April 16, 2026 • 11 mins
Things would honestly be a lot less curious if we could just get our facts straight. At least, that's what these two tales demonstrate for us today.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
Join our Patreon for ad-free episodes!: https://www.patreon.com/grimandmild
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
On a sunny, Texas afternoon in nineteen ninety two, an
old cowboy in a wide brimmed white hats and gray
suit walked into the Mesquite Nations Bank. The town was
so small only one teller was working. She smiled at
the old man when she saw him in line and
beckoned him to the window. How can I help you today?
(00:56):
Cowboy Bob pulled the brim from his hats a little
lowering without having to look that someone would review this
moments later, when they checked the security cameras. The teller
smiled again. While she waited for a response. Cowboy Bob
stayed calm, never fidgeting, only sliding a note on the
counter between them. The teller's face paled when she read
(01:19):
the message. She turned, shaking and placed every last bill
from her cash strawer, a grand total of five, three
hundred and seventeen dollars inside a bag from the side
of her desk. When the teller handed the bag over,
she watched horrified as Cowboy Bob dug inside and removed
a hidden die pack from a stack of bills. He
(01:40):
handed it back to her with the tip of his
hat and strode back out of the bank. Former FBI
agent Steve Powell was stumped. The Nation's Bank of Mesquite
was the third in a line of robberies, all committed
by the mysterious Cowboy Bob. Steve looked over the footage again.
By the thief's calm demeanor, how knew that he was
(02:00):
looking for a professional cowboy. Bob's gray beard and strange
gait was another clue the man they were looking for
would be at least sixty and maybe older. Steve Powell
spent most of his thirty year career chasing bank robbers,
so Cowboy Bob shouldn't have been much of a problem.
He was making me start to pull my hair out,
(02:21):
Powell said, How could this thin, little, dried up cowboy
be whipping us this bad time after time? In September
of nineteen ninety two, a few months after Cowboy Bob
robbed the nation's bank. Steve Powell received a call the
Cowboy Bob had just left the first Gibraltar bank in
Mesquite was seventeen hundred dollars. Powell loaded into his car
(02:42):
and raced to the scene to interview witnesses and review
the footage. When he arrived, he learned that Mesquite's first
interstate bank had just been robbed as well. This time,
Cowboy Bob had hit the jackpot, leaving with thirteen thousand dollars,
and so Powell scrambled towards First in State and hit
the first brake in his case. An eyewitness had seen
(03:04):
Cowboy Bob pulling away in a brown Pontiac Grand Prix.
This wasn't the first time someone had noticed the car
driving away from the scene of the crime, but it
was the first time anyone got a look at the
license plate. Two hours later, Powell and a team of
FBI agents pulled into a Dallas apartment complex. It turns
out that the car was registered to a man named
(03:26):
Pete Talis, who lived at that address. Steve Powell was
certain that he was about to catch the bank robbing
cowboy red handed, but as they discussed the best ways
to storm the apartment. A pretty woman walked out of
the apartment and towards the car they had followed. This
must be Cowboy Bob's girlfriend, Powell told the other agents.
They allowed the woman to drive away from the apartment
(03:48):
to avoid suspicion, and then they pulled her over a
few blocks away. This woman, named Peggy Joe, was friendly.
She explained that the car was hers and that she
had driven it earlier that month, warning to a gardening center.
Powell then asked her if they might have a look
around her apartment just for a moment. Peggy Joe hesitated.
No one was in the apartment except for her sick mother,
(04:11):
she told them, but finally she agreed. Agents entered the
apartment and began searching through cabinets, under the beds, and
questioning Peggy Joe's elderly mother. Steve Powell stayed with Peggy
Joe because there was something nervous about her. She glanced
toward the hallway closet and then back at her mother,
and then she chewed on the top of her lip,
(04:32):
and that was when Steve Powell took a closer look
at Peggy's face, just above her mouth was a dab
of white glue. Steve's eyes widened. Check the closet, he
told one of the agents, and inside, on the top
shelf was a styrofoam head with a wide brimmed hat
perched on top and beneath it a gray false beard gentlemen.
(04:56):
Powell said Cowboy Bob is actually Cowboy Babett. Because she
carried out her crimes without using weapons, Peggy Joe received
a mild thirty three month sentence. She told police that
she had started robbing banks to pay for her mother's medications.
Powell put the rest of the pieces together all by himself.
It turns out that Cowboy Bob's strong, silent persona had
(05:19):
more to do with Peggy's higher pitched voice than anything else.
A previous mastectomy also made it easier for her to
fit into men's clothing. Her manners, however, were never faked.
Cowboy Bob or Bob Bette was quite the gentleman. The
(05:48):
small town of Appomattox courthouse sat uneasy that morning on
April ninth of eighteen sixty five, as the two generals
sat in the parlor of the McLean family home mapping
out terms to end the brutal civil war that had
engulfed the country for the previous four years. Finally, Robert E.
Lee signed the document officially surrendering the Army of Northern
(06:10):
Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. An exhausted country
breathed a sigh of relief. Weeks later than hundreds of
miles away, on the dry Texas Prairie, a small band
of Union soldiers and an opposing force of Texas Rangers
rode toward each other to meet in battle, unaware that
the war they were fighting was already over. During the
(06:34):
jubilant celebrations back east, word was only slowly trickling westward
across the frontier. After all, communication lines across the South
had been broken. Although Jefferson Davis had fled, there were
still pockets of Confederates who continued to operate as though
the war had continued, in the hopes that the South
would see a resurgence. Nowhere was this more true than
(06:56):
in Texas or The Union had never gained a real
foothold in the U s area, instead keeping to a
handful of forts. The rest of the states was at
that point sparsely populated. A lawless frontier, where the Southern
cause was still deeply popular. The Rio Grande gave the
Union troops more than enough to do. Mexican smugglers still
(07:17):
gave aid to the scattered Confederates, and onto this stage
stepped two commanders, Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett and Confederate
Colonel John rip Ford. Barrett had made a name for
himself during campaigns in Arkansas and had been ordered to
escort a supply convoy with two hundred infantry north from Brownsville,
where he was to secure the crossing of the San
(07:39):
Antonio River. He was a disciplined soldier by all accounts,
a pragmatic man, but he still held out hope that
he can make a name for himself. Meanwhile, Confederate Colonel
Ford was still sure that the Confederacy could be saved.
He was an impulsive man, famous for raids that he
conducted along the frontier. He had in his employe between
three hundred and four hundred men, some cavalry and some
(08:02):
Texas Rangers. Neither commander had reliable ways to receive orders,
though telegraph service was still spotty on the outskirts of
the country, and there were constant rumors of a Confederate revival.
Both men were set to hold the shallow Ford on
the San Antonio at Palmito Ranch. It was a crucial
supply route that both wanted. Both arrived within a day
(08:23):
of one another. Both assumed the other to be a
larger enemy force, and so when scouts from the Confederate
cohort discovered the advancing Union troops, shots were fired to
hold them back, but instead of retreating, Barrett decided to
stand his ground, ordering a warning shot be fired from
a cannon to scare off the would be attackers. It
(08:44):
had the opposite of its intended effect, though. Ford ordered
the Confederate cavalry to charge at the Union convoy, and
what followed was a brief but intense battle. Union infantry
firing from a shallow ditch while their artillery rained down
cannon fire from a rise. The Confederate assault came in
two waves. The first wave was rifle fire and the
(09:06):
second was cavalry advancing on the Union line, and it
looked like a stalemate until Barrett ordered that a portion
of the Union cavalry out flank Ford's men, which finally
broke their line and scattered the soldiers When it became
clear that the battle would be lost, Barrett and Ford
made their way onto the battlefield, shook hands, and called
(09:26):
it a truce. Around thirty Union soldiers had been killed
to the Confederates thirty five. In the weeks that followed,
it became clear that the Union's victory, however small, finally
affirmed Union control, which helped to re establish federal governance
on the frontier. Now there's some argument over which battle
was actually the last of the war, although the Battle
(09:48):
of Galveston on June nineteenth has a pretty good claim
on that. But the Battle of Palmito Ranch does help
illustrate that although the war officially ended at Appomatox Courthouse,
it took some time for the actual fighting to subside
out on the fringes of the nation. It's a lesson
in the value of clear communication and a sobering reminder
(10:10):
of what happens when, despite our near instant access to
news and updates, we're faced with the spread of false
information and an irrational loyalty to bias over fact. And
in that sense, it is a curious curse, one that
will remain long after the official end of any conflict.
(10:32):
I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
more about the show and the people who make it
over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find
(10:53):
a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book,
available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audio.
And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and
sign up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and
(11:13):
until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
On a sunny, Texas afternoon in nineteen ninety two, an
old cowboy in a wide brimmed white hats and gray
suit walked into the Mesquite Nations Bank. The town was
so small only one teller was working. She smiled at
the old man when she saw him in line and
beckoned him to the window. How can I help you today?
(00:56):
Cowboy Bob pulled the brim from his hats a little
lowering without having to look that someone would review this
moments later, when they checked the security cameras. The teller
smiled again. While she waited for a response. Cowboy Bob
stayed calm, never fidgeting, only sliding a note on the
counter between them. The teller's face paled when she read
(01:19):
the message. She turned, shaking and placed every last bill
from her cash strawer, a grand total of five, three
hundred and seventeen dollars inside a bag from the side
of her desk. When the teller handed the bag over,
she watched horrified as Cowboy Bob dug inside and removed
a hidden die pack from a stack of bills. He
(01:40):
handed it back to her with the tip of his
hat and strode back out of the bank. Former FBI
agent Steve Powell was stumped. The Nation's Bank of Mesquite
was the third in a line of robberies, all committed
by the mysterious Cowboy Bob. Steve looked over the footage again.
By the thief's calm demeanor, how knew that he was
(02:00):
looking for a professional cowboy. Bob's gray beard and strange
gait was another clue the man they were looking for
would be at least sixty and maybe older. Steve Powell
spent most of his thirty year career chasing bank robbers,
so Cowboy Bob shouldn't have been much of a problem.
He was making me start to pull my hair out,
(02:21):
Powell said, How could this thin, little, dried up cowboy
be whipping us this bad time after time? In September
of nineteen ninety two, a few months after Cowboy Bob
robbed the nation's bank. Steve Powell received a call the
Cowboy Bob had just left the first Gibraltar bank in
Mesquite was seventeen hundred dollars. Powell loaded into his car
(02:42):
and raced to the scene to interview witnesses and review
the footage. When he arrived, he learned that Mesquite's first
interstate bank had just been robbed as well. This time,
Cowboy Bob had hit the jackpot, leaving with thirteen thousand dollars,
and so Powell scrambled towards First in State and hit
the first brake in his case. An eyewitness had seen
(03:04):
Cowboy Bob pulling away in a brown Pontiac Grand Prix.
This wasn't the first time someone had noticed the car
driving away from the scene of the crime, but it
was the first time anyone got a look at the
license plate. Two hours later, Powell and a team of
FBI agents pulled into a Dallas apartment complex. It turns
out that the car was registered to a man named
(03:26):
Pete Talis, who lived at that address. Steve Powell was
certain that he was about to catch the bank robbing
cowboy red handed, but as they discussed the best ways
to storm the apartment. A pretty woman walked out of
the apartment and towards the car they had followed. This
must be Cowboy Bob's girlfriend, Powell told the other agents.
They allowed the woman to drive away from the apartment
(03:48):
to avoid suspicion, and then they pulled her over a
few blocks away. This woman, named Peggy Joe, was friendly.
She explained that the car was hers and that she
had driven it earlier that month, warning to a gardening center.
Powell then asked her if they might have a look
around her apartment just for a moment. Peggy Joe hesitated.
No one was in the apartment except for her sick mother,
(04:11):
she told them, but finally she agreed. Agents entered the
apartment and began searching through cabinets, under the beds, and
questioning Peggy Joe's elderly mother. Steve Powell stayed with Peggy
Joe because there was something nervous about her. She glanced
toward the hallway closet and then back at her mother,
and then she chewed on the top of her lip,
(04:32):
and that was when Steve Powell took a closer look
at Peggy's face, just above her mouth was a dab
of white glue. Steve's eyes widened. Check the closet, he
told one of the agents, and inside, on the top
shelf was a styrofoam head with a wide brimmed hat
perched on top and beneath it a gray false beard gentlemen.
(04:56):
Powell said Cowboy Bob is actually Cowboy Babett. Because she
carried out her crimes without using weapons, Peggy Joe received
a mild thirty three month sentence. She told police that
she had started robbing banks to pay for her mother's medications.
Powell put the rest of the pieces together all by himself.
It turns out that Cowboy Bob's strong, silent persona had
(05:19):
more to do with Peggy's higher pitched voice than anything else.
A previous mastectomy also made it easier for her to
fit into men's clothing. Her manners, however, were never faked.
Cowboy Bob or Bob Bette was quite the gentleman. The
(05:48):
small town of Appomattox courthouse sat uneasy that morning on
April ninth of eighteen sixty five, as the two generals
sat in the parlor of the McLean family home mapping
out terms to end the brutal civil war that had
engulfed the country for the previous four years. Finally, Robert E.
Lee signed the document officially surrendering the Army of Northern
(06:10):
Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. An exhausted country
breathed a sigh of relief. Weeks later than hundreds of
miles away, on the dry Texas Prairie, a small band
of Union soldiers and an opposing force of Texas Rangers
rode toward each other to meet in battle, unaware that
the war they were fighting was already over. During the
(06:34):
jubilant celebrations back east, word was only slowly trickling westward
across the frontier. After all, communication lines across the South
had been broken. Although Jefferson Davis had fled, there were
still pockets of Confederates who continued to operate as though
the war had continued, in the hopes that the South
would see a resurgence. Nowhere was this more true than
(06:56):
in Texas or The Union had never gained a real
foothold in the U s area, instead keeping to a
handful of forts. The rest of the states was at
that point sparsely populated. A lawless frontier, where the Southern
cause was still deeply popular. The Rio Grande gave the
Union troops more than enough to do. Mexican smugglers still
(07:17):
gave aid to the scattered Confederates, and onto this stage
stepped two commanders, Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett and Confederate
Colonel John rip Ford. Barrett had made a name for
himself during campaigns in Arkansas and had been ordered to
escort a supply convoy with two hundred infantry north from Brownsville,
where he was to secure the crossing of the San
(07:39):
Antonio River. He was a disciplined soldier by all accounts,
a pragmatic man, but he still held out hope that
he can make a name for himself. Meanwhile, Confederate Colonel
Ford was still sure that the Confederacy could be saved.
He was an impulsive man, famous for raids that he
conducted along the frontier. He had in his employe between
three hundred and four hundred men, some cavalry and some
(08:02):
Texas Rangers. Neither commander had reliable ways to receive orders,
though telegraph service was still spotty on the outskirts of
the country, and there were constant rumors of a Confederate revival.
Both men were set to hold the shallow Ford on
the San Antonio at Palmito Ranch. It was a crucial
supply route that both wanted. Both arrived within a day
(08:23):
of one another. Both assumed the other to be a
larger enemy force, and so when scouts from the Confederate
cohort discovered the advancing Union troops, shots were fired to
hold them back, but instead of retreating, Barrett decided to
stand his ground, ordering a warning shot be fired from
a cannon to scare off the would be attackers. It
(08:44):
had the opposite of its intended effect, though. Ford ordered
the Confederate cavalry to charge at the Union convoy, and
what followed was a brief but intense battle. Union infantry
firing from a shallow ditch while their artillery rained down
cannon fire from a rise. The Confederate assault came in
two waves. The first wave was rifle fire and the
(09:06):
second was cavalry advancing on the Union line, and it
looked like a stalemate until Barrett ordered that a portion
of the Union cavalry out flank Ford's men, which finally
broke their line and scattered the soldiers When it became
clear that the battle would be lost, Barrett and Ford
made their way onto the battlefield, shook hands, and called
(09:26):
it a truce. Around thirty Union soldiers had been killed
to the Confederates thirty five. In the weeks that followed,
it became clear that the Union's victory, however small, finally
affirmed Union control, which helped to re establish federal governance
on the frontier. Now there's some argument over which battle
was actually the last of the war, although the Battle
(09:48):
of Galveston on June nineteenth has a pretty good claim
on that. But the Battle of Palmito Ranch does help
illustrate that although the war officially ended at Appomatox Courthouse,
it took some time for the actual fighting to subside
out on the fringes of the nation. It's a lesson
in the value of clear communication and a sobering reminder
(10:10):
of what happens when, despite our near instant access to
news and updates, we're faced with the spread of false
information and an irrational loyalty to bias over fact. And
in that sense, it is a curious curse, one that
will remain long after the official end of any conflict.
(10:32):
I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
more about the show and the people who make it
over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find
(10:53):
a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book,
available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audio.
And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and
sign up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and
(11:13):
until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!