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Crime House exists because of listeners like you want to support the show and get the best listener experience. Subscribe to Crime House plus and get every episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes and the rest of the Crime House lineup completely ad free and early. Plus at least two exclusive Crime House bonus episodes every month with deep dives and cases you won't hear anywhere else. To join go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts tap try free on the top of the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes show page. This is Crime House. We all crave a little adventure every now and then. Maybe it's a spontaneous road trip or a last minute change of plans, but some people need more than that. They need their whole life to feel like a story worth telling, and when the normal path doesn't deliver, they're willing to step outside the law to find it. Charles Bowles was one of those people. He spent his youth traveling the country hoping to get rich in the gold rush of the late 1800s. When that didn't pan out, he realized there was another way to make his fortune. He chose the name Black Bart, probably based on a popular adventure story from the era, and decided to turn his own life into a nail biting escapade. He donned a flour sack as a mask, grabbed a shotgun and walked into the mountains of Northern California. Soon Black Bart was robbing stagecoaches left and right. He'd become a proper outlaw with his name in the papers and a hefty bounty on his head. And over a century later, he's still one of the most legendary and most likable outlaws in American history. From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories, they're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. These cases are wild and I want to hear what you think at the end of each episode. Leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow so we can continue building this community together. And for early ad free access to all three weekly episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts Today. I'm talking about Charles Bowles, a notorious stagecoach robber from the 1800s. He chose the alias Black Bart, but soon the papers came up with their own nickname for him, the Gentleman Bandit Charles always said please and thank you. During his robberies, he never stole from the passengers and he always remembered to tip his hat to any ladies who might be around. Throughout his career, Charles committed at least 28 robberies. Along the way, he pulled downright silly ruses and had several daring escapes from the law. And when his spree eventually came to an end, the mystery surrounding him didn't. Because no one really knows what Black Bart got up to in his later years. All that and more coming up. The notorious robber known as Black Bart went by a lot of different names over the years. High society friends in San Francisco knew him as Charles Bolton, a wealthy mine owner. Other times he went by TZ Spalding. But before he was either of those, he was Charles Bowles, the name his parents gave him. Charles was born in Norfolk, England around 1829 and was one of 10 children. When he was just two years old, the family moved to the United States. They settled down in Jefferson county, upstate New York, where his parents became farmers. Growing up, Charles was an athletic and outgoing kid. He was a great wrestler and made friends wherever he went. He also got really into poetry, even writing his own verses now and then. When he hit adulthood, Charles decided to leave the family farm. In 1849 at the age of 20, he and a cousin set out west in search of gold and fortune. They traveled all around Northern California and had a bit of success but never struck it rich. Charles came back home to New York in 1852 before leaving to try his luck again. He set out west a second time with two of his brothers and several childhood friends. But their hopes of going on some grand adventure were quickly dashed. Charles brothers both got sick on the journey and passed away. Even after losing his brothers, Charles stayed out west. He mined for a few years, then came home again. After that he went to Illinois where he met a woman named Mary Elizabeth Johnson. He was smitten and they got married in 1856 when Mary was 20 and Charles was 28. They went on to have several children together. After a few years in Illinois, he and Mary decided to go to New York to work on his family farm. Things were peaceful, too peaceful for Charles. After a few seasons he got restless and moved the family back to Illinois. They were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do. When the Civil war struck in 1862, 33 year old Charles enlisted to fight for the Union. He started out as a private with the 116th Illinois Regiment and eventually worked his way up to first sergeant. His fellow soldiers all liked him. He was easy to get along with, always quick with a joke or a clever comment. Charles didn't drink or smoke, but he was always ready to share a cup of coffee with someone. And he would occasionally write poems and read them to his fellow soldiers for fun. During the war, he fought in some of the bloodiest battles, including the siege of Vicksburg. The that's where he was seriously wounded. This took him out of the fight and he was honorably discharged when the war ended. By 1865, Charles was reunited with his family, but he didn't stay still for long. He moved them out to Oregon, then left for Montana to work at a mine. They kept in touch through letters and things were pretty good for the next two years. Then, in 1867, Charles wrote to his wife and he had great news. He said he'd finally made enough money to move them out to Montana. He was coming to Oregon to get them. After that, he stopped writing for a while. Mary put out missing persons notices in the local papers. When she met people from Montana, she'd ask if they'd seen her husband. None of that led her any closer to Charles. At some point, Mary moved to Hannibal, Missouri to live with one of their daughters, who had a family of her own. By then, Mary worked as a dressmaker and eventually made peace with the idea that her husband must have died somewhere on his travels. What Charles was actually doing those first few years after he vanished is a bit mysterious. He spent some time in Utah. He also had a run in with Wells Fargo agents over a mining claim where they cut off his water supply and forced him to abandon the mine. It left him furious. In one of his last letters home, he told Mary he was going to make things right. But beyond that, we don't know much. That is, until he showed back up in northern California in 1875. On July 26, 1875, a stagecoach driver named John Shine was driving from Copperopolis to Milton, two small cities in the Sierra foothills of Northern California, about 45 miles apart. Near these, stagecoaches carried a mix of mail, passengers and money. And certain ones, especially those run by big companies, could be carrying a lot of cash. Wells Fargo was huge by then and owned a lot of the stagecoaches in the area. The drivers kept the bank's money, as well as any valuables being shipped in a locked metal box called an express box. John was nearing the halfway point on his route. He was in a rough stretch of the journey, going through peaks and valleys in the Sierra Nevada mountains. That's where Charles Bowles Stepped out in front of the stagecoach. He had burlap sacks over his feet to disguise his footprints and wore a flower sack over his head with the eye holes cut out. He was dressed in a long linen duster coat with a bowler hat on top. Charles pulled out a shotgun and asked John to please throw down that box. John took too long to cooperate, so Charles gestured to the brush on the side of the road and said, if he dares to shoot, give him a solid volley, boys. John looked closer at the brush and saw what looked to be several gun barrels. He did as the bandit asked and handed over the express box. He threw out the mailbag too, since bandits usually asked for that. Then Charles told him to get on his way. John drove on and got his passengers to safety. And when he came back to the scene with law enforcement, they found the open express box, the axe used to break it, lying beside it. They also recovered the open mailbag. And in the bushes they discovered that what John had mistaken for rifles were actually just propped up sticks. Charles made off with about $160 from that first robbery. That's about $4,800 today. Two other stagecoaches were robbed soon after. Some people think Charles was behind them, but it's hard to say for sure. But the next robbery that was definitely his happened in 1877, and it's the one that made him a legend. On August 3, 1877, a stagecoach was heading from Point Arena, California, to a little place called Duncan's Mills. This was a coastal route still in the northern half of the state, covering about 60 miles. Since his first robbery, Charles had been thinking about his identity. He loved to read and was a fan of a story called the Case of Summerfield, published in the Sacramento Union by a writer named William Henry Rhodes. The villain of this story was a murderer and stagecoach robber named Black Bart. This Black Bart had a few things in common with Charles. He was an outlaw and a veteran. And though he'd been a confederate and was rather ungentlemanly, there were enough similarities that Charles dec to adopt Black Bart as his own name. After all, he was building a reputation and all the greats had nicknames. On that hot August day, he decided to make his nickname known to the world. Charles got into his usual getup and waited by the road as the stagecoach made its way up the rocky coast. He stepped out in front of the horses. This time he was armed with a sawed off double barreled shotgun. He ordered the driver to toss out express box, then asked him to please be on his way. Charles cracked open the lockbox and got about $300 in cash, as well as a $35 check, nearly $19,000 in today's money. The stagecoach driver raced to town, dropped off the passengers and came back. And he found something peculiar scrawled on a note in the destroyed express box. It was a poem. It read, I've labored long and hard for bread, for honor and for riches, but on my corns too long you've tread, you fine haired sons of bitches. He signed it Black Bart, the PO8. Rather than spelling out the word poet, he wrote the letters PO followed by the number 8. PO8 poet. After this robbery, Wells Fargo posted an $800 reward for his capture. That's around $25,000 today. And they sent one of their top detectives, James B. Hume, to find this mysterious new bandit. Charles Bowles was finally a proper outlaw with a bounty on his head and the law on his tail. And he couldn't have been more thrilled. It's ICCU's new member month and a chance for you to make some serious green from now until June 30th. You can get up to $250 when you open a new membership with checking. So go ahead, join in a branch today or online@ ICCU.com NewMemberMonth Membership required. Must have checking with debit card e branch and E statements account must remain open for six months. Offer expires June 30, 2026. See website or visit your local branch for more details and complete terms and conditions. Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Costanzo. Just 16, she didn't have far to go. Seemed perfectly safe. Until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison and this is five Miles From Home, an all new podcast from Dateline. Search five miles from Home to start listening now. In 1877, 48 year old Charles Bowles made the leap from amateur to professional stagecoach robber. He chose the nickname Black Bart and left a poem as a calling card at his fourth robbery. Now he had a name, a signature and the first full attention of Wells Fargo. His next confirmed robbery was on July 25, 1878 on the Quincy to Oroville route in Northern California. It was about 65 miles long and crossed through the Plumas National Forest and the Sierra Mountains. Everything went smoothly and Charles made off with a $200 diamond ring, a watch and coins worth about $400. At this robbery, he left his second and last confirmed poem. It read, here I lay Me down to sleep to wait the coming morrow. Perhaps success, perhaps defeat and everlasting sorrow Let come what will. I'll try it on my condition. Can't be worse. And if there's money in that box Tis money in my purse. Although Black Bart would come to be known as the outlaw poet, he only left two poems behind, but those became the stuff of legend. I would love to get your thoughts on his poetry. We posted both of them on social media. Check them out and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear. You might notice that the poems look a little bit different. That's because he was trying to disguise his handwriting, swapping from a scribbling slant to blocky letters. And just five days after leaving his final poems behind, on July 30, 1878, he struck again. He robbed a stagecoach going from La Porte to Oroville. Charles only got a handful of gold coins and a watch from this one, but he made it out clean. Charles had his system down by then. He didn't like horses. He was reportedly afraid of them. So he committed every single robbery on foot. He cut slits his shoes to help with the swelling from walking such long distances. And after every robbery, he'd ditch the axe he'd used on the lockbox so he'd never be caught carrying one. If passengers ever tried to surrender their money or jewelry, he'd wave them off. He was only interested in robbing Wells Fargo. That detail only added to his growing legend. And Charles was fast, too. On October 2, 1878, he robbed a stagecoach near Mendocino. The very next day, he robbed another about 30 miles east. It turned out committing these robberies so close together may not have been the best idea. The sheriff in Mendocino tracked Charles down. He followed him into the mountains and even got within sight of him. But Charles fled and hid in an abandoned cabin. Police went in after him, and while they were searching, he snuck out. Charles climbed into their buggy, made off with their horses, and escaped. After robberies, Charles would occasionally stop at farmhouses to buy food from locals. And once he got some distance from this close call with the Mendocino sheriff, he stopped at a rural farmhouse near the Eel River. There, a family by the last name of McCreary gave him food and chatted with him. He said he was a traveling farmhand. They thought he was funny and great company. Just an hour after he left their house, James Hume, the investigator with Wells Fargo, paid them a visit. One of the McCreary daughters had a good memory and gave him A very detailed description of Charles Hume knew this man was the right age and the right build for Black Bart. He was sure they had their guy and started sending this description out to law enforcement all over the state. Charles either wasn't aware that the search had ramped up, or he just didn't care. And he was doing pretty well for himself by then. Well enough to take time off between robberies. He started spending his winters in San Francisco. He'd stay in long term hotels and he made lots of friends rubbing elbows with high society folks. These people said he had expensive taste in clothes and was always dressed to the nines. To explain his own wealth, Charles said he owned some small mines in the Sierra Nevada mountains. He also took on the last name Bolton. One of his jobs had gotten his name wrong, but he never corrected it. And why would he? An alias with a paper trail had fallen right into his lap. In the winter of 1878-1879, he spent a lot of time hanging out at a restaurant that was a favorite among local policemen in San Francisco. There, Charles palled around with officers and chatted over coffee. They'd often discuss how the hunt for the now notorious Black Bart was going. Charles went back up north in the spring. On June 21, 1879, he robbed the La Porte d' Oroville stagecoach again. Then in the fall, he went further north, closer to the Oregon border. In October, he robbed two stagecoaches back to back on the route from Reading to Yreka. That year, the authorities upped the reward money to $1,300. That's roughly $43,000 today. And although the police were calling for his arrest, the papers wrote about him somewhat fondly. The press often called him a notorious scoundrel and even coined the nickname the gentleman named Bandit. Even Hume, the guy whose whole job was to catch him, had to admit Charles lived up to it. He said Black Bart was polite to all passengers and especially so to the ladies. And with all the practice he got, Charles was able to predict which stagecoaches would be armed and steer clear of them while he was robbing. He'd hide behind the lead horse while the driver was retrieving the box, just in case the driver had a gun. He also started focusing on the California Oregon border because the rough terrain up in the Siskiyou Mountains actually made the robberies safer. Stagecoach drivers were far less likely to put up a fight on rocky ground. And Charles went after coaches more likely to be carrying cash rather than gold, which was easier to trace. He'd still try his Ruses on occasion, putting up pipes and bushes to look like guns or pinning up hats in the brush. But eventually, his reputation started working in his favor. The drivers knew he wouldn't rob or hurt them personally, so they'd toss out the express box and leave without a fight. But things didn't always go according to plan. After taking the first half of 1881 off, Charles made his return to crime in August, robbing several stagecoaches back to back near the California Oregon border. He stayed there through the fall, and on October 8, a driver named Horace Williams was driving from Yreka to Redding. Charles flagged him down and started robbing him. But this time, the strongbox was bolted to the floor of the stagecoach. Charles couldn't just ask for it to be tossed out. He had to break it open inside the coach, which meant ordering the driver and passengers to wait down the road while he worked. Horace held the horses still nearby. While Charles was trying to break open the box with his axe, Horace made small talk. He asked how the money was in his line of work. Charles responded, not very good for the chances I take. But he managed to get the box open and got away that day. The following year, Horace Williams was still driving that same route. And on September 17, he was telling his passengers about how he'd been held up by the infamous scoundrel Black Bart the previous year. They were eating it up. As they passed the spot where Horace had been robbed, he pointed out where Black Bart had emerged from the trees. And just as he pointed, Black Bart came out once again. That time, Charles couldn't get the box open and fled without any money. That wasn't the only botched robbery Charles had that year. On July 13, 1882, he set his sights on a stagecoach near Plumas county, five miles from LaPorte. This coach had a guard, but Charles still tried to get the driver to stop. The guard shot at him, and he fled. His hat fell off, and the driver and guard found buckshot in it. Small lead pellets designed to be fired in batches, so they fan out over a wide area. It had been an incredibly close call. One of the buckshot pellets actually grazed the top of Charles's forehead, leaving a permanent scar. The a local sheriff's posse almost caught up to him as he fled the scene. Charles couldn't move at his usual pace with his head wound, so he decided to hide. Charles crawled into a hollow log, but found a skunk hiding there, too. The sheriff's posse actually caught up and sat on the very log he was hiding in. They had a dog with them, though, and when the dog started going after the skunk, the posse moved on. Charles later said the near miss almost convinced him to give up robbing. Almost. He robbed another coach near the border in the fall. He was feeling cocky and even told the driver to give his compliments to JB Hume. But when he opened the lockbox, he discovered his take was just 35 cents. The papers ran his taunting message to Hume, and people got a laugh out of the irony that he'd given it at what was maybe his most embarrassing robbery. After that, Charles came closer to home, robbing near Cloverdale on November 24th. Then he hunkered down for the winter in San Francisco. When spring hit, Charles hit Cloverdale again in April of 1883. He'd do this a lot, robbing the same spots at the start and end of winter to try and convince authorities he was living near the area where he was robbing. But by now the police had enough descriptions of Charles that they'd made an important, important realization. There was no way he actually lived in any of the small towns he was robbing. People would remember a man that distinctive. He had to be based in a larger city. They guessed San Francisco. And it was just a matter of time until they had him cornered. In the fall of 1883, Charles set his sights on a stagecoach on the Sonora to Milton route. The same route where he'd done his very first robbery back in 1875. Charles set up near Copperopolis at the halfway point. He later said that while he made his camp, he wondered when his last robbery might be. He staked out the route for a few days and on November 3, 1883, the stagecoach passed through. Charles watched it from the brush and saw a boy with a rifle sitting next to the driver. But the coach went out of his eye line for a bit and when it re emerged, the boy was gone. Charles went for it. He stepped in front of the horses and halted the coach. The driver, a man named Reason McConnell, stopped. Charles asked him what had happened to the man with the gun. Reason said he'd left to look for lost cows. In reality, the man, 19 year old Jimmy Rolari, had just hopped off to try out his new rifle. He was supposed to meet back up with Reason shortly. Charles didn't know that. He told Reason to take the horses down the path so he could have time to break open the box. And when Reason was leading them away, he spotted Jimmy. Reason caught Jimmy's eye and waved him over. Jimmy Crept up and slipped him the rifle. Reason took two shots, but both missed. So Jimmy grabbed the rifle back, and just as Charles was ducking into the brush, he pulled the trigger. This time, the bullet found its mark, hitting Charles right in the hand. True to form, Charles didn't fire back. He'd gotten the box open, and he fled with a sack of gold amalgam and about $500 in gold coins. But he was in a hurry. As he wrapped his bleeding hand in a handkerchief, he dropped it. And that handkerchief had a laundry mark in the corner. FX07. From his laundromat in San Francisco. It wasn't a name, but finally, the police had their first real clue. On November 3, 1883, Charles Bowles fled the scene of his latest robbery. In the chaos, he left behind a critical clue. A handkerchief with a laundry mark. It had a unique customer code.fx07. It wasn't a name, but if they could find the laundromat that used that code, they could find the man who dropped it. By then, the police had already guessed that Charles lived around San Francisco. So James Hume, the Wells Fargo detective, picked up the investigation. There. He and his colleagues visited 91 different laundromats before finding one that recognized the mark. There, the owner gave them the name of the customer. The Charles Bolton. After eight years, Hume's target was finally in sight. But if he wanted to catch Black Bart, he had to be careful. On November 12, a local detective named Harry Morse, who was working with Hume, paid a visit to the laundromat and asked about Charles Bolton. The owner mentioned that he worked in mining. That gave Morse an idea. When Charles came to pick up his laundry, Morse struck up a conversation, and he could immediately tell Hume had been on the right track. Charles definitely looked and acted like Black Bart. He had a long mustache, gray hair, clear blue eyes, and a deep, calm voice. But Morse needed more. So he played into Charles's own cover story. Pretending to be a businessman who needed some ore examined, Charles took the bait. He and Morse walked around town a bit and chatted about mining. Eventually, Moore steered him down the street and casually walked into a Wells Fargo office. Pretending they had business to talk about, James Hume was waiting for them inside. Hume said Charles didn't seem rattled at all. He just smiled, cracked jokes, and denied everything. When Hume asked him point blank if he was Black Bart, Charles replied, sir, I am a gentleman. Hume even pulled out a hat that had been left behind at Charles camp near Copperopolis and had him try it on. It fit perfectly, Charles said. It was a fine hat and asked the detectives if they'd sell it to him. He admitted Bolton was a fake name, but tried to say his real name was TZ Spalding. He shaved six years off his age, too, claiming he was 48 when he was really 54. Charles was playing it cool, but the walls were closing in. Police searched the hotel he was living in and found a Bible his wife had given him. She'd written his real name, Charles Bowles, in the COVID The detectives also found enough handwriting to match some of the lines from his poems. Over the next few days, the case got even tighter. The police brought in a witness who'd spotted Charles near Copperopolis around the time of the robbery. Between that, the hat, the Bible, and the handwriting from his poems, they had him. At least for that one robbery. They moved Charles to a jail near Stockton and grilled him for five hours. He finally admitted to the Copperopolis job. But Black Bart? He said he'd never heard of him. Still, Charles knew when to cut a deal. He said he'd show them where he stashed the gold and if they went easy on him. With that kind of money on the line, the detectives agreed. That night, Charles Morse and a local sheriff rode out to Copperopolis together to recover the gold. Morse later said it was one of the more memorable rides of his life. It was freezing cold, but the moon lit up the whole road. And with the jig finally up, Charles loosened right up. He told stories and cracked jokes the whole way, sharing tales from his years out in the wilderness. Eventually, they found the gold hidden in a hollow log and brought Charles back to jail. On November 23, he went before a judge and made it official. Six years in San Quentin in exchange for his guilty plea. On the way to San Quentin, he spent a few days locked up in a San Francisco jail. Friends came to say goodbye, and some of those friends, they were the very same police officers and detectives he'd been having coffee with for years. While he was locked up, Charles wrote a letter to reason McConnell, the driver who'd been at the wheel during his last robbery. He told Reason there were no hard feelings. He said Reason was a good driver who was just doing his job. And he only regretted that he was unable to compliment him on his marksmanship. Behind bars, Charles kept his head down. As always. He was easy to get along with and wound up working in the prison's drug department, where he reportedly became a pretty good chemist. He also wrote to Mary, finding out your supposedly dead husband is alive. And a Notorious bandit. Must have been a lot to process. We don't know much about how those conversations went, but when reporters tracked Mary down, she said her husband loved their family and had a lot of good in him. She also said he had a lot to answer for. In the end, she forgave him. Mary wrote that she wanted Charles to come to Missouri and live with her and the kids when he got out. He said he would, but he didn't write often, and those promises may have been hollow. On January 21, 1888, Charles Bowles was released from prison after serving just over four years for good behavior. When he got out, the press bombarded him with questions, asking if he'd go back to robbing. He told them he had given that up and said he would commit no more crimes. When they asked if he'd keep writing his poetry, he said, young man, didn't you just hear me say I will commit no more crimes? In February of 1888, Charles left San Francisco. He visited Modesto and wandered south for a bit, ending up in Visalia, about 50 miles south of Fresno. There, he checked into the Visalia House Hotel under an alias. But when he checked out, he'd left behind laundry with the same FX07 emblem. After that, Charles Bowles disappeared. The last confirmed sighting of him was on February 28, 1888. That July and November, three more stagecoaches in Northern California got hit. Each time, it was a lone man and nobody got hurt. Hume looked into it and found a poem at one of the scenes, but Hume wasn't buying it. He compared the handwriting to the real Black Bart poems and called it a fake, the work of a copycat. As far as Hume was concerned, Black Bart had hung his bowler hat up for good, copycat or otherwise. The robberies tapered off after that. One rumor says that Charles did return to crime and only stopped because he died. Maybe he was killed by another robber or had fallen down a cliff on one of those treacherous mountain roads. Or he got hurt another way and never made it out of the wilderness. Over the years, Charles was reportedly cited all over the world, in China, Oklahoma, Australia, and Kansas. One persistent legend even claims that Wells Fargo quietly offered him a pension of $200 a month to leave their stagecoaches alone. The company has always denied it, but the rumor has never quite gone away. One account with a bit more substance has him coming back to California. The Reeder family lived near the Tahoe National Forest in the town of Shady Creek. They knew Charles back in the day. Jim Reeder used to let him stay with them and pick up work when he was passing through. They knew him as Martin. He got close with the whole family, especially Jim's grandson Frank, who never forgot him. Martin came around pretty regularly. And one year when Jim was struggling with money, Martin just handed him $300. No explanation. Jim didn't know what to make of that, and Martin stopped coming around after. Then, years later, an old man showed up at the ranch claiming to be Martin. But Frank wasn't home that day, and nobody else in the family had ever met him. He left before Frank got back. So whether it was really Charles, nobody knows. Another version of the story has him going back home. The Hannibal, Missouri city directory says Charles Bowles passed away on March 3, 1896. And when Mary passed, it listed her as his widow. But there were never any accounts of him living in Hannibal printed in the papers. There are graves all over the country that claim to be the resting place of Black Bart, but none have been confirmed. Whatever happened to Charles Bowles remains a mystery. But as time has passed, his personality has made him one of the most beloved, beloved figures of the Old West. The towns he used to rob now hold celebrations in his honor. And you know what stands out to me? I love that Charles Bowles never fired his gun. Not once. He later admitted his shotgun was never even loaded. He said he'd seen enough bloodshed during the war. For all the robberies and all the drama, nobody ever got hurt by Black Bart. Not the drivers, not the passengers, and certainly not the ladies. So what do you all think? Was Black Bart a folk hero, a criminal, or something in between? And what's your favorite story you heard about him? Let us know in the comments. I'm dying to know. Wherever Charles Bowles ended up, we know one thing for sure. The legacy of the Gentleman Bandit is alive and well. Even more than 100,000 30 years since he vanished from the face of the earth. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll hear another story about the real people at the center center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original Powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes where our future you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. We'll be back on Monday. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertovsky, Lori Marinelli, Alyssa Fox, Elena Johnson, Kaylee Pine and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.