WEBVTT - The Collar Bomb Heist 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.440 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.680 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, and 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.880 this is Stuff you Should Know, the True Crime edition again. Yeah, 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.079 we've done a few of these, right. True crime is 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.080 so hot right now? Hey, man, we were we were 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.600 dabbling on the periphery of true crime when most of 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.680 these people were wetting their diapers. That's right, man, that 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.760 is right. I'm glad somebody finally said it. We were 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.879 occasionally doing a poor job of covering true crime ten 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.159 years ago. That's right. We're gonna do it again, right, 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.960 we continue that great rich history. Yeah, because true crime 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:55.000 can be extraordinarily interesting, especially when you're talking about an 0:00:55.080 --> 0:01:01.640 extraordinarily over complicated heist that results in a man's bizarre death, 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:08.440 death by bizarre means and involves what really ultimately, you 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.680 could make a case as an unsolved mystery still today, 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:17.319 even though it's technically bureaucratically been solved. A lot of 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.240 people say, no, this thing hasn't been solved yet. You 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.880 got you got homemade bombs, you got a scavenger hunt, 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.360 got a crreck dealer, well, you gotta have a correct dealer, 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:35.960 got prostitutes, m got pizza and yeah, and let's start 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.640 with the pizza Geo Metro right, which, by the way, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:42.759 I just wanted to point out ahead of time, there 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:48.400 is no more pizza delivery car two thousand three than 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.960 a geometro, a tal one, no less. The thing is, 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:54.640 it's almost like they rolled them right off the line 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.320 in two thousand three, with the straight to a pizza place, 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.400 with the pizza guy inside already and the little signed 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:06.120 magneted on right a little crooked yep. So the whole 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.120 thing does start, actually with a pizza guy, a pizza place, 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.880 and a teal Geo Metro. And like you said, the 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.520 whole thing starts in two thousand three in Erie, Pennsylvania. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.440 And there was a and still is I looked it up. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.800 There's a pizza place called Mama me Is Pizza Rhea. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.480 But fine, sure it gets the job done right. And 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:36.200 at about two pm on August two thousand three, a 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.280 pizza delivery guy named Brian Wells I think he was 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.720 forty six at the time. He was about to end 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.200 his morning shift when a call came in for two 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:51.360 small sausage and pepperoni pizzas, and the the delivery was 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.160 I guess the opposite way of where Brian was going 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.080 to go on his way home. But he said, you 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.639 know what, I'll take this one last order and he 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.040 walked out the door at about two And the next 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.120 time that Brian Wells was seen in public again, he 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.560 was entering a p NC bank branch just down the 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.840 street from his pizza place, a few miles up the road, 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.400 and he looked a lot different than he did when 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:23.440 he left the pizza parlor about twenty eight minutes earlier. Yeah, so, 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:26.560 first of all, he was he was walking with a cane, 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.040 kind of a funny looking kane uh. And then under 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.520 his T shirt he had clearly and if you've seen 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:38.800 the footage and the photos, you can see a warning 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.000 by the way for video, yeah, for the future. It's 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.920 quite graphic. It's out there, but it is out there. 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:51.840 But he had clearly some large, boxy looking thing. It 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.200 looked like he's wearing a shoe box around his neck 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.520 with a T shirt pulled over it kind of butt in. 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.600 The teller at the bank's defense could have been an 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.200 artific shell torso, and she probably didn't want to draw 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.800 attention to it. She yes, she was being very kind, right. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.119 So one thing I want to point out too, there's 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.400 already discrepancy what we're like a minute into the story, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.400 and there's already a discrepancy. That shirt he was wearing 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:19.120 over that boxy thing underneath his shirt said guests on it. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.680 And I've seen that it was written somehow, like in 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.279 spray paint or marker, or that it was an actual 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.680 guest Jeans T shirt. Really, so either an officially licensed 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.520 or not license but whatever brand shirt or a homemade 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.120 jankie spray painted version. Yeah, And if you look, the 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.040 pictures don't really show one way or another. It looks 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.440 more like it's homemade. And I looked up to see 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.960 if there was a guest shirt that, you know, if 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.159 I could find the actual guest shirt, it wasn't. Couldn't, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.080 so I think it may have been homemade. Regardless, he's 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.120 wearing this shirt that says guests on and he walks 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.960 up to the teller and he hands the teller a note, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.400 and the note says, I have a bomb. Get everybody 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.200 who has access codes to the safe together and put 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.159 two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into a bag and 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.039 bring it to me. I think he said, you have 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.800 fifteen minutes to do this, which is kind of a 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.080 long time if you're a bank robber, it is. It's 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:22.320 like almost like luxurious. And what said, like sixty seconds, yeah, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:28.080 or this should have happened yesterday, chop chop. So he um. 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.000 He stands back and waits, apparently grabs a dumb, dumb 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.640 lollipop out of the little basket while he's waiting, because 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.240 why not. And the teller says, sir, um, we don't 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.160 have like, we can't get into the safe. That's just 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.600 not how things work. I'm sorry, but as a consolation prize, 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.159 I'm going to put two dollars into a bag for 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.599 you right here and send you on your way. Okay. Yeah, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.120 And and importantly we did not mention he lifted his 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.599 shirt up and showed this teller this this bomb, this 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:02.080 what's called a collar bomb, strapped around neck. Right. So 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.359 he walks out of the bank a freeman. And the 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.240 next time that he's seen in public is about fifteen 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.159 minutes later, and he's seen in public by some Pennsylvania 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.000 State troopers who are on the lookout for this guy. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.440 And he's still wearing that shirt, he's still got the 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.760 big bulge, and he's standing around his geometro parked in 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.600 a parking lot that is actually shared with that p 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.359 NC bank and the McDonald's and he's in a parking 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.039 lot right there. So basically he left the bank robbery 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.320 and went about a hundred to two feet away from it, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.000 and that's where he was found like a full fifteen 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:43.240 minutes later. Yeah. So these these these coppas, these troopers 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:48.200 come over and uh, he says, hey, guys, this is 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.640 a bomb around my neck. A group of a group 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.080 of black men chain this bomb around my neck at gunpoint, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.080 forced me to rob this bank for them. I'm not 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.120 gonna I'm not lying here. A thing is gonna go off. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.400 So the cops called the bomb squad and they do 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.600 I saw, you know his The family of Wells is 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.680 still angry about the fact that she says they did 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.480 nothing to save them. But I would be too. By 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.840 the way, we should shout out Wired magazine. Oh yes, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.400 we really really should. A lot of this came from 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:26.200 a great, heavily researched story by Rich Shapiro for about 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.240 eight years ago, called The Incredible true story of the 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.920 color bomb heist. So thank you Rich for your work. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.240 But the dudes on the ground, he said, I mean, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.040 if you I kind of remember this happening, because when 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.920 I went and looked at the still images, I was like, 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.000 wait a minute, I've I've seen this. And this is 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.920 guy sitting on the ground, uh, with this thing around 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.000 his neck, kind of just waiting, seated on the pavement 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.520 for about twenty five minutes. He says, very uh interestingly, 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.000 like did you call my boss at the pizza place? Uh? 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.680 And then all of a sudden, this bomb starts beeping fast, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.400 which is never a good sign. And when I was 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.120 reading the story, I thought, well, that's just a ruse. 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.280 But no, this thing detonated and killed him. It blasted 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.000 a hole in his chest. Um, it did not blow 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.760 his head off like the internet says. No. But it 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.280 was a violent, awful death. Yeah, it was, and it 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.200 was pretty quick. And then three minutes after the bomb 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.120 goes off, the bomb squad showed up, so they so 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.360 he's dead. This, this guy, Brian Wells, is dead. And 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:36.720 the whole time he was protesting, He's like, you know, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.640 this is I was forced to rob the bank. Are 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.520 you guys gonna get this off of me or what? Um? Yeah, 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.000 he said something like did you call my boss? Because 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.480 apparently he was a very um loyal employee. He'd been 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.600 working at MoMA MIA's for how long, like ten years 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.320 or something like that, for years and years, and he'd 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.680 only called in late once, not even sick late once 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.240 when his cat died. That Rich Shapiro and that Wired article, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:07.080 so um, it seemed like he actually was telling the 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.120 truth that he had been abducted and forced to rob 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.760 the bank and then had been a victim. I think 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.920 the bomb going off really kind of put an exclamation 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.360 point on his story that he was not a willing 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.320 participant in this, right. Yeah. So the cops obviously check 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.040 out that geo metro uh and it's sweet sweet styling, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.800 and they saw his cane in there. It turns out 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.480 the reason why the cane was funny looking is because 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.120 it was also a gun. And it really looks a 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.079 lot like a gun. Yeah when you when you look 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.480 at it. Um, the bomb was clearly homemade, had a 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.000 couple of different parts to it. It was this this 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.120 banded metal collar that he wore around his neck. It 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.120 was like locked to his neck. Head, four key holes, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.440 and then a combination lock. It was really locked to 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.880 his neck, and then an iron box with two pipe 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.600 bombs loaded up ready to go. And then interestingly, and 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.760 this will figure uh, put a pin in this one 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.440 because this will figure in the in the case later. Uh. 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.960 It had two kitchen timers in there in addition to 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.760 an elect an electronic countdown timer, yeah, which was I 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.240 guess the thing that started beating faster and faster. Yeah. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.440 And then some decoy wires. You'll always gotta have those 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.000 if you're if you're making a bomb. Sure, but I mean, 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.400 like that's pretty smart. So there's decoy wires. They were 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.160 apparently also stickers that said like don't do it or 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.320 you know, skull and crossbones or rat poison whatever. Yeah, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.800 and uh oh that's a good nine to five reference. 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.440 I just saw that the other night. Um, so it 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.680 was a it was a homemade bomb, but it was 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.560 by all accounts a well made bomb too, and it worked, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.080 which I think is one of the the big the 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.520 big questions about any homemade bomb is whether it will 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.160 actually work or not. And this one worked with deadly effect. 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.320 That's right. So the most important thing they found in 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.559 this car though. Um were some letters, some handwritten notes 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.880 addressed to bomb hostage. So one of them said, I 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.200 mean these were instructions basically on what this guy should do, 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.680 which further kind of cemented like, hey, this guy is 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.199 probably telling the truth. It said, go rob this bank 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:24.200 of two fifty grand, and then very strangely outlined this little, 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:28.080 uh scavenger hunt basically to where eventually you will land 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.400 upon the keys to in combination to get you out 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.360 of this thing by going all over town and finding 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.560 these various hidden notes, and at the last note you 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.800 will you will be able to free yourself. Yeah, the 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.760 last one will give you the keys and the combination. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.679 But you better hurry because you have a limited amount 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.800 of time. If you stop and think you're going to 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.680 waste time and you're going to die, we can detonate 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.200 this remotely and we're going to be following you. It 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.480 was written pretty crazily. Have you read any of the note, Yeah, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.000 so like there it's it's got a lot of um 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.520 like just like a lot of jump jump cuts and 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.080 or jump scares in it. You know, like you'll it's 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.120 like go do this and and then go do that 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.160 after that, and then don't try anything in funny, we're 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.640 gonna blow you up. You know. It has those every 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.240 once in a while. And there's drawings in there of 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.760 where he could find, like like the notes and all that, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.440 So that he made it as far as the first note, 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.439 which was McDonald's. It was in that that McDonald's that 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.920 shared a parking lot with the PNC bank. That was 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.160 where the first note was. So he made it to 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.320 that that McDonald's grabbed that note, and that note was 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:37.760 directing him out of town um to another note, and 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.640 he didn't make it that far. But when the cops 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.320 caught up with him. Yeah, so the scavenger hunt was 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.440 he like he said, he had gotten just to the 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.760 one place. So the cops then say, well, here's what 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.599 we're gonna do. We're gonna complete the scavenger hunt. And 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.680 they were like, whoa, you just blew my mind. That's 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.240 some great policing. Should we take a break, sure, all right, 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.320 scavenger hunt has just started, by the coppas, we'll be 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:31.760 right back. All right, we're back. So the scavenger hunts 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.560 still on, Chuck, I mean, they make it. The cops 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.440 follow from the note that Brian Wells had to the 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.480 next clue, and they found the next note, and that 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.320 directed them to another place even further out of town, 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.559 to where they found the jar where the note was 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.000 supposed to be. But the note was gone. Yeah, and 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.320 they don't really know what that means. They didn't know 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.120 if it was just something to keep them busy, preoccupied. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.719 They didn't know if the person who was designing this 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.719 scavenger hunt got interrupted or knew that the cops were 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.720 around and they were doing it sort of in real time. 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.439 But at any rate, the unfortunately the scavenger hunt just 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:11.880 kind of pizzled out, because that was kind of a 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.439 cool part of the story. Yeah, it really was. It 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:16.440 was like, it's one of the things that makes this 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.280 it's just an incredibly bizarre crime. Why the scavenger hunt, 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.360 It's going to keep coming up again and again, Right, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.600 So when the true when the scavenger hunt ran out, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.360 the trail actually went cold. The case started to get 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.880 cold for a few months. The cops sniffed around Brian Wills, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.680 tried to figure out, you know what, why him, what 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.320 happened with him, And they went back to his place 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.600 of employment and they they kind of checked out the 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.040 kind of person he was right, yeah, And they very 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.440 smartly said, well, wait a minute, why don't we why 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.640 don't we check out what that last delivery was supposed 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.760 to be. There may be a clue there. And it 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.520 was an interesting place it was at the It was 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:58.920 you can only get there by dirt road and it 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.360 was right next to a TV transmission tower and a 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.760 kind of a remote wooded area. And cops combed the area, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.120 found shoe prints that matched wells. They found those classic 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:19.040 iconic geometro tire tracks that everyone could recognizes, Bye Bye Sight. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.920 But there really weren't any more clues as far as 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.320 the cops were concerned at that location. So where the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.200 cops had found a dead end, a reporter uh and 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.160 photographer for the Eerie Times News went and did a 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.000 little investating of his own. And I saw this house, 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.600 you know, next door where the pizza was delivered, and said, ween, 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.680 I'm just gonna go knock on the door. This guy 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.160 answers the door. Um, And his name was Bill Rostein, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.320 and he actually said, you know, you can look around 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.040 if you want. He's fifty nine years old, he's a handyman, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.200 wasn't married, had lived there his whole life. And apparently 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:57.479 he seemed really smart. Um had a very uh articulate 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.880 way of speaking and apparently was fluent in several of 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.080 the languages. And the journalists kind of did a little 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.520 poking around and didn't really see much and took off. 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.000 But he made contact with Bill Rothstein. He's the first 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.120 person that kind of was went a knocking, right, but 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.160 nothing came of it, and the cops, as far as 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.320 I know, never went and met with Bill Rothstein, even 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.320 those houses right next to the delivery place where Wells 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:29.680 was supposedly accosted, right. And then a few like I said, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.520 the case has gone cold by this time, if a 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.520 couple of months have gone by, the whole the whole um, 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.640 I mean, you've got this crime, this very public caper 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.800 that's captured the public's attention. A guy died by by 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.680 being blown up while the while under police supervision. And 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.320 there's no leads, there's no nothing. And then finally, uh, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.800 several weeks, a few months I think after the call Um, 0:16:55.840 --> 0:17:00.200 there's a nine one one call from Bill Rothstein and 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.920 he tells the police that in his freezer he has 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.720 one of those serial killer chest freezers. There's actually a 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.320 body a man's body and that it was Um, it 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.879 is not someone he murdered, but he helped cover up 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.720 the murder of this man who was the boyfriend of 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.200 Bill Rothstein's ex girlfriend from way way back in the day. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:29.200 And now the chain of events has been set off, right. 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.680 And if you're like me and you start hearing wife 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.960 of the ex girlfriend's dad's cousin, your brain gets a 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.080 little jumbled. So just very plainly, he used to date 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:44.320 this woman. This woman called him up and said, Hey, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.840 I've murdered my current boyfriend or was it her husband? Uh, 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.400 it was her boyfriend, and she said, and I need 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.280 your help here. Um, I blasted him with a with 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.720 a shotgun, and I know we tated, oh twenty years ago, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.320 but we come help me out because they were still 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.399 in contact. I guess they remained friends. I guess. So 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.920 in this racked Bill Rostein. Apparently he thought about committing suicide. 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.960 Apparently there was even a note. They found, a suicide note, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.639 but he maintained, like you said with the cops, that 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.600 he didn't have anything to do with anything. But most 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.320 of the clean up, the clean up, getting rid of 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.520 the murder weapon and then holding onto the body. Yeah, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.280 but what which the reason he held on the body 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.240 was supposed to get apparently supposed to grind this body up. 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.200 And that's where he finally stopped short and was like, Jesus, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.280 I can't do this, And he said he told the 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.800 cops that the reason he called them finally lose because 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.160 since he wasn't going through with grinding up the body, 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.159 he was worried what this woman, Marjorie Deal Armstrong was 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.080 going to do to him. He's like, I dated this lady, right, 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.119 She's not a nice person. And so when he says 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.280 Marjorie Deal Armstrong to the eerie cops, just alarm bell 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.000 start going off because by this time, already Marjorie Deal 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.320 Armstrong was a local legend as far as crew roles 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.560 are concerned. She was this very very bright woman um 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.160 who I think, at the age of thirty five back 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:12.320 in the eighties, had been indicted for killing one of 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.080 her boyfriends, shot him six times. She played that she 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.000 had killed them in self defense, that he was an 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:22.000 abuser of her, and she was actually acquitted. A few 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.160 years after that. She was married to a guy named Armstrong, 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.320 and he showed up at the hospital with a head 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.000 trauma and actually died of a cerebral hemorrhage, but there 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.040 was no coroners in quest or anything like that, and 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.160 so it just was something suspicious, you know, the second 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:44.040 second significant other of this woman to die under suspicious 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:48.200 or violent circumstances. So so when Bill Rothstein said I'm 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.600 worried about what Marjorie deal Armstron's gonna do to me, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.840 the cops seemed to have taken it very seriously, well, 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.000 extremely seriously, because the next day they arrested her. That's 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.119 pretty serious for murder. Uh And about a year and 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.760 a half later, a little short of that, she pled 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.359 guilty but mentally ill. She was sentenced to seven to 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:14.000 twenty UM. And then Rothstein, on for his part, eventually 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.960 died of cancer in two thousand four. Right, and so 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.800 you said that he had considered killing himself and even 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.840 wrote a suicide note. Right, Yeah, there's something very very 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.760 odd on Bill Rothstein's suicide note. And again he didn't 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.600 kill himself. He died of cancer. But he was able 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.399 to actually show the cops where as suicide note was, 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.760 and they read it, and the first line of it, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.080 from what I understand, was this has nothing to do 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.880 with the collar bomb heist or the Brian Wells murder. Yeah, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.560 that that's a it's a weird thing to put if 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.680 you had nothing to do with that, you know, right, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.240 that's just a very odd thing to do. It's like 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.240 when the cops come in and you go, there's nothing 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.160 under the bed, don't don't there's no reason to look there, right, 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:00.720 they said, we just fun to make sure your fire 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.840 alarm is working part of a community service. Cool, but 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:08.800 the bed's fine. Right. So that is a very weird 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:10.800 thing to say, and that definitely piqued the interests of 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.840 the cops. But like you said, the cops convicted or 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:19.280 the state convicted Marjorie deal Armstrong of the murder of 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.919 um James Roden or Jim Roden. Right, she's already in prison, 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.800 and when she's in prison, somehow this is what I'm 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.440 unclear on, somehow it comes up or she starts talking 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:38.200 or something like that, that Jim Roden's death very much 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.800 had to do with the Wells case, with Brian Wells murder, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.040 this collar bomb heist, and that she knows a lot 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.360 about it, and if they'll transfer her to a minimum 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.960 security prison close to Erie, she'll she'll start talking Yeah, 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:56.280 she has for the old Hannibal electric treatment. So is 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.639 that how it came up, like she approached them, because 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.240 I'm I'm unclear on that. I mean, I think so 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:07.120 this is in the Wired article it said that, um, 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:09.280 that there was a phone call from a state cop 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.119 who had just met with her about something unrelated, like 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:17.040 a different homicide, and she just and and it kind 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:19.600 of makes sense though now actually when we as we 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:24.520 will learn, Um, she talked a lot, Yeah, a lot, 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.520 So it doesn't surprise me that another cop was just 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:30.879 meeting with her about something unrelated. She's like, by the way, 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.040 that whole collar bomb thing, I got all the skinny 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.720 on that, right, So there's a couple of things going 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.000 on here. By then, Um, by the time she calls 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.040 the cops, the cops have already spoken apparently with several 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.280 informants that have shared cells with her or spent time 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.639 with her in jail already, Um, who are saying like, uh, 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.399 this lady is the mastermind of that collar bomb heist 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.280 that's making you guys look bad. Yeah, And eventually, you know, 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.240 when they met with her about this, she she admitted 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:06.560 that she was involved, but um, well she didn't met 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:08.359 she was involved in the plot, but she said, I 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.320 knew about it. I gave him. I gave him those 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:14.760 two kitchen timers, and I was really close by when 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.880 it happened. Uh. And by the way, the guy who 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:21.840 blew up with the collar bomb, Mr Wells, he was 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.080 actually in on it too, And Rothstein headed the whole 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.520 thing up, right. But for her deal Armstrong, she said, 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.560 but I had nothing to do with it, even though 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:32.440 I had all these other little things to do with it. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.119 I never met Brian Wells. I didn't know Brian Wells. 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.440