bank robbery

Collar Bomb Killer to Be Moved to Federal Prison

A woman serving a federal life sentence in a bizarre bank robbery plot that killed a pizza deliveryman who was forced to wear a bomb collar has been paroled on a state murder charge.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong must still serve her life sentence for the death of Brian Wells, the 46-year-old deliveryman who was killed when the bomb exploded after the Erie bank robbery that Diehl-Armstrong helped plan in August 2003.

Diehl-Armstrong was granted parole on Oct. 16 from her seven- to 20-year sentence for the third-degree murder of James Roden, her former live-in boyfriend, the Erie Times-News reported Monday.

The decision means the 65-year-old Erie woman will be moved from the state women's prison in Muncy to a federal prison, once a spot opens up.

Federal prosecutors claimed that Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden, 45, because he knew about the bomb collar robbery plot. Diehl-Armstrong acknowledged shooting Roden but has maintained it was a crime of passion prompted by his abusive behavior.

If it weren't for the way she disposed of Roden's body, Diehl-Armstrong and the other plotters might never have been brought to justice.

Roden was killed two weeks before Wells, and she enlisted the help of a handyman she knew, William Rothstein, to hide the body.

After Wells died in the bomb blast, Rothstein called police to report that Roden's body was being stored in a freezer at his home and implicated Diehl-Armstrong in the killing.

The FBI eventually determined Rothstein — a former shop teacher — was also in on the collar bomb robbery plot, but he died of cancer before Diehl-Armstrong and her fishing buddy, Kenneth Barnes, were indicted in July 2007.

Barnes later pleaded guilty and was the key witness against Diehl-Armstrong. He's serving more than 20 years in federal prison.

Investigators determined Rothstein made the bomb collar — using two egg timers provided by Diehl-Armstrong — and even ordered the pizzas that lured Wells to a dead-end road where Wells was forced to wear the device before he was given handwritten instructions about how to rob the bank and disarm the bomb.

Prosecutors believe Wells was in on the plot but fooled into believing the bomb collar would be a decoy until that fateful day.

Wells' family maintains he was an innocent hostage.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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