"Links to Series of Men's Deaths" (More in the 'Pizza Bomber' Case)
Bill Schenley
Photo:
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/07/medium_diehl.jpg
FROM: The Erie Times-News
By Ed Palattella, Editor
Marjorie Diehl seethed on the witness stand.
The prosecutor's question angered her.
She believed the query insulted her intelligence.
It centered on two issues that would become themes
in an erratic and violent life -- mental problems and
men.
The court hearing was on Aug. 23, 1984 -- 23 years
before Diehl, now Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, would
be indicted in the bombing death of pizza
deliveryman Brian Wells.
Diehl, then 35 years old and a one-time social worker,
was awaiting trial on charges she killed her boyfriend,
Robert D. Thomas, by shooting him six times a month
earlier, in July 1984.
The prosecutor, Tim Lucas, then an Erie County
assistant district attorney, was arguing that Diehl should
stay in prison without bond. Lucas focused on her
mental state -- Diehl had been diagnosed as a neurotic
with passive-aggressive tendencies -- and he asked her
about psychiatric records dating to 1972.
Lucas posed the question that incensed Diehl.
"Do you recall a discussion with the psychiatric
caseworker at the time as to their diagnostic impression
that you had a deep-seated hatred of men?"
Diehl became hostile. She said the social worker was
incompetent. She debated Lucas over his line of
questioning.
"That is totally irrelevant," Diehl said. "I said I didn't
need help from a social worker because I was one.
I refused to see her."
Lucas persisted.
"And you disagree, I take it, with the conclusion that you
were suffering from a deep-seated hatred of men?"
"Absolutely," Diehl said.
Pattern of Behavior
More than two decades later, the heated courtroom exchange
continues to resonate.
Disturbing echoes of the past have filled the troubled life
of Marjorie Diehl since she unloaded a .38-caliber pistol
into 43-year-old Robert Thomas on July 30, 1984.
Court records show that many of the issues that came up
in the Thomas case are also present in the Wells case, also
known as the pizza bomber investigation. A pattern of
behavior has emerged.
Foremost among the similarities are a diagnosis of mental
illness and a homicide of a male victim -- or, in the Wells
case, two male victims: Wells, 46, and James Roden, 45,
Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend at the time. The
U.S. Attorney's Office in Erie, which indicted
Diehl-Armstrong in the Wells case in July, believes she
fatally shot Roden to keep him quiet about the plot that
ended in Wells' death.
Other similarities permeate the cases of Thomas and Wells.
They include the reasons Diehl-Armstrong gave for buying
the handgun she used to kill Thomas and the shotgun she
used to kill Roden; an obsession with hoarding food,
including government-issued surplus cheese; a deep-seated
need to have thousands of dollars of cash on hand; and a
fixation on how to dispose of a dead body.
"There is a consistency between the case in 1984 and the
current one," said Lucas, who was involved in the early
stages of the Thomas case, including Diehl's bond hearing,
which the prosecution lost.
Diehl was standing six to seven feet away when she fired
at Thomas as he rested on a couch, with bullets hitting
him in the hands, chest and head. Diehl in 1988 was
acquitted of murdering Thomas after a jury believed her
testimony that he beat her and she shot him in self-defense.
Diehl-Armstrong, 58, has pleaded not guilty in the Wells
case, which is likely to go to trial sometime in 2008.
Diehl-Armstrong's statements to the FBI helped make her a
suspect in the Wells case, according to the unsealed search
warrants in the case. Lucas, now a defense lawyer, believes
the similarities between the Thomas and Wells cases also
would have been too much for investigators to ignore.
"The bottom line is, I think it is what made her a suspect in
the pizza bomber case, when her name first came up,"
Lucas said.
Diehl-Armstrong has declined interview requests as she
serves a state prison sentence in Roden's death. Her lawyer,
Thomas Patton, the assistant federal public defender in Erie,
has declined comment.
Patton has until Jan. 31 to file pretrial motions in the Wells
case. If Patton follows the lead of Diehl-Armstrong's
lawyers in the Thomas case, he soon will be the latest
person to ask a forensic psychiatrist to examine
Diehl-Armstrong's past, including her mental history.
'Neurotic Tendencies'
She was, by all accounts, bright and attractive and a high
achiever.
When Marjorie Diehl graduated from Erie's Academy
High School in 1967, she was a straight-A student and a
commencement speaker. She taught private classes in
piano, organ and cello.
She went on to Mercyhurst College, where she majored in
sociology and graduated in 1970. Then she attended
Gannon University, where she received a master's degree
in education as a school counselor.
Diehl's mental-health issues began to become apparent.
As Tim Lucas detailed at the bond hearing in August 1984,
Diehl in 1972 received psychiatric treatment at Hamot
Medical Center and Saint Vincent Health Center.
"I told them I wanted to find the right marriage partner,"
Diehl testified at the hearing. "I was having problems with
relationships and I wanted to seek analysis, more or less
voluntarily, to help me overcome any neurotic tendencies
that might be hampering me finding the right marriage
partner."
Four years passed between when Diehl was arrested in
Thomas' death, in 1984, and when the case went to trial,
in 1988. The prosecution had to wait that long before
forensic psychiatrists -- after finding seven straight times
that Diehl was incompetent to stand trial -- said she was
competent. Diehl was held at a state mental health facility for
more than three years while the competency reviews
occurred.
Diehl's lead lawyer, Leonard Ambrose, relied on two
main witnesses to win the acquittal in the Thomas case --
Diehl and Dr. Robert L. Sadoff, a psychiatrist from
Philadelphia. Sadoff detailed the defense position that
Diehl suffered from anorexia, manic depression and
paranoid delusions. She was prescribed lithium carbonate
to control her moods.
The core diagnosis changed little over time. In the Roden
case, a forensic psychiatrist testified in 2004 that
Diehl-Armstrong suffered from a bipolar disorder and
required medication to stabilize her moods.
Diehl-Armstrong complained in court that she also suffered
from schizophrenia.
In January 2005, Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but
mentally ill to murdering Roden. Erie County Judge
Shad Connelly prepared to sentence her by saying he had
reviewed her mental-health records going back more than
20 years.
"Those records have consistently shown that she has
suffered from and is suffering from a bipolar disorder
with a manic-depressive component," Connelly said.
He accepted Diehl-Armstrong's plea of guilty but mentally
ill to third-degree murder. He also declared
Diehl-Armstrong "mentally disabled" and sentenced her
to seven to 20 years in a state prison.
District Attorney Brad Foulk was blunt in his assessment
of Diehl-Armstrong. He told Connelly, "The psychiatric
reports reflect a woman who is suffering from a mental
disorder that without question, without question, if she
were ever placed on the streets again, she would kill
another man."
Rotting Food, Bags of Money
In the summer of 1984, in the days after she was arrested
in Robert Thomas' death, Marjorie Diehl's rented house,
on Sunset Boulevard in southeast Erie, provided startling
evidence of her compulsions.
Police discovered that the house was stuffed with more
than a ton of government-issued surplus food, including
700 pounds of processed cheese and 400 pounds of
butter. Most of the food was rotting.
The scene was much the same in September 2003, after
police arrested Diehl-Armstrong in Roden's death.
He was shot inside their house at East Seventh and Bacon
streets. The house was filled from floor to ceiling with
food and debris -- furniture, clothing, stuffed animals and
all kinds of other items. The junk filled more than three
city garbage trucks.
The rancid house and other evidence suggested
Diehl-Armstrong was stuck in a kind of circular motion.
Her past was repeating itself.
She told police she bought the shotgun she used to kill
Roden because she was worried about burglars. In the
Thomas case, she told a store clerk she was buying the
eventual homicide weapon -- the .38-caliber handgun --
to protect against prowlers.
In the Roden case, Diehl-Armstrong's co-defendant,
William A. Rothstein, said the two of them discussed
ways to dispose of Roden's body, including running it
through a small ice crusher. The intact body ended up in
a freezer in Rothstein's garage.
In the Thomas case, a witness testified that
Diehl-Armstrong discussed with her ways to dispose of
Thomas' body. Diehl-Armstrong testified that a chain
saw came up during the conversations.
In the Roden case, Diehl-Armstrong claimed she killed
Roden because he was slow in helping her solve a
burglary in which she said she was robbed of $133,000
in cash. She also denied she gave Rothstein $70,000 in
cash -- money the police recovered -- in exchange for
Rothstein helping her try to dispose of Roden's body.
In the Thomas case, police found Diehl with $18,000 in
cash after the slaying, and she was accused of offering
money to others to try to get rid of Thomas' body.
Diehl-Armstrong's preoccupation with money is a factor
in the Wells case in another way as well. The government
is alleging she helped hatch the plot -- in which Wells
robbed a bank with a live bomb around his neck -- so she
could raise enough money to pay someone to kill her
father so she could get what she mistakenly thought would
be a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
'I'm not a dangerous person'
Marjorie Diehl did not win a complete acquittal in the
death of Robert Thomas. The jury convicted her of a
firearms charge, and she was sentenced to 15 months of
probation.
Diehl wept at the sentencing. She vowed to change. She
referred to the period when she was held for mental-health
treatment.
"I've learned my lesson," Diehl said at the sentencing, in
July 1988. "I've done my time and I'm not going to get into
any more trouble.
"I do believe the only person who can control myself is
myself. I know when I need medication or need a
psychiatrist. I'm not a dangerous person, and I know
myself."
Diehl-Armstrong struck a similar tone at her sentencing
in Roden's death, before Judge Connelly, in January 2005.
Wells had been dead for more than a year, though the
FBI had yet to publicly link her to Wells' death.
"I'm sorry. I'm not going to get into any more trouble,
Your Honor," Diehl-Armstrong said to Connelly.
"I know I've learned my lesson. And if I get another
chance at life, I'm not going to lose it and I'm going to
thank God and the people that gave it to me.
"I'm really going to appreciate it from the bottom of my
heart. And this is the truth. I'm not a bad person."
Links to Series of Men's Deaths
One of the recurring themes in the life of 58-year-old
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong has been the untimely deaths
of men she has been associated with. Five men are on
the list.
Diehl-Armstrong admitted to killing two of them, both
boyfriends, and was around when two other men died
-- one as the result of a suicide, and the other from a
brain hemorrhage, according to court records.
The fifth man who died is Brian Wells, the pizza
deliveryman killed when the bomb locked to his neck
exploded in August 2003. Diehl-Armstrong, indicted in
the Wells case in July, has denied any involvement in
Wells' death.
A List of the Deceased:
Robert D. Thomas: The 43-year-old was the boyfriend of
Diehl-Armstrong, then Marjorie Diehl, when she shot him
six times at their rented house in the 3900 block of Sunset
Boulevard in Erie on July 30, 1984. Diehl in 1988 was
acquitted of murder after a jury believed her testimony that
Thomas beat her and that she killed him in self-defense.
A suicide victim: The 65-year-old man owned the house
on Sunset Boulevard where Thomas was found dead in
July 1984. The man also knew Diehl, according to court
records.
The Erie Times-News is not naming the man in keeping with
its policy not to identify suicide victims in most
circumstances.
Eight months after Thomas' death, on April 4, 1985, the man
was found hanged to death inside the house, where he had
been living at the time, according to the coroner's report.
The man suffered from throat cancer, and police found
suicide notes at the scene, the report said.
The Erie County Coroner's Office ruled the man's death a
suicide. The Coroner's Office mentioned Diehl in its report.
The man "is the owner of this home and had rented the home
to Marjorie Diehl who had allegedly killed Robert D. Thomas,
her boyfriend, in this house," the report said. The report said a
friend of the man told police the man "has been extremely
distressed since this murder. He has been the object of much
harassment."
Richard Armstrong: Diehl-Armstrong married him in
January 1991. He was 44 when he died of a brain
hemorrhage in August 1992. Diehl-Armstrong said he hit his
head against a table, according to a lawsuit she filed over his
death.
Diehl-Armstrong sued Saint Vincent Health Center and
several physicians, claiming the hospital failed to treat
Armstrong properly before he died. Diehl-Armstrong in the
suit claimed Armstrong was complaining of headaches when
he fell against the table.
Diehl-Armstrong received $175,000 to settle the case in
November 1998.
James Roden: The 45-year-old was Diehl-Armstrong's
boyfriend when she used a shotgun to kill him sometime in
August 2003, before Wells' death. Roden's body ended up
in a freezer in the garage of William A. Rothstein,
Diehl-Armstrong's former fiance and an unindicted
co-conspirator in the Wells case. Rothstein died of cancer at
age 60 in July 2004.
Brian Wells: The U.S. Attorney's Office is alleging the
46-year-old knew Diehl-Armstrong because Wells was
acquainted with Kenneth E. Barnes, Diehl-Armstrong's
co-defendant in the Wells case. Wells died on Aug. 28, 2003,
when the bomb locked to his neck exploded after he robbed
what was then the PNC Bank in the Summit Towne Centre.
The government is alleging Barnes and Diehl-Armstrong, as
part of the bombing and bank robbery plot, hoped to raise
money to hire someone to kill Diehl-Armstrong's father,
Harold Diehl, an Erie resident, whose estate she mistakenly
thought would have millions of dollars.
Diehl-Armstrong's mother, Agnes Diehl, died in July 2000,
leaving Diehl-Armstrong, an only child, as a potential
beneficiary of her father's estate.
Harold Diehl, 88, is still alive.
Where Wells Case Stands
Little activity is expected to occur in the federal prosecution
in the Brian Wells case until the middle of November.
Lawyers for Kenneth E. Barnes, 53, the co-defendant of
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, have until Nov. 16 to file pretrial
motions in U.S. District Court in Erie. The lawyer for
Diehl-Armstrong, 58, has until Jan. 31 to file the motions.
Barnes remains in the Erie County Prison, serving a
drug-related sentence. Diehl-Armstrong remains at the
State Correctional Institution at Muncy, serving a sentence
for third-degree murder in the shooting death of James
Roden, her boyfriend, in August 2003.
A federal grand jury in July indicted Diehl-Armstrong and
Barnes on charges they came up with the plot that ended
in the bombing death of Wells on Aug. 28, 2003. The
government is alleging Diehl-Armstrong, Barnes and others
arranged for Wells to rob what was then the PNC Bank at
Summit Towne Centre with a bomb locked to his neck.
Barnes and Diehl-Armstrong have pleaded not guilty in the
Wells case.
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Photos:
http://www.foxnews.com/images/299635/0_21_wells_brian.jpg
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/11/pizza.jpg