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The FBI named the mysterious man "Cowboy Bob" because he wore a 10-gallon hat during his robberies... which was also always backwards.
Cowboy Bob's first five bank robberies, which he carried out with remarkable calm and without the use of weapons, have puzzled the authorities.
Bob knew the locations of the cameras and skillfully avoided them. He also knew how to check the bills for dye packs – remote-controlled devices that cover both the money and the thief with a bright red smoke.
Evidently, there was no dramatic entrance! Instead, Bob discreetly handed the cashier a note announcing the robbery. Once he had the money, he calmly walked out and drove away in his 1975 Pontiac Grand Prix with stolen license plates.
The beard, the hat and the silence made it difficult to identify this mysterious cowboy and left the agents baffled. Out of sheer frustration, former agent Steve Powell stated in 2005, "he was making me start to pull my hair out. How could this thin, little dried-up cowboy be defeating us repeatedly?"
No shouting, no screeching tires, so no chance of a car chase, no hostages, and no eyewitnesses!
In his sixth try, though, he overlooked an important detail. Maybe it was laziness or cockiness, but when Cowboy Bob calmly drove away from the First Interstate Bank in Mesquite, his Grand Prix had its real license plates on.
Powell and his team were able to track down the license plate with the help of a witness. The number led them to Pete Tallas, an employee at a nearby Ford factory. However, Tallas claimed to have given the car to his sister Peggy Jo.
The FBI came to the apartment where Peggy and her mother lived, expecting to find a bearded boyfriend in a cowboy hat. But they found a middle-aged Peggy devotedly caring for her debilitated mother.
When the women were questioned about a robbery, they didn't say much, even after the agents discovered a mannequin with a fake beard in the wardrobe and a bag full of money in the bedroom.
Powell stated that she simply said, "There isn’t any man. I promise you that.” Then he noticed a small piece of glue on her upper lip and traces of gray dye in her hair...
Tallas grew up in Texas in the 1960s listening to rock 'n' roll, and apparently she also had a wild side. In her twenties, she stole a car with the key carelessly left in the ignition. So why not take it for a ride?
She was caught for stealing the car and sentenced to five years’ probation. Maybe this was the catalyst for her dream of living on a beach in Mexico. But before she could fulfill her wish, her mother fell ill.
In the 1980s, in addition to her mother’s illness, which cost her a lot of time and money, Peggy Jo had no luck in love, didn't get along with her siblings, had no career and no stable home.
Peggy Jo started taking medication, and eventually Cowboy Bob 'stepped up,' possibly because she could no longer cope with the overwhelming pile of bills.
The media were eager to hear her story, and numerous book and movie offers came her way, but she remained silent. Some speculate that the crime was initially just to pay her mother’s medical bills, but it soon became something of a thrill.
Although her lawyer presented Peggy Jo as a mentally drained and devoted daughter who could not understand her own actions, she pleaded guilty and spent almost three years in prison.
After her release, Peggy Jo found a job at a marina. She soon won the affection of the community for the attention she gave the children and gradually overcame her troubled past.
After the death of her mother in the 90s, the kindly old lady with the straw hat returned to her restless habits. She once again became the young woman who yearns for freedom.
After leaving the marina, Peggy Jo bought an RV from a neighbor and disappeared from the scene for about a year. She rarely contacted her friends and when she did, she talked about fleeing back to Mexico.
She planned one last theft. But it wasn't going to be the kind of blockbuster heist you'd expect from an experienced thief. Instead, it was exactly the opposite.
On May 5, 2005, Peggy Jo walked into Guaranty Bank in Tyler, Texas, wearing a floppy hat and sunglasses, opting for a simpler disguise.
For some reason, she spoke aloud to the cashier instead of handing over a note (as she used to), and she also forgot to check the money for a dye pack. It got messy...
Maybe. Who knows? The pack exploded and sprayed red, inky smoke in all directions. Peggy Jo hurried to her RV and crossed several lanes of traffic in full view of the bystanders, who quickly called the police.
The RV was driving at a high speed and finally came to a halt in a residential area. Peggy Jo remained in the vehicle for quite a while, but her thoughts during this time are still unknown.
The once so calm woman held something dark in her hands and dared the cops to shoot. But they hesitated. After all, she was a woman in her sixties who had never committed any acts of violence in all her years of robbing banks without weapons.
According to witnesses, she picked up the dark object and said, "You mean to tell me if I come out of here with a gun and point it at y’all, you’re not going to shoot me?" She landed on the ground with four bullets in her body.
However, the police soon discovered that the dark object in Peggy Jo's hands was actually a toy gun. Intriguingly, they found a real .357 Magnum revolver inside the RV.
Was it just for the sake of excitement? Peggy Jo Tallas, AKA Cowboy Bob, was an anomoly: she worked alone and as a woman, robbed banks with no debt from gambling or drugs, and showed a distinct natural talent for crime. She was an exciting challenge for the FBI, and Agent Powell was reportedly saddened by her fate, reacting to her death by saying, "Say it ain’t so."
Sources: (Texas Monthly)
When he first became notorious around Dallas, Texas, Cowboy Bob was recognized as being 5 ft 10 in, with a slight belly, a long beard, gray hair, and an eerie silence about him. And although he was stealing from banks, he was described as being very polite! Between 1991 and 1992, the mysterious wrangler eluded the FBI as he robbed without leaving any trace of evidence behind... until he finally got careless. What the feds found, however, was not what they expected. Dig into the enigmatic story of Cowboy Bob as you browse this gallery, and buckle up for some of the twists and turns that flipped the FBI's investigation on its head!
The woman that fooled the FBI
Cowboy Bob: crime's unexpected wrangler
LIFESTYLE Curiosity
When he first became notorious around Dallas, Texas, Cowboy Bob was recognized as being 5 ft 10 in, with a slight belly, a long beard, gray hair, and an eerie silence about him. And although he was stealing from banks, he was described as being very polite! Between 1991 and 1992, the mysterious wrangler eluded the FBI as he robbed without leaving any trace of evidence behind... until he finally got careless. What the feds found, however, was not what they expected. Dig into the enigmatic story of Cowboy Bob as you browse this gallery, and buckle up for some of the twists and turns that flipped the FBI's investigation on its head!