Delivery Man in Bank Robbery Had Record

Centre Daily/AP ^ | Sep. 20, 2003

[MattAMiller]

A pizza delivery man who robbed a bank and was killed by a bomb locked to his neck was once arrested after allegedly threatening neighbors and a judge, according to a police report.

Brian Wells apparently called a judge in 1991, saying he wanted his neighbors evicted from their home in Erie or he would "put a bullet in their heads," the Erie Times-News reported Saturday, citing a police report.

Wells, 46, died Aug. 28 after robbing a bank near Erie. Before he died, Wells told police he had been forced to rob the bank by someone who locked the bomb to his body. Investigators have been unable to figure out whether Wells was a willing participant or was somehow duped or forced into taking part.

In 1991, Wells called the office of then-District Justice Joseph Weindorf, threatened the neighbors and then became "abusive" with Weindorf, using obscene language and threatening to shoot the judge, the report stated.

Wells was charged with harassment by communication, but the charge was later dropped. Instead, he pleaded guilty to a summary offense of harassment, court records show.

Weindorf declined to comment, citing the investigation into Wells' death.

[MattAMiller]

So he's not quite the meek pizza delivering semi-hippy we've heard about. I don't think it means anything. To me the facts of the case point to Wells being a victim.

At any rate this is a facinating case that just keeps twisting and turning.

[Rain-maker]

Not getting much headline time though. It is a rather bizarre case and like to see more about it.

The jig will be up if it happens again, then we know pizza guy was really a victim.

[Sacajaweau]

But, but....he's so quiet, they all said.

A month has passed. This just came out??

[Jalapeno]

The problem is there is no investigative reporting going on over this. The information is being released by police.

Reporters have gotten lazy and are waiting for the news to come to them.

[Rudder]

The problem is there is no investigative reporting going on over this.

The police bungled this case from the very beginning: Have you heard anything at all regarding a description of the perp(s)? Nope. Why not? Police forgot to ask before pizza man went boom.

[mtbopfuyn]

The police bungled this case from the very beginning: Have you heard anything at all regarding a description of the perp(s)? Nope. Why not? Police forgot to ask before pizza man went boom.

Exactly. They stood around picking their noses and didn't do anything to help the guy or even attempt to get the whole story or id of the bad guys. Now, they have nothing to investigate so they dig up some irrelevant argument a dozen years ago with the guy's neighbors. Idiots.

[Lucy Lake]

Ping.

[Devil_Anse]

WHOA! Grizzfan, this development is making my head spin!!

[Sandylapper]

Now, they have nothing to investigate so they dig up some irrelevant argument a dozen years ago with the guy's neighbors.

Yep, and poor Wells is not around to tell his version of what happened either.

[Devil_Anse]

I think Wells must have been off his rocker (and/or drunk as a fiddler's *****) to call up a judge and threaten him.

To me, this doesn't show Wells as having the mind or personality of a criminal. It just shows Wells as having been capable of acting crazy. Well... they said he was a little odd.

Crazy. Kind of simple or clueless. The perfect victim. The perfect person to pick on.

[Sandylapper]

I sort of figured he was drunker than a skunk, and he may have been under a court order to get rid of some of his cats. ;^)

[Devil_Anse]

Cats! Cats. Always, at the bottom of these tragedies--cats!

[Sandylapper]

LOL! Yep, they're just as bad as money! Root of all evil.

[Jalapeno]

Crazy. Kind of simple or clueless. The perfect victim. The perfect person to pick on.

Or the perfect fool to strap a bomb to himself thinking the police would diffuse it before it went off.

All theories are still valid in this case.

[Devil_Anse]

Hmmm... boy, if he did that (for the purpose of robbing the bank?) then he, shall we say, didn't have a self-preserving bone in his body! And we know what happens to living creatures which do not have some instinct for self-preservation!

I mean, he could at least have made it a realistic-looking fake!

If Wells had any complicity in it at all, I picture him more as sitting there nervously while "they" locked it onto him, saying something like, "You know I'll do it for you guys, but this is never going to work... are you sure this will work? Okay, but I don't think it's gonna work."

[Jalapeno]

It truly does boggle the mind, that's for sure.

[evets]

Last week a kid got on a school bus with a "hand grenade". Should change the name to "eerie": Erie resident Marjorie Diehl, acquitted of murdering her boyfriend 19 years ago, was jailed late Sunday in connection with a corpse found in a freezer over the weekend. Police, acting on a tip, discovered the corpse in a house at 8645 Peach St. in Summit Township. That largely rural area of Peach Street has grown familiar over the past several weeks because of the case of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells, who was killed when a bomb locked to his neck exploded Aug. 28. http://gepreview.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=99999999&Kategori=NEWS02&Lopenr=30908009&Ref=AR