BOMBING Friends think man was victim

An FBI agent said he'd never seen a collar-bomb device used in the U.S.
ERIE, Pa. (AP) -- Living in a rented home with hand-me-down furniture and three cats, Brian Douglas Wells was content to deliver pizzas 27 hours a week and spent much of the rest of his time listening to his stereo. Money, say his friends, never meant much to him.
That's why people who knew Wells can't believe he could have masterminded any bank robbery, particularly one as bizarre as the one the 46-year-old delivery man has been linked to for a week.
FBI agents and other law enforcement officials have been trying to determine what happened to Wells, who died last Thursday after robbing a bank near Erie when a bomb tethered over his chest and hanging from a locked, metal collar around his neck exploded.
Pleading with police to help him get the bomb off, Wells told authorities before he died that he had been forced to rob the bank, indicating that someone else had clasped the bomb to him.
Authorities have been trying to figure out whether that story was true, or, instead, whether Wells had played a more willing part in the robbery.
Friends' descriptions
His friends and neighbors, however, are firm in their belief that Wells was a victim.
"He had a different set of values," said his landlord, Linda Payne, who rented the white cottage behind her home to the unmarried Wells for five years.
While Wells' family members have refused to speak publicly, others who knew Wells described him as a quiet man of average intelligence, friendly and willing to help with chores from picking up the mail to shoveling snow in winter.
Investigators haven't talked about what a search of Wells' home produced, but Payne said she doesn't believe they found much to support a theory that he was willingly involved in the robbery or the making of the bomb.
"He didn't have a computer. He couldn't get it off the Internet. He would have no desire to make a bomb. He would have no desire to hang something around his neck," Payne said.
Investigators seized drill bits, household tools, phone bills and letters from Wells' home when they searched it Friday, according to court documents. FBI officials have said they are trying to reconstruct the bomb and analyze notes found with Wells to determine whether he was forced to rob the bank by someone who had locked the collar around his neck. A chief deputy coroner in Erie County says the blast left a postcard-sized hole in his chest.
Collar bomb
On Tuesday, investigators made public photographs of the collar and an apparently intricate lock that kept the bomb attached to Wells, in hopes that someone would recognize the strange device and call them. On Wednesday, authorities declined to comment about any leads they may be pursuing since the release of the photos.
Officials confirmed, however, that Wells was found with a second weapon, but they refused to describe it. In an interview with "Good Morning America," FBI Agent Kenneth McCabe said the weapon was "a sort of gun" but did not elaborate.
McCabe said through a spokesman Wednesday that he has never heard of such a collar-bomb device being used in America but that he was aware of at least one similar case in Colombia.
Wells, who lived by himself, was described as a creature of habit.
Every morning, he would buy a newspaper at a nearby newsstand. After work, he would typically spend his evenings listening to rock albums by the likes of the White Stripes, ABBA and Liz Phair. When he wasn't lounging around, neighbor Marsha DePaoli, 53, often saw Wells working on his green Geo Metro.
"He was down-to-earth and he took care of himself," said Payne's brother, David Stitzinger, 65.
Friends say Wells, who was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 175 pounds, if someone attacked him, he wouldn't have fought back.
"He never seemed mad. I never heard him talk of violence. That's why it doesn't fit him. Not at all," said Jim Sadowski, who worked as a cook at Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria with Wells five years ago.
The FBI was to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. today at the state police Erie barracks to release more information on the case.
Meanwhile, another bank was robbed in downtown Erie on Wednesday, but police and the FBI said it was unrelated to last week's robbery.