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John Caniglia
Plain 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 wanted to help him. No one knew what was going on nor seemed to understand how a simpleton got involved in such a vicious plot. Except Wells. He knew he had been double-crossed. He thought the bomb was a fake. Investigators revealed Wednesday that Wells, 46, was actually in on the plot, both a victim and an offender in the same crime. Within minutes of his cries, the bomb blew a softball-sized hole in Wells' chest, killing 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 WHEN charged Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes in Wells' death. They are 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. The man authorities said built the bomb, Diehl-Armstrong's onetime boyfriend William Rothstein, is dead. He died of cancer July 30, 2004. QUOTE. MUST HIT YOU. Wells' family defended him, saying he played no role in the crime other than as a victim. They said he would never associate with Barnes, Rothstein or Diehl-Armstrong. "He had absolutely nothing to do with it," said John Wells, Brian's younger brother. "People are saying that just to protect themselves." According to the indictment and interviews with Brian Wells' neighbors, investigators and defense attorneys, Wells' role unfolded like this: He was known as a man with simple tastes, caring for his three cats, eating Sunday meals with his mother and fixing his cars. In simple terms, he was a follower. He worked for the pizza parlor for about 10 years. What people didn't know was his affection for a prostitute. Wells and the woman, Jessica Hoopsick, often would have sex at a home on Seventh Street in Erie. Barnes, a convicted cocaine dealer, would rent rooms out in exchange for drugs and cash to prostitutes and men. She even testified before a federal grand jury about Wells' link to Barnes, her attorney said. A few years earlier, Barnes had offered to do a favor for a fishing friend, Diehl-Armstrong: kill her father, Harold, for $125,000. She wanted her father dead over a dispute involving her inheritance from her mother's death in 2000, federal agents said. "She wouldn't kill me, but she probably would get somebody else to do it," Harold Diehl said. "She tends to be greedy. I just don't trust her." 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 into it. They told him the bomb would be fake, and, if arrested, he would claim that he was a hostage. 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 and called Mama-Mia's Pizza-Ria and ordered two pizzas with sausage. The gas station's surveillance cameras saw them at the station and later speed 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 He wrestled with the men and tried to scamper away, but one of the men 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. 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. "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 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. 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 a gun that looked like a walking cane. He demanded $250,000; he got $8,000. Rothstein, according to investigators, was in the parking lot, 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 Interstate 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. He 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. Rothstein called Stockton "my roommate." Stockton was shipped back to Washington state, where he was charged and later sentenced to two years in prison. They also found 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 getting seven to 20 years in prison. Federal investigators said they believe Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden because he knew too many details about the plot and had threatened to go to police. 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 nearly 30 minutes with a bomb around his neck, waiting for help that never came. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jcaniglia@plaind.com, 800-683-7348 |