Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Known as the collar bomb case or pizza bomber case, the incident gained extensive media coverage, including the 2018 Netflix series Evil Genius
On August 28, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells robbed a PNC Bank near his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. Upon being apprehended by police, Wells died when an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated.
known as brian wells quietly walked into a PNC bank at summit tower centter a shopping plaza in erie pennsylvania , he arrived at 2.30 p.m and slid a note to the teller stating that a bomb would explode in 15 minutes unless 250 thousand dollars was handed over.
the bomb in question , wasn’t inside the building or to be delivered upon expiration of this request it was simply locked around brian’s neck by a collar. the bank
the bank teller did all she could but was unable to access the wault in the 15 minutes time limit , so she instead handed him a bag containing eight thousand seven hundred and two dollars.
wells took the bag and left the bank .when the first contact to the authorities was made
a witness called the police,stating hat a man just left with a bomb or something wrapped around his neck.
accoridng to the witnessess and surveillance footage, wells acted confident as he aproched the counter.even sucking on ta lollipop
before the threat was made and strolling out he bank ,swinging the bag and a cane gun.wells was also fitted with two shirts. the outhe of which read” can you guess whos behind this ” in taunting writting.
over the next §5 minutes the man traveled to a nearby Mcdonalds and was then spotted by police state troopers moments later.Standingoutside of his Geo Metro in a Eyeglass world car park
he was quickly surrounded and restrained by authorities who then placed him on the ground and found cover behind vehicles as they waited for bomb disposal expert to arrive.
the man was identified as being brian wells. a pizza delivery courier for a local mamma mia pizza he explained to state troopers that while he was out on a dilevery, he was accosted by three black men who forced the bomb onto his neck at gunpoint. and demanded that he robbed PNC bank.
now despite the situation brian found himself in.he was suprisingly calm and relaxing at the beggining ,he asked state troopers if his employer had been informed of the situation, as well as asking why nobody, had so far attempted to remove the device strapped to him.
over the next 25 minutes, the media would swoop onto brian’s location and begin filming the situation .during this time brian’s demeanor wouls change from surprisingly calm to increasingly anxious.
he would beg for help ,strerssing the bomb was not a hoax and that it would detonate. as police and media continue to look on, the dvice bgan beeping, which caused brian to become agitated.
he would wriggle around and become panicked trying to somehow get away from the bomb. but there was no hope for him. .
approximately 10 seconds after the beeping began the bomb detonated ,throwing back onto the ground. a 12 centimeter ole was left in brian’s chest and he would pass away just a few seconds leater.as for the bomb experts, they arrived just three minutes too late.
news cameras filmed brian’s demise. after assessing the device the bombexperts confirmed no further detonations would occure while the device was still attached allowing officers to begin their investigation.
Minutes after being given the green light ,police gathered a trove of evidence. that they began to sift through the bomb while severely damaged from the explosion was still relatively intact.
the locking mechanism a tripple band metal locked with four key holes and a three -digit combination lock looks similar in design to handcuffs.
the box containing the explosive device was made from Iron that held to 15 centimeter pipe bombs with a poundless substance inside additionally three timers were built into the device. two of them manual and one digital. plus wires that didn’t connect to anything were also found.
likely there to throw off anyone attempting to desarm it. based on the design of the device police concluded that it had been made using professional tools
searching brian’s Geo Metro they found his cane which turned out to be a modified gun.
they had also dicsovered a handwritten letter adressed only to the bomb hostage. the letter contained detailed instructions for brian to rob PNC bank demanding twohundred and fifty thousand dollars, following this,
the letter went on to instruct brian to take a quest to search for keys and combination codes for the device in order for him to safely remove it.
the letter was clear in that straying from the objective would result in the bomb being detonatedthere is only one way you can survive and that is to cooperate completely. this powerful booby -trap bomb can be removed , only by following our instructions.
act now, think later or you will die!
part of the scavenger hunt involved brian going to nearby mcdonald’s after robbing PNC bank. explaining why he went there afterwards.
Brian would locate a two -page note underneath a rock in flower bed of the macdonald’s which then told him to go to a wooded area up peach street.
howeveras he was stopped by the police before making it there he had not recovered it. because of this , police decided to complete the scavenger hunt, picking up where brian left off
traveling to the next site, police found a container wrapped in orange tape instructing brian to travel three kilometers south to a small road sign.police followed this clue and found another note which told brian that the next clue would be found in a nearby woods inside a jar.
when police followed this next clue they recovered the jar but there was no clue inside. this left investigators with two possible reasons, either the people planting the clues were to spooked once police arrived forcing to abandon their plan .
or more dauntingly ,they had never intended for bryan to survive. regardless ,even if all the clues were present and brian was alive to collect them police determined that with the time that he had he wouldn’t have been able to complete the scavenger hunt in time.either way, it became quickly apparent that brian was meant to die that day.
the police then worked their way back to the events leading up to the robbery.at just after 1.30 PM the owner of mamma mia’s received a telephone call for a pizza delivery, the owner tony took down t the order two sausage and pepperoni pizzas , but he struggled to understand the caller when givning tony their adress.
Tony then passed the phone over to brian wells who wrote down the adress. ” 8631 peach street.” and left to complete the delivery.
when police arrived at the adress they found that it was actually a location of remoteTV transmission tower site that could only be reached via a dirt road.investigators searched the area and found shoe prints and tire tracks, that would be later be matched back to brian wells and his GEO metro.
while it was determined that this was where the bomb was placed onto him ,there wasn’t really anything else that stood out in terms of what happened or why he was brought out to a such a remote location.
a witness would tell police that he heard a gunshot from the fields at the telephone tower. but hey were unable to gather any more information
furthermore it was determined that the phone call made to mamma mia’s came from a pay phone. at shell petrol station ,located a short distance away from the delivery destination.
Let’s take a moment to talk about brian wells was and what police learned about him .
born in warren pennsylvania on the 15th of november 1956,he was born to harold and rose wells, the couple had five childen in total but harold would satdly passe away at 60 ,due to multiple sclerosis when brian was still young, this left rose too looke after all five children on her own.
despite having a verbal IQ of a hundred and a performance of IQ 120 he would be a straight A student up until middle school.,he’s grades would drope ,likely in part of he’s death of his father. resulting him dropping out of high school by the time he was 16. he would later obain a GED howevcer.
while some sources say wells worked at mamma mia’s for 10 years prior to his death. orther sates he had worked there since 1973, regardless ,he was considered a trusted co-worker only reportedly taking one day of work after his cat sadly died.
friends and neighbors described brian being heard working reliable man who would stick to a strickt routine.waking up at the same time every morning ,eating brakfast at his local mcdonald’s before going to work.and regularly reading the news papper.
nothing here screamed bank robber to police wich solidified their opinion that he had simply been in the wrong place, at the wrong time initially.furstratingly they they have very little to go on
allthough just three days later on the 31th of august brians’ co-worker at mamma mia’s robert penetti was deceased in what was later ruled as an accidental overdose. hewas due to speak to with police that weekend but he requested to postpone the interview.for obvious reasons, they never get a chanche to speak with him.
as the days wore on concerns grew that the case may go cold,but police received a seemingly unrelated call on the 20th of september ,three and a half week o after the robbery took place.that would blow the case wide open .
as the title suggests
A man by the name of bill rothstein reach out to police to notify, that his friend
marjorie diehl – armstrong had shot and killed her boyfriend
james Rhoden.
he explained to the operator that jame’s body had been mvoed tohis home where hhe was placed into bill’s freezer thar was situated in his garage
.interestingly bill lvied remarkably close to the location where brian was asked deliver pizza’s to
the following day police visited bill’s home and there were the frozen remains of james.
marjorie was arrested that same day and shortly after bill was brought in to speak police to give his verson ofevents in more detail.
In the police interview bill describes his relationship with majorie to police, telling them that he had known her for many years and at the beginning he was initially in a relationship with majorie and had even got engaged to her. the pair would eventually split and have an on -again- off -again friendship in the years since.
he explained that jim rhoden had leaved with m marjorie for around 10 years and had been in a romantic relationship with her at the time of his death.
bill went on to say at that approximately three weeks prior to the date of the Heist, majorie had suspected that friends of jim had been steeling money and personal items from her home.
leading both marjorie jim arguing
according to bill the argument became extremely heated to the point where marjorie grabbed a 12 -gauge shotgun and and shot jim twice in the back. killing him.
not knowing what to do, marjorie contacted bill for help.she convinced him to move jims body to his home where he placed him in the freezer. he also melted the dun down that was just to kill jim, scattering the pieces across Erie county and assiststed in cleaning up marjories home.
but over the next five weeks. bill became racked with guilt over his involvement of the hiding of jims body,he said when marjorie suggested grinding up jims body and burying it ,he knew he couldn’t do this , afraid of wah marjorie would do to him if she found out. he decided to confess everything to police.bill had always maintained that he was not involved in anyway with jim’s death
and he would later give police a tour of borth his and and majories homes. describing how he found jim . and the events thattook place afterwards.
you might been woundering how a women killing her boyfriend and getting her ex- fiance to hide the body in a freezer would have anything to do with brian wells in the bank robbery.
but what linked the two was a note that bill wrote. as i mentioned erlier bill was apparently racked with gilt with his involvement in hiding jims body.so much so that he considering rmoving himself world. he wrote a note confesing what he had done and why he ended things on his own terms.
but the note begean with a very interesting yet suspicious disclaimer” this has nothing to do with wells case”
bill explained this away by telling state police who was investigating jim’s death that he simply wrote this so police wouldn’t consider the two events to be linked.
essentially he didn’t want police to waste their time.however state police passed the information to FBI who were investigating the bank robbery as they though otherwise.
FBI would investigate bill and another man .floyd stockton who formely lived with bill. and had previously been convicted of his lawsuit against a disabled teenager. stockton had wound up on the FBI’s radar , thanks to marjorie.
bill rothstein’s home was just a five minute walk from the telefon tower
bill admitted that it was possible he used the pay phone on the day call wwas made to mamma mia’s , but he denied being the one who made the call.
investigators gud in to bill rothstein deeper and found that he seemed to have a knack for being a bit of a handyman .he was also known for his engineering skills and taught introductory mechanics at a high school shop. he was also fluent in multiple languages.
but interestingly despite being a clearly smart man. Rhodstein was also known as someone who often didn’t see through to completion
his friend ray bukowsky said that bill didn’t complete college and also didn’t obtain his pilot’s license as a couple of examples wasn’t through a lack of intelligence as bill was quite the opposite but rather he would just simply move on to another project.
his home was also disorganized, as investigators saw when they visited his home.that it was clear that he has a hoarder, it was also discovered that floyd stockton moved out of rothsteins home on the same day that bank robbery took place.
despite the information that was gathered it was mostly circumstantial and they were unable to properly link rothstein to both rodan killing and the pizza collar bomb heist . rotstein and stockton would both take lie detector tests passing them in the process.
ultimately both rothstein and stockton face no charges at the time in relation to the bank robbery.
marjorie also firmly denied any involvement to in the pizza collar bomber case. stating the onyl way she could have pulled something like tihs off would be if bill rothstein himself was involved.
she would however admit to kill kill jim rodan. allthough she would flip-flop from taking responsibility herself to blaming bill rotstein fro jim’s death. saying he did so out of jealousy.
MARJORIE DIEHL – ARMSTRONG
Marjorie can be summed up as being a somewhat interesting woman, born on the 26th of february 1947. marjories childhood wasn’t really anything out of norm of a child growing up in that time. she was increadibly smart. attractive and energetic.
but there was one downside to marjorie that would only get worse with age. her mental health. as time went by marjorie would developed bipolar disorder , which led to narcissistic characteristiscs, paranoia and mood swings.
like rothstein she too was a compulsive hoarder, which left her living in less than ideal conditions, in fact shortly after she was arrested
police search the home and founded to be a complete mess her home was covered in trash and there were even dog feces left laying around.
it was so hazardous the protective suits were given to those entering the home .
in the Netflic documentary, Evil Genius one of her friends explained that after spending time with majorie ,you would need to take a break from her due to her high energy and non-stop talking.
marjorie was also known to police as this wasn’t the first time she had been accused of killing a man.prior to being arrested for the murder of jim rhodan., she was accused to killing her boy friend robert thomas in 1984. she successfully argued that she killed him in an act of self -defense and was acquitted .. but it shoudl be noted that he was shot six times ,while sitting on his armchair.
then in 1992, her husband at the time , Richard armstrong would die from a cerebral hemmorrhage after bashing his head on a coffe table. marjorie wasn’t investigated for richard’s death and she would later win a malpractice lawsuit against the hospital where richard where treated
after giving multiple accounts of what happened on the day jim rhodan died. she would eventually admit to be the one responsible for killing him. but she would use her poor mental health as an excuse for doing so. regardless in january 2005 marjorie was sentenced to between 7 and 20 years prison time for the murder of jim rhodan.
as for bill rothstein in exchange for giving testimony against marjorie he would only expect to face up to a few years in prison on misdemeanor charges including abuse of a corps. but because of how cooperative he was with police , he was granted bail until he was due to be sentenced.
however he would end up spending no time inside as bill died in july 2004 from non -hodgkin’s lymphoma.it’s worth noting on his deathbed he was interviewed again by the FBI over the pizza collar bombing case. bill told them nothing.
while one case had been solved the pizza collar bomb heist continue to elude authorities.
but just a few months after marjorie was sentenced a new lead would come forward in the form of none other than marjorie herself and another man.
from march 2004 marjorie was situated at mayview state hospital.du to her mental health. because of this , investigators were unable to speak with her about the pizza collar bombing case.
however on the 16th of march 2005. marjorie was deemed well enough to be transferred from mayview to the state correctional institiution at Muncie.
not long after marjorie claimed to have information about the wells ‘ case.in exchange for this information, she requested to be moved to a minimum security prison nearer to Erie.
Jerry clark who was heading up the investigation into well’s case
along with jason wick of the alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives Bureau or ATF agreed to her request.
and majorie was moved to the state correctional institution at cambridge springs.
overr the next several weeks they would interview marjorie, but frustratingly they found that she was more interested in talking smack about bill rothstein rather than give them anything of value.it was also around this time that a warrant was issued to search through marjorie’s belongings where police found notes written by marjorie. that were quite revealing
marjorie and her father were not exactly on speaking terms. she believed t hat he was squandering her inheritance even he had written her out of his will some tome before without her knowledge.
she was said to be livid at him for giving what she deemed her money away to those who needed help.
not only this. but. she also had a grudge with PNC bank . after they allegedly allowed her father to have access to items within a safe deposit box. that she owned.
it wouldn’t be until july 2005 that marjorie began to give them significant information. she would tell agents clark and wick that it was bill rothstein who had been the mastermind behind the heist and while she denied any involvement in the plot.
she admitted to providing rothstein with kitchen timers. that were later found around well’s neck. and she was approximately two kilometers away from the PNC bank at the time the heist was underway.
she also told the investigators that she had in fact killed Rhodan not over money but because he knew to much about the heist. and threatned to tell poice.
she aksi claimed that brian wells was not an innocent victim.but an acrive participant in the heist.
while it would be easy to write off majories ‘s claimes as nothing more tha nthe ramlbings of a mad women.there was some merit to her claims.she was able to provide investigators with information that only they were privy to and when the police footage of rothstein’s tour of his home was reviewed again.
they discovered drawngs which resembled arrows which was found on the bombs that wells was wearing.
written notes by Rothstein were also found via identations on unused pages
that upon closer inspection match the handwriting on the scavenger hunt instructions given to brian wells.
ray bukowsky would himself confirm that the handwriting was actually bills.
additionally UPS delivery driver michael thomas Vogt would come forward to tell the FBI that on the day of the heist
the wittnesssed the couple using the pay phone at the shell garage at the time the pizza order had taken place.
He observed a large man in bibbed overalls using the telephone ,beside a women who made direct eye contact with him. he recognized ithat it was dehl – armstrong after watching an episode of america’s most wanted and seeing her image on the screen.it was this that prompted the call to the FBI .
Marjorie would tell investigators that it was likely that she was around the area at the time but she continued to deny that she had anything to do with the heist. suggesting that she was there for another reason. although it wasn’t clear what that reason was.
marjorie apparently didn’t keep the details of the heist between herself and the investigators either. inmates at the prison began coming forward telling authoritites that she had openly admitted to be being part of the heist. with one prisoner taking notes of their conversations
reportedly marjorie had , that she was the one that measured wells’s neck for the bomb. and that they all had a part to play in constructing the device. the notes the inmate provided also contained floyd stockton’s name. convincing investigators that he was perhaps more involved and than they first thought.
clark and wick would interviewfloyd stocktorn again, now armed with the additional information they obetained from marjorie, stockton initially remained tight -lipped throughout the interrogation but would eventually admit to being involved in the heist. but he insisted that it was marjorie and not rothstein who was the mastermind.
he said that when wells met at the delivery spot , it was he who placed a bomb around well’s neck,however this was under duress as when wells realized the bomb was real he attempted to flee had a struggle ensued. a warning shot was fired into the air which stopped well’s in his tracks.he was then struck in the face as the bomb was being placed on him .
kenneth Barnes
he also said that he moved out of rothstein´s on the day of the heist , after becoming spooked by the police presence that day. he stressed that he wasn’t involved as rothstein, majorie or kenneth barnes. who he also named as being there.
and police seem to agree accepting his offer of immunity in exchange for testifying against marjorie
so far i´ve mentioned kenneth barnes a couple of times in this case but .i haven’t yet explained who he is. barnes was an old fishing friend of marjories who was a former television repairman turned crack dealer.barnes like marjorie, spoke a little too openly about his involvement in the well’s heist.and would be turned in by none other then his own brother -in -law.
barnes wasn’t hard to find as he was already in prison on unrelated drugs charges. he would be interviewed by clarka and wicks on at least three occasions. between august and september. 2005. and while he too accused marjorie of being the mastermind behind the heist ,he was able to provide a motive behind the crime.
marjorie approached barnes with the prospect of hiring him as a hitman to kill her father and offered him two hundred thousand dollars to commit the act.
the reason for this was simply so marjorie could get her hands on her father’s money estimated to be about two million dollars.
however barnes wanted half of the money up front with the other half paid on completion majorie didn’t have this kind of money to hand and so it was at this point the plan to commit the heist began.
not only could she get enough money to pay bonds and then some but she could also get revenge on PNC bank at the same time.
he also alleged that shortly before the heist
a meeting took place between himself marjorie, rothstein, stocktorn,wells and robert pinetti.
barnes however always insisted that it was never his plan to follow through the hit ,but only to scam marjorie out of her money.
as for wells’s apparent involvement barnes said that his home was a crack den. then also operated as a place where prostitutes would take clients to complete their transactions wells was apparently a frequent visitor.where he would spend time with a women
called jessica hoopsick, hoopsick would be paid by wells for her services and would then in turn use the money to purchase drugs from barnes. this turned out to be an unsavory circular loop.
while hoopsick was apparently unwilling to cooperate in the initial investigation she later admitted to recruiting wells into the heist in the Netflic documentary Evil Genius.
hoopsick would say that barnes asked her to find someone who would be willing to take part and she settled on brian wells,believing him to be a pushover and someone who could be easily manipulated.
it was also suggested that wells had money problems with gambling and the money he believed he was to receive would go some way to alleviate those problems.
it wors noting however that authorities disputes hoopsick’s claimes.
When marjorie was challenged february 2006 she disputed their accounts and continued to deny any involvement in the crime . she suggested to officers to drive her aroune Erie so she could give an account of the events that day and investigators agreed.
she was taken around Erie, and continued to talk, eventually at a separate meeting after ,she told the investigators that she wouldn’t say anything else. unless she was granted immunity from prosecution.
but by now police had more than enough to indict marjorie.
in july of 2007 just under four years since the pizza collar bomb heist took place , authorities was able to build a picture of the events that took place using the testimonies of each suspect.
here’s what they believed happened.
firstley , police were satisfied that marjorie was indeed the mastermind behind the heist. but it was bill rothstein who engineered the bomb.
on the day of the heist ,bill and marjorie traveled to the payphone and bill made the call to mamma mia’s to place the order.
wells traveled to the delivery location to begin the next step of the plan thinking he would be strapped to a fake bomb,however when he realized the device was real he tried to pull out .
it was then that a warning shot was fired and he was forced to wear the device.
police conceded that at this point he became an unwilling participant to the heist.
wells beleived that if he followed the plan to the letter, he would be able to disarm and safely remove the device.but given the amount of time he had before the device went off it was practically impossible for him to compete this.
in other words . he was always meant to die and the money would simply be collected later on.
had he been caught as what turned out to be the case. he was instructed to blame imaginary black people to throw police off the true culprits.
the scavenger hunt was itself also nothing more than a ruse to distract the police.
kennet barnes would plead guilty to conspiracy and weapon charges and receive a prison sentence of 45 years.however after he agreed to testify against marjorie his sentence would be reduced to just 22 and a half years.
marjorie on the other hand would continue to protest her innocence insisting that bill rothstein was the man who orchestrated the whole plan. initially she was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial but would later be ruled fit only to be diagnosed with glandular cancer.
after various delays her trial would eventually begin on the 12 of october 2010.
she would deny ever knowing brian wells as well as getting to tell her version events on the stand on the eight day of the trial.
after a jury deliberated for 11 hours , marjorie was found guilty of armed robbery conspiracy and using a destructive device in crime of violence on the 1 st of november 2010.
she was sentence to life in prison on the 28th of february 2011. she would attempt to appeal a conviction on several occassions only to fail each time sealing her fate.
marjorie would eventually pass away from breast cancer on the 4th of april 2017. and was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at Cedar Memorial park, arlington Texas.
kenneth barnes would follow suit ,passing away on the 20th of june 2019,
to this day, nobody has been convictec of the murder of brian wells.
the profile the FBI created
the profile described the bomber as being a hoarder who was comfortable with shop machines and power tools had access to work with these tools alone and took pride in their creations with dual purposes.it also described them as having a violent pass and a superiority complex. essentially it descibed both bill and marjorie. but neither individually .
then there’s the official version of events. while polic believe that wells was in on the heist his family vehemently disagree, they view brian as nothing more than a victim in this crime and that should be seen as such .
but then if that was the case.why would he go with the story that he as coerced into the heist by a group of black men ? surley if you know your’eabout to die, you would want t point the finger at those responsible
but another suggestion might be that he genuinely believed that straying from the instructions would see the device detonate. and so he said this purely to survive that bit longer.
it also the question as to whether marjorie herself was indeed the mastermind.while it goes without sayint that she was an intelligent woman she also had her demon. that she struggled with throughout her life.
could she have really concocted such a complex plan and orchestrated it while also living a disorganized life with dog feces lying around?perhaps.
but some believe that there may have been another motive at play.
at the time of the heist . bill was repordely in a dispute with his siblings over the family home he lived in .reportedly they wanted to sell the home but bill refused. however he would secretly list the home . the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, this was the despite the property being valued at around ninety thousand dollar at the time.
some belived that bill wanted the money to pay off his siblings so he could continue to live in the home where he grew up .
retired FBI agent jim fisher began closely following the pizza collar bomber heist . the day he saw wells on TV,he strongly believes that marjorie was in no way the one who masterminded the robbery.
given the complexity of the organization of the heist. he concludes that obtaining the money was never the primary concern of the person behind the heist.instead it was desinged to create a confusing puzzle one which the mastermind would take glee in watching the police stumble their way through.
he believe the person responsible wanted to cotnrol the narrative and did so by ensuring he got to dictrate the circumstances, successfully evading prosecution for the heist. that person fisher believed was bill rothstein. he died with all the secrets. he died taking all the answers with him.
he gets the last laugh in that sense. he escaped punishment, he escaped detection,he left us with these idiots and a bunch of questions fisher is quoted as saying
so was the version of events that police described correct or do you think there is more to this story that is yet to and will likely never be revealed…………………………………………………………….