All Episodes
March 29, 2023 - ParaNaughtica
01:12:15
Brian Wells - Neckbomb Bank Robbery

It's not everyday you hear about someone walking into a bank with a bomb strapped around their neck aiming to rob the bank of it's precious cash. But it has happened. More than once in fact. But todays episode is about Brian Wells.  Was he complicit in the robbery plan or was he an unfortunate pawn?  I guess we'll try to find that out.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hey, buddy.
How's it going?
It's going alright.
How are you doing, bro?
I would say the same.
It's going alright.
Hey, let me ask you something.
Have you ever heard of a woman named Gwyneth Paltrow?
Oh, GP?
Dude. The Gwyneth?
You know it.
She's only been, like, one of the most famous celebs for quite some time.
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
I guess she's been pretty famous.
I only found out about her last week, so...
You hear...
Have you heard about this case that just came out of Utah just last week?
Uh, no.
What's she getting up to, man?
So, the American actress turned personal vagina-scented candle seller.
That's right.
She made a line of candles that are supposed to smell like her vaginal discharge, I guess.
Holy shit!
Well, she's also a lucrative businesswoman, but that's old news.
Gwyneth Paltrow is currently in a court battle.
Oh. Well, what is this dispute?
You must tell us.
She was in Utah.
And she was skiing.
Okay, okay.
On a bunny hill.
Okay. At Park City Resort.
Getting some turns in.
Shredding the pow.
Shredding the gnar.
Killing it.
Yeah, so there's another dude.
Terry Sanderson.
He was a 76-year-old military veteran.
Well, he was also there on the bunny hill skiing.
And he filed a lawsuit against the goop girl back in 2019 seeking $3 million.
In damages, but dropping it to $300,000, saying that old pal Troni skied right into the back of him as he was going down the slopes.
The bunny hill, that is.
But get this, the accident happened way back in February of 2016.
Oh, wow.
February of 2016.
That's a long time ago, bro, for this litigation to be, you know.
I wonder if he's been dropping it by like, you know, $10 like every year, you know.
Oh, I guess I'll go down to $2 million.
Oh, you know, I'll go down to $1 million.
Now he's at $300,000.
Just give me $300,000, man.
Like, come on, man.
I don't know, man.
But Sanderson says he had the right-of-way since he was in front of her.
And so she came behind him, hit him from the back.
He goes face-first into the snow.
There were a bunch of witnesses who saw this.
And, you know, Sanderson kept saying that he was okay.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm okay.
Even he told the ski patrol that he was okay.
Now, here's the thing.
Nobody knew it was Gwyneth Paltrow at the time, but once they found out, old Sanderson changed his tune.
Of course.
So one of his attorneys has asked, or no, one of his attorneys stated, before the crash, Terry was an outgoing, charming, gregarious person.
But after the crash, he's no longer charming.
That's a bunch of bullshit, dude.
This is so dumb.
I was wondering what he was naming in the lawsuit as damages.
What did she possibly do to him that he probably didn't do to himself several times that day?
Falling on the snow.
Yeah, exactly.
Crashing into trees and all sorts of things.
So anyway, Gwyneth, she filed a countersuit asking for $1 million in damages.
Oh. Yeah, and just a day or so ago, man, this is so fucking stupid, dude.
Okay. During the trial, Gwyneth is on the stand and she literally says that when the accident happened, that is, when she ran into the back of Terry Sanderson, she said that she thought it was a sexual assault, that Terry was sexually assaulting her.
No way.
She went for the old sexual assault route?
Yep. Oh my gosh.
From the back.
She was hitting him from the back, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, she fucking pegged his ass, and then she's claiming sexual assault.
I'm due to lose my butter tarts over that one.
Keep your butter tarts together, sir.
I'll try.
Boy, Goop Girl.
Sounds like a bad movie.
You know, like the plot to a bad movie.
You got Goop Girl, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ben Affleck.
Thrice married and divorced couple living in a low-class neighborhood.
That's new.
Yeah, right?
It's the usual tumultuous relationship full of, like, sexual violence and alcohol, blood, sweat, mostly regret.
Scat film directed by Aaron Aronofsky, who brought us, you know, same guy who brought us Wrecking for a Dream, Black Swan, Mother, and then, you know, most recently The Whale, of course.
Starring Brendan Fraser.
America's favorite Brendan.
Of course.
And special appearances by Tori Spelling.
Love her.
And probably Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Great. Peter Dinklage.
Oh, nice.
It's an aesthetic masterpiece.
A must-see.
Wow. Well, that sounds absolutely spine-chilling.
But tell me, Scott.
I can't get that image out of my head now, but tell me.
Where were you on August 28, 2003?
Now, let's be honest.
Not only for me, but for our listeners.
You know, 2003, I was most likely revering the Norse god Ul and partaking in the ancient art of the biathlon.
Yeah, it was either that or hitting some G10s and 7th octaves in this traveling acapella street performance group that I was in.
So, I don't know.
That's pretty fucking sweet.
I'm actually pretty jealous.
Yeah, man.
Traveled all over these states.
Many a mile I've seen going down those desolate, dusty roads from tiny town to tiny town.
Pitching out our donation tray and singing all of our hit tunes to all the other stragglers in the same game.
All of us competing to be noticed by the few patrons who would pass by on their way home in the early morning hours after closing time.
Well, it's the experience that truly matters.
Sounds like a pretty good gig though, right?
Oh, it was fucking terrible, but I absolutely loved it.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the Paranautica Podcast.
Great to have you here with us today.
I'm Scott, and with me as always, right there on the other side of this old plastic fold-up card table, deep within my heart, somewhere, always in the urine-stained sweatpants, that's why we love him, Coop.
Oh, what an intro.
I'm not sure what to say to that, Scott, other than I'm sick and tired of these absolutely unsatisfactory conditions that we have to record in every week.
I do not know why Wayne Dale can only find these deplorable quote-unquote studios, as he so eloquently puts it.
Yeah, well, I don't know either.
These places are fucking disgusting.
Everything is caked with dust.
I mean, look at this.
It's just...
Look at that.
At least half an inch of...
Dust. Thick right here.
Everywhere. Everywhere you look.
Dust. Yeah, this is not good, man.
No bueno.
You see today's quote-unquote green room yet?
Not yet.
I haven't had the luxury.
It's really just a small room with a broken sink and some cupboards that are mostly nailed shut.
And there's also, I think, a small wobbly table.
Like, you know, one of those large spools that used to hold a bunch of iron cable or something.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, steel cable.
It's one of those, but it's on its side, so there's kind of a makeshift table there, and there's nothing on it, of course.
Minimalism. Once again, no snacks or beverages.
Once again, thanks, Wayndale.
Thanks, Wayne.
I wasn't even aware.
Like, I passed by that room, and I didn't know it was a green room.
I did notice that there is a freaking massive hole over in the corner by the window, just rotting in the floor.
And can you tell me why all these windows are covered with tinfoil?
Like, all of them are covered with tinfoil every single room.
I just want to know why the walls are leaking.
There's just, like, moisture rolling down the walls.
But, yeah, I know.
I noticed the windows, foil everywhere.
You know what else is weird?
That lingering smell.
I just can't quite place it.
There's a funk in here, man.
There's a funk.
I know what you mean.
It's kind of chemically, like, I don't know.
It's kind of sweet, maybe?
Like, yeah, sweet?
Sort of, but you don't, you know, not a good sweet, though.
No, no.
There's good sweet and there's bad sweet.
No, it's very chemically.
Very chemical in here.
For sure.
I think this is by far the worst place that he's ever found for us to do a show.
Well, you know, Wayndale isn't so bad.
Have you looked in the mirror?
You look like you've been hit with a microwave oven, bro.
Three times.
Well, that was pretty specific.
But no, I'm afraid to.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Perinautica Podcast.
We can't thank you enough for tuning in.
Once again.
Or if this is your first episode, thank you for being here.
Yes, many a tremendous thank you goes out to each and every one of our awesome Paranauts.
And don't forget to go hit the like and subscribe buttons.
It's super easy and it would help us out so much.
And share us where you can.
Word of mouth is the best way.
Well, Scott, why don't you give us your hard hitter three for three today?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
This first story comes out of AP News from March 22nd, 2023.
Two escaped Virginia jail inmates.
Okay, so I know.
That's pretty crazy.
Right to start.
Two inmates escaped from a Virginia jail using only primitive tools.
Yes, primitive tools made from a toothbrush and a piece of metal to create and widen a hole in their wall large enough to escape.
They then scaled a retaining wall around the jail and footed it to a local IHOP restaurant nearby.
Why wouldn't you go straight to an IHOP?
I feel like that's totally a logical place to go after you break out of jail.
I mean, I don't know.
I guess you'd take the 50-50 gamble on whether or not they're going to report you right away or if they're going to let you eat.
I think if it was me, I probably would have walked in.
I would have just avoided the whole ordering process just right up front.
And I probably would have sat at a table with food left on it.
You know what I mean?
Just sat down and started scarfing, bro.
No shit.
You know what I mean?
Because who knows how long they were in jail.
They haven't had good food.
You have to go find a table where people already left, left their food on the table.
You sit down and start eating their scraps?
Dude, you know there's hella pancakes left over that people didn't eat.
Oh, fuck yeah, man.
Just drenched in syrup.
So, yeah, anyways, patrons, of course, figured out pretty quickly that these guys looked like escaped convicts, so too bad for them.
They weren't able to blend in.
But they quickly reported them, and then authorities came and re-arrested and took them back to jail.
So they were out for, I don't know, an hour?
Maybe. Yeah, they were out for a little bit.
Long enough to get to IHOP, I guess, but now they're going to be in for a whole...
Yes, I was just going to say, now they're going to be in for a whole lot longer.
Well, I guess IHOP will be all that much better when they get out next time.
Yeah, totally.
Totally. This next story comes from mirror.com.uk.
This widow, apparently, Coop, I don't know if you've heard about this, but this woman named Carol Addle, she's 74. Yes.
yikes yes so she was knocked down by this bus and she says this is this is what she credits her survival to she says her dead husband appeared to her while she was out kind of fighting for her life yeah and he said hey hun
You gotta keep fighting, because there's no more room up here.
Up in heaven?
Yeah, up in heaven, man.
Oh, damn.
Her husband...
That's horrible.
Yeah, so he died.
He passed away in 2019.
He was 74, and she says that he appeared to her, told her to keep fighting, and so she did, and she came out of five weeks of intensive care.
Not, you know, okay, but she just woke up in her hospital bed, and...
Now she's up and walking around and moving around again, and yeah, she's fine.
Damn. So there just wasn't any room up in heaven for her at that moment.
Maybe there'll be some vacancies when she's ready to go.
Yeah, maybe it's just like a delayed...
We're still doing some house cleaning.
Come back later.
Yeah, right.
She's all thinking that she's, you know, got out of...
She's all out of dodge, but in reality, just in a few hours, they're like, oh, nope, sorry, the room's ready.
I'm getting some new information, honey.
That's my bad.
Aye, aye, aye.
This third story is also out of themir.co.uk.
A crypto king.
I almost said the crypto king, but I feel like there's a lot of people these days claiming to be crypto king, so I'm just going to say a crypto king.
Was kidnapped and tortured by angry investors after he scammed them out of millions and millions of dollars, bro.
I wonder if all these other crypto kings are getting a little scared.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like more and more now people are getting not only arrested by the FBI, you know, who's like, they're trying so hard to find all these fraudulent crypto investors out.
But people are also getting, you know, shit jacked from them, stolen.
They're disappearing.
They're getting kidnapped.
I mean, this is like, this is a crazy game, dude.
I mean, these kids, like this, who's this guy?
He's like a 23-year-old, right?
Yeah, yeah, this kid is, he's 23 years old.
He's fooling around with crypto.
He tried to make, you know, his site sound as legitimate as possible, and he ended up basically stealing, like, over $40 million, something like that.
Wow. He spent, like, so here's the promise.
He's like, oh, I promise these investors you're gonna get this return on your money, like this and that.
And instead, he just goes out and he buys luxury items, like luxury clothes.
He spends money on trips.
He buys luxury cars.
And, of course, they figure out that they're not getting their money back.
And this happened in Toronto, Canada, by the way.
Canada. So then they...
They easily find him, pick him up, kidnap him.
They start beating him, driving him around, torturing him, beating him some more.
And after three days, they let him go, probably because they were like, oh yeah, this fucking kid, he doesn't have our money, and he's not going to have our money.
Oh man, well he better get it.
I don't know, something's going to go down.
It's probably not over, but for now, he's on the loose.
They probably figured, well, if we have any chance of getting our money back, we probably shouldn't kill him.
But he spent, so the article goes on to say that he spent $16 million of the $40 million investment money.
I mean, that's just like, you have to put effort, yeah, you have to put serious effort forward into spending that $16 million.
This kid, he just went all out immediately.
He didn't play the slow game, and well, he didn't even do anything legitimately to begin with, but if he had...
And done everything by the books and made this legitimate?
He could have been well off, but he went in for it for a scam, it sounds like.
Yeah, well, and instead of coming out of it on top, now he's just like a target.
Everybody knows who he is.
Everyone knows where he is.
He's obviously not smart enough to disappear, or he would have done that already.
So, anyways.
23, yeah.
Young and dumb.
Young and dumb.
So, that's it for my 3 for 3 Coop.
Tune in next time for another riveting segment of Tres for Tres.
Fantastic. Well, let's move on to the story for today.
Yes, sir.
I agree.
Scott. Hey, Scott.
Scott. Yes, sir.
Hey. Yes.
Hey, do you remember?
Yes, I'm here.
Hey. Hello.
Do you remember?
Yes. Hello.
When I asked you.
Yes, I'm here.
Scott. Yes.
Do you remember when I asked you if you knew where you were on August 28, 2003?
Let me think about this.
I do remember a piece of that conversation, but what say you, Coop?
Well, on that date, a man named Brian Douglas Wells walked into a PNC bank in Erie, Pennsylvania.
The 46-year-old pizza delivery man arrived at 2.28 p.m., and he walked up to the teller and handed her a note.
This note said, Gather employees with access codes to vault and work fast to fill the bag with $250,000.
You only have 15 minutes.
Brian also carried with him a shotgun that was modified to look like a walking cane.
He didn't have a mask on or any fake mustache.
Oh, none of those, you know, those Groucho glasses with the mustache?
No, no Groucho glasses.
But this would have been so much cooler if he had been wearing some Groucho glasses when you hear what the bank teller said.
But he wasn't wearing anything to hide his facial features or his identity in any way.
Although, do you know what he was wearing, Scott?
Well, I'm hoping he was at least wearing some chonies.
But other than that, I really couldn't tell you.
Well, he was wearing chonies.
And he was also wearing a neck balm.
Or a collar balm, as some may call it.
Whoa! The teller would tell Wells...
That she was not able to open the vault and there was no one else at the bank that could open it either.
So, she grabbed the bag and put $8,702 into it and handed it to Brian.
He would then walk out of the bank and back to his car, which was in the parking lot, empty and alone, patiently waiting for Brian to come back to it, which he did.
When he got inside, he looked over a series of steps that were handwritten notes on pieces of paper.
Which he had to follow in order to disarm the bomb that sat firmly around his neck.
So the device was fabricated out of metal, and whoever made it was certainly an experienced welder.
It was basically a large single handcuff, and what was attached to this in the front, and pretty much at chest level, was a rectangular section which housed two pipe bombs connected to two kitchen timers.
There was also another timer that hung down from his chest, and the bomb device had a couple of decoys attached to it as well.
These are things such as a fake cell phone, some wires going here and there, and some stickers with warnings, all meant to confuse anyone if anyone tried to disarm the bomb in time.
Well, alright, so he didn't go in there willingly, it sounds like.
Somebody put this on his neck and told him to rob this bank.
So, whoever this culprit is, or whoever these culprits are, they definitely know how to make pipe bombs.
They definitely know how to use electric components.
They know how to weld and must have had a pretty good idea on how to rob a bank for a specific $250,000, I might add.
So who is this Brian Wells, man, other than being 46 years old and a pizza delivery man?
Well, Brian Wells was a 46-year-old pizza delivery man and had worked at the Mamma Mia's Pizzeria in Erie, Pennsylvania for 10 years prior to this day.
Oh, gotcha.
You gave me one extra detail there.
Well, there isn't much about him, but he was also a man who took to the finer pleasures of life which only sex workers could afford.
Oh. And there was one woman in particular that gets folded into the bigger picture of all of this, but more on that later.
Yes. Needed finally, but aggressively.
A good scraping, accompanied with slapping, clawing, flapping, punching, with the addition of slamming.
Elbowing. Stomping.
I mean, that's my preferred method of kneading bread.
You know, stomping.
Yeah, it gets all those bubbles out.
Leaves not only a pleasant tread design in the bread, but also unique crust.
It's a party favorite.
Boot bread.
Must be a crowd pleaser.
Oh, yes.
People can't get enough of it before it runs out.
Ooh! Yeah, buddy!
Well, we also know that Brian was born in Warren, Pennsylvania to parents Rose and Harold Wells.
When he was 16, he gained all the knowledge he needed from school and dropped out of high school to become a mechanic.
And we here at the Paranautica Podcast always say, chase your dreams, you know?
Chase your dreams, yes, yes.
But we also encourage you to graduate high school.
So, as Timothy Leary once said, Turn on the old Paranautica podcast, tune in, and don't drop out of school.
That is what he said, right, if I remember correct?
That is correct, Scott.
But you know what I just thought?
What's that?
According to our listener demographics, all of our listeners are well out of high school.
Oh, well, that is encouraging.
I guess we'll just leave it at that, and we won't dig any deeper, huh?
I guess so.
Moving on.
Also, two of Brian's neighbors would later say that he was a simple man.
That he was a likable man, and that he was a man of modest means.
But that is all we have on who Brian Douglas Wells was.
So now, how did he get that bomb around his neck?
Boy, I wish I knew, Coop, but I feel like you might shed some light on that subject for us.
Well, right after 1.30pm, Mama Mia's got a phone call, which registered to a payphone at a gas station.
Oh, well that's not sketchy at all.
Whoever answered the call at Mamma Mia's apparently couldn't understand the person on the other line for whatever reason, so they passed it to Brian or Brian offered to try to listen.
Either way, someone ordered two pepperoni pizzas to be delivered to 8631 Peach Street, which was a handful of miles away from Mamma Mia's.
This address would be the address to a WSEE TV transmitting tower, which was at the end of a dead-end dirt road.
Oh, the dead-end dirt road.
Well, that always ends well.
Brian drove up to deliver the two pizzas.
He parked, got out of his car with pizzas in hand and a smile on his face.
It was then that an undisclosed number of people surrounded Brian, immobilizing him.
They attempted to place a device around his neck, but he refused, fighting himself away.
But there was no escaping.
A gun was brandished and fired off as a warning to Brian that he better just cooperate.
Then these people placed the device around his neck, the large handcuff-like device, and locked it.
He was then told that he would be robbing the PNC bank and demanding $250,000 from them.
Then, they gave him a large envelope with several letters inside to hand to the teller.
A couple of these were notes for him to follow afterward if the robbery was successful, and he better hope that shit is successful.
Each of these notes were to lead him to a new destination, and each of these destinations would be a key which would buy him more time to get to the next location, until eventually he could defuse the bomb himself.
He was also given a shotgun that was crudely designed to look like a walking cane.
Whoa, man, these guys are pretty nifty, actually.
I mean, they have these components that are cleverly rigged, and then you have the shotgun that looks like a cane.
I mean, for being just like bandits, or at least what we know to be bandits right now, they're pretty clever, dude.
It's kind of creative.
It really is.
So some of these notes would also explicitly remind him that he would be under constant watch through this entire thing, and that if he would attempt to go off script or try to contact the police, that they would remotely detonate the bomb around his neck.
Oh! The plot thickens.
The plot thickens.
So Brian agreed that he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his life, and he'll play by the rules.
Of course.
So after leaving the pizzas with their kidnappers to eat while they waited for their money, Brian jumped back into his car and drove to the PNC Bank at the Summit Town Center.
He parked and walked inside and to everyone around who were witnesses to this said that it looked absolutely ridiculous.
He was wearing this huge box around
Yeah, like a walk-in lampshade or something.
I mean, all jokes aside.
And the shirt also had GUESS written in all caps and then jeans.
GUESS JEANS handwritten on it.
Oh, that's weird.
Oh, man.
Yeah, you see all those beautiful people standing right there?
Can I?
Right over there.
You'll have to just walk on back there and stand back there with everyone else now.
Will you just listen to me, lady?
What was that, sir?
He then handed her a large white envelope with four computer-sized pieces of paper.
One of these read in part, Do not cause panic.
Or many people will, you know, be killed.
Or something.
Sounding any alarm will interrupt this action and guarantee injuries.
And death.
The bomb is expertly...
It's booby-trapped.
And, well...
Cannot be disarmed unless keys are found, you know, by following instructions.
Bomb hostage needs less than 20 minutes in the bank.
And 30 minutes to deliver, at least.
No money, no keys.
If any one of us has stopped or apprehended, we will detonate the bomb, or, you know, it's time to run out.
We will retaliate, if interrupted.
Yikes.
That was crazy, man!
There was another note that was supposed to go to the bank manager, but they were not inside at the moment.
That note read, No alarm, panic, or police closed doors.
He asked to speak to the manager as the teller was leaving the counter.
But she said that she looked away for a moment, and when she looked back, he was sucking on a sucker.
She told him that the manager would be back in about half an hour or around 3 o'clock p.m.
Brian said he didn't have that kind of time and that he needed the $250,000 immediately.
I don't have that kind of time.
And I need the $250,000 immediately.
But the teller couldn't do much.
The most she could do was empty out all the cash drawers into a bag.
It was during this period of time that another teller was able to mouth the words 911 silently to a customer who was walking in and seeing what was happening.
Then Brian started to walk out of the bank with his loot.
The teller would say that as he was walking out...
He was sucking on the lollipop and twirling the bag of money.
To her, he looked like Charlie Chaplin.
So, you know, all duck-footed, walking all wonky, jumping and doing heel clicks, moving his head side to side, elbows up, and just chugging along.
Totally, man.
That's a great image.
Just went full silent movie there.
Yeah. So, as said, he asked for the $250,000, but the teller was unable to accommodate that large amount of sum.
So after getting a paltry $8,000 rather than the $250,000, he left the bank and got back into his car.
A witness to this event called the police around 2.39pm, telling them that they saw a man leaving the bank with, quote, a bomb or something wrapped around his neck.
Um, he like had a bomb or something wrapped around his neck?
Like, it was hideous.
At any rate.
Brian Wood, Charlie Chaplin, right out of there, got into his car, which was suffering from separation anxiety and patiently waiting for Brian's return.
I get it.
You know, it's like, you know, Knight Rider reference.
Nice. He carefully drove out of the parking lot and headed toward his first destination to find the first key.
This would be at a McDonald's drive-thru, hidden beneath a rock in a flower bed.
He got this key and was on his way to get a second at an eyeglass world, where he was easily spotted by police as he stood next to his car.
They quickly arrested him with his hands behind his back and had him sit on the concrete of a parking lot surrounded by police cars.
It was here when Brian starts telling the cops that three black men, whom he did not know, put this bomb around his neck, gave him a shotgun, Oh,
Oh, man.
A trooper approached and said, If this is bullshit, you better end it now!
I know karate, and I will use my whole body as a weapon on you!
It's not bullshit.
I didn't do anything.
God almighty!
Hey, uh, do you think I could, like, have a cigarette?
What, boy?
God almighty!
I ain't got time to stand there and discuss trivial trivialities!
Well, uh, can I get a priest here for me?
Maybe, I mean, I'm about to die!
Well, son, when I was a boy, I felt like a loser.
I was unhappy as a child most of the time.
We were terribly poor, and I hated my size.
And now I'm here with a badge and a gun, one as shiny as the other.
Yeah, but you only have one bullet.
Oh, well, I mean, that's right, but I never minded that.
Now you just sit there all nice-like.
All right, very good.
Tell you what, I'm gonna walk over there in that direction a little bit, okay?
You just stay put, alright?
Alright, good.
You take care now.
Just stay right there, okay?
Perfect. Why isn't nobody trying to come get this thing off me?
I don't have a lot of time.
Hey, we called the bomb squad.
They'll be there soon, so you better be telling us the truth now.
He pulled the key out and started the timer.
I heard the thing ticking when he did it.
It's going to go off, I'm not lying.
Did you call my bosses to let them know what's happening right now?
Huh? Your bosses?
Yeah, I asked if you'd call them.
Can you call them to let them know the situation, please?
Yeah, sure, sure.
We'll get right on that.
Hey, Greg, it's your turn.
I just laid down that ace.
By this point, all these news agencies were privy to the situation, so they all arrive in droves but are held back for the most part.
Then you have your daily public spectators.
I'm one of them.
Oh, totally.
I would have been there, too.
If I rolled by that and saw what was going on, I would have been like...
I would have been gawking, for sure.
Someone tell me what's going on here.
And within only moments, the beeping became louder and louder.
And for ten seconds, it seemed that the only sound that existed in the entire world for Brian Wells was the sound of that manacious beeping right at his chest.
He could feel each beep.
Beep. Beep.
Beep. He knew that there was nothing he could do.
The men put down their cards and washed in shock.
Bro, imagine.
You have a frickin' bomb around your neck, right?
You know it's real.
You were there when the guys put it on you.
You know the time is ticking.
Every second.
You can frickin' hear it.
The cops are treating you like a piece of shit.
They're like, oh, this fake bullshit.
We've seen this before.
This guy's watched too many movies.
I mean, look at this thing.
It's all bulky.
So they arrest you, you know, and they have you sitting there handcuffed, your hands behind your back, nothing you can do.
Meanwhile, it's just beep on your neck, bro.
I just can't even imagine.
Like, what do you do, man?
No kidding, man.
You're basically a double hostage in this situation, you know, because first you're...
Bomb around your neck.
Go to get this fucking money from the bank.
And then the cops basically stop you and are like, oh, you're going to stay right there.
And you're like, what the fuck?
Exactly. And imagine if he made some move to run away or something.
I feel like they would have just gunned him down.
Oh, they would have shot him for sure.
You know, to make matters worse, you're being watched by so many people.
News crews are there.
People standing around everywhere.
Oh, that'd be so fucking shitty, dude.
All eyes on you.
Yeah, just like...
I'm literally going to blow up in front of all these people on the news.
Oh my god, dude.
On the news, too.
You're like, what is happening right now?
Why is this going on?
So, at 3.18pm, the bomb would detonate, killing Brian Wells in a matter of seconds.
Oh my gosh.
The explosion and death of Brian Wells was recorded on video and it can be found on the internet.
Now, I'm not sure why people say it was not recorded.
I can get behind that the live broadcast was conveniently having a technical problem right before the bomb detonated, so it was not broadcast live.
I get that.
But the event was recorded, and it is out there.
So, you know, Brian is sitting there.
He's shifting around, hands behind his back.
He's obviously very anxious.
He's extremely anxious as he listens to this beep, and suddenly it explodes with such force that his...
Forces his torso backward to the ground where he remained motionless.
And the explosion blasts a large hole in his chest.
And three minutes later, guess who would arrive?
The bomb squad.
And they weren't actually even called until about 30 minutes into the so-called standoff, if you can call it that.
Oh, I'm sure they were just taking their time.
You know, they're like, oh yeah, we got another loony walking into a bank with a so-called bomb around his neck.
You know, we'll go see about this bomb.
I'm sure they were just taking their time.
They're like, well, aren't you going to try to make that yellow light?
Nah. I'm like, oh, man.
Okay, this is the longest interception.
All right, I guess we're just going to sit here and wait.
Yeah, we're going to sit here and wait through the green light, too.
Dude, no one took it seriously.
That's so crazy.
So crazy.
And seeing as the device was made of metal, it withstood the blast and stayed attached around his neck.
And so the investigators and medical examiners, they would actually have to literally cut Brian's head off of his body in order to extract the device.
Oh, man.
To make matters worse, this guy's been turned into a human pinata.
Yeah. And then right after that, they have to deface the body.
Literally, you know, cut his freaking head off.
Oh, dude.
Yeah. So let's move on to the investigation.
So the police would go over the notes found in the car and...
Taking the information that Brian had already told them about the day's events leading up to that point, they began to follow the clues.
They followed one clue to the other and determined that Brian Wells only had about 55 minutes from the moment that these mystery people took out a key to the device which started the timer.
And they also found that at some point there were no clues or keys at the designated spots.
And so this led them to believe that either it was purposeful or that whoever had done this were watching and knew that the police would be under the trail, so they went back to those locations and collected the keys and clues so the police couldn't get to them.
But we don't know.
I mean, there's a whole side of people who say that whoever put this bomb on his neck didn't even leave clues in some of the areas, so he would eventually just blow up anyway.
But we just don't know.
Which, I mean, yeah, that could totally—what a convenient, you know.
And this person that may or may not have seen you is the only person who knows who did it.
So you're guaranteed an alibi if they go away.
Right. But we just don't know.
And the police really had nothing to work with and were left scratching their heads.
So was Brian Wells a lone wolf with a diabolical plan to rob a bank?
Or was he telling the truth about being a pawn in a much more complicated scheme as he said he was?
I feel like he has to be because he...
Would he have really blown himself up?
I wouldn't think so.
I know, you would think that, yeah.
If I was going to go rob a bank, I wouldn't put a live bomb around my neck and have a series of clues that I'd have to follow to take it off and only give myself 55 minutes of time to do it.
Unless I have a death wish and I love getting off in that rush, I don't think anybody would do that.
Yeah, if you're strangling yourself with a belt at the same time and jerking off.
Yeah, right.
I don't see that happening.
Aye, aye, aye.
So in September of 2003, police would check up on the one lead that they had, and they would question a guy who was dating a girl who knew Brian Wells.
But that went nowhere.
Then later in the month, something would happen that set the investigators off on a new path that they were looking for.
A body would be located frozen solid inside of a freezer in the basement of the home of a man named William Rothstein.
William himself called the police to report the body.
Interestingly, he was already talked to by the police earlier on about Brian Wells because he lived close to where Brian Wells was last seen delivering his pizza, which was down that dirt road at the transmitter tower.
Oh, interesting.
Okay. He would go on to tell them that his ex-fiancee, Marjorie Deal Armstrong, was responsible for the death of the man whose body was now frozen inside of this freezer in his house.
William would be arrested and brought in for more questioning.
The body in the freezer was that of a man named James Roden, who was the previous boyfriend of Marjorie and lived with her for 10 years.
William would tell police that Marjorie shot James with a 12-gauge shotgun over an issue about money.
Oof. It's always about money.
Jeez. It's always about money.
And then just blows him away.
We were just talking about that.
She's not going to get his money.
Yeah. You're not going to give money if you kill him.
Yeah, fucking crazy.
He said that Marjorie shot James at her house, then paid him $2,000 to hide the body and clean the crime scene, which he did.
And that murder was about three weeks before the Brian Wells case had happened.
Now, William Rothstein also wrote what is thought to be a suicide note before he called the police, but he never attempted to kill himself, as far as authorities know.
But what is interesting about the suicide note is that in it, Williams specifically says that his death had nothing to do with the Brian Wells case.
The police obviously found this note while they conducted searches on his property after finding the body of James Roden.
I feel like that's a pretty insanely low number for him to come and, like, clean her house and dispose of this body.
She's like, oh, I'll give you $2,000.
He's like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.
Boy, I would have charged way more for something like that.
You know, body disposal?
Yeah, I don't know.
Maybe he was hurt for cash.
It's gonna be at least ten grand, bro.
But the thing about the note, he implicates himself in his suicide note with the Brian Wells case.
Oh, that's true.
That's true.
So the police would look into Marjorie, and they would discover that she had already killed a man.
Robert Thomas, who was a boyfriend of hers back in 1984.
Oof. Yeah, but she was acquitted after arguing that it was in self-defense, claiming that he was abusing her.
Of course.
Well, we'll get this, man.
She shot him six times while he was sleeping on a couch.
Oh, damn.
Cold-blooded.
Yeah. And she got off of it.
She didn't get convicted of that.
Okay, all right.
Later in 1992, her husband, Richard Armstrong...
Well, he would die from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by blunt force trauma to his head.
Marjorie would request his body not to be examined and made for a quick burial or cremation.
Bro. She would actually win a medical malpractice suit against the hospital as well.
I'm unsure of the amount that she received, but we can surmise however much it was, it wasn't enough for her quality of life.
Man, like I'm starting to see a little bit of a pattern here.
You seeing that?
You seeing this pattern?
Oh, yeah.
She got off.
Killing two fucking men.
Two dudes, and they're just like, oh yeah, let's give you some more money.
Yeah, and she was a malpractice dude.
Unreal. So Marjorie was a very cunning woman.
Very manipulative.
She got a master's degree in education with a focus on guidance counseling, according to the Eerie Times News.
And she was intelligent for sure, but she used that intelligence in all the wrong ways.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, imagine what she could have done if she had put it towards not just murderous intent.
You know?
I mean, obviously she excelled at that.
She should have been a spy.
One day later, the police charged Marjorie for Rodin's murder, and she was placed under arrest.
She would place all blame on William Rothstein for the elaborate plot.
Totally. Trying to shift the old responsibility.
And a few days after that, they would question William about the Brian Wells case.
Now here is a little bit about William Rothstein.
Of course.
Freaking rat, bro.
Yeah, I'm curious as to why he would mention in his intended suicide note that his suicide had nothing to do with Brian Wells.
I mean, that's just like, that makes it too obvious and too coincidental.
William would tell the police that he may have used a payphone to call Brian before Brian's death, but wouldn't say anything else to the police, even while he lay in his deathbed only months later.
He would say nothing.
He would die in July the following year from cancer.
And that phone call he made would be the phone call to Mamma Mia's, which Brian took on August 28th.
So now, the police have Marjorie in their sights.
But due to her mental health problems, of which she suffered from both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, she was transferred to the Mayview State Hospital for a long-term mental health evaluation in regards to the case of James Roden.
And therefore, police could not question her until she was released.
Oh man, clever.
About eight months later, she was found to be mentally ill, but she would take a guilty plea to third-degree murder in the death of her live-in boyfriend, James Roden.
She was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in a state prison on January 7, 2005, and was transferred to the state correctional institution at Muncie.
Later in 2005, detectives from the FBI and the ATF would visit Marjorie at the state prison in Cambridge Springs, and they would get her to tell them that she gave William two kitchen timers.
She entertained the idea of immunity in exchange for her testimony, but apparently she liked to talk and she never got the deal.
Crazy broad, bro.
Yeah, she's nuts.
The agents believe that Marjorie had killed James Roden in order to keep him silent about the entire plot they had for Brian Wells.
The two agents would then go speak to William Rothstein's roommate at the time of the Brian Wells incident.
His name was Floyd Stockton.
Floyd would tell the detectives that both Marjorie and William were involved in the plot to rob the bank and use a neck bomb in the process.
As for their motive, he said that they needed money.
By August and September of 2005, the two detectives would interview Marjorie's friend, Kenneth Barnes.
Kenneth Barnes here, well, his brother-in-law turned him in after Kenneth had bragged about being part of the bank robbery.
He told him that Marjorie had come to him and asked if he would kill her father to get him to stop spending all of her inheritance.
He said that his fee was $250,000.
If she could pay him that money, he could take out her father.
Oh man, the first mention of the $250,000.
I always thought that was kind of like a...
I mean, it's a quarter mil, right?
But I still thought it was just such a random number, and now it's starting to make sense, my friend.
Yes, very specific number at this point.
A few months later, Kenneth would meet with the detectives again and tell them that Marjorie, William, Floyd, and Brian all met with him on August 27, 2003, which would be the day before the heist, to go over the plan.
He would admit that both he and Marjorie did, in fact, follow Brian as he carried out the robbery and searched for the keys.
And they would also watch Brian Wells'Zubinakis.
In the following years, Floyd Stockton would be given immunity in exchange to testify against Marjorie and Kenneth.
Kenneth Barnes would plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bank robbery and using a destructive device during a crime of violence, and he would be sentenced to 45 years in federal prison.
He would agree to testify against Marjorie.
Judge McLaughlin would declare that Marjorie Deal Armstrong was unfit to stand trial in July of 2008 due to her mental health.
But after three months of mental health treatment, he found her to be fit to stand trial.
Come March of 2010, Marjorie has a cancerous lump gouged out of her neck.
But later, she is diagnosed with glandular cancer that started in her chest and was spreading with no chance of full recovery.
She was given roughly three to seven years to live.
And despite all of that, the judge said, The trial must go on!
The trial must go on!
And the people cheered, and they jeered.
And the trial did go on, and after two days of deliberations totaling 11 and a half hours, the jury found Marjorie Deal Armstrong guilty on all charges.
And those would be for armed bank robbery, conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, and using a destructive device in a crime of violence.
She was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years in federal prison.
Okay, so now, let's just go over all of this.
Yeah, for sure.
Let's piece this together.
I mean, this is crazy, right?
This lady, just using people, which I know that sounds kind of weak, but she's like, oh, this guy, he's expendable.
Let's strap a bomb to him and send him in and he can pull out this money for me.
You know?
I mean, just crazy.
Crazy shit.
Alright, first of all...
Two or three days after Brian Wells was killed, another pizza delivery guy at Mama Mia's was found dead at his house of an apparent drug overdose.
His name was Robert Panetti.
He was one of the two pizza delivery drivers at Mama Mia's.
Oh, what?
They lost both their pizza delivery guys in a matter of a few days?
Both. Damn, bro.
Like, you're the boss, and this thing happens with Brian, so now you're like, well, fuck, Robert.
You're covering for Brian.
And then two days later, Robert is found dead.
That's a big hit.
I would have just quit right there.
I would have been like, I'm getting into a different business.
I'm going to sell fucking lace doilies or something at a stationary store.
I'm out.
No more pizza business, man.
Fuck no, man.
So that's an interesting bit there.
And we know that Marjorie shot James Roden with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing him.
Marjorie called William Rossing over to help clean the mess up and dispose of the body.
Together... They put the body into an ice chest that was in the garage of the house, which was very near the transmission tower where Brian Wells would unfortunately willingly walk up to his captors.
James had lived with Marjorie for ten years, and they were sexual on and off, and it said that there was a dispute over money, but considering that the murder took place within two or three weeks before the bomb, it paints a different picture.
Right, right.
To silence him, perhaps.
Or it could have been a combination of those things, like the money.
And silencing him.
I mean, it's just a little bit too coincidental that it was that close to the bomb.
Yeah. So when you consider all the evidence together, it appears that James Rodin was silenced by Marjorie.
But it's just another thing we just don't know for sure.
And then, we know that William called the police on himself for the body in the freezer.
And he wrote a suicide note indicating that his suicide was in no way related to the Brian Wells case at all.
That's just so fucking suspicious, bro.
Like, there's just no way the two things.
Like, why would you say that?
Unless you weren't trying to tip someone off, you know what I mean?
The police did find it suspicious, and they looked into it.
So as I said earlier, William was implicated in a 1977 murder where he gave a gun to a friend so they could kill a romantic rival.
He then took the gun back and tried to destroy it by melting it down or something.
But he was caught and given immunity in exchange to testify against his friend.
And he was part of a group called Fractured Intellectuals, which apparently are a group who are intelligent but are not well adjusted.
Asperger's? I mean, is it an actual group like an accredited group?
Is it recognized by any kind of...
Meaningful institution, or is it just a general term for a broad group of people with no physical group being present?
I think it's just this small group of people related to the bomb and the robbery.
Okay, so they call themselves the fractured intellectuals.
I see.
Marjorie's definitely the ringleader, and William is probably her number one guy.
He's the P guy.
And Kenneth was her number two.
The scat guy.
You're not far off the mark.
Never am.
Later, it would be discovered that William was a welder, and it was he who designed and built the neck-bomb device, and then utilized the kitchen timers that Marjorie admitted to providing him.
And William's roommate was a man named Floyd Stockton, who was living at William's house as a fugitive, but was given immunity to testify against Marjorie.
Now, Kenneth Barnes was a small-time drug dealer specializing in crack, and some say he was a pimp, but he was also a retired television repairman.
named Jessica Hoopsick.
Who is Jessica Hoopsick?
Who's Jessica Hoopsick?
Yeah. Who is Jessica Hoopsick?
She was a sex worker who worked with Kenneth and would use his house to bring clients.
Now, okay, this is how this entire thing unraveled.
Marjorie Deal Armstrong wanted her daddies and
Right, right, as some daughters do.
And she was only wanting it more and more and more because she thought that he was spending it all on himself.
Oh, you mean he was spending his own money on him?
Yeah, that's right.
And she was pissed about it.
Yeah. She was pissed enough to want him dead.
Well, she seems to kill at will, so yeah, I'm not surprised about that.
She wanted to kill her father so she could get her inheritance.
So she asked Kenneth Barnes if he could kill her dad, but he said he would charge $250,000 to do it.
And he wouldn't waver in the price.
So Marjorie at that point was just dead set on obtaining exactly $250,000 by any means necessary.
Shit, well, she's already killed at least two men, so...
Well, I should point out here that Marjorie had a deep, deep-seated hatred for men.
Just as unnatural resentment and disgust toward men.
Huh. Let's see.
Kills one man.
Kills one man.
Well, that's two men.
Adding the fact that she truly hates men, just absolutely despises men.
Huh, yeah, I think she hates men more than most women, I'd say.
Or most women are just able to control their murderous tendencies a little bit better, you know what I mean?
Hmm, that's a great point.
So now Marjorie's set to devise her master plan.
She would build a bomb that could attach around someone's neck that nobody could get off.
This bomb would have a timer, 55 minutes.
And this person would need to walk into a bank, demand exactly $250,000 from the bank manager.
Once the money is obtained, the person would walk out the door, get in their car, and then drive to the various stopping points on a scavenger hunt to find clues and keys in order to take the bomb off of their neck.
55 minutes.
And on top of that, she would be watching from afar and following this person to make sure they weren't talking to police or going off script.
But what she wanted more was to make sure that the person was able to get away long enough for her to get the money from them.
And she didn't care about any other human being.
So, I don't think she cared about the bomb detonating around this person's neck.
No, clearly not.
Her plan then was to take that $250,000 that she just got for free from the bank and give it to Kenneth Barnes as a payment for killing her father before he could spend all of her inheritance.
After her father was out of the way, she'd be rich and could move on to do whatever other fucked up shit she would have done
I can't imagine the nastiest motel orgies with empty bottles of that cheap vegetable oil laying everywhere, splashing it at each other.
Yeah, and they're just dowsing each other with those and rolling around on each other, undulating, sliding around, skin on skin.
Exactly. Slithering around in a ball formation like snakes.
Face first, mouth agape, tongue waving around.
Just imagine all those horrific groans.
Oh, man.
Just got a number one and a number two guys there.
That's what nightmares are made up of, man.
Anyway, first she needs someone to build a solid neck brace apparatus that is nearly indestructible and impossible to get out someone's neck.
Who could build such a thing?
Well, William Rothstein is a welder.
Let's go ask him.
Precisely. So that's taken care of.
So now while he's off building that, she goes over to Kenneth Barnes and asks him if he can build her a couple of pipe bombs that can go off with a timer.
He's like, hell yeah, I can do that, sugar tits!
So Marjorie buys the kitchen timers and whatever else she needed for this, and Kenneth goes to making the bombs.
Now that that's all done.
The bomb is built, the neck brace is finished, the two are connected, and the device is ready to be put around someone's neck.
So now what, Scott?
What does she have to do now?
Um, that's a good question, man.
Tell me.
Well, she'd have to find a person to put this bomb around their neck.
Right, right, yes.
The actual human being.
Yeah, so who would be a good person to ask?
Um, well, I guess...
She'd probably want to ask a dude, right?
Because she hates dudes.
Well, she would ask Kenneth Barnes because he, you know, dealt crack.
Right. Old Kenny B. Yeah, old Kenny B. He knew people on the street.
So he goes and asks Jessica Hoopsick if she knows any gophers, as he called it, that could be scared into robbing a bank.
He should have said squirrels.
Squirrels! Jessica said she knew a guy that she saw regularly.
Brian Wells, who she said was a pushover, fitting their description perfectly.
Also during the investigation, the police would search Brian's apartment and find a diary with names of sex workers he liked to see.
One of those names was Jessica Hoopsick, just folded neatly into the dough.
So anyway, the only other person in this group that knew Brian was Kenneth Barnes, who would supply Brian with drugs.
Jessica would provide the group with Brian's name and his delivery schedule.
And for her part, they would give her some drugs and some money.
Dude, what a shady-ass group of people, man.
Yeah, bro.
So shady.
Seriously, so fucked up.
I mean, this group of people conspiring against this poor guy.
I mean, he just pays for sex every now and then and does drugs every now and then and delivers pizza.
Yeah, man, just living his life.
He's literally just living his life.
I mean, maybe it's not a great life, but, you know, he's living.
But it's a life.
It's a life, and he's not hurting anyone, and these guys are like, and they even conspire with this sex worker.
Yeah, ugly, ugly people, bro.
As for Jessica, she would not end up getting into any trouble over this.
Some of the detectives also thought she might not be a credible witness due to her being into drugs and being a sex worker.
She was never cooperative with them, and that could simply be because they are cops and she is a drug user and a sex worker, you know?
They aren't necessarily compatible.
Yeah, the police do not have a great record with helping sex workers.
Historically, they're adversaries, you know?
And as we've seen in so many murder cases, when sex workers were being killed left and right, the police were basically just like...
Uh, say you watched the game last night, Harry?
Huh? What the fuck was that, Frank?
I fucking asked you if you watched the fucking game last night, Harry, you motherfucker.
Oh, sorry, Frank.
Yeah, I watched the game last night.
Couldn't help but notice the commercials in between all those missing and dead prostitutes, you know what I mean?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
What's with all them prostitutes going missing and then end up being found dead?
It's a fucking mystery to me, pal.
I'm running out of places to go.
Ah, I know what you mean, buddy.
Say, say, you wanna go down to 24th Street, check out those peep show booths?
You know, huh?
Eh, come on, man.
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Come on, man, let's go, man.
What do you say, Harry?
Well, you know, Frank, we ain't got nothing else to fucking do around here.
Yeah, these guys will give us a fucking discount since we're in uniform, you know?
I fucking think those prostitutes are from this area, Frank.
Nah, nah, nah, Harry.
We're gonna go check out some fucking tits over here.
Come on, pal.
Oh yeah, tits.
I fucking love tits, Frank.
I fucking know you do, pal.
So one way or another, Brian Wells is introduced to everyone and they go over the details of the plan.
Here's an interesting part.
There were witnesses who said that they saw Brian leaving William's house the day before the horrible event.
But even better than that, Kenneth Barnes said that they did a dress rehearsal of the crime to take place on the day before.
He said that Marjorie was there, and William was there, and Floyd Stockton was there, and Brian was there along with himself.
A real classic brunch, this group.
You hungry?
A real...
A real classic brunch, this group.
And that rehearsal went without a hitch.
They went over placing the device around his neck, but they didn't use the actual device that they were intending to use.
They used a fake one and didn't tell Brian the real plan, which consisted of strapping two pipe bombs to his chest.
Brian thought he was going in there with a fake bomb he had no idea.
I was just gonna ask, like, how did they manage to convince, like, he must have really been a pushover if he knew he was going in with live bombs.
Yeah. So I was waiting for the part where, you know, you said, like, How it was they got him to do that.
But I see.
He thought he was going in with a fake bomb.
Yeah. And so the next day, he shows up to work as usual and carries out his daily routine.
And right after 1.30 p.m. on August 28, 2003, Mamma Mia's gets that phone call, which came from a pay phone at a nearby gas station.
They ordered their pizza and wanted it delivered to 8631 P Street, just a few miles from Mamma Mia's and next to William Rothstein's house.
When he showed up at the end of the dirt road...
He got out and gave them their pizzas as they were all laughing and having a good time, thinking this is all gonna go off without a hitch.
Oh yeah, he probably showed up with the pies and they're like, this fucking sap, dude.
Yeah. He's about to strap up.
He doesn't even know.
I'm sure they were just, like, hyped.
Because, of course, none of them actually give a shit about any human ever.
No, these people do not care at all, man.
They just want money.
Exactly. They're like, oh, this is gonna be easy money.
So they pull out the neck bomb that they were going to attach, but it either looks different or they tell him that there are two live pipe bombs.
So Brian refuses to wear it, but someone in the group pulls out a gun and threatens Brian.
Who do you think that was, Scott?
Well, sheesh, Marjorie hates men and has no issue shooting one, so I'm just going to say Marjorie.
My bets are on her as well.
Now, the New York Post says that an autopsy found a small bullet in his leg, proving, as they said, That he was forced to do this.
My question with that is this.
Why wasn't he seen limping around at the bank?
There were plenty of witnesses that noticed him and said he was walking in and walking out with, you know, nothing stood out about him other than the ridiculous contraption around his neck.
But they didn't say anything about a limp.
Yeah, right.
And the teller said he was basically prancing around, jumping and clicking his heels, sucking on a lollipop and twirling this sack of money, right?
Like Charlie Chaplin.
Clickety-clack, clickety-cloo!
Look at me now, look at you!
But anyway, they put the neck bomb on him, whether he was willing to wear it or not, and the surveillance photos from within the bank don't give us much to work with in terms of body language.
Right, like, did it seem like he was really nervous, and did it look like he was doing this against his will, or did it look like he knew what he was doing and had it all under control?
And I guess my only thing I would say about it...
When people are in shock or their adrenaline's going super hard, sometimes you don't even notice shit like you've been cut badly and you're bleeding or you have a broken bone.
So maybe he did get shot, but maybe just knowing he had...
Maybe his brain just took the bomb around his chest as high-priority function.
Yeah, man, I don't know.
So he couldn't even register this bullet that he took to his leg.
I mean, who knows?
Yeah. The witnesses, I mean, as far as we know, the witnesses stated he was pretty calm throughout the entire process.
But Brian was given the packet with the letters inside.
Some adjusted the teller, others to the manager, and the others were for him.
Now, it's unclear whether he knew anything about the scavenger hunt that he'd have to carry out afterward, or if that was a new part that even he didn't know about yet.
Right, and it was clear that from the beginning, they were never up front with him about the whole story, so who knows?
Yeah, I don't think he knew about the scavenger hunt.
I don't think so either.
I think they put that on him afterward and be like, here you go, follow this shit.
Yeah, exactly.
So, Brian would get the money and head out of the bank, skipping and jumping and clicking his heels.
Clickety-clack!
Ooh, clickety-clay!
Look at you, now look at me!
He did that all the way to his car and got inside, and you know it smelled the sweet, sweet pepperoni pizza in there.
I just had to bring that up.
Amongst all this murder.
I bet it smelled amazing.
I fucking love that smell.
Fresh pizza in the car.
Warm, warm pepperoni pizza.
Pepperoni pizza!
Anyway. Brian drove to the first location and got a key to unlock one of the four locks in the neck bomb.
And this device was elaborate.
They weren't using, you know, basic padlocks hanging out and about on this device.
Like, the locks were inside of a small metal box itself, which just had four little keyholes in it.
So this thing was built pretty well.
Yeah, this thing is some serious kind of ingen...
Like, for being such shitty, horrible people, you can't say that they weren't kind of ingenious in other ways.
Like, these weird, random-ass skills that they had.
Like, God, if they had just used it for...
Anyways. They're pieces of shit.
So he was on his way to the second location, and I think that is where the cops spotted him outside of his car at an eyeglass business.
That is where they placed handcuffs on him and had him sit in an area surrounded by cop cars.
And they wouldn't call the bomb squad for half of an hour of him sitting there, despite Brian's desperate pleas for them to help him.
And at 318, as we know, the bomb exploded.
So the FBI, the ATF, and as far as law enforcement is concerned, Brian Wells was in on the plot.
But they do believe that he thought he would be using a fake bomb until the last moment when he was forced to wear a real bomb.
His family, of course, denies they had any part in the scheme and say that he was an innocent victim, which he may very well have been.
And we mean no disrespect to the Wells family.
At all.
No, no.
We definitely do not.
Just trying to bring a horrible crime down to a more palatable level.
Yes, and just trying to make light of a rainy day.
Brian Wells was an unfortunate victim in all of this no matter how you look at it.
The police would later say that regardless, if there were keys at each location on the notes, he still would not have had enough time to get to the last one.
Oh, yeah.
I'm sure logistically, like, if they only gave him 55 minutes and you're in a situation like that...
There's just no way.
He would have had to have been in and out, no dicking around, and he was getting hang-ups and pushback from the very beginning.
But what about Marjorie's dad, who she wanted dead to inherit her money?
Right, right.
I mean, was he just fine with all this?
I mean, I can't imagine that he'd...
He said this.
She, in my estimation, she'd have a tendency to do anything that's possible because I think her mind is a little bit goofed up.
I don't think she's completely sane.
And Marjorie Deal Armstrong would die of breast cancer on April 4th, 2017.
Oh, wow.
That's, like, actually pretty recent.
Yeah, she was 68 years old.
She was adamant that she would beat her case in the Brian Wells fiasco, but ran out of appeals, and I believe even the habeas was denied.
And in one of those appeals, one of the judges presiding over it described Marjorie as, quote, She was also a bit of a hoarder.
She was hoarding crates upon crates of government cheese and government butter.
Hoarding government cheese and butter?
What the hell is government cheese, man?
I mean, I've kind of heard, like, the myth about it.
Like, just large, vast quantities of cheese in caves or something like that.
But it's been a long time since I've...
Oh, yeah.
Well, government cheese and government butter is simply a surplus of milk that farmers have, and the government buys it up and makes cheese and butter out of it, and they store that in various areas around the country.
And in one such area, located hundreds of feet below the state of Missouri in the United States, there is a cave system that is on private land and off limits to people like you and I. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
They call it the Springfield Cheese Cave, I think.
And I think it's off Interstate 435.
It's all limestone, and it says a perfect 36 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.2 degrees Celsius.
Because, like, back in 1949, the USDA started a couple of programs to help the farmers and really just to make sure that Americans always had enough cheese.
So the government started buying up all this cheese and storing it because we didn't need any more.
No, why would you waste perfect cheese?
Yeah, exactly.
Why? But over the years, they've been handing it out for certain food assistant programs.
Yeah, what exactly do they store in that cave again?
There's cheese, there's butter, and there's something else.
Well, they have around 1.5 billion pounds of cheese, or 680,388,555 kilograms.
Along with that, they have 355 million pounds of butter, or about 161 million.
25,291 kilograms, and also 211 million pounds of pecans, if you can believe that, or about 95,707,990 kilos.
And get this, bro.
What is it?
Just about around 1 billion pounds of french fries.
What? French fries.
French fries, or about 453,592,370 kilograms, bro.
Wow. French fries.
A billion pounds of French fries stored in a cave in Missouri.
Yeah, I actually go every weekend and I fill up, you know?
My question is, why the hell are they keeping a billion pounds of French fries in a cave?
That just doesn't sound...
That just doesn't seem like a food that would be stored in a cave.
Like whole potatoes, sure, but pre-cut French fries doesn't make sense.
They would brown, and I don't know.
It doesn't make sense.
Sounds like some kind of backdoor deal that old McDonald's back in the day.
Yeah. You know, they say old McDonald had a farm.
Yeah. The Golden Arches, man.
Gets all their fries from the government.
Ah, makes sense.
That's where it's been all along.
That makes sense.
Well, apparently the government only owns about 300 million pounds of what's in that cave or something.
And the other 700 million, give or take, is owned by farmers in the USDA who store it for the farmers.
Well, we can only imagine what the government exactly is doing to our cheese, man.
Sorry that I can't afford no poulet.
$600 a pound.
And I can't afford no white stilt and gold.
$420 a pound.
I can't afford no white farms cheddar.
$200 a pound.
And I can't afford no caciocavallo polocio.
Exactly. I can't even afford any lord of the hundreds, which is $20 a pound.
Therefore, I have to rely on that government cheese.
It's the only way I can survive in this melting economy, bro.
Grilled cheese for brekkie, lunch, and dinny.
I hear you loud and clear, my friend.
Cheese prices are off the charts, man.
It's crazy.
Here, Tillamook is pricing their one-pound blocks of medium cheddar at about $14.
Oh, man.
Well, if you need some help with that, I know a guy who's willing to strap a bomb around his neck and walk into a bank.
Hey! Just kidding.
I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who likes bombs.
You can get this cheese.
Like, hey, I'm going to get on my bicycle and I'm going to ride it down to the bank and get me some money.
That's pretty good, bro.
Yeah. Grilled cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Oh, boy.
Yeah. We'll come back to that.
I love that.
I think we're going to do an episode where you're going to just be Christopher Walken the whole way through.
All right, man.
I'm up for the challenge.
I'm up for the challenge.
Well, Scott, what do you say we close this out?
Yes, sir.
Ladies and gentlemen, please email us at paranautica at gmail.com.
That's P-A-R-A-N-A-U-G-H-T-I-C-A at gmail.com.
Follow us on Twitter at Paranautica.
Check out our Facebook page at The Paranautica Podcast.
Buy us a coffee over there, man.
You can help us out by donating and keeping this podcast ad-free.
You can donate via PayPal or Ko-Fi.
Head over to our Facebook page.
Check that out.
Yes. Please.
Let's be in touch.
And until next week, avoid stepping on all the cracks on the sidewalk.
And we'll see you then.
Export Selection