ERIE Police work on robbery, bomb case

Authorities were expected to discuss the case at a news conference today.
ERIE, Pa. (AP) -- With many leads to chase and a lot of questions, investigators spent Labor Day plotting out a course for solving the bizarre case of a pizza deliveryman who robbed a bank, then was killed by a bomb strapped to his body.
An autopsy was completed Monday for a friend and co-worker of the pizza deliveryman found dead at his home, but police were still waiting for toxicology tests to determine whether the deaths were related. Federal investigators and police were expected to discuss the case at a news conference today.
Authorities were trying to "disprove or prove" each theory, including whether 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells was a participant or a victim who robbed a bank in northwestern Pennsylvania last week, state police Cpl. Mark Zaleski said.
"We're doing a lot of administrative things with setting up various portions of the investigation -- in assigning different investigators to different scenarios," Zaleski said Monday.
Long note
During the robbery, Wells produced an "extensive" bank robbery note containing multiple pages, Zaleski said. Although the note has been sent to a handwriting expert, he said it was unknown when the analysis would be completed.
Minutes before the bomb went off, Wells told officers who stopped him that someone put a bomb with a timer on him and forced him to rob the bank. No one else was injured in the explosion.
About an hour before he turned up at the PNC Bank branch, Wells had gone to make a delivery to a rural spot along a main drag, where a gravel road leads to a television transmission tower.
FBI spokesman Bill Crowley said investigators spent Monday trying to "sharpen" the focus of the investigation and declined to elaborate. The FBI has said Wells' death is being investigated as a homicide.
No details
Chief Deputy Coroner Korac Timon said Wells died as a result of the bomb blast Thursday. He declined to release any other details about Wells' autopsy.
Timon also would not discuss autopsy results for Wells' co-worker, Robert Pinetti, 43, who was found dead Sunday at his home in Lawrence Park Township.
Pinetti had refused medical assistance around 5 a.m. that day and family members found him unresponsive in his bed a few hours later, police said.