Henry Starr and the Murder of Deputy Marshal Floyd Wilson

Another chapter in my recent book, Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma https://amzn.to/3AZiJY7, is about Henry Starr. A nephew-by-marriage of the noted Belle Starr, Henry once boasted that he had robbed more banks “than any man in America,” but he never bragged about killing Deputy Marshal Floyd Wilson early in his criminal career near Nowata, Oklahoma.

Born near Fort Gibson in 1873 in the Cherokee Nation, Henry moved with relatives to the Nowata area in 1888. His first run-ins with the law came about three years later, when he was accused first of horse stealing and then of introducing illegal spirits into Indian Territory. Starr later claimed he was totally innocent of both charges, but he decided, if he was going to be treated like a criminal, he might as well become one.

After a railroad agent was held up at Nowata in August 1892, Starr was charged with the crime, and the railroad later sent out a special agent, accompanied by Deputy Wilson, to try to apprehend the robber. In mid-December, Starr killed Wilson in a confrontation a few miles northeast of Nowata. Starr allegedly shot Wilson several times after the deputy was already down.

After Wilson's death, authorities redoubled their efforts to capture Starr, but that didn't keep him from pulling off a number of other crimes before he was finally arrested in Colorado and brought back to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to face numerous charges, including the murder of Wilson. Convicted of the latter charge, Starr was sentenced to death, but the verdict was overturned on appeal, and Starr eventually received only fifteen years in prison in a plea-bargain deal.

Starr's sentence was commuted by President Teddy Roosevelt after only a few years, and he supposedly tried to go straight for a while but soon relapsed into his old ways. After another spree of crimes, Starr was arrested in Arizona in 1909 and brought back to Colorado to face a bank robbery charge there. He was found guilty and sentenced to a long stint in the penitentiary, but he again got out early when he was released on parole in 1913.

Starr drifted back into Oklahoma and soon went on another criminal rampage. Again convicted of bank robbery, he was sentenced to 25 years in the Oklahoma State Prison. He was paroled after serving only four years, and he briefly went into the movie business but apparently decided he liked being a criminal better than playing one in films. Starr's notorious criminal career finally came to an end when he was mortally wounding during his gang's robbery of a bank in Harrison, Arkansas, in February 1921.

This is a greatly condensed version of the chapter on Starr in my new book.