Belle Starr was shot in the back and killed near her home in Indian Territory on February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday; the murder was never solved.
On February 3, 1889, just two days before what would have been her 41st birthday, Belle Starr was ambushed and shot to death near her ranch, known as Younger's Bend, along the Canadian River in the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). She was riding home from a neighbor's house when an unknown assailant fired a shotgun blast into her back, knocking her from her horse; she was then shot again as she lay on the ground.
No one was ever convicted of her murder, though suspicion fell on several people, including her own son, Edwin (Eddie) Reed, with whom she had a contentious relationship, and a neighbor named Edgar J. Watson who had leased land from her and with whom she had recently quarreled. The unsolved nature of her death only added to the growing legend surrounding her, as sensationalized newspaper accounts and later dime novels transformed her into the mythologized "Bandit Queen" of the American West.
Her death marked the end of a life that had become emblematic of the lawlessness of the post-Civil War frontier and Indian Territory, a region that served as a haven for outlaws beyond the reach of federal marshals. She was buried at her ranch, and her grave, marked with a horse and bell carved into the headstone reportedly by her daughter Pearl, remains a site of historical curiosity in Oklahoma today.