Story of the Day-Pizza-Bomber Mystery

Brian Douglas Wells (November 15, 1956 – August 28, 2003) was a pizza delivery man who was killed by a time bomb explosive fastened to his neck, purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb. After he was apprehended by the police for robbing a bank, the bomb exploded. The bizarre affair was subject to much attention in the mass media. On February 16, 2007 the Associated Press reported that "the case has been solved and indictments are expected, likely by next month."[1] As of May 13, 2007, the grand jury has not handed down any indictments, although newspaper reports have identified three suspects in the plot.


The event
Wells, who dropped out of high school in 1973, had worked as a pizza delivery person for 30 years, and was considered a "valued and trusted employee". On the afternoon of August 28, 2003 Wells received a call to deliver two pizzas to an address a few miles from the Erie, Pennsylvania "Mamma Mia Pizzeria", where he worked. It was later found that the address was that of an unmanned radio tower at the end of a dirt road.

Within an hour of leaving for the delivery, Wells had entered a bank with a sophisticated home-made shotgun disguised as a cane and demanded $250,000. When police intervened, Wells claimed that three unnamed people had placed a bomb around his neck, provided him with the shotgun, and told him that he had to commit the robbery and several other tasks, otherwise he would be killed.

At first, the police made no attempt to disarm the device. The bomb squad were finally called at 3:04 PM, at least 30 minutes after the first 9-1-1 call. At 3:18 PM, it exploded, blasting a fist-sized hole in Wells' chest just three minutes before the bomb squad arrived. The story remained in the news for several days after the event, with various media outlets speculating as to whether Wells had been an innocent victim, a co-conspirator, or the lone perpetrator of these events. A $100,000 reward was offered by the FBI.

A note found on Wells had instructions for him to carry out four tasks—the first of which was the bank robbery—in a set period of time before the bomb went off. Wells would gain extra time with the completion of each task. However, it was later determined that regardless of what had unfolded, Wells would never have had enough time to complete the tasks to get the bomb defused.



Media attention

On November 5, 2005 and January 6, 2007, the story of Brian Wells was featured on America's Most Wanted with newly released evidence in hopes that officials could gather new clues behind the puzzling case.[2]

On October 13, 2006, the story was featured on Anderson Cooper 360. The show dealt with the FBI's most mysterious cases, and featured John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted. A document from the Erie police stated that "this investigation is now at a critical point."

On January 6, 2007, Brian Wells was featured on Fox News Channel's "In The Line Up" profiling new evidence regarding new suspects and new details in the case.

On February 16, 2007, the Associated Press reported that federal authorities have unraveled the mysterious plot and that charges will be forthcoming in the case.[1] A federal grand jury in Erie, PA was still hearing evidence in the case as of May 13, 2007, according to the Erie Times-News.[1] According to the paper, it appears that three suspects have been identified as perpetrators of the plot.[2]



Recent developments
On July 10, 2007 charges were filed against two individuals for crimes related to robbery and death. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (who is currently imprisoned on an unrelated murder charge) was charged with three criminal acts: bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery and felony use of a firearm in connection with a crime. Kenneth Barnes (who is currently imprisoned on unrelated drug charges) was also charged without disclosure of the specific crimes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wells
The Erie Collar Bomber
http://www.amw.com/fugitives/video_photos.cfm?id=27382&video_id=116&quality=high

At two o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday, August 28, 2003, a man with a deep voice called Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria located in a small stripmall in Millcreek Township (south of Erie, Pennsylvania) and ordered two small sausage and pepperoni pizzas. The owner of the Peach street shop, Tony Ditmo, took the call and gave the order to his 46-year-old delivery man, Brian D. Wells.
http://jimfisher.edinboro.edu/wells/overview.html

Wells, a single man and longtime employee, lived nearby in a tiny, rented cottage on Loveland Avenue. Wells was considered a shy and timid man who lived a simple life with his two cats. Having dropped out of school in tenth grade, Wells spent most of his leisure time reading the newspaper, hanging out at the local McDonalds, playing music CDs, and watching television. The five-foot, nine inch, 175 pound stoop shouldered pizza man who was partially bald and wore glasses too big for his face, was well-liked by his landlord and neighbors.

In his green Geo Metro, Wells drove just under four miles to the delivery address - 8631 Peach Street - a small featureless building next to a television transmission tower situated in the woods at the end of a dirt access road.

At two-thirty, a half hour after the unknown caller ordered the pizza, Brian Wells walked into a branch bank two miles from the pizza delivery site carrying a homemade shotgun that looked like a cane and a handwritten note that he handed to a teller. Wells told the bank employee that someone had just locked a bomb collar around his neck, a device that was hidden beneath his T-shirt. (It looked to the bank teller that Wells was wearing some kind of neck brace.) After reading the note, the bank employee walked away from the counter then returned with a bag which she filled with cash. After being handed the money, Wells looked into the bag and said, "This isn't a quarter of a million," prompting the teller to explain that the big money was locked in the time vault. "This thing is going off in twenty-two minutes," Wells said. Before he turned to leave the bank, Wells said he'd be back at three in the afternoon for the rest of the money.

As Brian Wells climbed into his car, a bank employee called 911: "We just have been robbed. . . . We have a bank robbery at PNC Bank. The guy just walked out with - I don't know how much cash is in the bag. He had a bomb or something wrapped around his neck."

On Peach Street, a quarter mile from the bank, Wells was pulled over by the Pennsylvania State Police and ordered out of his Metro. As he was being handcuffed, Wells told the arresting officers that he had a bomb secured around his neck. A trooper cut away Wells' T-shirt which exposed the bomb, a rectangular metal box about the size of a camera. The bluish-collared device featured four key holes and three numbered rollers like the ones found on the bottom of combination padlocks.

The troopers, upon discovering the strange-looking device resting against the base of Wells' neck, ordered him to the ground and backed away. As a local television station news crew arrived at the scene, the state police cleared the area and took up positions, guns drawn, behind their vehicles.

Fifteen to twenty minutes after Wells' arrest, at four minutes after three, someone at the scene called the Erie Police Department's bomb squad. Two of the three-member bomb unit were at the time off-duty. Within minutes of the call, however, the bomb squad met at the city garage where they climbed into the bomb truck and from downtown Erie, sped south to the scene.

As the bomb squad proceeded toward the bomb site through the traffic, Brian Wells engaged the police in what turned out to be a one-way conversation:

"Why is nobody trying to get this thing off me?" He said. "It's going to go off, I'm not lying." At various points in the seize Wells said the following:

"I don't have a lot of time."

"It's gonna go off."

"He pulled a key out and started a timer. I heard the thing ticking when he did it."

"Can you at least take these freakin handcuffs off so I can hold this thing up? It's killing my neck."

"I didn't do it."

"Did you call my boss?"

At eighteen minutes after three, forty-six minutes after the 911 call from the bank, the bomb around Wells' neck went off, killing him instantly. There was a spray of blood, a loud crack, and the clanging of flying pieces of metal. When the neck device detonated, the bomb squad was 1.3 miles from the scene. They arrived three minutes after the blast.

As Wells lay sprawled on his back in the parking lot of an eye glass store, the police searched his car where they found the bag of money, the homemade shotgun, and a nine-page handwritten set of instructions directing Wells to four locations in the general area where he would find the four keys he needed to deactivate the neck bomb. The police, by arresting him so soon after the robbery, had denied him the chance of saving his life. A subsequent police search of the four locations failed to produce the keys referred to in the robbery instructions. A search of the place where Wells said the bomb had been placed around his neck did not result in the acquisition of any evidence, including the two pizzas ordered by the deep-voiced man.

Dr. Eris Vey, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, reported that Wells had suffered a post-card sized trauma to his chest and lungs. The bomb itself consisted of black powder and en electrical detonating device.

In the wake of the bombing, a fifty-member task force, made up of personnel from the Pennsylvania State Police, the Erie Police Department, the Erie County District Attorney's Office, and the ATF, and lead by the senior resident agent of the Erie FBI office, launched into an intensive around-the-clock investigation. Given the oddness of the crime, the wealth of available physical evidence, and the great public interest in the matter, investigators were confident that the crime would be quickly solved. However, as days turned into weeks and weeks into months without a break in the case, the head of the task force cut off communication with the media and the case fell out of the news. Public interest turned into frustration, and the family of the murdered pizza man began criticizing the police for not saving Brian's life. And as long as the case remained unsolved, questions would be raised regarding the dead man's role in the affair. Had he been a random victim, a targeted patsy, or had he been a willing participant in the scheme? According to public opinion, Brian Wells was a victim and the police, with all of the manpower and no solution, were becoming the bad guys.

On February 11, 2004, five and a half months after Brian Wells exploded in front of the police and on TV, the FBI released snippets of the bank robbery instructions found in Wells' car. While blacking out 90 percent of the note, the FBI hoped the exposure would breathe new life into their deflated investigation.

Why did the man who killed Brian Wells orchestrate such a complicated and involved scheme? Short answer: Vanity and the thrill of outfoxing the world. In the killer's mind, this is crime as an art form. Unless the investigation is bungled, the killer's vanity will eventually be his undoing. The Unabomber went undetected for seventeen years until his thirst for the limelight drew him out and led to his arrest and conviction. It was the publication of the Unabomber's 35 thousand-word manifesto that led to his identification as the serial bomber. Brian Well's killer is still unknown. Let's hope it doesn't take the FBI seventeen years to catch the man who murdered Brian Wells.

Fresh clues in pizza bomber death
No suspects arrested, but potential motive discovered in bizarre case
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9120093/

New information surfaced in the murder investigation of Brian Wells. His name is, arguably, not as memorable as his occupation. Brian Wells delivered pizzas.

Sunday, his family marked the second anniversary of his death and hope for some resolution to the bizarre circumstances that led to it: cryptic instructions, a bank robbery and a bomb strapped to the deliveryman’s neck.

After all this time, no arrests have been made and investigators say there are no new leads. But, the FBI says this was not a random crime.

“Brian Wells was identified as the person to be targeted in this case,” says Bob Rudge, FBI. “We don‘t believe that it was a random attack on just an unknown pizza delivery person.”

Two years, four full-time investigators, and more than 600 interviews after a bank robbery unfolded, the FBI says this crime was not about money, but murder — a plot to kill Wells and officers coming to his aid.

But John Wells, who has been following the search for his brother's killer, disagrees.

“They didn‘t know who they were going to get when they called that pizza shop. They didn’t know Brian was going to come up and take that delivery,” says John Wells.

While investigators do call Wells a murder victim, they will not exonerate him because too many questions remain. Was he somehow part of this elaborate plan? Was he duped into thinking he would walk away alive?

“If, after two years into this investigation, they won‘t let the public know that an innocent man died, I think that shows a little bit about the quality of the investigators in this case. They know my brother was not involved,” says John Wells.

The afternoon unfolded like a horrible episode of “The Twilight Zone”: 46-year-old Wells delivered a pie on the afternoon of August 28, 2003. He was next seen strapped into a collar bomb, robbing a bank with a gun fashioned out of a cane and nine pages of instructions leading him on a deadly scavenger hunt.

Police apprehended him after the robbery. Then, while local news cameras rolled, the bomb exploded, killing Wells.

“You heard the explosion,” recounts eyewitness Dina McPhee. “It sounded like a gunshot, basically, a shotgun going off. You saw a cloud of white smoke.”

Investigators refuse to comment on suspects. But some reports suggest they are investigating Floyd Stockton Jr., a convicted rapist currently serving time in Washington state. Stockton once lived on the same road where Wells delivered the pizza.

In another twist, shortly after Wells was killed, a body was found in the freezer of the home Stockton shared with roommate William Rothstein. The body belonged to the ex-boyfriend of Rothstein‘s friend, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong. Armstrong pleaded guilty to that murder and is currently serving time. Rothstein died of cancer last year.

According to former FBI profiler and MSNBC analyst Clint Van Zandt, the physical evidence links up. “The area is not a huge area. Whoever that person or the individual were lived, worked, somehow had a connection with Erie, Pa.,” he says. “If they find the right suspect, they ought to be able to link him to the case.”

The family of Brian Wells wants the nine-page letter published in a national forum. They say this case could be solved similarly to the way the Unabomber case was solved — by someone recognizing the writing style or even the handwriting of the mastermind behind this killing.

“The family and the community need results,” says John Wells. “There‘s a group of killers out there. And people need to know that.”

Investigators now look to the public for clues, reportedly tips away from solving the crime.

Baffling Erie collar-bomb case takes new twist
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/rss/s_516508.html
The nearly 4-year-old mystery of who used a collar-bomb to kill an Erie pizza delivery man soon might end, according to a lawyer for a former teacher expected to be charged by federal authorities.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, 58, who is in jail for another killing, is likely to be indicted for the August 2003 death of Brian Wells, federal public defender Thomas Patton said in court papers filed Monday in Erie. Wells was decapitated when a bomb strapped around his neck exploded shortly after a bank robbery.
"Ms. Diehl-Armstrong has not yet been charged; however, it is anticipated that an indictment will be forthcoming shortly," Patton wrote in a request for a gag order to keep prosecutors from holding a news conference to announce the charges.

Patton declined to comment.

"Due to the extensive media coverage that has occurred to date, it is reasonable to conclude that any press conference would be heavily reported on in the media," Patton wrote, noting attention shown the case by USA Today, "America's Most Wanted" and Geraldo Rivera. "Ms. Diehl-Armstrong submits that any public discussion of any forthcoming indictment would prejudice the potential jury pool in this case."

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan declined to comment. In February, she said the investigation was nearing an end.

Wells, 46, left Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria about 2 p.m. the day of his death to deliver pizza to a remote location, which turned out to be an abandoned television tower. About 40 minutes later, he showed up at a PNC Bank branch outside Erie, handed a note to a teller and raised his shirt to show the bomb.

Police stopped Wells two minutes after the robbery. A series of notes found in Wells' possession gave explicit details on how to rob the bank and survive the experience -- including instructions to go to three locations within a specified time to retrieve keys and a code to disarm the bomb.

"Alerting authorities, your company or anyone else will bring your death," a handwritten note read. "If we spot police vehicles or aircraft you will be killed."

The bomb exploded while officers waited for a bomb squad.

Investigators have spent years trying to determine whether Wells was a victim in the bank robbery plot or participated willingly. Wells' death has remained a mystery in part because several people connected to the investigation died since the incident, Buchanan has said.

Diehl-Armstrong, formerly of Erie, is serving 20 years in state prison for killing her roommate, James Roden, whose body was discovered stuffed in a freezer in September 2003. Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill.

She was charged in 1984 with the death of her boyfriend, Robert Thomas. She was acquitted of the homicide charge but convicted of carrying a firearm without a license. She received probation.

'A Million Little Pieces'
Eyewitness Recalls Explosion at the Center of the 'Pizza Bomber' Case
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3365843&page=1

Dan Holland had a hand-held camcorder focused on pizza deliveryman Brian Wells when a bomb around Wells' neck blew in August 2003.

"It was shocking to see, absolutely shocking,'' said the former cameraman for WJET in Erie, Pa., where the long unsolved "pizza bomber" case is expected to finally be unraveled at a press conference scheduled today by federal prosecutors.


"I've been to so many [crime] scenes where…there's a bomb involved, or supposedly something's about to go off. But no one ever expects it to go off, especially when you're looking through a viewfinder and the guy's 60 yards away.''

He said the explosion was so loud it felt like it was "right next to you."

"And then you just heard a million little pieces of metal and whatever else was involved just hitting the ground around you,'' he said. "It seemed like it was slow motion and then you heard little pieces falling all around you."

Federal authorities are expected to announce that Wells was somehow involved in the plot that took his life, spawned a cottage industry of Hollywood scripts inspired by the case, and challenged the government's best investigators for years. They are also expected to announce the indictments of two incarcerated local criminals, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes on robbery, conspiracy and firearms charges.

Holland was one of four ABC cameraman on duty in the sleepy Western Pennsylvania town of Erie on Aug. 28, 2003, when word got out about the bank robbery and the subsequent arrest. Local news crews from around the area were scrambling to get to Peach Street.

"I walked in the station and saw two other reporters and crews running out the door,'' he said. "I asked someone, 'What's going on?' and my boss said, 'Go grab a live [satellite] truck. There's a guy with a bomb around his neck on Peach Street.'''

He drove the short distance from the station to the mall parking lot as fast as he could.

"A state policeman had cleared the parking lot so it was so new that there was no one on scene, so I pulled right up [into the empty parking lot] and there was Brian, 60 yards away from me.''


Holland, who said he's reviewed the shaky video footage he shot that day many times, said when the bomb detonated, "you can hear me going 'Oh my God,' and then the [on air] reporter going 'Did you get that?'"

Holland said audio problems delayed WJET's live broadcast in the moments before the explosion.

"We were literally 30 seconds from going live. If we hadn't have had audio problems that [detonation] would have been live on television. That would have started a whole new ethics debate on 'should we even be live' on something like that?'' Holland, now an educational consultant, said. The tape was cut to exclude the portion that shows the bomb going off.

"But it was breaking news on a main street in Erie. I mean, this was going on." Holland said police were rerouting traffic away from the area and that, on its own, warranted coverage.

"I don't think it would have been in poor judgment to go live, but it was just kind of a blessing that we didn't, especially for the Wells family and for our viewers who that may have been too much for.''

Holland said he still gets the chills when he thinks about that day.

"The weird thing about it was that he was so calm. His words made it seem like he was innocent, but his actions were just so calm. He was yelling to the cops, 'I'm not lying. They put a bomb around me.'''

Wells, according to ABC footage from that day, also asked police to call his boss and warned that the bomb was going to go off.

Said Holland: "If it was you or me, we'd probably be freaking out, and he just sat there, with his hands behind his back in handcuffs and his legs kind of crossed, and just seemed so calm."

"It's so weird,'' he said, pausing. "It's just so weird."

Lawyers: Indictments Expected Soon in Bizarre 2003 Pizza Deliveryman Bombing Case
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288852,00.html

Indictments will soon be handed up in the case of a pizza deliveryman who in August 2003 wound up in the middle of a bizarre bank robbery scheme that ended with a bomb around his neck exploding, according to lawyers involved with the case.

Brian Wells, 46, robbed a suburban Erie, Pa., bank in 2003 with the bomb attached to his neck and then was killed when it exploded as he sat handcuffed in a parking lot while police waited for a bomb squad.

No one was charged as authorities struggled to determine who was behind the plot and whether Wells was an innocent victim or willing participant.

Tim Lucas, a lawyer who represents a witness who testified before a grand jury in the pizza-bomber case, told FOX News on Tuesday that the indictments likely will charge Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, 58, who is in jail for another killing, with Wells' death. One or two other individuals might also be charged, Lucas said, but the government believes Diehl-Armstrong was the ringleader.

Diehl-Armstrong's lawyer, federal public defender Thomas Patton, also said in court papers filed Monday in Erie that he anticipates his client being charged, reports The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"Ms. Diehl-Armstrong has not yet been charged; however, it is anticipated that an indictment will be forthcoming shortly," Patton wrote in a request for a gag order to keep prosecutors from holding a news conference to announce the charges, the newspaper reported.
Diehl-Armstrong, formerly of Erie, is serving 20 years in state prison for killing her roommate, James Roden. Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill.

Roden's killing led police to question Diehl-Armstrong in the Wells case because Roden's body was found in the freezer of a man named William Rothstein, who has since died. Rothstein's house was near the TV tower. Wells told police before he died that he had been accosted by gunmen who locked the bomb on his neck and forced him to rob the bank when he went to deliver a pizza to a TV tower on a dead-end road.

Diehl-Armstrong was also charged in 1984 with the death of her boyfriend, Robert Thomas, but was acquitted of the homicide charge. She was, however, convicted of carrying a firearm without a license, and received probation.

Pizza-Bomber Mystery Solved?
Authorities Appear Poised to Announce Indictments in the Strange, Fatal Bank Robbery Case
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3361781&page=1

Nearly four years after one of the strangest murder cases in federal law enforcement history, authorities appear poised to announce indictments in the case of the pizza bomber as early as Wednesday, sources tell ABC News.

Sources say the indictments will center on a former high school valedictorian with bipolar disorder who is believed to be the ringleader of a bizarre Pennsylvania bank robbery gone bad. What remains vexingly unclear is whether pizza-delivery man Brian Wells was involved in the plot in any way.
In late summer 2003, Wells walked into an Erie, Pa., bank wearing a bomb attached to his neck by an elaborate, locked metal collar. He was also carrying a gun disguised as a walking cane.

Cornered by police in a nearby parking lot after the robbery, Wells said that armed gunmen had locked the bomb around his neck and sent him into the bank. Police seized a multiple-page note full of instructions that told Wells to move swiftly to a variety of seemingly unrelated spots around the area or the bomb would detonate.

"Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he yelled to authorities as he sat handcuffed near a police car. "I don't have enough time."

He didn't. With a small crowd gathered that included curious media, the bomb exploded, blowing a hole through Wells' chest and killing him instantly. He was 46 years old.

The case has taken numerous twists and turns over the years, and investigators have acknowledged at times that they were simply stumped. This week though federal authorities are expected to announce indictments, sources close to the case tell ABC News' Law & Justice Unit.

Valedictorian Turned Robbery Ringleader?

Monday, a federal public defender for a woman named Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong filed court documents trying to prevent the government from holding a news conference to announce indictments. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office in Pittsburgh, which is handling the case, declined comment, as did federal public defender Thomas Patton's office.

Diehl-Armstrong, a high school class valedictorian with multiple graduate degrees who suffers from bipolar disorder, has long been a main target of the investigation. While law enforcement sources tell ABC News Diehl-Armstrong has cooperated with investigators, she is still expected to be charged in the case, possibly as its ringleader.
Tim Lucas, a lawyer who represents a witness who testified before a grand jury in the pizza-bomber case, told ABC News that "it appears the government theory is Diehl-Armstrong is the primary leader/orchestrator in the robbery that led to Wells' death."

It was unclear whether the indictments were expected to include charges related to Wells' death or just the bank robbery.

Less than two years after Sept. 11, the strange case immediately raised fears of a new and frightening terrorist tactic. It appears now that the plot was the work of a group of American criminals, virtually all of whom are either dead or in jail on unrelated charges.

Exclusive: Pizza Bomb Victim Was Part of the Plot
Source: Brian Wells Was Not an Innocent Victim
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3363655&page=1

Federal prosecutors will announce today that pizza-delivery man Brian Wells was involved in the bomb-strapped bank robbery plot that took his life, a well-placed law enforcement source has told ABC News' Law and Justice Unit.

After the robbery occurred in Pennsylvania in August 2003, Wells was killed when the collar bomb he was wearing exploded while he was in police custody.
ABC News first reported Tuesday that charges were being brought against two Pennsylvania criminals in the bizarre case.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was served with what is known as a federal retainer in prison in Pennsylvania Tuesday afternoon and charged with three felonies related to the case — bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery and felony use of a firearm in connection with a crime, her attorney told ABC News.

Diehl-Armstrong, who is imprisoned on an unrelated murder charge, says she is innocent, according to her lawyer, Lawrence D'Ambrosio.

Kenneth Barnes, a second longtime suspect, was served with the same federal retainer outlining the same charges Tuesday at a county jail in Erie, Pa., a source close to the case said. Barnes is serving an 11- to 23-month sentence on unrelated drug charges. A source close to the case said that murder charges could be forthcoming.

Hours after ABC News first reported the charges, U.S. attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced that a news conference would be held today in Erie, Pa. She promised a "significant announcement" in the case. It is expected she will announce the indictments of Armstrong and Barnes.

A law enforcement source involved in the case confirmed late Tuesday that Wells was, in fact, involved in the plot, but could not elaborate on his specific role.

'I Don't Have Enough Time'

It was August 2003 when Brian Wells walked into an Erie, Pa., bank wearing a bomb attached to his neck by an elaborate, locked metal collar. He was also carrying a gun disguised as a walking cane.

Cornered by police in a nearby parking lot after the robbery, Wells said that armed gunmen had locked the bomb around his neck and sent him into the bank. Police seized a multiple-page note full of instructions that told Wells to move swiftly to a variety of seemingly unrelated spots around the area or the bomb would detonate.

"Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he yelled to authorities as he sat handcuffed near a police car. "I don't have enough time."

He didn't. With a small crowd gathered that included curious media, the bomb exploded, blowing a hole through Wells' chest and killing him instantly. He was 46 years old.

The case has taken numerous twists and turns over the years, and investigators have acknowledged at times that they were simply stumped. Authorities have taken their time to piece together the exceptionally unusual case.

One of the FBI's top bomb experts, who served time in Iraq, was flown to Pennsylvania to testify before a grand jury, two sources told ABC News. Through a combination of cooperation — Diehl-Armstrong's attorney has acknowledged that Diehl-Armstrong cooperated with investigators — and gumshoe detective work, authorities are finally ready to spell out the scenario that led to one of the strangest crimes post-Sept. 11 America has yet seen.

Two witnesses, including a jailhouse informant who spoke to ABC News exclusively in February, say Wells knew two of the suspects in the case.

John Wells, Wells' brother and the family's spokesman, has repeatedly and sometimes angrily defended his late brother's innocence in the plot and chided officials for not clearing Wells' name. Federal authorities, for their part, have never ruled Wells' out of the plot, but have also never specifically implicated him.

It's expected they will today. Repeated calls to John Wells' home were not answered.
Diehl-Armstrong, a high school class valedictorian with multiple graduate degrees who suffers from bipolar disorder, has long been a primary target of the investigation. While law enforcement sources tell ABC News Diehl-Armstrong has cooperated with investigators, she is still believed to have been the plot's ringleader.
Barnes is a known associate and fishing partner to Diehl-Armstrong.

Tim Lucas, a lawyer who represents a witness who testified before a grand jury in the pizza bomber case, told ABC News that "It appears the government theory is Diehl-Armstrong is the primary leader … in the robbery that led to Wells' death."

It was unclear whether the indictments were expected to include charges related to Wells' death or just the bank robbery.