Collar Bomb Heist

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Speaker 6 Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about on Wikipedia, and and pretend we're experts because it's the internet.

Speaker 6 That's how it works now. I'm Cecil.
I'll be masterminding this plot, but I'll need my pawns. First up, two guys that just want to be promoted to queens, Keith and Noah.

Speaker 9 DEI for white guys who got the go first.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 12 It's a valid time.

Speaker 8 Oh, I'm just trying to make it across the board.

Speaker 6 And also joining us tonight, two guys that are pretty happily sacrificed, Eli and Tom.

Speaker 15 Turns out my weakness was was a screen I could put back in my pocket.

Speaker 17 I once got trapped in an elevator and I just laid down.

Speaker 20 I'm not working real hard to stick around.

Speaker 6 Patrons, without you, we would have resigned a long time ago. So thanks for the check, mate.
If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show.

Speaker 6 And with that out of the way, tell us, Tom, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today?

Speaker 21 We'll be talking about the collarbomb heist.

Speaker 6 And Eli, you switched this essay for one that was about 24-hour masturbation. Are you ready to pull a fast one?

Speaker 23 I am, Cecil.

Speaker 6 I am indeed. So, tell us what was the collarbomb heist?

Speaker 26 It was a crime so stupendously cinematic that after having heard about it, thanks to the one and only Cecil Something Italian, I still didn't believe it was true.

Speaker 13 It combines the daring heist Tom has been so fond of reporting with the probably lies that make my contributions the solid diamond at the heart of our podcast.

Speaker 31 And best of all, someone already wrote an article about it, so I didn't have to do any work this week.

Speaker 39 So we'll be reading, quote, the incredible true story of the collarbomb heist by Rich Shapiro.

Speaker 2 So a big thanks to Rich and Wired.com for the article.

Speaker 17 Eli, I appreciate the shout out, but Heath is really our ocean's 11 guy. I'm our ocean's 11 degrees guy

Speaker 8 yeah but he's good at this like assuming cecil remembers to cut this line in the edit they still don't know about heath's involvement in the louvest

Speaker 12 interesting

Speaker 27 what at 2 28 p.m on august 28th of 2003 a middle-aged pizza delivery man named brian wells walked into a pnc bank in eerie pennsylvania he had a short cane in his right hand and a strange bulge under the collar of his t-shirt.

Speaker 40 Wells, 46 and balding, passed the teller a note.

Speaker 48 Gather employees with access codes to vault.

Speaker 8 Why do you have to mention that he's balding? What the fuck does that have to do with the rest of the story?

Speaker 50 That's such a

Speaker 50 zing.

Speaker 48 Gather employees with access codes to vault and work fast to fill bag with $250,000, it said.

Speaker 31 You have only 15 minutes.

Speaker 43 Then he lifted his shirt to reveal a heavy, box-like device dangling from his neck.

Speaker 38 According to the note, it was a bomb.

Speaker 13 The teller, who told Wells there was no way to get into the vault at that time, filled a bag with cash, $8,702, and handed it over.

Speaker 34 Wells walked out, sucking on a dumb-dumb lollipop he grabbed from the counter, hopped into his car,

Speaker 57 drove off.

Speaker 58 He didn't get far.

Speaker 21 Some 15 minutes later, state troopers spotted Wells standing outside his Geometro in a nearby parking lot, surrounded him, and tossed him to the pavement, cuffing his hands behind his back.

Speaker 6 Admittedly, putting 8,700 bucks into the hatch of a Geometro made it look like a quarter of a million dollars.

Speaker 17 Yeah, that's actually why I buy underwear two sizes too small.

Speaker 48 It's a forced perspective then.

Speaker 18 Sure.

Speaker 62 Okay, just circling back.

Speaker 63 I love that he got a bag of cash and then he was like, hmm, lollipops.

Speaker 64 Nice.

Speaker 56 Are these free?

Speaker 12 He only took one.

Speaker 65 That's what it said on the jar. It said, take one.

Speaker 67 Well, are you the kid who took one at Halloween from the big box?

Speaker 25 Of course.

Speaker 42 Crazy. Because all

Speaker 68 you're lying.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 69 You forget I was richer than I was greedy.

Speaker 23 We'll just cry, and my parents would buy me my own bag of three musketeers, which you guys talk shit about on Cog Dis.

Speaker 26 I turned on my COGTIS.

Speaker 69 I was having a lot of fun.

Speaker 11 How dare they rich him?

Speaker 71 Fuck, it just is.

Speaker 5 Three musketeers.

Speaker 11 The worst.

Speaker 23 Enjoy my everyone's a critic sequel.

Speaker 24 Wells told the troopers that while out on a delivery, he had been accosted by a group of black men who chained the bomb around his neck at gunpoint and forced him to rob a bank.

Speaker 52 It's going to go off, he told them in desperation.

Speaker 41 I'm not lying.

Speaker 13 The officers called the bomb squad and took positions behind their cars, guns drawn.

Speaker 39 TV camera crews arrived and began filming.

Speaker 31 For 25 minutes, Wells remained seated on the pavement, his legs curled beneath him.

Speaker 20 That's something, isn't it?

Speaker 17 Hey, hey, he might explode at any minute, but

Speaker 17 let's make sure we still have the option of shooting him if we need to.

Speaker 7 Hey, guys, have you seen like Stepmom Porn?

Speaker 19 Can we get like a dryer and put it, like, get his head into the dryer?

Speaker 65 Just to make it safer for the rest of us?

Speaker 25 Did you call my boss?

Speaker 14 Wells asked a trooper at one point, apparently concerned that his employer would think he was shirking his duties.

Speaker 50 Well, to be fair, he was shirking his duties.

Speaker 59 Suddenly, the device started to emit an accelerating beeping noise.

Speaker 28 Wells fidgeted.

Speaker 40 It looked like he was trying to scoot backward to somehow escape the bond strap to his neck.

Speaker 16 Beep, beep, beep, boom.

Speaker 74 The device detonated, blasting him violently onto his back and ripping a five-inch gash in his chest.

Speaker 39 The pizza delivery man took a few last gasps and died on the pavement.

Speaker 44 It was 3.18 p.m.

Speaker 40 The bomb squad arrived three minutes later.

Speaker 11 Off work.

Speaker 6 That collar is one way to make sure pizzas get there in 30 minutes or less, though. You know,

Speaker 17 still a better outcome than having to eat dominoes.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 I'm having a delivery flashback.

Speaker 9 I like that the bomb squad arrived at 3.2.1.

Speaker 12 That's excellent.

Speaker 20 I just noticed that.

Speaker 53 Guys, let's wait around the corner.

Speaker 83 This is going to be fun.

Speaker 11 Did you hear that?

Speaker 11 No? We should probably go that way. We'll get in trouble.

Speaker 39 The police began sorting through a trove of physical evidence.

Speaker 83 In Wells's car, they discovered the two-foot-long cane, which turned out to be an ingeniously crafted homemade gun.

Speaker 64 Oh, a gun in the shape of a tube.

Speaker 49 Ingenious.

Speaker 69 The bomb itself was likewise a marvel of DIY design and construction.

Speaker 33 The device consisted of two parts, a triple-banded metal collar with four keyholes and a three-digit combination lock, and an iron box containing two six-inch pipe bombs loaded with double-base smokeless powder.

Speaker 85 Jesus.

Speaker 74 The hinged collar locked around Wells' neck like a giant handcuff.

Speaker 83 Investigators could tell it had been built by using professional tools.

Speaker 45 The device also contained two Sunbeam kitchen timers and one electric countdown timer.

Speaker 69 It had wires running through it that connected to nothing.

Speaker 51 Decoys to throw off would-be disablers and stickers bearing deceptive warnings.

Speaker 46 The contraption was a puzzle in and of itself.

Speaker 64 Okay, if you want to foil the bomb squad, all you have to do is make the wires all the same color and you're fucking bombs

Speaker 11 one movie. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I do feel like it's rude to openly marvel at the murder weapon one paragraph after the dude died, though.

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 84 The most perplexing and intriguing piece of evidence, though, were the handwritten notes that the investigators found inside Wells' car.

Speaker 59 Addressed to the bomb hostage, the notes instructed Wells to rob the bank of $250,000, then follow a set of complex instructions to find various keys and a combination code hidden throughout Erie.

Speaker 13 It contained drawings, threats, and detailed maps.

Speaker 27 If Wells did as he was told, the instructions promised, he'd wind up with the keys and the combination required to free him from the bomb.

Speaker 13 Failure or disobedience would result in certain death.

Speaker 59 Quote, there is only one way you can survive, and that is to cooperate completely, the notes read in meticulous lettering that would later stymie handwriting analysis.

Speaker 11 This powerful booby-trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions. Act now, think later, or you will die.

Speaker 38 It seemed that whoever planned the robbery had also constructed a nightmarish scavenger hunt for Wells, in which the prize was his life.

Speaker 6 To some guy in a clown mask, inconspicuously driving a tricycle near the crime scene, trying not to look over, you know.

Speaker 13 In the frantic hours after Wells was killed, the cops tried completing the hunt themselves.

Speaker 93 The first note was straightforward enough.

Speaker 81 Exit the bank with all the money, go to the McDonald's restaurant.

Speaker 94 It read, Get out of the car and go to the small sign reading, drive-through open 24 hours.

Speaker 26 In the flower bed, by the sign, there is a rock with a note taped to the bottom.

Speaker 13 It has your next instructions wells drove straight there after he left the bank with the bag of cash he retrieved a two-page note from the flower bed which directed him up peach street to a wooded area several miles away where a container with orange tape would hold the next set of instructions wells was caught before he got to that clue but the investigators picked up the thread locating the container with the orange tape In it, they found a note directing them two miles south to a small road sign, where the next clue would be waiting in a jar in the woods nearby.

Speaker 34 When they got there, they found the jar,

Speaker 40 but it was empty.

Speaker 13 Whoever had set up this macabre ordeal in motion, it seemed, had called it off once the cops had appeared and had probably been watching them every step of the way.

Speaker 17 Jesus, the origin story for geocaching is way darker than I expected.

Speaker 95 Wells's clothing is a collar bomb in here.

Speaker 68 That's really cool. I'll take that.

Speaker 17 I'm going to sign this book, though.

Speaker 89 Log one collar bomb.

Speaker 43 Wells's clothing added another layer of intrigue.

Speaker 27 He died wearing two t-shirts, the outer one emblazoned with a guest's clothing logo.

Speaker 59 Wells wasn't wearing the shirt at work that morning, and his relatives said it wasn't his.

Speaker 55 It appeared to be a taunt.

Speaker 79 Can you guess who's behind this?

Speaker 25 What?

Speaker 25 A jilted client?

Speaker 11 That's a weird restraint.

Speaker 9 My pizza was late, and he would not take sex as payment payment

Speaker 19 straight to Saw. Straight to the distance.

Speaker 31 That was just one of the questions that perplexed investigators. What, for instance, was the purpose of the scavenger hunt?

Speaker 2 Why send a hostage hopping around Erie in broad daylight?

Speaker 79 Why scatter clues in public locations where they might be discovered?

Speaker 13 How was Wells chosen to be the hostage?

Speaker 64 Best episode of Mr. Beast of all time.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 The riddles transfixed the city of Erie and drew headlines in newspapers from St.

Speaker 48 Louis to Sydney.

Speaker 13 It also set in motion a Byzantine investigation with federal agents sniffing out clues and hunting down leads in twisted pursuit of the shadowy criminal who came to be known as the Collarbomber.

Speaker 8 Okay, shadowy maybe, but like historically inept when it came to the actual criming.

Speaker 98 That's right.

Speaker 59 For seven years, the FBI was engaged in a scavenger hunt of its own, one that the collarbomber seemed to have planned as intricately as the one that had enschnared Wells.

Speaker 54 The only question was whether the feds would get any further than Wells had.

Speaker 6 Hope so, man. Riggs only had one more week till retirement.
Just one more week.

Speaker 50 Murto.

Speaker 12 So whatever.

Speaker 27 The hunt began at Mama Mia's Pizzeria.

Speaker 14 That's where Wells was working at 1:30 p.m.

Speaker 40 on the day of the robbery when an order came in for two small sausage and pepperoni pies to be delivered to a location on the outskirts of the city.

Speaker 64 Okay. I mean, that's a fucking suspicious address.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 11 The outskirts of the city?

Speaker 20 You know, only bad shit's happening there.

Speaker 11 It's going to be an abandoned warehouse or something. Wills? And small?

Speaker 85 It's too small.

Speaker 66 Very suspicious.

Speaker 11 Absolutely. Yeah.
Weird.

Speaker 45 Wills was a loyal employee.

Speaker 70 In 10 years, the only time he had called in late for work was when his cat died.

Speaker 54 Even though he was at the end of his shift, he agreed to deliver the order.

Speaker 59 He walked out of the shop, two pies in hand, at about 2 p.m.

Speaker 8 It's It's weird that they're trying to build sympathy with how loyal he was to the local fucking pizza.

Speaker 11 Really?

Speaker 8 If he was a half-assed delivery guy that called in all the time, we'd be like, well, he deserved to get his head blown off.

Speaker 17 His head exploded, but he was a loyal slave to capitalism. So are

Speaker 79 you think they offered pizza parties to the staff?

Speaker 5 Oh, Jesus. I do.

Speaker 8 I do think that because I worked at a lot of pizza places in my day.

Speaker 32 The delivery location, reachable only by a dirt road was a TV transmission tower site in a wooded area off busy Peach Street.

Speaker 13 When investigators combed the vicinity, they discovered shoe prints consistent with Wells's footwear and tire tracks matching the treads on his GeoMetro.

Speaker 67 But the site offered no clues as to who may have lured him there or what happened once he arrived.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 17 I'm not saying anyone should expect to have an explosive collar affixed to their neck, but I guess I am saying that if you're delivering pizza to a transmission tower in the fucking woods, like you're going to get an explosive collar affixed to your neck, man.

Speaker 25 Something like that's going to happen.

Speaker 11 It's on the outskirts?

Speaker 12 Two small.

Speaker 66 Oh, come on. What is the address? Transmission Tower at 123 outskirts.

Speaker 75 One transmission

Speaker 78 power. I know, right?

Speaker 17 I know exactly which one.

Speaker 78 I bet radio waves get hungry, too.

Speaker 78 I never turned down a delivery. This is a laudable quality about me.

Speaker 46 The next day, a reporter and a photograph.

Speaker 25 I turned into the character from Snow Crash all of a sudden.

Speaker 28 That was fun. Bodies, bodies, bodies.

Speaker 18 It's a difference.

Speaker 11 It's not the same.

Speaker 39 The next day, a reporter.

Speaker 11 Imagine if it was, though.

Speaker 16 That would be fucking great.

Speaker 7 The next day, a reporter and a photographer for the Erie Times News.

Speaker 11 That was a very clever joke, actually.

Speaker 16 Imagine if the world was different.

Speaker 11 I would have never

Speaker 26 imagine how clever my wordplay would have been?

Speaker 49 What a time.

Speaker 11 The dirt road leading there was cordoned off by authorities, but the journalists spotted a tall, heavy-set man in denim Carhartt overalls pacing in front of a home that sat right next to it.

Speaker 59 His backyard extended almost to the transmission tower.

Speaker 32 The man identified himself as Bill Rothstein.

Speaker 11 Huh.

Speaker 6 Sounds like the name of a Voltron-like anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Speaker 99 Rothstein, 59, was an unmarried handyman and a lifelong resident of the area.

Speaker 11 He spoke elegantly, like someone who takes great pride in the mastery of the English language.

Speaker 51 He was also fluent in French and Hebrew.

Speaker 13 Rothstein seemed oblivious to the investigation unfolding beyond his backyard.

Speaker 44 The journalists, eager to get a view of the scene, asked Rothstein if he could lead them through his yard.

Speaker 52 He agreed.

Speaker 100 They headed into the thick brush, but still couldn't see much.

Speaker 29 After spending about 15 minutes at Rothstein's place, they took off.

Speaker 62 They just left?

Speaker 76 They were like, okay, just your normal trilingual rhetorician in Erie, Pennsylvania, who said he's not a spy.

Speaker 63 It's another dead end, boys. Let's take off.

Speaker 38 Bill Rothstein may have appeared to be just a man who owned a house next to a TV tower.

Speaker 8 He may not have as well. He's the most suspicious possible person.

Speaker 101 He just made a joke about how fucking suspicious he was.

Speaker 59 But he turned out to be hiding a dark secret.

Speaker 102 Well, you don't fucking say it.

Speaker 13 On September 20th, less than a month after the bomb killed Wells, Rothstein called 911.

Speaker 40 At 8645 Peach Street in the garage, there is a frozen body, he told the police dispatcher, referring to his own address.

Speaker 35 It's in the freezer.

Speaker 54 Within hours of making the call, Rothstein was in custody.

Speaker 51 He told the cops that that he had been in agony for weeks.

Speaker 30 He had considered killing himself.

Speaker 32 He told them he had gone so far as to write a suicide note, which investigators found inside a desk at his home.

Speaker 40 Writing in black marker, Rothstein expressed his apologies to those who cared for or about me, identified the body in his freezer as that of Jim Rodin, and noted that he, quote, did not kill him nor participate in his death, end quote.

Speaker 39 The note opened with a curious disclaimer: This has nothing to do with the Wells case.

Speaker 56 Come on

Speaker 71 also

Speaker 61 i'm not gay

Speaker 18 wait ps i doth protest normal amount

Speaker 12 love

Speaker 49 love bill

Speaker 59 over the next two days rosteen explained to police how a dead man came to be in his freezer in mid-august he said he had received a phone call from an ex-girlfriend Marjorie Deal Armstrong, who he had dated in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Speaker 64 This is Marjorie Taylor Green friend.

Speaker 63 That's like a Taylor Green.

Speaker 80 I mean, I'm going to make Cecil do the Boston lady voice, but it's Marjorie Taylor Green.

Speaker 46 Nice.

Speaker 22 Deal Armstrong told him she had shot her live-in boyfriend, James Roden, in the back with a Remington 12-gauge shotgun in a dispute over money.

Speaker 27 Now she needed help removing the body and cleaning up the scene inside her Erie home, about 10 miles from Rothstein's place.

Speaker 81 Rothstein did what she asked.

Speaker 22 He kept the corpse in a chest freezer in his garage for five weeks.

Speaker 59 He painstakingly melted down the the murder weapon and scattered the pieces around Erie County, but Rothstein said he couldn't go through with the plan to grind up the body.

Speaker 51 And he called 911 because he was afraid of what Deal Armstrong might do to him.

Speaker 8 I just, I love the idea that he gets this call about this shit while he's in the middle of planning this elaborate collar plot. And he's like, oh, you just shot him in the fucking back?

Speaker 11 That's boring.

Speaker 98 Boring, done to death.

Speaker 31 On September 21st, the day after Rothstein called 911, Deal Armstrong was arrested for the murder of Rodin.

Speaker 100 16 months later, in January of 2005, she pleaded guilty but mentally ill and was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in state prison.

Speaker 15 But by that time, Rothstein was past caring about the old girlfriend he'd given up to the cops.

Speaker 13 He died of lymphoma in July of 2004.

Speaker 26 The team of federal agents investigating the colliery bomb mystery hadn't been paying much attention to the Rondon murder.

Speaker 25 It was a local matter and seemed to have nothing to do with their case.

Speaker 57 Really? Nothing?

Speaker 9 Nothing Nothing to do with it.

Speaker 17 If you can't trust a totally normal denial in a suicide note written by a guy with a frozen murder victim laying around, who can you trust?

Speaker 32 But in April of 2005, they get a phone call from a state police officer who had just met with Deal Armstrong about an unrelated homicide.

Speaker 13 Rosteen's suicide note, it seemed, was a lie.

Speaker 55 Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 16 Deal Armstrong had said that Rodin's murder had everything to do with the collar bomb plot.

Speaker 38 When the feds met with Deal Armstrong, she told them that if they could arrange a transfer from Muncie State Penitentiary to the minimum security prison in Cambridge Springs, a facility much closer to Erie, she would tell them everything she knew.

Speaker 6 I mean, lady, we would if you traffic kids, but this is a pretty serious offense here.

Speaker 83 Even before she was arrested for killing Rodin, Deal Armstrong was one of Erie's most notorious figures, well known for her string of dead lovers.

Speaker 32 She first drew public attention in 1984 when, at 35, she was charged with murdering her boyfriend, Robert Thomas.

Speaker 86 Deal Armstrong claimed that she shot him six times in self-defense, and a jury eventually acquitted her.

Speaker 25 Four years later, her husband, Richard Armstrong, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Speaker 87 The death was ruled accidental, but questions lingered.

Speaker 33 Armstrong had a head injury when he arrived at the hospital, but the case was never forwarded to the coroner's office.

Speaker 64 There was a post-it note next to the gaping head wound that said accidental not Marjorie.

Speaker 17 Very clever. And some freezer bags just marked, just in case, wink.

Speaker 83 Back in high school, according to former classmates, Deal Armstrong was known for her dazzling intelligence.

Speaker 13 And she still possessed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of literature, history, and the law.

Speaker 35 But over the years, that brilliance had become spiked with madness.

Speaker 46 According to court records, she suffered from bipolar disorder.

Speaker 22 Her mood swung sharply and she appeared unable to control her nonstop, rapid-fire speech.

Speaker 47 She was paranoid and narcissistic.

Speaker 66 In 1984, investigators found 400 pounds of butter and more than 700 pounds of cheese, nearly all of it rotting inside her trash-strewn house.

Speaker 22 Psychiatrists deemed her mentally incompetent seven times before a judge finally ruled she was fit to be tried in the Thomas case.

Speaker 6 They said it was 700 pounds, but some of that was Velveeta, so that doesn't count toward the total.

Speaker 64 Also, the lack of bread makes it weird for me.

Speaker 56 It does, thank you.

Speaker 20 You need the bread. The ratio is weird too.

Speaker 8 It's kind of fucked up that the court can go, okay, but is she sane now eight times in a row?

Speaker 51 She seemed to be exactly the kind of person, murderous, eccentric, and intent on demonstrating her intellectual gifts, who might devise an overly complicated bank heist.

Speaker 29 She also seemed to be the kind of person who would live.

Speaker 97 She also seemed to be the kind of person who would likely be unable to stop herself from telling the world about her brilliant ruse.

Speaker 17 In her high school yearbook, it says she was voted most likely to commit a murder and be really fucking tedious about it.

Speaker 8 Me and Tom also got that superlative.

Speaker 12 You did straight.

Speaker 32 When Dealer Armstrong met with federal investigators for a series of interviews, that's exactly what she appeared to be doing.

Speaker 55 While she insisted that she was not in any way involved in the plot, she admitted that she knew about it, that she had supplied the kitchen timers that were used in the bomb, and that she was within a mile of the bank at the time of the robbery.

Speaker 84 She also said that Wells, the dead pizza delivery guy, was not just a victim, but had been in on the plan.

Speaker 26 And so was Rothstein, the man who turned her in for Rodin's murder.

Speaker 32 In fact, she asserted he had masterminded the whole thing.

Speaker 52 I love the idea that she created this genius plan with an elaborate string of riddle clues that she worked out, but the cops were like, well, another dead end, unsolvable lunch.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 64 To get some attention about it.

Speaker 94 But even as Deal Armstrong pointed the finger at Rothstein, she was implicating herself.

Speaker 43 Indeed, even before hearing her self-incriminating testimony, investigators had begun to suspect that Deal Armstrong was behind the collar bomb plot.

Speaker 13 Over the previous weeks, they had met with four separate informants who revealed that Deal Armstrong had talked about the crime in intimate detail.

Speaker 83 One kept notes of the conversations, which included Deal Armstrong's assertions that she killed Roden because, quote, he was going to tell about the robbery, end quote, and that she had helped measure Wells' neck for the bomb.

Speaker 85 Then, in late 2005, a few months after Deal Armstrong first talked to the feds, they received another break in the case.

Speaker 25 A witness came forward to say that an ex-television repairman turned crack dealer named Kenneth Barnes was also involved.

Speaker 36 Barnes, an old fishing buddy of Deal Armstrong, had spoken too freely about the plan, and his brother-in-law had turned him in while Barnes was already in jail on unrelated drug charges.

Speaker 2 Threatened with even more time behind bars, Barnes agreed to a deal.

Speaker 92 He would give a full account of the crime.

Speaker 40 in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Speaker 17 Okay, a crack dealer fisherman feels very Pennsylvania.

Speaker 12 Just really does.

Speaker 67 Very Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Speaker 63 Hard to decide between Democrats and Republicans, right?

Speaker 18 Like, hard to decide.

Speaker 72 Crack dealer, fisherman. I don't know what to do.

Speaker 71 I don't know what to do.

Speaker 11 John Fetterman.

Speaker 90 Barnes confirmed the Fed's belief.

Speaker 63 You considered doing the voice first.

Speaker 69 The pause you heard was me fucking Roger rabbiting to not do the voice.

Speaker 27 Barnes confirmed the Fed's belief that Deal Armstrong was, in fact, the mastermind behind the collarbomb plot.

Speaker 22 He claimed she needed the cash so she could pay him to kill her father, who she believed was blowing through his fortune, money she expected to inherit.

Speaker 15 Barnes insisted he was kept in the dark about several aspects of the plot.

Speaker 69 But even with holes, his account corroborated much of what agents had already heard.

Speaker 34 The investigation finally was gaining steam.

Speaker 6 Well, quick before we introduce Alice, the human trafficking house cleaner to the story, we should take a quick break for some apropos of nothing.

Speaker 64 Hi, are you Marjorie?

Speaker 16 Yeah, who wants to fucking know?

Speaker 64 Hey, I'm heath. I'm your blind date.

Speaker 95 Oh, yeah, I mean, uh, come in.

Speaker 104 Handsome.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 64 Thank you. Nice place.

Speaker 11 I love this couch. It's not a fucking couch.

Speaker 66 It's cheese.

Speaker 72 Even better.

Speaker 12 Like that?

Speaker 12 Yeah?

Speaker 67 Yeah, yeah, even better.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 95 Okay. Well, here's a scoop.

Speaker 104 I need your help taking care of some money problems.

Speaker 95 My old man is blowing my fortune, and I need to pay a hitman to, you know, take him out.

Speaker 67 What do you say?

Speaker 11 Totally, totally. My mom.

Speaker 64 She like

Speaker 11 leaves her Christmas tree up forever, apparently.

Speaker 62 Okay, great.

Speaker 104 Last question. Have you ever been told that your skull is bulletproof or otherwise harder than a normal skull?

Speaker 18 Nope.

Speaker 72 No, nothing like that.

Speaker 64 Just like bones and stuff.

Speaker 104 I gotta say, you're taking this real well, you know?

Speaker 64 Honestly, I stopped listening after I learned about the cheese count.

Speaker 5 Okay, got it.

Speaker 35 So, you gonna finish that?

Speaker 5 Don't touch the fucking cheese!

Speaker 66 No, got it.

Speaker 71 Too soon.

Speaker 18 Maybe later.

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Tell us who deserves the tongue-lashing of a lifetime.

Speaker 57 Vulgarity for Charity.

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Speaker 6 When we left off, our band of little rascals hadn't found an exploding dog yet.

Speaker 68 What happened next, Eli?

Speaker 22 So on February 10th of 2006, federal agents met again with Deal Armstrong, who had brought her attorney.

Speaker 43 The agents told Deal Armstrong they had enough evidence to bring an indictment against her.

Speaker 47 She went ballistic, slamming her fist on the conference table and cursing out the agents and her lawyer.

Speaker 32 But, incredibly, she continued to speak with them.

Speaker 15 In a subsequent meeting, she even agreed to drive around Erie with them to point out where she was the day Wells robbed the bank.

Speaker 94 At the conclusion of the drive, in which she admitted to being at several locations linked to the crime, Dill Armstrong told the agents she wouldn't provide any more information without receiving an immunity letter.

Speaker 74 It was too late.

Speaker 59 The woman who couldn't stop talking had already said far too much.

Speaker 37 Fuck,

Speaker 19 is it quid first?

Speaker 11 You didn't find that shit?

Speaker 99 In July of 2007, a month shy of the four-year anniversary of Wells' death by collarbomb, the U.S.

Speaker 26 Attorney's Office in Erie called a news conference about a major development in the case.

Speaker 33 Standing before a bank of TV cameras, U.S.

Speaker 54 Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced that the investigation was over.

Speaker 35 Deal Armstrong and Barnes were charged with carrying out the sensational crime, a plot that Deal Armstrong had put into motion.

Speaker 47 The indictment also charged the that other conspirators were involved.

Speaker 26 Rothstein was one and Wells, the purported victim, was another.

Speaker 72 Pulling together information called for more than a thousand interviews over almost four years, the indictment charged that Wells was in on the scheme from the beginning.

Speaker 43 He had agreed to rob the bank wearing what he thought was a fake bomb.

Speaker 25 The scavenger hunt, he told, was simply a ruse to fool the cops.

Speaker 51 If he got caught, he could just point to the menacing instructions as evidence that he was merely following orders.

Speaker 17 If you can't trust the lady who killed four of her lovers living in a house of rotten cheese, again, who can you trust?

Speaker 42 Yeah,

Speaker 8 as soon as you hear, don't worry, it'll be a fake bomb.

Speaker 108 I don't care about the context.

Speaker 8 Extricate yourself from that plan.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 41 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 84 But over time, Buchanan said, Wells went from being a planner to a, quote, unwilling participant.

Speaker 13 At some point, instead of merely playing the part of the hostage, Wells was double-crossed and actually became one.

Speaker 59 The fake bomb turned out to be a real one, and the scavenger hunt went from a clever piece of misdirection to a real-life race against the clock.

Speaker 32 Wells's family seemed stunned.

Speaker 11 One of his sisters, Barbara White, repeatedly shrieked, liar, as Buchanan completed her statement.

Speaker 64 Hey, it's weird to invite the family to that thing for the big dramatic reveal, right?

Speaker 26 I had the exact same thought as reading this story, but you also have to put yourself in the position of the lady doing the reveal because she's got to call them and be like, no, because here, you got to call them and be like, hey, you might not want to come tomorrow.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 85 Marjorie Deal Armstrong's brilliance had become spiked with madness.

Speaker 84 Paranoid and narcissistic, her mood swung sharply and she appeared unable to control her non-stop, rapid-fire speech.

Speaker 100 Wells' relatives weren't the only ones who were dubious.

Speaker 79 For those who closely tracked the case, the government's long-awaited announcement was severely unsatisfying.

Speaker 54 It seemed to provoke as many questions as it had answered.

Speaker 35 Why would Wells participate in such a plot?

Speaker 27 Did he realize the danger he was in?

Speaker 38 And could Deal Armstrong, with her myriad mental mental issues really plan such a complex crime the questions only multiplied a week later when it was revealed that the fbi had concluded that the entire scavenger hunt was a hoax the bomb was rigged such that any attempt to remove it would have set it off wells was destined to die

Speaker 17 okay looks like the last clue just a picture of the crest flip-top head commercial and a pez dispenser

Speaker 17 i'm not feeling so good about this fellas.

Speaker 42 Yeah,

Speaker 109 I'm sorry, but fucking duh.

Speaker 8 Well, there's no reason to go to the trouble of making a real bomb if the plan isn't to kill the

Speaker 56 dude.

Speaker 11 Correct. Thank you.

Speaker 43 Barnes pleaded guilty in September of 2008 to the conspiracy and weapons charges involved in the collar bomb plot.

Speaker 51 He was sentenced to 45 years behind bars, but he agreed to testify against Deal Armstrong in the hope of getting his sentence reduced.

Speaker 35 Deal Armstrong's trial promised to clear up the mysteries that had surrounded the collar bomb case, but those revelations would have to wait.

Speaker 32 First, a federal judge ruled Deal Armstrong mentally unfit to stand trial.

Speaker 51 When she finally was deemed ready to face a judge and jury, she was diagnosed with glandular cancer, and the proceeding was put on hold again as she awaited her prognosis.

Speaker 21 The judge received the doctor's assessment in August of 2010.

Speaker 2 Deal Armstrong had three to seven years to live.

Speaker 79 Prosecutors opted to press on, and the trial was rescheduled for October 12th.

Speaker 17 Okay, says here, her make-a-wish is to affix a bomb to the Uber Eats guy's ball sack while she covers herself in moldy cheddar.

Speaker 25 Del checks out.

Speaker 17 She is a genius, though.

Speaker 67 I'm not sure what point Tom thought he was making.

Speaker 12 Most sense.

Speaker 13 Most intriguing, Deal Armstrong's lawyer, Douglas Segu,

Speaker 48 had decided to let his client take the stand.

Speaker 8 Well, he should be disbarred.

Speaker 69 I think somewhere between the ride with the cops and the secondary interview.

Speaker 43 It seemed to be a risky move after all she had already implicated herself in the murder was it wise to let such an erratic unpredictable personality testify

Speaker 64 you're painting a train tunnel on the side of the witness stand not clear what that is

Speaker 90 can you answer me these riddles three okay on day five of the trial in the eerie federal courthouse ken barnes took the stand By this time, the prosecutor, Marshal Pinsconidi, a fast-talking, silver-haired assistant U.S.

Speaker 58 attorney, had already built an impressive case, summarizing the strange characters linked to the Wells plot as a case of, quote, twisted, intellectually bright, dysfunctional individuals who outsmarted themselves, end quote.

Speaker 102 Reject the fucking premise.

Speaker 109 They didn't outsmart their shoes.

Speaker 42 This was all done.

Speaker 101 Remember, this was all done for a max payout of quarter million dollars that turned out to be 8,070 bucks.

Speaker 48 It's my favorite thing about this article is that they're just like these masterminds.

Speaker 42 Even their aspirations are so low.

Speaker 68 I sat on my balls and died.

Speaker 69 Moriarty strikes again.

Speaker 12 Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 30 Pinzanini had trotted out seven former inmates.

Speaker 60 Some racists recounted incriminating information that Deal Armstrong had shared with them.

Speaker 15 Barnes, the ex-crack dealer and would-be hitman, was Pincinini's star winner.

Speaker 47 You say Barnes, fine.

Speaker 97 You fuck up this other name on purpose.

Speaker 47 I'm sorry, you're racist.

Speaker 26 I'm saying it up.

Speaker 100 I'm saying it authentically, like Mozore

Speaker 33 and Farfaron.

Speaker 99 And his final one.

Speaker 100 He was also the man who seemed prepared, finally, to tell the whole story of what happened in the days leading up to August 28th, 2003, the day of the robbery.

Speaker 50 Barnes, who had the one Barnett, I believe it's Barnett. Thank you.

Speaker 70 Thank you. With the one face and

Speaker 79 sparse collection of teeth of the former crack addict he was.

Speaker 19 What a funny sentence

Speaker 64 it was irish in my head when i did the voice earlier now i see what's happened it's gone badly for me cecil

Speaker 52 approached the bench

Speaker 35 and took the oath

Speaker 18 then he sat in the witness cecil i'd like to approach the bench for an edit

Speaker 47 then he sat in the witness box and matter-of-factly described the conspiracy to a rapt jury.

Speaker 6 He did have a sparse collection of teeth, but they were in a small canister, not in his mouth.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Now, the tooth fairy is a lender of last resort for crack ends. You know what I mean?

Speaker 98 So I get a quarter on him on those things.

Speaker 54 Deal Armstrong, Barnes said, devised the plan and enlisted a few co-conspirators to help carry it out.

Speaker 26 Rossine was one of them, Wells was another.

Speaker 13 Lured in with promise of a payday, he certainly needed the money.

Speaker 34 It turned out that the quiet pizza man had a relationship.

Speaker 54 With a prostitute.

Speaker 22 With the help of his pal Barnes, he bought crack, which he then gave to the prostitute in exchange for sex.

Speaker 22 But in the weeks before the robbery, Wells fell into debt with his crack dealers and needed cash.

Speaker 6 They have rent to own crack.

Speaker 5 What are you talking about here?

Speaker 19 There's a margin call?

Speaker 79 It was only on the afternoon of the crime when he delivered the pizzas to the TV transmission tower that Wells realized he had been double-crossed and that the bomb was real.

Speaker 17 Then why was he so chill sucking on a dum-dum when it fucking went off?

Speaker 39 He was tackled.

Speaker 67 Dum-dums are just good. Yeah.

Speaker 71 Okay. You a little treat.

Speaker 45 He was tackled as he tried to sprint away and locked into the device at gunpoint.

Speaker 33 Why would they announce like, haha, it's a double cross now?

Speaker 57 Like, now you have to tackle a guy.

Speaker 66 The whole point of

Speaker 66 double cross is the secret nature of it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's the bomb.

Speaker 47 So true.

Speaker 31 Throughout Barnes' testimony, Deal Armstrong angrily whispered to her attorney.

Speaker 19 Several times she blurted out, liar, drawing stern warnings from the judge.

Speaker 8 To all appearances, it was excruciating for her to listen to people like this discredit her well it's also excruciating to go to prison forever too so i can see an alternate explanation for her attitude

Speaker 23 on october 26th the eighth day of the trial deal armstrong finally got the opportunity to tell her version of events for five and a half hours over two days she used the witness stand as her stage.

Speaker 100 Her wavy black hair looked greasy and clung to the sides of her face.

Speaker 81 Every time she opened her mouth, she unleashed a torrent of words.

Speaker 93 She ridiculed her lawyer.

Speaker 110 That's a stupid question, Mr. Sagogur.

Speaker 51 She belittled the prosecutor.

Speaker 110 If this is the kind of evidence you have against me, I'm telling you, this is a pitiful case.

Speaker 22 She cried. She yelled.

Speaker 91 More than 50 times, the judge sought, often futilely, to cut her off.

Speaker 26 During her first day on the stand, she mentioned Brian Wells only once in the final 10 minutes of a nearly 100-minute-long diatribe quote: quote: I never met Brian Wells, and I never knew Brian Wells.

Speaker 56 Never.

Speaker 110 I became aware of him the day that he died.

Speaker 46 I saw it on the nose.

Speaker 96 End quote.

Speaker 52 The jury didn't buy it.

Speaker 77 After deliberating for 11 hours, the seven women and five men returned guilty verdicts on all three charges: armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and using a destructive device in the crime of violence.

Speaker 22 She could face a mandatory life term when she was sentenced on February 28.

Speaker 6 For the FBI, it was a hell of a collar.

Speaker 11 Caller.

Speaker 71 After seven years, that's it.

Speaker 49 It's done.

Speaker 54 After seven years.

Speaker 74 Why did it take 11 hours of deliberation, by the way?

Speaker 12 What the fuck are we talking about for 11 hours?

Speaker 29 I guarantee you what they did is they mapped out this stupid fucking story.

Speaker 78 They were like, wait,

Speaker 97 why is the crack dealer hitman?

Speaker 11 Why did they say we're double crossing you at that point?

Speaker 56 Because then he would, they could just not.

Speaker 55 Who's the ex-boyfriend?

Speaker 47 Someone type into Google that you could buy Krak on Leo.

Speaker 5 I don't believe that.

Speaker 19 There's going to be a fake bomb.

Speaker 11 Why did they build a real bomb?

Speaker 39 It's just adding so much dealer and the boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 66 Do you think we could get free pizza if we hold out more hours?

Speaker 16 There's too many people.

Speaker 49 It's funny if we order from the same pizza place, right? I should get it.

Speaker 19 We should do it.

Speaker 11 30 minutes, we get to lock a bomb collar around you.

Speaker 51 After seven years, the outstanding questions had finally been answered.

Speaker 60 At least that's how most observers viewed Deal Armstrong's conviction.

Speaker 38 But that's not how Jim Fisher sees things.

Speaker 23 So, sorry, podcast listener, I have to chime in here for a second. The last part of this essay is fucking insane and completely stupid, but I'm going to deliver it straight.

Speaker 26 So, just play with me. Play with me.

Speaker 32 A retired FBI criminal investigator, Fisher, started closely tracking the collarbomb case after he saw footage of Wells squirming on the pavement with the device yoked around his neck.

Speaker 72 The then 64-year-old criminal justice professor had a thing for unsolved crimes, and this was one of the most staggering he had ever seen.

Speaker 59 He obsessively pored over the media coverage of the case and studied every piece of evidence released by the FBI.

Speaker 84 And according to Fisher, there is no way that Marjorie Deal Armstrong planned the collar bomb caper.

Speaker 17 Okay, why do I feel strongly like a Jean-Bonet Ramsey tie-in is about?

Speaker 11 Yeah, you get it, fucking baby.

Speaker 49 For proof, Harry's involved now.

Speaker 19 The Trudeau family.

Speaker 17 Brittany Murphy, you know, for proof.

Speaker 85 Fisher points to a profile of the collar bomber produced by the FBI's behavioral analysis unit.

Speaker 8 Oh, the horoscopes of criminology, yes.

Speaker 2 To be definitive, quote, it continues to be the opinion of the department that this is much more than a mere bank robbery, it reads.

Speaker 45 The behavior seen in this crime was choreographed by Collarbomber watching on the sidelines, according to a written script in which he attempted to direct others to do what he wanted them to do.

Speaker 25 Because of the complex nature of this crime, the FBI's behavioral analysis unit believes there were multiple motives for the offender, and money was not the primary one.

Speaker 96 End quote.

Speaker 26 In other words, the robbery was never the point.

Speaker 100 Whoever planned the heist didn't care whether Wells delivered the cash.

Speaker 13 They just wanted to craft.

Speaker 73 It's the stupidest fucking, it's completely insane based on nothing.

Speaker 13 They just wanted to craft a beguiling puzzle.

Speaker 69 One can

Speaker 73 one that would resist explanation for years to come and that would keep cops and investigators hunting fruitlessly after clues, just as Wells was sent on his doomed scavenger hunt.

Speaker 63 Okay, more plausible than that theory, this FBI cold case guy is the Riddler in real life.

Speaker 13 And now he's mad that nobody followed his genius clues.

Speaker 31 None of this, Fisher says, sounds much like Deal Armstrong, who prosecutors credited with planning the whole affair in order to get enough money to pay a hitman.

Speaker 32 But if Deal Armstrong didn't set this plan in motion, who did?

Speaker 46 Fisher turns back to the FBI's profile, which states that the bomb builder was, quote, comfortable around a wide variety of power tools and shop machines.

Speaker 14 He was, quote, a frugal person who saves scraps of sundry materials in order to reuse them in various projects, end quote.

Speaker 11 And he was quote father.

Speaker 37 And he was quote the type of person who takes pride in building a variety of

Speaker 18 things.

Speaker 17 Okay, I just, I knew those Mythbusters guys couldn't be trusted.

Speaker 49 Hold on a second.

Speaker 8 I'm starting to think that the known accomplice whose yard everything happened in, who had a body in this this freezer might have been one of the bad guys

Speaker 54 to fisher that sounded like a description of bill rothstein right you are no illusions the man who lived next to the tv tower and who agreed to keep a dead man in his garage freezer the handyman had the skills to fabricate such an elaborate explosive device even more convincing to fisher was the description of the mastermind directing others according to the written script that only he seemed to have access to.

Speaker 64 Wait, the trilingual genius in overalls from Erie, Pennsylvania, who only spoke in the contaminer?

Speaker 49 I was like just a patient. I know.

Speaker 11 I know.

Speaker 16 Big twist.

Speaker 28 In Fisher's view, Rothstein toyed with the investigators from the start, concocting the scavenger hunt, at least in part, to send them on a useless chase, eating up valuable time in the precious days after the robbery.

Speaker 26 Then there was the 911 call.

Speaker 40 Fingering Deal Armstrong in the Roden murder case allowed Rothstein to frame the Wells investigation on his own terms.

Speaker 60 If he hadn't gone to the feds, he knew Deal Armstrong or one of his co-conspirators would have.

Speaker 11 So he implicated Deal Armstrong in the Roden case before she could rat him out, all while pleading ignorance of the collarbomb affair.

Speaker 38 He also gave the impression that he was a man with nothing to hide.

Speaker 86 After all, why would someone who was involved in the plot voluntarily call the cops and meet with them for hours?

Speaker 46 Rothstein continued to deny any knowledge of the collarbomb plot on his deathbed, even though he seemingly had no more reason to hide.

Speaker 55 Until his dying day, Rothstein was insulating himself, or in Fisher's words, controlling the narrative.

Speaker 17 Okay, I just got to say, Erie, Pennsylvania is way more full of secret genius masterminds than I would have ever imagined.

Speaker 61 No, it's not.

Speaker 11 No, yeah,

Speaker 8 at least part of this whole bit is both this writer and this Fisher guy's inability to accept that a lady was in charge of the money.

Speaker 12 1 million percent.

Speaker 97 1 million. This article might as well be like, but what if she had gotten her period?

Speaker 47 In his closing argument at the Deal Armstrong trial, the prosecutor, Benisi, described the crime as, quote, ludicrous, overwrought, overworked, desperately failed, planned, end quote.

Speaker 103 If stealing money was the ultimate goal, then that's a pretty accurate summary.

Speaker 58 But Fisher thinks this wasn't about the money.

Speaker 60 Rothstein, who never accomplished much in life, wanted to prove his brilliance by executing a crime that would grab headlines across the globe and baffle authorities for years.

Speaker 72 If the goal was a desperately failed plan, then he nailed it, I suppose.

Speaker 24 He recruited co-conspirators he knew he could control.

Speaker 34 and kept crucial details of the plot from them, a tactic designed to further complicate the investigation.

Speaker 64 Hey, okay, to all the criminal masterminds listening right now, you gotta stop desperately trying to get on our show.

Speaker 103 Like, you can get on without doing the murders and you'll still do your thing, maybe, if it's funny.

Speaker 12 Just don't

Speaker 12 kill everybody.

Speaker 51 The son of a bitch ended up winning, Fisher says.

Speaker 43 He died with all of his secrets.

Speaker 94 He died taking all the answers with him.

Speaker 74 He gets the last laugh in that sense.

Speaker 37 He escaped punishment.

Speaker 22 He escaped detection. He left us with these idiots and a bunch of questions.

Speaker 109 Well, yeah, yeah, no, the lucky guy died of cancer.

Speaker 8 I mean, like, he didn't win.

Speaker 98 He died of cancer before he could lose.

Speaker 23 Those questions, Fisher says, serve as a reminder of Rothstein's ultimate triumph.

Speaker 29 He died a free man.

Speaker 72 What?

Speaker 34 And...

Speaker 79 The last step in the scavenger hunt, the clue that reveals the answers that the agents had been searching for all along will forever remain hidden.

Speaker 18 So he died.

Speaker 11 And he was like, all part of the dream.

Speaker 56 Got him.

Speaker 68 Got him.

Speaker 20 Gotcha.

Speaker 11 That's right.

Speaker 53 Everybody I set up as a pets. They knew each other and had a mode for crying and told how do I write this story and not blame the Jews

Speaker 68 of the people that they're going to blame the Jew.

Speaker 6 And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, why would it be?

Speaker 54 If you think smart people's plans never backfire, I challenge you to watch No Illusions, use a computer.

Speaker 25 Are you ready for the quiz?

Speaker 26 Oh, I've never been more ready.

Speaker 29 All right.

Speaker 8 What was the least appropriate joke that one of the cops made when the dude's head exploded?

Speaker 49 A, oh, come on, this is nothing to lose your head over.

Speaker 16 B,

Speaker 8 let's hope his old lady is into necrophilia.

Speaker 8 I tried all day to come up with a joke that I could use so you wouldn't have to use that one, but I couldn't come up with them. C, regular or D cap.

Speaker 10 Okay, that's great.

Speaker 5 That's amazing.

Speaker 29 Or D,

Speaker 8 well, that bank robber got away with next to nothing.

Speaker 5 Fantastic.

Speaker 11 They're all great.

Speaker 74 I'm going to go with D next to nothing.

Speaker 8 It is next to nothing. Yeah.

Speaker 64 All right, Eli, this is now my second favorite neck-based story,

Speaker 64 which of the following is my number one. A, the rhyme in the ancient mariner, in which the title character is forced to wear a dead albatross around his neck as punishment for killing the bird.

Speaker 64 And now, albatross around one's neck is an idiom for an ongoing burden that's hard to get rid of.

Speaker 12 So, cool history thing.

Speaker 40 B.

Speaker 67 Cool history thing.

Speaker 12 B, the myth.

Speaker 11 Nobody?

Speaker 64 Okay, B, the myth of Medusa and Perseus, in which the act of cutting off Medusa's head at the neck is the pivotal moment in the story, leading to the birth of Pegasus and Chrysaor from her neck, and allowing Perseus to use her severed head as a weapon.

Speaker 64 Or C,

Speaker 18 Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 74 I mean, I know my favorite, but

Speaker 11 I want to go to jail.

Speaker 58 It could be your favorite death. You can have a favorite death.

Speaker 13 You'll have to be allowed to have a favorite death.

Speaker 53 You have to be allowed to have a secret answer D.

Speaker 11 You have to be allowed to have a favorite death. That is correct.

Speaker 11 And yes, you do have to be allowed to have that.

Speaker 67 Mine is Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 11 All right.

Speaker 17 Eli, the greatest loose thread in this story that I cannot help wondering about is,

Speaker 18 A,

Speaker 17 what happened to those woods pizzas that never got delivered?

Speaker 93 Right?

Speaker 8 Pepperonian sausage.

Speaker 56 That's just delicious.

Speaker 17 B, seriously, I know a man died here, but there's no reason to skip lunch.

Speaker 12 Right?

Speaker 8 Gooey cheese.

Speaker 25 Oh, it's A. Is it A? It is A.

Speaker 5 It's A and B.

Speaker 20 There's a goddamn pizza.

Speaker 17 Write the whole story, Eli. Write the whole goddamn story.

Speaker 46 That's true.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 6 well uh

Speaker 6 because he was brave heath wins excellent

Speaker 64 excellent just like charlie kirk that day

Speaker 64 too bad anyway next week this is very exciting are y'all ready

Speaker 11 let's hear

Speaker 64 from michael marshall whoa

Speaker 10 i didn't realize we were allowed to just name people in the podcastiverse didn't have to show up and do our work for us uh all right, senior

Speaker 6 Heath, Tom, Noah, and Eli, I'm Cecil. Thank you for hanging out with us today.
We'll be back next week, and by then, Marsh will be an expert on something else.

Speaker 6 Between now and then, donate to Vulgarity for Charity.

Speaker 6 And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash citation pod, or you can leave us a five-star review everywhere you can.

Speaker 6 If you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com.

Speaker 5 Hmm.

Speaker 95 So,

Speaker 104 you fucking sure you haven't seen the batteries from my remote anyway?

Speaker 81 I haven't seen'em.

Speaker 49 Right.