be involved with the James, Youngers and others. Soon Jim was wanted for murder in Arkansas. To escape the law, Jim and May moved to California. During their short time there, May gave birth to a son, James Edwin, in 1871 (she may also have had a daughter that died prior to James). Again, Jim found trouble and they were forced to leave California, returning to Texas. May did not wish to be a part of Jim’s recklessness and left him, returning to her Mother’s home with the children. Jim continued to ride with the wrong crowd, which now included the Starr family, a Cherokee clan known for whiskey running, and cattle and horse theft in the Indian Territory. In April 1874, after a stagecoach was robbed by Jim and others, her husband was killed in August of that year in Paris, Texas.

With her father deceased and her mother in a poor financial position, May took her children to Missouri where they lived with her former in-laws, the Reeds, for a time. About 1878 an uncle of the Younger boys, Bruce Younger, took an interest in the widow as they were similar in age. Throughout 1879 the two were seen in and around Joplin, Missouri and Galena, Kansas, presumably as a married couple. However, the record of their marriage states a wedding date of May 15, 1880. Little else is known of their short relationship and biographers speculate Bruce had soured on the prospect of any domestication of his lifestyle. The wedding seems to be a last effort on May's part to secure a future with Younger.

Belle Star 1880's In just three short weeks May (Reed/Younger), now called “Belle”, had rekindled a connection with Sam Starr, a man she knew through Jim Reed’s involvement with the Starr clan years earlier. Whatever the circumstance of this whirlwind relationship, Sam and Belle were married June 5, 1880, and living in the Indian Territory. At this point in the life of Myra Maybelle, events seemed to destine her to become the “Belle Starr” of legend. Once again, Belle was settled, and stories seem to indicate the couple appeared to be making a go of ranching in a remote corner of the Cherokee Nation, near the Canadian River, they called Younger's Bend. That is until Sam and Belle were charged with horse theft in 1883 after they were found with a neighbor’s horses following a local roundup. Both were brought to Fort Smith, Arkansas for trial in the court of 'Hanging Judge' Isaac C. Parker, who found them guilty, sentencing them to serve nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan.

Now a convicted thief, trouble seemed to swirl around Belle pushing her into risky actions. Relationships with her children ebbed. Interlopers to Indian Territory threatened the peace which led to confrontations. Another theft charge in 1886 was dismissed, but Sam was involved in a gunfight with Frank West on December 17, 1886 and both men were killed. Through all of this, it is said Belle's marriage to Sam was the happiest relationship in her life, so this would have been devastating for Belle. As a non-Cherokee Belle Starr was not allowed to hold the land she and Sam lived on. The tribal courts were forcing her to leave, so she married a relative of Sam’s, Jim July aka Jim Starr, who was 15 years younger than Belle. The marriage allowed her to keep her residence on tribal land. Her son Ed was not happy with her choices, or how his mother treated him. Her daughter Pearl was interested in marriage, but Belle did not approve of the suitor, so this also created conflict in the family.

Belle Star Under Arrest 1886 Belle was just 41 years old when she was ambushed and killed on February 3, 1889 while riding home from a neighbor’s house. She was shot in the back, neck, shoulder and face. The killer is thought to have used her own double barrel shotgun to perpetuate the act, grabbing the weapon after she fell off her horse. Although there were a number of suspects including her husband Jim July and both of her children, only one person was tried for the murder, Edgar J. Watson, a neighbor she removed as sharecropper on her land. The supposed motive was his fear she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida. Watson was acquitted, and no one was ever convicted of the murder.