The eerie Erie collar bomb case had suddenly taken on new life, as federal authorities handed down a series of indictments, four years after the horrific, bizarre event. The argument is that two people, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth E. Barnes, created the collar-bomb hostage plot as a cover story. The truth was Diehl-Armstrong raising funds to pay for someone to kill her father.
Brian Wells, the poor fellow ordered on an odd crime spree, then blown up by the bomb attached to his neck, was apparently in on the case from the start. One prosecutor in this local news video claims that Wells had second thoughts at some point, which is why the bomb was locked onto him, but that he never truly broke from the plan.
[Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes] contrived a series of notes to make it appear pizza deliveryman Brian Wells was "merely a hostage," authorities said in court papers. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes also planned to get the robbery money from Wells so that, if he were caught, he could claim he was a hostage and an unwilling participant, authorities said.
Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes are both already in jail, for other charges, murder and drugs, respectively.
Wells' family denies that he was a co-conspirator. What was supposed to happen to him on that day? Prosecutors are coy, opening up all sorts of possibilities:
We do not know the extent to which the others planned on him dying that day.
If the charges are correct, then we now have an explanation for one aspect of Wells' behavior:
"I talked to him...It was amazing," one law enforcement official later told Crime Library. "I just...didn't get any sense of urgency from him." Reading his face, a skill cops develop after years on the job, the law enforcement could find no sign "that he knew the thing was imminent." Wells was so calm, in fact, that authorities suspected that he didn't really believe that the device around his neck was a real bomb or that in the blink of an eye, he might be dead.
What an amazing, horrible, novelistic case. What networks of plotting. What levels of psychological twists and torments. If you want to catch up, we summarized the story in 2005.
I think it's revolting that a comedy film was made about this incident. The filmmakers, Ruben Fleischer and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, didn't even have the decency to admit that they actually were inspirited by the true story. Yet the film's plot follows the true events closely. Do they think that people are so naive as to believe that they thought up a plot that coincides with true events in so many ways? I'm talking about "30 Minutes or Less". How could these filmmakers be such degenerates? A human being was killed in the original event and yet they created a comedy. You should know that the tragic death of a man and the debased lifestyle of all the unhappy people involved in this incident could never be funny to anyone who has a heart and brain in working order. I could understand if a filmmaker had been inspired to create a tragedy. But no, these filmmakers want us to laugh at other peoples pain. It's revolting, pathetic, and tragic that so many people in America could come together for their own ruin. So - I'm not laughing. Are you? It's interesting to note that the company that gave the money for the film were German. What do the Germans care about us as Americans? The sit around laughing at America's pain and hurtful failures; a dying American and the wasted lives of Americans are amusing fodder for their mills. Wake up America and get some self respect.
Posted by: Vani | October 18, 2011 at 06:14