What kind of mind could come with the scheme of placing a bomb around someone’s neck, then sending him into a bank to rob enough money to hire a hit man, only to see the whole plan literally blow up in robber Brian Wells’ face?
That question has framed the nearly four year investigation into the Pizza Bomber case, an investigation that has led to the indictment of two people, including the alleged mastermind Marjorie Diehl Armstrong.
Diehl Armstrong has been something of an enigma for local investigators for decades.
A brilliant valedictorian with hours of school credits to her name, Diehl Armstrong was diagnosed in the early 80’s as bi-polar, an illness known in less politically correct times as manic depression.
It’s an illness that creates unnatural emotional highs and lows, and Diehl Armstrong is said to be on the severe side of it.
Thousands of people diagnosed as bi-polar still lead fruitful lives within the limits of society, but for Diehl Armstrong, trouble was never far away.
She was found not guilty in the shooting death of her boyfriend Robert Thomas in the 1980’s, sued a hospital over the death of her husband in the 1990’s, and is now serving 7 to 20 years for the shooting death of boyfriend James Rodan.
Prosecutors believe the death of Rodan is tied to the robbery scheme that took the life of pizza delivery man Brian Wells.
The money was for a hit man to kill her elderly father for his savings.
Her illness manifests itself in an unnatural need to collect things.
Five hundred pounds of surplus cheese.
A room knee deep in clothes hangars.
Three dozen real and fake fur coats.
And every time she is arrested, thousands of dollars in cash are always close by.
“Marjorie believes the only one that will look out for Marjorie is Marjorie,” her first attorney Michelle Kelly says. “That’s why she’s so fixated on money.”
More fascinating still is the battle within, a powerful intellect sent on the roller coaster of a powerful illness.
Asked for his first impression, attorney Tim Lucas, who was a prosecutor when Diehl Armstrong shot her first boyfriend agreed.
“It’s the dichotomy of her intelligence and her affect that sticks with you most.”
What kind of creatively sick mind could come up with the Brian Wells Pizza Bomber caper?
Perhaps a mind just like the one inside the head of Marjorie Diehl Armstrong.
But that’s for a jury to decide.
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