911 Tapes Reveal 'Pizza Robber's' Last Hour

Sept. 5, 2003 -- Tapes of 911 calls obtained exclusively by ABCNEWS detail the final hour of the life of a quiet pizza delivery man who was killed when a bomb locked around his neck exploded following a bank robbery.

Brian Wells, 46, was killed on Aug. 28 after authorities said he robbed a bank, warning the tellers he was a human bomb. He died when the bomb exploded after he had been arrested a short distance from the PNC Bank in Erie, Pa.

The first word of the robbery came at 2:32 p.m., when the 911 operator asked a caller what the emergency was.

"Yes, we just have been robbed," the bank teller said. "Yes this is an emergency. We have a bank robbery at PNC bank."

Wells had told the teller that he had a bomb around his neck and was given a bag of money.

"The guy just walked out with … I don't know how much cash in the bag," the caller to the emergency line said. "He had a bomb or something, or something wrapped around his neck."

Wells fled with the money, but was captured just a quarter of a mile away, and then he told police about the bomb around his neck.

"The troopers immediately backed away from the individual, and secured the immediate vicinity for the safety of others," FBI agent Bob Rudge said.

He sat handcuffed on the ground beside a police car for nearly a half hour, pleading with police, telling them that someone had strapped a bomb onto him, and that it was going to explode. He said he was forced to rob the bank.

"He pulled a key out and started a timer," Wells said. "I heard the thing ticking when he did it. It's gonna go off. I'm not lying.""

At 3:18 p.m., 46 minutes after police had been alerted about the bank robbery, the bomb around Wells' neck exploded, killing him.

Report: Note Had Bomb Instructions

According to a report today in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the note Wells had that gave instructions for the bank robbery also contained instructions for where he could go after the heist to get the bomb defused. The newspaper cited an anonymous law enforcement source.

Investigators originally were looking into three theories: that Wells was working alone when he robbed the bank, that he was a willing participant in a plot with other people or that he was forced to rob the bank — a "bomb hostage."

FBI agent Ken McCabe said Wednesday on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America that evidence has investigators leaning more toward the last two theories — that Wells was either in on the bank robbery plot with other people or that someone put the bomb on his neck and compelled him to rob the bank.

"We have moved a little bit further away from initially thinking that he was doing this by himself, where the facts and evidence are leading us into a direction that there may have been other people involved," McCabe said.

The locking collar that held the bomb around Wells' neck appears to have been homemade, McCabe said, and a weapon he carried — "some kind of gun," the FBI agent said — also was unique and apparently homemade. It was reportedly in the shape of a walking cane.