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Mod... please do not remove, more information is coming out today about this story.

FBI tries to verify Pa. bank heist story

By JUDY LIN
The Associated Press
9/4/2003, 4:19 a.m. CT

ERIE, Pa. (AP) — Living in a rented cottage with hand-me-down furniture and three cats, Brian Douglas Wells was content to deliver pizzas 27 hours a week and spend much of his free time listening to his stereo. Money, say his friends, never meant much to him.

That's why people who knew Wells can't believe he could have masterminded any bank heist, particularly a plot as bizarre as the one the 46-year-old deliveryman has been linked to for a week.

FBI agents and other law enforcement officials have been trying to determine what happened to Wells, who died last Thursday after robbing a bank near Erie when a bomb tethered over his chest and hanging from a locked, metal collar around his neck exploded.

Pleading with police to help him get the bomb off, Wells told authorities he had been forced to rob the bank, indicating that someone else had clasped the bomb to him.

Authorities have been trying to figure out whether that story was true, or whether Wells had played a more willing part in the robbery.

His friends and neighbors are firm in their belief that Wells was a victim.

"He had a different set of values," said his landlord, Linda Payne, who rented the white cottage behind her home to the unmarried Wells for five years.

While Wells' family members have refused to speak publicly, others described him as a quiet man of average intelligence, friendly and willing to help with chores from picking up the mail to shoveling snow in winter.

Investigators haven't talked about what a search of Wells' home produced, but Payne said she doesn't believe they found much to support a theory that he was willingly involved in the heist or the making of the bomb.

"He didn't have a computer. He couldn't get it off the Internet. He would have no desire to make a bomb. He would have no desire to hang something around his neck," Payne said.

Investigators seized drill bits, household tools, phone bills and letters from Wells' home when they searched it last Friday, according to court documents. FBI officials have said they are trying to reconstruct the bomb and analyze notes found with Wells to determine whether he was forced to rob the bank by someone who had locked the collar around his neck.

Korac Timon, chief deputy coroner in Erie County, says the blast killed Wells, leaving a postcard-sized hole in his chest.

FBI Agent Kenneth McCabe said through a spokesman Wednesday he has never heard of such a collar-bomb device being used in America but that he was aware of at least one similar case in Colombia.

In May 2000, in what was believed to be an extortion attempt, a collar packed with explosives and placed around the neck of a 53-year-old woman exploded, killing her and a bomb technician trying to disarm it. This summer, Colombian rebels were accused of using a so-called "necklace bomb" to try to extort money from a Venezuelan rancher. Police were able to disarm that bomb, authorities said.

Authorities investigating the case in Erie have said they do not believe Wells' death was an act of terrorism, and, on Wednesday, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, a native of Erie and a former assistant prosecutor in the county, said his agency is not investigating.

"I'm confident that they will get to the bottom of this, but it's a very strange occurrence. It's very bizarre," said Ridge.

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oops I meant to put a ? behind released in the title

Authorities described the weapon as "unusual" and "unique," saying it appeared to have been homemade or custom-made in a machine shop. One official said it was shaped like a walking cane.

Not too unusual for pizza delivery people. I delivered for a number of years, and weapons of some type – even unusual firearms – were common with the people I worked with. Our company was the only one in the area that didn’t red-line.

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The uniqueness of the devices suggests that "the individual or the individuals that may be associated with this are pretty skilled and independent-thinking,"

I think in police circles this kind of press release is called 'luring the suspect by appealing to his vanity'.

Some very good ideas and speculation on the thread so far, but what I want to know is:

Where's John Doe #2?

skilled and independent thinking? Oh, you mean they spent the $5.75 to watch the movie Swordfish.

FYI

Bumping to read later...what a spooky case.