Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Deb, your host on the Dying to be Found True Crime Podcast.
We are having a great time bringing you lots of episodes this season that are left open to interpretation.
We always appreciate your feedback on our episodes.
My son Cory is here today. Hi Cory.
How's it going? Happy to be back.
Good. Yeah, we got some good feedback on you. So that's a good sign.
Oh really?
Yeah, we're doing something right.
I haven't looked at the comments. I hate my voice so much I haven't listened to the episodes. I won't do it.
You'll get used to it.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine editing my own videos because I whenever we go to court, I have to play back my videos.
Yeah.
And God, I just hate hearing my voice because we have to rewatch the videos over and over and over.
We got to make sure everything's right. And it's just awful hearing my own voice because I say dumb stuff.
I'm like, God, I'm so awful to listen to.
You say dumb stuff on video while you're recording?
Oh yeah, especially whenever I watch videos from two years ago because sometimes cases will take that long to go to court.
And two years ago, I didn't know what I was doing. So it's like, oh my God, such a new guy back then.
So true. Yeah.
Yeah. It's not as bad now because I'm a little bit more confident in what I'm doing. Still, I can't hear my voice.
Yeah. I think when I was your age, I probably felt the same way. You'll just get used to it over time.
Anyways, this is episode number 59, which I can't believe already we're at 59. This is crazy.
Yeah, that's a lot.
For our listeners, we do bring you a variety of stories from different family members each week here on D2BF.
And since Cory is here, that can only mean one thing. It's time to talk tough.
I try to give you the tough cases, Cory.
That's fine. I like that.
All right. When I put this season together, I was trying to find some storylines that you can relate to.
Since you are in law enforcement, as I was going through my list, I discovered, honestly, I'm doing a lot of bomb stories.
We talked about that with DB Cooper and we're going to talk about that today.
So I hope you like bombs.
Yeah. I should definitely start. If that's the trend, I should definitely start doing some research,
but I still don't want to start getting looked into by the FBI.
No, no, you don't.
They're going to start noticing a pattern if I'm looking at bombs.
Yeah. Let me do that. I mean, they know I have a podcast. I'm sure if it gets out there, then yes,
they will know that I have a podcast. So let me do that investigating. But are you training on any type of public bombing training, anything like that?
No, not really. I mean, I'm sure that as time goes on, we're going to start getting more introduction to that because we've had several bomb threats in the last couple of years,
but we just got our first bomb dog recently.
Wow.
Before we've had to use the city next over. We use their bomb dog now, but we just got a bomb dog.
We're just trying to train up our guys. So we'll eventually start getting that kind of training.
Are you going to be getting a canine?
No, I will never. I will never be canine because I love dogs.
Oh.
Yeah. You can't be a canine operator if you're a dog person. It just doesn't mesh well. Plus, it's a different lifestyle.
We had one guy that just recently got a dog and he's younger than I am. And I kind of thought it was a mistake for him to get in the first place because it's just a completely different lifestyle change.
And it's just, it's a lot to take in. And he was in maybe, I don't know, two, three months and he already said, I'm done. I don't want to be a dog handler anymore. So he gave his dog up now. Yeah, it's just, it's a lot to take in.
When they come home in the evening with you, they're not off duty and they're not like a regular dog?
Some are. We've got one canine that is very much a regular dog. I've gone over to his house and I'll play catch with it a bunch. And that's the most satisfying catch you'll ever play with a dog because it's just so obedient.
Just like a regular dog, they don't care about being pet. They really just want to keep working. Another handler we've got, he's like, man, he's a dog's locked up all day. He's just a work tool.
Oh.
It just depends on the dog's personality and the handler.
Huh. I guess the closest I would get is Ava and she is high energy, but she's also obviously very smart. Ava is a German shepherd and she knows all the commands and things that she needs to do. She brings the ball back, but we can be in the yard playing for 30 straight minutes. And she just will, she's like a machine. She just keeps going.
They'll go until they pass out.
Yeah. All right. Well, today we're talking about Brian Wells, who was also known as the pizza bomber or the collar bomb heist. You said beforehand that you had not heard of this. So let's get into it. Are you ready?
Yep.
All right. August 28th, 2003, around 2 20 in the afternoon, 46 year old Brian Wells walked into a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania. He walked up to a teller. He grabbed a lollipop from the countertop and handed over a note that demanded 250,000 US dollars or 346,000 Canadian dollars or 208,000 pounds.
So he was there to rob a bank. And where do you think that this kind of cash is lying inside a bank anywhere, Corey? Where do you think they put that?
In a vault, but I don't think, I mean, 2003 relatively recent, but within the last several years, they don't keep much money in the banks anymore. They probably still had money back then.
Well, obviously safes are secure and the bank teller told Brian that it would take a little while for that safe to be opened. They had some kind of automated time delay system going. Obviously, you're not going to just be able to go in, put in a code and open that door. Everything's on time delay. And I'm sure you've seen that in movies and such too.
Brian said, I'll just take what I can get. I don't know if he actually said that, but he was saying, okay, well, give me the cash that you've got. So the teller placed close to $9,000 into a bag. That's $12,000 Canadian or 7,000 pounds. And the teller put that in a satchel, handed it over to Brian who promptly strolled out of the bank.
Not worth it. Bond's going to be more than that. Not even worth it.
Is there anything odd that I may have already described as I was telling you about how he walked into the bank?
Yeah, I mean, grab a wallet, Bob. It looked pretty casual.
Well, here's what was going on. He absolutely 100% looks suspicious from the very get go. I want you to think back to the time where you might see an older show where you see a boxy looking robot. I mean, robots are pretty cool. They look human, things like that. But he had that boxy look like an old timey robot of sorts.
Because he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but something was clearly underneath his clothing. He just looked like a big square man. I did watch a good documentary on this case a while back, Corey. As it turns out, he was wearing a collar bomb that was locked around his neck, which obviously when he came up to the teller, he promptly showed the teller after he handed over that note. So from the get go, the teller knew that he had a bomb around his neck.
And the one thing that Brian had on his person was also a gun that was disguised as a walking cane. So if you were to see pictures right now, you're looking at it, you can clearly see that it was a gun, but he just strolled in and walked up to the counter like he was walking with a cane. If you were in there with him, you'd just be going, what's up with that guy?
It depends on your mindset. I mean, most people aren't very situationally aware, so they're not going to be paying attention to that. So if it's, I mean, I could see a gun disguised as a cane getting by a lot of people that aren't paying attention.
Yes, that, but his appearance otherwise, the boxy look, you'll just have to go look him up, but you'll understand what I mean when you see him. Well, after he had gotten his $9,000, Brian began making his way back on foot to a fast food restaurant next to the bank. He walked straight to a rock, lifted it up, retrieved a note and kept walking aimlessly.
So he was on a mission of sorts, no clear direction at this point in time, but it didn't take long for state troopers to catch up with him. Just 15 minutes after the robbery, they found Brian inside a vehicle in another shopping center parking lot.
And he was promptly handcuffed. They caught up with him rather quickly. I don't know why he was sitting in a car, if it was his car, but they just basically caught up with him really fast. I'm sure they had a lot of CCTV too. And then of course, if he's taking a stroll like he was, people were probably watching the direction that he was headed.
Yeah. Post circuit TV. I mean, it doesn't take too long to watch it, but I'm sure they had people in the area. They probably had a vehicle description of what to look for, because the CCTV still have to revise it and whatnot. You have to have somebody that can access it with passwords and whatnot. I mean, it's 2003, so I don't know. I'm sure it's a lot simpler then, but I'm sure they had a lot of people in the area looking for him.
Absolutely.
He's probably going the speed limit, trying not to look suspicious. So he's not going to get that far.
I don't even think he got to the point where he was driving the vehicle, Corey. I think that he was strolling along. He made his way over to the parking lot and he was just sitting inside his vehicle with the collar bomb on his neck.
Oh.
So I don't even think he made it out onto the road. Before they detained him, Brian handed over multiple pages of instructions that described something of a scavenger hunt that he was using to get that bomb off his neck.
So checkpoint one, rob the bank. When you get done, go next door, look under this rock, you'll find your next set of instructions and so on and so on and so on.
So he was on a scavenger hunt trying to find out how he could get that bomb off his neck.
Oh, it's like a black mirror.
What is a black mirror?
It's a TV show that was on Netflix. It's like it's an old TV show.
OK, do you remember the Disney ride, the drop tower?
Oh, yes, you hated that.
OK, so that was Twilight Zone, Twilight Zone.
Oh.
It's like a modern day Twilight Zone.
Yeah, I recommend it.
Don't start with the first episode because I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't have ended up watching it.
It should still be on. Do you have Netflix?
I do.
Definitely start like on third season or something, because that's what got me into it because it was out of order for whatever reason they posted out of order.
But it's a great show. I really liked it.
But that sounds very there's a there's a scavenger hunt type episode on there where someone's being put in that situation.
I wonder if it was loosely based on this.
It could be. Yeah, because there's some stuff that you could see being based off stuff.
It's mostly set in the relevant future.
But it's a great show. I strongly recommend it.
All right. I'll go look that up.
Well, Brian claimed that four African-American men forced this collar bomb around his neck and instructed him to go rob that bank.
And let me just start by saying that Brian Wells is white.
And the reason I bring this up is because to me, Corey, it is so surprising how people will throw race in like this.
I think that is absolutely terrible.
It's not the first time that I've covered a case like this where the victim or we'll just air quote that is a white person.
And they just automatically label whoever it was that did something wrong.
African-American. I hope you get my point here. Yeah. Yeah.
OK. Well, something else I found interesting is that Brian was very specific about the number of men that held him hostage.
OK. Why for? He threw out the number.
He threw out the race. But I don't know if you have experience on this.
Is it unusual for people to say a very specific number like that?
If it's a lot of people, they'll usually say several.
But I mean, if it's like four or five people, they can usually give you a number of an exact number.
OK. So nothing unusual about any of any of his descriptions then?
No, it's not super unusual.
A lot of times they know the people that are involved.
So sometimes they can give you names. But yeah, they can usually give you numbers.
If it's a lower number, they can give you numbers. Not really.
I mean, there's going to be some details that are going to be off because of the adrenaline.
Even race can be given wrong. That happens a lot more than you expect.
Sometimes things can be off because of because of the adrenaline.
But people can usually give a number if it's if it's a lower end.
Gotcha. Obviously, when Brian told the police that he had this bomb around his neck,
police promptly sat him down a safe distance away, put a couple of cars between them and just kind of waited things out.
Brian asked repeatedly why police were not trying to get that bomb off of him.
Corey, if you're going to go back and look at any documentaries of this, you can find them online.
I believe there's a Netflix show on this whole incident.
But to me, Brian was worried and he did continuously say that he was running out of time.
So my question to you is, do you think he's in on this plot?
Oh, I don't have a whole lot of information at the moment.
If he is an actual victim, I could see him being genuinely concerned as to why they're not helping him.
But the cops have reasons to not because they're going to have to wait on people that are specifically trained to work with bombs.
And even if you have somebody trained with a bomb, he still has to understand what type of detonation it's going to take.
So some of them are remote. Some of them have a timer. It just depends on what type of detonation.
So if it's a timer, then obviously it's not going to be a click of a button.
So he might be able to go up there and find out how to disarm it.
But if it's a remote type, so usually they can they have a spotter so they can see it.
So if somebody were to approach, he could detonate it with a cell phone.
So it just depends on the situation.
You have to have somebody specifically trained and he has to know what type of bomb he's working with.
There's a thousand different types of bombs.
Yeah, I'm sure. And I didn't find any of that while I was doing my research.
So I'm just going to say that I don't have any of those answers for you.
They did call in the bomb squad. So they were on their way.
And how long does that take to line someone up like a bomb squad?
It depends on your agency. We do not have a bomb squad in our agency.
So we have to call outside resources.
Even then you have it's going to take some time because they have to get their all stuff, all their stuff prepared.
I'm sure they have most of their equipment on standby.
So they have a quicker response. But it just depends.
Where was it? It was in Erie, Pennsylvania, like a smaller town.
I want to say it's probably about as big as your town.
It had a hundred over one hundred thousand people in it.
Our town's not going to have a bomb squad.
One of the counties next over, we handle all their SWAT stuff because they're not big enough to even have a SWAT team.
So it just depends. It's smaller town, smaller agency.
That's a lot of training. That's a lot of money.
Well, Brian apparently was not wrong that he said he didn't have much time because around 20 minutes later after his arrest,
while Brian was just sitting there cross-legged between those cop cars, the bomb started to beep.
Is it fake? Is it not?
I'd be concerned.
So what would you do if you were one of those cops watching all this and listening to all this?
You're just going to stand around and see what happens?
Well, as a non-trained with bombs cop, yeah, I'm going to probably try to get some distance and cover.
I don't want to be close to that. I mean, if it's a bomb that's small enough to be on a person,
it's not going to have a huge blast radius. But still, there's going to be shrapnel from if he's close to cop cars.
I mean, there's going to be shrapnel from those.
So I'm definitely going to want some distance and cover, but it's a smaller bomb since it's small enough to be on a person.
Oh, yeah, you're smart because just minutes before the bomb squad arrived at 318 p.m., the bomb went off.
It was not fake.
So he was a victim.
Yeah. And what happened is in the moment, Corey, Brian's eyes rolled back and he simply fell backwards.
The bomb had blown a hole through his chest and he died instantly.
Well, that's the way to go. At least it was quick.
Don't have to suffer. But I guess he was on a timer if it's starting to beep.
Yeah, I was going to mention this a little bit later, but I will say kitchen timers came in.
I'll tell you about that as I go through this, but I don't want to tell you everything right now because of suspects
and everything else involved and how the bomb was made and all that stuff.
So I will tell you, kitchen timers do play a part in this.
Like the old school, the little white one with the dial?
Yeah. Well, it took around seven years for authorities to piece together everything on what happened that day back in August of 2003.
And this is what they believe transpired.
So we're going to go through a list of suspects in their actions that caused investigators to believe how everyone, including Brian Wells, was involved.
And it gets pretty crazy, Corey.
Let's go back to those scavenger hunt pages that Brian had given the police.
The pages provided investigators with some pretty intricate instructions on how to find the key to that collar bomb,
along with a combination of codes that could disarm it, therefore saving Brian's life if he could have gotten that bomb off in time.
And obviously, we know that he didn't. Again, was he a victim? Just anyway.
It seems like it with the, I think it was on a time because if he's given over papers, then if it was a remote detonation,
they probably would have detonated Dan. Plus with the fact that he actually exploded, I think.
I'll give you a little hint. He was probably involved to a certain extent, but that's all I'm going to tell you right now.
All right. Investigators were no dummies.
They deciphered the scavenger hunt instructions to say that other people were likely to be in on this robbery attempt.
This is where things do get a little strange. So I'm going to go through the suspect list.
Suspect number one was Brian Wells.
I mentioned that initially Brian blamed the bank heist on those four African-American men who clamped a collar bomb around his neck and ordered him into the bank.
At the time, police weren't really buying his entire story.
That's why they handcuffed him, kept him detained in that parking lot.
But Brian was a pizza delivery man. He did that for a living and he was just out delivering pizzas that day.
I had not mentioned that Brian had not graduated from high school and was working at a pizzeria.
To me, Corey, he was earning an honest living or at least what we know from all this.
He was just doing his thing.
When Brian began work that day, one of the addresses that he was delivering to belonged to a just a dead end street TV tower.
I don't know how they address water towers, TV towers, anything like that in a community.
The address that was given when he was going to deliver a pizza was on a dead end road.
And so my question here is, do you suppose that he knew the address was fake or was he just delivering pizzas and found out later?
Probably just delivering pizzas. So technically towers can give off. They have an address.
We get 911 hang ups from towers.
Really?
So he probably, yeah, he probably didn't know because we will get 911 hang ups and we'll go to it and ends up just being empty area and nothing but a cell phone tower.
Wow, I had no idea.
So he may have just been delivering something. Yeah, I didn't know that before I was a cop.
OK, well, that's about all we know about Brian Wells, but police do believe that at some point he was involved.
As we go along, you'll kind of figure it out and how his role may have changed a little bit along the way.
Let's move on to suspect number two, William Rothstein.
This guy was a handyman and a substitute science teacher.
He became the primary suspect behind the making of Brian Wells' collar bomb.
I would think so. He's got science experience, right?
Yeah, he was apparently very good at building a locking mechanism that was intricate enough to prevent experts from disarming a collar bomb that was locked around Brian Wells' neck.
So they couldn't get it unlocked, regardless on if the bomb was going to go off or not.
Authorities had a really hard time even unlocking it in the first place.
I will never get close enough to ever try to figure that out.
Sorry, I'm just not going to do it. Not a bomb guy. Hard pass on that.
Yeah, I don't blame you.
Think about how they had to get that darn thing off his neck. Think about it, Cory.
I'd like to see what it actually looked like, what the actual contraption looked like.
Oh, yeah. You can actually go online and look at it.
I saw the cane. Is it the blue one? It looks like a giant handcuff set.
Yeah, doesn't it?
Yeah, I feel like you could use bull cutters on that.
Possibly. William was associated with a woman named Marjorie Deal Armstrong, who was his former fiance.
I kind of question why she was former, but you never know what's going to happen in these relationships.
But let's talk about how William became a suspect after calling 911 to report something very sinister here, Cory.
It's all going to add up in just a minute.
But my thought is that if he had not ever called the police, if he never made this phone call,
police may not have ever made any connections to who the real bank robbers were here, according to Brian Wells,
because he gave nothing away. Absolutely nothing.
William had called 911 to report a tip regarding a dead frozen body inside his garage. How about that?
What does that have to do with the bomb?
I will tell you right now. Although Marjorie was a former fiance,
apparently William had enough feelings for her to murder her current boyfriend, James Roden,
and place him inside of William's freezer at his own house.
Question for you, Cory, would you let your former fiance get away with killing someone,
then willingly say, sure, come on over, I've got room in my freezer. I'll be home around five. Come on.
Yeah, definitely not. Panties are not going to be talking to that person anymore.
I know, right? The pizzas that I mentioned Brian was delivering the day of the robbery was on that dead end road that I had mentioned.
But coincidence, it was also near William Rothstein's house.
So the address itself was very close to William's house.
I don't know. It seems like he's still a victim. I mean, especially with being 2003, they're not going to have the GPS system like we have today.
So he has no clue that that's not an actual address. Seems like he was funneled to that portion.
Yeah, to an extent, absolutely. Further investigations dried up on July 30th, 2004.
This was what? Almost a year later, because William died of cancer and any testimony that he could provide for obvious reasons went to the grave with him.
Now we have two people dead who may have had something to do with the bank robbery, but we will not 100% ever know that.
But I just kind of wonder why he called in that person in his in his freezer.
All right, let's move on to suspect number three. And this is Marjorie Deal Armstrong.
This would be Williams' former fiancee. Marjorie quickly became a suspect in this pizza robbery or collar bomb heist.
And here's why. On July 5th, 2005, Marjorie was questioned at a state prison after being arrested previously based on William Rothstein's lead in that 911 call.
She openly confessed that she had killed her boyfriend in order to silence him from going to the police regarding her plot to use Brian Wells to rob that PNC bank back on August 28th, 2003.
So Marjorie pulled in Brian Wells, just a little connection circle here.
Brian may have known Marjorie through William, just acquaintances, what have you.
Now, remember, he I mean, I don't want to say this in a bad way, but Brian, he was probably a very simple man and he was taken advantage of.
Yeah, I mean, that happens a lot more than you think.
I was actually listening to a case the other day about a guy that had abducted a young boy and he kind of had like a little henchman that was very, very low IQ that genuinely didn't know right from wrong.
But he helped him because he didn't know, just trying to please this guy.
Oh, that's sad.
Yeah, it is.
Marjorie consistently and adamantly insisted that her former fiancee, William Rothstein, was the mastermind behind the bank heist and Brian Wells' collar bomb plan.
Of course, he's in the grave.
He can't really defend himself here.
It's not impossible that he had a lot of knowledge to build the bomb because he was that science teacher.
But Marjorie did go on to say that she had given William some kitchen timers, like I had mentioned, to use in the collar bomb.
And that's where the kitchen timers come in.
So thought here, when I say that, that she openly admitted that she handed over some kitchen timers, didn't she just confess that she was part of the plot?
Yeah, I mean, there's certainly some connecting parts.
It didn't end there either, because Marjorie also stated that she sat, and you had mentioned this, Corey, she sat about a quarter of a mile away or 0.40 kilometers or 402 meters.
She was watching the entire timeline of events unfold through binoculars where Brian Wells was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, surrounded by police cars.
She was watching the whole thing.
Yeah, that sounds about right, especially with the bomb involved.
Yeah.
Of course, all this testimony was later rebuked and Marjorie denied saying any of it.
Was it all recorded at any point that she was?
I don't know.
I didn't see any of that.
It's a good question.
Was it like a, well, not an interview with investigators.
They're interviewing her.
Typically, they have recordings of that.
Even back in 2003, they're going to have recordings of that.
All right. You ready for this?
Yep.
On July 29th, 2008, Marjorie Deale Armstrong was ruled incompetent to stand trial by a US district judge.
Marjorie was ordered to undergo psychiatric exams inside that federal prison where she was held largely because she had some mental health issues.
She was found unfit to stand trial.
And there we go.
I can picture this group of people specifically.
It doesn't sound too far off. It just seems like a lot of unorganized people.
This is the type of people I do on a regular basis.
If that's not enough for you, Corey, let's move on to suspect number four, Kenneth Barnes.
This little nugget is really minimal here, but pretty important.
Just the same because Kenneth is an acquaintance also to Marjorie Deale Armstrong.
He was her fishing buddy.
Okay, cool.
She liked to go fishing.
I mean, who doesn't?
It's fun. It's relaxing.
Yeah, it is.
Ultimately, investigators questioned Kenneth about the pizza bombing events.
And he stated that Marjorie solicited him to kill her father before the Brian Wells incident,
all because Marjorie was a little ticked off that her father was spending an inheritance that she believed she was entitled to.
Oh, God, I've heard that story a thousand times.
Mm-hmm.
You wouldn't believe it.
When it comes to money, there is no loyalty.
Nope, there's not.
Everyone thinks they're entitled to it.
It is wild.
Mm-hmm.
According to Kenneth Barnes, he stated that he, Marjorie, and Brian all met on August 27th, 2003 to review the PNC bank robbery plot.
He backed up Marjorie's statement that he and Marjorie were watching Brian Wells' apprehension from that quarter mile away using binoculars.
So he and Marjorie were off in the distance observing everything.
Kenneth Barnes made a deal to testify eventually against Marjorie and ended up receiving a 45-year sentence in prison for the whole scheme.
So a little nugget, I mean, there's not a ton of information on him, but he fessed up.
He got a plea deal.
And even after his plea deal, he was sentenced to 45 years.
Still a hefty sentence, but for a plea too, yeah.
Yeah.
Because they'll plea out a lot just to give them, if they give them a lot of information, they'll plea out all the time.
That's why I usually don't have to go to court is because people plea out so much to avoid a higher sentence.
They'll write out their friends at RP sometimes.
All right. So after all is said and done, I have a final roundup of events on the entire case.
After investigators interviewed William Rothstein and Marjorie Deal Armstrong, they ultimately came to the conclusion that Marjorie was,
for all intents purposes, the mastermind behind this entire collar bomb bank heist.
They also deduced that Kenneth Barnes, Marjorie Deal Armstrong, and Brian Wells were all involved in planning the bank heist itself.
So Marjorie was behind the collar bomb and the bank heist.
It seems like they were all involved in one form or another.
It seems like Brian Wells maybe taken advantage of.
He seems like he was kind of on the lower IQ side, so you can be manipulated a lot easier.
But I'm sure they all played a part.
It seems like Marjorie did most of the planning, but doesn't seem super organized is the thing.
Because, I mean, a successful bank robbery takes a lot of organization.
It takes a lot of time to do, especially in 2003 is not that long ago.
Even back then, it's still going to take a lot. It's a very intricate job.
That's why you don't hear about it much now, because it just takes so many hours to plan and everything has to go exactly right.
Yeah. And there's a plethora of better, easier ways to be a criminal.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just go steal copper from a new build house.
That's what a lot of them do now.
We're still some catalytic converters from a church van.
It took another four years for investigators to draw conclusions on the events that occurred when Brian Wells entered the bank that day.
It was already established that Marjorie was the mastermind behind sending Brian into that bank with the collar bomb around his neck.
Brian, William and Kenneth all played an equal part in the execution of this robbery.
I guess my question here is, I mean, what did they do? Did they draw straws on who was going to wear the bomb?
I could see them manipulating Brian. I think that's what happened.
Yes. And let me tell you what they feel happened.
Basically, how things were set to transpire on the day that Brian was killed while wearing the bomb.
Now, this is all speculation here from authorities, but this is how they believe it all went down.
Brian was the chosen one to go into the bank.
William would supposedly create a fake bomb.
So nothing that would ultimately hurt Brian as he wore the collar bomb when it was part of the plot.
The note that Brian had on his person, the scavenger hunt letter, would serve as an alibi to deter him away from any wrongdoing occurring during these events.
Now, here's the twist, Corey. And I don't know if you've seen this coming.
William did not make a fake bomb. He made a real one, obviously, only he didn't tell Brian the change of plans until he put that around his neck.
The entire time, Brian says, sure, I'll do it. It's just a fake bomb.
Nothing's going to happen. But guess what?
When William put that on there, then that is the moment that Brian found out it was the real deal.
And does that explain maybe his actions and his haste to try to get that off his neck?
Why don't you believe me? This is a real bomb. Can you please get this off of me?
Yeah, it's so messed up. Poor guy. I mean, he's.
I know. I feel bad.
Did Brian have a criminal record?
Not that I know of. I did not see any criminal record on him.
Nothing that I could find. But I mean, obviously he wasn't on the plot.
And then they switched it up on him.
Yeah, but I mean, I want to feel bad for him.
But at the same time, if he's involved in that, then it's like, ah, isn't that awful?
I don't know. That's weird.
Marjorie, William and Kenneth either forced or coerced Brian into wearing that real bomb.
They made him carry the cane, which was actually a gun.
I don't know if he knew about that beforehand.
I guess my question here is when he knew it was a real bomb around his neck
and he was sitting there cross legged in the parking lot, Corey, surrounded by cars.
Why did he not give up any names?
I don't know. I mean, they seemed to write each other out pretty quick.
The ones that were alive.
He may have been the one loyal guy. I don't know. But it's just I don't know.
It seems like he was involved.
But, yeah, it seems like he was definitely coerced into doing it.
Yeah. All right. Let's talk about the indictments.
On July 9th, 2007, a federal grand jury
indicted Marjorie Deall Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes on felony charges
related to conspiracy to commit an armed bank robbery
and using a destructive device during the act of a violent crime.
Whoo. I'm surprised I got through that. That was pretty good.
I mentioned I mentioned old Marjorie was found incompetent to stand trial back in 2008.
Well, of course, she took some psychiatric evaluations.
And on December 3rd, 2008, she was once again found competent to stand trial.
During all of these proceedings, Corey, I found a lot of he said, she said
around these accusations between William, Marjorie and Kenneth.
I'm pretty sure the investigators had a time piecing it all together.
Like I said, it had taken seven years to tie up all those loose ends.
I had mentioned that William had passed away before everything unraveled.
And Kenneth Barnes is currently serving 45 years in prison to get a good grasp
on Marjorie and her personality.
However, you really need to go watch a documentary.
And I believe it's on Netflix. It's called Evil Genius.
And this will give you a pretty good indication of why investigators
believe that she was the mastermind. I've heard of it. It sounds familiar.
She's very eccentric, Corey, a little bit crazy and a whole lot of angry.
You just have to watch it.
I mean, it's very interesting to watch.
And I hadn't watched this in a really long time.
I actually didn't even put this together while I was doing the research on this.
I had forgotten that I had seen this probably started a couple of years ago.
Really good documentary, though, during the investigation and trial.
Marjorie was diagnosed with glandular cancer.
I believe that some sort of breast cancer, Corey.
And on August 12th, 2010, she was only given three to seven years to live.
Well, I guess she's not going to finish out her sentence.
Nope, she didn't. Her trial did continue on.
And on November 1st, 2010, after 11 and a half hours of deliberation,
Marjorie was convicted on all charges of bank robbery, murder and so on.
She was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison with no chance of parole.
And she died behind bars on April 4th, 2017.
So, like you said, she really didn't spend much time behind bars serving that sentence.
I mean, you know, cancer, unfortunately, is a death sentence in itself.
I mean, it's justice. I mean, she could have hurt a lot of people.
I mean, that's that's that bomb could have killed a lot of people.
So that's justice. I mean, that is what it is.
I got nothing else to say on that.
Well, that's the story of Brian Wells and the pizza delivery collar bomb bank heist.
Any last thoughts?
Did I already bring up the guy that tried to rob a bank with a hammer?
Not on this show, you haven't.
I remember you telling me that.
But I mean, by all means, our listeners would love to hear this story.
Yeah, I was so I was working in the jail.
So it happened before I was on the road.
But yeah, we had a guy that went into a bank with a backpack.
And I don't think he wore a mask.
He just walked into a bank and he handed a note to the teller and said, I'm armed.
Give me all your money.
All he had was a hammer and he kept it in the backpack.
And I don't think he even gave him any money because he didn't even have anything with him.
And then they caught him down the road with just a hammer.
So what was he thinking when he woke up that day?
Oh, he's he was he was not all there.
He was just had a lot of mental issues, not just he's very delirious.
That guy was a drone of a person.
He just kept him on drugs all day because otherwise he just do really, really weird stuff,
really weird and really gross stuff.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, he was off.
He was very off.
Oh, that's sad.
You know, that's such a sad existence to me.
I mean, just I don't know.
Mental health needs to be taken very seriously.
Yeah, it's just it's it's hard, though.
I don't there's not a whole lot of options on what you can do because basically they
just end up either doing a bunch of drugs and end up in jail.
Yeah, that's true.
Basically a lot of the time it's they have an episode.
We come out, they go to the hospital, they either get 1013 or not, which is basically
when you're forced to go to a mental home by doctor's orders.
If they're not 1013, then they just go back home and everything.
It's another cycle.
And then they're if they're 1013, then they go to that mental home and they'll stay there
for two, three weeks and then they're back out on the streets.
It's just a it's a vicious cycle.
Wow.
Well, that is our story.
So what's your teachable moment for today?
Teachable moment.
Take some time to examine your relationships so you can figure out if they are healthy
or not.
This is the case with this little band of thieves.
We're going to call them that.
We didn't even get to hear Brian Wells story.
But as an outsider looking in, it looks as though his circle of friends did not have
his best interest at heart.
Corey, when you were growing up, I always said to you, you are who you hang out with.
And in this case, it looked like Brian was easily manipulated, like you had mentioned
he was being taken advantage of.
People like that are not your friends, and if you are putting in more effort to please
someone than having a mutual relationship, that person is not your friend.
If you are more interested in pleasing someone and it's only one sided, that person is not
your friend.
I don't know if you remember this song, Corey, I know there for a hot minute, you started
getting into the country music.
There was a song by Tracy Lawrence, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney that sums up a genuine
relationship extremely well to me.
It was written back in 2007 and it's called You Find Out Who Your Friends Are.
Do you remember that song?
It doesn't even ring a bell.
Go look it up.
Well, it resonated with me at the time because, you know, Corey, back in 2007, there was a
lot going on around us at that point in time.
And that's when I discovered that I was more of a friend to some of my social circle than
they were to me.
So taking an inventory on who I was trying to please really changed my life.
And that's my teachable moment.
You can't take care of someone else if you can't take care of yourself.
So put yourself first.
Don't do that in a selfish way, but do take care of yourself or else you're going to be
that person.
Someone will walk away from one day and that's it.
That's my teachable moment.
Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly.
I always say you are who you're hanging out with.
I mean, you're an average of the top five most influential people in your life.
If you surround yourself with selfish degenerates, then you're going to be that yourself.
You surround yourself with high moral, hardworking people.
That's what you're going to be.
I see it all the time.
I deal with drug addicts that are like, I can't, I'm trying to get away from the drugs,
but all my friends are doing it.
And it's just, it's around me all the time.
I'm exposed to it all the time.
So I just keep doing it.
It doesn't matter how good your parents are.
And if you got, you could have the best parents in the world, but if you're surrounding yourself
with bad people, you're going to be a bad person.
Vicious cycle.
And two, when you move to a different town, I always say this as well, different places,
same faces, because you will always seek out who you know and who you left behind.
So you got to be really careful about that.
Yep.
I agree.
So yeah, there we go.
That's our teachable moment.
Now we would love to receive feedback from our listeners on today's storyline or any
of our other episodes.
Be sure to click on our Linktree account found in our show notes where you can also find
social media, website address, and a little bit more.
Otherwise that's it, Corey.
Thanks for checking in with us and we'll talk to you next week.
See you all later.
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