Posted on 09/06/2003 6:52:28 PM PDT by FootBall
By Ed Palattella ed.palattella@timesnews.com and Kevin Flowers kevin.flowers@timesnews.com
The FBI on Friday zeroed in on a 46-year-old Erie man who described himself as "a person of interest" in the bombing death of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells.
The man said he had nothing to do with the Wells case, and said he had never spoken to Wells. The man's live-in girlfriend said she is Wells' cousin.
"I will be 47 in December, and I have never known this man in my existence," the man told the Erie Times-News in an interview at his apartment at East Fourth and Ash streets.
The man spoke to the newspaper hours before the FBI searched his apartment before 6 p.m. Friday.
The man described himself as a "person of interest" in the case, and said he wished the FBI would stop questioning him, as he said agents have twice since Wells' death.
"They are the FBI, and I really do feel intimidated," he said.
He said he has nothing to hide, and that he has repeatedly told the FBI he had no involvement with Wells, who died Aug. 28 when a bomb clamped to his neck exploded after he robbed a Summit Township bank. The bomb was attached to a locked metal collar the FBI said is homemade.
Wells, 46, was carrying a multi-page note and a canelike gun capable of firing a single shot. The man who is the subject of the investigation said he and his girlfriend were at home when Wells died — something he said he has told the FBI.
"This ain't Nazi Germany," the man said. "And that's how I feel. Like I'm being persecuted."
The man, who said he is an unemployed maintenance technician, said the FBI questioned him about his skills with machines. He described himself as "mechanical."
"I fix and build things," he said. "But I have no knowledge of munitions. I've never been exposed to that stuff. I don't mess with guns."
The FBI did not take the man into custody after the search of his apartment. He left the scene with a relative as about 40 onlookers watched the commotion outside his apartment.
"I thought I was in America," the man told reporters and neighbors as he walked away from his apartment. "Personally, I feel this is too high-profile a case for Erie, Pennsylvania's limited law enforcement. They are grasping at straws.
"I go to church every Sunday. What do you think the church community is going to feel when they see stuff like this? I feel like my privacy has been violated. For me to even be associated with such a heinous crime, it really hurts. Because I am not that type of person to even do nothing like that."
The Erie Times-News is not publishing the names of the man and his girlfriend because no charges have been filed against them in the case.
A law-enforcement source close to the investigation told the Erie Times-News the FBI is interested in the man and his girlfriend because the agents believe Wells had a relationship with the couple.
"They're thinking that they all knew each other and that the (man) was the dominant male in the relationship," said the source, who asked not to be identified. "They think he could get Wells to do things pretty easily.
"They're looking real hard at (the man)," the source said.
Bob Rudge, the agent in charge of the FBI's Erie office, could not be reached for comment.
In other law-enforcement activity related to the man on Friday:
n The FBI questioned the man's live-in girlfriend, which was the third time in a week she said she had met with agents. The woman, 25, told the Erie Times-News that agents pulled her out of an adult-education class to talk to her on Friday.
"They asked me if there was anything I forgot to tell them," she said. She said the agents told her she should "not be scared to talk."
n The FBI searched a garage in the 300 block of Cherry Street about 3 p.m. The agents carried away screwdrivers, gray duct tape, a roll of red tape, locking-type pliers, several other hand tools, nuts and bolts and rug fragments, according to an inventory the agents left at the scene.
The owner of the garage, Marilyn Torres, said she permitted the FBI to search the garage. She said agents told her they had information the garage had been used by the man the Erie Times-News interviewed Friday.
"They specifically mentioned that name," Torres said. She said the agents told her they believed the man got access to the garage through Torres' son.
Torres said her son does not know the man. The son told the Erie Times-News he had "seen him" but did not know him.
Torres said agents also told her the man was believed to have parked his car in a fenced-in area surrounding the garage. She said the agents "emphasized it was purely speculation and hearsay that led them here."
Torres' boyfriend, Willie Feliciano, said the search upset him.
"I'm still shaking," he said. "It's embarrassing, to be honest with you. You come to the neighborhood and see news cameras, bomb squad, cops, FBI. It is scary, especially when you don't know what's going on."
n Investigators visited two area manufacturing plants shortly after Wells' death to ask employees if they knew the man who was the subject of Friday's searches. The man had worked at both plants — EMSCO Inc. on Church Street in Girard and an assembly plant for Engineered Plastics on East 12th Street near Downing Avenue in Erie.
Several employees at the EMSCO plant told the Erie Times-News on Friday that investigators asked about the man, and that the agents showed the employees photographs of the locking clamp that held the bomb around Wells' neck.
The employees said the investigators asked them if the man was capable of building such a device. The employees said they told the agents the man was not. They said the man worked in maintenance at the plant before he left two years ago.
At Engineered Plastics, a supervisor said investigators had visited and asked about the man, who the supervisor said had left his job there in May. The supervisor declined to comment further.
The man who was the subject of Friday's searches told the Erie Times-News that he and his girlfriend first went to the FBI headquarters in Erie for questioning the day after Wells' death.
The man and his girlfriend said the FBI wanted to talk to the girlfriend — who has a 2-year-old son with the man — because the girlfriend left a message on Wells' answering machine two to four days before his death. The woman said she believed the final telephone message she left for Wells was about trying to get him to give her a ride somewhere.
The man said he went with his girlfriend to the FBI headquarters to lend support, and that the FBI placed them in separate rooms and started questioning him after agents learned he was mechanically inclined.
The man said the FBI interviewed him once more before Friday's search, and that he answered a questionnaire for the agents and gave them a handwriting sample. The man said he let the FBI search his apartment on Aug. 30.
The man's girlfriend said the FBI questioned her about her relationship with Wells.
The woman acknowledged having a criminal record for prostitution, and she said FBI agents knew about her record when they questioned her. She said she knew Wells only because he is her cousin.
"I've known Brian ever since I was 9 years old," the woman said. "My dad told me he was a cousin. But they asked me about that. I just told them he would give me rides sometimes."
The man said he had never seen Wells and had never spoken to him in person or by telephone.
"I don't know him," the man said. "So what am I going to call him for?"
The man acknowledged having a criminal record, but he said the Wells case did not fit his "jacket."
Neighbors of the man described him as a friendly person who likes to wash his car. They said law-enforcement officials have been in the neighborhood constantly since Wells' death.
"They have been questioning him for a few days," a neighbor said. "He is always out here washing his car constantly."
The man said the searches and the constant questioning have left him angry. He said he cooperated with the FBI initially, but stopped when he thought "enough is enough. This is way overboard."
"For these people to come into my life and put that cloud of suspicion over me, it's wrong," the man said.
Tim Hahn, George Miller and Jule Gardner contributed to this report.
Not weird for a third world country. What I find weird is the police writing off the other pizza delivery death as a drug overdose. Anyone that could engineer a collar bomb bank robbery is certainly capable of adminstering a hot shot to a drug addict. Elimination of witnesses ?
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