Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck here curating a specially hen picked selected
Speaker 1: episode and this one's from May twenty eighteen, and boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, this is a good one. I forgot all
Speaker 1: about this. And this is part of our true crime
Speaker 1: series Not so Grizzly as far as like you know.
Speaker 1: It's not about an axe murder or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's about a heist and I'd love me some heist.
Speaker 1: And this is called the color Bomb Heist. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, and this
Speaker 2: is Stuff you Should Know, the True Crime edition again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've done a few of these, right.
Speaker 2: True crime is so hot right now?
Speaker 1: Hey man, we were dabbling on the periphery of true
Speaker 1: crime when most of these people were wet in their diapers.
Speaker 2: That's right, man, that is right. I'm glad somebody finally
Speaker 2: said it.
Speaker 1: We were occasionally doing a poor job of covering true
Speaker 1: crime ten years ago.
Speaker 2: That's right. We're gonna do it again.
Speaker 1: Right, we continue that great rich history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because true crime can be extraordinarily interesting, especially when
Speaker 2: you're talking about an extraordinarily over complicated heist that results
Speaker 2: in a man's bizarre death, death by bizarre means, and
Speaker 2: involves what really ultimately, you could make a case as
Speaker 2: an unsolved mystery still today, even though it's technically bureaucratically
Speaker 2: been solved. A lot of people say, no, this thing
Speaker 2: hasn't been solved yet.
Speaker 1: Got homemade bombs, you got a scavenger hunt, got a cracked.
Speaker 2: Dealer, well, you got to have a cracked dealer.
Speaker 1: Got prostitutes, goet pizza.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and let's start with the pizza.
Speaker 1: Geo metro right, which, by the way, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to point out ahead of time, there is no more
Speaker 1: pizza delivery car two thousand and three than a geometro.
Speaker 2: A teal one, no less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing is, it's almost like they rolled them
Speaker 1: right off the line in two thousand and three with
Speaker 1: just straight to a pizza plates.
Speaker 2: With the pizza guy inside already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the little sign magneted on top of.
Speaker 2: It a little crooked yep. So the whole thing does
Speaker 2: start actually with a pizza guy, a pizza place, and
Speaker 2: a teal Geo Metro, And like you said, the whole
Speaker 2: thing starts in two thousand and three in Erie, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and there was a and still is I looked it up.
Speaker 2: There's a pizza place called Mama MIA's Pizza Rhea and
Speaker 2: on the nose, but fine, sure it gets the job
Speaker 2: done right. And at about two pm on August twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, a pizza delivery guy named Brian Wells,
Speaker 2: I think he was forty six at the time. He
Speaker 2: was about to end his morning shift when a call
Speaker 2: came in for two small sausage and pepperoni pizzas and
Speaker 2: the delivery was I guess the opposite way of where
Speaker 2: Brian Wells was going to go on his way home.
Speaker 2: But he said, you know what, I'll take this one
Speaker 2: last order and he walked out the door at about
Speaker 2: two and the next time that Brian Wells was seen
Speaker 2: in public again, he was entering a PNC bank branch
Speaker 2: just down the street from his pizza place, a few
Speaker 2: miles up the road. And he looked a lot different
Speaker 2: than he did when he left the pizza parlor about
Speaker 2: twenty eight minutes earlier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, first of all, he was walking with a cane,
Speaker 1: kind of a funny looking cane, and then under his
Speaker 1: shirt he had clearly and if you've seen the footage
Speaker 1: and the photos, you can see warning by the way,
Speaker 1: for video, it's yeah, for the future, it's quite graphic.
Speaker 2: It's out there, but it is out there.
Speaker 1: But he had clearly some large, boxy looking thing. It
Speaker 1: looked like he was wearing a shoe box around his
Speaker 1: neck with a T shirt pulled over it.
Speaker 2: Kind of but in the teller at the bank's defense,
Speaker 2: could have been an artificial torso and she probably didn't
Speaker 2: want to draw attention to it.
Speaker 1: Yes, she was being very kind, right.
Speaker 2: So one thing I want to point out too, there's
Speaker 2: already discrepancy what we're like a minute into the story,
Speaker 2: and there's already a discrepancy that shirt he was wearing
Speaker 2: over that boxy thing underneath his shirt say guess on it.
Speaker 2: And I've seen that it was written somehow, like in
Speaker 2: spray paint or marker, or that it was an actual
Speaker 2: guest Jeans T shirt.
Speaker 1: H really so either an officially license or not licensed
Speaker 1: whatever brand shirt or a homemade, janky spray painted version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you look, the pictures don't really show
Speaker 2: one way or another. Yeah, it looks more like it's homemade.
Speaker 2: And I looked up to see if there was a
Speaker 2: guest shirt that, you know, if I could find the
Speaker 2: actual guest shirt. It wasn't. Couldn't, so I think it
Speaker 2: may have been homemade. Regardless. He's wearing this shirt that
Speaker 2: says guests on and he walks up to the teller
Speaker 2: and he hands the teller a note, and the note says,
Speaker 2: I have a bomb. Get everybody who has access codes
Speaker 2: to the safe together and put two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars into a bag and bring it to me.
Speaker 2: I think he said, you have fifteen minutes to do.
Speaker 1: This, yeah, which kind of a long time if you're
Speaker 1: a bank robber.
Speaker 2: It is. It's like almost like luxurious around the time.
Speaker 1: What it said, like sixty seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or this should have happened yesterday. Chop chop, right.
Speaker 2: So he he stands back and waits, apparently grabs a
Speaker 2: dumb dumb lollipop out of the little basket while he's waiting,
Speaker 2: because why not. And the teller says, sir, we don't
Speaker 2: have like we can't get into the safe. That's just
Speaker 2: not how things work. I'm sorry, but as a consolation prize,
Speaker 2: I'm going to put eighty seven hundred and two dollars
Speaker 2: into a bag for you right here and send you
Speaker 2: on your way. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and importantly we did not mention he lifted his
Speaker 1: shirt up and showed this teller right this this bomb,
Speaker 1: this what's called a collar bomb, strapped around his neck.
Speaker 2: Right. So he walks out of the bank a free man.
Speaker 2: And the next time that he's seen in public is
Speaker 2: about fifteen minutes later, and he's seen in public by
Speaker 2: some Pennsylvania State troopers who are on the lookout for
Speaker 2: this guy. And he's still wearing that shirt, he's still
Speaker 2: got the big bulge, and he's standing around his geometro
Speaker 2: parked in a parking lot that is actually shared with
Speaker 2: that PNC bank and the McDonald's. And he's in a
Speaker 2: parking lot right there. So he left the bank robbery
Speaker 2: and went about one hundred to two hundred feet away
Speaker 2: from it, and that's where he was found like a
Speaker 2: full fifteen minutes later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these these these kappas, these troopers come over and
Speaker 1: he says, hey, guys, this is a bomb around my neck.
Speaker 1: A group of a group of black men chained this
Speaker 1: bomb around my neck at gunpoint, forced me to rob
Speaker 1: this bank for them. I'm not gonna I'm not lying here.
Speaker 1: This thing is gonna go off. So the cops call
Speaker 1: the bomb squad, and they do. I saw, you know
Speaker 1: his The family of Welles is still angry about the
Speaker 1: fact that she says they did nothing to save them.
Speaker 2: But I would be too.
Speaker 1: By the way, we should, shout out Wired magazine.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, we really really should.
Speaker 1: A lot of this came from a great, heavily researched
Speaker 1: story by Rich Shapiro from about eight years ago, called
Speaker 1: the Incredible True Story of the Color Bomb Heights. So
Speaker 1: thank you Rich for your work. But the dude's on
Speaker 1: the ground said, I mean, I kind of remember this happening,
Speaker 1: because when I went and looked at the still images,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, I've seen this right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's this guy sitting on the ground with this
Speaker 1: thing around his neck, kind of just waiting, seated on
Speaker 1: the pavement for about twenty five minutes. He says, very interestingly,
Speaker 1: like did you call my boss at the pizza place?
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, this bomb starts beeping fast,
Speaker 1: which is never a good sign. And when I was
Speaker 1: reading the story, I thought, well, that's just a ruse.
Speaker 1: But no, this thing detonated and killed him. It blasted
Speaker 1: a hole in his chest. It did not blow his
Speaker 1: head off like the internet says. No, But it was
Speaker 1: a violent, awful death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, and it was pretty quick. And then
Speaker 2: three minutes after the bomb goes off, the bomb squad
Speaker 2: showed up. So he's dead. This guy, Brian Wells is dead.
Speaker 2: And the whole time he was protesting, he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: this is I was forced to rob the bank. Are
Speaker 2: you guys going to get this off of me or what? Yeah,
Speaker 2: he said something like did you call my boss? Because
Speaker 2: apparently he was a very loyal employee. He'd been working
Speaker 2: at Mamma MIA's for how long, like ten years or
Speaker 2: something like that, for years and years, and he'd only
Speaker 2: called in late once, not even sick late, once when
Speaker 2: his cat died, said Rich Shapiro in that Wired article.
Speaker 2: So it seemed like he actually was telling the truth
Speaker 2: that he had been abducted and forced to rob the
Speaker 2: bank and then had been a victim. I think the
Speaker 2: bomb going off really kind of put an exclamation point
Speaker 2: on his story that he was not a willing participant
Speaker 2: in this, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the cops obviously check out that geo metro
Speaker 1: and it's sweet, sweet styling, and they saw his cane
Speaker 1: and there turns out the reason why Cain was funny
Speaker 1: looking is because it was also a gun.
Speaker 2: And it really looks a lot like a gun.
Speaker 1: Yeah when you when you look at it, the bomb
Speaker 1: was clearly homemade. I had a couple of different parts
Speaker 1: to it. It was this this banded metal collar that
Speaker 1: he wore around his neck. It was like locked to
Speaker 1: his neck, had four key holes, and then a combination lock.
Speaker 2: It was really locked to his neck.
Speaker 1: And then an iron box with two pipe bombs loaded
Speaker 1: up ready to go. And then interestingly, and this will
Speaker 1: figure put a pin in this one because this will
Speaker 1: figure in the in the case later. It had two
Speaker 1: kitchen timers in there in addition to an elect an
Speaker 1: electronic countdown timer yeah.
Speaker 2: Which was I guess the thing that started beeping faster
Speaker 2: and faster.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then some decoy wires. You always got to
Speaker 1: have those if you're if you're making a bomb.
Speaker 2: Sure, but I mean, like that's pretty smart. So there's
Speaker 2: decoy wires that were apparently also stickers that said like
Speaker 2: don't do it or you know, skull and crossbones or
Speaker 2: rat pois and whatever, getty and sweet. Yeah, and oh
Speaker 2: that's a good nine to five reference.
Speaker 1: I just saw that the other night.
Speaker 2: So it was a it was a homemade bomb, but
Speaker 2: it was by all accounts a well made bomb too,
Speaker 2: and it worked, which I think is one of the
Speaker 2: big the big questions about any homemade bomb is whether
Speaker 2: it will actually work or not. And this one worked.
Speaker 2: It's with deadly effect, that's right.
Speaker 1: So the most important thing they found in this car, though,
Speaker 1: were some letters, some handwritten notes addressed to bomb hostage.
Speaker 1: So one of them said, I mean, these were instructions
Speaker 1: basically on what this guy should do, which further kind
Speaker 1: of cemented like, hey, this guy's probably telling the truth.
Speaker 1: It said, yeah, go rob this bank of two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty grand, and then very strangely outlined this little
Speaker 1: scavenger hunt basically to where eventually you will land upon
Speaker 1: the keys to in common nation to get you out
Speaker 1: of this thing by going all over town and finding
Speaker 1: these various hidden notes, and at the last note you
Speaker 1: will you will be able to free yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the last one will give you the keys and
Speaker 2: the combination. But you better hurry because you have a
Speaker 2: limited amount of time. If you stop and think you're
Speaker 2: going to waste time, you're going to die. We can
Speaker 2: detonate this remotely, and we're going to be following you.
Speaker 2: It was written pretty crazily. Have you read any of
Speaker 2: the note? Oh yeah, yeah, So like it's it's got
Speaker 2: a lot of like just like a lot of jump
Speaker 2: jump cuts and or jump scares in it, you know,
Speaker 2: like you'll it's like go do this and and then
Speaker 2: go do that after that, and then don't try anything funny.
Speaker 2: We're gonna blow you up, you know. Yeah, it has
Speaker 2: those every once in a while. And there's drawings in
Speaker 2: there of where he could find like like the notes
Speaker 2: and all that. So that he made it as far
Speaker 2: as the first note, which was McDonald's. It was in
Speaker 2: that that McDonald's that shared a parking lot with the
Speaker 2: P and C Bank. That was where the first note was.
Speaker 2: So he made it to that that McDonald's grab that note,
Speaker 2: and that note was directing him out of town to
Speaker 2: another note, and he didn't make it that far. But
Speaker 2: when the cops caught up with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the scavenger hunt was, like you said, he
Speaker 1: had gotten just to the one place so the cops
Speaker 1: then say, well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
Speaker 1: complete this scavenger hunt.
Speaker 2: They were like, whoa, you just blew my mind. That's
Speaker 2: some great policing.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Sure, all right, scavenger hunt
Speaker 1: is just started by the Kappas. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: So the scavenger hunt still on, Chuck, and they make it.
Speaker 2: The cops follow from the note that Brian Wells had
Speaker 2: to the next clue, and they found the next note
Speaker 2: and that directed them to another place even further out
Speaker 2: of town to where they found the jar where the
Speaker 2: note was supposed to be. But the note was gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they don't really know what that means. They
Speaker 1: didn't know if it was just something to keep them
Speaker 1: busy preoccupied. They didn't know if the person who was
Speaker 1: designing this scavenger hunt got interrupted or knew that the
Speaker 1: cops were around and they were doing it sort of
Speaker 1: in real time. But at any rate, unfortunately, this scavenger
Speaker 1: hunt just kind of pizzled out. Because that was kind
Speaker 1: of a cool part of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really was. It was like, it's one of
Speaker 2: the things that makes this just an incredibly bizarre crime. Yeah,
Speaker 2: why the scavenger hunt, It's going to keep coming up
Speaker 2: again and again. Right, So, when the scavenger hunt ran out,
Speaker 2: the trail actually went cold. The case started to get
Speaker 2: cold for a few months. The cops sniffed around Brian Wells,
Speaker 2: tried to figure out, you know, why him, what happened
Speaker 2: with him, And they went back to his place of
Speaker 2: employment and they kind of checked out the kind of
Speaker 2: person he was, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they very smartly said, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: why don't we why don't we check out what that
Speaker 1: last delivery was supposed to be? There may be a
Speaker 1: clue there. And it was an interesting place was at
Speaker 1: the was you could only get there by dirt road
Speaker 1: and it was right next to a TV transmission tower
Speaker 1: in a kind of a remote wooded area, right, and
Speaker 1: cops combed the area, found shoe prints that matched Wells.
Speaker 1: They found those classic iconic geometro tire tracks that everyone
Speaker 1: recognizes by sight. But there really weren't any more clues
Speaker 1: as far as the cops were concerned at that location.
Speaker 1: So where the cops had found a dead end, a
Speaker 1: reporter and photographer for the Eerie Times News went and
Speaker 1: did a little investiating his own and saw this house,
Speaker 1: you know, next door where the pizza was delivered, and said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just gonna go knock on the door.
Speaker 1: This guy answers the door, and his name was Bill Rostein,
Speaker 1: and he actually said, you know, you can look around
Speaker 1: if you want. He's fifty nine years old, he's a handyman,
Speaker 1: wasn't married, he'd lived there his whole life, and apparently
Speaker 1: he seemed really smart, had a very articulate way of speaking,
Speaker 1: and apparently was fluent in several different languages. And the
Speaker 1: journalist kind of did a little poking around and didn't
Speaker 1: really see much and took off, But he made contact
Speaker 1: with Bill Rothstein. He's the first person that kind of
Speaker 1: was went to.
Speaker 2: Knocking, right, But nothing came of it, and the cops,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, never went and met with
Speaker 2: Bill Rothstein, even thoughse houses right next to the delivery
Speaker 2: place where Wells was supposedly accosted. Right. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: a few like I said, the case is gone cold
Speaker 2: by this time, A couple of months have gone by
Speaker 2: the whole I mean, you've got this crime, this very
Speaker 2: public caper that's captured the public's attention. A guy died
Speaker 2: by being blown up while the while under police supervision.
Speaker 2: And there's no leads, there's no nothing. And then finally, uh,
Speaker 2: several weeks, a few months, I think after the call,
Speaker 2: there's a nine to one one call from Bill Rothstein
Speaker 2: and he tells the police that in his freezer he
Speaker 2: has one of those serial killer chest freezers, there's actually
Speaker 2: a body, a man's body, and that it was it
Speaker 2: is not someone he murdered, but he helped cover up
Speaker 2: the murder of this man who was the boyfriend of
Speaker 2: Bill Rothstein's ex girlfriend from way way back in the day.
Speaker 2: And now the chain of events has been set off, right.
Speaker 1: And if you're like me and you start hearing wife
Speaker 1: of the ex girlfriend's dad's cousin, your brain gets a
Speaker 1: little jumbled. So just very plainly, he used to date
Speaker 1: this woman. This woman called him up and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I've murdered my current boyfriend or was it her husband?
Speaker 2: It was her boyfriend, yeah, And she.
Speaker 1: Said, and I need your help here. I blasted him
Speaker 1: with a shotgun. And I know we tated, oh twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, but will you come help me out? Because
Speaker 1: they were still in contact, I guess they remained friends.
Speaker 2: I guess. So in this rack.
Speaker 1: To Bill Rosstein, apparently he thought about committing suicide. Apparently
Speaker 1: there was even a note. They found a suicide note,
Speaker 1: but he maintained, like you said, with the cops, that
Speaker 1: he didn't have anything to do with anything but most
Speaker 1: of the cleanup.
Speaker 2: The cleanup, getting rid of the murder weapon and then
Speaker 2: holding onto the body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but which the reason he held on the body
Speaker 1: he was supposed to get apparently supposed to grind this
Speaker 1: body up. And that's where he finally stopped short and
Speaker 1: was like, Jesus, I can't do this.
Speaker 2: And he said he told the cops that the reason
Speaker 2: he called them finally was because since he wasn't going
Speaker 2: through with grinding up the body, he was worried what
Speaker 2: this woman, Marjorie deal Armstrong was going to do to him.
Speaker 1: He's like, I dated this lady, right, She's not a
Speaker 1: nice person.
Speaker 2: And so when he says Marjorie deal Armstrong to the
Speaker 2: eerie cops, just alarm bells start going off because by
Speaker 2: this time, already Marjorie deal Armstrong was a local legend
Speaker 2: as far as criminals are concerned. She was this very
Speaker 2: very bright woman who I think at the age of
Speaker 2: thirty five back in the eighties, had been indicted for
Speaker 2: killing one of her boyfriends, shot him six times. She
Speaker 2: played that she had killed him in self defense, that
Speaker 2: he was an abuser of her, and she was actually acquitted.
Speaker 2: A few years after that, she was married to a
Speaker 2: guy named Armstrong, and he showed up at the hospital
Speaker 2: with a head trauma and actually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Speaker 2: But there was no coroner's in quest or anything like that,
Speaker 2: and so it just was something suspicious, you know, the
Speaker 2: second second significant other of this woman to die under
Speaker 2: suspicious or violent circumstances. So when Bill Rothstein said, I'm
Speaker 2: worried about what Marjorie deal Armstrong is going to do
Speaker 2: to me, the cops seemed to have taken it very seriously.
Speaker 1: Well, extremely seriously, because the next day they arrested her.
Speaker 2: That's pretty serious for murder.
Speaker 1: And about a year and a half later, a little
Speaker 1: short of that, she pled guilty but mentally ill. She
Speaker 1: was sentenced to seven to twenty and then Rothstein, for
Speaker 1: his part, eventually died of cancer in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: Right, and so you said that he had considered killing
Speaker 2: himself and even wrote a suicide note, right, Yeah, there
Speaker 2: was something very very odd on Bill Rothstein's suicide note.
Speaker 2: And again he didn't kill himself, he died of cancer,
Speaker 2: but he was able to actually show the cops where
Speaker 2: a suicide note was and they read it, and the
Speaker 2: first line of it, from what I understand, was this
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with the collar bomb heist or
Speaker 2: the Brian Wells murder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a it's a weird thing to put if
Speaker 1: you had nothing to do with that, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, that's just a very odd thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's like when the cops come in and you go,
Speaker 1: there's nothing under the bed, don't don't there's no reason
Speaker 1: to look there, right, They.
Speaker 2: Said, we just want to make sure your fire alarm
Speaker 2: is working. Yeah, exactly, part of a community service.
Speaker 1: Cool, but the bed's fine.
Speaker 2: Right, So that is a very weird thing to say,
Speaker 2: and that definitely piqud the interest of the cops. But
Speaker 2: like you said, the cops convicted, or the state convicted
Speaker 2: Marjorie deal Armstrong of the murder of James Roden or
Speaker 2: Jim Roden. Right. Yeah, she's already in prison, and when
Speaker 2: she's in prison, somehow this is what I'm unclear on
Speaker 2: somehow it comes up or she starts talking or something
Speaker 2: like that, that Jim Roden's death very much had to
Speaker 2: do with the Wells case with Brian Wells murder, this
Speaker 2: collar bomb heist, and that she knows a lot about it,
Speaker 2: and if they'll transfer her to a minimum security prison
Speaker 2: close to Eerie, she'll she'll start talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she has for the old Hannibal lecture treatment.
Speaker 2: So is that how it came up, like she approached them,
Speaker 2: because I'm unclear on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think so. This is in the Wired article,
Speaker 1: it said that that there was a phone call from
Speaker 1: a state cop who had just met with her about
Speaker 1: something unrelated, like a different homicide, and she just and
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense though now actually when we
Speaker 1: as we will learn she talked a lot, Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't surprise me that another cop was just
Speaker 1: meeting with her about something unrelated. She's like, bye, by
Speaker 1: the way, that whole collar bomb thing, I got all
Speaker 1: the skinny on that.
Speaker 2: Right, So there's a couple of things going on here.
Speaker 2: By then, by the time she calls the cops, the
Speaker 2: cops have already spoken, apparently with several informants that have
Speaker 2: shared cells with her or spent time with her in
Speaker 2: jail already, who are saying like this lady is the
Speaker 2: mastermind of that collar bomb heightst that's making you guys
Speaker 2: look bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and eventually, you know, when they met with her
Speaker 1: about this, she admitted that she was involved, but well,
Speaker 1: she didn't met she was involved in the plot, but
Speaker 1: she said, I knew about it. I gave him, I
Speaker 1: gave him those two kitchen timers, and I was really
Speaker 1: close by when it happened. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: guy who blew up with the collar bomb, mister Wells,
Speaker 1: he was actually in on it too and Lostein headed
Speaker 1: the whole thing up.
Speaker 2: Right by for her, Deil Armstrong, she said, But I
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with it. I had all these
Speaker 2: other little things to do with it. I never met
Speaker 2: Brian Wells. I didn't know Brian Wells. I had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with his death aside from supplying the kitchen
Speaker 2: timers and knowing at it right exactly. So now it's
Speaker 2: just getting weird, right because there's the Jim Roden murder,
Speaker 2: who she says that she killed because he was abusing her,
Speaker 2: who Rothstein said she killed over a dispute with money,
Speaker 2: but is now she's saying is tied to the Wells case,
Speaker 2: and which she knows a lot about but really nothing
Speaker 2: about and had nothing to do with. So the cops
Speaker 2: are like, well, let's just get this lad to talk
Speaker 2: all we can. And one of the things they got
Speaker 2: out of her was her she agreed to a tour
Speaker 2: around Eerie, showing them all these places where she had been,
Speaker 2: and these were all places that were related to the crime.
Speaker 2: Like I believe she said she'd been at the pizza
Speaker 2: delivery site. I think she said she'd been within a
Speaker 2: mile of the of the bank when it was robbed,
Speaker 2: Like all of this stuff. She's just like, they just
Speaker 2: keep giving her this rope and she's just wrapping it
Speaker 2: around her neck again and again and again and then
Speaker 2: finally chuck at the end of this car ride, after
Speaker 2: she's been interviewing with the cops multiple times, giving him
Speaker 2: tons of info, what does she say?
Speaker 1: She asked for immunity at this point, after she had
Speaker 1: basically completely incriminated herself, and previous to all this, a
Speaker 1: lot more happened. There were four different informants who had
Speaker 1: come forward and said that this lady's been talking about
Speaker 1: this for a while. She very much had everything to
Speaker 1: do with it. And then a couple of months after
Speaker 1: she had started talking to the Feds, another big break came.
Speaker 1: This witness came forward and said, Hey, there's this crack
Speaker 1: dealer named Kenny Barnes. That is a crack dealer's name,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Barnes, and he was involved. They used to go
Speaker 1: fishing together. Armstrong deal Armstrong in Barnes, and she sang
Speaker 1: like a canary to him basically, and said, here's what
Speaker 1: she did. She her brother in law put him in
Speaker 1: touch with Barnes while he was already in jail on
Speaker 1: unrelated chart charges basically, And so Barnes was already in prison,
Speaker 1: said hey, I think I can shorten my time, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and get a reduced sentence at
Speaker 1: least by spilling the beans on deal Armstrong.
Speaker 2: Right, And Barnes's brother in law was who turned him
Speaker 2: into the cops.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: So Barnes is like, I'm already I'm in jail for
Speaker 2: selling crack. That's way different from being you know, very
Speaker 2: much involved in this collar bomb heist. So he said, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you guys everything you want to know. I'll
Speaker 2: be your star witness. Just reduce my sentence in this
Speaker 2: for my involvement in this. And he started talking. When
Speaker 2: he started talking, it was at Marjorie deal Armstrong's trial,
Speaker 2: which was a pretty spectacular trial from all accounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and before the trial even he told his story
Speaker 1: was is that she wanted me to kill her father.
Speaker 1: He was spending what would end up being her inheritance,
Speaker 1: she felt, and so she wanted him dead. And so
Speaker 1: she was doing this collar bomb heist to raise money
Speaker 1: to pay me to kill her dad.
Speaker 2: Which I mean, like that's just the biggest face poem
Speaker 2: I've ever heard of. Yeah for a real So, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll start Marjorie deil Armstrong's trial after we take a break.
Speaker 2: How about that man?
Speaker 1: That sounds good?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, chuck. So before Marjorie deil Armstrong goes to trial,
Speaker 2: and remember, she's already in prison for the murder of
Speaker 2: Jim Rodin right, shooting him in the back with a
Speaker 2: twelve gage shotgun. Yes, Bill Rothstein is dead. I want
Speaker 2: to call him, Ah Rostein. So Ace Rothstein's so bad.
Speaker 2: But Bill Rothstein is dead. He died of lymphoma. A
Speaker 2: couple of years before, and by the time Marjorie deil
Speaker 2: Armstrong is brought to trial for her involvement as the
Speaker 2: mastermind of the collar bomb plot, they have to they
Speaker 2: have to verify that she's actually mentally competent to stand trial.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of touchy because remember when she she
Speaker 2: was charged with killing her boyfriend back in I think
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, nineteen eighty six, Yeah, she was. She
Speaker 2: was deemed incompetent seven times by psychiatrists before for the
Speaker 2: judge finally said I'm throwing all that out and deciding
Speaker 2: that she is competent, We're going to go ahead with
Speaker 2: the trial. Yes, they also found like four hundred pounds
Speaker 2: of butter and seven hundred pounds of cheese in her
Speaker 2: in her house when they were investigating that particular murder.
Speaker 2: And in between nineteen eighty four, in the time she
Speaker 2: was tried in the collar bomb heist, she had been
Speaker 2: diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so there it was actually kind
Speaker 2: of questionable whether she was mentally competent to seand trial,
Speaker 2: And right as they were about to start the proceedings,
Speaker 2: I think the judge ruled that she was competent to
Speaker 2: say and trial. She was diagnosed with cancer herself, that's right.
Speaker 2: So they waited for the cancer diagnosis, her prognosis, and
Speaker 2: the cancer doctor came back and said three to seven years,
Speaker 2: and the prosecutors said, giddy up.
Speaker 1: That's right. So previous to this, she had gotten the indictment.
Speaker 1: But in that indictment, it's very important that she was
Speaker 1: not I mean, granted she was the only one technically indicted,
Speaker 1: but they in the indictment it said that Rothstein was
Speaker 1: definitely a conspirator and Wells, the man who was who
Speaker 1: was the victim, supposedly he was definitely involved in this
Speaker 1: thing from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right. As a very important thing that
Speaker 2: that showed up in this indictment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said he agreed to rob this bank, he
Speaker 1: thought it was a fake bomb, and he was told
Speaker 1: this scavenger hunt was a ruse to fool the cops
Speaker 1: and if and when he did get caught, he could say,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just following orders basically what he did.
Speaker 2: Right, And so Brian Wells's family did not like this
Speaker 2: at all. Apparently during the the the press conference where
Speaker 2: the Daaverrie County is announcing this, you know, this case
Speaker 2: case is closed. This is the indictment that they have
Speaker 2: the Wells. Some of Brian Wells's sisters were shouting liar
Speaker 2: at her. They did not take the idea that their
Speaker 2: brother was an accomplice in this at all very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there was a lot of uh, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth about whether Wells was
Speaker 1: in on the big the thing from the beginning, or
Speaker 1: whether or not he was in from the beginning and
Speaker 1: then at one point wanted out and was forced to
Speaker 1: do this, or whether he was forced from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Everyone's telling a different story. And you know, basically the
Speaker 1: trial is where we will learn, you know, if all
Speaker 1: that is true, what really happened.
Speaker 2: So Marjorie deil Armstrong's lawyers said, you know, to heck
Speaker 2: with with caution, let's put you on the stand. Okay,
Speaker 2: you've already incriminated yourself multiple times. Why not do it
Speaker 2: in open court too, And she apparently was quite a
Speaker 2: She put on quite a performance on the on the
Speaker 2: stand over like two days, I think five and a
Speaker 2: half hours of testimony. She yelled, she cried, she berated
Speaker 2: the prosecutor and her own lawyer. When she did mention
Speaker 2: Brian Wells. She said, I've never met the guy. I
Speaker 2: learned of his death when everybody else did on the
Speaker 2: TV news, And she stuck with her story though that
Speaker 2: she had nothing to do with this. She knew a
Speaker 2: little bit about it. She knew the conspirators. The real
Speaker 2: mastermind was Bill Rothstein, and it wasn't her. That's what
Speaker 2: she maintained though throughout the trial and even afterward.
Speaker 1: That's right. But before she took the stand a few
Speaker 1: days earlier is when they trotted out Ken Barnes and
Speaker 1: he took the stand, and he said he had you know,
Speaker 1: by the time she took the stand, he had given
Speaker 1: a different account of the story than she would later do.
Speaker 1: So he got up there and said she was behind
Speaker 1: all this. She was the mastermind. Rostein was involved. She
Speaker 1: just recruited him. Basically, she recruited Wells because Wells needed money.
Speaker 1: And here's where the prostitutes come into play. Apparently Wells
Speaker 1: had a relationship with a prostitute who was also a
Speaker 1: crack addict, so he would buy crack to give her,
Speaker 1: presumably as trade for sex. He ended up falling into
Speaker 1: debt with these crack dealers and needed money, and.
Speaker 2: So it's basically the plot of Bulin.
Speaker 1: Rouge, and he contends Barnes did that that up until
Speaker 1: the day of the crime, Wells was thought this whole
Speaker 1: thing was fake, realized that it was a double cross,
Speaker 1: it was a real bomb, and he tried to run
Speaker 1: away and was tackled and they put a gun to
Speaker 1: his head and locked him into this device.
Speaker 2: So imagine this, chuck. Imagine being Brian Wells and you're
Speaker 2: agreeing to put on what you are presuming is a
Speaker 2: fake caller bomb to go carry out a real bank
Speaker 2: robbery because you need money, because you're indebted to crack dealers,
Speaker 2: because you borrowed from crack from them to give to
Speaker 2: your girlfriend, who's a prostitute who you have to give
Speaker 2: crack to be with. And then you find out on
Speaker 2: the day of that this is a real bomb and
Speaker 2: they're putting it on you, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 2: What a horrible what a horrible turn of events for
Speaker 2: this poor guy. Yeah, I mean, that's just so sad,
Speaker 2: no matter how you slice it. And then if you
Speaker 2: take his families, if you take his family's opinion that
Speaker 2: he was one hundred percent innocent, that he really was
Speaker 2: delivering pizzas and was accosted and had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with any of this, which I take with a pretty
Speaker 2: big grain of salt. I mean, that's just as bad.
Speaker 2: But it's bad either way, whether he was an accomplice
Speaker 2: at one point or not. It's super sad. There's a
Speaker 2: very sad thread that's running through this story in the
Speaker 2: form of Brian Wells. You know.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, And on the final day of her trial,
Speaker 1: at the very very end of her taking the stand,
Speaker 1: is when she finally said that she didn't know him,
Speaker 1: never met him, mm hmm. And the first time she
Speaker 1: had ever laid eyes on him was on the news
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 2: Right. Basically, he and Marjorie deal Armstrong are fishing, right,
Speaker 2: they're fishing buddies that he's somebody that she would turn to,
Speaker 2: And she's finding out that her father is blowing through
Speaker 2: her inheritance and she wants to put a stop to it,
Speaker 2: and so she approaches Barnes to get him to kill
Speaker 2: her father. But to get that two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: K that he says he will kill her father for,
Speaker 2: she's got to rob a bank. So she turns to
Speaker 2: her friend Bill Rothstein to come up with this collar
Speaker 2: bomb to put it on this other person, Brian Wells,
Speaker 2: who's going to carry this out. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: we're also going to come up with a scavenger hunt
Speaker 2: to either throw the cops off or to actually make
Speaker 2: Brian Wells feel more comfortable, give him some sort of
Speaker 2: cover in case he is caught. And that's what we're
Speaker 2: gonna go with. Go Team and Marjorie deal Armstrong. So
Speaker 2: that's preposterous that that wasn't me, Kenneth Barnes said, that's
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened. And then Bill Rothstein wasn't alive
Speaker 2: to contradict any of it.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So she's sentenced, right, she's convicted as the mastermind of
Speaker 2: this pot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The jury took about eleven hours and she was convicted
Speaker 1: of armed bank robbery, conspiracy in using a destructive device
Speaker 1: in a crime of violence.
Speaker 2: That's a big one. I'll bet, I'll bet that carries
Speaker 2: a hefty sentence with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she would die in prison, just like her
Speaker 1: prognosis said, she didn't. I think she lasted a few years. Now.
Speaker 2: They gave her three to seven years and she lasted seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she finally passed away, and you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of the end of the story. Even though there
Speaker 1: is a retired FBI investigator named Jim Fisher who said,
Speaker 1: I think they got this all wrong. I think that
Speaker 1: Rothstein was the guy the whole time, and he makes
Speaker 1: a decently compelling case, but it's you know, everyone's dead now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jim Fisher's gone a little bit down the rabbit
Speaker 2: hole if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to tell with
Speaker 1: literally everyone having died. But for his money, he thinks
Speaker 1: it was Rostein.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there's probably not many people who are
Speaker 2: familiar with the case who would say that it wasn't
Speaker 2: Rothstein who built the bomb. But what Jim Fisher saying
Speaker 2: is like Bill Rothstein was behind everything, and Marjorie dial
Speaker 2: Armstrong murdering Jim Roden was just like a gift that
Speaker 2: dropped in Bill Rothstein's lap that he could use to
Speaker 2: make all these puppets dance, including the cops, and that
Speaker 2: the whole point of it was to create this elaborate scheme,
Speaker 2: this elaborate crime that would puzzle people for years and
Speaker 2: years to come, which it's doing that, and that that
Speaker 2: was the point, and that Brian Wells was going to
Speaker 2: die one way or another, right, because I think the
Speaker 2: FBI said they concluded the whole scavenger hunt was a
Speaker 2: hoax and that Brian well was never going to survive this,
Speaker 2: didn't they. Yeah, so so this is Jim Fisher's position.
Speaker 2: But like you said, now that everybody's dead, really the
Speaker 2: only question is, you know, just how how complicit was
Speaker 2: Brian Wells is the last big question that's right. And
Speaker 2: then there's one other guy who seems to have got
Speaker 2: off scott free named Floyd Stockton. Did you look into
Speaker 2: him a little bit? So he's a guy who was there.
Speaker 2: He was he was there. He supposedly handed Rothstein the
Speaker 2: bomb to put around Brian Wells's neck. He was staying
Speaker 2: with Rothstein as a buddy on his couch, fleeing a
Speaker 2: rape charge in Washington, and somehow, for some reason, he
Speaker 2: got immunity and was not indicted even though he was
Speaker 2: very much involved in this, and he got off scott free.
Speaker 2: And Brian Wells's family is going nuts over the fact
Speaker 2: that this guy's out there walking free, that he was,
Speaker 2: he was a part of this this caper, and he
Speaker 2: he didn't see a second inside of a jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there were more people involved.
Speaker 2: Emon, So, what do you think do you think Brian
Speaker 2: Wells was complicit? And if so, how much?
Speaker 1: Oh? Man, I don't know. I mean, it sounds like
Speaker 1: I kind of believe the story that they were all
Speaker 1: in it together and he was probably double crossed. But
Speaker 1: this is just from reading about this thing many, many
Speaker 1: years later.
Speaker 2: Do you think Marjorie deal Armstrong was the mastermind?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know either. Maybe we'll never know, but we might,
Speaker 2: but probably not. You got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you want to know more about
Speaker 2: the collar bomb case, you can type that word and
Speaker 2: the search bar your favorite search engine and it will
Speaker 2: likely bring up a very great article on Wired from
Speaker 2: Rich Shapiro. Read that start there. It's great And since
Speaker 2: I said Rich Shapiro, it's tide for the listener.
Speaker 1: Mail with one on emoji and John Adams. Hey guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed the recent podcast about the history of emojis and emoticons.
Speaker 1: Reminded me of a discovery I made in the diaries
Speaker 1: of John Adams that makes a historical figure who's sometimes
Speaker 1: described as aloof seemed completely charming when the future president
Speaker 1: was about twenty two years old. He made it an
Speaker 1: entry in his diary in seventeen fifty six, saying, a
Speaker 1: cloudy morning about ten, and he drew a little sunshine
Speaker 1: breakout a warm day. He uses a little line drawing
Speaker 1: on the sun that I always call an eighteenth century emoji.
Speaker 1: He likes a little creation so much he re used
Speaker 1: it a month later in the same diary, A misty morning,
Speaker 1: little sunshine breakout about noon. On the Massachusetts Historical Society website,
Speaker 1: the text of his letters and diaries is faithfully transcribed,
Speaker 1: but in the cases. In these cases, a parenthetical note
Speaker 1: tells readers that there are small drawings of the sun
Speaker 1: and advises them to refer to the scans of the
Speaker 1: handwritten page where you can actually see this. Apparently he
Speaker 1: grew out of his habit, though, because his later diaries
Speaker 1: do not use the adorable little son. Keep up great work.
Speaker 1: My wife and I host a local history podcast for
Speaker 1: Boston Nice. It's tightly scripted. Oh man, he didn't tell
Speaker 1: me what it was. I would have totally shouted it out.
Speaker 1: What I know, big missed opportunity there, Jake. One of
Speaker 1: these days will be confident enough to have an unscripted
Speaker 1: conversation like you guys do. And that is from Jake Scaniers.
Speaker 2: Okay, so everybody's look up Jake scan yours Boston History
Speaker 2: podcast and he'll probably bring it up right. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 2: So thanks a lot, Jake. Thanks for keeping up the
Speaker 2: good fight up there. That's pretty cool. Good story too.
Speaker 2: If you want to get in touch with us, like
Speaker 2: Jake did, tell us about your podcast, that's great. You
Speaker 2: can send us all an email of the Stuff podcast
Speaker 2: at house stuffworks dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 2: at our home on the web, Stuffishould Know dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
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