ERIE Robbery blowup remains mystery

Police have no evidence that the deliveryman acted on his own free will.
ERIE (AP) -- Random police stops, public appeals for help and electronic signs flashing a hotline number have yielded more than 600 leads, but nearly three weeks after a pizza deliveryman's mysterious bombing death investigators have made no arrests and have no known suspects in the strange case.
Brian Douglas Wells' death Aug. 28 caused a sensation across the country, with investigators trying to determine whether, as Wells told them before he died, he had been forced to rob a bank by someone who had locked a bomb to his body -- a bomb that exploded, killing him, before a squad of experts reached the scene.
Weeks pass
In the three weeks that have passed since then, much of the national media has pulled out of Erie, but Wells' death remains on many minds in northwestern Pennsylvania.
"It's bizarre," said Jennifer Vergotz, who lives near the site where Wells was believed to have made his last delivery -- two pizzas -- to a television transmission tower less than an hour before robbing the PNC Bank branch outside Erie.
Investigators, led by a team of FBI agents, have followed numerous leads, putting out photographs of the heavy metal collar attached to a bomb and locked to Wells' neck; releasing sketches of people seen in the area; and even appealing directly to anyone who may have been involved in the incident to come forward.
Authorities set up a hotline and started making random traffic stops in the area, moves which have led, in part, to more than 200 interviews. Those discussions have yielded "helpful" results, said FBI spokesman Bill Crowley, but he refused to say what they might be.
Predominant theory
Investigators, however, are leaning toward a theory that Wells was a victim, and not a willing participant. One law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the investigation has uncovered no evidence that the unassuming deliveryman acted on his own free will.
What is clear is that investigators are still in pursuit of the person or people responsible for Wells' death.
In the area around the television transmission tower, for instance, neighbors have been asked about what they may have seen or heard the day Wells made the delivery.
Vergotz's sister-in-law, Marissa Vergotz, 24, was home with her nephew that afternoon and said she doesn't remembering hearing anything unusual.
"They asked if I heard a gunshot. I said I couldn't remember anything that special," she said.
Jennifer Vergotz said she was not home at the time but was still asked similar questions by an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"[He] also asked us if we saw anyone being chased or falling because there was evidence of dirt on his hands and knees," Jennifer Vergotz said. "It's pretty muddy back there so they had forensic teams back here a couple nights in a row."
Available items
Tom Nowosielski, 40, co-owner of Kraus Department Store in Erie, said it was shortly after Wells' death when authorities showed him pictures of the three-banded metal collar with four keyholes and a combination lock on a heavy homemade clasp. He said he was also shown a cooking timer used on the bomb.
"They were trying to see how readily available everything was," Nowosielski said. "You could buy this stuff almost anywhere."
Meanwhile, Wells' belongings have been cleared out of the cottage he rented along a tree-lined suburban street. A family friend came by to collect what little he had, including a stereo system, CDs, and clothes, said landlord Linda Payne.
"It seems so sad that ... he would be taken advantage of," Jennifer Vergotz said. "It's really scary. You could be doing something as simple as delivering pizzas and someone goes, 'Hey, you're going to rob a bank and if you don't we're going to blow you up.'"