Diehl-Armstrong in her 50s
Seeing a person getting blown to smithereens is never a pretty sight.
But, in “Evil Genius,” the riveting four-part Netflix series that unreels on Friday, the shocking demise of 43-year-old pizza delivery guy Brian Wells isn’t just a figment of a blood-thirsty screenwriter’s imagination.
Wells’ story is, in fact, a crucial piece in the true-to-life puzzle surrounding the death of a man who bit off more than he could chew—and the manipulative woman who knew how to make men do whatever she wanted.
The riveting documentary “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist,” directed by Barbara Schroeder, begins with a 2003 footage showing Wells casually entering a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Initially, there was nothing unusual about the guy’s countenance—he even picked up a lollipop from the counter before perfunctorily falling in line—until he gave the incredulous teller a rambling nine-page letter demanding $250,000 and ordered her to “act now, think later—or you’ll die!”
The warning then became cause for serious concern when the teller realized that the cane Wells was holding was a custom-built shotgun. Even more troubling was the fact that Wells, as it turned out, was wearing a triple-banded collar bomb locked around his neck, which he initially thought was fake!
The note gave the teller 15 minutes to produce the full amount, or the bomb would explode. But, unable to access the bank’s vault in that limited amount of time, she could only hand over a “measly” $8,702!
Wells was arrested outside the bank 15 minutes later, after which he claimed that three black men had forcibly placed the bomb around his neck and ordered him to commit the robbery. But, three minutes before the bomb squad arrived, the explosive device exploded, leaving a fist-sized hole in Wells’ chest.
But, the bizarre plot of the so-called “Pizza Bomber Heist” involving a bank robbery, a scavenger hunt and a homemade explosive device, didn’t end there.
Was Wells merely a hostage or a willing participant? Even more pertinently, how was he connected to Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the once-lovely but now angry 54-year-old woman who’s grappling with mental illness?
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, in her youth —PHOTOS FROM NETFLIX
Wells’ little-known “affiliation” with Armstrong was a head-scratcher for his family and friends because, other than his penchant for patronizing local prostitutes, he was known for his sunny and childlike personality.
Things took a turn for the twisted when, just days later, another pizza delivery guy, Robert Thomas Pinetti, died under mysterious circumstances.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, state police and operatives from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had a string of good tips and clues—but no smoking gun!
But, they found their “light at the end of the tunnel” when, three weeks after Wells’ death, William “Bill” Rothstein, who dated Armstrong in the late ’60s, alerted the police about the three-week-old corpse of James Roden, Armstrong’s live-in partner at the time of his death, in a freezer in his garage. It took them four days to thaw Roden’s rigid remains.
For the authorities, three deaths in three weeks weren’t something to crow about, so something had to be done to stop the unsolved “murders” from piling up!
Even as a child, Armstrong wasn’t what you’d call “normal.” She was as smart (she had a Master’s degree in Education) as she was strange—and men often found her captivating. Unfortunately, despite her magnetic personality, Armstrong was also mentally ill.
At 23, she saw a therapist to get a grip on her illness, claiming sadness over her inability to forge close, gratifying relationships with men.
One shrink said she was bipolar and suffered from mania and pressured speech, while another said that she was merely suffering from narcissism and a severe personality disorder. She couldn’t hold down a job.
The docu is narrated by codirector Trey Borzillieri, who unleashes a Pandora’s box of greed-motivated secrets and startling revelations after communicating with Armstrong for more than a decade, not the least of which involves her shaky relationship with her father.
The New York-based documentarian managed to get very telling interviews with Armstrong’s best friend Susan Robison (“Marge would call me and talk for three straight hours, and not let me get a single word in”) and former prison inmate Gloria Bishop, who was “housed” with her for three months.
Even with a lot of seemingly unrelated “motives” to process, Borzillieri gets to the bottom of things as he unravels the troubled mind of a master manipulator, who would stop at nothing to get what she thinks she deserves. And he proves more than anything that not every distressed damsel needs saving.