Citation Needed - Collar Bomb Heist

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

On August 28, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells robbed a PNC Bank near his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. Upon being apprehended by police, Wells died when an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated. The FBI investigation into his death uncovered a complex plot described as "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI".[1]   https://www.wired.com/story/collar-bomb/

Hello and welcome to citation needed, the podcast where he choose the subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because it's the internet. That's how it works now. I'm Cissel and I'll be masterminding this plot, but I'll need my pawns. First up, two guys that just want to be promoted to Queens, Heath and Noah. D.E.I. for white guys who got to go first. Thank you. It's about time. Oh, I'm just trying to make it across the board. And also joining us tonight. Two guys that are pretty happily sacrificed Eli and Tom.

Turns out my weakness was a screen I could put back in my pocket. I once got trapped in an elevator and I just laid down. I'm not working real hard to stick around. Patrons, without you, we would have resigned a long time ago. So thanks for the check, mate. If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around until the end of the show. And with that all the way, tell us, Tom,

what person, place thing, concept phenomenon on our event? What are you talking about today? We'll be talking about the collar bomb heist. And Eli, you switched this essay for one that was about 24-hour masturbation. Are you ready to pull a fast one? I am, C-Sahar. I am indeed.

So tell us what was the collar bomb heist. it was a crime so stupendously cinematic that after having heard about it, thanks to the one and only Cecil something Italian, I still didn't believe it was true. It combines the daring heist Tom has been so fond of reporting with the probably lies that make my contributions,

the solid diamond at the heart of our podcast. And best of all, someone already wrote an article about it, so I didn't have to do any work this week. So we'll be reading, quote, the incredible true story of the Collarbaum Heist by Rich Shapiro. So a big thanks to Rich and Wired.com for the article.

Eli, I appreciate the shout-out, but Heath is really our Ocean's 11 guy. I'm our Ocean's 11 degrees guy. Yeah, but Heath's good at this. Assuming Cecil remembers to cut this line in the edit, they still don't know about Heath's involvement in the Louvre heist. Interesting.

What? At 228 p.m. on August 28th of 2003, a middle-aged pizza delivery man named Brian Wells walked into a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania. He had a short cane in his right hand and a strange bulge under the collar of his t-shirt. Wells, 46 and balding, passed the teller a note. Gather employees with access codes to vault. Why do you have to mention that he's balding? What the fuck does that have to do with the rest of the story? That's such a... Okay, sorry. Zing. Gather employees with access codes to vault. and work fast to fill bag with $250,000, it said,

you have only 15 minutes. Then he lifted his shirt to reveal a heavy, box-like device dangling from his neck. According to the note, it was a bomb. The teller, who told Wells there was no way to get into the vault at that time, filled a bag with cash, $8,702, and handed it over. Wells walked out, sucking on a dumb, dumb lollipop he grabbed from the counter, hopped into his car, and drove off. He didn't get far.

Some 15 minutes later, state troopers spotted Wells standing outside his geometro in a nearby parking lot, surrounded him and tossed him to the pavement, cuffing his hands behind his back. Admittedly, putting $8,700 bucks into the hatch of a geometro made it look like a quarter of a million dollars. Yeah, that's actually why I buy underwear, two sizes too small. It's a force perspective, then. Sure. Okay. Just circling back, I love it, did he got a bag of cash? And then he was like, hmm, lollipops.

Nice. Are these free? You only took one. That's what it said on the jar. It said take one. Were you the kid who took one at Halloween from the big box? Of course. Crazy.

Because all the candy. First of all you're lying. Okay. Forget I was richer than I was greedy. Well, just cry and my parents were buying me my own bag of three musketeers. Would you guys talk shit about on cog did? I turned on my cog diss. I was having a lovely guy.

It's an unacceptable answer for a favorite candy bar. It just is. Three bucks a tears. The worst. Enjoy my... Everyone's a critic sequel. Wells told the troopers that while out on a delivery, he had been accosted by a group of black men

who chained the bomb around his neck at gunpoint and forced him to rob a bank. It's going to go off, he told them in desperation. I'm not lying. The officers called the bomb squad and took positions behind their cars, guns drawn. TV camera crews arrived and began film. For 25 minutes, Wells remained seated on the pavement.

His legs curled beneath him. That's something, isn't it? Hey, he might explode at any minute, but let's make sure we still have the option of shooting him if we need to. Hey, guys, have you seen, like, stepmom porn? Can we get, like, a dryer and put, like, get his head into the dryer? Just to make it safer for the rest of us? Did you call my boss? Wells asked a trooper at one point, apparently concerned that his employer would think he was shirking his duties.

Well, to be fair, he was. Sure, from his dude. Suddenly, the device started to admit an accelerating beeping noise. Wells fidgeted. It looked like he was trying to scoot backward to somehow escape the bond strap to his neck. Beep, beep, beep, boom. The device detonated, blasting him violently onto his back and ripping a five-inch gash in his chest. The Beats of Delivery Man took a few last gas and died on the pavement.

It was 3.18 p.m. The bomb squad arrived three weeks. minutes later. Aw. That collar is one way to make sure pizzas get there in 30 minutes or less, though. You know? Still a better outcome than having to eat Dominoes. I'm having a deliberator flash.

I like that the bomb squad arrived at 3-2-1. That's excellent. I just noticed that. Guys, let's wait around the corner. This is going to be fun. Do you hear that? No. We should probably go.

We'll get in trouble. The police began sorting through a trove of physical evidence. In Wells' car, they discovered the two-foot-long cane which turned out to be an ingeniously crafted homemade gun. Oh, a gun in the shape of a tube. In genius.

The bomb itself was likewise a marvel of DIY design and construction. The device consisted of two parts, a triple-banded metal collar with four keyholes and a three-digit combination lock and an iron box containing two six-inch pipe bombs loaded with double-base smokeless powder. Jesus.

The hinged collar locked around Wells' neck like a giant handcuff. Investigators could tell it had been built by using professional tools. The device also contained two sunbeam kitchen timers and one electric countdown timer. It had wires running through it that connected to nothing. Decoys to throw off would-be disablers and stickers bearing deceptive warnings. The contraption was a puzzle in and of itself. Okay, if you want to foil the bomb squad, all you have to do is make the wires all the same color,

and you're fucking done. Watch one movie. Yeah. I do feel like it's rude to openly marvel at the murder weapon one paragraph after the dude died, though, right? The most perplexing and intriguing piece of evidence, though, were the handwritten notes that the investigators found inside Wells' car,

addressed to the bomb hostage, The notes instructed Wells to rob the bank of $250,000, then follow a set of complex instructions to find various keys and a combination code hidden throughout Erie. It contained drawings, threats, and detailed maps. If Wells did as he was told, the instructions promised, he'd wind up with the keys and the combination required to free him from the bomb. Failure or disobedience would result in certain death. Quote, there is only one way you can survive and that is to cooperate completely, the notes

read in meticulous lettering that would later stymie handwriting analysis, this powerful booby-trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions. Act now. Think later, or you will die. It seemed that whoever planned the robbery had also

constructed a nightmarish scavenger hunt for Wells in which the prize was his life. To some guy in a clown mask inconspicuously driving a tricycle near the crime scene. Trying not to look over, you know. In the frantic hours after Wells was killed, the cops tried completing the hunt themselves.

The first note was straightforward enough. Exit the bank with all the money. Go to the McDonald's restaurant. It read, Get out of the car and go to the small sign reading Drive-Thru Open 24 hours in the flower bed. By the sign, there is a rock with a note taped to the bottom. It has your next instructions. Wells drove straight there after he left the bank with the bag of cash.

He retrieved a two-page note from the flower bed, which directed him up Peach Street to a wooded area several miles away where a container with orange tape would hold the next set of instructions. Wells was caught before he got to that clue, but the investigators picked up the thread, locating the container with the orange tape. In it, they found a note directing them two miles south

to a small road sign, where the next clue would be waiting in a jar in the woods nearby. When they got there, they found the jar, but it was empty. Whoever had set up this macabre d'iardie. in motion, it seemed, had called it off once the cops had appeared, and had probably been watching them every step of the way.

Jesus, the origin story for geocaching is way darker than I expect. Wells' clothing added... Is this a collar bomb in here? That's really cool. I'll take that. I'm going to sign this book, though. Log one. Collar bomb.

Wells's clothing added another layer of intrigue. He died wearing two t-shirts. The outer one emblazoned with a guest clothing logo. Wells wasn't wearing the shirt at work that morning, and his relatives said it wasn't his. It appeared to be a taunt. Can you guess who's behind this? What?

A jilted client? That's a weird misdirect. My pizza was late, and he would not take sex as payment, straight to Saw. Straight to the trick-s-locular. That was just one of the questions that perplexed investigators. What, for instance, was the purpose of the scavenger hunt? Why send a hostage hopping around Erie in broad daylight?

Why scatter clues in public locations where they might be discovered? How was Wells chosen to be the hostage? Just episode of Mr. Beast of all time. Absolutely. The riddles transfixed the city of Erie and drew headlines in newspapers from St. Louis to Sydney. It also set in motion a Byzantine investigation. with federal agents sniffing out clues and hunting down leads in twisted pursuit of the shadowy criminal

who came to be known as the collar bomber. Okay, shadowy maybe, but like historically inept when it came to the actual crime. That's fair, right? That's fair. For seven years, the FBI was engaged in a scavenger hunt of its own, one that the collar bomber seemed to have planned as intricately as the one that it ensnared wells.

The only question was whether the feds would get any further than Wells had. Hope so, man. Riggs only had one more week till retirement. Just one more week. Merto. So whatever. The hunt began at Mama Mia's Pizzeria. That's where Wells was working at 1.30 p.m. on the day of the robbery,

when an order came in for two small sausage and pepperoni pies to be delivered to a location on the outskirts of the city. Okay. I mean, that's a fucking suspicious address. Thank you. The outskirts of the city? You know only bad shit's happening there. It's going to be an abandoned warehouse or something. Wills?

And small? Too small? Very suspicious. Absolutely. Weird. Wells was a loyal employee. In 10 years, the only time he had called in late for work was when his cat died. Even though he was at the end of his shift, he agreed to deliver the order.

He walked out of the shop, two pies in hand, at about 2 p.m. It's weird that they're trying to be. build sympathy with how loyal he was to the local fucking pizza, right? Really? If he was a half-ass delivery guy that called in all the time, we'd be like, well, he deserved to get his head blow up. His head exploded, but he was a loyal slave to capitalism, so are. Do you think they offered pizza parties to the staff?

Oh, Jesus. I do. I do think that because I worked at a lot of pizza places in my day. The delivery location, reachable only by a dirt road, was a TV trillions. transmission tower site in a wooded area off busy Peach Street. When investigators combed the vicinity, they discovered shoe prints consistent with Wells' footwear and tire tracks matching the trends on his geometro. But the site offered no clues as to who may have lured him there for what happened once he

arrived. Okay. I'm not saying anyone should expect to have an explosive collar affixed to their neck, but I guess I am saying that if you're delivering pizza to a transmission tower and the fucking woods. Like you're going to get an explosive collar fixed to your neck, man. Something like that's going to happen.

It's on the outskirts? Yeah. Two smalls. Oh, come on. What is the address? Transmission tower at one, two, three. Outskirts. One transmission.

How? I know right. I know exactly which one. I bet radio waves get hungry, too. I never turned down a delivery. This is a laudable quality about me. The next

day a reporter and a turn into the character from snow crash all of a sudden that was fun bodies bodies bodies bodies it's a different

it's not the same the next day a reporter imagine if it was that would be fucking great the next day a reporter and a photographer

for the erie times news that was a very clever joke actually I would imagine if the world was different I would imagine do you imagine

How clever my wordplay would have been? What a time. The dirt road bleeding there was cordoned off by authorities, but the journalists spotted a tall, heavyset man in denim Carhart overalls, pacing in front of a home that sat right next to it. His backyard extended almost to the transmission tower. The man identified himself as Bill Rothstein.

Huh. Sounds like the name of a Voltron-like anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Rostin, 59, was an unmarried handyman and a lifelong resident of the area. He spoke elegantly, like someone who takes great pride in the mastery

of the English language. He was also fluent in French and Hebrew. Rothstein seemed oblivious to the investigation unfolding beyond his backyard. The journalists, eager to get a view of the scene, asked Rothstein if he could lead them through his yard. He agreed. They headed

into the thick brush, but still couldn't see much. After spending about 15 minutes at Rothstein's place, they took off. They just left? They were like, okay, just your normal, trilingual rhetorician in Erie Pennsylvania who said he's not a spy. It's another dead end, boys. Let's take off. Bill Rothstein may have appeared to be just a man who owned a house next to a TV tower. He may not have as well. He's the most suspicious possible person. He just made a joke about how fucking suspicious he was. But he turned out to be hiding a dark secret.

Well, you don't fucking say. On September 20th, less than a month after the bomb killed Welts, Rothstein called 911. At 865 Pete Street in the garage, there is a frozen body, he told the police dispatcher, referring to his own address. It's in the freezer. Within hours of making the call, Rothstein was in custody. He told the case. cops that he had been in agony for weeks. He had considered killing himself. He told them he'd gone so far as

to write a suicide note, which investigators found inside a desk at his home. Writing in Blackmarker, Rothstein expressed his apologies to those who cared for or about me, identified the body in his freezer as that of Jim Rodin and noted that he, quote, did not kill him nor participate in his death, end quote. The note opened with a curious disclaimer. This has nothing to do with the Wells case. Come on. Also, I'm not gay. Wait, P.S.

I doth protest a normal amount. Love, love, love, love, love Bill. Over the next two days, Rossin explained to police how a dead man came to be in his freezer. In mid-August, he said, he had received a phone call from an ex-girlfriend, Marjorie Deal Armstrong, who he had dated in the 1960s and early 1916.

1770s. This is Marjorie Taylor Green for every 100%. It's like a hundred percent. It's like a lot to be. I mean, I'm going to make Cecil do the Boston Lady voice, but it's Marjor Taylor. Nice. Deal Armstrong told him she had shot her

living boyfriend James Rodin in the back with a Remington 12-gauge shotgun in a dispute over money. Now she needed help removing the body and cleaning up the scene inside her Erie home, about 10 miles from Rothstein's place. Rostin did what she asked.

He kept the corpse in a chest freezer in his garage for five weeks. He painstaking. melted down the murder weapon and scattered the pieces around Erie County. But Rostin said he couldn't go through with the plan to grind up the body. And he called 911 because he was afraid of what D. Armstrong might do to him. I love the idea that he gets this call about this shit while he's in the middle of

planning his elaborate collar plot. And he's like, oh, you just shot him in the fucking back? That's boring. Bored, done to death. On September 21st, the day after Rothstein called 911, Deal Armstrong was arrested for the murder of Rodin. Sixteen months later, in January of 2005, she pleaded guilty but mentally ill

and was sentenced to seven to 20 years in state prison. But by that time, Frostin was past caring about the old girlfriend he'd given up to the cops. He died of lymphoma in July of 2004. The team of federal agents investigating the colliery bomb mystery hadn't been paying much attention

to the Rondon murder. It was a local matter and seemed to have nothing to do with their case. Really? Nothing? Nothing to do with it. If you can't trust a totally normal denial and a suicide note written by a guy with a frozen murder victim laying around, who can you trust? But in April of 2005, they got a phone call from a state police officer who had just met with Deal Armstrong about an unrelated homicide. Rosteen's suicide note, it seemed, was a lie. Get the fuck out of here.

Deal Armstrong had said that Rodin's murder had... everything to do with the collar bomb plot. When the feds met with Deal Armstrong, she told them that if they could arrange a transfer from Muncie State Penitentiary to the minimum security prison in Cambridge Springs, a facility much closer to Erie, she would tell them everything she knew.

I mean, lady, we would if you traffic kids, but this is a pretty serious offense here, so... Even before she was arrested for killing rodent, Deal Armstrong was one of Erie's most notorious figures, well known for her string of dead lovers. She first drew public attention in 1984 when at 35 she was charged with murdering her boyfriend, Robert Thomas. Deal Armstrong claimed that she shot him six times in self-defense, and a jury eventually acquitted her. Four years later, her husband, Richard Armstrong, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The death was ruled accidental, but questions lingered. Armstrong had a head injury when he arrived

at the hospital, but the case was never forwarded to the coroner's office. There was a post-it note next to the gaping head wound that said accidental not marjorie. Very clever. And some freezer bags just marked just in case, wink.

Back in high school, according to former classmates, Deal Armstrong was known for her dazzling intelligence. And she still possessed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of literature, history, and the law. But over the years,

that brilliance had become spiked with madness. According to court records, she suffered from bipolar disorder. Her mood swung sharply, and she appeared unable to control her nonstop rapid fire speech. She was paranoid and narcissistic. In 1984, investigators found 400 pounds of butter and more than 1,700 pounds of cheese, nearly all of it rotting inside her trash-strewn house. What? Psychiatrist deemed her mentally incompetent seven.

times before a judge finally ruled, she was fit to be tried in the Thomas case. They said it was 700 pounds, but some of that was Velvita, so that doesn't count toward the total. Also, the lack of bread makes it weird for me. It does, thank you. Like, you're making a little cheesy. You need the, the ratio's weird, too.

A couple of weird things there. It's kind of fucked up that the court can go, okay, but is she saying now eight times in a row? Yeah. She seemed to be exactly the kind of person. murderous, eccentric, and intent on demonstrating her intellectual gifts who might devise an overly complicated bank heist. She also seemed to be the kind of person who would live, she also seemed to be the kind of person who would likely be unable to stop herself from telling the world about her

brilliant rudes. In our high school, your book it says she was voted most likely to commit a murder and be really fucking tedious about it. Me and Tom also got that superl at it. You did. When D. Armstrong met with federal investigators for a series of interviews, that's exactly what she appeared to be doing. While she insisted that she was not in any way involved in the plot, she admitted that she knew about it, that she had supplied the kitchen timers that were used in the bomb and that she was within a mile of the bank at the time of the robbery. She also said that Wells, the dead pizza delivery guy, was not just a victim, but had been in on the plan.

And so was Rothstein, the man who turned her in for Rodin's murder. In fact, she asserted he had masterminded the whole thing. I love the idea that she created this genius plan with an elaborate string of riddle clues that she worked out. But the cops were like, well, another dead end unsolvable lunch. To get some attention about it. But even as Deal Armstrong pointed the finger at Rothstein, she was implicating herself. Indeed, even before hearing herself incriminating testimony, investigators had begun to suspect that Deal Armstrong was behind the collar bomb plot.

Over the previous weeks, they had met with four separate informants who revealed that Deal Armstrong had talked about the crime in intimate detail. One kept notes of the conversations, which included Deal Armstrong's assertions that she killed Rodin because, quote, he was going to tell about the robbery, end quote, and that she had helped measured Wells' neck for the bomb. Then, in late 2005, a few months after Deal Armstrong first talked to the fifth, feds, they received another break in the case. A witness came forward to say that an ex-television repair man turned crack dealer named

Kenneth Barnes was also involved. Barnes, an old fishing buddy of Deal Armstrong, had spoken too freely about the plan, and his brother-in-law had turned him in while Barnes was already in jail on unrelated drug charges. Frettened with even more time behind bars, Barnes agreed to a deal. he would give a full account of the crime in exchange for a reduced sentence. Okay. A crack dealer,

Fisherman feels very Pennsylvania. Just really does. Very Pennsylvania. Yeah, hard to decide between Democrats and Republicans, right? Like, hard to decide. Crack dealer, fisherman, I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do. John Fetterman. Barnes confirmed the Fed's belief. You considered doing the voice for a second. I can hear it. The pause you heard was me fucking Roger rabbiting to not do the voice. Barnes confirmed the feds believed that Deal Armstrong was, in fact, the mastermind behind the collar bomb plot. He claimed she needed the cash so she could pay him to kill her father, who she believed was blowing through his fortune, money she expected to inherit.

Barnes insisted he was kept in the dark about several aspects of the plot. But even with holes, his account corroborated much of what agents had already heard. The investigation finally was gaining steam. Well, quick, before we introduce Alice, the human trafficking house cleaner to the story, we should take a quick break for some apropos of nothing. Hi, are you Marjorie? Yeah, who wants to fucking know? Hey, I'm Heath.

I'm your blind date? Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, come in. Handsome. Thank you. Thank you. Nice place. Ah, I love this couch.

It's not a fucking couch. cheese. Even better. Like that. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Even better. Okay. Okay. Well, here's a scoop. I need your help. Taking care of some money problems. My old man is blowing my fortune and I need to pay a hitman to, you know, take them out. What do you say?

Totally. Totally. My mom, she like, leaves your Christmas tree up forever, apparently. Oh, okay. Great. Last question. Have you ever been told that your skull is bulletproof or otherwise harder than a normal skull. No, no, nothing like that. Just like bones and stuff. I gotta say, you're taking this real well, you know? Honestly, I stopped listening after I learned about the cheese count. Okay, got it. So, you gonna finish that? Don't touch your fucking cheese! Got it? No, got it. Too soon. Maybe later.

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tell us who deserves the tongue lashing of a lifetime. Volgarity for charity. It's for charity, but it's mostly to vent whatever is inside of Tom. Can I say the mean stuff now? It's soon, Tom. Soon. When we left off, our band of Little Rascals hadn't found an exploding dog yet. What happened next, Eli?

So on February 10th of 2006, federal agents met again with Deal Armstrong, who had brought her attorney. The agents told Deal Armstrong they had enough evidence to bring an indictment against her. She went ballistic, slamming her fist on the conference table and cursing out the agents and her lawyer. But, incredibly, she continued to speak with them. In a subsequent meeting, she even agreed to drive around Erie with them to point out where she was the day Wells robbed the bank.

At the conclusion of the drive, in which she admitted to being at several locations linked to the crime, Deal Armstrong told the agent, she wouldn't provide a any more information without receiving an immunity letter. It was too late. The woman who couldn't stop talking had already said far too much. Fuck, is it... Is it quid

first? You didn't find of that shit? In July of 2007, a month shy of the four-year anniversary of Wells' death by collar bomb, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Erie called a news conference about a major development in the case.

Standing before a bank of TV cameras, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced that the investigation was over. Deal Armstrong and Barnes were charged with carrying out the sensational crime, a plot that Deal Armstrong had put into motion. The indictment also charged that other conspirators were involved. Rothstein was one, and Wells, the purported victim, was another. Pulling together information called for more than a thousand interviews over almost four years, the indictment charged that Wells was in on the scheme from the beginning.

He had agreed to rob the bank wearing what he thought was a fake bomb. The scavenger hunt, he told, was simply a ruse to fool the cops. If he got caught, he could just point to the menacing instructions as evidence that he was merely following orders. If you can't trust the lady who killed four of her lovers living in a house of rotten cheese, again, who can you trust? Yeah, as soon as you hear, don't worry, it'll be a fake bomb. I don't care about the context. Extricate yourself from that plan. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But over time, Buchanan said, Wells went from being a planner to a, quote, unwilling participant. At some point, instead of merely playing the part of the hostage, Wells was double-crossed and actually became one.

The fake bomb turned out to be a real one, and the scavenger hunt went from a clever piece of misdirection to a real-life race against the clock. Wells' family seemed stunned. one of his sisters, Barbara White, repeatedly shrieked, liar, as Buchanan completed her statement. Hey, it's weird to invite the family to that thing for the big dramatic reveal, right? I had the exact same thought as reading this story, but you also have to put yourself in the position of the lady doing the reveal because she's got to call them and be like, no, because here, you got to call them and be like, hey, you might not want to come tomorrow.

Okay. Okay. Marjorie Deal Armstrong's brilliance had become spiked with madness. Paranoid and narcissistic, her mood swung sharply, and she appeared unable to control her non-stop rapid-fire speech. Wells' relatives weren't the only ones who were dubious. For those who closely tracked the case, the government's long-awaited announcement was severely unsatisfying.

It seemed to provoke as many questions as it an answer. Why would Wells participate in such a plot? Did he realize the danger he was in? and could deal Armstrong with her myriad mental issues really plan such a complex crime? The questions only multiplied a week later when it was revealed that the FBI had concluded that the entire scavenger hunt was a hoax. The bomb was rigged such that any attempt to remove it would have set it off. Wells was destined to die. Okay, it looks like the last clue.

Just a picture of the crest flip-top head commercial and a pez dispenser. I'm not feeling so good about this, fellas. Yeah, I'm sorry, but fucking duh. There's no reason to go to the trouble of making a real bomb if the plan isn't to kill the dude. Correct. Thank you. Barnes pleaded guilty in September of 2008 to the conspiracy and weapons charges involved in the collar bomb plot. He was sentenced to 45 years behind bars, but he agreed to testify against Deal Armstrong in the hope of getting his sentence reduced.

Deal Armstrong's trial promised to clear up the mysteries that it surrounded. under the collar bomb case. But those revelations would have to wait. First, a federal judge ruled Dear Armstrong Unfit to stand trial. When she finally was deemed ready to face a judge and jury, she was diagnosed with glandular cancer, and the proceeding was put on hold again

as she waited her prognosis. The judge received the doctor's assessment in August of 2010. Deal Armstrong had three to seven years to live. Prosecutors opted to press on, and the trial was rescheduled for October 12th. Okay, says here, her make a wish is to affix a bomb to the Uber Eats guy's ball sack while she covers herself in moldy cheddar.

She is a genius, though. I'm not sure what point Tom thought he was making. Most intriguing Deal Armstrong's lawyer, Douglas Seguer, had decided to let his client take the stand. Well, he should be disbarred. I think somewhere between the ride with the cop. and the secondary interview. It seemed to be a risky move. After all, she had already implicated herself in the murder.

Was it wise to let such an erratic, unpredictable personality testify? And you're painting a train tunnel on the side of the witness stand. Not clear what that is. Can you answer me these riddles three? Okay. On day five of the trial in the Erie Federal Courthouse, Ken Barnes took the stand. By this time, the prosecutor, Marshal Pinsk,

a fast-talking silver-haired assistant U.S. attorney had already built an impressive case, summarizing the strange characters linked to the Wells plot as a case of, quote, twisted, intellectually bright, dysfunctional individuals who outsmarted themselves, end quote. Reject the fucking premise. They didn't outsmart their shoes. This was all done, remember, this was all done for a max payout of a quarter million dollars that turned out to be 8,070 My favorite thing about this article is that they're just like

these mastermind Even their aspirations are so low I sat on my balls and died Moriarty strikes again Sorry Bincinniti had trotted out seven former inmates Some racist recounted incriminating information

That Deal Armstrong had shared with them Barnes the ex-crack dealer and would be hit man was Binceanini Star with... You say Barnes fine. You fuck up this other name on purpose. I'm sorry, you're racist. I'm saying it authentically, like

Mozodale and Farfallole. And his final one, he was also the man who seemed prepared finally to tell the whole story of what happened in the days leading up to August 28th, 2003, the day of the robbery. Barnes, who had the one... Barney, I believe it's Barna.

Thank you. Thank you, Noah. With the one face and sparse and sparse collection of tea. of the former crack addict he was. What a funny sentence. He was Irish in my head when I did the voice earlier. Now I see what's happened.

It's gone badly for me. Cecil. Approached the bench and took the other. Then he sat in the witness box. I'd like to approach the bench for an edit. Then he sat in the witness box and matter-of-factly described the conspiracy to a rapt jury.

he did have a sparse collection of teeth, but they were in a small canister, not in his mouth. Now, tooth fairy is a lender of last resort for crack ends. He said, took a quarter out of one of those things. The alarmstrong, Barnes said,

devised the plan and enlisted a few co-conspirators to help carry it out. Rothstein was one of them, Wells was another, lured in with promise of a payday. He certainly needed the money. It turned out that the quiet pizza man had a relationship with a prostitute.

With the help of his pal Barnes He brought crack Which he then gave to the prostitute In exchange for sex But in the weeks before the robbery Wells fell into debt With his crack dealers and needed cash But they have rent to own crap

What we're talking about here There was a margin call It was only on the afternoon Of the crime When he delivered the pizzas To the TV transmission tower That Wells realized he had been double-crossed And that the bomb was real

Then why was he so chill? Then why was he so chill sucking on a dumb dumb when it fucking went off? He was tackled. Dumbums are just good. Yeah. Okay. You get a little treat. He was tackled as he tried to sprint away and locked into the device at gunpoint.

Why would they announce like, ha ha, it's a double cross now. Like, now you have to tackle a guy. The whole point of double cross is the secret nature of it. Yeah. It's the bomb. So true. Throughout Barnes's testimony, deal Armstrong angrily whispered to her attorney, several times she blurted out,

Meyer, drawing stern warnings from the judge. For all appearances, it was excruciating for her to listen to people like this discredit her. Well, it's also excruciating to go to prison forever, too, so I can see an alternate explanation for her attitude. On October 26th,

the eighth day of the trial, Deal Armstrong finally got the opportunity to tell her version of events. For five and a half hours, over two days, she used the witness stand as her stage. Her wavy black hair looked greasy and clung to the

sides of her face. Every time she opened her mouth, she unleashed a torrent of words. She ridiculed her lawyer. That's a stupid question, Mr. Suggled the prosecutor. This is the kind of evidence you have against me. I'm telling you, this is a beautiful case. She cried. She yelled. More

than 50 times the judge sought often futile to cut her off. During her first day on the stand, she mentioned Brian Welles only once in the final 10 minutes of a nearly 100 minute long diatribe, quote, I never met Brian Wells, and I never knew Brian Wells, never. I became aware of him the day that he died. I saw it on a nose, end quote.

The jury didn't buy it. After deliberating for 11 hours, the seven women and five men returned guilty verdicts on all three charges, armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and using a destructive device in the crime of violence. She could face a mandatory life term when she was sentenced on February 28. For the FBI, it was a hell of a collar. After seven years... That's it. It's done.

After seven years... Why didn't it take 11 hours of deliberation, by the way? What the fuck are they talking about for 11 hours? I guarantee you what they did is they mapped out this stupid fucking story. They were like, wait, why is the crack dealer hit in? Why did they say we're double crossing you at that point? Then he would, they could just not. Who's the ex-boyfriend?

Someone type into Google if you could buy crack on Layaway. I don't believe that. There's going to be a fake bomb. Why did they build a real bomb? They have the pizza guy and the boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend. You think we could get free pizza if we hold out more hours? Too many people. It's funny if we order from the same pizza place, right?

Would you get it? We'd you do it. 30 minutes and we get the lock of bomb call. around you. After seven years, the outstanding questions had finally been answered. At least, that's how most observer viewed Deal Armstrong's conviction. But that's not how Jim Fisher sees things. Sorry, podcast listener, I have to chime in here for a second. The last part of this essay is fucking insane and completely stupid, but I'm going to deliver it straight. So just play with me, play with me. A retired FBI criminal investigator, Fisher, started closely tracking the collar bomb

case after he saw footage of Wells squirming on the pavement with a device yoked around his neck. The then 64-year-old criminal justice professor had a thing for unsolved crimes. And this was one of the most staggering he had ever seen. He obsessively poured over the media

coverage of the case and studied every piece of evidence released by the FBI. And according to Fisher, there is no way that Marjorie Deal Armstrong planned the collar bomb caper. Okay, why do I feel strongly like a Jean-Benet Ramsey tie-in is about the top.

Yeah, you get it fucking, baby. Katie Perry's involved now. The Trudeau family. Brittany Murphy. For proof, Fisher points to a profile of the collarbomber produced by the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. Oh, the horoscopes of criminology. Yeah, that should be definitive.

Quote, it continues to be the opinion of the department that this is much more than a bank robbery, it reads. The behavior seen in this crime was choreographed by Collar Bomber, watching on the sidelines, according to a written script in which he attempted to direct others to do what he wanted them to do. Because of the complex nature of this crime,

the FBI's behavioral analysis unit believes there were multiple motives for the offender, and money was not the primary one, end quote. In other words, the robbery was never the point. Whoever planned the heist didn't care whether Wells delivered the cash. They just wanted to craft. It's the stupidest fucking. It's completely insane.

Based on nothing. They just wanted to craft a beguiling puzzle. One care. One that would resist explanation for years to come and that would keep cops and investigators hunting fruitlessly after clues, just as Wells was sent on his doomed scavenger hunt. Okay. More plausible than that theory, this FBI cold case guy is the riddler in real life. And now he's mad that nobody followed his genius clues. None of this, Fisher says, sounds much like Deal Armstrong,

who prosecutors credited with planning the whole affair in order to get enough money to pay a hit man. But if Deal Armstrong didn't set this plan in motion, who did? Fisher turns back to the FBI's profile, which states that the bomb, builder was, quote, comfortable around a wide variety of power tools and shop machines. And no shit. He was, quote, a frugal person who saves scraps of sundry materials in order to reuse them in various projects, end quote. And he was quote, and he was quote, the type of person who takes pride in building a variety

of things. Oh, that's quote. Okay. I just, I knew those Mythbusters guys couldn't be trusted. You could just shift them. Hold on a second. I'm starting to think that the known accomplice

whose yard everything happened in, who had a body in this freezer might have been one of the bad guys. To Fisher, that sounded like a description of Bill Rothstein. Right, you are no illusions. The man who lived next to the TV tower and who agreed to keep a dead man

in his garage freezer. The handyman had the skills. to fabricate such an elaborate explosive device, even more convincing to Fisher was the description of the mastermind directing others, according to the written script that only he seemed to have access to.

Wait, the trilingual genius in overalls from Erie Pennsylvania who only spoke in my pandemic. Dameter? I thought, I didn't even clear it. I was like just a patsy at the crime. I know, I know. Big twist. In Fisher's view, Rothstein toyed

with the investigators from the start, concocting the scavenger hunt, at least in part, to send them on a useless chase, eating up valuable time in the precious days after the robbery. Then there was the 911 call, fingering Deal Armstrong in the rodent murder case allowed Rothstein to frame the Wells' investigation on his own terms. If he hadn't gone to the feds, he knew Deal Armstrong or one of his co-conspirators would have. So he implicated Deal Armstrong in the rodent case before she could rat him out, all while pleading ignorance of the collar bomb affair. He also, he also,

gave the impression that he was a man with nothing to hide. After all, why would someone who was involved in the plot voluntarily call the cops and meet with them for hours? Rostin continued to deny any knowledge of the collar bomb plot on his deathbed, even though he

seemingly had no more reason to hide. Until his dying day, Rothstein was insulating himself, or in Fisher's words, controlling the narrative. Okay, I just got to say, Erie Pennsylvania is way more full of secret genius masterminds than I would have ever

a man. No, it's not. No. You got the one. At least part of this whole bit is both this writer and this Fisher guy's inability to accept that a lady was in charge. One million percent. One million.

This article might as well be like, but what if she had gotten her period? In his closing argument at the Deal Armstrong trial, the prosecutor, Benici described the crime as, quote, ludicrous, overwrought, overworked, desperately failed, planned, end quote. If stealing money was the ultimate goal, then that's a pretty accurate summary. But Fisher thinks this wasn't about the money. Rothstein, who never accomplished much in life, wanted to prove his brilliance by executing a crime

that would grab headlines across the globe and baffle authorities for years. If the goal was desperately Failed plan, then he nailed it, I suppose. He recruited co-conspirators He knew he could control And kept crucial details of the plot from them A tactic designed to further complicate the investigation. Hey, okay, to all the criminal masterminds

listening right now, you gotta stop desperately trying to get on our show. Like, you can get on without doing the murders and still do your thing, maybe if it's funny. Just don't. kill everybody. The son of a bitch ended up winning, Fisher says.

He died with all of his secrets. He died taking all the answers with him. He gets the last laugh in that sense. He escaped punishment. He escaped detection. He left us with these idiots and a bunch of questions. Well, yeah, yeah, no,

the lucky guy died at cancer. I mean, like, he didn't win. He died a cancer before he could lose. Those questions, Fisher says, serve as a reminder of Rothstein's ultimate triumph. He died a free man. What? And the last step in the scavenger hunt, the clue that reveals the answers that the agents had been searching for all along will forever remain a hidden. So he died and he was like, all part of the tree.

Got him. Got him. Gotcha. Yeah, right. It's the good thing everybody I set up as a patsy knew each other and had a motive for a crime. and told... How do I write this story and not blame the Jew?

Let's see. No, we're going to blame the Jew. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sense, why would it be? If you think smart people's plans never backfire, I challenge you to watch

no illusions, use a computer. Are you ready for the quiz? Oh, I've never been more ready. All right. What was the least appropriate joke that one of the cops made when the dudes had exploded? A, oh, come on,

this is nothing to lose your head over. B, let's hope his old lady is into necrophilia. I tried all day to come up with a joke that I could use so you wouldn't have to use that one, but I couldn't go up with them. C, regular or decap. Okay, that's great. That's amazing. Or D, well, that bank robber got away with next to nothing.

Fantastic. They're all great. I'm going to go with D next to nothing. It is next to nothing. Yeah, so. All right, Eli, this is now my second favorite neck-based story. Which of the following is my number one. A, the rhyme in the ancient mariner, in which the title character is forced to wear a dead

albatross around his neck as punishment for killing the bird. And now albatross around one's neck is an idiom for an ongoing burden that's hard to get rid of. So, cool history thing. B. Cool history thing. B, the myth. Nobody?

Okay. B, the myth of Medusa and Perseus, in which the act of cutting off Medusa's head at the neck is the pivotal moment in the story leading to the birth of Pegasus and Chrysior from her neck and allowing Perseus to use her severed head as a weapon. Or C. Charlie Kirk. I mean, I know my favorite, but I don't want to go to jail. It can be your favorite death. You can have a favorite death. You have to be allowed to have a favorite death. You have to be allowed to have a favorite death.

That is correct. You have to have D. And yes, you do have to be allowed to have that. Mine is Charlie Kirk. All right. Eli, the greatest loose thread in this story that I cannot help wondering about is. A, what happened to those Woods pizzas that never got delivered? Right?

Pepperoni and Sausers, that sounds delicious. B, seriously, I know a man died here, but there's no reason to skip lunch. Right? Gluy cheese. Oh, it's a. It's A. Is it A? It is A. It's A and B. There's a goddamn pizza.

Write the whole story, Eli. Write the whole goddamn story. That's true. All right. Well, because he was brave, Heath wins. Excellent. Excellent. Just like Charlie Kirk that day.

Brave. Too bad. Anyway, next week, this is very exciting. Are you all ready? Let's hear from Michael Marshall. Whoa. Oh, shit. I realized we were allowed to just name people in the podcast averse.

They didn't have to show up and do our work for us. All right. Senior pets. Well, for Heath, Tom, Noah and Eli. I'm Cecil. Thank you for hanging out with today. We'll be back next week. And by then, Marsh will be an expert on something else.

Between now and then, donate to Bulgaria for charity. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation potter. You can leave us a five-star review everywhere you can. If you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod.com. Hmm. Hmm. Oh.

So? You're fucking sure? You haven't seen the batteries from my remote anywhere? No. I haven't seen them. Right. Hmm.