Elaborate plot is linked to death of pizza man

ERIE - A pizza deliveryman who robbed a bank and was then blown up by a bomb locked around his neck helped plan the robbery and then got caught up in something "much more sinister," a prosecutor said yesterday in the first accounting of a baffling and sensational 2003 crime.

Brian Wells, 46, had told police before the time bomb exploded that he was an innocent victim who had been forced by gunmen to rob the bank.

But in a three-count indictment unsealed yesterday, Wells was named as an unindicted coconspirator and two people already in jail, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and her friend Kenneth E. Barnes, were accused of concocting the elaborate plot.

The indictment left many unanswered questions about how much the deliveryman knew before the bomb strapped to his neck exploded as police looked on.

Authorities said Diehl-Armstrong, 58, hatched the robbery plan so she could pay someone to kill her father.

Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes, 53, contrived a series of notes to make it appear Wells was "merely a hostage," authorities said in court papers. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes also planned to get the robbery money from Wells so that, if he was caught, he could claim he was a hostage and an unwilling participant, authorities said.

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan described Wells as having a limited role in the plot and said it was unclear whether his coconspirators planned on him being killed.

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

Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes used a live bomb to assure that Wells completed all their instructions and turned over the money, according to the indictment.

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

John Wells angrily denied that his brother had anything to do with the scheme.

"I can't imagine they're trying to get the public to believe this," Wells said. "I have not seen any evidence to suggest he knew these people in any way, other than he might have delivered them a pizza the day before."

Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes were each charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms count.

Attorneys for Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes said their clients were innocent.

"Like all citizens, Mrs. Diehl-Armstrong is presumed to be innocent, and she hopes that the media and the public will withhold judgment until all the facts have been presented in court," said a statement released by her federal public defender, Thomas Patton.

Barnes' attorney, Alison Scarpitti, said her client "continues to assert that he is innocent of all charges."

Diehl-Armstrong, a former teacher and high school valedictorian, is serving a seven-to-20-year state prison sentence for killing her boyfriend, James Roden. The indictment says she killed him before the robbery to keep him from disclosing details of the plot.

Barnes is jailed in Erie County on unrelated drug charges.

William Rothstein, a handyman and former boyfriend of Diehl-Armstrong's who admitted to helping her dispose of Roden's body, died of cancer in 2004. The indictment said Rothstein helped Diehl-Armstrong make the time bomb.

On Aug. 28, 2003, Wells set out to deliver two pies - sausage and pepperoni - to an address that turned out to be a TV tower near Rothstein's house. Wells turned up about an hour later and roughly two miles away at a PNC Bank branch in Summit Township, near Erie, with a note demanding money and saying he had a bomb.

Wells took about $8,700 from a teller, got into his Geo Metro and was surrounded by police in a parking lot. Hanging from his neck was a triple-banded metal collar and a device with a locking mechanism that kept it in place. Attached to the collar was a bomb.

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

While police waited for the bomb squad, the bomb exploded.

July 2003: Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong solicits Kenneth Barnes to kill her father, intending to pay him with proceeds from a bank robbery, federal prosecutors say.

August 2003: Diehl-

Armstrong kills her boy-

friend, James Roden, to keep him from dis-

closing the bank-rob-

bery plot, officials say.

Aug. 28, 2003: A bomb locked around pizza deliveryman Brian Wells' neck explodes, killing him, after he robbed the PNC Bank in Summit Township, south of Erie.

Sept. 14, 2003: William Rothstein, Diehl-

Armstrong's former boyfriend, dumps more than 1,000 pounds of refuse at the Erie landfill to dispose of evidence linking them to the plot, prosecutors say.

Sept. 22, 2003: Diehl-Armstrong is charged with killing Roden, whose remains were found in a freezer in Rothstein's home, next to the road where Wells delivered his last pizza.

Sept. 27, 2003: An official says Rothstein wrote a note proclaim-

ing his innocence.

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

Feb. 25, 2004: Wells' death is ruled a homicide.

July 30, 2004: Rothstein dies of cancer.

Jan. 7, 2005: Diehl-

Armstrong pleads guilty but mentally ill to charges she killed Roden and is sentenced to prison.

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

SOURCE: Associated Press

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