Please, sir, may I have more?
Deliberations continued as the Erie jury reviewed what “crazy” Marj Diehl told federal investigators in the "pizza bomber" case, according to two questions the jury asked today. The jurors asked U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin if they could see the FBI's handwritten notes or typewritten summaries of interviews with Diehl, who the FBI said implicated her during the talks. And the jury asked if the FBI had recorded any of the interviews with Diehl. (Source: GoErie.com)
Perhaps the Erie jury has an appetite for clear-and-convincing evidence that Marj Diehl is a criminal mastermind or just plain crazy. Perhaps some jurors think Marj is prone to fantasy and fabricated her story in prison that she was involved in the murder of Brian Wells.
You want MORE?
But McLaughlin denied the request that the jury see the FBI notes and interview summaries, known as Form 302s. Citing the law, he reminded the jurors that the FBI agent who interviewed Diehl-Armstrong had testified at her trial.
This is the second time the jury has asked McLaughlin questions since deliberations started Friday. The jury on Friday asked for and received permission to watch a video that Erie police and state police took of Rothstein as he toured his and Diehl-Armstrong's houses after Sept. 21, 2003, when the body of Diehl-Armstrong's boyfriend James Roden was found in a freezer in Rothstein's garage.
The question remains: Did Barnes con the FBI, and if so why?
At the 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.
There is much suspicion that heroin dealer/pathological liar Kenneth Barnes made a false confession to the FBI.
But why would any sane person do that, you ask?
Exactly.
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