PA. BANK ROBBERY Brother: Clear man killed by explosive

An FBI agent said there's no conclusion yet about the man's role in the robbery.
ERIE, Pa. (AP) -- A pizza deliveryman killed when a bomb locked around his neck exploded after he robbed a bank was a blameless victim and law enforcement officials should clear his name, the man's brother said.
John Wells, 41, the brother of Brian Wells, said his family is upset because authorities have not ruled his brother's death a homicide, suicide or an accident. Until that happens, the family can't get a death certificate, which is needed to wrap up Brian Wells' legal affairs, John Wells said.
It's especially frustrating because a victim's assistance agency offered burial and counseling services to his family as relatives of a homicide victim, he said.
"We were supposed to grin and take whatever people said. Well, not anymore. Our brother was forced at gunpoint to be a bomb hostage," John Wells, a toolmaker who lives in suburban Phoenix, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for its Sunday editions.
Parts of notes released
Earlier this month, the FBI released portions of hand-printed notes found with Brian Wells after he died Aug. 28 in a parking lot just south of Erie.
Special Agent Bob Rudge, who runs the FBI's Erie office, said much of the note -- which contained detailed instructions telling Brian Wells, 46, where to go and what to do as he robbed an Erie bank while wearing the bomb collar -- remains blocked out "to protect the integrity of the investigation."
Rudge said he empathizes with the family, but that investigators have not yet uncovered evidence allowing them to reach a conclusion about Brian Wells' role in the robbery.
"We won't know the definitive answer until we find the people who are involved with this thing. We can't make judgments without basing them on the evidence," Rudge said.
But John Wells, who's acting as a spokesman for his mother, Rose Marie Wells of Harborcreek, and his five siblings, said that shortly before his brother died, he gave state police detailed information about three men he said gave him the handwritten instructions and locked the bomb around his neck.
"I want the case solved, that's obvious. I also want them to stop slandering my brother," John Wells said.