US pizza man's death riddle

BBC ^ | 9-1-03 | BBC

[Fighting Irish]

The FBI is investigating the death of a pizza delivery man who said he had been forced to rob a bank by someone who had strapped a bomb to his chest.

Brian Wells had entered a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, and given staff a note which demanded money and said he had a bomb. When he left the bank with stolen money he was surrounded by police and told them he had been forced to rob the bank after someone had started a timer on a bomb under his T-shirt. As the police waited for the bomb squad to arrive the device went off killing Mr Wells. Erie FBI Special Agent Bob Rudge said a meticulous investigation into the incident would solve the mystery of Mr Wells' death.

"We don't know yet as to why the bomb detonated or how it detonated," Mr Rudge told the Erie Times News newspaper. "That will be the focus when we get the forensics back," he said. Mr Wells, 46, had gone to deliver a pizza to an address in a remote area of Erie on Thursday. About an hour later he turned up outside the bank and left with an undisclosed amount of money.

A local television station captured Mr Wells on camera outside the bank, after he had been handcuffed by police, saying: "Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" "It's going to go off. I'm not lying."

No-one else was hurt in the explosion. Erie chief deputy coroner Korac Timon told the AP news agency that the bomb had been hanging from Mr Wells' neck and appeared to be "a very sophisticated device".

Mr Wells' landlady, Linda Payne, said he was a private, trustworthy man. "I couldn't believe that he would rob a bank," she told AP. "I think somebody lured him into that place delivering a pizza, dropped a bomb on him and sent him into the bank."

[billorites]

"I think somebody lured him into that place delivering a pizza, dropped a bomb on him and sent him into the bank."

I hate it when that happens.

[Thebaddog]

Go to the address with another pizza.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Maybe he was going to an address that had never tipped him before, and so he spit in the pizza, and this was the payback?

All kidding aside, if what this guy had said was true, there is a truely sick individual still out there...

[ConservativeMan55]

This is freaking me out. Brian Wells Landlord was just interviewed on Foxnews. Apparently her husband used to work with Brian.

She was acting very strange. When they starting asking her questions she got very very hostile. Then they asked her what her reaction was to his death and she LAUGHED.

She then quickly said "Oh uh..I didn't know anything about this until I saw the police out in front of my house.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Weird. But then, she IS the landlady, and that don't befront her, as long as she gets her rent by next friday....

(With apologies to George Thoroughgood)

[JennysCool]

George T. bump! (been hearing that guy all weekend, for some reason)

[ConservativeMan55]

She did give out some information though.

She said the Brians boss actually took the order...but for some ODD reason couldn't get the directions right so he gave them to Brian.

[Chad Fairbanks]

What kinda pizza boss can't get directions right?

[Paul C. Jesup]

This is getting more twisted by the minute.

[open mind-closed fist]

...next friday come and he didn't get the rent, so on the bomb went?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Some people have an involuntary laughing reaction to stressful or tragic situations.

[Conservative Me]

From what I read, the boss put Wells on the phone because Wells would be the one delivering the pizza. At least, that is what the AP article said.

[Chad Fairbanks]

That's weird - unless the directions were so convuluted that it was necessary for the driver to deal with it directly - ya know, "Take a left on Old Parson's ROad, and drive yonder til ya git to a fork in the road, and if you make a left and you go 'bout a mile til ya see a big red barn - don't go that way. You wanna take that right and go across an old bridge til you see gnarly-looking tree, and make a left..."

[Chad Fairbanks]

he'd been walking all day...

[Conservative Me]

Maybe... The boss could have just been lazy. Wells was right there and would be the one delivering the pizza. The boss could of just handed the phone to him out of convenience. Who knows? I don't find it all that weird. I think we are reading too much into this.

[Chad Fairbanks]

True enough... but it's fun to speculate. ;0)

[JOHANNES801]

I dint beleive your trying to find no job,so out the door he went.

[DB]

Why didn't he go directly to the police instead of the bank?

If it was tied to a pager, shut down the pager system.