Belle Starr’s First Husband

Jim Reed blazed his own criminal trail.

Jim Reed is best known as Belle Starr’s first husband. But he had his own claim to infamy. After the pair married in 1866, Jim settled down as a farmer and sold tack and bridle equipment. But Reed’s older brother Scott was murdered in 1868, and Jim avenged that by fatally shooting the killer. For the rest of his life, Reed rode the outlaw trail—counterfeiter, rustler, stage robber, and murderer, wanted throughout the West. In 1874, an old acquaintance, now a special deputy, caught up with Reed in Texas and gunned him down.