Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Lootin'

Transcript

Lootin' · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: On a sunny, Texas afternoon in nineteen ninety two, an
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: old cowboy in a wide brimmed white hats and gray
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: suit walked into the Mesquite Nations Bank. The town was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: so small only one teller was working. She smiled at
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the old man when she saw him in line and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: beckoned him to the window. How can I help you today?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Cowboy Bob pulled the brim from his hats a little
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: lowering without having to look that someone would review this
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: moments later, when they checked the security cameras. The teller
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: smiled again. While she waited for a response. Cowboy Bob
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: stayed calm, never fidgeting, only sliding a note on the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: counter between them. The teller's face paled when she read
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the message. She turned, shaking and placed every last bill
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: from her cash strawer, a grand total of five, three
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen dollars inside a bag from the side
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of her desk. When the teller handed the bag over,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: she watched horrified as Cowboy Bob dug inside and removed
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a hidden die pack from a stack of bills. He
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: handed it back to her with the tip of his
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: hat and strode back out of the bank. Former FBI
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: agent Steve Powell was stumped. The Nation's Bank of Mesquite
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was the third in a line of robberies, all committed
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: by the mysterious Cowboy Bob. Steve looked over the footage again.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: By the thief's calm demeanor, how knew that he was
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: looking for a professional cowboy. Bob's gray beard and strange
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: gait was another clue the man they were looking for
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: would be at least sixty and maybe older. Steve Powell
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: spent most of his thirty year career chasing bank robbers,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: so Cowboy Bob shouldn't have been much of a problem.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: He was making me start to pull my hair out,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Powell said, How could this thin, little, dried up cowboy
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: be whipping us this bad time after time? In September
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety two, a few months after Cowboy Bob
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: robbed the nation's bank. Steve Powell received a call the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Cowboy Bob had just left the first Gibraltar bank in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Mesquite was seventeen hundred dollars. Powell loaded into his car
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and raced to the scene to interview witnesses and review
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the footage. When he arrived, he learned that Mesquite's first
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: interstate bank had just been robbed as well. This time,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Cowboy Bob had hit the jackpot, leaving with thirteen thousand dollars,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and so Powell scrambled towards First in State and hit
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the first brake in his case. An eyewitness had seen
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Cowboy Bob pulling away in a brown Pontiac Grand Prix.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: This wasn't the first time someone had noticed the car
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: driving away from the scene of the crime, but it
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: was the first time anyone got a look at the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: license plate. Two hours later, Powell and a team of
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: FBI agents pulled into a Dallas apartment complex. It turns
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: out that the car was registered to a man named
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Pete Talis, who lived at that address. Steve Powell was
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: certain that he was about to catch the bank robbing
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: cowboy red handed, but as they discussed the best ways
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to storm the apartment. A pretty woman walked out of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the apartment and towards the car they had followed. This
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: must be Cowboy Bob's girlfriend, Powell told the other agents.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: They allowed the woman to drive away from the apartment
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to avoid suspicion, and then they pulled her over a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: few blocks away. This woman, named Peggy Joe, was friendly.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: She explained that the car was hers and that she
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: had driven it earlier that month, warning to a gardening center.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Powell then asked her if they might have a look
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: around her apartment just for a moment. Peggy Joe hesitated.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: No one was in the apartment except for her sick mother,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: she told them, but finally she agreed. Agents entered the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: apartment and began searching through cabinets, under the beds, and
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: questioning Peggy Joe's elderly mother. Steve Powell stayed with Peggy
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Joe because there was something nervous about her. She glanced
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: toward the hallway closet and then back at her mother,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and then she chewed on the top of her lip,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and that was when Steve Powell took a closer look
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: at Peggy's face, just above her mouth was a dab
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of white glue. Steve's eyes widened. Check the closet, he
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: told one of the agents, and inside, on the top
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: shelf was a styrofoam head with a wide brimmed hat
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: perched on top and beneath it a gray false beard gentlemen.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Powell said Cowboy Bob is actually Cowboy Babett. Because she
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: carried out her crimes without using weapons, Peggy Joe received
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: a mild thirty three month sentence. She told police that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: she had started robbing banks to pay for her mother's medications.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Powell put the rest of the pieces together all by himself.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It turns out that Cowboy Bob's strong, silent persona had
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: more to do with Peggy's higher pitched voice than anything else.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: A previous mastectomy also made it easier for her to
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: fit into men's clothing. Her manners, however, were never faked.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Cowboy Bob or Bob Bette was quite the gentleman. The
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: small town of Appomattox courthouse sat uneasy that morning on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: April ninth of eighteen sixty five, as the two generals
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: sat in the parlor of the McLean family home mapping
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: out terms to end the brutal civil war that had
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: engulfed the country for the previous four years. Finally, Robert E.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Lee signed the document officially surrendering the Army of Northern
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. An exhausted country
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: breathed a sigh of relief. Weeks later than hundreds of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: miles away, on the dry Texas Prairie, a small band
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of Union soldiers and an opposing force of Texas Rangers
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: rode toward each other to meet in battle, unaware that
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the war they were fighting was already over. During the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: jubilant celebrations back east, word was only slowly trickling westward
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: across the frontier. After all, communication lines across the South
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: had been broken. Although Jefferson Davis had fled, there were
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: still pockets of Confederates who continued to operate as though
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the war had continued, in the hopes that the South
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: would see a resurgence. Nowhere was this more true than
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in Texas or The Union had never gained a real
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: foothold in the U s area, instead keeping to a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: handful of forts. The rest of the states was at
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that point sparsely populated. A lawless frontier, where the Southern
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: cause was still deeply popular. The Rio Grande gave the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Union troops more than enough to do. Mexican smugglers still
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: gave aid to the scattered Confederates, and onto this stage
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: stepped two commanders, Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett and Confederate
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Colonel John rip Ford. Barrett had made a name for
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: himself during campaigns in Arkansas and had been ordered to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: escort a supply convoy with two hundred infantry north from Brownsville,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: where he was to secure the crossing of the San
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Antonio River. He was a disciplined soldier by all accounts,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a pragmatic man, but he still held out hope that
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: he can make a name for himself. Meanwhile, Confederate Colonel
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Ford was still sure that the Confederacy could be saved.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: He was an impulsive man, famous for raids that he
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: conducted along the frontier. He had in his employe between
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: three hundred and four hundred men, some cavalry and some
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Texas Rangers. Neither commander had reliable ways to receive orders,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: though telegraph service was still spotty on the outskirts of
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the country, and there were constant rumors of a Confederate revival.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Both men were set to hold the shallow Ford on
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the San Antonio at Palmito Ranch. It was a crucial
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: supply route that both wanted. Both arrived within a day
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of one another. Both assumed the other to be a
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: larger enemy force, and so when scouts from the Confederate
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: cohort discovered the advancing Union troops, shots were fired to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: hold them back, but instead of retreating, Barrett decided to
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: stand his ground, ordering a warning shot be fired from
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a cannon to scare off the would be attackers. It
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: had the opposite of its intended effect, though. Ford ordered
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the Confederate cavalry to charge at the Union convoy, and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: what followed was a brief but intense battle. Union infantry
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: firing from a shallow ditch while their artillery rained down
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: cannon fire from a rise. The Confederate assault came in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: two waves. The first wave was rifle fire and the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: second was cavalry advancing on the Union line, and it
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: looked like a stalemate until Barrett ordered that a portion
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of the Union cavalry out flank Ford's men, which finally
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: broke their line and scattered the soldiers When it became
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: clear that the battle would be lost, Barrett and Ford
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: made their way onto the battlefield, shook hands, and called
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it a truce. Around thirty Union soldiers had been killed
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to the Confederates thirty five. In the weeks that followed,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it became clear that the Union's victory, however small, finally
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: affirmed Union control, which helped to re establish federal governance
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: on the frontier. Now there's some argument over which battle
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: was actually the last of the war, although the Battle
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of Galveston on June nineteenth has a pretty good claim
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: on that. But the Battle of Palmito Ranch does help
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: illustrate that although the war officially ended at Appomatox Courthouse,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: it took some time for the actual fighting to subside
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: out on the fringes of the nation. It's a lesson
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: in the value of clear communication and a sobering reminder
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of what happens when, despite our near instant access to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: news and updates, we're faced with the spread of false
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: information and an irrational loyalty to bias over fact. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in that sense, it is a curious curse, one that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: will remain long after the official end of any conflict.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audio.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: sign up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.