Brian Douglas Wells

At Kenneth Barnes' home, he, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, and William Rothstein discussed ways they could make money. Diehl-Armstrong suggested Barnes kill her father, Harold Diehl, so she would receive an inheritance. Barnes told her he was willing to do this for $200,000 (equivalent to $278,000 in 2019). The collar bomb-bank robbery plot was hatched to obtain enough money to pay Barnes to kill Diehl-Armstrong's father. In return for a reduced sentence, Barnes later told investigators Diehl-Armstrong was the mastermind of the crime and that she wanted the money to pay Barnes to kill her father, whom she believed was wasting her inheritance.

Kenneth Barnes (1954 – June 20, 2019) was a retired television repairman, crack dealer, and Diehl-Armstrong's "fishing buddy". He suffered from diabetes and died in prison on June 20, 2019, at the age of 64-65.

Wells’ ordeal likely provided a substantial part of the inspiration for the 2016 Black Mirror episode “Shut Up and Dance”. The episode features a teenage pedophile named Kenny who is blackmailed by anonymous hackers who know of his true nature into committing various crimes. Mirroring Wells’ ordeal and eventual demise Kenny is sent on a scavenger hunt across the suburbs of England carrying out a series of increasingly-violent and dangerous tasks on his tormentors’ behalf, including robbing a bank at gunpoint and later fighting to the death with another man, all in the span of a single day in a futile and hopeless attempt to keep his secrets from being leaked.

In 2018, Jessica Hoopsick admitted to her involvement in the plot. Melissa Chan of Time wrote; "Hoopsick says a conspirator approached her to find a 'gopher' who could be scared into robbing a bank". In the 2018 documentary Evil Genius, Hoopsick identifies the conspirator as Barnes and alleges she recommended Wells, whom she described as "a pushover". Admitting to setting up Wells in exchange for money and drugs, Hoopsick expressed regret for her role and said Wells had no advance knowledge of the robbery. ATF agent Jason Wick stated Hoopsick was uncooperative in 2003 and that authorities "always believed that [she] knew more" about the case; however, Wick also expressed concern Hoopsick might not be a credible witness.

Due to its novelty and complexity, the story retains a fascination for many people. The January 2011 issue of Wired magazine covered the story. In 2012, investigator Jerry Clark and journalist Ed Palattella published Pizza Bomber: The Untold Story of America's Most Shocking Bank Robbery (ISBN 0425250555), a true-crime book detailing the events. In May 2018, Netflix released Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist, a documentary series about the case.

The 2011 American comedy film 30 Minutes or Less depicts a pizza delivery man being forced to wear a bomb vest and rob a bank. The film's similarity to the Wells case was criticized by Wells's family but Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group said the filmmakers were not aware of the Wells case.

On November 1, 2010, Diehl-Armstrong was convicted of armed bank robbery, conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, and of using a destructive device in a crime. On February 28, 2011, she was sentenced to life in prison, to be served consecutively with the prison term imposed in 2005 for killing Roden. In November 2012, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed her conviction. In January 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court denied her petition for certiorari, declining to hear her case. In December 2015, Diehl-Armstrong lost a second appeal of her conviction.

On February 24, 2009, Judge McLaughlin scheduled a hearing for March 11, 2010, to determine whether Diehl-Armstrong was now competent to stand trial. On September 9, the judge determined she was now competent. In October 2010, Diehl-Armstrong took the stand to testify on her own behalf as part of her defense. She asked for a change of venue, arguing extensive media coverage of the case prevented her from receiving a fair trial in Erie. Judge McLaughlin denied this request, noting while the allegations were unusual, "the [news] coverage as a whole has been about as factual and objective as it could be under the circumstances".

A federal grand jury indicted Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes on charges of bank robbery, conspiracy, and weapons charges. Fellow co-conspirator William "Bill" Rothstein had died and his roommate Floyd Stockton was given immunity from prosecution so he could testify against Diehl-Armstrong. In 2008, U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin sentenced Barnes to 45 years in federal prison. Two years later, Diehl-Armstrong was sentenced to life in prison.

In late 2005, Barnes, who was in jail on unrelated drug charges, was turned in by his brother-in-law after revealing details of the crime to him. On September 3, 2008, Barnes pleaded guilty to conspiring to rob a bank and to aiding and abetting. On December 3 that year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison by a federal judge in Erie for his role in the crime.

On July 29, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Sean J. McLaughlin made an initial finding that Diehl-Armstrong was mentally incompetent to stand trial due to a number of mental disorders, indicating this ruling would be reviewed after she had received a period of treatment in a mental hospital. Diehl-Armstrong was then transferred for treatment to a federal mental-health facility in Texas.

In July 2006, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes had been charged with the crime, with Diehl-Armstrong as the mastermind. The deceased Rothstein and Wells were named as un-indicted co-conspirators. Buchanan stated Wells had been involved in the plot from the beginning but that his co-conspirators fitted him with a real bomb that would have exploded even if it was removed.

The Wells incident has been the inspiration for a number of works of fiction. A short-lived 2006 NBC television series Heist dramatized the incident in a pilot featuring Zac Efron as a teenage pizza delivery worker who is forced to commit a robbery with a bomb on his chest. As in the real-life incident, the bomb is detonated and kills the victim but the detonation mechanism is a wireless transmitter.

In January 2005, Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the murder of Roden and was sentenced to between seven and twenty years in prison. She is believed to have killed Roden to prevent him from informing authorities about the robbery plot.

In April 2005, Diehl-Armstrong told a state trooper she had information about the Wells case and after meeting with FBI agents, said she would tell them everything she knew if she was transferred from the Muncy Correctional Institution to a minimum-security prison in Cambridge Springs. During a series of interviews, Diehl-Armstrong admitted to providing the kitchen timers used for the bomb, stated Rothstein masterminded the plot and that Wells had been directly involved in the plan.

Wells worked as a pizza delivery driver at the Mama Mia's Pizzeria in Erie for ten years before his death. Just after 1:30 p.m. on August 28, 2003, the pizzeria received a call from a payphone at a nearby gas station. The owner could not understand the customer and passed the phone to Wells, who received a call to deliver two pizzas to 8631 Peach Street, an address a few miles from the pizzeria. The address was the location of the transmitting tower of WSEE-TV at the end of a dirt road.

WJET-TV, an Erie ABC affiliate, broadcast the event live on the air but did not show the moment of the detonation live due to a technical problem. The station provided the footage to FBI investigators, ABC's head office, and sister station in Buffalo, New York. The footage was subsequently leaked to a shock jock on DC101, a radio station in Washington, D.C. who posted it on his website in September 2003. Although he subsequently removed the video at WJET-TV's request, by then it had been posted to numerous video-sharing websites.

The case also involved two further deaths linked to the conspirators. On August 31, 2003, Wells's coworker at the pizza store and its only other delivery driver, Robert Thomas Pinetti, was found dead in his home after suffering a drug overdose.

On September 20, 2003, Rothstein, who lived near the television tower, called police to inform them the body of a man, James Roden, was hidden in a freezer in a garage at his house. After he telephoned police, Rothstein wrote a suicide note indicating his planned death had nothing to do with Wells. Investigators do not believe Rothstein ever attempted suicide.

Brian Wells was born in Warren, Pennsylvania to Rose and Korean war veteran Harold Wells. In 1973, when Wells was a 16-year-old sophomore, he dropped out of Erie's East High School and went to work as a mechanic.

Brian Douglas Wells (November 15, 1956 – August 28, 2003) was an American pizza delivery man who was murdered during a complex plot involving a bank robbery, scavenger hunt, and homemade explosive device near his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania. Wells, who was surrounded by police, was murdered when an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated. It is known as the "collar bomb" or "pizza bomber" case. The incident was shown live on television.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (February 26, 1949 – April 4, 2017) had a history of suffering from multiple mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, since her early teens, and seems to have been a serial killer. Before her mental health deteriorated in her twenties, Diehl-Armstrong was an "exemplary student" in high school and earned a master's degree from Gannon College. In 1984, she shot her boyfriend Robert Thomas six times as he lay on the couch but was acquitted on claims of self-defense. Her husband and several other partners also died under suspicious circumstances. Diehl-Armstrong died from breast cancer in prison on April 4, 2017, at the age of 68.

Floyd Arthur "Jay" Stockton Jr. (born 1947), who lived as a fugitive at Rothstein's house, is a convicted rapist of a disabled teenager. He was granted immunity for his testimony against Diehl-Armstrong, but was never called to testify in court due to illness.

William Ansel "Bill" Rothstein (January 17, 1944 – July 30, 2004) was born to Matthias Rothstein and B. Virginia Bryner. His father ran the Rola Bottling Company from 1945 to 1978. Rothstein dated Diehl-Armstrong in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was implicated in a 1977 murder after he gave a handgun to a friend who used it to murder a romantic rival; he later attempted to destroy the weapon but was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. Rothstein was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and regularly wore overalls. He was a handyman and part-time shop teacher, and also was part of a group called the "fractured intellectuals"; intelligent people who were not well-adjusted. He spoke French and Hebrew fluently. Rothstein was admitted to the Millcreek Community Hospital on July 23, 2004, having previously been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma showing diffuse, large-cell type myeloproliferative lymphoma, and died on July 30 that year at the age of 60.