February 15, 2025 • 42 mins
The collar bomb heist is the crime caper that keeps on giving. Every time the story seemed like it was figured out, another layer appeared. Tune in to this classic episode to hear Josh and Chuck detail this very odd and twisty story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. Chuck here curating a specially hen picked selected
episode and this one's from May twenty eighteen, and boy,
oh boy, this is a good one. I forgot all
about this. And this is part of our true crime
series Not so Grizzly as far as like you know.
It's not about an axe murder or anything like that.
(00:21):
It's about a heist and I'd love me some heist.
And this is called the color Bomb Heist. Welcome to
Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, and this
is Stuff you Should Know, the True Crime edition again.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, we've done a few of these, right.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
True crime is so hot right now?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hey man, we were dabbling on the periphery of true
crime when most of these people were wet in their diapers.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right, man, that is right. I'm glad somebody finally
said it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
We were occasionally doing a poor job of covering true
crime ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
That's right. We're gonna do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Right, we continue that great rich history.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, because true crime can be extraordinarily interesting, especially when
you're talking about an extraordinarily over complicated heist that results
in a man's bizarre death, death by bizarre means, and
involves what really ultimately, you could make a case as
(01:39):
an unsolved mystery still today, even though it's technically bureaucratically
been solved. A lot of people say, no, this thing
hasn't been solved yet.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Got homemade bombs, you got a scavenger hunt, got a cracked.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Dealer, well, you got to have a cracked dealer.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Got prostitutes, goet pizza.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And yeah, and let's start with the pizza.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Geo metro right, which, by the way, I just wanted
to point out ahead of time, there is no more
pizza delivery car two thousand and three than a geometro.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
A teal one, no less.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, the thing is, it's almost like they rolled them
right off the line in two thousand and three with
just straight to a pizza plates.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
With the pizza guy inside already.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, and the little sign magneted on top of.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It a little crooked yep. So the whole thing does
start actually with a pizza guy, a pizza place, and
a teal Geo Metro, And like you said, the whole
thing starts in two thousand and three in Erie, Pennsylvania,
and there was a and still is I looked it up.
There's a pizza place called Mama MIA's Pizza Rhea and
(02:55):
on the nose, but fine, sure it gets the job
done right. And at about two pm on August twenty eighth,
two thousand and three, a pizza delivery guy named Brian Wells,
I think he was forty six at the time. He
was about to end his morning shift when a call
came in for two small sausage and pepperoni pizzas and
(03:19):
the delivery was I guess the opposite way of where
Brian Wells was going to go on his way home.
But he said, you know what, I'll take this one
last order and he walked out the door at about
two and the next time that Brian Wells was seen
in public again, he was entering a PNC bank branch
(03:39):
just down the street from his pizza place, a few
miles up the road. And he looked a lot different
than he did when he left the pizza parlor about
twenty eight minutes earlier.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, so, first of all, he was walking with a cane,
kind of a funny looking cane, and then under his
shirt he had clearly and if you've seen the footage
and the photos, you can see warning by the way,
for video, it's yeah, for the future, it's quite graphic.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's out there, but it is out there.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But he had clearly some large, boxy looking thing. It
looked like he was wearing a shoe box around his
neck with a T shirt pulled over it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Kind of but in the teller at the bank's defense,
could have been an artificial torso and she probably didn't
want to draw attention to it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, she was being very kind, right.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So one thing I want to point out too, there's
already discrepancy what we're like a minute into the story,
and there's already a discrepancy that shirt he was wearing
over that boxy thing underneath his shirt say guess on it.
And I've seen that it was written somehow, like in
spray paint or marker, or that it was an actual
guest Jeans T shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
H really so either an officially license or not licensed
whatever brand shirt or a homemade, janky spray painted version.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, and if you look, the pictures don't really show
one way or another. Yeah, it looks more like it's homemade.
And I looked up to see if there was a
guest shirt that, you know, if I could find the
actual guest shirt. It wasn't. Couldn't, so I think it
may have been homemade. Regardless. He's wearing this shirt that
says guests on and he walks up to the teller
and he hands the teller a note, and the note says,
(05:28):
I have a bomb. Get everybody who has access codes
to the safe together and put two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars into a bag and bring it to me.
I think he said, you have fifteen minutes to do.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
This, yeah, which kind of a long time if you're
a bank robber.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It is. It's like almost like luxurious around the time.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
What it said, like sixty seconds.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, or this should have happened yesterday. Chop chop, right.
So he he stands back and waits, apparently grabs a
dumb dumb lollipop out of the little basket while he's waiting,
because why not. And the teller says, sir, we don't
have like we can't get into the safe. That's just
not how things work. I'm sorry, but as a consolation prize,
(06:13):
I'm going to put eighty seven hundred and two dollars
into a bag for you right here and send you
on your way. Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, and importantly we did not mention he lifted his
shirt up and showed this teller right this this bomb,
this what's called a collar bomb, strapped around his neck.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Right. So he walks out of the bank a free man.
And the next time that he's seen in public is
about fifteen minutes later, and he's seen in public by
some Pennsylvania State troopers who are on the lookout for
this guy. And he's still wearing that shirt, he's still
got the big bulge, and he's standing around his geometro
(06:50):
parked in a parking lot that is actually shared with
that PNC bank and the McDonald's. And he's in a
parking lot right there. So he left the bank robbery
and went about one hundred to two hundred feet away
from it, and that's where he was found like a
full fifteen minutes later. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So these these these kappas, these troopers come over and
he says, hey, guys, this is a bomb around my neck.
A group of a group of black men chained this
bomb around my neck at gunpoint, forced me to rob
this bank for them. I'm not gonna I'm not lying here.
(07:29):
This thing is gonna go off. So the cops call
the bomb squad, and they do. I saw, you know
his The family of Welles is still angry about the
fact that she says they did nothing to save them.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
But I would be too.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
By the way, we should, shout out Wired magazine.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh yes, we really really should.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
A lot of this came from a great, heavily researched
story by Rich Shapiro from about eight years ago, called
the Incredible True Story of the Color Bomb Heights. So
thank you Rich for your work. But the dude's on
the ground said, I mean, I kind of remember this happening,
because when I went and looked at the still images,
(08:10):
I was like, wait a minute, I've seen this right, Yeah,
And it's this guy sitting on the ground with this
thing around his neck, kind of just waiting, seated on
the pavement for about twenty five minutes. He says, very interestingly,
like did you call my boss at the pizza place?
And then all of a sudden, this bomb starts beeping fast,
(08:33):
which is never a good sign. And when I was
reading the story, I thought, well, that's just a ruse.
But no, this thing detonated and killed him. It blasted
a hole in his chest. It did not blow his
head off like the internet says. No, But it was
a violent, awful death.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, it was, and it was pretty quick. And then
three minutes after the bomb goes off, the bomb squad
showed up. So he's dead. This guy, Brian Wells is dead.
And the whole time he was protesting, he's like, you know,
this is I was forced to rob the bank. Are
you guys going to get this off of me or what? Yeah,
(09:12):
he said something like did you call my boss? Because
apparently he was a very loyal employee. He'd been working
at Mamma MIA's for how long, like ten years or
something like that, for years and years, and he'd only
called in late once, not even sick late, once when
his cat died, said Rich Shapiro in that Wired article.
(09:32):
So it seemed like he actually was telling the truth
that he had been abducted and forced to rob the
bank and then had been a victim. I think the
bomb going off really kind of put an exclamation point
on his story that he was not a willing participant
in this, right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, So the cops obviously check out that geo metro
and it's sweet, sweet styling, and they saw his cane
and there turns out the reason why Cain was funny
looking is because it was also a gun.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And it really looks a lot like a gun.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah when you when you look at it, the bomb
was clearly homemade. I had a couple of different parts
to it. It was this this banded metal collar that
he wore around his neck. It was like locked to
his neck, had four key holes, and then a combination lock.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It was really locked to his neck.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And then an iron box with two pipe bombs loaded
up ready to go. And then interestingly, and this will
figure put a pin in this one because this will
figure in the in the case later. It had two
kitchen timers in there in addition to an elect an
electronic countdown timer yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Which was I guess the thing that started beeping faster
and faster.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah. And then some decoy wires. You always got to
have those if you're if you're making a bomb.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Sure, but I mean, like that's pretty smart. So there's
decoy wires that were apparently also stickers that said like
don't do it or you know, skull and crossbones or
rat pois and whatever, getty and sweet. Yeah, and oh
that's a good nine to five reference.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I just saw that the other night.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So it was a it was a homemade bomb, but
it was by all accounts a well made bomb too,
and it worked, which I think is one of the
big the big questions about any homemade bomb is whether
it will actually work or not. And this one worked.
It's with deadly effect, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So the most important thing they found in this car, though,
were some letters, some handwritten notes addressed to bomb hostage.
So one of them said, I mean, these were instructions
basically on what this guy should do, which further kind
of cemented like, hey, this guy's probably telling the truth.
It said, yeah, go rob this bank of two hundred
(11:47):
and fifty grand, and then very strangely outlined this little
scavenger hunt basically to where eventually you will land upon
the keys to in common nation to get you out
of this thing by going all over town and finding
these various hidden notes, and at the last note you
will you will be able to free yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, the last one will give you the keys and
the combination. But you better hurry because you have a
limited amount of time. If you stop and think you're
going to waste time, you're going to die. We can
detonate this remotely, and we're going to be following you.
It was written pretty crazily. Have you read any of
the note? Oh yeah, yeah, So like it's it's got
(12:29):
a lot of like just like a lot of jump
jump cuts and or jump scares in it, you know,
like you'll it's like go do this and and then
go do that after that, and then don't try anything funny.
We're gonna blow you up, you know. Yeah, it has
those every once in a while. And there's drawings in
there of where he could find like like the notes
and all that. So that he made it as far
(12:49):
as the first note, which was McDonald's. It was in
that that McDonald's that shared a parking lot with the
P and C Bank. That was where the first note was.
So he made it to that that McDonald's grab that note,
and that note was directing him out of town to
another note, and he didn't make it that far. But
when the cops caught up with him.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, so the scavenger hunt was, like you said, he
had gotten just to the one place so the cops
then say, well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
complete this scavenger hunt.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
They were like, whoa, you just blew my mind. That's
some great policing.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Should we take a break? Sure, all right, scavenger hunt
is just started by the Kappas. We'll be right back.
(13:59):
All right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So the scavenger hunt still on, Chuck, and they make it.
The cops follow from the note that Brian Wells had
to the next clue, and they found the next note
and that directed them to another place even further out
of town to where they found the jar where the
note was supposed to be. But the note was gone.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, and they don't really know what that means. They
didn't know if it was just something to keep them
busy preoccupied. They didn't know if the person who was
designing this scavenger hunt got interrupted or knew that the
cops were around and they were doing it sort of
in real time. But at any rate, unfortunately, this scavenger
hunt just kind of pizzled out. Because that was kind
of a cool part of the story.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, it really was. It was like, it's one of
the things that makes this just an incredibly bizarre crime. Yeah,
why the scavenger hunt, It's going to keep coming up
again and again. Right, So, when the scavenger hunt ran out,
the trail actually went cold. The case started to get
cold for a few months. The cops sniffed around Brian Wells,
tried to figure out, you know, why him, what happened
(15:05):
with him, And they went back to his place of
employment and they kind of checked out the kind of
person he was, right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, And they very smartly said, well, wait a minute,
why don't we why don't we check out what that
last delivery was supposed to be? There may be a
clue there. And it was an interesting place was at
the was you could only get there by dirt road
and it was right next to a TV transmission tower
in a kind of a remote wooded area, right, and
(15:36):
cops combed the area, found shoe prints that matched Wells.
They found those classic iconic geometro tire tracks that everyone
recognizes by sight. But there really weren't any more clues
as far as the cops were concerned at that location.
So where the cops had found a dead end, a
(15:57):
reporter and photographer for the Eerie Times News went and
did a little investiating his own and saw this house,
you know, next door where the pizza was delivered, and said, well,
you know, I'm just gonna go knock on the door.
This guy answers the door, and his name was Bill Rostein,
and he actually said, you know, you can look around
if you want. He's fifty nine years old, he's a handyman,
(16:18):
wasn't married, he'd lived there his whole life, and apparently
he seemed really smart, had a very articulate way of speaking,
and apparently was fluent in several different languages. And the
journalist kind of did a little poking around and didn't
really see much and took off, But he made contact
(16:39):
with Bill Rothstein. He's the first person that kind of
was went to.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Knocking, right, But nothing came of it, and the cops,
as far as I know, never went and met with
Bill Rothstein, even thoughse houses right next to the delivery
place where Wells was supposedly accosted. Right. Yeah, and then
a few like I said, the case is gone cold
by this time, A couple of months have gone by
(17:03):
the whole I mean, you've got this crime, this very
public caper that's captured the public's attention. A guy died
by being blown up while the while under police supervision.
And there's no leads, there's no nothing. And then finally, uh,
several weeks, a few months, I think after the call,
(17:25):
there's a nine to one one call from Bill Rothstein
and he tells the police that in his freezer he
has one of those serial killer chest freezers, there's actually
a body, a man's body, and that it was it
is not someone he murdered, but he helped cover up
(17:45):
the murder of this man who was the boyfriend of
Bill Rothstein's ex girlfriend from way way back in the day.
And now the chain of events has been set off, right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And if you're like me and you start hearing wife
of the ex girlfriend's dad's cousin, your brain gets a
little jumbled. So just very plainly, he used to date
this woman. This woman called him up and said, hey,
I've murdered my current boyfriend or was it her husband?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It was her boyfriend, yeah, And she.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Said, and I need your help here. I blasted him
with a shotgun. And I know we tated, oh twenty
years ago, but will you come help me out? Because
they were still in contact, I guess they remained friends.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I guess. So in this rack.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
To Bill Rosstein, apparently he thought about committing suicide. Apparently
there was even a note. They found a suicide note,
but he maintained, like you said, with the cops, that
he didn't have anything to do with anything but most
of the cleanup.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The cleanup, getting rid of the murder weapon and then
holding onto the body.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, but which the reason he held on the body
he was supposed to get apparently supposed to grind this
body up. And that's where he finally stopped short and
was like, Jesus, I can't do this.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And he said he told the cops that the reason
he called them finally was because since he wasn't going
through with grinding up the body, he was worried what
this woman, Marjorie deal Armstrong was going to do to him.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
He's like, I dated this lady, right, She's not a
nice person.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
And so when he says Marjorie deal Armstrong to the
eerie cops, just alarm bells start going off because by
this time, already Marjorie deal Armstrong was a local legend
as far as criminals are concerned. She was this very
very bright woman who I think at the age of
thirty five back in the eighties, had been indicted for
(19:40):
killing one of her boyfriends, shot him six times. She
played that she had killed him in self defense, that
he was an abuser of her, and she was actually acquitted.
A few years after that, she was married to a
guy named Armstrong, and he showed up at the hospital
with a head trauma and actually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
(20:02):
But there was no coroner's in quest or anything like that,
and so it just was something suspicious, you know, the
second second significant other of this woman to die under
suspicious or violent circumstances. So when Bill Rothstein said, I'm
worried about what Marjorie deal Armstrong is going to do
to me, the cops seemed to have taken it very seriously.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Well, extremely seriously, because the next day they arrested her.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That's pretty serious for murder.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And about a year and a half later, a little
short of that, she pled guilty but mentally ill. She
was sentenced to seven to twenty and then Rothstein, for
his part, eventually died of cancer in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Right, and so you said that he had considered killing
himself and even wrote a suicide note, right, Yeah, there
was something very very odd on Bill Rothstein's suicide note.
And again he didn't kill himself, he died of cancer,
but he was able to actually show the cops where
a suicide note was and they read it, and the
first line of it, from what I understand, was this
(21:06):
has nothing to do with the collar bomb heist or
the Brian Wells murder.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, that's a it's a weird thing to put if
you had nothing to do with that, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Right, that's just a very odd thing to do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's like when the cops come in and you go,
there's nothing under the bed, don't don't there's no reason
to look there, right, They.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Said, we just want to make sure your fire alarm
is working. Yeah, exactly, part of a community service.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Cool, but the bed's fine.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right, So that is a very weird thing to say,
and that definitely piqud the interest of the cops. But
like you said, the cops convicted, or the state convicted
Marjorie deal Armstrong of the murder of James Roden or
Jim Roden. Right. Yeah, she's already in prison, and when
she's in prison, somehow this is what I'm unclear on
(21:59):
somehow it comes up or she starts talking or something
like that, that Jim Roden's death very much had to
do with the Wells case with Brian Wells murder, this
collar bomb heist, and that she knows a lot about it,
and if they'll transfer her to a minimum security prison
(22:19):
close to Eerie, she'll she'll start talking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, she has for the old Hannibal lecture treatment.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So is that how it came up, like she approached them,
because I'm unclear on that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I mean, I think so. This is in the Wired article,
it said that that there was a phone call from
a state cop who had just met with her about
something unrelated, like a different homicide, and she just and
it kind of makes sense though now actually when we
as we will learn she talked a lot, Yeah, a lot.
(22:54):
So it doesn't surprise me that another cop was just
meeting with her about something unrelated. She's like, bye, by
the way, that whole collar bomb thing, I got all
the skinny on that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, So there's a couple of things going on here.
By then, by the time she calls the cops, the
cops have already spoken, apparently with several informants that have
shared cells with her or spent time with her in
jail already, who are saying like this lady is the
mastermind of that collar bomb heightst that's making you guys
(23:24):
look bad.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, and eventually, you know, when they met with her
about this, she admitted that she was involved, but well,
she didn't met she was involved in the plot, but
she said, I knew about it. I gave him, I
gave him those two kitchen timers, and I was really
close by when it happened. And by the way, the
(23:48):
guy who blew up with the collar bomb, mister Wells,
he was actually in on it too and Lostein headed
the whole thing up.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Right by for her, Deil Armstrong, she said, But I
had nothing to do with it. I had all these
other little things to do with it. I never met
Brian Wells. I didn't know Brian Wells. I had nothing
to do with his death aside from supplying the kitchen
timers and knowing at it right exactly. So now it's
just getting weird, right because there's the Jim Roden murder,
(24:18):
who she says that she killed because he was abusing her,
who Rothstein said she killed over a dispute with money,
but is now she's saying is tied to the Wells case,
and which she knows a lot about but really nothing
about and had nothing to do with. So the cops
are like, well, let's just get this lad to talk
(24:38):
all we can. And one of the things they got
out of her was her she agreed to a tour
around Eerie, showing them all these places where she had been,
and these were all places that were related to the crime.
Like I believe she said she'd been at the pizza
delivery site. I think she said she'd been within a
mile of the of the bank when it was robbed,
(25:01):
Like all of this stuff. She's just like, they just
keep giving her this rope and she's just wrapping it
around her neck again and again and again and then
finally chuck at the end of this car ride, after
she's been interviewing with the cops multiple times, giving him
tons of info, what does she say?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
She asked for immunity at this point, after she had
basically completely incriminated herself, and previous to all this, a
lot more happened. There were four different informants who had
come forward and said that this lady's been talking about
this for a while. She very much had everything to
do with it. And then a couple of months after
(25:41):
she had started talking to the Feds, another big break came.
This witness came forward and said, Hey, there's this crack
dealer named Kenny Barnes. That is a crack dealer's name,
Kenneth Barnes, and he was involved. They used to go
fishing together. Armstrong deal Armstrong in Barnes, and she sang
(26:03):
like a canary to him basically, and said, here's what
she did. She her brother in law put him in
touch with Barnes while he was already in jail on
unrelated chart charges basically, And so Barnes was already in prison,
said hey, I think I can shorten my time, So
I'm going to try and get a reduced sentence at
(26:23):
least by spilling the beans on deal Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Right, And Barnes's brother in law was who turned him
into the cops.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So Barnes is like, I'm already I'm in jail for
selling crack. That's way different from being you know, very
much involved in this collar bomb heist. So he said, okay,
I'll tell you guys everything you want to know. I'll
be your star witness. Just reduce my sentence in this
for my involvement in this. And he started talking. When
(26:52):
he started talking, it was at Marjorie deal Armstrong's trial,
which was a pretty spectacular trial from all accounts.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, and before the trial even he told his story
was is that she wanted me to kill her father.
He was spending what would end up being her inheritance,
she felt, and so she wanted him dead. And so
she was doing this collar bomb heist to raise money
to pay me to kill her dad.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Which I mean, like that's just the biggest face poem
I've ever heard of. Yeah for a real So, okay,
we'll start Marjorie deil Armstrong's trial after we take a break.
How about that man?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
That sounds good?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Okay, okay, chuck. So before Marjorie deil Armstrong goes to trial,
(28:08):
and remember, she's already in prison for the murder of
Jim Rodin right, shooting him in the back with a
twelve gage shotgun. Yes, Bill Rothstein is dead. I want
to call him, Ah Rostein. So Ace Rothstein's so bad.
But Bill Rothstein is dead. He died of lymphoma. A
couple of years before, and by the time Marjorie deil
(28:28):
Armstrong is brought to trial for her involvement as the
mastermind of the collar bomb plot, they have to they
have to verify that she's actually mentally competent to stand trial.
And that's kind of touchy because remember when she she
was charged with killing her boyfriend back in I think
(28:51):
nineteen eighty four, nineteen eighty six, Yeah, she was. She
was deemed incompetent seven times by psychiatrists before for the
judge finally said I'm throwing all that out and deciding
that she is competent, We're going to go ahead with
the trial. Yes, they also found like four hundred pounds
of butter and seven hundred pounds of cheese in her
(29:14):
in her house when they were investigating that particular murder.
And in between nineteen eighty four, in the time she
was tried in the collar bomb heist, she had been
diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so there it was actually kind
of questionable whether she was mentally competent to seand trial,
And right as they were about to start the proceedings,
(29:36):
I think the judge ruled that she was competent to
say and trial. She was diagnosed with cancer herself, that's right.
So they waited for the cancer diagnosis, her prognosis, and
the cancer doctor came back and said three to seven years,
and the prosecutors said, giddy up.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
That's right. So previous to this, she had gotten the indictment.
But in that indictment, it's very important that she was
not I mean, granted she was the only one technically indicted,
but they in the indictment it said that Rothstein was
definitely a conspirator and Wells, the man who was who
was the victim, supposedly he was definitely involved in this
(30:16):
thing from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. As a very important thing that
that showed up in this indictment.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, they said he agreed to rob this bank, he
thought it was a fake bomb, and he was told
this scavenger hunt was a ruse to fool the cops
and if and when he did get caught, he could say,
you know, I was just following orders basically what he did.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Right, And so Brian Wells's family did not like this
at all. Apparently during the the the press conference where
the Daaverrie County is announcing this, you know, this case
case is closed. This is the indictment that they have
the Wells. Some of Brian Wells's sisters were shouting liar
at her. They did not take the idea that their
(30:58):
brother was an accomplice in this at all very well.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, I mean there was a lot of uh, there's
a lot of back and forth about whether Wells was
in on the big the thing from the beginning, or
whether or not he was in from the beginning and
then at one point wanted out and was forced to
do this, or whether he was forced from the beginning.
Everyone's telling a different story. And you know, basically the
(31:24):
trial is where we will learn, you know, if all
that is true, what really happened.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So Marjorie deil Armstrong's lawyers said, you know, to heck
with with caution, let's put you on the stand. Okay,
you've already incriminated yourself multiple times. Why not do it
in open court too, And she apparently was quite a
(31:50):
She put on quite a performance on the on the
stand over like two days, I think five and a
half hours of testimony. She yelled, she cried, she berated
the prosecutor and her own lawyer. When she did mention
Brian Wells. She said, I've never met the guy. I
learned of his death when everybody else did on the
TV news, And she stuck with her story though that
(32:14):
she had nothing to do with this. She knew a
little bit about it. She knew the conspirators. The real
mastermind was Bill Rothstein, and it wasn't her. That's what
she maintained though throughout the trial and even afterward.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That's right. But before she took the stand a few
days earlier is when they trotted out Ken Barnes and
he took the stand, and he said he had you know,
by the time she took the stand, he had given
a different account of the story than she would later do.
So he got up there and said she was behind
all this. She was the mastermind. Rostein was involved. She
(32:55):
just recruited him. Basically, she recruited Wells because Wells needed money.
And here's where the prostitutes come into play. Apparently Wells
had a relationship with a prostitute who was also a
crack addict, so he would buy crack to give her,
presumably as trade for sex. He ended up falling into
(33:16):
debt with these crack dealers and needed money, and.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So it's basically the plot of Bulin.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Rouge, and he contends Barnes did that that up until
the day of the crime, Wells was thought this whole
thing was fake, realized that it was a double cross,
it was a real bomb, and he tried to run
away and was tackled and they put a gun to
(33:41):
his head and locked him into this device.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So imagine this, chuck. Imagine being Brian Wells and you're
agreeing to put on what you are presuming is a
fake caller bomb to go carry out a real bank
robbery because you need money, because you're indebted to crack dealers,
because you borrowed from crack from them to give to
your girlfriend, who's a prostitute who you have to give
(34:05):
crack to be with. And then you find out on
the day of that this is a real bomb and
they're putting it on you, whether you like it or not.
What a horrible what a horrible turn of events for
this poor guy. Yeah, I mean, that's just so sad,
no matter how you slice it. And then if you
take his families, if you take his family's opinion that
(34:28):
he was one hundred percent innocent, that he really was
delivering pizzas and was accosted and had nothing to do
with any of this, which I take with a pretty
big grain of salt. I mean, that's just as bad.
But it's bad either way, whether he was an accomplice
at one point or not. It's super sad. There's a
very sad thread that's running through this story in the
(34:49):
form of Brian Wells. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Well, yeah, And on the final day of her trial,
at the very very end of her taking the stand,
is when she finally said that she didn't know him,
never met him, mm hmm. And the first time she
had ever laid eyes on him was on the news
that day.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Right. Basically, he and Marjorie deal Armstrong are fishing, right,
they're fishing buddies that he's somebody that she would turn to,
And she's finding out that her father is blowing through
her inheritance and she wants to put a stop to it,
and so she approaches Barnes to get him to kill
her father. But to get that two hundred and fifty
(35:26):
K that he says he will kill her father for,
she's got to rob a bank. So she turns to
her friend Bill Rothstein to come up with this collar
bomb to put it on this other person, Brian Wells,
who's going to carry this out. And oh, by the way,
we're also going to come up with a scavenger hunt
to either throw the cops off or to actually make
Brian Wells feel more comfortable, give him some sort of
(35:46):
cover in case he is caught. And that's what we're
gonna go with. Go Team and Marjorie deal Armstrong. So
that's preposterous that that wasn't me, Kenneth Barnes said, that's
that's exactly what happened. And then Bill Rothstein wasn't alive
to contradict any of it.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So she's sentenced, right, she's convicted as the mastermind of
this pot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
The jury took about eleven hours and she was convicted
of armed bank robbery, conspiracy in using a destructive device
in a crime of violence.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
That's a big one. I'll bet, I'll bet that carries
a hefty sentence with it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, and she would die in prison, just like her
prognosis said, she didn't. I think she lasted a few years. Now.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
They gave her three to seven years and she lasted seven.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, so she finally passed away, and you know, that's
kind of the end of the story. Even though there
is a retired FBI investigator named Jim Fisher who said,
I think they got this all wrong. I think that
Rothstein was the guy the whole time, and he makes
a decently compelling case, but it's you know, everyone's dead now.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, Jim Fisher's gone a little bit down the rabbit
hole if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to tell with
literally everyone having died. But for his money, he thinks
it was Rostein.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, And so there's probably not many people who are
familiar with the case who would say that it wasn't
Rothstein who built the bomb. But what Jim Fisher saying
is like Bill Rothstein was behind everything, and Marjorie dial
Armstrong murdering Jim Roden was just like a gift that
(37:30):
dropped in Bill Rothstein's lap that he could use to
make all these puppets dance, including the cops, and that
the whole point of it was to create this elaborate scheme,
this elaborate crime that would puzzle people for years and
years to come, which it's doing that, and that that
(37:51):
was the point, and that Brian Wells was going to
die one way or another, right, because I think the
FBI said they concluded the whole scavenger hunt was a
hoax and that Brian well was never going to survive this,
didn't they. Yeah, so so this is Jim Fisher's position.
But like you said, now that everybody's dead, really the
only question is, you know, just how how complicit was
(38:13):
Brian Wells is the last big question that's right. And
then there's one other guy who seems to have got
off scott free named Floyd Stockton. Did you look into
him a little bit? So he's a guy who was there.
He was he was there. He supposedly handed Rothstein the
bomb to put around Brian Wells's neck. He was staying
(38:34):
with Rothstein as a buddy on his couch, fleeing a
rape charge in Washington, and somehow, for some reason, he
got immunity and was not indicted even though he was
very much involved in this, and he got off scott free.
And Brian Wells's family is going nuts over the fact
that this guy's out there walking free, that he was,
(38:55):
he was a part of this this caper, and he
he didn't see a second inside of a jail.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there were more people involved.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Emon, So, what do you think do you think Brian
Wells was complicit? And if so, how much?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Oh? Man, I don't know. I mean, it sounds like
I kind of believe the story that they were all
in it together and he was probably double crossed. But
this is just from reading about this thing many, many
years later.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Do you think Marjorie deal Armstrong was the mastermind?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I don't know either. Maybe we'll never know, but we might,
but probably not. You got anything else?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
All right, Well, if you want to know more about
the collar bomb case, you can type that word and
the search bar your favorite search engine and it will
likely bring up a very great article on Wired from
Rich Shapiro. Read that start there. It's great And since
I said Rich Shapiro, it's tide for the listener.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Mail with one on emoji and John Adams. Hey guys
enjoyed the recent podcast about the history of emojis and emoticons.
Reminded me of a discovery I made in the diaries
of John Adams that makes a historical figure who's sometimes
described as aloof seemed completely charming when the future president
(40:19):
was about twenty two years old. He made it an
entry in his diary in seventeen fifty six, saying, a
cloudy morning about ten, and he drew a little sunshine
breakout a warm day. He uses a little line drawing
on the sun that I always call an eighteenth century emoji.
He likes a little creation so much he re used
it a month later in the same diary, A misty morning,
(40:42):
little sunshine breakout about noon. On the Massachusetts Historical Society website,
the text of his letters and diaries is faithfully transcribed,
but in the cases. In these cases, a parenthetical note
tells readers that there are small drawings of the sun
and advises them to refer to the scans of the
handwritten page where you can actually see this. Apparently he
(41:05):
grew out of his habit, though, because his later diaries
do not use the adorable little son. Keep up great work.
My wife and I host a local history podcast for
Boston Nice. It's tightly scripted. Oh man, he didn't tell
me what it was. I would have totally shouted it out.
What I know, big missed opportunity there, Jake. One of
these days will be confident enough to have an unscripted
(41:27):
conversation like you guys do. And that is from Jake Scaniers.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Okay, so everybody's look up Jake scan yours Boston History
podcast and he'll probably bring it up right. Yeah, probably,
So thanks a lot, Jake. Thanks for keeping up the
good fight up there. That's pretty cool. Good story too.
If you want to get in touch with us, like
Jake did, tell us about your podcast, that's great. You
can send us all an email of the Stuff podcast
at house stuffworks dot com and has always joined us
(41:54):
at our home on the web, Stuffishould Know dot com.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1 (42:05):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hi, everybody. Chuck here curating a specially hen picked selected
episode and this one's from May twenty eighteen, and boy,
oh boy, this is a good one. I forgot all
about this. And this is part of our true crime
series Not so Grizzly as far as like you know.
It's not about an axe murder or anything like that.
(00:21):
It's about a heist and I'd love me some heist.
And this is called the color Bomb Heist. Welcome to
Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, and this
is Stuff you Should Know, the True Crime edition again.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, we've done a few of these, right.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
True crime is so hot right now?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hey man, we were dabbling on the periphery of true
crime when most of these people were wet in their diapers.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right, man, that is right. I'm glad somebody finally
said it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
We were occasionally doing a poor job of covering true
crime ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
That's right. We're gonna do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Right, we continue that great rich history.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, because true crime can be extraordinarily interesting, especially when
you're talking about an extraordinarily over complicated heist that results
in a man's bizarre death, death by bizarre means, and
involves what really ultimately, you could make a case as
(01:39):
an unsolved mystery still today, even though it's technically bureaucratically
been solved. A lot of people say, no, this thing
hasn't been solved yet.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Got homemade bombs, you got a scavenger hunt, got a cracked.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Dealer, well, you got to have a cracked dealer.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Got prostitutes, goet pizza.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And yeah, and let's start with the pizza.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Geo metro right, which, by the way, I just wanted
to point out ahead of time, there is no more
pizza delivery car two thousand and three than a geometro.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
A teal one, no less.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, the thing is, it's almost like they rolled them
right off the line in two thousand and three with
just straight to a pizza plates.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
With the pizza guy inside already.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, and the little sign magneted on top of.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It a little crooked yep. So the whole thing does
start actually with a pizza guy, a pizza place, and
a teal Geo Metro, And like you said, the whole
thing starts in two thousand and three in Erie, Pennsylvania,
and there was a and still is I looked it up.
There's a pizza place called Mama MIA's Pizza Rhea and
(02:55):
on the nose, but fine, sure it gets the job
done right. And at about two pm on August twenty eighth,
two thousand and three, a pizza delivery guy named Brian Wells,
I think he was forty six at the time. He
was about to end his morning shift when a call
came in for two small sausage and pepperoni pizzas and
(03:19):
the delivery was I guess the opposite way of where
Brian Wells was going to go on his way home.
But he said, you know what, I'll take this one
last order and he walked out the door at about
two and the next time that Brian Wells was seen
in public again, he was entering a PNC bank branch
(03:39):
just down the street from his pizza place, a few
miles up the road. And he looked a lot different
than he did when he left the pizza parlor about
twenty eight minutes earlier.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, so, first of all, he was walking with a cane,
kind of a funny looking cane, and then under his
shirt he had clearly and if you've seen the footage
and the photos, you can see warning by the way,
for video, it's yeah, for the future, it's quite graphic.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's out there, but it is out there.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But he had clearly some large, boxy looking thing. It
looked like he was wearing a shoe box around his
neck with a T shirt pulled over it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Kind of but in the teller at the bank's defense,
could have been an artificial torso and she probably didn't
want to draw attention to it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, she was being very kind, right.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So one thing I want to point out too, there's
already discrepancy what we're like a minute into the story,
and there's already a discrepancy that shirt he was wearing
over that boxy thing underneath his shirt say guess on it.
And I've seen that it was written somehow, like in
spray paint or marker, or that it was an actual
guest Jeans T shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
H really so either an officially license or not licensed
whatever brand shirt or a homemade, janky spray painted version.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, and if you look, the pictures don't really show
one way or another. Yeah, it looks more like it's homemade.
And I looked up to see if there was a
guest shirt that, you know, if I could find the
actual guest shirt. It wasn't. Couldn't, so I think it
may have been homemade. Regardless. He's wearing this shirt that
says guests on and he walks up to the teller
and he hands the teller a note, and the note says,
(05:28):
I have a bomb. Get everybody who has access codes
to the safe together and put two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars into a bag and bring it to me.
I think he said, you have fifteen minutes to do.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
This, yeah, which kind of a long time if you're
a bank robber.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It is. It's like almost like luxurious around the time.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
What it said, like sixty seconds.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, or this should have happened yesterday. Chop chop, right.
So he he stands back and waits, apparently grabs a
dumb dumb lollipop out of the little basket while he's waiting,
because why not. And the teller says, sir, we don't
have like we can't get into the safe. That's just
not how things work. I'm sorry, but as a consolation prize,
(06:13):
I'm going to put eighty seven hundred and two dollars
into a bag for you right here and send you
on your way. Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, and importantly we did not mention he lifted his
shirt up and showed this teller right this this bomb,
this what's called a collar bomb, strapped around his neck.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Right. So he walks out of the bank a free man.
And the next time that he's seen in public is
about fifteen minutes later, and he's seen in public by
some Pennsylvania State troopers who are on the lookout for
this guy. And he's still wearing that shirt, he's still
got the big bulge, and he's standing around his geometro
(06:50):
parked in a parking lot that is actually shared with
that PNC bank and the McDonald's. And he's in a
parking lot right there. So he left the bank robbery
and went about one hundred to two hundred feet away
from it, and that's where he was found like a
full fifteen minutes later. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So these these these kappas, these troopers come over and
he says, hey, guys, this is a bomb around my neck.
A group of a group of black men chained this
bomb around my neck at gunpoint, forced me to rob
this bank for them. I'm not gonna I'm not lying here.
(07:29):
This thing is gonna go off. So the cops call
the bomb squad, and they do. I saw, you know
his The family of Welles is still angry about the
fact that she says they did nothing to save them.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
But I would be too.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
By the way, we should, shout out Wired magazine.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh yes, we really really should.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
A lot of this came from a great, heavily researched
story by Rich Shapiro from about eight years ago, called
the Incredible True Story of the Color Bomb Heights. So
thank you Rich for your work. But the dude's on
the ground said, I mean, I kind of remember this happening,
because when I went and looked at the still images,
(08:10):
I was like, wait a minute, I've seen this right, Yeah,
And it's this guy sitting on the ground with this
thing around his neck, kind of just waiting, seated on
the pavement for about twenty five minutes. He says, very interestingly,
like did you call my boss at the pizza place?
And then all of a sudden, this bomb starts beeping fast,
(08:33):
which is never a good sign. And when I was
reading the story, I thought, well, that's just a ruse.
But no, this thing detonated and killed him. It blasted
a hole in his chest. It did not blow his
head off like the internet says. No, But it was
a violent, awful death.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, it was, and it was pretty quick. And then
three minutes after the bomb goes off, the bomb squad
showed up. So he's dead. This guy, Brian Wells is dead.
And the whole time he was protesting, he's like, you know,
this is I was forced to rob the bank. Are
you guys going to get this off of me or what? Yeah,
(09:12):
he said something like did you call my boss? Because
apparently he was a very loyal employee. He'd been working
at Mamma MIA's for how long, like ten years or
something like that, for years and years, and he'd only
called in late once, not even sick late, once when
his cat died, said Rich Shapiro in that Wired article.
(09:32):
So it seemed like he actually was telling the truth
that he had been abducted and forced to rob the
bank and then had been a victim. I think the
bomb going off really kind of put an exclamation point
on his story that he was not a willing participant
in this, right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, So the cops obviously check out that geo metro
and it's sweet, sweet styling, and they saw his cane
and there turns out the reason why Cain was funny
looking is because it was also a gun.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And it really looks a lot like a gun.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah when you when you look at it, the bomb
was clearly homemade. I had a couple of different parts
to it. It was this this banded metal collar that
he wore around his neck. It was like locked to
his neck, had four key holes, and then a combination lock.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It was really locked to his neck.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And then an iron box with two pipe bombs loaded
up ready to go. And then interestingly, and this will
figure put a pin in this one because this will
figure in the in the case later. It had two
kitchen timers in there in addition to an elect an
electronic countdown timer yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Which was I guess the thing that started beeping faster
and faster.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah. And then some decoy wires. You always got to
have those if you're if you're making a bomb.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Sure, but I mean, like that's pretty smart. So there's
decoy wires that were apparently also stickers that said like
don't do it or you know, skull and crossbones or
rat pois and whatever, getty and sweet. Yeah, and oh
that's a good nine to five reference.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I just saw that the other night.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So it was a it was a homemade bomb, but
it was by all accounts a well made bomb too,
and it worked, which I think is one of the
big the big questions about any homemade bomb is whether
it will actually work or not. And this one worked.
It's with deadly effect, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So the most important thing they found in this car, though,
were some letters, some handwritten notes addressed to bomb hostage.
So one of them said, I mean, these were instructions
basically on what this guy should do, which further kind
of cemented like, hey, this guy's probably telling the truth.
It said, yeah, go rob this bank of two hundred
(11:47):
and fifty grand, and then very strangely outlined this little
scavenger hunt basically to where eventually you will land upon
the keys to in common nation to get you out
of this thing by going all over town and finding
these various hidden notes, and at the last note you
will you will be able to free yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, the last one will give you the keys and
the combination. But you better hurry because you have a
limited amount of time. If you stop and think you're
going to waste time, you're going to die. We can
detonate this remotely, and we're going to be following you.
It was written pretty crazily. Have you read any of
the note? Oh yeah, yeah, So like it's it's got
(12:29):
a lot of like just like a lot of jump
jump cuts and or jump scares in it, you know,
like you'll it's like go do this and and then
go do that after that, and then don't try anything funny.
We're gonna blow you up, you know. Yeah, it has
those every once in a while. And there's drawings in
there of where he could find like like the notes
and all that. So that he made it as far
(12:49):
as the first note, which was McDonald's. It was in
that that McDonald's that shared a parking lot with the
P and C Bank. That was where the first note was.
So he made it to that that McDonald's grab that note,
and that note was directing him out of town to
another note, and he didn't make it that far. But
when the cops caught up with him.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, so the scavenger hunt was, like you said, he
had gotten just to the one place so the cops
then say, well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
complete this scavenger hunt.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
They were like, whoa, you just blew my mind. That's
some great policing.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Should we take a break? Sure, all right, scavenger hunt
is just started by the Kappas. We'll be right back.
(13:59):
All right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So the scavenger hunt still on, Chuck, and they make it.
The cops follow from the note that Brian Wells had
to the next clue, and they found the next note
and that directed them to another place even further out
of town to where they found the jar where the
note was supposed to be. But the note was gone.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, and they don't really know what that means. They
didn't know if it was just something to keep them
busy preoccupied. They didn't know if the person who was
designing this scavenger hunt got interrupted or knew that the
cops were around and they were doing it sort of
in real time. But at any rate, unfortunately, this scavenger
hunt just kind of pizzled out. Because that was kind
of a cool part of the story.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, it really was. It was like, it's one of
the things that makes this just an incredibly bizarre crime. Yeah,
why the scavenger hunt, It's going to keep coming up
again and again. Right, So, when the scavenger hunt ran out,
the trail actually went cold. The case started to get
cold for a few months. The cops sniffed around Brian Wells,
tried to figure out, you know, why him, what happened
(15:05):
with him, And they went back to his place of
employment and they kind of checked out the kind of
person he was, right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, And they very smartly said, well, wait a minute,
why don't we why don't we check out what that
last delivery was supposed to be? There may be a
clue there. And it was an interesting place was at
the was you could only get there by dirt road
and it was right next to a TV transmission tower
in a kind of a remote wooded area, right, and
(15:36):
cops combed the area, found shoe prints that matched Wells.
They found those classic iconic geometro tire tracks that everyone
recognizes by sight. But there really weren't any more clues
as far as the cops were concerned at that location.
So where the cops had found a dead end, a
(15:57):
reporter and photographer for the Eerie Times News went and
did a little investiating his own and saw this house,
you know, next door where the pizza was delivered, and said, well,
you know, I'm just gonna go knock on the door.
This guy answers the door, and his name was Bill Rostein,
and he actually said, you know, you can look around
if you want. He's fifty nine years old, he's a handyman,
(16:18):
wasn't married, he'd lived there his whole life, and apparently
he seemed really smart, had a very articulate way of speaking,
and apparently was fluent in several different languages. And the
journalist kind of did a little poking around and didn't
really see much and took off, But he made contact
(16:39):
with Bill Rothstein. He's the first person that kind of
was went to.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Knocking, right, But nothing came of it, and the cops,
as far as I know, never went and met with
Bill Rothstein, even thoughse houses right next to the delivery
place where Wells was supposedly accosted. Right. Yeah, and then
a few like I said, the case is gone cold
by this time, A couple of months have gone by
(17:03):
the whole I mean, you've got this crime, this very
public caper that's captured the public's attention. A guy died
by being blown up while the while under police supervision.
And there's no leads, there's no nothing. And then finally, uh,
several weeks, a few months, I think after the call,
(17:25):
there's a nine to one one call from Bill Rothstein
and he tells the police that in his freezer he
has one of those serial killer chest freezers, there's actually
a body, a man's body, and that it was it
is not someone he murdered, but he helped cover up
(17:45):
the murder of this man who was the boyfriend of
Bill Rothstein's ex girlfriend from way way back in the day.
And now the chain of events has been set off, right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And if you're like me and you start hearing wife
of the ex girlfriend's dad's cousin, your brain gets a
little jumbled. So just very plainly, he used to date
this woman. This woman called him up and said, hey,
I've murdered my current boyfriend or was it her husband?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It was her boyfriend, yeah, And she.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Said, and I need your help here. I blasted him
with a shotgun. And I know we tated, oh twenty
years ago, but will you come help me out? Because
they were still in contact, I guess they remained friends.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I guess. So in this rack.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
To Bill Rosstein, apparently he thought about committing suicide. Apparently
there was even a note. They found a suicide note,
but he maintained, like you said, with the cops, that
he didn't have anything to do with anything but most
of the cleanup.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The cleanup, getting rid of the murder weapon and then
holding onto the body.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, but which the reason he held on the body
he was supposed to get apparently supposed to grind this
body up. And that's where he finally stopped short and
was like, Jesus, I can't do this.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And he said he told the cops that the reason
he called them finally was because since he wasn't going
through with grinding up the body, he was worried what
this woman, Marjorie deal Armstrong was going to do to him.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
He's like, I dated this lady, right, She's not a
nice person.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
And so when he says Marjorie deal Armstrong to the
eerie cops, just alarm bells start going off because by
this time, already Marjorie deal Armstrong was a local legend
as far as criminals are concerned. She was this very
very bright woman who I think at the age of
thirty five back in the eighties, had been indicted for
(19:40):
killing one of her boyfriends, shot him six times. She
played that she had killed him in self defense, that
he was an abuser of her, and she was actually acquitted.
A few years after that, she was married to a
guy named Armstrong, and he showed up at the hospital
with a head trauma and actually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
(20:02):
But there was no coroner's in quest or anything like that,
and so it just was something suspicious, you know, the
second second significant other of this woman to die under
suspicious or violent circumstances. So when Bill Rothstein said, I'm
worried about what Marjorie deal Armstrong is going to do
to me, the cops seemed to have taken it very seriously.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Well, extremely seriously, because the next day they arrested her.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That's pretty serious for murder.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And about a year and a half later, a little
short of that, she pled guilty but mentally ill. She
was sentenced to seven to twenty and then Rothstein, for
his part, eventually died of cancer in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Right, and so you said that he had considered killing
himself and even wrote a suicide note, right, Yeah, there
was something very very odd on Bill Rothstein's suicide note.
And again he didn't kill himself, he died of cancer,
but he was able to actually show the cops where
a suicide note was and they read it, and the
first line of it, from what I understand, was this
(21:06):
has nothing to do with the collar bomb heist or
the Brian Wells murder.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, that's a it's a weird thing to put if
you had nothing to do with that, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Right, that's just a very odd thing to do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's like when the cops come in and you go,
there's nothing under the bed, don't don't there's no reason
to look there, right, They.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Said, we just want to make sure your fire alarm
is working. Yeah, exactly, part of a community service.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Cool, but the bed's fine.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right, So that is a very weird thing to say,
and that definitely piqud the interest of the cops. But
like you said, the cops convicted, or the state convicted
Marjorie deal Armstrong of the murder of James Roden or
Jim Roden. Right. Yeah, she's already in prison, and when
she's in prison, somehow this is what I'm unclear on
(21:59):
somehow it comes up or she starts talking or something
like that, that Jim Roden's death very much had to
do with the Wells case with Brian Wells murder, this
collar bomb heist, and that she knows a lot about it,
and if they'll transfer her to a minimum security prison
(22:19):
close to Eerie, she'll she'll start talking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, she has for the old Hannibal lecture treatment.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So is that how it came up, like she approached them,
because I'm unclear on that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I mean, I think so. This is in the Wired article,
it said that that there was a phone call from
a state cop who had just met with her about
something unrelated, like a different homicide, and she just and
it kind of makes sense though now actually when we
as we will learn she talked a lot, Yeah, a lot.
(22:54):
So it doesn't surprise me that another cop was just
meeting with her about something unrelated. She's like, bye, by
the way, that whole collar bomb thing, I got all
the skinny on that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, So there's a couple of things going on here.
By then, by the time she calls the cops, the
cops have already spoken, apparently with several informants that have
shared cells with her or spent time with her in
jail already, who are saying like this lady is the
mastermind of that collar bomb heightst that's making you guys
(23:24):
look bad.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, and eventually, you know, when they met with her
about this, she admitted that she was involved, but well,
she didn't met she was involved in the plot, but
she said, I knew about it. I gave him, I
gave him those two kitchen timers, and I was really
close by when it happened. And by the way, the
(23:48):
guy who blew up with the collar bomb, mister Wells,
he was actually in on it too and Lostein headed
the whole thing up.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Right by for her, Deil Armstrong, she said, But I
had nothing to do with it. I had all these
other little things to do with it. I never met
Brian Wells. I didn't know Brian Wells. I had nothing
to do with his death aside from supplying the kitchen
timers and knowing at it right exactly. So now it's
just getting weird, right because there's the Jim Roden murder,
(24:18):
who she says that she killed because he was abusing her,
who Rothstein said she killed over a dispute with money,
but is now she's saying is tied to the Wells case,
and which she knows a lot about but really nothing
about and had nothing to do with. So the cops
are like, well, let's just get this lad to talk
(24:38):
all we can. And one of the things they got
out of her was her she agreed to a tour
around Eerie, showing them all these places where she had been,
and these were all places that were related to the crime.
Like I believe she said she'd been at the pizza
delivery site. I think she said she'd been within a
mile of the of the bank when it was robbed,
(25:01):
Like all of this stuff. She's just like, they just
keep giving her this rope and she's just wrapping it
around her neck again and again and again and then
finally chuck at the end of this car ride, after
she's been interviewing with the cops multiple times, giving him
tons of info, what does she say?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
She asked for immunity at this point, after she had
basically completely incriminated herself, and previous to all this, a
lot more happened. There were four different informants who had
come forward and said that this lady's been talking about
this for a while. She very much had everything to
do with it. And then a couple of months after
(25:41):
she had started talking to the Feds, another big break came.
This witness came forward and said, Hey, there's this crack
dealer named Kenny Barnes. That is a crack dealer's name,
Kenneth Barnes, and he was involved. They used to go
fishing together. Armstrong deal Armstrong in Barnes, and she sang
(26:03):
like a canary to him basically, and said, here's what
she did. She her brother in law put him in
touch with Barnes while he was already in jail on
unrelated chart charges basically, And so Barnes was already in prison,
said hey, I think I can shorten my time, So
I'm going to try and get a reduced sentence at
(26:23):
least by spilling the beans on deal Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Right, And Barnes's brother in law was who turned him
into the cops.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So Barnes is like, I'm already I'm in jail for
selling crack. That's way different from being you know, very
much involved in this collar bomb heist. So he said, okay,
I'll tell you guys everything you want to know. I'll
be your star witness. Just reduce my sentence in this
for my involvement in this. And he started talking. When
(26:52):
he started talking, it was at Marjorie deal Armstrong's trial,
which was a pretty spectacular trial from all accounts.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, and before the trial even he told his story
was is that she wanted me to kill her father.
He was spending what would end up being her inheritance,
she felt, and so she wanted him dead. And so
she was doing this collar bomb heist to raise money
to pay me to kill her dad.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Which I mean, like that's just the biggest face poem
I've ever heard of. Yeah for a real So, okay,
we'll start Marjorie deil Armstrong's trial after we take a break.
How about that man?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
That sounds good?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Okay, okay, chuck. So before Marjorie deil Armstrong goes to trial,
(28:08):
and remember, she's already in prison for the murder of
Jim Rodin right, shooting him in the back with a
twelve gage shotgun. Yes, Bill Rothstein is dead. I want
to call him, Ah Rostein. So Ace Rothstein's so bad.
But Bill Rothstein is dead. He died of lymphoma. A
couple of years before, and by the time Marjorie deil
(28:28):
Armstrong is brought to trial for her involvement as the
mastermind of the collar bomb plot, they have to they
have to verify that she's actually mentally competent to stand trial.
And that's kind of touchy because remember when she she
was charged with killing her boyfriend back in I think
(28:51):
nineteen eighty four, nineteen eighty six, Yeah, she was. She
was deemed incompetent seven times by psychiatrists before for the
judge finally said I'm throwing all that out and deciding
that she is competent, We're going to go ahead with
the trial. Yes, they also found like four hundred pounds
of butter and seven hundred pounds of cheese in her
(29:14):
in her house when they were investigating that particular murder.
And in between nineteen eighty four, in the time she
was tried in the collar bomb heist, she had been
diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so there it was actually kind
of questionable whether she was mentally competent to seand trial,
And right as they were about to start the proceedings,
(29:36):
I think the judge ruled that she was competent to
say and trial. She was diagnosed with cancer herself, that's right.
So they waited for the cancer diagnosis, her prognosis, and
the cancer doctor came back and said three to seven years,
and the prosecutors said, giddy up.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
That's right. So previous to this, she had gotten the indictment.
But in that indictment, it's very important that she was
not I mean, granted she was the only one technically indicted,
but they in the indictment it said that Rothstein was
definitely a conspirator and Wells, the man who was who
was the victim, supposedly he was definitely involved in this
(30:16):
thing from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. As a very important thing that
that showed up in this indictment.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, they said he agreed to rob this bank, he
thought it was a fake bomb, and he was told
this scavenger hunt was a ruse to fool the cops
and if and when he did get caught, he could say,
you know, I was just following orders basically what he did.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Right, And so Brian Wells's family did not like this
at all. Apparently during the the the press conference where
the Daaverrie County is announcing this, you know, this case
case is closed. This is the indictment that they have
the Wells. Some of Brian Wells's sisters were shouting liar
at her. They did not take the idea that their
(30:58):
brother was an accomplice in this at all very well.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, I mean there was a lot of uh, there's
a lot of back and forth about whether Wells was
in on the big the thing from the beginning, or
whether or not he was in from the beginning and
then at one point wanted out and was forced to
do this, or whether he was forced from the beginning.
Everyone's telling a different story. And you know, basically the
(31:24):
trial is where we will learn, you know, if all
that is true, what really happened.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So Marjorie deil Armstrong's lawyers said, you know, to heck
with with caution, let's put you on the stand. Okay,
you've already incriminated yourself multiple times. Why not do it
in open court too, And she apparently was quite a
(31:50):
She put on quite a performance on the on the
stand over like two days, I think five and a
half hours of testimony. She yelled, she cried, she berated
the prosecutor and her own lawyer. When she did mention
Brian Wells. She said, I've never met the guy. I
learned of his death when everybody else did on the
TV news, And she stuck with her story though that
(32:14):
she had nothing to do with this. She knew a
little bit about it. She knew the conspirators. The real
mastermind was Bill Rothstein, and it wasn't her. That's what
she maintained though throughout the trial and even afterward.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That's right. But before she took the stand a few
days earlier is when they trotted out Ken Barnes and
he took the stand, and he said he had you know,
by the time she took the stand, he had given
a different account of the story than she would later do.
So he got up there and said she was behind
all this. She was the mastermind. Rostein was involved. She
(32:55):
just recruited him. Basically, she recruited Wells because Wells needed money.
And here's where the prostitutes come into play. Apparently Wells
had a relationship with a prostitute who was also a
crack addict, so he would buy crack to give her,
presumably as trade for sex. He ended up falling into
(33:16):
debt with these crack dealers and needed money, and.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So it's basically the plot of Bulin.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Rouge, and he contends Barnes did that that up until
the day of the crime, Wells was thought this whole
thing was fake, realized that it was a double cross,
it was a real bomb, and he tried to run
away and was tackled and they put a gun to
(33:41):
his head and locked him into this device.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So imagine this, chuck. Imagine being Brian Wells and you're
agreeing to put on what you are presuming is a
fake caller bomb to go carry out a real bank
robbery because you need money, because you're indebted to crack dealers,
because you borrowed from crack from them to give to
your girlfriend, who's a prostitute who you have to give
(34:05):
crack to be with. And then you find out on
the day of that this is a real bomb and
they're putting it on you, whether you like it or not.
What a horrible what a horrible turn of events for
this poor guy. Yeah, I mean, that's just so sad,
no matter how you slice it. And then if you
take his families, if you take his family's opinion that
(34:28):
he was one hundred percent innocent, that he really was
delivering pizzas and was accosted and had nothing to do
with any of this, which I take with a pretty
big grain of salt. I mean, that's just as bad.
But it's bad either way, whether he was an accomplice
at one point or not. It's super sad. There's a
very sad thread that's running through this story in the
(34:49):
form of Brian Wells. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Well, yeah, And on the final day of her trial,
at the very very end of her taking the stand,
is when she finally said that she didn't know him,
never met him, mm hmm. And the first time she
had ever laid eyes on him was on the news
that day.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Right. Basically, he and Marjorie deal Armstrong are fishing, right,
they're fishing buddies that he's somebody that she would turn to,
And she's finding out that her father is blowing through
her inheritance and she wants to put a stop to it,
and so she approaches Barnes to get him to kill
her father. But to get that two hundred and fifty
(35:26):
K that he says he will kill her father for,
she's got to rob a bank. So she turns to
her friend Bill Rothstein to come up with this collar
bomb to put it on this other person, Brian Wells,
who's going to carry this out. And oh, by the way,
we're also going to come up with a scavenger hunt
to either throw the cops off or to actually make
Brian Wells feel more comfortable, give him some sort of
(35:46):
cover in case he is caught. And that's what we're
gonna go with. Go Team and Marjorie deal Armstrong. So
that's preposterous that that wasn't me, Kenneth Barnes said, that's
that's exactly what happened. And then Bill Rothstein wasn't alive
to contradict any of it.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So she's sentenced, right, she's convicted as the mastermind of
this pot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
The jury took about eleven hours and she was convicted
of armed bank robbery, conspiracy in using a destructive device
in a crime of violence.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
That's a big one. I'll bet, I'll bet that carries
a hefty sentence with it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, and she would die in prison, just like her
prognosis said, she didn't. I think she lasted a few years. Now.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
They gave her three to seven years and she lasted seven.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, so she finally passed away, and you know, that's
kind of the end of the story. Even though there
is a retired FBI investigator named Jim Fisher who said,
I think they got this all wrong. I think that
Rothstein was the guy the whole time, and he makes
a decently compelling case, but it's you know, everyone's dead now.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, Jim Fisher's gone a little bit down the rabbit
hole if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard to tell with
literally everyone having died. But for his money, he thinks
it was Rostein.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, And so there's probably not many people who are
familiar with the case who would say that it wasn't
Rothstein who built the bomb. But what Jim Fisher saying
is like Bill Rothstein was behind everything, and Marjorie dial
Armstrong murdering Jim Roden was just like a gift that
(37:30):
dropped in Bill Rothstein's lap that he could use to
make all these puppets dance, including the cops, and that
the whole point of it was to create this elaborate scheme,
this elaborate crime that would puzzle people for years and
years to come, which it's doing that, and that that
(37:51):
was the point, and that Brian Wells was going to
die one way or another, right, because I think the
FBI said they concluded the whole scavenger hunt was a
hoax and that Brian well was never going to survive this,
didn't they. Yeah, so so this is Jim Fisher's position.
But like you said, now that everybody's dead, really the
only question is, you know, just how how complicit was
(38:13):
Brian Wells is the last big question that's right. And
then there's one other guy who seems to have got
off scott free named Floyd Stockton. Did you look into
him a little bit? So he's a guy who was there.
He was he was there. He supposedly handed Rothstein the
bomb to put around Brian Wells's neck. He was staying
(38:34):
with Rothstein as a buddy on his couch, fleeing a
rape charge in Washington, and somehow, for some reason, he
got immunity and was not indicted even though he was
very much involved in this, and he got off scott free.
And Brian Wells's family is going nuts over the fact
that this guy's out there walking free, that he was,
(38:55):
he was a part of this this caper, and he
he didn't see a second inside of a jail.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there were more people involved.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Emon, So, what do you think do you think Brian
Wells was complicit? And if so, how much?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Oh? Man, I don't know. I mean, it sounds like
I kind of believe the story that they were all
in it together and he was probably double crossed. But
this is just from reading about this thing many, many
years later.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Do you think Marjorie deal Armstrong was the mastermind?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I don't know either. Maybe we'll never know, but we might,
but probably not. You got anything else?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
All right, Well, if you want to know more about
the collar bomb case, you can type that word and
the search bar your favorite search engine and it will
likely bring up a very great article on Wired from
Rich Shapiro. Read that start there. It's great And since
I said Rich Shapiro, it's tide for the listener.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Mail with one on emoji and John Adams. Hey guys
enjoyed the recent podcast about the history of emojis and emoticons.
Reminded me of a discovery I made in the diaries
of John Adams that makes a historical figure who's sometimes
described as aloof seemed completely charming when the future president
(40:19):
was about twenty two years old. He made it an
entry in his diary in seventeen fifty six, saying, a
cloudy morning about ten, and he drew a little sunshine
breakout a warm day. He uses a little line drawing
on the sun that I always call an eighteenth century emoji.
He likes a little creation so much he re used
it a month later in the same diary, A misty morning,
(40:42):
little sunshine breakout about noon. On the Massachusetts Historical Society website,
the text of his letters and diaries is faithfully transcribed,
but in the cases. In these cases, a parenthetical note
tells readers that there are small drawings of the sun
and advises them to refer to the scans of the
handwritten page where you can actually see this. Apparently he
(41:05):
grew out of his habit, though, because his later diaries
do not use the adorable little son. Keep up great work.
My wife and I host a local history podcast for
Boston Nice. It's tightly scripted. Oh man, he didn't tell
me what it was. I would have totally shouted it out.
What I know, big missed opportunity there, Jake. One of
these days will be confident enough to have an unscripted
(41:27):
conversation like you guys do. And that is from Jake Scaniers.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Okay, so everybody's look up Jake scan yours Boston History
podcast and he'll probably bring it up right. Yeah, probably,
So thanks a lot, Jake. Thanks for keeping up the
good fight up there. That's pretty cool. Good story too.
If you want to get in touch with us, like
Jake did, tell us about your podcast, that's great. You
can send us all an email of the Stuff podcast
at house stuffworks dot com and has always joined us
(41:54):
at our home on the web, Stuffishould Know dot com.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1 (42:05):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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