Bessie was pressuring Rothschild to marry her, and according to various accounts, she may have claimed she was pregnant (an autopsy later showed that she was not) and threatened to reveal this scandalous fact to Rothschild's father. Rothschild's reluctance to legitimize their relationship may have been what motivated her murder. There is evidence they entered into a legal marriage in Illinois. From this time until her death, they were together.

Bessie plied her trade in brothels in Cincinnati, Ohio, New Orleans, Louisiana, and finally Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she met Rothschild in 1875. A story that she had a large inheritance from her father may be apocryphal. By all accounts, she adapted to the life quickly, and her numerous male admirers showered her with gifts of diamond jewelry. After this affair ended, she entered into prostitution (though she kept Moore's name). At 15, she left home and took up with a man named Moore. Bessie was born in 1854 in Syracuse, New York, and the abundance of attention from men resulting from her striking beauty is said to have led her down the proverbial 'wayward path' at a young age. Her accused killer was her lover (and husband), Abraham Rothschild. She was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head in the early afternoon of Sunday, January 21, 1877. Diamond Bessie (1854 - January 21, 1877) was the popular name given to Bessie Moore, née Annie Stone, a prostitute whose murder in the woods outside of Jefferson, Texas, propelled her to the level of local legend.

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