Unusual gun found in car of neck bomb victim

post-gazette.com ^ | Friday, September 05, 2003 | Cindi Lash

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ERIE, Pa. -- As they continue to search for the maker of the unusual neck-clamp bomb that killed pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells, investigators are also examining an equally unique gun found in Wells' car to determine if it was made by the same person.

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They have decided not to release pictures of the "gun" that appears to look like a "walkiing cane"

[ellery]

Curiouser and curiouser.

[BunnySlippers]

Bookmarking. Thanks for posting ...

[First_Salute]

Bump.

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More late day updates...

Investigators Ask Public for Patience in Pizza Man Death Case

Thursday, September 04, 2003

ERIE, Pa. — A week after a bomb killed a pizza deliveryman who told police he had been forced to rob a bank, an FBI (search) spokesman said Thursday the bizarre case won't be solved quickly and cautioned the public to patient with the pace of the investigation.

Federal, state and local law enforcement continued to chase down leads into the death of Brian Douglas Wells (search), an unassuming, 46-year-old deliveryman who authorities say robbed a bank outside Erie (search) before a bomb clasped to his chest by a locking metal collar exploded, killing him last Thursday afternoon.

Investigators were still trying to determine whether Wells was a willing participant in the robbery or whether, as he told police officers, someone had put the bomb on him and forced him to rob the bank.

On Thursday, authorities reversed an earlier decision to hold a news conference, at which they were considering releasing information about a second weapon found with Wells and an extensive note with instructions both for him and for bank employees that was apparently used during the robbery.

FBI agent Bill Crowley, who is acting as a spokesman for the investigation in northwestern Pennsylvania, said officials decided it was not worth the time it would take to release the information, even though he said a previous decision to release photos of the heavy metal collar and lock from which the bomb hung over Wells' chest has paid off with several leads.

"We're satisfied with how it is going," said Crowley, who declined to divulge any possible leads.

He said agents are still working on analyzing the note and developing profiles of Wells or anyone else who may have been involved. The second weapon has been described as a "sort of gun" by one FBI official, but authorities refused to discuss the weapon or its design Thursday.

So far, said Erie County Chief Deputy Coroner Korac Timon, the most important piece of evidence recovered from the blast that killed Wells appears to be the collar locked around his neck. The FBI posted photographs of it on the bureau's Web site Tuesday, hoping that someone would recognize it.

According to manufacturers in the Erie area, the person who fashioned the collar could have done so with little more than limited experience in metalworking or welding.

"It could have been just a guy fooling around with metalworkings," said Bob Heinlein, president and owner of H&H Machined Products Inc. in Erie. Heinlein said the collar could have been welded from pieces of metal and didn't require much expertise to put together.

Investigators won't say whether they believe the device was made locally in this region, which has a rich industrial past. Although hard-hit in recent decades by overseas competition, northwest Pennsylvania is still home to many tool-and-die and machine shops, and roughly a quarter of the local economy is still in manufacturing.

"Obviously the skill is here for what they did," Heinlein said.

Ralph Pontillo, president of the Manufacturing Association of Northwest Pennsylvania, said construction of the device wouldn't be a difficult task for anyone "with some kind of basic knowledge about machining or fabrication."

"Provided the component parts came from something else," he added.

Charlie Rutkowski, who runs Industrial Sales and Manufacturing Inc., a fabrication shop in Erie, says it would be easy to alter a collar that was intended for piping and turn it into a neck collar. The collar could have been "pulled out of a junkyard," Rutkowski said.

Although Wells was known as someone who could tinker with his car, a former FBI agent said it's unlikely the deliveryman -- who didn't own a computer and apparently needed help from neighbors removing a motor mount from his vehicle -- could have built the collar.

"Look at the facts," said Bob Heibel, who now heads an intelligence analysis program at Mercyhurst College in Erie. "What did he get out of committing suicide?"

Heibel, however, said there's a chance Wells knew the person or people who put the bomb on him, especially considering that the coroner found no defensive marks on his body. It's possible Wells was sought out for his soft-spoken behavior, Heibel said.

Wells had answered a delivery call to what turned out to be a remote, wooded area a short time before he went to the bank, according to authorities.

"I think there may have been some prior contact -- he could have very well delivered [pizza] there before," Heibel said.



Thursday, September 04, 2003

New Information On Wells` Cane Gun

Another bizarre twist on Thursday in last week’s bank robbery and bombing in Summit Township. A news conference was scheduled for Thursday morning, but was cancelled an hour before it was set to begin.

At the news conference, law enforcement agents were expected to reveal more about the weapon carried by Brian Wells, 46, of Millcreek Township. Wells was killed when a bomb attached to his body exploded after he robbed a PNC Bank branch on upper Peach Street.

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One from the Washington Post...Bizarre Death Brings Loner Out of the Shadows - Friday, September 5, 2003

[GOPJ]

Odd story...

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A Childlike Pizza Deliveryman at the Center of a Puzzling Crime - Late day release for 9/4/03 - New York Times

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Bank Bomber Carried Cane Gun

The "gun-like device" carried by Brian Wells the day he robbed a PNC bank branch and later died was a gun concealed in a walking cane.

That's the latest twist in the ongoing bizarre case of Wells, who died when a bomb attached to his neck by a metal collar exploded.

Newswatch 35 could not confirm whether police believe that the gun was loaded as of Thursday night.

Gun canes were popular in the mid to late 1880's, one of the first was a .31 caliber model made by Remington.

Gun shop owner Bob McDowell told Newswatch that he had never seen a gun cane in his 27 years of doing business. "It's unheard of, unthought of, really," McDowell said. The revelation further mystifies a case that has already baffled authorities and residents alike.

Police are still trying to learn how the pizza delivery man wound up with the bomb collar on his neck, and whether he was a willing participant or an innocent victim forced to wear the device.

A press conference scheduled for 11 o'clock Thursday was suddenly cancelled by what task force spokesperson Bill Crowley called "investigative reasons."

No interviews have been rescheduled.

[_Jim]

Zaleski said federal, state and local investigators are continuing to explore three scenarios:

1. that someone else forced Wells to wear the bomb and hold up the bank to save his life; that
2. Wells was a willing accomplice with others in the bizarre scheme; or
3. that he held up the bank on his own.

I vote #2 or #3 with emphsis on #2.

GIVEN, too, that he's now being represented as a man with limited intellect - I think almost ANYTHING is now possible, meaning, he wasn't entirely rational (thinking straight or capoable of thinking straight) ...

[Spirited]

Bump.....Read.

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PING (one time ping)

[jordan8]

About two years ago, Mr. Wells moved to Arizona to live with a younger brother and work at his tool and die shop

Uh huh.

[JerseyHighlander]

A month or so ago the HSA released a report of lists and descriptions of possible weapons useful in airline hijackings. There were pictures of 2 gun canes in that report. It was compiled by the FBI. The FBI had photos of gun canes only months ago.

[piasa]

One of the characters in Tom Clancy's books used a bang stick to take out the bad guys when he was on a bit of a vendetta ... essentially it was a tube, a nail, and a shotgun shell.

[Braak]

You said it. I mean, just what the heck was going on here? None of this makes any sense, and who'd want a 46 year old Pizza deliveryman dead?

I am not a wearer of tinfoil headgear. But, there is something about this case that makes me go hmmm...

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Cheapest and easiest homemade gun to make is a nasty little contrivance of Filipino Guerillas from many decades ago. Called a Filipino slam gun, it is simply two lengths of pipe of different diameters. The smaller diameter pipe accepts a shotgun shell, this pipe fits loosely, but snugly, inside the larger diameter pipe, which has a pipe cap threaded on one end, the cap has a hole drilled and tapped in the center for a screw, which acts as a firing pin. The screw was screwed out for safety, and screwed in when ready for firing. It is fired by just sliding the smaller pipe inside the larger pipe rapidly to the rear, slamming the shotgun shell into the screw firing pin, and blam!! Buckshot, nails, or whatever, and damnation for the intended target.

I have often wondered how many of the shooters lost their own lives and limbs to such a contraption. It must have worked after a fashion for they used it on American troops pre-WW 2, and then on the Japanese in WW 2.

[R. Scott]

Nor will investigators say if they believe the presence of the weapon in Wells' car suggests that he may have been a participant, rather than a victim, in the bank-robbery that led to his death on a busy suburban Erie street.

Why would the presence of a cane gun – a strictly defensive weapon – make anyone think he was a willing participant?
Yes, it is an illegal weapon, but again it is strictly defensive in nature.