Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is best known for her role in the chilling plot to strap a bomb to a pizza deliveryman and force him to rob a Pennsylvania bank in 2003, but she also murdered two of her boyfriends — and stuffed one in a freezer.
NetflixMarjorie Diehl-Armstrong masterminded the infamous 2003 “pizza bomber” incident.
In 2003, the bizarre “pizza bomber” case in Erie, Pennsylvania, captured the country’s attention. A pizzeria employee named Brian Wells had walked into a bank with a bomb strapped around his neck, demanded $250,000 in cash, and then informed the police that he’d been forced to carry out the crime. The bomb detonated before Wells could reveal more, and investigators began a years-long search for the person responsible for his death. That search ultimately led them to Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.
Diehl-Armstrong had been the valedictorian of her high school class and was a musical prodigy, but she struggled with her mental health. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and beginning in her 20s, she grew increasingly deceitful, manipulative, and even violent at times.
In 1984, she shot and killed her boyfriend, but she was acquitted after she claimed that she was defending herself from his abuse. Her attorney at the time said that “it was only a matter of time” before she did the same thing again — and he was right.
Before she was connected to the pizza bomber robbery, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was arrested for killing another boyfriend in the weeks leading up to the incident. It was while she was behind bars for this crime that the truth about her involvement in Wells’ death came out, bringing a surprising end to the twisted case.
Who Was Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong?
From a young age, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was known for her intelligence and academic achievements. She was a skilled musician and had a passion for astrology and poetry. She had a promising future — but then mental illness took hold of her.
NetflixBefore Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was an “evil” murderer, she was an attractive, highly intelligent young woman.
Diehl-Armstrong was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she also suffered from paranoia. Throughout her 20s, she became more and more manipulative, particularly toward men, and she often used her good looks and charm to get her own way.
Jerry Clark, an FBI agent and the lead investigator in the pizza bomber case, told the Erie Times-News in 2018 that Diehl-Armstrong was “truly very, very bright, manipulative; got people to do things that you couldn’t believe that she could do.”
Her first brush with the law came in 1984 when she fatally shot her boyfriend, Robert Thomas, as he sat on their living room couch. In court, she successfully argued that he was abusive and she’d killed him in self-defense. She was acquitted in 1988 — but it wasn’t the last time Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong would stand trial for murder.
The ‘Pizza Bomber’ Plot And The Murder Of James Roden
On Aug. 28, 2003, Brian Wells entered a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, with a bomb strapped around his neck and a shotgun disguised as a cane in his hand. He handed a teller a note demanding $250,000, but he left with just $8,702.
NetflixBrian Wells inside the bank with a bomb strapped to his neck.
Then, as Wells exited the bank and was surrounded by police cars, he dropped to the ground and began begging for help. He claimed that three people had grabbed him while he was delivering a pizza to them, locked the bomb to his neck, and given him strict instructions to rob the bank. However, before he had a chance to tell the officers much more, the device detonated, and a fist-sized hole was blown in his chest.
As investigators searched Wells’ car after his death, they found the handwritten orders he’d mentioned. The directions were addressed to the “Bomb Hostage” and detailed a scavenger hunt he must complete after robbing the bank to get the code needed to disable the bomb. However, experts later determined that it wouldn’t have been physically possible for Wells to finish the necessary tasks before the bomb exploded.
Erie Federal Courthouse/Erie Bureau of Police via WiredThe scavenger hunt note found inside Brian Wells’ car.
The police realized that Wells hadn’t planned the heist himself. But if he wasn’t the mastermind, who was?
They got their first clue just three weeks later when a man named Bill Rothstein called them and told them there was a body in his garage freezer. When detectives arrived at Rothstein’s house, they found the frozen corpse of James Roden.
Rothstein told the police that he felt guilty. He hadn’t murdered Roden, but he knew who did. He confessed that his ex-girlfriend, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, called him asking for help getting rid of Roden’s body. Rothstein had then cleaned up the scene, gotten rid of the gun Diehl-Armstrong used, and hidden the corpse in exchange for $2,000.
Erie Federal Courthouse/Erie Bureau of Police via WiredBill Rothstein, the man who turned in Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong for killing James Roden.
The next day, Diehl-Armstrong was charged with killing Roden. She ultimately pleaded guilty — but mentally ill — to third-degree murder, claiming she’d shot him during a dispute about money and a purported robbery that had taken place at her house. However, as the investigation into the pizza bomber case unfolded over the next several years, prosecutors came to believe that Diehl-Armstrong had actually murdered Roden because he knew about her deranged plot and threatened to turn her in.
Then, two months after pleading guilty to killing Roden, Diehl-Armstrong told a police officer that she had information about the Wells case.
Was Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong The Real ‘Evil Genius’ Behind The Bank Robbery?
In April 2005, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong met with FBI agents and told them that she would confess everything she knew if she could be transferred to a minimum-security prison. Then, she admitted that she was involved in the plot, though she said that Bill Rothstein had masterminded it and that Brian Wells had been part of the planning, despite what he told the police before his death outside the bank.
NetflixMarjorie Diehl-Armstrong maintained that she wasn’t the mastermind behind the pizza bomber plot.
Later that year, a man contacted the police to say that his brother-in-law, Kenneth Barnes, had told him that he was also involved in the pizza bomber case. When Barnes was questioned, he told investigators that Diehl-Armstrong had previously asked him to kill her father, who she believed was rich, because she needed money. Then, a month before the bank robbery in August 2003, Diehl-Armstrong had asked Barnes if he knew how to build a pipe bomb.
It seemed that Diehl-Armstrong’s motive for plotting the pizza bomber heist was financial, but if Wells really was involved in the planning, why did he agree to wear the bomb? He seemingly believed that it wouldn’t actually go off, but the other conspirators likely wanted to make sure he died so that he couldn’t rat them out.
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes were ultimately indicted in 2007 for their roles in the bank robbery and the death of Brian Wells. Barnes maintained that Diehl-Armstrong was the mastermind behind the plot, and she was convicted of armed bank robbery, conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, and using a destructive device in a crime in 2010.
NetflixMarjorie Diehl-Armstrong believed her conviction would one day be overturned.
Because of the testimony that Wells was a co-conspirator, she wasn’t charged with his murder. Still, she was sentenced to life in prison to be served consecutively with the seven to 20 years she was spending behind bars for Roden’s murder.
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong fought her conviction for the rest of her life, but she died in prison after a battle with breast cancer in 2017. For that reason, it’s impossible to know if her conviction would have ever been overturned or if she was truly the mastermind behind the whole plot. As far as the legal system is concerned, however, everyone involved got what they deserved, one way or another.
After reading about how Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong masterminded the pizza bomber heist, learn about Scott Scurlock, the eccentric mastermind behind nearly 20 Seattle bank robberies. Then, go inside the story of Brian Brown-Easley, the former Marine who was killed while holding a bank hostage.
