FBI: Collar-bomb victim was not just a hostage

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Video: Crime & courts

Sheriff's dept.: 'The suspect may be hurt'
Nov. 29: Pierce County, Wash,, sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer, says one of the four officers that was shot and killed by a gunman apparently struggled with the suspect, getting off a few shots. Watch his news conference.

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Victim said timer was activated
Wells took $8,702 from a teller, got into his Geo Metro and was surrounded by police a short time later in a parking lot. State troopers pulled him out of the car and handcuffed him.

Hanging from his neck under his T-shirt was a triple-banded metal collar and a device with a locking mechanism that kept it in place. Attached to the collar was a bomb.

“It’s going to go off,” Wells said. “I’m not lying.”

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He said someone had started a timer on the bomb and forced him to rob the bank.

While police waited for a bomb squad, the bomb exploded, killing Wells.

Police found a gun resembling a cane in the car and a nine-page handwritten letter that included detailed instructions on what Wells was to do with the bank money and how he could unlock the collar by going through a kind of scavenger hunt, looking for clues and landmarks.

The note also included a list of rules and a threat that Wells would be “destroyed” if he failed to complete his mission.

Buchanan said Wednesday that while Wells was in the bank, Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes had watched from across the street, and Diehl-Armstrong was later seen twice along the route described in the notes.

Co-worker in disbelief
Jim Sadowski, a former co-worker of Wells, said he doesn’t believe his friend could have been involved.

“I worked with him and I knew him. I just don’t see him doing anything like that. He was a nice person,” Sadowski said.

Diehl-Armstrong has been linked to the Wells investigation because her boyfriend’s body was found in the freezer of a home near the TV tower where Wells made his final delivery.

She pleaded guilty but mentally ill to killing her boyfriend and is serving a sentence of seven to 20 years in state prison.

The man who owned the home, William Rothstein, was questioned in Wells’ death but has since died of cancer.

Diehl-Armstrong’s attorney Lawrence D’Ambrosio has said he believes she had nothing to do with Wells’ death but may have known the people behind the robbery.