Did Kenneth Barnes Con the FBI?

Kenneth E. Barnes was ordered incarcerated for 45 years for his role in Brian Wells' death.

The question remains:  Did Barnes con the FBI, and if so why?

At  yesterday’s  sentencing, Wells' sister, Erie resident Jean Heid, gave a 25-minute address in which she said her brother -- named as an unindicted co-conspirator -- was innocent and did not know Barnes and the others involved in the plot.  As she has maintained throughout the five-year investigation of the Brian Wells case, she believes Barnes is lying and that her brother had nothing to do with the bank-robbery plot that ended in his death.

"Brian's good name," Heid said, "has been unjustly smeared."

The chief federal prosecutor for western Pennsylvania responded that Wells was involved.

"The beliefs by the Wells family are overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence gathered in this case," said U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, who commented at a news conference at the federal courthouse in Erie. “Nothing is more difficult for a family, Buchanan said, than the possibility that "someone they knew turned out to be someone else."  (guess we can forget about that crap about “innocent until proven guilty” and no need for a jury to decide that)

Ricky Barnes was one of several independent witnesses who the FBI says helped corroborate evidence that investigators gathered in the Wells case.  Ricky Barnes said in an interview Wednesday that he was satisfied with the 45-year sentence his half brother received.

"If everyone knew him as well as I know him, the sentence would be extremely justified," said Ricky Barnes, who has the same mother as Kenneth Barnes.  "He is a master con artist and manipulator.  What happened to him,” he said of Wells, “was something that was not supposed to happen.”

"Not supposed to happen to him?"  Now where does Ricky Barnes get that idea?  Did his con-man/brother tell him that?

If that is the case, then perhaps it is another slip of the tongue by the “master con man.”

According to the FBI reports, its forensic evidence shows that, although the pipe bombs themselves were relatively simple, the way in which the device was configured was not simple. The device was rigged to the collar assembly in such a way as to make it appear that attempts to remove the device would have detonated it. Portions of the device were meant to appear to be “booby traps” but were not. Moreover, the device was armed in such a way that contact with the device through any attempted manual entry would likely have detonated it. The bomb maker designed the device in such a way that attempts to deactivate the device in the time allotted would have failed.

By all accounts Kenneth Barnes is one seriously deranged individual.  His brother says Kenneth is a "master con-man."  Perhaps Kenneth's brain is so diseased that he really believes he did it.  Or did he  come to enjoy all the attention and pull one over US?  And why would Ricky believe anything a "master con man" would say?

Never happened, right?

 Google "FBI + false confessions" and see how many hits you get.

Comments

[John Scott]

This may just be a comment from the lunatic Fringe, but perhaps the FBI is the victim of a Massive, yet dynamic, hoax. Let US put Kenneth in the tank, hook him up to some electrodes and coax the hoax out of him.