Collar-bomb trial jury adjourns without verdict

October 30, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

ERIE, Pa.

A federal court jury in Erie has ended its first day of deliberations without a verdict in the case of a woman accused in a bank-robbery conspiracy in which a pizza delivery driver forced to rob a bank wearing a bomb collar was killed.

The brother of the dead man says the eventual verdict doesn’t matter to him, because he says the proceedings are a “circus show trial” that will bring no justice to his brother, Brian Wells.

The jury is deliberating whether 61-year-old Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is guilty of armed bank robbery and other crimes for allegedly helping plan the August 2003 heist.

But 47-year-old John Wells, of Phoenix, Ariz., disagrees with the government’s contention that his brother was also one of the plotters, saying, “Trying to incriminate Brian in his own murder is just outrageous.”