Pizza delivery man dies after strap-on bomb explodes

A PIZZA delivery man told police he had been forced to rob a bank and asked authorities to help him minutes before a bomb strapped to his chest exploded and killed him.

Federal agents and police in northwestern Pennsylvania are trying to solve the bizarre case of 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, who left to deliver a pizza to a mysterious address in a remote area about an hour before he turned up at the bank with a bomb strapped to his body.

No one else was hurt in Thursday’s explosion, which happened in front of law enforcement officers as they waited for a bomb squad to arrive.

A state police spokesman confirmed that Mr Wells had made a number of statements, including that he had been forced to rob the bank. A television station’s audio and videotape shows Wells, handcuffed in a police vehicle, telling authorities someone had started a timer on the bomb under his T-shirt, and that there was little time left.

FBI Special Agent Bob Rudge called the case unusual, noting that while bank robbers sometimes claim to have a bomb, few actually do. While no one has been arrested or identified as a suspect, Rudge said the investigation is “going extremely well”.

Wells’ death was being investigated as a homicide and investigators were looking into Mr Wells’ background.

Linda Payne, who owns the property where Mr Wells lived, described him as a private, trustworthy person. He was a friend of Payne’s husband, who also had been a pizza delivery man, she said.

Mr Wells’ boss and one of the owners of Mama Mia’s Pizza-Ria outside Erie, who asked that his name not be published, said he took a call for a pizza delivery but didn’t recognise the address given. He put Mr Wells on the phone to get directions. Mr Wells left to make the delivery and never returned, the pizzeria owner said.

The address of the delivery was a rural spot along a main road.

According to police, Wells entered the PNC Bank branch outside Erie on Thursday afternoon and producing an “extensive note” demanding money and saying he had a bomb.

Mr Wells left with an undisclosed amount of money and got into his car. Police surrounded him a short time later in a nearby parking lot.