The Collar Bomb Heist part 2

This is a part two to our previous true crime post which you can find here.

Recap: On August 28th 2003, Brian Wells, a pizza delivery man in Eerie, Pennsylvania, died after robbing a bank with a bomb around his neck. When the police started investigating the events that led up to Wells’ death, things began to get very strange very quickly. Less than a month after, a call is made to the police by Bill Rothstein, who admits that he has a body in his freezer; he’s holding it for Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong. Rothstein had planned to commit suicide over the guilt, his suicide letter states that it had nothing to do with the Brian Wells case.

Marjorie agreed to speak with the feds, but only if they would transfer her to the Cambridge Springs minimum-security prison. She stated that she had no involvement with the collar bomb heist, but she had provided Rothstein with the two kitchen timers for the bomb. She also stated that Wells was not a victim but actually involved with the plan.

She claimed that Bill Rothstein was the mastermind behind the ‘Collar Bomb Heist’. As Marjorie continued to point the finger at Rothstein she also implicated herself. Four separate informants revealed that Diehl-Armstrong had spoken about the heist in intimate detail. One had kept notes of her conversations, revealing that Majorie had claimed that she had murdered Roden because “he was going to tell about the robbery”, and that she had measured Wells’ neck for the bomb.

Rothstein died in 2004 from cancer aged 60, before he could be arrested and charged and taking many answers to the grave.

Late in 2005, the brother-in-law of Kenneth Barnes, Marjorie’s fishing friend, told the police that Barnes was involved after Barnes spoke freely about the heist plan. At that point, Barnes was in prison on an unrelated drug charge.

Whilst investigating, the feds were able to link Barnes and Wells through a prostitute, Jessica Hoopsick. Wells and Hoopsick met several times in Barnes’ home.

Barnes agreed to a deal for a reduced sentence and gave a full account of the crime. Barnes confirmed what the feds already deemed true that Diehl-Armstrong was indeed the true mastermind. She needed the money to pay Barnes to kill her father who, she thought, was spending all her inheritance money.

n February 2006, Federal agents met with Diehl-Armstrong again and told her they now had enough evidence to bring an indictment against her. She went ballistic, slamming her hand on the table. However, she continued to help them by going on a drive to show the feds where she was on the day of the crime. She was then linked to several of the crime locations. Marjorie then stated that she wouldn’t give any more information without an immunity letter. By this point, however, she had already said far too much.

In July 2007, the US attorney’s office in Erie announced that the investigation was over. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes were being charged with both Rothstein and Wells being classed as conspirators. It is believed that Wells was involved with the plan but believed the bomb was fake and that he had been double-crossed by Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong when the bomb went off  and killed him. The FBI concluded that the whole scavenger hunt was a hoax and that the bomb was rigged to go off no matter what. Meaning Wells was always destined to die. Many people following the case, especially Wells’ family, were not happy with this ruling.

In September 2008, Barnes pleaded guilty and was sentenced to forty-five years but agreed to testify against Marjorie in the hopes of reducing his sentence. Diehl-Armstrong’s trial wasn’t as straightforward. She was yet again deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. When cleared, she was diagnosed with glandular cancer and the trial was once again put on hold.

In August 2010, Marjorie was given three to seven years to live, so the prosecutors decided to press on with the trial and it was rescheduled for 0ctober 12. Diehl-Armstrong’s lawyer made the risky choice to let Marjorie take the stand. On trial Day five, Barnes was the prosecutor’s last and most promising witness. He revealed Marjorie was behind it all and had enlisted both Rothstein and Wells. Wells was lured by the big promised payday which he needed to pay for his relationship with prostitute Jessica Hoopsick. Marjorie shouted “LIAR” multiple times whilst Barnes recounted the crimes.

On day eight of the trial, Marjorie took to the stand. She spoke for five and a half hours over two days, even ridiculing her own lawyer and the prosecutor. “If this is the kind of evidence you have against me, I’m telling you, this is a pitiful case”. The judge had to cut her ramblings off more than fifty times. On her first day on the stand, she only mentioned Wells once in the last ten minutes of a hundred-minute rant. “I never met Brian Wells, and I never knew Brian Wells. I became aware of him the day he died. I saw it on the news”.

After eleven  hours the jury returned guilty verdicts on all three charges; Armed bank robbery, Conspiracy and using a destructive device in a crime of violence. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence on Feb 28 2011.

Marjorie died on 4th April 2017.

However, it doesn’t end quite there. Jim Fisher, a retired FBI criminal investigator, followed the case closely and doesn’t believe that Diehl-Armstrong was the true mastermind. Fisher believes that money wasn’t the actual motive. The master wanted to create a puzzle/scavenger hunt so intricate that it would beguile investigators for years to come. To him, Marjorie just did not fit the bill, and he believes that Rothstein was the true ‘Evil Genius’. After all, he was the man with the skills to make such a device and a love for languages to write such an elaborate set of instructions. Rothstein created the scavenger hunt as a ruse to confuse the police and made his 911 call to tell all about Marjorie in order to frame the investigation on his terms. Even on his deathbed, when he had nothing left to hide, Rothstein still professed his innocence. Continuing to control the narrative right until the bitter end. Fisher surmised that Rothstein had never achieved anything in his life and wanted to prove his brilliance to the world; cultivating his meticulous plan and enlisting conspirators he knew he could control. Rothstein is the ultimate winner, dying with all his secrets still intact, getting the last laugh.

For more information of the Collar Bomb Heist, Netflix’s Evil Genius goes into more detail on Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Bill Rothstein.