Rothstein_mastermind

Erie, Pa., pizza bomb case was product of 'sadistic' mastermind William Rothstein Attorney: Pizza bomb leader found pleasure in others' pain Friday, July 13, 2007John CanigliaPlain Dealer Reporter Erie, Pa.- The face of evil wore a white beard and thick, horn-rimmed glasses that failed to filter his visions of power and control. William Rothstein spent his life manipulating those he liked and hated, even those in his family. He played with pipe bombs, destroyed evidence from crimes and toyed with guns. He used his knowledge of the crim inal world to deceive and fight authority. He believed he was smarter than anyone he knew and could manipulate people and orchestrate situations.   His last attempt before his death made people wonder how a person, even one as callous and diabolical as Rothstein, could torture another - without a hint of empathy. This week, authorities said Rothstein built the collar bomb that killed pizza deliveryman Brian Wells in August 2003. A federal grand jury charged Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes with bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery and weapons violations. Wells was brought into the twisted caper as an accomplice: He was to rob a bank wearing a fake bomb in order to pay for an assassination of Diehl-Armstrong's father so she could get an inheritance, authorities said. But Wells' co-conspirators double-crossed him: The bomb turned out to be real. Rothstein would have been charged as well, but he died of cancer in July 2004. He was 60. "He enjoyed a sadistic pleasure of watching people get hurt," said Erie attorney Lawrence D'Ambrosio, who has represented Diehl-Armstrong and continues to speak with her almost daily about her case. "It was bizarre." Rothstein lived as a recluse. He was a handyman, electrician and substitute teacher in Erie, once coaching a high school robotics team. He also worked in his parents' Erie pop-bottling business. Erie, Pa., pizza bomb case was product of 'sadistic' mastermind William Rothstein Page 2 of 4 Erie residents said he enjoyed a simple life, buying his vegetarian produce at a local co-op, dressing in overalls and living for the chessboard. He loved to belt out show tunes deep from his belly. To many people, he appeared friendly, though he had few close friends. But at home, he breathed clutter, filling rooms and garages with mechanical gizmos and refusing to clean his property, even after a judge in 2003 ordered him to cut tall weeds and pick up junk. When Rothstein grabbed a piece of metal or conceived a plan, he became obsessed with the details.   "He was meticulous to a fault," said Gene Placidi, Rothstein's former attorney. In 2004, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va., delivered a portrait of the person who built the bomb that killed Wells. It closely mirrored Rothstein's personal habits, according to court records and interviews with people who knew him. Besides being a pack rat and meticulous, like Rothstein was, the bomb maker took great pride in deception, according to the report. The bomb had several wires that went nowhere and were connected to nothing, making it appear that the device was much more complicated than it was. The person who made the device also frequently wrote letters that sought revenge and delivered ultimatums - the themes in the notes Wells carried with him the last day of his life. Federal agents said a suicide note once written by Rothstein was similar in tone and writing style to one of the pages of directions Wells carried. The bomb maker had access to a garage or workshop where he could work and not be bothered. In Rothstein's case, a friend gave him a key to a shop where no one looked over his shoulder. Despite his need for privacy, Rothstein has attracted attention for years. Rothstein provides guns In the late 1970s, one of Rothstein's friends, Louis Allessie, became enraged at an enemy, Bill Berry, and wanted a weapon to kill the man. Rothstein gave Allessie a handgun, which he used in the slaying. After the murder, Rothstein got rid of the gun. Erie, Pa., pizza bomb case was product of 'sadistic' mastermind William Rothstein Page 3 of 4 Then he called police and cooperated. Allessie was sentenced to prison. Two weeks before the August 2003 bank robbery, Rothstein helped his friend, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, dispose of the body of her live-in boyfriend, James Roden. Diehl-Armstrong shot Roden twice in the chest with a .12-gauge shotgun because she feared Roden would become an informer in the Wells plot, according to the Wells indictment.   Rothstein testified during a hearing that he destroyed the shotgun and scattered bits of it along county roadways, threw away more than 1,000 pounds of evidence in a junkyard and wrapped Roden's body in a plastic tarp, placing him in a freezer in his garage. A civil suit brought by Roden's family says Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong bought an ice crusher to grind up the body. "Nothing was 'off the table' when it came to accomplishing their mission - not violence, deception or the spread of fear," said Mark Potter, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives supervisor, about the collar-bomb accomplices. After 40 days with the body in his freezer, Rothstein ran to authorities. He again watched from the sidelines as another friend was punished. Diehl-Armstrong was sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison for Roden's murder. Rothstein's last remaining family member, his sister Paulette, refused to talk about her brother. Court records, however, show Paulette Rothstein criticized her brother for failing to handle his job as the executor of his mother's will and allowed large sums of money to disappear. Virginia Rothstein died in 2000. William Rothstein's best friend, Mark Golden, said Rothstein was a genuine guy who would do anything for a person. If he saw a friend in trouble, he would try to help, which often led him to trouble. He said that was the case with helping Diehl-Armstrong dispose of Roden's body. But Golden said he cannot understand how Rothstein would be a part of the Wells case. Erie, Pa., pizza bomb case was product of 'sadistic' mastermind William Rothstein Page 4 of 4 "Just too many inconsistencies," Golden said. "They said the bomber called and ordered two pizzas with pepperoni [and sausage]. Rothstein was a vegetarian. He would never eat that. I know. I ate a lot of pizzas with the guy. He couldn't do something like that." D'Ambrosio, Diehl-Armstrong's former attorney, said Rothstein was capable of many vicious things. In the early 1980s, Rothstein introduced Diehl-Armstrong to a boyfriend, Bob Thomas. When Diehl-Armstrong complained to Rothstein that Thomas abused her, Rothstein simply laughed about it, D'Ambrosio said.   In July 1984, she killed Thomas with a gun. She was later acquitted, claiming one of the first defenses of battered women's syndrome in Pennsylvania. To D'Ambrosio, that explained Rothstein's personality: He liked to see other people getting hurt, whether it was his longtime friend Diehl-Armstrong or Brian Wells.

There have been some leads closer to home that investigators have also tracked to the bitter end, authorities say.

Early on in the investigation, for example, authorities extensively questioned a man named William Rothstein. In many respects, Rothstein's profile seemed to reflect the kind of characteristics authorities might expect to find in the so-called "Collarbomber's" personality.

He was a loner who lived in a secluded area not far from the spot where Wells made his last pizza delivery. He even admitted, according to published reports, that he had used a pay phone near his house on the day that Wells died, just as the suspected killers had. What's more, Rothstein was a tinkerer, a man who, according to published reports, liked to work on odd devices, and, at one point, even participated in a local robot club.

 

suicide note
Rothstein, who was then dying of cancer and who was said to have been contemplating suicide at the time he had even gone so far as to write a suicide note detailed his involvement in the case after the alleged slaying of James D. Roden, 45, Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend.

According to an Associated Press report at the time, Rothstein told investigators that the woman had telephoned him, said that she had found Roden dead and feared that she would be blamed.

In reality, Rothstein said, he was trying to buy time, not sell it, and when he and Diehl-Armstrong returned to his house, he made an excuse, left the house, and telephoned police. According to the AP report, Rothstein told police that the last straw was when he learned that "Diehl-Armstrong wanted to use an ice crusher to dismember the body."

“Rothstein should be charged with the murder of Brian Wells and a lot of other charges, that he had a fugitive from justice -- a rapist that I turned into the FBI -- in his house for two years,” Diehl-Armstrong said.

Diehl-Armstrong has since been charged with the slaying, and is awaiting trial. Rothstein succumbed to his cancer on July 30. But before he died, he gave a deathbed statement in which he denied any involvement in the Wells case.

Authorities concede that they don't and may never know with perfect certainty whether Rothstein was telling the truth about his innocence in connection with Wells' death. As one law enforcement official had put it, "We just don't know...but we don't think we've found or come across the actual maker of the device."

By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer
14 minutes ago



PITTSBURGH - Nearly four years after a bizarre bank robbery in which a pizza deliveryman was killed by a bomb fastened to his neck, a grand jury has indicted two people in connection with the crime.

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The indictments were returned under seal Monday, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictments had not been formally announced.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, already imprisoned for killing her boyfriend, was notified Tuesday that she may face charges of bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms count, lawyer Lawrence D'Ambrosio said. He says Diehl-Armstrong, 58, is innocent.
 

Drugs
Federal authorities also notified a man described as Diehl-Armstrong's fishing companion, Kenneth E. Barnes, that he faces charges. Barnes, 53, is jailed on unrelated drug charges.

The U.S. attorney's office has declined to comment until a news conference later Wednesday to announce a "major development."

On Aug. 28, 2003, 46-year-old Brian Wells set out to deliver an order for two pizzas to a mysterious address that turned out to be the location of a TV tower. He turned up about an hour later and roughly two miles away at a PNC Bank branch in Summit Township, with a note demanding money and saying he had a bomb.

Wells took the money from a teller, got into his car and was soon captured by police. Hanging from his neck under his T-shirt was a triple-banded metal collar and a device with a locking mechanism that kept it in place. Attached to the collar was a bomb.

"It's going to go off," Wells said. "I'm not lying."

Someone had started a timer on the bomb, Wells said, and forced him to rob the bank.

While police waited for the bomb squad, the bomb exploded, killing Wells. Police found a gun resembling a cane in the car and a nine-page handwritten letter that included detailed instructions on what Wells was to do with the bank money and how he could unlock the collar by going through a kind of scavenger hunt, looking for clues and landmarks.

The note also included a list of rules and a threat that Wells would be "destroyed" if he failed to complete his mission.

Diehl-Armstrong, 58, has been linked to the Wells investigation because her boyfriend's body was found in the freezer of a home near the TV tower where Wells made his final delivery. She pleaded guilty but mentally ill to killing her boyfriend and is serving a sentence of seven to 20 years in state prison.

The man who owned the home, William Rothstein, was questioned in Wells' death but has since died of cancer.

Wells Involved

Authorities have never said whether they believe Wells was an innocent victim, a conspirator or someone who knew something about the robbery plot but did not realize the risk he faced. Wells' family believes he was just a victim.

D'Ambrosio, Diehl-Armstrong's attorney, has said he believes she had nothing to do with Wells' death but may have known the people behind the robbery.
 

Bill Rothstein

 

 

Suspected other murders

Several  murders Bill Rothstein, who died of leukemia in July 2004, was a familiar face to Erie, Pennsylvania law enforcement. The 60-year-old native had been on the fringes of several murder cases in the Erie area. In 1979, Rothstein was given immunity for testifying against his friend, Louis Allessie, who was on trial for murder. Rothstein testified he had helped Allessie melt down the murder weapon and disposed of it by spreading the pieces over the county. Rothstein's testimony sent Allessie to prison.

Six months after Brian Wells’ death, the FBI released nine pages of handwritten instructions that Wells said he was forced to follow in order to disarm the bomb. The instructions bore a strange resemblance to instructions for a local newspaper contest called the “Great Key Hunt.”

"The behaviors seen in this crime were choreographed by someone on the sidelines, according to a written script in which the offender directs people who are involved,” said FBI agent Bob Rudge at the news conference called to release the instructions.

The instructions show that Wells had been sent on a kind of scavenger hunt to find notes hidden underneath rocks and keys that should have opened the collar bomb that was around his neck.

Who wrote them? Could they really have saved his life? Or were they simply a cruel, handwritten death sentence?

Tick Tock

Though the final moments of Brian Wells' life were recorded on videotape, the 40 minutes leading up to his arrest are still shrouded in mystery.

At approximately 2 p.m., a male voice called Mama Mia's pizzeria and orders two pies. Wells got directions from the caller.

Wells got in his Geo Metro compact car and headed south on Peach Street. The directions led him a deserted dirt road that ends in an array of TV satellite dishes and towers. It is here that Wells later told police that he was jumped, an explosive device attached to his neck and the timer started.

At 2:40 p.m., Wells pull up to a PNC Bank in Summit Town Center.

“He had in his possession a cane that had been fabricated into a single shot shotgun … he presents a note to the teller indicating what his demands were,” said Erie District Attorney Brad Foulk.

Wells left with an undetermined amount of cash in a black plastic garbage bag but not before someone in the bank pressed a silent alarm.

He doesn't get far.

Police caught up with him in the parking lot next door to the bank. Soon, television news cameras arrive and they proceed to broadcast the situation live.

“We really didn't believe that this guy had an actual bomb because you always hear about people holding up banks using bombs and it turns out to be the guy's got some road flares or a cell phone or just a handful of wires,” said Brian Sheridan, who, at the time, was a television reporter assigned to cover the story.

Police had their guns drawn on Wells but when they had some of Wells’ shirt removed, they saw the device around his neck and backed away, Sheridan said. Soon thereafter, the bomb exploded.

More Deaths, More Questions

Three days after the strange death of Brian Wells, Erie was faced with another strange incident.

Robert Pinetti, a friend of Wells’ who worked with him delivering pizzas for Mama Mia’s, was discovered unresponsive by family members. Nearly the same age as Wells, a coroner’s report obtained by FOX News showed that Pinetti died from a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol in his system. The coroner’s report ruled Pinetti’s death accidental.

Despite the extraordinary coincidence of two men working for the same small pizza delivery shop dying mysterious deaths within days of each other, a thorough investigation turned up nothing linking Pinetti's overdose death to the deadly bomb blast that killed Wells.

But Pinetti’s death would not be the last.

Three weeks after Wells’ murder, William Rothstein -- a substitute teacher, handyman and lifelong Erie resident -- contacted the Pennsylvania State Police to report that there was a body in his freezer.

In an exclusive video obtained by FOX News, Rothstein admits to disposing of the corpse, later identified as James Roden.

“There was a person I have known since the late 60s early 70s. She had a body in her house that she wanted removed … I helped her with it,” Rothstein said. “I put it basically in my garage.”

The woman was Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, a former fiancé of Rothstein’s.
 

Jews killed others

Of the four suspicious deaths connected to Diehl-Armstrong, she was convicted in only one. She was found guilty of murder in the third degree for the death of James Roden. “She had a significant other that hung himself … She had a significant other that apparently stumbled and hit his head on a coffee table and died … and Mr. Roden was shot while he was asleep as well with two blasts from a shotgun,” Foulk said.

“She's had bad luck with significant others. One individual was shot seven or eight times while he was asleep,” said Foulk, the district attorney.

Of the four suspicious deaths connected to Diehl-Armstrong, she was convicted in only one. She was found guilty of murder in the third degree for the death of James Roden. She admitted to causing one of the other deaths but she claimed spousal abuse.

Last Woman Standing

Jim Fisher is a former FBI agent turned freelance writer. He's followed the Wells case from day one and he believes the person responsible would have been a handyman of sorts, a “jack of all trades.”

“To make a bomb is a dangerous thing to do,” Fisher said. “If you make a mistake, the mistake could be fatal, so the bomb components -- the electronics, the circuitry -- that goes into this would suggest someone who is comfortable with these skills.”

Fisher said that in his opinion, Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong should be eyed as suspects.

“I see this as a onesy twosey -- one or two people involved in this. People who sort of have, you know, a relationship … There would be a certain amount of dominance there. Where the subservient partner would be afraid, you know, of the mastermind,” Fisher said.

Sound farfetched? Consider this: After Rothstein called the cops to report the dead body in his freezer, he dashed off a short suicide note although he never carried out his threat to kill himself.

“He apologized for being in the position he was in, to his family and to his friends and he indicated that his suicide had nothing to do with the Wells case,” said Gene Placidi, Rothstein’s attorney.

Placidi said he wasn’t sure that Diehl-Armstrong had a hold on his client.

“I think he was just a very nice guy … a very helpful man,” Placidi said. “They went back a long time and … when he could help her, he tried to help her.”

And what about Diehl-Armstrong? In a rambling statement to reporters following her arrest in connection with Roden’s murder, she fingered Rothstein as Wells’ killer.
 

Rothstein a rapist

“Rothstein should be charged with the murder of Brian Wells and a lot of other charges, that he had a fugitive from justice -- a rapist that I turned into the FBI -- in his house for two years,” Diehl-Armstrong said.

After her outburst against Rothstein, some wondered whether her rant was a jailhouse dodge.

“Think of what you’re dealing with here. The woman was shrew. This woman was manipulative,” Placidi said.

One potential witness to the events of Aug. 28, 2003, told FOX News that he was driving south on I-79 not far from the bank robbery site on that day.

“I saw at a distance, maybe half a mile away, a gold car driving to my right on the berm coming at me at full highway speed,” said Tom Sedwick, a retired faculty member from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “It was a woman … and she made full eye contact with me because I was blinking the lights and she looked at me and continued on toward Erie, but in the wrong lane, on the wrong side of the road.”

Three weeks later, he found out whom those eyes belonged to when authorities picked up Diehl-Armstrong in the Roden case and Sedwick saw her on television. “They marched the woman through in her orange outfit and I turned to my wife and I said, ‘That's the woman I saw in that gold car.’”

Sedwick spoke with the Erie police by phone but hadn't met personally with any authorities until FOX News informed the FBI about his statement. He was then questioned by federal agents.

Asked about the comments from Sedwick, Diehl-Armstrong’s attorney told FOX News that her possible sighting near the scene of the Wells crime was understandable.

“Well, at that time, Mr. Roden's body was in the freezer at Mr. Rothstein's house,” said Diehl-Armstrong’s attorney, John Moore. “So it would not surprise me that she was up in that area and it wouldn't surprise me that she was driving erratically. Whether that in itself is related to Brian Wells, I don't know.”

In July, Diehl-Armstrong was removed from the penitentiary in Muncie, Penn., and brought back to Erie for questioning in regard to the pizza bombing case.

Moore said his client was not questioned about the Wells’ murder after the crime was committed.

“I wondered what took them so long to put what I thought was a pretty obvious connection together,” Moore said, adding that he is advising his client to talk to investigators only if she gets immunity against prosecution in the case.

“I think she has information relevant to the investigation,” he told FOX News. Asked why she had kept quiet, Moore said Diehl-Armstrong “had a number of other problems to deal with and no one has really raised it or asked about it up until this time.”

And if William Rothstein had anything to do with Brian Well's death, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to determine an answer. He died last year from cancer. Before his death, he was interviewed though by the authorities on three different occasions and given an FBI lie detector test -- a test he is said to have passed.

But despite the speculation, investigators have not identified anyone as a prime suspect in Brian Well's violent death. They haven't ruled anyone out either -- including Wells himself. And, two years later, that wears on his brother John.

“I'm never going to get over the loss of my brother,” John Wells said. “You can't imagine trying to live through this. You don't know what it's like, you know, having to go cry in your shower so your family members don't see you crying. And the best is they keep covering it up. I won't say cover up. They won't let the information come out.”


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LIFE, IDENTITY LOST: Hear Plain Dealer reporter John Caniglia recount the story of the Erie collar bomb. (audio)


A FOUR-YEAR JOURNEY: Accused represent the fringes of Erie. (audio)


READ MORE: Past stories and more about the case.


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Erie, Pa. -- He sat on the road with his legs twisted under him and his hands cuffed behind his back. His oversized glasses drooped as he cried for help.

Brian Wells, a pizza deliveryman, was caught in a bizarre bank robbery Aug. 28, 2003. He had walked in with a bomb strapped to his neck, and now no one wanted to help him. No one knew what was going on or seemed to understand how a simpleton got involved in such a vicious plot.

Except Wells. He knew he had been double-crossed.


Surveillance video of Brian Wells entering a PNC Bank in Erie, Pa., with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest. Wells, who for so long thought he was an accomplice in the robbery, turned out to be a victim. He'd die less than an hour later.Investigators revealed today that Wells, 46, was actually in on the plot, both a victim and an offender in the same crime.
His accomplices told him the bomb was a phony, a prop to fool bank clerks into giving up money. But just before they clicked it around his neck, they told him the truth: The bomb was real, and it would kill him if he did not do exactly what he was told.

Then, 55 minutes after his cohorts strapped the bomb on, 40 minutes after he robbed the bank and 20 minutes after police caught him, the device blew a softball-sized hole into Wells' chest and killed him.

The slaying stunned this city 90 minutes from Cleveland. For nearly four years, everyone assumed Wells was a tragic and unsuspecting victim. But authorities said he mentally rehearsed the robbery plan for days and even sat for fittings of the device.

Federal indictments unsealed today charged Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes in Wells' death. They are charged with robbery and weapons violations and accused of planning the robbery to gain enough money for Diehl-Armstrong to pay for a hitman to kill her father.

A third person involved in the planning, convicted rapist Floyd Stockton, was given immunity in a deal with prosecutors.

A fourth man, who authorities say was the plot's mastermind and bomb-builder, William Rothstein, is dead. He died of cancer July 30, 2004.

Diehl-Armstrong has denied any role in the robbery. And Wells' family defended has him, saying he played no role in the crime other than as a victim. Family members exploded at a federal press conference today that outlined Wells' role. Wells' role, his sister Barbara White called out "Liar! Liar!" to federal prosecutors.

"People are saying that just to protect themselves," said John Wells, Brian's younger brother.

But in truth Wells was a follower who was in the thick of the plot, according to the indictments and interviews with investigators and defense attorneys.

"Greed was their inspiration. Death was just a byproduct," said Ray Morrow, an FBI agent in Pittsburgh.


Janet B. Campbell/Associated press, Erie Times-News
Members of the bomb squad check Brian Wells' body for more explosives on Aug. 28, 2003 in Erie, Pa., after a bomb strapped to his chest exploded and killed him.
Brian Wells He was known as a man with simple tastes, caring for his three cats, eating Sunday meals with his mother and fixing his cars. He was a high school dropout, and in the last decade worked on and off delivering food at Mama-Mia's Pizza-Ria, a cramped five-table restaurant that catered to construction workers for lunch and young families for dinner.
What people didn't know was his affection for a prostitute.

Wells and the woman, Jessica Hoopsick, had sex approximately twice a month for about five years, sometimes at a home on Perry Street in Erie. Barnes, a convicted cocaine dealer, would rent rooms to prostitutes and their clients in exchange for drugs and cash. She even testified before a federal grand jury about Wells' link to Barnes, her attorney said.


Kenneth BarnesA few years earlier, Barnes had offered to do a favor for a fishing friend, Diehl-Armstrong: kill her father, Harold, for $125,000.
Diehl-Armstrong is bipolar and often flies into screaming rages when she becomes annoyed or doesn't get what she wants. She wanted her father dead over a dispute involving her inheritance from her mother's death in 2000, federal agents said.
Diehl's father

It was an inheritance that had largely disappeared. Agnes Diehl's estate was once valued at about $500,000, but it dwindled over the years. Harold Diehl gave his daughter about $50,000. He said he didn't give her more because the money was running out.

"She wouldn't kill me, but she probably would get somebody else to do it," Harold Diehl said in an interview earlier this year. "She tends to be greedy. I just don't trust her."


Associated Press/The Erie Times-News, Janet B. Campbell
Authorities say Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's rage at her father set the murderous plan in motion.Unable to come up with the money, Diehl-Armstrong approached Rothstein, whom she knew for years and almost married. He also was being hassled by a family member over money, and they discussed various schemes, including a bank robbery.
As the robbery plan crystallized, the group pulled Wells in. They told him the bomb would be fake, and, if arrested, he would claim that he was a hostage, authorities said. They said police would then let him go, and he would later collect some money.

He believed them.

They lied.

On Aug. 28, 2003, Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong went to a nearby gas station, called Mama-Mia's Pizza-Ria and ordered two sausage and pepperoni pizzas. The gas station's surveillance cameras record them arriving at the station and later speeding away.

About 2:15 p.m., Wells drove to a wooded lot near Rothstein's home on Peach Street in Erie. Rothstein, Barnes and Stockton confronted him there and Wells, for the first time, learned that the device was real.

He wrestled with the men and tried to scamper away, but one of them fired a gun, causing Wells to stop. They gave him an oddly shaped cane, which was actually a gun, and told him to use it if he found trouble at the bank.

Why was Wells double-crossed?

Authorities said that, to the culprits, it was one less witness to worry about.

The men gave Wells a nine-page note that put Wells on a scavanger hunt for clues so that he could pry off the bomb.


A piece of the bomb strapped to Brian Wells."This powerful, booby-trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions," the note said. "Using time attempting to escape it will fail and leave you short of time to follow instructions. Do not delay."
The bomb had a timer that gave Wells 55 minutes to rob the bank and find the clues. Despite the note, investigators said, Wells could have gotten out of it, but he became crippled with fear.


The clasp on the bomb was made like a child's toy. It could have been pried away with some effort.The device appeared to be sophisticated, but agents said it was built like a child's toy bracelet that would have snapped open, given the proper pressure.
With the bomb yoked to his neck, Wells drove to the PNC Bank branch in a shopping center on Peach Street. About 2:40 p.m., Wells walked inside the bank and appeared oddly calm, twirling a sucker in his mouth, according to pictures taken by the bank's video cameras.

He told the clerk that he had a bomb and showed her the gun. He demanded $250,000; he got $8,000.

Rothstein, according to investigators, stood in the parking lot adjacent to the bank, waiting to grab the money from Wells. But as Wells left the bank, a customer followed him out, thinking that something was odd about Wells' behavior.

Rothstein panicked. He fled to his car and sped home, empty-handed. At his house, Diehl-Armstrong waited.

Once Rothstein returned without the money, Diehl-Armstrong fumed, believing that Rothstein had fleeced her by hiding the money along the route. She jumped in Rothstein's car and drove back toward the bank and began looking for a place where Rothstein may have pitched the money, according to federal agents.

At one point, she veered off I-79, just outside Erie, and began looking near the median. Witnesses saw her frantically searching and driving recklessly.

As Diehl-Armstrong searched, Wells' life ticked away. Using the nine-page letter as a guide, he bolted for clues. After the bank, his first stop was at a nearby McDonald's drive-through, where a note was hiding under a rock, the FBI said.

He pulled out of the restaurant, heading to his next clue on Interchange Road, north of the city, when police stopped him. Officers arrested him for the robbery and realized that he had a device strapped to his neck. They backed away, leaving him on the ground, quivering.

"Why isn't nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he said. "It's going to go off. I'm not lying."

At 3:18 p.m., the bomb exploded.

Authorities began the investigation with the dead man. His family said investigators cut his head from his body in order to analyze the bomb more carefully.

Police then went to his home. The FBI blew the door off its hinges to get into his small apartment during a search in the middle of the night.

Three days later, Wells' co-worker, Robert Pinetti, died of a overdose of methadone and antidepressants, mixed with cold medication, leaving investigators only to guess whether there was any connection. Officials suspect there is a link between the deaths, but they are not sure.

ATF and FBI agents then went to Rothstein, as he lived so close to where Wells made the pizza delivery. The initial interviews were hardly pleasant. Rothstein taunted officers, telling them that they would never find anything.

But they did.

Rothstein had written a suicide note, which began in much the same way as one of the notes Wells carried with him in the final minutes of his life, investigators said. ATF and FBI agents also interviewed Erie store clerks, who said Rothstein and the collaborators had purchased a number of items that were used for the bomb at local stores.

Stockton

Roden, Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend, was killed Aug. 11, 2003, and put in a chest freezer at Rothstein's garage. Authorities found the body in September, weeks after the slaying.

Federal investigators believe Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden because he knew too many details about the plot and had threatened to go to police. Roden had been a key member in the conspiracy and worked closely with Diehl-Armstrong and Rothstein, authorities said.

Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and abuse of a corpse, getting seven to 20 years in prison. Once in prison, Diehl-Armstrong began looking for a way out. She wanted to parlay her knowledge of Wells' slaying into a shorter sentence, and she began meeting with authorities about it.

She also talked with several cellmates in prison, who were happy to squeal on her, investigators said. Barnes, serving 23 months for a cocaine conviction from 2006, also met with federal investigators about Wells. Both blamed Rothstein for the robbery plan and the bombing and claimed they were being framed.

They bemoaned their fates -- never remembering the simple man who liked delivering pizzas, believed in a robbery plan and scurried around the city looking for clues in a deadly game that would end on a busy street.

That's where he sat for more than 20 minutes with a bomb around his neck, waiting for help that never came.
 

Diehl, Irene C., 83, of Roxbury, passed away FOct. 28, at Brownway Residence in Richmond. She was born in Exeter, Pa., on Oct. 15, 1922, the daughter of Christopher and Anna Krisnosky. On Jan. 17, 1947, she was married to Harold M. Diehl Jr. in St. Mary's Church in Dumont, N.J. Irene was a devoted wife and loving mother who remained home to take care of her family. In later years, she enjoyed employment using her hobby and interest in cameras and photography, at Gaynes in Burlington and then at Fed Mart in Garden Grove, Calif. Irene is survived by her three daughters and their husbands, Marion and William Green of South Burlington, Irene "Rena" and Michael Demasi of Northfield, and Anne-Marie and Brian Golowski of Wadsworth, Ill.; her daughter-in-law Denise (Diego) Diehl of Northfield; eight grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and several nieces, nephews and cousins. She was recently predeceased by her husband, Harold Diehl, on Oct. 1, 2005; also her son, Gary Diehl; her brother, Joseph Krisnosky; and four sisters, Helen Migatulski, Victoria Keller, Eleanor Pillets and Margaret Stoughton.

9/23 What has happened to the Brian Wells story? It seems to have made only a minor blip in the national media in spite of being the most bizarre story of recent memory. For those of you who have already forgotten - or never knew - Brian Wells was a mild mannered forty-two year old recluse who supported his very simple lifestyle by delivering pizza. Way back in August, he walked into an Erie, Pa. bank and committed a robbery. When the police caught up with him a few minutes later, they found that he was wearing a collar bomb. As police kept their distance, he begged for help, saying that strangers had locked the bomb to him and forced him to rob the bank before they would defuse the explosives. He had a bit of an obstacle course he was supposed to follow, four stops that would have been hard to make even without interference. He blew up before the bomb squad arrived.

The Erie Times-News has been the only media outlet to give this story full play, and today's major development involves a story that is not - I repeat not - related in any way to the Brian Wells story. I know this for a fact because Erie County District Attorney Brad Foulk said it's not related, although usually when folks go out of their way to say things are not related, they are.

This is your basic body in the freezer story. This tale centers around Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the kind of girl your mama warned you against, the kind of girl that's apt to shoot her boyfriends and store them in the home freezer. Dude by the name of James Roden. Not that she's a weirdo or anything; it's not like she was going to eat him. As a matter of fact, when she was arrested, she and her buddy Billy Rothstein were making plans on buying an ice crushing machine, so as to give the body a proper disposal. I mean it had been frozen for several weeks, and what with deer hunting season approaching...

Marj was not to blame, of course, even though she does admit that "Yes, it was a crime or whatever. But it wasn't me who killed him and touched his body and put him in the freezer." Adds a new meaning to whatever, doesn't it. It was Rothstein! (her housemate) and Marj is glad to clear up this confusion. She told WSEE-TV that she was being treated for schizophrenia and manic-depression (ed note: mutually exclusive), that she would not commit crimes like 'Jack the Ripper'. Oh by the way, it was Rothstein that turned Diehl-Armstrong in, and she had been acquitted for the murder of another boyfriend back in '88.
 

Home on road
Oops, we almost forgot the Brian Wells connection. Forgive me. I forgot to mention that that Marjorie and Rothstein's home is right splat at the start of the dirt road which Wells was on his way to when he set out to deliver those last two sausage pizzas.

No wit intended here. The pizzas were never found.
 

Indictment: Bomb Victim in on Bank Plot
By DAN NEPHIN 07.11.07, 4:54 PM ET

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A pizza deliveryman who robbed a bank and was then blown up by a bomb locked around his neck helped plan the robbery and then got caught up in something "much more sinister," a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.

The deliveryman, Brian Wells, 46, had told police before the bomb exploded in August 2003 that he was an innocent victim and had been forced by gunmen to rob the bank.

However, in the indictments unsealed Wednesday, Wells is named as a co-conspirator. Two other people - Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, who is currently serving a prison sentence for killing her boyfriend, and her friend Kenneth E. Barnes - are charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms count.

Authorities said Diehl-Armstrong, 58, wanted the money so she could pay someone to kill her father, but they said Wednesday that they didn't know what motive Wells might have had for getting involved.

Brother_calls Prosecutors_liars

Wells' brother John was visibly outraged after prosecutors held a news conference saying his brother was in on the plot.

"Where is the evidence? There is no evidence. You cannot link a man when there is no evidence," John Wells said, his voice trembling with anger. "When he was accosted at gunpoint, taken from his job, that's not a co-conspirator."

"Brian did not put that collar on himself," John Wells said. He also accused investigators of not doing their jobs and said "the truth will come out."

The indictments say Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes contrived a series of notes to make Wells appear to be "merely a hostage," with the plan being to get the money from Wells in a way that if he was caught, he could claim he was an unwilling participant. According to the indictments, they locked a live bomb onto Well's neck to ensure he turned over the money.

"If he died, he could not be a witness," authorities said in the indictment.

The bomb that killed Wells was on a timer, but it was unclear if his co-conspirators planned on his death, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said Wednesday. She described Wells as having a limited role in the plot and said she couldn't comment on what his motive might have been.

"Sadly, the plans of these other individuals were much more sinister ... and he died as a result," Buchanan said. "It may be that his role transitioned from that of the planing stages to being an unwilling participant in the scheme."

Diehl-Armstrong is currently serving a state prison sentence for killing her boyfriend, James Roden. In the indictment, authorities say she killed Roden to keep him from disclosing details of the robbery plot.

Barnes, 53, is jailed in Erie County on unrelated drug charges. Authorities have described him as Diehl-Armstrong's fishing companion.

On Aug. 28, 2003, Wells set out to deliver an order for two pizzas to a mysterious address that turned out to be the location of a TV tower. He turned up about an hour later and roughly two miles away at a PNC Bank branch in Summit Township, with a note demanding money and saying he had a bomb.

Wells took $8,702 from a teller, got into his Geo Metro and was surrounded by police a short time later in a parking lot. State troopers pulled him out of the car and handcuffed him. Hanging from his neck under his T-shirt was a triple-banded metal collar and a device with a locking mechanism that kept it in place. Attached to the collar was a bomb.

"It's going to go off," Wells said. "I'm not lying."

He said someone had started a timer on the bomb and forced him to rob the bank.

While police waited for a bomb squad, the bomb exploded, killing Wells. Police found a gun resembling a cane in the car and a nine-page handwritten letter that included detailed instructions on what Wells was to do with the bank money and how he could unlock the collar by going through a kind of scavenger hunt, looking for clues and landmarks.

The note also included a list of rules and a threat that Wells would be "destroyed" if he failed to complete his mission.

Buchanan said Wednesday that while Wells was in the bank, Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes had watched from across the street, and Diehl-Armstrong was later seen twice along the route described in the notes.

Jim Sadowski, a former co-worker of Wells, said he doesn't believe his friend could have been involved.

"I worked with him and I knew him. I just don't see him doing anything like that. He was a nice person," Sadowski said.

Diehl-Armstrong has been linked to the Wells investigation because her boyfriend's body was found in the freezer of a home near the TV tower where Wells made his final delivery. She pleaded guilty but mentally ill to killing her boyfriend and is serving a sentence of seven to 20 years in state prison.

The man who owned the home, William Rothstein, was questioned in Wells' death but has since died of cancer.

Diehl-Armstrong's attorney Lawrence D'Ambrosio has said he believes she had nothing to do with Wells' death but may have known the people behind the robbery.


Associated Press writer Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.


Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
 

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Rothstein's house

About 2 p.m., Wells drove to a wooded lot near Rothstein's home on Peach Street in Erie. Rothstein, Barnes, Stockton and Diehl-Armstrong confronted Wells there, and Wells, for the first time, learned that the device was real, authorities said.

He wrestled with the men and tried to flee, but one of the men fired a gun, causing Wells to stop. They then restrained him and forced the device onto his neck. They gave him an oddly shaped cane, which was actually a gun, and told him to threaten someone with it if he found trouble at the bank.

Diehls father

	Harold Diehl 1036 E 25th St Erie, PA 16503-2309 Collar-bomb suspect has troubled past By JENNIFER C. YATES Associated Press Writer AP PhotoHarold Diehl sits on his porch in Erie, Pa., Thursday, July 12, 2007. Diehl's daughter, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and her friend, Kenneth E. Barnes, are charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms count in the August 2003 bank robbery case where pizza delivery man Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb attached to his neck. Wells was killed when the bomb went off after Wells was apprehended by police outside the bank.
PITTSBURGH --Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's lawyer has floated an alibi for her in the bizarre death of one man: the bizarre death of another man. James Roden's body was in a freezer in August 2003, when Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb locked to his neck. Before the explosive killed Wells, the pizza delivery man told police he had been forced to commit the crime. Authorities announced Wednesday that Diehl-Armstrong and friend Kenneth E. Barnes have been charged with the deadly robbery, after a nearly four-year investigation into the puzzling, convoluted plot. Federal prosecutors believe Wells was involved in planning the crime but may have become an unwilling participant by the time a metal collar carrying the bomb was fastened to his neck. Diehl-Armstrong is in prison for murdering Roden, a former boyfriend. Her attorney Lawrence D'Ambrosio told The Associated Press he believes she was too obsessed with that killing to have been involved in the robbery plot. She has a tendency to focus - and even obsess - on major events in her life, he said.   Her father, Harold Diehl, sees things differently. Federal prosecutors allege that Diehl-Armstrong hatched the robbery plot to get money to kill the 88-year-old. "She, in my estimation, she'd have a tendency to do anything that's possible because I think her mind is a little bit goofed up," said Diehl, who added that it was no surprise she wanted him dead. "I don't think she's completely sane." Diehl said his daughter was an only child who was born and grew up in the house in which he still lives. The home is on a quiet street of well-kept houses, its porch decorated with flowerpots and American flags set there by neighbors. Diehl is a retired salesman who had traveled throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York selling aluminum siding, awnings and windows. His wife, Agnes, a grade-school teacher, died about 10 years ago after more than 50 years of marriage. In 2005, Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murdering Roden on or around Aug. 13, 2003, about two weeks before Wells' death. His body was found in a freezer at the home of another former boyfriend, William Rothstein, after he tipped off police in September 2003.     Rothstein, who has since died of cancer, said he came forward after Diehl-Armstrong suggested using the ice crusher to get rid of the remains. Rothstein is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Wells case. So is Wells himself. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan has said Wells had a limited role planning and staging the robbery, but "we have reason to believe that at some point right before the bomb was fastened to his neck that he was coerced." His family has insisted he did not know the suspects. Barnes, 53, a fishing buddy of Diehl-Armstrong's who has been jailed on an unrelated drug charge, pleaded not guilty during a brief arraignment Thursday. Diehl-Armstrong's initial appearance on the federal charges, previously scheduled for Friday, was delayed until Tuesday. Both are charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms count. The latter charge is related to the bomb. Diehl-Armstrong admitted killing another love interest, Robert Thomas, in the 1980s, but she said she had been a victim of physical and sexual abuse and shot Thomas before he killed her. She was acquitted of homicide in 1988 and put on probation for carrying a firearm without a license. In February, she focused her anger on a new man: Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera. In papers filed in Erie County, she preserved her right to sue him down the road over a 2005 broadcast report on her criminal past and how she came to be linked to the bank robbery investigation. Diehl described his daughter as intelligent but gullible. He said he hasn't seen his daughter in years and he doesn't want to, and doesn't plan to attend any of her court proceedings. He said he can't recall exactly when his daughter started getting into trouble, but added that he is convinced she took years off her mother's life. "I don't know much about her," he said. "I don't think I ever will." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Associated Press Writers Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Erie contributed to this story.

Double-crossed

Erie pizza bomber Brian Wells was both victim and conspirator Thursday, July 12, 2007John CanigliaPlain Dealer Reporter Erie, Pa.
He sat on the road with his legs twisted under him and his hands cuffed behind his back. His oversized glasses drooped as he cried for help.

Brian Wells, a pizza deliveryman, was caught in a bizarre bank robbery Aug. 28, 2003. He had a bomb strapped to his neck, and no one dashed to help him. No one knew what was going on or seemed to understand how a simpleton got involved in such a vicious plot.

Except Wells. He knew he had been double-crossed. His accomplices had told him the bomb was a phony, a prop to fool bank clerks into giving up money. But just as they planned to click it around his neck, they told him the truth: The bomb was real, and it would kill him if he didn't do exactly what he was told.

Investigators revealed Wednesday that Wells, 46, was actually in on the plot, both a victim and an offender in the same crime.

Fifty-five minutes after his cohorts strapped the bomb on, 40 minutes after he robbed the bank and 20 minutes after police caught him, the device blew a softball-sized hole into Wells' chest and killed him.

The slaying stunned this city 90 minutes from Cleveland. For nearly four years, everyone assumed Wells was a tragic and unsuspecting victim. But authorities said he mentally rehearsed the robbery plan for days and even sat for fittings of the device on the belief the bomb was a fake.

Federal indictments unsealed Wednesday blame Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes in Wells' death.

The Erie residents are charged with conspiracy, bank robbery and weapons violations and accused of planning the robbery to gain enough money for Diehl-Armstrong to pay for a hit man to kill her father.

A third person involved in the planning, convicted rapist Floyd Stockton, was given immunity in a deal with prosecutors. His attorney, Charbel Latouf, refused to comment.

The man authorities called the plot's mastermind and bomb-builder, William Rothstein, is dead. He died of cancer July 30, 2004 -- one of a trio of other deaths linked to the case.

Page 2 of 7
"Greed was their inspiration; death was just a byproduct," FBI agent Ray Morrow said.

Wells' family exploded at Wednesday's news conference that outlined his role. His sister, Barbara White, railed that her brother was a victim, not a criminal.

"Liar! Liar," she yelled at U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

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How did simple man

get involved in plot?

But in truth, Brian Wells was a follower who was in the thick of the plot, according to the indictments and interviews with investigators and defense attorneys. The indictment called him "a co-conspirator."

He was known as a man with simple tastes, caring for his three cats, eating Sunday meals with his family and fixing his subcompact cars. He was a high school dropout, and in the last decade worked on and off delivering food at Mama Mia's Pizzaria, a cramped, five-table restaurant that catered to construction workers for lunch and young families for dinner.

What people didn't know about was his affection for a prostitute, investigators and defense attorneys said.

Wells met approximately twice a month for about five years with Jessica Hoopsick, who fed her cocaine habit through prostitution, her attorney, Daniel Brabender, said. The two regularly used a home in Erie managed by Barnes, a convicted cocaine dealer who rented rooms in exchange for drugs and cash. Hoopsick even testified before a federal grand jury about Wells' link to Barnes, Brabender said.

In July 2003, Barnes had offered to do a favor for a fishing friend, Diehl-Armstrong: kill her father, Harold, for an estimated $125,000.

Double-crossed
Page 3 of 7
Diehl-Armstrong, who has bipolar disorder, is bipolar and -RD%>often flies into screaming rages when she becomes annoyed or doesn't get what she wants. Her father earned his daughter's ire by refusing to turn over more inheritance money from her mother's death in 2000, federal agents said.

However, by 2003, the inheritance had largely disappeared. Agnes Diehl's estate was once valued at about $500,000, but it had dwindled. Harold Diehl gave his daughter more than $50,000, according to court records. He said he didn't give her more because the money was running out.

"She wouldn't kill me, but she probably would get somebody else to do it," Harold Diehl said in an interview earlier this year. "She tends to be greedy. I just don't trust her."

Unable to come up with money to pay Barnes, she approached her good friend, Rothstein, whom she knew for years and almost married. He also was being hassled by a family member over money, and they discussed various schemes, including a bank robbery.

The indictment said Diehl-Armstrong provided Rothstein with two egg timers for use in building the bomb.

As the robbery plan crystallized, the group pulled Wells in with a lure of cash. Wells helped plan the robbery, authorities said, and his partners told him the bomb would be fake. If arrested, he was told to tell police he was a hostage and that three black men had forced him to do it, Buchanan said.

They said police would then let him go and he would later collect some money.

Wells betrayed

as scheme unfolds

On Aug. 28, 2003, Rothstein, Barnes and Diehl-Armstrong went to a nearby gas station and called Mama Mia's Pizzaria and ordered two pizzas. The gas station's surveillance cameras saw them make the call and later speed away.

Double-crossed
Page 4 of 7
About 2 p.m., Wells drove to a wooded lot near Rothstein's home on Peach Street in Erie. Rothstein, Barnes, Stockton and Diehl-Armstrong confronted Wells there, and Wells, for the first time, learned that the device was real, authorities said.

He wrestled with the men and tried to flee, but one of the men fired a gun, causing Wells to stop. They then restrained him and forced the device onto his neck. They gave him an oddly shaped cane, which was actually a gun, and told him to threaten someone with it if he found trouble at the bank.

Why the double-cross?

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Buchanan, the U.S. attorney, said it was simple: It was one less witness.

The accomplices gave Wells a nine- page note that put Wells on a scavenger hunt for clues so that he could pry off the bomb after the robbery.

"This powerful, booby- trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions," the note said. "Using time attempting to escape it will fail and leave you short of time to follow instructions. Do not delay."

The bomb had a timer that gave Wells 55 minutes to complete the scavenger hunt. Despite the note, investigators said, Wells could have gotten out of it. The device appeared to be sophisticated, but agents said it was built like a child's toy bracelet that would have snapped open, given the proper pressure and instructions.

With the bomb yoked to his neck, Wells drove to the PNC Bank branch in a shopping center on Peach Street, with Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes following and watching with binoculars in one car, and Rothstein trailing in another. About 2:20 p.m., Wells walked inside the bank and appeared oddly calm, twirling a sucker in his mouth, according to pictures taken by the bank's video surveillance cameras.

He told the clerk that he had a bomb and showed her a gun that looked like a walking cane. He demanded $250,000; he got $8,702.

Rothstein, according to inves tiga tors, stood in the parking lot adjacent to the bank, waiting to grab the money from Wells. But as Wells left the bank, a cus tomer followed him out, thinking that something was odd about Wells' behavior.

Double-crossed
Page 5 of 7
Rothstein panicked. He fled to his car and sped home empty-handed. Diehl- Armstrong and Barnes were waiting back at his house.

Diehl-Armstrong fumed when Rothstein returned without the money. She believed Rothstein had double-crossed her by hiding the money along the route. She jumped in Rothstein's car and drove back toward the bank looking for a place Rothstein may have pitched the money, according to federal agents.

At one point, she drove the wrong way on Interstate 79 searching for dropped cash.

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As Diehl-Armstrong searched, Wells' life ticked away. Using the nine-page letter as a guide, he bolted for clues. After the bank, his first stop was at a nearby McDonald's drive-through, where a note was hiding under a rock, the FBI said.

Officers stopped his car shortly after that and arrested him. They backed away, leaving him on the ground, quivering.

"Why isn't nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he said. "It's going to go off. I'm not lying."

At 3:18 p.m., the bomb exploded.

Investigation begins

with bomb victim

Authorities began the investiga tion with the pizza de liveryman. His family said in vestigators cut his head from his body to be gin analyzing the bomb.

Police also went to his home. The FBI blew the door off its hinges to get into his small apartment during a search in the middle of the night. The bi zarre case began taking sharp turns.

Three days after Wells' death, his co-worker, Robert Pinetti, died of an overdose of methadone and antidepressants mixed with cold medication, leaving investigators to guess whether there was any connection. Officials suspect there is a link between the deaths, but they are not sure.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI then turned to Rothstein because as -RD%>he lived so close to where Wells made the pizza delivery. The initial interviews were hardly pleasant. Rothstein taunted officers, telling them that they would never find anything.


But they did.

Rothstein once had written a suicide note, which began in much the same way as one of the notes Wells carried with him in the final minutes of his life, investigators said.

ATF and FBI agents also interviewed Erie store clerks, who said Rothstein and the collaborators had purchased a number of items that were used for the bomb at local stores.

At Rothstein's home, officers found Stockton, a fugitive accused of raping a 19-year-old disabled girl. He was shipped back to Washington state, where he was charged and later sentenced to two years in prison.

They also found the body of James Roden stuffed in a freezer.

Roden, Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend, was killed Aug. 11, 2003, and put in a chest freezer at Rothstein's garage. Authorities found the body in September, weeks after the slaying. Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty to the slaying and cited mental illness as playing a role in the case.

She was sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison.

The indictment said Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden "to keep him from disclosing the bank robbery plan that was being formulated by the co-conspirators."

Once in prison, Diehl-Armstrong began looking for a way to get out. She wanted to parlay her knowledge of Wells' slaying into a shorter sentence, and she began meeting with authorities about it.

She also talked with several cellmates and friends in prison, who were happy to squeal on her, investigators said.

Stockton met with the FBI and ATF about the bombing and worked out a deal with prosecutors to testify against Barnes and Diehl-Armstrong.

Barnes, serving 23 months for a cocaine conviction from 2006, also met with federal investigators. He and Diehl-Armstrong blamed Rothstein for the robbery plan and the bombing and claimed they were being framed. Her attorney, Lawrence D'Ambrosio, said she was an ill woman who couldn't possibly have helped.

She and Barnes bemoaned their fates -- never remembering the simple man who liked delivering pizzas, believed in a robbery plan and scurried through the city, looking for clues in a deadly game that ticked away on a busy street.

That's where he sat for more than 20 minutes with a bomb around his neck, waiting for help that never came.

News researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.
 

Developments in the Erie collar-bomb case
The Associated Press
Related Content
http://www.brianwells.net

Timeline
Dates relevant to the investigation of the death of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells:

-July 2003 - Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong solicits Kenneth Barnes to kill her father, intending to pay him with proceeds from a bank robbery, federal prosecutors say. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes discuss the robbery and how to make pipe bombs, according to prosecutors.

-August 2003 - Diehl-Armstrong kills her boyfriend, James Roden, to keep him from disclosing the bank robbery plot, authorities say.

-Aug. 28, 2003 - A bomb locked around Wells' neck explodes, killing him, after he robbed the PNC Bank branch in Summit Township, south of Erie. Television station WJET captured audio and video of Wells as he sat handcuffed in front of a state police cruiser.

-Sept. 2, 2003 - Officials release photographs of the collar and the lock, believing someone may recognize the device.
Rothstein_evidence

-Sept. 14, 2003 - Unindicted co-conspirator William Rothstein dumps more than 1,000 pounds of refuse at the Erie landfill to dispose of evidence linking them to the plot, according to prosecutors.

-Sept. 22, 2003 - Diehl-Armstrong charged with killing Roden, whose remains are found in a freezer in Rothstein's home. Rothstein lives next to the road where Wells delivered his last pizza, prompting speculation he may have been involved in Wells' death.

-Sept. 25, 2003 - Investigators release photos of a strange, cane-shaped firearm found in Wells' car and offer a $50,000 reward for information in the case.

-Sept. 27, 2003 - A law enforcement official says Rothstein wrote a note in which he proclaimed his innocence in the Wells case.

-Feb. 10, 2004 - The FBI releases sections of the nine-page note found in Wells' car. The note reveals a list of rules and a threat that the man would be "destroyed" if he failed to complete his mission.

-Feb. 25, 2004 - The coroner rules Wells' death a homicide.

-July 30, 2004 - Rothstein dies of cancer.

-Aug. 27, 2004 - The FBI says money was not a leading motivator in the bank robbery plot.

-Jan. 7, 2005 - Diehl-Armstrong pleads guilty but mentally ill to charges she killed Roden. She is sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison.

-February 2005 - Citing frustration with police progress in the case, Wells' family establishes http://www.brianwells.net seeking any information on his death.

-September 2005 - Authorities release bank surveillance images showing Wells robbing the bank.

-Feb. 16, 2007 - U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan says investigators believe they have a better understanding of the case and that the investigation is nearing a close.

-July 9, 2007 - The attorney for Diehl-Armstrong seeks a gag order preventing prosecutors from holding an anticipated news conference to announce her indictment.

-July 10, 2007 - A federal magistrate judge denies Diehl-Armstrong's request.

-July 11, 2007 - An indictment charges Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms offense. Prosecutors say Wells had a "limited role" in planning the robbery and that it was unclear if his co-conspirators planned on him being killed. Wells' family disputes allegations of his involvement in planning the robbery.

 

Federal prosecutors will announce today that pizza-delivery man Brian Wells was involved in the bomb-strapped bank robbery plot that took his life, a well-placed law enforcement source has told ABC News' Law and Justice Unit.

After the robbery occurred in Pennsylvania in August 2003, Wells was killed when the collar bomb he was wearing exploded while he was in police custody.

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ABC News first reported Tuesday that charges were being brought against two Pennsylvania criminals in the bizarre case.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was served with what is known as a federal retainer in prison in Pennsylvania Tuesday afternoon and charged with three felonies related to the case — bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery and felony use of a firearm in connection with a crime, her attorney told ABC News.

Diehl-Armstrong, who is imprisoned on an unrelated murder charge, says she is innocent, according to her lawyer, Lawrence D'Ambrosio.

Kenneth Barnes, a second longtime suspect, was served with the same federal retainer outlining the same charges Tuesday at a county jail in Erie, Pa., a source close to the case said. Barnes is serving an 11- to 23-month sentence on unrelated drug charges. A source close to the case said that murder charges could be forthcoming.

Hours after ABC News first reported the charges, U.S. attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced that a news conference would be held today in Erie, Pa. She promised a "significant announcement" in the case. It is expected she will announce the indictments of Armstrong and Barnes.

A law enforcement source involved in the case confirmed late Tuesday that Wells was, in fact, involved in the plot, but could not elaborate on his specific role.


'I Don't Have Enough Time'

It was August 2003 when Brian Wells walked into an Erie, Pa., bank wearing a bomb attached to his neck by an elaborate, locked metal collar. He was also carrying a gun disguised as a walking cane.

Cornered by police in a nearby parking lot after the robbery, Wells said that armed gunmen had locked the bomb around his neck and sent him into the bank. Police seized a multiple-page note full of instructions that told Wells to move swiftly to a variety of seemingly unrelated spots around the area or the bomb would detonate.

"Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he yelled to authorities as he sat handcuffed near a police car. "I don't have enough time."

He didn't. With a small crowd gathered that included curious media, the bomb exploded, blowing a hole through Wells' chest and killing him instantly. He was 46 years old.

The case has taken numerous twists and turns over the years, and investigators have acknowledged at times that they were simply stumped. Authorities have taken their time to piece together the exceptionally unusual case.

One of the FBI's top bomb experts, who served time in Iraq, was flown to Pennsylvania to testify before a grand jury, two sources told ABC News. Through a combination of cooperation — Diehl-Armstrong's attorney has acknowledged that Diehl-Armstrong cooperated with investigators — and gumshoe detective work, authorities are finally ready to spell out the scenario that led to one of the strangest crimes post-Sept. 11 America has yet seen.

Two witnesses, including a jailhouse informant who spoke to ABC News exclusively in February, say Wells knew two of the suspects in the case.

John Wells, Wells' brother and the family's spokesman, has repeatedly and sometimes angrily defended his late brother's innocence in the plot and chided officials for not clearing Wells' name. Federal authorities, for their part, have never ruled Wells' out of the plot, but have also never specifically implicated him.

It's expected they will today. Repeated calls to John Wells' home were not answered.
Diehl-Armstrong, a high school class valedictorian with multiple graduate degrees who suffers from bipolar disorder, has long been a primary target of the investigation. While law enforcement sources tell ABC News Diehl-Armstrong has cooperated with investigators, she is still believed to have been the plot's ringleader.

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Barnes is a known associate and fishing partner to Diehl-Armstrong.

Tim Lucas, a lawyer who represents a witness who testified before a grand jury in the pizza bomber case, told ABC News that "It appears the government theory is Diehl-Armstrong is the primary leader … in the robbery that led to Wells' death."

It was unclear whether the indictments were expected to include charges related to Wells' death or just the bank robbery.


Exclusive: Pizza Bomb Victim Was

Probe turns to threats
(By Tim Hahn, Erie Times News, March 5, 2007)

When Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong filed a private criminal complaint against four people she accused of robbing her of $133,000 in May 2003, she included an unusual claim against one of them.

She alleged that Kenneth E. Barnes had once offered to kill Diehl-Armstrong's father for $100,000.

Investigators trying to solve the bombing death of Brian Wells are looking at that statement as something more than an idle offer.

Sources with knowledge of the case confirmed that investigators are exploring whether Wells' death was somehow connected to any plot against Diehl-Armstrong's father, 88-year-old Harold Diehl.

A possible plot against Harold Diehl is mentioned in two legal documents the FBI is known to be reviewing -- the private criminal complaint and the transcript of a court hearing involving Diehl-Armstrong and the late William A. Rothstein, another figure in the Wells investigation.

The FBI is focusing on whether the purported plot to kill Harold Diehl might have been related to Diehl-Armstrong's interest in an inheritance from her father, the sources confirmed. The legal records involved provide no indication of how that issue might be tied to the Wells case.

Harold Diehl said in an interview that he was once worth at least $500,000. A portion of that came from the estate of his late wife, Agnes E. Diehl, who died at age 83 on July 16, 2000.

Harold Deihl_worth_$2_million
Agnes E. Diehl also left some money to Diehl-Armstrong, who was her only child, according to court records. Court records from 2000 indicate Diehl-Armstrong also believed her father possessed up to $2 million in bonds.

Diehl-Armstrong, 57, has been a central focus of the FBI's investigation into Wells' death on Aug. 28, 2003.

Rothstein, who died at age 60 in July 2004, was also questioned extensively by investigators in the Wells case.

Barnes, 53, an acquaintance of Diehl-Armstrong's who also knew Wells, was questioned by investigators and had his former residence searched as part of the Wells probe.

It's not clear how the mentions of a plot against Harold Diehl might fit in with the scheme that led to Wells having a bomb locked around his neck before he was sent to rob a bank and then on a scavenger hunt-type journey.

That journey ended shortly after Wells robbed what was then a PNC Bank branch off upper Peach Street. After state police cornered Wells near the bank, the bomb exploded, killing the 46-year-old pizza delivery driver.

FBI officials investigating the Wells case declined comment, citing their ongoing probe. Erie police have said officers investigated Diehl-Armstrong's private criminal complaint, but made no arrests. The FBI has reviewed the private criminal complaint as part of its Wells investigation.
 

(By Ed Palattella and Lisa Thompson, Erie Times-News, March 26, 2007)
Evidence_phone_call
Investigators have long known the telephone call that sent Brian Wells on his fated journey came from a pay phone outside the Shell station at Peach Street and Robison Road.

Authorities have never said who they believe placed that call.

But the Erie Times-News has learned that Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, a pivotal figure in the Wells probe, has put herself and two other well-known subjects in the Wells case at the Shell station the day Wells was killed in a bomb blast.

Diehl-Armstrong, the Erie Times-News has learned, has told the FBI she was at the Shell station on Aug. 28, 2003, sometime before Wells was murdered, and that she was with her acquaintance Kenneth E. Barnes and her one-time fiance, William A. Rothstein. Diehl-Armstrong told the FBI that Rothstein was using the pay phone at the time, the Erie Times-News has learned.

In addition, the Erie Times-News has reviewed investigative records in another case that show the fourth main person known to be part of the probe into Wells' death, Floyd A. Stockton Jr., Rothstein's one-time housemate, told the Pennsylvania State Police he was also at the Shell station on Aug. 28, 2003.

Stockton placed himself at the station at 2:30 p.m. -- sometime after Wells received the phone call but before Wells was killed, according to the investigative records.

"Stockton advised through conversation that he had been at the Shell station on Aug. 28, 2003 ... and he made a comment about it being odd about what was going on and his just happening to be at the Shell station then," according to the records.

The statements of Stockton and Diehl-Armstrong fall short of establishing who used the phone at the Shell station to make the phone call, which ordered pizzas and sent Wells, a 46-year-old pizza deliveryman, on his final pizza run before he was killed. Wells knew Barnes and met up with him briefly in Erie the night before Wells was killed, according to a witness who said she testified about the Wells case before a federal grand jury in Erie.

Diehl-Armstrong told the FBI she did not know whom Rothstein was calling. Rothstein cannot be questioned about the phone call now because he died in July 2004. And Stockton, in his statement to the state police, makes no mention of being with anyone else at the Shell station the day Wells was killed.

The statements of Diehl-Armstrong and Stockton nonetheless link all of the main subjects in the Wells investigation to one of the most important sites in the probe: the Shell station and its outdoor pay phone.

The site's significance is apparent even today, three years and seven months after Wells' death. The kiosk that held the phone is still outside the Shell station, at the edge of a parking lot, but the telephone is gone.

The FBI removed the handset from the telephone shortly after Wells died, and then the entire phone was removed. Investigators also obtained the Shell station's video surveillance tapes, though the station's cameras only tracked activity on the outside of the station, which includes a convenience store.

Investigators previously confirmed that the FBI believes the phone was used to place the call that triggered the plot that ended in Wells' death.

**************************************

Diehl-Armstrong has not responded to interview requests, and her lawyer in the Wells investigation, Thomas Patton, a federal public defender, has declined to comment on the case. Diehl-Armstrong has maintained she had no involvement in the plot.

Barnes, 53, whose residence was searched in connection with the Wells case twice in 2006, has not responded to interview requests. He is serving a sentence for cocaine trafficking at the Erie County Prison.

The lead FBI agent in the Wells case, Gerald Clark, declined comment, citing the Erie FBI's policy of not discussing specifics of the investigation. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, of Pittsburgh, whose office oversees the U.S. Attorney's Office in Erie, said a month ago that the investigation "is nearing a close."

Rothstein never publicly commented on his whereabouts the day Wells was killed. Before he died of cancer at age 60 in 2004, Rothstein referred questions about the Wells case to his lawyer, Gene Placidi.

Placidi has said that Rothstein was known to use the pay phone at the Shell station because the gas pumps and convenience store were near Rothstein's house at 8645 Peach St. But Placidi has also said he did not know whether Rothstein used the pay phone on Aug. 28, 2003.

Placidi reiterated those comments in an interview last week. He also said he did not know Rothstein's specific whereabouts on the day Wells was killed.
 

No parole for Barnes
(By Ed Palattella, Erie Times-News, April 30, 2007)

Changed Shifts

Robert Pinetti, a friend of Wells, delivered pizzas at Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria in Millcreek. Pinetti was found dead of a drug overdose in his Lawrence Park home three days after Wells' death. The FBI has said little about Pinetti's death, other than that the timing of it was peculiar. File photo/Erie Times-News They also said that a second person, a co-worker of Brian Wells, a Robert Pinetti, who was found dead in his home over the weekend, as I said, a co-worker of his who they thought may have been connected with Brian Wells, they said that they don't right now believe that he is connected to the bank robbery. They said that he died of natural causes, but they did find traces of methadone and also a Valium-type substance in his urine.

An autopsy was conducted Monday on Wells' co-worker Robert Pinetti, 43, who called paramedics Sunday morning and said he wasn’t feeling well but then refused treatment. Pinetti was later found dead in his parents’ home, where he lived. Authorities said Tuesday that Pinetti had a history of substance abuse problems and that a drug overdose had not been ruled out. Pinetti was being tested for methadone and Valium-like drugs which may have caused his death. 2 linked to Wells case FBI asks questions about recent Erie high school grads One of the two men, a 2001 graduate of the Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, is known to have worked at the pizza parlor where Wells was a delivery driver. That graduate also lived in an eastside Erie house that was owned by Robert Pinetti, Wells' friend and co-worker. Pinetti died of a drug overdose on Aug. 31, three days after Wells, 46, was killed when a homemade bomb locked to his neck exploded after he robbed a bank on upper Peach Street. The other man the FBI inquired about recently graduated from Central High School in 2001. The Erie Times-News could not determine if the two men know each other. Several sources confirmed the FBI's interest in both graduates, though the sources asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the Wells case. The Erie Times-News is not identifying the graduates because they have not been charged. Erie school officials said the FBI visited Central and the Collegiate Academy during the past few weeks, asking about the students. The administrators said they could release little information because of the investigation and because of privacy concerns. "There was a recent inquiry involving the Brian Wells case," Erie schools Superintendent James Barker said. Central High School Principal Gerry Mifsud said an FBI agent visited his school April 7, asking questions related to the case. "He asked about a former vo-tech student that they felt had some skills that were related to the incident," Mifsud said. Bob Rudge, the head of the FBI office in Erie, said he could not comment on specific information agents might have gathered in the nearly nine-month investigation of the Wells case. The FBI has given no indication that an arrest is imminent. "We are making progress every single day," Rudge said. "It's a case we're not going to let go of. We can't." The case remains a top priority. It still leads the "Seeking Information" page on the FBI's Web site. There is a $50,000 reward offered to anyone who helps solve the crime. The FBI has visited a number of Erie businesses and residences since Wells' death, and the U.S. Attorney's Office has convened a grand jury to investigate the case, which has gained international media attention. The recent visits to Collegiate Academy and Central are not the first time city high schools have been the focus of the Wells investigation. A Pennsylvania State Police investigator visited East High School in October to question faculty about their knowledge of substitute teacher William Rothstein, who lives at the head of the dirt road where Wells delivered two pizzas Aug. 28. Rothstein was questioned about the Wells case after the body of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend, James Roden, was found in a freezer at Rothstein's home at 8645 Peach St. Rudge has said the FBI doesn't believe there is a connection between Rothstein and the Wells case. The pizza bomber mystery started the afternoon of Aug. 28 when Wells, shortly after delivering two pizzas to the end of a dirt road off upper Peach Street, robbed the PNC Bank in Summit Towne Centre. After leaving the bank, Wells was quickly arrested by state police in the driveway of Eyeglass World, 7200 Peach St. He told police he had a bomb strapped around his neck. It exploded at 3:18 p.m. When he died, Wells was carrying a detailed, complex, multipage letter, directing him on a scavenger hunt of sorts. Shortly before the bomb exploded, Wells pleaded with officers standing a safe distance away. prostitute_and_Pinetti "This isn't me," he said.The prostitute who said she knew Wells also told the Erie Times-News she knew only one other person whose name has come up in the Wells probe -- Robert Pinetti, who delivered pizzas with Wells.   Prostitue Witness The woman said she became acquainted with Pinetti when she visited Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria in Millcreek Township, where Wells and Pinetti worked.

Hooker testifies to links in Wells case (By Ed Palattella, Erie Times News, March 7, 2007) A federal grand jury has heard from a witness who linked pizza deliveryman Brian Wells to Kenneth E. Barnes, a key figure in the investigation of Wells' bombing death. The woman's testimony was expected to provide the grand jury with another thread of evidence as the jurors consider returning indictments in the baffling case of Wells, who was killed after he robbed a bank and then a bomb locked to his neck exploded on Aug. 28, 2003. The witness, a 27-year-old convicted prostitute, testified before the grand jury at the U.S. District Courthouse in Erie. The woman confirmed to the Erie Times-News that she went before the grand jury, whose proceedings are secret.

The FBI is believed to be waiting on the results of lab tests on scores of items seized in raids by the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Pennsylvania State Police. In addition, a number of the main people known to be connected to the Wells probe -- Rothstein, Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes -- are either dead or in prison, giving investigators more time to gather and evaluate evidence. The convicted prostitute said she expects to talk to the FBI again soon, based on what she said the investigators told her on Tuesday. She said she would tell the FBI, once again, that she knew Wells and Barnes, that Wells also knew Barnes, and that she and Wells made regular visits to Barnes' house. New information emerged yesterday about a possible connection between the plotters and the pizza deliveryman, Brian Wells, who was killed after the holdup when the bomb around his neck detonated. Prosecutors have said Wells had a limited role planning and staging the robbery but by the end may have become an unwilling participant. His family insists he did not know the suspects. An attorney representing a prostitute who knew both Wells and Barnes said yesterday that he expected his client to be called as a witness in the case to establish that the two men knew each other. The woman, Jessica Hoopsick, said Wells regularly paid $15 to $20 to have sex with her at Barnes' house, attorney Daniel Brabender said. Diehl-Armstrong's initial appearance on the federal charges, previously scheduled for today, was delayed until Tuesday.   She declined to discuss the specifics of her testimony, other than to say that her comments to the grand jury were similar to those she made to the Erie Times-News in an article published Feb. 25. The woman said in that article that Wells knew Barnes, a convicted drug dealer whose residence was searched in the Wells probe in March and May 2006. The woman's revelation marked the first time Wells had been tied publicly to anyone at the center of the investigation into his killing. The woman's lawyer, Daniel Brabender, also confirmed she had testified before the grand jury. He said he could not comment on what she said to the grand jury because he was not present. Defense lawyers are prohibited from attending grand-jury sessions, though they are allowed to wait outside the room for consultation with the witness. Brabender was at the federal courthouse when the woman testified. Witnesses who testify before federal grand juries are allowed to disclose the contents of their testimony. Grand jurors and others involved, including investigators and prosecutors, are prohibited from disclosing testimony. The chief federal prosecutor in Erie, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Piccinini, had no comment. The Erie Times-News is not using the woman's name because she has not been charged in the Wells case and because she said she feared for her safety if her identity were made public. The woman previously told the Erie Times-News that she knew Wells because he would pay her for sex, and she said that she and Wells would go to Barnes' then-residence, at 617 Perry St. The woman said she first met Wells in 1999. The woman, an admitted user of crack cocaine, also said she knew Barnes through his use of crack. The woman told the Erie Times-News Wells did not use crack. The woman said in the previous interview that the FBI first contacted her hours after Wells' death because she was one of the last people who left a message on his answering machine before he was killed. The night before Wells was killed, the woman also said previously, she and Wells were driving around "looking for crack" when they saw Barnes at the corner of East 11th and Parade streets in Erie. The woman said she stopped and asked Barnes if he could help her find drugs, but then declined Barnes' offer when he asked for money up front. The connection the woman made between Wells and Barnes provides a link to the other people who have been subjects of investigation in the Wells case. Those people are convicted murderer and state prison inmate Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, 57, who fished with the 53-year-old Barnes; Diehl-Armstrong's onetime fiance, William A. Rothstein, who died of cancer at age 60 in July 2004; and Rothstein's one-time housemate, Floyd A. Stockton Jr., 59, a convicted rapist. Of the people in that group, the woman said, she knew only Barnes. Barnes is in Erie County Prison. He was sentenced in August to serve 11½ to 23 months followed by 12 years of probation after pleading guilty to two felony counts of unlawful delivery of cocaine.

A synopsis of the links to the other people in the Wells probe:

# Wells knew Barnes, according to the convicted prostitute. The FBI in March and May 2006 searched Barnes' then-residence at 617 Perry St. as part of the Wells investigation.

# Barnes fished with Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, and they had mutual friends with whom they also fished, according to interviews and court records.

# Diehl-Armstrong remained on friendly terms with William A. Rothstein, and was in regular contact with him, according to court records.

# Floyd A. Stockton Jr. was close friends with Rothstein and was living with him around the time Wells was killed. Stockton at the time was a fugitive wanted on rape charges in Washington state. Stockton entered a plea to those charges in December 2003 and received a prison sentence in Washington that has since ended.

# Rothstein's then-house, at 8631 Peach St., was at the start of the dirt road where the FBI said Wells made his final pizza delivery before he had a bomb locked to his neck on Aug. 28, 2003.

# Diehl-Armstrong accused Barnes of stealing $133,000 in cash from her on May 30, 2003 -- an allegation that has also become part of the Wells probe.

# Diehl-Armstrong has met regularly with the FBI in the Wells case, said her personal lawyer, Lawrence D'Ambrosio.

# The FBI has been exploring the possibility that Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes were in a car that a witness said Diehl-Armstrong was driving the wrong way on Interstate 79 less than two hours before Wells, wearing the collar bomb, robbed what was then a PNC Bank branch in Summit Towne Centre. The bomb exploded after Wells robbed the bank. The witness said he saw the gold-colored car near a spot where the FBI found one of the notes that Wells, while wearing the bomb, was supposed to use to help disarm the device. Investigators believe someone involved in the plot placed the notes at designated locations as part of a scavenging mission for Wells.



 

time_line

The Day the Bomb Went Off

Timeline

PITTSBURGH - Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's lawyer has floated an alibi for her in the bizarre death of one man: the bizarre death of another man.
James Roden's body was in a freezer in August 2003, when Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb locked to his neck. Before the explosive killed Wells, the pizza deliveryman told police he had been forced to commit the crime.

Authorities announced Wednesday that Diehl-Armstrong and a friend, Kenneth E. Barnes, had been charged with the deadly robbery, after a nearly four-year investigation. They say she hatched the plan so she could pay someone to kill her father.

Federal prosecutors believe Wells was involved in planning the crime but may have become an unwilling participant.

Diehl-Armstrong is in prison for murdering Roden, a former boyfriend. Her attorney, Lawrence D'Ambrosio, told the Associated Press he believed she was too obsessed with that killing to have been involved in the robbery plot. She has a tendency to focus - and even obsess - on major events in her life, he said.

The indictment says she killed Roden to keep him from disclosing details of the robbery plot.

Diehl-Armstrong, 58, was valedictorian of her high school class, but her trial in Roden's death showed that her life since was full of severe mental problems, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia - and a deep hatred of men. Two decades earlier, she was acquitted in the killing of another boyfriend, Robert Thomas, that she said was in self-defense.

Diehl-Armstrong had been repeatedly questioned about Wells' death. All the while, she asserted her innocence in letters to news outlets.

"I'm sane, not on psych[iatric] meds" and have the "equivalent of five college degrees with honors," she wrote to ABC News.

In 2005, Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murdering Roden on or around Aug. 13, 2003, about two weeks before Wells' death. Roden's body was found in a freezer at the home of another former boyfriend, William Rothstein, after he tipped off police in September 2003.

Rothstein, who has since died of cancer, said he came forward after Diehl-Armstrong suggested using an ice crusher to get rid of the remains.

In February, she focused her anger on Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera. In papers filed in Erie County, she preserved her right to sue him down the road over a 2005 broadcast report on her criminal past and how she came to be linked to the bank-robbery investigation.