The FBI is the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world, pursuing the most dangerous criminals when a mysterious man robs a bank, setting off a twisted and deadly chain of events.
“When the device detonated, you could feel the percussion from it and pieces just went everywhere.”
The bureau mobilizes.
“The person responsible was a puppet master. They pull the strings and they tell you what they want you to do, and this is how you’re going to do it. This crime gets more and more bizarre as time goes on.”
In the small mid-Atlantic town of Erie, Pennsylvania, an oddly dressed man carrying a cane calmly enters a bank.
“It was noticeable when he entered the bank that he had some type of, uh, it was described as a box protruding from his chest area, covered with a shirt. Perfect, thank you.”
He approaches the teller and passes her a note.
“He seemed very calm, walked up to the teller, handed her a note demanding money.”
The note orders the teller to hand over $250,000 and claims the heavy box-like device around the man’s neck is a bomb.
“I don’t have a lot of time.”
It also warns that she has only 15 minutes to comply.
“She’ll be here in a minute.”
The robber remains oddly casual, even grabbing a lollipop while he waits.
“The bank surveillance video portrayed him, or he appeared to be, relatively calm.”
“Well, we don’t have that much money,” the teller informs the man. “There is no way to get into the vault at that time, right now, okay?”
Instead, she hands over a bag with more than $8,000 in cash.
“You have a good day.”
“He exited the bank and attempted to leave at that time. However, a bank patron, of course, saw what was going on and followed him out of the bank and alerted police to the bank robbery.”
“Okay, he’s robbing…”
As the customer watches, the robber hops into his Geo Metro. He refers to what looks like several pages of notes. He’s dropping off. He then drives a short distance and retrieves another note from under a rock.
“He had gotten out of his car and got what appeared to be a note. He got back in the car, and two state troopers actually stopped him, and that’s when everything happened.”
Pennsylvania State Troopers responding to the 911 call pull the car over and identify the robber as 46-year-old Brian Wells. As the troopers pull Wells from his car, he exposes the bulky contraption under his T-shirt. The troopers have no idea how many people the bomb is designed to kill. They quickly evacuate nearby businesses and establish a perimeter, pushing onlookers and news crews out of the way.
“Direction, just moments ago, a trooper warned us that we were in the blast radius.”
They cuff Wells, call the Erie bomb squad, and retreat to a safe distance.
“What do you want those state troopers to do? I mean, in essence, Brian was putting his life along with everyone else’s lives in danger.”
Police don’t know whether this is a terrorist attack or a bank robbery gone horribly wrong. Either way, authorities need help from the one federal agency that can handle it all: the FBI.
Special Agent Gerald Clark is notified at the FBI’s nearby resident agency. He rushes to the scene. An 8-year veteran of investigating bank robberies, Agent Clark takes the bomb threat seriously.
“You have to believe in your mind that the potential for that device to be real is there.”
As agents wait for the bomb squad to arrive, Brian Wells starts talking, and he’s telling an outlandish story. He claims that he’s a pizza delivery man and that he’s a victim of a sadistic game.
“Mr. Wells advised that he worked at Mama Mia’s Pizzeria in Erie on Peach Street, that a call had been placed for him to deliver two pizzas to 8631 Peach.”
Wells tells authorities that he made the delivery to a nearby transmission tower site when a stranger took him hostage.
“Mr. Wells advised the police that an African American had met him at the tower site location where he was to deliver the pizzas, that this individual then fired a weapon. Mr. Wells immediately fell to the ground, and that this device was placed around his neck, and he was advised to rob the bank.”
“You pulled the key out and started a timer.”
“I’m going to go to the truck. This is going off.”
“He kept indicating, ‘I don’t have a lot of time, I don’t have a lot of time.’ How much time he had, we did not know.”
“I’m not lying.”
The robber’s relative calm seems odd for a man whose life is supposedly ticking away with each minute.
“I’ve learned over the years never to try to determine what any criminal should look like or be like or act like, but Mr. Wells maintained a calmness that I felt was strange according to the situation.”
With the bomb squad just moments away, Wells asks a trooper to call his employer to let him know where he’s at. Suddenly, the device starts beeping. It accelerates, and for the first time, Brian Wells becomes visibly nervous.
“I think Mr. Wells thought that the device was not real and maybe, during the last few seconds and maybe through that beeping, began to believe that the device was actually active.”
At 3:18 p.m., as police stand guard, the bomb explodes.
“When the device detonated, you could feel the percussion from it and you could hear different items flying through the air and hitting the ground.”
“The man was sitting there as he was since about 3:00, when all of a sudden a loud explosion, and he flipped onto his back and the state police troopers scrambled.”
The explosion blasts a fist-sized hole in Wells’s chest. He falls back and takes one last breath.
“You’re watching it and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe that just happened.'”
Just minutes later, the bomb squad arrives. The threat isn’t over. They check his car to see if there’s another bomb.
“One of the officers yelled out, ‘Secondary, secondary!’ which indicates there could be a second device that might detonate it further.”
Once the perimeter is secure, the bomb squad examines Brian Wells. It quickly becomes evident that there was nothing anyone could have done to save him.
“Basically, the device was devised in such a maniacal manner that anyone from the bomb squad who took a look at that was going to be unable to get that device off of Mr. Wells.”
Was Brian Wells acting on his own, or was he really a victim of a deadly plot as he claimed just minutes before his death? At the time, agents begin searching Wells’s car for evidence and find his two-foot-long cane. Closer inspection reveals something bizarre. What appeared to be a cane was actually a homemade shotgun constructed of various pieces of metal and wood. And there’s something else surprising in the car.
“Mr. Wells had a set of notes in his car that were entitled ‘bomb hostage,’ and it gave Mr. Wells a list of things he was to do.”
The notes claim the only way Wells could diffuse and remove the bomb was to complete a complex scavenger hunt. The notes instruct Wells to first rob the bank, then gather clues at four separate locations. The twist to the deadly game: he had only 55 minutes to complete the tasks.
“He was told to follow a list of instructions which would lead him to various points around Erie, the end result being he would receive instructions to remove the device from his neck.”
“Them on where to be during the bank robbery. She was perfectly consistent with Ken Barnes, down to she picked the exact same parking space that Ken Barnes had picked, which was their vantage point watching the bank robbery.”
At the last stop, Marjorie refuses to provide any further information without receiving immunity. But this time, agents refuse to play the game.
“There was not going to be a deal made with Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.”
In 2007, a grand jury indicts Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Ken Barnes for charges of conspiracy. They do not indict the deceased William Rothstein but list him as a co-conspirator in the case. In a shocking twist, the grand jury also lists another co-conspirator: Brian Wells.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This guy knew he was going to wear a live bomb and go rob a bank? He knew that there was a chance he was going to die? This is even crazier. This crime gets more and more bizarre as time goes on.”
FBI agents have concluded that Brian Wells was part of the plot all along and had met repeatedly with Diehl-Armstrong and her cohorts to rehearse the scheme.
“Mr. Wells was present for a discussion about this bank robbery at Ken Barnes’s house at one point with other individuals to include Marjorie Diehl and Ken Barnes.”
They believe that Brian Wells owed money to a local drug dealer and agreed to participate in the bank robbery to pay him back.
“All right, this is the device. This is the pin.”
Authorities say Wells even sat for fittings of the collar bomb under the belief that the device was fake.
“How’s that feel right there?”
“Good, feels all right.”
But on the morning of the robbery, Brian Wells was double-crossed by his friends.
“Don’t worry about anything.”
“On the day of the incident, Ken Barnes stated that Brian Wells drove to the back of the tower site and got out of the vehicle.”
“Let’s do this thing.”
“He was shown the device that they were going to put on.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Wait, wait, what’s with those pieces?”
“They got to believe it’s real.”
“And Brian Wells either lost his nerve or decided that that looked too real and did not want to participate.”
“Ken, Ken, no, I’m not—no, I’m not doing it.”
According to the testimony of Ken Barnes, Wells tried to run away but was held down.
“You’re not going anywhere, relax.”
“The bomb was strapped to his neck, and he stuck with the plot until the bitter end.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I don’t think that device was ever intended to be taken off of Brian Wells. I think that they knew certain people were witnesses to this event, and that some people they did not want to still be around.”
In 2010, Ken Barnes is convicted of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. He’s sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong finally loses the game and is convicted on charges of armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and using a destructive device. She maintains her innocence.
“I’m innocent.”
“Where were…?”
“Marjorie Diehl is a rare individual. She could commit crimes and not think about the consequences, and that’s alarming.”
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is now serving life in prison. She reportedly has cancer and has been given only a few years to live.
“In her history, you’ve seen that she held the fate of people’s lives in her hands in the past, and now all of a sudden, she’s on the other end of that spectrum and someone else holds her fate. And so it’s sort of ironic how the whole thing ended.”
It’s little consolation to the family of Brian Wells, which fights to clear his name to this day.
“Brian’s family believes he had absolutely nothing to do with this, that he was an innocent victim. It’s a story that never ends. I mean, it never ends.”
