FBI Raids Erie Home After Man's Bombing Death

WPXI(Channel 11 Pittsburgh) ^ | 9/05/02 | Gina Redmond

[Dane]

FBI Raids Erie Home After Man's Bombing Death
Man Robs Bank, Dies With Bomb Strapped To Body
Gina Redmond

POSTED: 5:35 p.m. EDT September 5, 2003
UPDATED: 5:42 p.m. EDT September 5, 2003

PITTSBURGH -- Late Friday afternoon, the FBI raided another house in downtown Erie in search of answers in a pizza delivery man's death.

And there's another bizarre twist to the death of Brian Wells, who was killed by a bomb that blew up after he robbed an Erie bank last week.

Police said Wells was carrying a second customized weapon during the bank robbery.

The transcript from the 911 call made shortly after the robbery was released Friday.

Witness: "The guy just walked out with I don't know how much cash in a bag and a bomb or something wrapped around his neck. He's sitting in the parking lot of McDonald's. I'm watching him out of my rear-view mirror now."

911 dispatcher: "You saw him with a bomb, or whatever it was?"

Witness: "Yea, he's got it strapped around his neck."

Police are still trying to figure out if Brian Wells was a willing participant in the bank robbery, or whether someone had put the bomb on him and forced him to rob the bank.

And there's another layer to this perplexing case. Investigators found a customized weapon: a single-shot firearm disguised as a walking cane.

They found the cane gun in Wells' car when he was arrested. The Erie Times and News reported that Wells carried the cane gun into the bank but never used it to threaten workers

[Devil_Anse]

Oh, I'm sure the majority of pizza stores are legitimate. And of course a one-of-a-kind-place is often lots better than a chain store.

It's just that I just remembered a true story that happened a few years ago where I live. It was about a guy who worked in a one-of-a-kind pizza place, and people told me he was a well-known marijuana dealer. I found out about the guy after he disappeared, and posters of him were all over town. He was found a year later--murdered.

[TigersEye]

I would think this type of group would prey on people who weren't exactly free of criminal suspicion themselves.

Yes, I agree with that. But when you are talking about drugs and someone making deliveries through a pizza joint there will inevitably be people who know about it that the dealers know nothing about. Druggies talk ...and talk and talk and talk.

Example: The mule delivers a package to a house. One person there is his buyer. Three people there are friends of the buyer waiting to help divide it up, maybe to use maybe to sell. In a dozen other places there are people waiting for that drop so they can get some.

Everybody knows a little something and if the big dealer does a number like this to enforce payments it's going to make shock waves through that little underground that will bubble up in bar gossip for miles around. There would be people who don't do drugs and don't directly know anyone getting drugs from this source gab-gabbing about it. The press is not above disseminating speculations and they wouldn't have any trouble finding speculators.

[Devil_Anse]

Someone in a post above (all I know is it was after Post 100) said that the call came in at 1:45 p.m.

If there was a call, I would think it would be pretty easy to trace its origin, with the help of the phone company. But I'm not even necessarily convinced that there really was a call, or that Wells really left the store with pizzas. The pizzas were never found.

If there were no call, or no pizzas, it would begin to sound like Wells' boss was lying, and therefore involved.

[stlnative]

Man Tells FBI He Didn't Know Bank Robber
Sat Sep 6, 4:32 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!


By TODD SPANGLER, Associated Press Writer

ERIE, Pa. - A man who says his girlfriend is a cousin of the pizza deliveryman killed after a bank robbery by the explosion of a bomb locked to his neck says investigators seized his tools and computer, but he denied Saturday that he ever met the dead man.



"There is no relationship. I don't know Brian Wells," Jimmy Johnson, 46, of Erie, told The Associated Press on Saturday.


Wells, 46, was arrested and handcuffed Aug. 28 following a PNC Bank robbery near Erie, but was killed when the bomb attached to a collar locked around his neck exploded while he and police waited for a bomb squad.


Investigators are trying to determine whether Wells locked the bomb onto himself, or if it was locked onto him by someone else who forced him to rob the bank.


Investigators searched Johnson's apartment on Friday, taking tools and his laptop computer. He told The Associated Press that the search warrant was for items such as explosives and firearms.


"I know they didn't find anything like that because I don't keep nothing like that here," Johnson said.


Johnson said his girlfriend, whom he identified only as Angie, was Wells' cousin. Johnson said the couple spoke to FBI (news - web sites) agents earlier because Angie had left messages on Wells' answering machine asking him to give her a ride days before he was killed.


Johnson said they had no involvement in the incident.


Wells' landlord and neighbor, Linda Payne, said a woman named Angie used to visit Wells at his apartment. She said Wells had identified Angie as a former school mate.


FBI agent Bill Crowley refused to comment on the investigation Saturday.


On Friday, Marilyn Torres, 37, said the FBI searched her garage after telling her they believed Johnson used the building with the knowledge of her son. A man identifying himself as Torres' son Daniel, 21, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he didn't recognize a photo of Johnson that authorities showed him.


Torres' boyfriend Willie Feliciano, 40, said investigators took items including screwdrivers, duct tape, a piece of a rug, and some bolts and ratchets from the couple's two-car detached garage.


Johnson said he has never been to the garage and does not know the couple.


Officials at two companies where Johnson used to work told a newspaper that FBI agents asked them about the unemployed maintenance technician and his mechanical abilities. Employees at EMSCO Inc. in Girard told the FBI that Johnson didn't have the expertise to build the collar locked to Wells' neck, the Erie Times-News reported Saturday. Officials at the other plant, Engineered Plastics in Erie, wouldn't comment further.

[Devil_Anse]

Yes, the druggies, who think they know who did it, might well be all abuzz. But try being a police detective or prosecutor, and rounding up the people who allegedly said something. They tend to melt away really fast when the police or DA come looking for them to take their statements. Trust me, I know. Sometimes there are 10 witnesses to a violent crime, and every one of them will say, "I didn't see nothing."

[TigersEye]

One point you have, though. Some criminal organization didn't have to go through all this complicated mess to knock off a witness, and put the word out that it was dangerous to even know about the organization's activities.

That's just it. It is way too complicated and messy. Your story about the guy in the trunk is just how that's done. They don't want a lot of attention when sending a 'message', the people who need to know will know. "Joe's gone. No one knows how, who or what. He's just gone, man."

They want to scare the people who pay them for goods not every doper in a tri-county area. It's also more intimidating that Joe "dissappeared." "Just what did they do to him before they stuffed him in a trunk? And for how long?" Getting blowed up is scary but if you know what the punishment is you can puff yourself up and tell yourself you can take it or imagine just how you'll get out of it. Mystery makes better fear.

[TigersEye]

Trust me, I know.

Trust you? Your first name is Devil! LOL

[Devil_Anse]

Please allow me to introduce myself...

[BARLF]

Yeah, could have been. Caller seemed sure it was a bomb,plus the money. Just wondered.

Thanks

[Devil_Anse]

Or he just really thought his boss could do anything. Sort of like, "call my mom and dad" coming from a child.

[Devil_Anse]

Yes, I agree, the scare factor could have been created with a lot less to-do.

At one time I wondered if the pizza man wasn't just a random victim. Like, say, these two psychos had their device, and were hanging around, and said, okay, who can we try this on, now? And maybe they didn't want to do it to anyone they knew, for obvious reasons, so they decided that a pizza man would be ideal, b/c he would come to wherever they wanted him to come to. These ideas are part of what makes me think the perps were young men or maybe even teenage boys. (Yes, some teenage boys can build a variety of amazing devices and inventions. And weapons fascinate the majority of them.)

[Devil_Anse]

I mean, look at Leopold and Loeb. They were college age. They had this semi-intellectual game they'd play, talking about "the perfect crime". And then they decided to try out their "theories" or whatever. Their victim seemed to have been picked b/c he was convenient. (I know he was a cousin of one of them; but I mean he was convenient b/c he hung around them sometimes, and would trust them enough to get in the car with them.)

[TigersEye]

I don't know about Leopold and Loeb but I tend to the theory you just proposed in some form or another. At first I strongly believed Wells was innocent and now I'm wavering but still holding out. I did think about a group like FITZ said earlier and I thought; a couple of teenagers and a twenty something leader with some mechanical skills.

One thing everyone agrees on is that this is a weird case. The statements from different people are weird, the seemingly close-but-no-cigar relationships all over the place are weird, the bomb and cane gun are weird, the bad and hurried timing of the robbery are weird ... it's ALL WEIRD!

If the person/persons behind this were really after the money then he's a mechanically adept fruitloop. If Wells had just tried a little harder to avoid the police he would have shown up with the money just in time to blow both of them up. Unless ... (insert some unknown variable.)

[Devil_Anse]

If Wells had just tried a little harder to avoid the police he would have shown up with the money just in time to blow them both up.

Yes, that's another thing. Who in their right mind would want Wells coming back to them just about the time the bomb was due to go off? It would be hard to detonate the bomb, even if you had the keys and combination, when you were thinking, one wasted second, and I go kablooey, too!

One article said that directly after the robbery, a witness called in and said Wells was sitting in the McDonald's parking lot nearby. You know why he was sitting there waiting? Because--going on another article here--the bank told him they didn't have all the $250,000 b/c their vault wouldn't open till 3 p.m., to which Wells reportedly responded, "All right, I'll come back for the rest of it." ???!

[norraad]

I've never seen a story with so many loose ends.

There's no logic whatsoever.

Like a jigsaw puzzle that appears to have all the parts but there's no way to put it together.

[TigersEye]

Weirdness! Just weirdness. 8-O

[TigersEye]

Wells reportedly responded, "All right, I'll come back for the rest of it." ???!

That statement, sitting in the car and his asking to have the handcuffs taken off to take the weight off his neck are what have me losing confidence in his innocence.

[Devil_Anse]

Perhaps--but it sure doesn't make one lose confidence in his stupidity.

[Devil_Anse]

Yes--like the bomb. All these places he had to go to get it turned off or taken off, and no way to go to them.

[BARLF]

transcript from the 911 call made shortly after the robbery was released Friday.

Witness: "The guy just walked out with I don't know how much cash in a bag and a bomb or something wrapped around his neck. He's sitting in the parking lot of McDonald's. I'm watching him out of my rear-view mirror now."

This statement by the caller gave me the impression he/she just happened to be observing Wells through a rear view mirror. How far is this McDonald's from the bank?

Not important as the caller can't be identified.