Erie’s notorious pizza bomber case will be featured in another TV crime show on May 3.
Oxygen network’s “A Plan to Kill” program will detail events related to the 2003 murder of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells.
The case previously was the focus of the 2018 Netflix documentary series “Evil Genius.”
Pizza bomber plot mastermind Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong was the subject of a 2025 episode of Investigation Discovery network’s “Very Scary People.”
The pizza bomber case
Wells, 46, was killed when a bomb locked around his neck exploded on Aug. 28, 2003.
Wells had delivered pizzas to a television tower site in Summit Township, where the collar bomb was attached to him. With the bomb around his neck and carrying a cane gun, he robbed a bank in the Summit Towne Centre. He was to go on a kind of scavenger hunt to find directions to disable the bomb.
Wells’ car was pulled over by state police. The bomb exploded as Wells sat in the Eyeglass World parking lot before a bomb squad arrived.
The murder was rooted in Diehl-Armstrong’s plan to have her father killed for an inheritance. She had earlier solicited friend Ken Barnes to rob a bank to get money to pay him for the killing.
Also before Wells was killed, Diehl Armstrong shot and killed live-in boyfriend James Roden to keep him from revealing the robbery plot. Roden’s body was hidden in a freezer in the home of Diehl-Armstrong’s former fiance, Bill Rothstein.
Rothstein ordered the pizzas that Wells delivered and is believed to have made the bomb that killed him. Rothstein died of cancer in 2004 and was an unindicted conspirator in the case.
Both Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes died of cancer while serving federal prison sentences for their roles in the conspiracy, Diehl-Armstrong in 2017 and Barnes in 2019.
More on the plot and investigation
In addition to the TV crime programs, the pizza bomber case is the subject of two books by FBI special agent Jerry Clark, now retired, who investigated the case, and Erie Times-News reporter Ed Palattella. Clark and Palattella contributed to the Oxygen report.
The books are: Pizza Bomber: The Untold Story of America’s Most Shocking Bank Robbery and “Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong: Inside the Mind of a Female Serial Killer.”
A play based on the conspirators, “The Pizza Bomber Play: A Devoted Surrender,” was written by Erie actor and director David Durst.
And the pizza bomber case is the subject of a theatrical film, also called “Evil Genius,” now in production.
How to watch ‘A Plan to Kill’
Oxygen’s “A Plan to Kill” series tells the stories of “disturbed killers who spend weeks, months or even years viciously scheming and plotting the demise of their victims,” according to the network’s description. Their stories are primarily told by the investigators who brought them to justice.
Oxygen network programs are available from cable and satellite TV providers and some streaming services, including Hulu, Peacock and the Roku Channel.
The “Pizza Bomber” episode will air May 3 at 7 p.m.
Individual episodes of “A Plan to Kill” are available for a fee from Amazon Prime, YouTube, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
