The Bizarre Collar Bomb Heist That Put A Pizza Delivery Guy In Dire Straits
Erie Federal Courthouse/Erie Bureau of Police via WiredSecurity camera footage of Brian Wells walking out of the bank after his robbery.
When Brian Wells began his shift as a pizza delivery driver on Aug. 28, 2003, he perhaps had no idea that he would end the day as the sole victim of the Collar Bomb heist, which was one of most horrifying in modern history.
Wells’ first delivery of the day was to an address on the outskirts of Erie, Pennsylvania. When he arrived, he was surprised to see that he wasn’t delivering to a house, but to a television transmission station.
It’s unclear what happened when he stepped into the small building, but what’s certain is that Wells emerged a short time later wearing a metal collar around his neck that featured four keyed locks and two pipe bombs mounted on it.
FBI/Getty ImagesThe collar bomb that was fastened to the throat of unsuspecting pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells.
The nefarious plot was orchestrated by Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, a troubled woman with a suspicious history of dead husbands and boyfriends. At some point, she handed Wells a shotgun shaped like a cane and nine pages of instructions that were coldly addressed to, “Bomb Hostage.”
The document detailed how Wells was to complete several tasks in order to gain the keys he needed to remove the bomb. The first was to rob a local branch of a PNC Bank, which he did — walking away with $8,702 in cash. But bank employees immediately tipped off the police, who found Wells standing by his car.
Erie Federal Courthouse/Erie Bureau of Police via WiredMarjorie Diehl-Armstrong was the criminal mastermind behind the heist.
After he told them what was around his neck, the police placed him in a nearby parking lot and called the bomb squad. But three minutes before they arrived, the bomb detonated, killing Wells instantly on live television.
The ensuing investigation did nothing to make the case any clearer. One conspirator even led police to believe that Wells was in on the plot from the beginning and that he intended to wear a fake bomb as a decoy, only to find that Diehl-Armstrong and the other conspirators had changed their minds and forced Wells to wear a real bomb instead.
But seeing as nearly all of Diehl-Armstrong’s accomplices have since died or were murdered, the truth may never be known.
