The Pizza Bomber

Summary

Crime Scene Podcast: “The Pizza Bomber”

Host: Jonathan Hirsch (with Cooper Maul)
Date: April 23, 2026
Podcast: Crime Scene by Sony Music Entertainment

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jonathan Hirsch and investigative reporter Cooper Maul unravel the bizarre and tragic “Pizza Bomber” case—an infamous 2003 bank heist in Erie, Pennsylvania, that involved a collar-bomb, a coerced pizza delivery man, and a web of conspirators tangled in murder, manipulation, and misfortune. The hosts take listeners through the crimes and investigation, exploring the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator and raising questions about motive, manipulation, and narrative in true crime storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Bank Heist and Brian Wells

• Setting the Scene (01:21–03:29)

  • The case is called “one of the most bizarre in true crime history”—a pizza delivery man named Brian Wells, forced to rob a bank with a collar-bomb locked to his neck, dies on live television.
  • “...the person who committed the crime is also a victim of the crime.” —Jonathan Hirsch (02:00)

• Brian’s Fateful Pizza Delivery (03:29–05:55)

  • Brian Wells, a long-time pizza delivery guy, receives a suspicious delivery call to an isolated location.
  • Upon returning, he’s made to rob a bank, carrying a fake shotgun disguised as a cane and wearing a crude, bolted collar-bomb.
  • The handwritten note instructed him to steal $250,000, promising keys and clues around town to unlock the bomb.

• The Bombing (07:08–09:26)

  • Brian is apprehended by police shortly after leaving the bank, pleads for help, and insists he’s been forced to rob the bank.
  • The collar-bomb detonates three minutes before the bomb squad’s arrival, killing Brian in front of TV cameras.

    “He died a few minutes later. Definitely not… Time runs out, the bomb explodes. The footage too gruesome to show.” —Cooper Maul (09:23)

The Web of Conspirators

• Initial Confusion: Victim or Perpetrator? (09:55–10:49)

  • Police discover a multi-page note with scavenger-hunt-style clues in Brian’s car. The investigation questions whether Brian was an accomplice or a pawn.

• A Murdered Body Points to New Leads (11:36–13:16)

  • Weeks later, police are alerted to a body in a freezer at the home of local handyman Bill Rothstein, who lived near the bomb’s origin. The body, James Rhoden, had a note denying any link to Brian’s case—further deepening the mystery.

• Introducing Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (14:33–16:56)

  • Rothstein names his ex-girlfriend, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, as the mastermind behind Rhoden’s murder, stating she enlisted him to hide the corpse.
  • Marjorie’s history includes multiple suspicious deaths of men in her life, a bipolar diagnosis, and previous murder acquittal on self-defense grounds.

• Investigating Motive & Mental State (16:56–18:50)

  • The hosts discuss Marjorie as both tragic and manipulative, describing conflicting evidence of her as a chaotic but calculating figure.
  • While committed to a psychiatric hospital as “unfit” for trial, Marjorie’s instability and her history of influencing vulnerable men come into focus.

• The Death of Rothstein (19:19–21:03)

  • Rothstein dies of lymphoma after refusing to divulge further information about the plot beyond implicating Marjorie.

The Conspiracy Unravels

• Marjorie Confesses, Sort Of (21:10–23:03)

  • Marjorie admits partial involvement, confirms supplying kitchen timers for the bomb, and places herself nearby when the device exploded.
  • She requests immunity, which is denied, later disputing FBI accounts of her confession.

• A Motely Crew: Stockton Jr. and Barnes (24:50–29:11)

  • New players emerge: Floyd Stockton Jr., a fugitive convicted of sex crimes and a roommate of Rothstein, who admits Marjorie and Rothstein were ringleaders needing money.
  • Kenneth Barnes—Marjorie’s selected hitman (also a convicted criminal)—is brought in by his own family. Barnes was offered $250,000 to kill Marjorie’s father, matching the amount Brian Wells was told to steal.
  • The hosts comment on the ineptitude of the group:

    “It’s like the dumb and dumber version of criminals a little bit.” —Jonathan Hirsch (26:57)

• Brian Wells’ Role Reconsidered (31:06–32:18)

  • New testimony reveals Brian Wells attended planning meetings the day before the robbery, possibly believing the bomb was fake.

    “It rewrites Brian in my imagination… I had seen him as kind of like a helpless pawn… but now there’s a chance… he could have very well been a willful participant.” —Cooper Maul (32:06–32:11)

Justice (and Questions) Served

• Charges and Sentences (33:38–37:14)

  • The co-conspirators turn on Marjorie, providing corroborating testimony. Barnes gets a 45-year sentence for cooperating; Stockton is granted immunity for testifying.
  • Marjorie stands trial in 2010, is found guilty on all counts: armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and use of a destructive device.

• Victim/Perpetrator Dilemma (37:28–39:48)

  • The hosts return to the story’s core tension: Brian Wells as both participant and victim.

    “How am I victim and the perpetrator at the same time? But he sort of is.” —Jonathan Hirsch (38:02)
    Brian is described by acquaintances as gentle, childlike, and shy—a jarring contrast with the crime itself.

• Correcting the Narrative (39:59–43:39)

  • Later media coverage—especially Netflix’s 2018 documentary Evil Genius—offers alternate perspectives.
  • A local sex worker, Jessica Huepsik, admits in the documentary to suggesting Brian as an “easy gopher” for the crime, stating, “he was innocent” of the plot’s real details and “it hurts me that I could do this to somebody that I cared about.” (41:27–41:54)
  • The hosts discuss the importance of true crime re-examining cases to reset narratives, restore dignity, and correct injustices.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jonathan Hirsch on the central enigma:

  “The person who committed the crime is also a victim of the crime.” (02:00)

• On Brian’s death broadcast to the world:

  “He died a few minutes later… Time runs out, the bomb explodes. The footage too gruesome to show. Police react instinctively, running closer with guns drawn. Brian Wells is dead.” —Cooper Maul (09:23)

• Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong’s legacy:

  “She was the puppet master here. And after the confession, she wants an immunity deal. ... She later disputes that the FBI’s account of what happened, hence the ‘allegedly.’” —Jonathan Hirsch (22:36–22:47)

• The “low rent” true crime archetype:

  “It’s like the dumb and dumber version of criminals a little bit.” —Jonathan Hirsch (26:57)

• On shifting perspectives about Brian Wells:

  “I had seen him as kind of like a helpless pawn in this sick game. ... But now there’s a chance ... he could have very well been a willful participant in this.” —Cooper Maul (32:06–32:11)

• Narrative complexity and the binaries of victimhood and criminality:

  “I feel like we are so binary in our thinking about those two things. ... It's almost like we haven't really figured out how to see where those, like that Venn diagram kind of connects.” —Cooper Maul (39:48–39:59)

• On the power of revisiting stories:

  “Being able to revisit some of these cases over time ... can recast the narrative. It can help to bring dignity to the name of people and a lot of healing to their families.” —Jonathan Hirsch (43:01–43:19)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [01:21] Show intro and case setup
• [03:29] Brian Wells receives fateful pizza delivery order
• [05:55] Brian enters the bank, executes the robbery under duress
• [09:17] The bomb detonates—Brian is killed on live TV
• [11:04] Discovery of convoluted “scavenger hunt” plan
• [12:17] Rothstein’s freezer call and James Rhoden’s body
• [15:17] Introduction of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
• [16:10] Marjorie’s criminal and mental health history
• [18:50] Rothstein’s death, police lose a key informant
• [21:10] Marjorie’s confession and legal maneuvering
• [24:50] Testimonies from Floyd Stockton and Kenneth Barnes
• [31:48] Testimony unearths Brian’s prior knowledge (or belief the bomb was fake)
• [37:14] Marjorie found guilty, others sentenced
• [39:48] In-depth reflection on Brian Wells’ legacy and the binaries of crime storytelling
• [40:56] Introduction of Jessica Huepsik’s account—Brian’s innocence established
• [43:01] Broader discussion about true crime’s role in retelling and correcting flawed narratives

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Final Thoughts

This episode deftly dismantles the simple narratives of criminal and victim, casting a critical eye on the ways in which stories are constructed, misunderstood, and eventually revised through deeper reporting and time. The tragic fate of Brian Wells stands at the intersection of desperation, manipulation, and society’s hunger for simple explanations, making the “Pizza Bomber” case a true classic of American crime—and a cautionary tale about judging the roles people play in unfathomable events.

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Additional Resources

• Mentioned: Netflix’s Evil Genius (2018) provides further exploration and interviews.
• For further reading and episode bibliography, see the show notes at sonymusic.com/podcasts.

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This summary has omitted all advertisements, intros, and outros to focus exclusively on the substance of the episode’s reporting and analysis.

Transcript

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[Jonathan Hirsch]

It's one of the most bizarre stories in true crime history. It involves a bank heist, a hired hitman, and a scavenger hunt. On August 28, 2003, a man walked into a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, and by the time he walked out, before he could even leave the parking lot, he would die on live tv. Whatever happened to him that day was out of his control. Welcome to Crime Scene, the show where we tell the story behind the world's most unforgettable crimes. This week, we're bringing you the story of one of the most infamous crimes of the 21st century. It's about a complex plot to rob a bank and an accomplice who had no idea what he was in for. From Sony podcast and the Binge, this is the story of the pizza bomber. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Crime Scene. My name is Jonathan Hirsch.

[Cooper Maul]

And I'm Cooper Maul.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And together, each week, we're going to bring you the most remarkable cases and crimes now and throughout history. And we're going to dive into every aspect of it, right? Like the investigations, the criminal, the legal, the different angles. But most importantly, we're going to tell you the story beat by beat, line by line. And also this show is a part of the Binge, which is Sony's true crime podcast network of limited shows that I head up and you can find me and Cooper on there now and again. So think of this as all the things you love about limited series true crime storytelling in one episode. Okay. So this story has to be the most bizarre bank heist in U.S. history. And it is so intricate that I don't think we're ever gonna really know what actually happened in full detail. But that's also not the thing that interests me the most about is a story in which the perpetrator also, in a way, is the victim. And because the crime is so severe, we sort of lose sight of the fact that the person who committed the crime is also a victim of the crime.

[Cooper Maul]

Sounds like a real thinker.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it's a heady one, but let's get into it. Okay. So our story starts on August 28, 2003, in Erie, Pennsylvania. It's the afternoon, and a guy named Brian Wells is on a delivery run at the pizzeria that he works at, Mamma Mia's Pizzeria in Erie, Pennsylvania. He's worked there for about a decade at this point.

[Cooper Maul]

That's a long time to be delivering pizzas. And imagine this is a small town, so if you've ordered a pizza before, you've probably seen Brian.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, especially if it's in that neighborhood. Right. What you wouldn't have known is that this day would be his last day delivering pizzas. So on that day, he gets a call around lunchtime for the two pizza order. And the coordinates for the delivery are on the outskirts of town near a tall transmission tower at the end of a dirt road.

[Cooper Maul]

Not sketchy at all.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

No. Like, meet me in a back alley and deliver my pizzas. It's a little bit strange, but he goes there anyway. I mean, I guess, who knows, right? The address doesn't really make sense, but, you know, in his line of work, you probably don't ask too many questions. So Brian grabs the pies, and he hops into his old geometro and drives out. And when he gets to this, like, transmission tower where it's located, that's when everything starts to take a turn. We don't know exactly what happened out there, but when he comes back, he's going to be walking into a bank with a heavy metal collar around his neck and this crude explosive device bolted to it.

[Cooper Maul]

He must have put that on him out there.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, it's unclear. And he. In his hands, he has this cane that's sort of attached to him that sort of looks like this homemade shotgun. And he has a note in his pocket that's like a few pages long with all these instructions. And one of the things that the note says is that he's there to rob a bank. And if you don't follow the rules, if you call the cops, if you do anything wrong, this bomb that's on his neck will detonate.

[Cooper Maul]

So this isn't a prank. This is like, this is super serious. All right. Life or death.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. It's just about 2:30 when he walks into this bank at the. The PNC bank at the Summit Town center in Erie, Pennsylvania. And there's surveillance footage that would later show him sort of standing in line very calmly. It appeared he was licking a lollipop.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. Like the free bank lollipops.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah. He picked one up just like, casual. Right.

[Cooper Maul]

And I would be sweating bullets.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, something super bizarre is happening here. He takes this handwritten note and hands it to the teller, and they say they have 15 minutes to give him $250,000 or the bomb goes off.

[Cooper Maul]

But 250k, this is like a small town. Did they even have that much liquid?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, that's. Yeah, that is a pricey ask for a small town. The whole setup is bizarre when you come into it.

[Cooper Maul]

Put it lightly. Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

The tellers do what they can. They don't have that kind of cash, so they just fill bags with money. About $8,000 is what they're able to come up with.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. That is a far cry from 250k.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And, you know, he takes it anyway and walks out of the bank like nothing has happened, but he's still got

[Cooper Maul]

this bomb around his neck. And he's like, does he know if it's going to go off? Like, is it really going off? Like, how much longer until he kind of finds out whether or not this thing is going to detonate or, like, I'd be freaking out. He doesn't have the 250K.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's important also to note that, like, he's wearing this bizarre explosive device on his. On his body, and he has what appears to be some homemade shotgun, and he's attempting to rob a bank. It did not take long for word to spread.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

About what was happening. Somebody probably called it in, you know? Um. So within minutes, as he's stepping out of the bank, the police stop Brian, cuff him, and sit him down on the pavement, like, what just happened here? Right. He begins begging them for help. He told the officers that a bomb was strapped to his neck and that he'd been forced to gunpoint to commit this robbery. It's going to Go off. I'm not lying. He pleaded.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, it's like he's hostage to this thing.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And he said that like a group of armed dark skinned men had locked the device on him before the pizza delivery, whatever that means.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

While they're waiting for the bomb squad, camera crews and news vans start showing up.

[Cooper Maul]

Media crews are warned to move back.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Say police are urging us to move from our location because if this bomb goes off and there's shrapnel, we could get hit. But I think we're safe.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, like this is a major opportunity for the news crews here. Like I don't think that seeing some guy on the corner with a bomb around his neck is something you see every day. I certainly haven't seen that.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Like, I'm really hoping this isn't like some sick marketing activation for the bank, you know what I mean? So at about 3:18, just about three minutes before the bomb squad arrives, the collar bomb detonates and Brian is blasted onto his back. And of course, like there's a giant gash in his chest from where the explosive went off.

[Cooper Maul]

And the news crews were there. So this is all picked up on live tv.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He died a few minutes later. Definitely not.

[Cooper Maul]

Time runs out, the bomb explodes. The footage too gruesome to show. Police react instinctively, running closer with guns drawn. Brian Wells is dead.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It was pretty much a shock. I remember standing there for a few seconds in disbelief, not thinking anything like this could have ever happened. And yeah, this went down on live tv.

[Cooper Maul]

If you're watching this, there's almost like two ways to look at it. Right. Like Brian could be a helpless hostage or he could have been part of this plot. Right. So is that the next step?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, definitely. I mean that's what investigators would do in a situation like this. Right. They're sort of searching the area, they're trying to understand what the motive was for this crime. But then it's clearly, you know, even the individual who committed it is indicating that he was somewhat held hostage by this. So they search his car and in his car they find like a detailed handwritten note addressed to the bomb hostage.

[Cooper Maul]

So what does it say?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it says that Brian is to rob the bank and follow a series of precise steps to gather the keys and codes hidden around town that would supposedly unlock and remove the bomb.

[Cooper Maul]

It's like a sick scavenger hunt.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He's on a scavenger hunt to save his own life, for his own life. So yeah, the police attempt to actually follow these directions to see where it leads Them. But they found out that whoever had done this had removed the final clue,

[Cooper Maul]

so Brian never stood a chance. They. They created this like maze with no way out.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, this was definitely a death sentence for this guy. You can imagine at this point the police are sort of at a dead end. Like, what are they going to do with the. The person who committed the crime and is a victim of the crime dead? The instructions that were left don't really.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, you can't really tell whether he was involved if this was like a suicide mission, whatever. So.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

How is his death ruled here?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it was ruled a homicide, which is like, okay, by who? But it killed myself. But that's not. It is this. Like I said, this is a very bizarre bank heist. So about a month afterward, on September 20th, they get a 911 call. Police investigators. That really starts to breathe some life into this case. It's from this guy, Bill rothstein. He's a 59 year old handyman and he lives like a few hundred yards from where that transmission tower was. Remember where the pizza delivery. Yeah. So he calls in to say something really, really strange is happening at his house, which is there's a dead body in his freezer.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay. Yeah, that's wild. But how does that have to do with Brian at all?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, also, by the way, this is like one of those stories where you just have all of the. These strange twists and turns where you're sort of like, how. How are all these things connected? This is definitely not the last that's going to be like that.

[Cooper Maul]

So you're telling me this is like the tip of the iceberg?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it kind of is. Okay, so the body that's in this guy's freezer, the cops show up. His name's James Rhoden. And they also found something else when they found his body, which was he had like a suicide note.

[Cooper Maul]

James had the suicide.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And on that suicide note it said, this has nothing to do with the Wells case.

[Cooper Maul]

As in Brian Wells?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

As in Brian Wells. Like it's. I'm not making it weird by saying I had nothing to do with this.

[Cooper Maul]

But made it really weird.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

But made it really weird. Coming up, new players, dark secrets and

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[Cooper Maul]

So after Brian Wells is blown up on live television, it takes about a month before the police like get any traction in this investigation.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right?

[Cooper Maul]

So they discovered this guy James Rhoden's body with this super suspicious note saying that had nothing to do with Brian. But I'm now thinking like now they've got a little bit to go off of. So what happens next?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, so they bring this guy Rothstein in for questioning, the former handyman. And he's the guy who made that 911 call. And he says that there's another person involved in all of this. Unsurprising. Her name's Marjorie Deal Armstrong. It's his ex girlfriend and James Rhoden's current girlfriend.

[Cooper Maul]

Like really modern arrangement.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it really is. They're all living or not living together under one house. So she's responsible for the murder.

[Cooper Maul]

She's like the whim, the woman behind the men.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, exactly. And she sort of like enlisted him to hide this body.

[Cooper Maul]

She's got a lot of sway.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, and that guilt was eating him alive. So he had to come to the cops.

[Cooper Maul]

How could it not be? I mean, everybody in Erie probably saw what happened on tv. Like.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty big deal for any town, let alone a small town like Erie. Okay, so according to Rostein, James found out about this bank robbery plot and he threatened to tell the authorities. So Marjorie, of course is arrested the next day for the murder of James Rhoden.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay, so like tell me about this chick, like what's her deal?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, so Marjorie's 54 years old at the time. She's no stranger to law enforcement in the criminal justice system. She had a history of mental health issues and violence. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was in her 20s. And in 1984, she shot and killed her then boyfriend. But she was acquitted of the murder after claiming self defense. Yeah, so in before 2003, there were five incidents in which men in her life died of unnatural causes. In particular, in 92, her husband died of what was called a cerebral hemorrhage. But there's some big questions there. Her other boyfriend seemed to pass away. One took his own life, another one overdosed. This is a long history of mysterious deaths here.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, you know, these are the type of characters like I'm totally obsessed with. Right. Like women who have like a trail of suspicious deaths in their wake.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, I'm thinking of like Fatal Beauty, the show that you did. And then we produced this show, Scary Terry, about Terry Lee Hoffman that has a long history of body.

[Cooper Maul]

Totally up my alley, you know, But I always think about, like, it is easy to look at these women and think like, okay, they're killers or whatever, but sometimes it could just be like catastrophic bad luck. Right. Like, but. And it does seem like all of these instances were kind of treated as an island unto themselves with Marjorie. So is this somebody whose life like just keeps running up against tragedy or does she have like, are they starting to look into if this is a pattern here? Right. Like if she has something to do with these deaths?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, they're definitely looking into this as a pattern. But you bring up such a great point that like so many times when you're dealing with a string of mysterious deaths, which we've unfortunately had the occasion to run across on our own reporting on a number of occasions, you start having a hard time being able to differentiate between what strings these together in sort of like a serial killer type of way and what is just a terrible coincidence. It's bizarre. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they are starting to try to put the pieces together. So Marjorie's awaiting trial in the Rhoden murder and apparently her mental health at this point takes a dive. In March of 2004, she's deemed mentally unfit and committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. She was a whirlwind is what her lawyer said. You didn't know what you were going to get from her at any one time. And in one three hour meeting in jail, he said he thinks he got three different versions of her.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. I think it's like you can hold two things at once here. Right. It's like Marjorie absolutely had serious mental health issues.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

And the people around her describe her being like making some very calculated choices here too. So it's like here we are seeing someone who is like maybe described as a whirlwind, chaotic, but is also very capable of exacting plans and getting people like, to do her bidding.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, exactly. So while all this is happening. Rothstein, who had led the police to Marjorie, he. He's still a free man. And despite the involvement being sort of questionable around that, he's out there living his own life. But, you know, he comes into some bad health of his own. And In July of 2004, a year after this bank robbery, give or take, he dies of lymphoma at the age of 60.

[Cooper Maul]

So the cops have now lost their, like, most valuable informant, the person who

[Jonathan Hirsch]

led them to this all along. They didn't have anything before they got him. They spoke to him on his deathbed, though, but he wouldn't divulge any more information than he already had. I've always wondered that, like, if you committed a crime, would you just let

[Cooper Maul]

it rip at the end? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I would.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I think I would, too. You have nothing to lose. It's such an interesting thought. I'm actually working on a story right now where there was an accomplice to a murder, or believed to be an accomplice to a murder, who went to their death. Not con. Not admitting that they were involved, even though they had come, like, very close to confessing at different points in times. And I have wondered that, like, if you committed a crime, would you. Well, I mean, would you confess on your deathbed if you had a choice?

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, you're. My fugitive dad explores this.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I know we're talking about all these shows that we did, but. Yeah, I mean, my fugitive dad guy robs a bank and on his deathbed confesses to it to his wife and children. So that they knew. He obviously didn't want the whole world to know, but I think it weighed on his conscience a little bit, you

[Cooper Maul]

know, I mean, not in Bill's case here, though.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, he definitely took this to the

[Cooper Maul]

grave, but now that he's gone, I'm like, Marjorie's kind of their only lifeline into understanding what happened here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And they're hitting that hard. Right. So after hours and hours of interviews, she breaks. And in 2005, in an interview, she says she's kind of spills the beans. She admitted to being a key involvement. Having a key involvement. She admits to being involved in the plot, allegedly. And she said that she provided kitchen timers that were used in constructing the collarbomb. You know, they like, sort of.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, you weren't kidding when you said crude.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, it is. This whole story, like, the characters in it just, you know, I. It gives me the ick. I gotta say. She was about a quarter of a mile from the scene at the time the device exploded. So she was all in or around this. And then of course, she admits to killing James Rhoden for.

[Cooper Maul]

Did she think she was going to get something out of like just letting it rip like this or.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, I mean, you have to wonder, like, what was she going for here?

[Cooper Maul]

So either way, I mean, her confession puts a lot together, like a lot of these puzzle pieces. The bank heist, how the bomb was made, the prior murder, like, there's like all kind of now coming into one criminal conspiracy. Right. But she's holding the umbrella that this conspiracy falls under.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, she is definitely the puppet master here. And after the confession, she wants an immunity deal.

[Cooper Maul]

Yes, I saw. I saw that coming. Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

It's denied. And she later disputes that the FBI's account of what happened, hence the allegedly. Right. Like, the FBI maintains that she spoke freely, but, you know, she's saying they lied.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. And part of me is wondering, like, you know, since she is kind of like the monolithic voice left here, like.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Who could she perhaps be protecting? What is she leaving out? Like, she's kind of like still holding the strings here. Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And there's a lot of questions, like, procedurally still, you know, like, this collar was very intricate. Someone had to have like a mechanical engineering experience.

[Cooper Maul]

So I mean, they handyman was part of this.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

So, yeah, I mean, it stands to reason. You can't just wind up a kitchen timer and blow up somebody. It's a little bit more complicated than that. So. And you know, there was materials, but, like, who actually, like you said, like, who actually put this all together is I think the big question.

[Cooper Maul]

People are dropping like flies. Who would have answers to this? So it's like, I don't feel like we're ever really going to understand the limits of like, Bill's or James involvement here.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And it is sort of like the kind of story where the long arc of the criminal case against this person starts to aid in the unraveling of the story itself. But it also has this unintended consequence which I want to get back to, which is like, about Brian Wells, you know, the victim and the perpetrator of the crime. So we'll get to that in a minute. So Marjorie confesses, which confesses, which sort of allows them to expand the scope of the investigation to new interviewees and. And just start to build this case, you know, so they talked to this guy, Floyd Stockton Jr. He was a former roommate of Rothstein, and he had been around at the time of the robbery. So Stockton has like a criminal history of his own. It's like a motley.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. This seems to be like almost like a prerequisite for being part of this group, right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. To join the group, you have to have, like, creepy criminal history. He does. He was hiding out in Pennsylvania because he was convicted of sex crimes in Washington state. And so Rothstein was potentially harboring a fugitive in this situation. Investigators sort of had a theory that like, this guy was involved in the case too. And their hunch was right. Stockton told the agents that Marjorie and Rostein were the ring leaders and that this plot was put together because they needed some cash. Unsurprising.

[Cooper Maul]

There's so many other ways to get cash than this. But I digress.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I don't think that Marjorie could, from what I can tell, get a job delivering pizzas.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, it doesn't seem like any of these people are employable.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, but they rope this guy in to sort of be the muscle and he's the one who puts the collar, the bomb collar on Brian.

[Cooper Maul]

And then so this, like, corroborates Marjorie's confession.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So around this time, another suspect.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I mean, it's. It. The crew's deep. They roll deep. Right. So Kenneth Barnes was turned into police by his family.

[Cooper Maul]

So much for Blood is Thicker.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And he apparently was talking quite extensively about the Brian Wells case to his

[Cooper Maul]

friends, so, like, bragging about it.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And then they snitched on him. I mean, everybody story, get it together, people. So. Yeah. So Barnes was already in jail on drug charges when all of this came together. And the police start questioning him.

[Cooper Maul]

What a group. You know, like, I feel like there's all these different types of portrayals of criminals. Right. They're either like John Wayne Gacy's like, creepy and kind of, or like an American psychotype that's like, you know, beautiful and.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, whatever.

[Cooper Maul]

Like. But there's something like, about this particular group that I haven't really seen, like, represented before that feels a little like low rent.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I completely agree with you. And maybe it's partly me laying it on thick here, but it's like the dumb and dumber version of criminals a little bit. You know, it's you. You wonder too, like the way that we portray criminals in documentary and on film and television. I think we over index for the kinds of characters that you're talking about.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Handsome sociopaths.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. They like fit into a certain box. Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

There's a superhuman quality to them that I think frightens people. It's part of our own, you know, psychology. I feel like as, as a society that the idea that these people would be smart and capable of doing terrible things to us. They don't typically look as like, grimy and weird and disturbed as Marjorie does, and her crew, for that matter. Okay, so like this Kenneth Barnes character enters into the mix, Right. He's hoping for leniency, so he starts to talk, you know, and he admits that he was involved like the others. He also said that Marjorie was clearly the mastermind.

[Cooper Maul]

Yes, he was the common.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Callback.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah. Marjorie is like the thing that really brings us together here. So she approaches him before the robbery and wants to hire him as a hitman to kill her father.

[Cooper Maul]

This woman doesn't like, spare a single man in her life, including her own dad.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I would even venture to say that she's like entrepreneurial. She's looking for all the opportunities.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. You know, it's. They're after his inheritance or something like that.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah. Her father had an inheritance and that this was going to sort of be on Reliance of that. You know, it's like a, like a layaway plan. Yeah, yeah. Or like a startup, you know, you like take stock and like there's going to be something down the way for you.

[Cooper Maul]

So he's like an unpaid intern hitman. Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And he accepts. I mean, I mean, she had to be convincing, right?

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, but he's also like a convicted sex offender. It's not like he's like getting hit up for jobs anywhere else.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. There's limited opportunity here and there's a lot of upside. So, you know, maybe it's worth it. Anyway, jokes aside, he accepts the job and requests a $250,000 payment, sort of commensurate with this.

[Cooper Maul]

The same amount of money that Brian

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Wells needed to grab from the bank. You are a quick study, my friend. All right, so they devised this plan to rob the bank and in order to get that money that Barnes was now owed for killing her dad.

[Cooper Maul]

You know how people say that the COVID up is worse than the crime?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Oh, yeah, classic.

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, this takes that to like a whole other level, right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Like it is almost comical if it wasn't horrific.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right.

[Cooper Maul]

Like, here she is like getting some kind of like unpaid hitman situation to help pull off a robbery that's in like gonna pay for the hit on her dad.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. I mean, it's like, I think this is like the lifestyle choice equivalent of like putting everything on the credit card and you're like, oh, if I just like, you know, I'll save next month or maybe I'll get a raise and that'll pay for it. But then, you know, the debt keeps piling up.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. You know, she's, like, in over her head here now with everyone pointing at her, too.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, exactly. And there's some other stuff that sort of comes up along the way as. As the story, as all of these people start to inform on Marjorie. Right. She wasn't just, like, in the area. She was, like, watching, like, a dog bomb go off with binoculars, um, and was sort of, like, monitoring the progress. So she's clearly, like, the mastermind of this whole criminal conspiracy. One of the most bizarre and tangled.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

I've ever heard of. For such a little amount of money. Right. Comparatively speaking. Okay. So anyway, like, all these people are coming forward and putting this together, and there is one really crucial thing that comes out of these conversations that investigators are having with the various different informants and people who are involved in the conspiracy, and it comes from Barnes. Barnes says that the day before the robbery, he and Marjorie and Rothstein and Stockton. So, like the handyman, the sex offender, Marjorie. The whole crew is together, but there's another person who's in the crew with them while they're devising the plan. It's Brian Wells. Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay, so. So Brian knew.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yes.

[Cooper Maul]

That he was going to be strapped to this bomb.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He was part of the planning for the robbery itself.

[Cooper Maul]

Okay, so this, like, is rewriting Brian in my imagination a little bit for

[Jonathan Hirsch]

everybody when this came out, you know,

[Cooper Maul]

I mean, I had seen him as kind of like a helpless pawn in this sick game.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

But now there's a chance, if Barnes is right, that he could have very well been a willful participant in this.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah, he absolutely had some foreknowledge of the robbery itself and what was going to happen that next day. Coming up, allegiances, crack stories change, and the truth gets a lot more dangerous.

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[Jonathan Hirsch]

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[Cooper Maul]

So we're now two years into the investigation into this bank heist, and there's a lot more to go off of for police here. There some key bullets we already know, which is like, Marjorie was the mastermind.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yes.

[Cooper Maul]

Barnes, you know, was her hired gun and co conspirator, the muscle. Rostein had the skills to create this bomb. Handyman Stockton, like, was the person who's like boots on the ground. But now there's this idea that like Brian Wells himself had prior knowledge of this robbery.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right. They were all sort of in it together. There's like some weird AI version of the Avengers where they have like seven toes, you know, a strange crew. Okay, so according to Barnes, Wells is in on the scheme like you said. And then he also believes that this bomb that he's wearing is fake, so he's part of the criminal conspiracy, but he has no sense that he is in any danger when they're initially discussing their plans.

[Cooper Maul]

Awful.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And, and Barnes later in testimony in trial, sort of confirms this account. He says, you know, Wells did, did this only because he was being threatened with a gun when he resisted wearing the life bomb. So they turned on him. And investigators spend sort of like the next two years gathering all this physical evidence. And they continue to conduct interviews with Barnes and Marjorie, who pointed the finger at each other, accusing the other one of lying. And in 2007, they were like, okay, we're ready. We're going to file charges. And you know, at the end they believe this was like sort of a five person plot. So a lot happens over a period of several years before Marjorie actually stands trial. Obviously Rothstein and, and Brian Wells are dead, which sort of leaves Marjorie and Floyd Stockton and Kenneth Barnes. Floyd Stockton is the next one to sort of drop off of the indictment list because he is granted immunity from the prosecution for his cooperation in the case. He's willing to stand trial and testify that Marjorie was sort of the one who did all of this.

[Cooper Maul]

I was like, tell us everything you know.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Exactly. It's sort of like that like princess for a day thing. You know, you tell us everything and we will grant you immunity because the big fish is what they were after. Right. So then the next shoe to drop is Barnes himself, who pleads guilty and he gets like a 45 year sentence for his involvement in the case. And several years pass before they actually get Marjorie to stand trial.

[Cooper Maul]

She's the last one left.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And she had been institutionalized, so there were some questions about her competency. And finally, on November 1st in 2010, Marjorie Diehl Armstrong was found guilty on all three counts that she was facing. Armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and using a destructive device in a crime of violence. The jurors had said that the scavenger hunt notes, the timed nature of the plot and Marjorie's motive convinced them that she had a leading role. If everybody else who informed on her didn't do enough.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, yeah. To say that she was.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

This case is kind of, like, wrapped up fairly neatly. Right. Like, the mastermind's convicted. There's a big sentence behind Barnes. Like.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yes. And that sort of brings us to what I think is one of the most interesting aspects of this case, which is Brian Wells. Brian Wells is in on a criminal conspiracy. But at some point, in the middle of that criminal conspiracy, he becomes the victim of a violent crime, both against himself and against others. So he's charged initially with homicide, in a way, because it's like, how do you actually know who did it? I heart Huckabees. Remember that movie. Like, how am I not myself? They ask themselves. Like, how am I victim and the perpetrator at the same time? But he sort of is.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. You know, definitely.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

He did not know any of these people. That's why they had to lure him to the. To the tower. But then the accounts of this man, when you actually talk to people who knew him, portray a very different person. That makes me look at him as a victim. Right. He's childlike and simple. One person described him as struggling with extreme shyness. He was the kind of person who would go on all fours to play with the neighbor's dog. He wore, like, Elton John style glasses. He used to, like, have his widowed mother over for steak dinners on Sundays. Like, who is this guy?

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. It's a right jarring contrast between, like, this guy sitting on the curb with a bomb around his neck and a shotgun. Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And to his credit, pleading with authorities to help him that he was a victim in this case. Like, it. It portrays a gentle giant. Yeah. Shy, awkward, nerdy person who had a delivery job at a pizzeria.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

You know, the person I could have been. So anyway, like, the differences between Brian Wells the victim and Brian Wells the criminal is something that I find particularly interesting in this case. And I think it sort of speaks to how these narratives prop up Right. Like, what story are we telling about a person who is a victim? And what story are we telling about a person who is a criminal, particularly when we're using the same set of facts to describe that person.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. And it's. It's like, I feel like we are so binary in our thinking about those two things. It's almost like we haven't really figured out how to see where those, like that Venn diagram kind of connects. Right.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And, you know, I think you and I, actually behind the curtain, y', all, like, this is something that we talk about a lot because there's such a mountain of storytelling around these big crimes like this one. And what oftentimes can happen is after they're adjudicated, a whole nother version of the story starts to unravel. And that's totally what happened in this case. So in 2018, Netflix releases a four part documentary series about this case called Evil Genius.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah, I remember, like, everyone I knew was watching it.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. So this is definitely a case that's been widely covered, but we just felt like we wanted to dig into it a little bit more and bring some fresh perspective to it. New information in that documentary sort of comes to light. It features a number of people, including a woman named Jessica Huepsik, who was a sex worker who had had a relationship with Brian Wells, who. And she confesses that she was the one who sort of drew Brian Wells into this plot.

[Cooper Maul]

My name is Jessica Hoopsig. I'm a friend of Brian Wells, and I'm ready to tell the real story now.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

One of the conspirators had given her $5,000 to find, like, an easy gopher to do this crime with. And she recommended her John, a regular client.

[Cooper Maul]

So it's like he was selected because of this, like, gentleness that his.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

These other people, impressionable, maybe gullible. I have a lot of remorse for a lot of the stuff I did, and a lot of shame and guilt. She said she had no idea that this was what was going to happen, and he had, like, no part in the initial planning of this. And she goes on to say, it hurts me that I could do this to somebody that I cared about, and I want people to know that he was innocent.

[Cooper Maul]

You know, this is the thing about these types of crime docs or podcasts or whatever is they really give us an opportunity to kind of correct the history. Right. Like, you and I have both recently told stories that set the record straight.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, like the story of Margot Freshwater that you did.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. Somebody was like, lamented for almost a half a century as a guilty person.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Cooper Maul]

When it turns out there's like irrefutable evidence that she was innocent the whole time.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And we're literally texting each other back and forth because I have a show that came out like the month before.

[Cooper Maul]

About the murder.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. About watching you about the murder of Dominique Lyly. Same situation. In that regard, the media got the story completely wrong in a number of instances. Some of it had to do with the way the defense was propping up the story. Some of it had to do with the way that storytelling kind of unspools in some of these outlets and the way that people like to kind of tell true crime stories. And I found, and I know you have too, that being able to revisit some of these cases over time, it can recast the narrative. It can help to bring dignity to the name of people and a lot

[Cooper Maul]

of healing to their families.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Right, exactly. And a lot of the time when people get wrapped up in a criminal conspiracy like this, you know, I think the same is true to an extent for Margot Freshwater as well. They get involved in something that's far more complex and entangled.

[Cooper Maul]

You don't know how to get out

[Jonathan Hirsch]

of that you don't know how to get out of. So to see them singularly as criminals isn't always accurate. Sometimes it is. But part of our job as storytellers is to come back to these and as audience, to come back and look for narratives that tell a different version of the story.

[Cooper Maul]

The truth always comes out.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Yeah. And thankfully for Brian, there's a different version of him that's out there than where things landed when Marjorie finally was sent away for good. Okay, guys, so before we go, a little bit of housekeeping about the binge.

[Cooper Maul]

Yeah. What's next?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Well, in March, we had an incredible series called Fatal Fantasy, hosted by M. William Phelps. And if you sign up for the binge plus, by going to getthebinge.com, you can get an exclusive conversation that I had with M. William Phelps, not just about this story, but about his decades long career covering crime stories. And it's really, really amazing and deeply personal. He talks about brushes with murder that have happened in his own life, and then also about his experience interviewing and investigating serial killers. He had a decade plus correspondence with the Happy Face Killer, Keith Jesperson.

[Cooper Maul]

Infamous.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Incredible. The detail that he shared in this conversation, both about, you know, the killer himself, but then also about his own personal experience kind of dealing with what it was like to have to correspond with somebody like that over the years. So I can't recommend it enough. It's the kind of stuff that you'll find on on our Patreon. If you sign up for it, just go to getthebinge.com, like I said, you can hear the whole thing. But I'm gonna play a little sneak peek for everybody so you can hear my conversation with M. William Phelps talking about Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer.

[M. William Phelps]

I knew this going in, right?

[Jonathan Hirsch]

You knew that there was peril here.

[M. William Phelps]

I had a forensic psychologist, John Kelly, who was my partner on Dark Minds, and he said to me when I started these conversations with, with Happy Face, he said, phelps, I'm gonna tell you one thing. He said, you invite the devil into your house, you better be ready to dance with him.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

And I laughed.

[M. William Phelps]

I said, john, I go to mass every day, man. I have so much light around me. Yeah, he's not infiltrating that light, John. And in the end, I wasn't laughing.

[Jonathan Hirsch]

Hey y', all, thank you so much for joining us on Crime Scene. Just a reminder here, you can watch or listen to us on Spotify, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is a production of Sony podcast and the binge. Thank you to everybody who makes this happen week in and week out. Also, we're journalists. We love journalism. These stories have been deeply reported, the ones that you hear on the show. And you can find an extensive bibliography by going to the show notes of this episode and to every episode to learn more about the reporting that informed all of the great stories you hear on Crime Scene. And just one last note, you can get exclusive content from us and the binge over 60 jaw dropping true crime stories bingeable and ad free right now by signing up for our [e-mail] so go to getthebinge.com to get access to our entire catalog of stories, but also to get behind the scenes access to all of the stories that Cooper and I are working on. To join us in the conversation about these cases, go to getthebinge.com to learn more.

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