Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist (2018): Season 1, Episode 3 - Part Three: The Suspects - full transcript

[door creaking, then chattering]

[woman] I told you about the video.
It's for your attorneys.

-[Marjorie] Huh? Oh, right.
-[woman] It's your attorneys.

Isn't that wonderful?

-[woman] Can you--?
-I had no idea. This is fantastic.

-[woman] You're good.
-Oh, this is wonderful. Yes.

-[woman] Okay. Can you hear us good?
-Yes.

-[woman] You can hear good?
-[Marjorie] Thrilled to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Marjorie.

Well, are we ready to roll?

I'm a normal woman. I shop at the mall.
I rescue dogs and cats.



I'm a good cook, and I'm--
I'm pretty normal.

I'm not-- I'm not Miss Congeniality,
but I'm not the worst one either.

I'm bipolar. I have my highs
and I have my lows.

Hey, but you know what? Lincoln was
bipolar. Churchill was bipolar.

Um... Some great writers
and musicians are bipolar.

I have a genius IQ. I don't have...

[Borzillieri]
This is the only on-camera interview

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong has ever done.

[inaudible dialogue]

It's a video conference I arranged
as part of our new deal.

Marjorie would tell me
about the bank heist

if I got her an attorney
to discuss legal issues.

What sign are you? When's your birthday?

I'm an Aries.



The moon's in Aries today, that'd figure.

The moon's in Aries. You were born
in the Chinese year of the dog.

Help me, because they can't get
too much more of an underdog than me.

Let's talk about the James--
The James Roden case first, okay?

I shot and killed James Roden.

I'm not gonna lie about anything
that I did do,

and I admit I did it,
and I'm sorry that it happened.

Why did you shoot Roden? The motive?

He was in my home,
threatened to kill me,

he'd been doing this for ten years.

And he had me out of my mind.
I couldn't take it anymore.

I couldn't take it anymore,
and everybody has a breaking point!

I wasn't evil. I didn't get a penny.
I didn't want him dead.

-I loved him.
-When did you first--?

Roden's death didn't have anything
to do with the Wells case.

Why was--? Why was the body put in
a freezer?

-What was the logic, if any, behind that?
-I don't know.

Bill Rothstein says to me,
"This is why--" Listen, I'll tell you.

Bill Rothstein says to me:

"I can't get him out
till I finish my business project."

Come to find out now, I think
his business project was the Wells case.

[Borzillieri] My relationship
with Marjorie began before this interview.

We started communicating in early 2005,

a year and a half after the bank heist.

This is one of the first letters
I got from Marge.

I was finally able to ask her
what she meant

by that outburst
after her preliminary hearing.

Rothstein will be sued,
he's a filthy liar.

[man] What about Rothstein?

Rothstein should be charged
with the murder of Brian Wells

and a lot of other charges.

[Borzillieri] All she would tell me

is she assumed Bill was
the mastermind of the heist

because he needed money
to settle his family's estate.

Marge wanted me to know

she had nothing to do with the heist,
and had never been on the FBI's radar.

But that was about to change.

Because around the time
she started writing me,

Marjorie has also written a "to whom
it may concern" letter to police.

I was assigned to the Polygraph Unit
out of Erie when it occurred.

There was a letter authored.
It was from Marjorie Diehl.

[Borzillieri] Marjorie was trying
to bargain with the police.

She offered to give information
about a cold case, unrelated to the heist,

that involved an old fishing buddy
of hers, a guy named Ken Barnes.

But her information was just a rumor.

So, Marjorie came up with a new plan
because...

She wanted to move from Muncy
to Cambridge Springs.

She wanted to get over here closer
to her money and her attorney.

The attorney didn't want to drive
down to Muncy to talk with her.

She started saying, "I have information
about other crimes,"

and that's why we went over.

That letter was probably our saving grace
to get her to start talking.

She brought up about the Pizza Bomber.

She said, "I know
Bill Rothstein's involved in it."

She didn't say, "I believe he's involved,"
she said, "I know he's involved."

I believe she said there was
another person involved with him,

and that he was keeping really close
to the case,

and he was, like, infatuated
with the case.

He knew more than the police did,
in case he got talked to on it.

I couldn't get her to give me,
you know, why she knew.

"Marjorie, how do you know this?"
She wouldn't give that up.

She controlled the interview,
it was easy for her.

All she had to do was walk away or say,
"I'm not talking anymore."

[Borzillieri] Back in 2003,
after the frozen-body case was over,

state police removed the contents
from Marjorie's house

and put it all into storage.

Here's another horse.

[Borzillieri] Now that Marge was the focus
of the bank robbery case,

Trooper Gluth offered the items
to the FBI.

For days, investigators sifted
through the junk, and finally,

in one of the last boxes,
they found a clue.

An angry letter Marge had written
to a bank.

Apparently, the manager let Marge's dad
empty out a family safety-deposit box

that contained valuables
belonging to Marge.

Marge was furious with her dad
and the bank,

which was PNC Bank,
the same bank Brian Wells robbed.

[Gluth] I think Marjorie
had an ax to grind against PNC Bank.

How would that make Marjorie feel?
She'd been done wrong.

Her inheritance from her mom never
came to her, and they were rude to her.

I had interviewed a ton of people
in my career, but Marjorie was...

unique.

We sign in, check in all our guns
and badges,

and we're taken down a long hallway.

And to this day...

[chuckles] it still reminds me
of Silence of the Lambs,

where Clarice Starling's walking
down this dark, dingy hallway

to interview Hannibal Lecter.

And we walk in,
and we have a very small room.

And all of a sudden, you know,

lieutenant brings her in
and she sits down,

and I'm looking right at her
and I thought, "Oh, my goodness."

This is her.
This is Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.

And, uh, it started out with, you know,
"What do you want?"

[Wick] Every time we went
to interview Marjorie,

the first minute was her yelling at us.

She would scream, yell obscenities at us.
Um, "Why are you guys here?"

Jerry would always compliment her
and say:

"You look good," and she'd calm down.

She would calm down and say,
"Thank you, Jerry.

-How can I help you guys today?"
-One of the first things she says is:

"I'll talk to you about the Wells case,

but only if you move me closer to Erie."

And I said, "Well, Marjorie, I'll see what
I can do, but I'm in the federal system,

you're in the state system.

I'll make calls and see
if we can have that happen."

Just like Mr. Rothstein,
very manipulative, uh, very intelligent.

She was very careful with her words.

The first interview, she felt us out
as much as we were feeling her out.

She would give you answers
that were very... limited,

very shallow, hoping that we would
accept them and go away.

We never did. We kept coming back.

[Borzillieri] A few weeks after Marjorie
asked the FBI to move her

to a prison closer to Erie,
they actually arranged for a transfer,

anticipating she'd provide
new information about the heist.

But she didn't.
She just kept implicating Bill Rothstein.

Now, here's a letter, um, from her,
from Muncy prison.

I admit I wondered a few times, why was
I building rapport with this person,

a criminal who'd murdered two boyfriends

and whose husband died
in a suspicious home accident?

Plus, there was
her questionable mental state.

You know, she includes sometimes--

Like, look, this is just--
This is some-- An inclusion.

It's like some red paper with a horse,

and, like, a sticker from an orange,
Florida orange.

It says something like,
"Please keep. Thanks."

But she promised to tell me secrets
about the heist,

and now we started talking.

[Marjorie] You're an angel of mercy.
I don't know, it's just like,

I really do appreciate from the bottom
of my heart everything you've done.

And those books really do distract me
from this hellhole here.

So, for years, I would carry this bag
around my waist.

People were like, "What is that?

You're walking around, uh, now
with a fanny pack?"

And, you know, would carry
a variety of recorders,

and would...

record all the calls with Marge,

listening to Marge through the years.

Most of the time she was...

professing her innocence.

But Marge finally did come through on her
end of our deal. Told me something new.

It was a story about a blue van
at Bill Rothstein's house.

Marge thought it was suspicious
that Bill, immediately after the heist,

had towed the blue van away,

and then didn't tow it back until
after he'd been cleared as a suspect.

Tell me a little bit
about this Astro van, please.

[Marjorie]
All right, I thought you knew about that.

Anyway, yeah, he was driving it.

He was driving it then. I saw him.

And, uh--

[Borzillieri]
Now do you think that the Astro van

was the car that Bill was driving around
on August 28th?

[Marjorie] Yes. Yes, I do.

One of them.
I think he was switching cars.

When I tell you he was driving that car
that day, I know that for a fucking fact.

I saw him with my own eyes.
I'm not making up shit to you.

This is the truth.

[Borzillieri]
It dawned on me.

There was a blue van in Rothstein's
driveway when I tried to interview him.

So, when I talked
with the state trooper, Lamont King,

who had seen a van leave the last
scavenger hunt site of the bank heist,

I asked if Lamont would look
at my video.

When I see the picture of the blue van,
uh, it just really, uh--

Like I said, I didn't hear anything
about it until, uh, Trey sent it to me.

And I'm thinking, "That's the van."

There's no doubt in my mind
that's the van I saw that day.

[Borzillieri] Is it safe to think you were
driving around with Rothstein on that day?

[Marjorie] I'm not gonna say that. People
wanna believe that if I know all that,

then I was in on the plot. And I wasn't!
I absolutely wasn't!

I had no idea
what the hell they were doing.

[King] I thought it had something
to do with it.

And when I talked to Trey,
he shocked the daylights out of me,

because he brought the van up

and because the van was
never ever mentioned again.

[Wick] We missed things.

We did. We missed things
that came back later on

that said, "We could've had that a month
afterward. We're nine months afterward,

or a year after, and we're getting it
now." Because we missed it.

We decided to start over, basically,

and read every report generated
by every investigator in this case.

[Clark] I'm watching the walk-through
video of Bill Rothstein's garage.

They scan across, and they show a diagram
that was on his desk, a drawing.

I thought, "Where have I seen
that little arrow that makes a turn?"

I went back to the device photos,
and it was right on that photo,

and I thought,
"Jason, take a look at this."

You go where the evidence
and investigation lead you,

and if it keeps coming back around,

coincidence don't happen
in homicide investigations.

[Wick] Mr. Rothstein, we believe,
built the device.

He was very careful not to purchase
anything, very careful to dispose of tools

that he may have used.

He believed that he was smarter
than the police.

So, he put things in place
just to play mind games

and to manipulate, more than anything.

[Borzillieri] Wanna look through
the notes again? Anything else?

-You've never seen them like this?
-No. No.

I'll pull up to...

This is the first--
This is like the note to Brian Wells.

And then there was this indented writing
found on the back of one of the notes.

That's his, without a doubt.

Without a doubt in my mind,
that's his writing.

That note underneath the note?
That's definitely his handwriting.

I'd swear on Bibles
that's his handwriting.

That was a shock.

Because you always have
in your mind, he's innocent,

that he-- He couldn't do this.

You know, "This isn't the Bill I know.
This isn't the Bill I know and love."

And yet to see that, it was like:

"Holy cripe. Somebody pulled
the plug out of my heart."

I mean, you know, there's--
There's innuendos,

there's things that you can look at
and say, "Yes, no, maybe."

But that's a fact.

I mean, there it is, right on the back
of one of the ransom notes,

and it definitely is his writing.

We can make excuses for him?

Not anymore. [chuckles]

Yeah.

I don't know what happened to him.

I mean, 40 years. The guy's part
of my life for 30, 40 years.

I feel like I didn't know my best friend.

[laughing]

[sighs]

[Wick] In my opinion,
Bill Rothstein concocted,

you know, the scavenger hunt,
uh, the device.

Of course, we'll never know
all these details, but, uh, I believe

he has most of those answers,
which we may never know.

[Marjorie] He had a saying:

"You fuck with the master,
you fuck with disaster."

This alter ego was
a really dark personality.

Bill Rothstein has actually masterminded
and beat the feds.

He has beat the feds.

He outsmarted them.

[Borzillieri] Marge kept insisting
she had nothing to do with the heist.

And I believed her for a few months.

Until the summer of 2005, when several
national TV shows went to Erie,

and they dug up some new clues.

This is Fox News. Breaking developments
that could crack wide open

one of the nation's
most bizarre mysteries.

Professor Sedwick said
he was driving south on I-79,

not far from the bank robbery site,
the day Brian Wells died.

I saw at a distance,
maybe a half mile away,

a gold car driving on the berm,
coming at me at full highway speed.

It was a woman.
She made full eye contact with me.

And she had a really unusual set of eyes.

[Geraldo] The woman
was Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.

[Foulk] If that scenario is true,

that would be a significant follow-up--
Avenue to be explored.

I'd love you to talk to him.
He claims he called

law enforcement agencies,
spoken over the telephone,

but never been formally interviewed.

At our suggestion,
Erie District Attorney Brad Foulk

called the FBI's local office
from his phone.

Okay, Geraldo's asking
if we had ever met or heard of,

or, uh, had talked to that fella.

[Geraldo] They had not,
but they would now.

He said he will do it personally.

He's in charge now that Rudge is
in Pittsburgh. He's in Erie.

-[Geraldo] He's in Erie?
-[man] Mr. Clark?

Clark. Yes, Jerry Clark.

[Clark] Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong only
would admit that she was on the highway.

Didn't know where she was going,
what she was doing,

and denied going the wrong way,
but did say she was out there.

And, again, it was
because witnesses had observed her,

so she couldn't deny that and wouldn't.

But the reason she was out there was,
again, nothing related to the case.

[Wick] Geraldo Rivera came to town
and made a comment

that we were inexperienced,
didn't know what we were doing

and we were foolish for not knowing
who committed the crime.

Will this Pizza Bomber case
ever be solved?

[Clark] That was one of the most
difficult parts of the investigation.

People in the community saying,
"If they don't know it's these people,

then they should be delivering pizzas."

We think the solution
to this riddle lies close to home.

You know, my response to him would be:

"What you know and what you can prove
are two different things."

You can certainly know who committed
a crime and believe it.

Uh, but you have elements of proof
you have to present in court,

sometimes you have it, sometimes not.

And at that point in time,
I believe we had a good direction,

uh, but were working on gathering proof
to prove it in court.

[Borzillieri] So, this was after the--
I think after the Geraldo special.

I said, "You must be overwhelmed."
She says:

"You are certainly right that I am
overwhelmed, livid, and in need of help.

I am outraged to be accused
with slander and libel.

My lawyer is suing Geraldo Rivera
and his show."

Let's go to the pizza bombing--
Pizza Bomber case.

-Yeah, yeah.
-Who--? Who built--?

Who built the bomb
that killed Brian Wells?

I don't know, but I would guess,
if I was gonna guess,

it'd be William Rothstein

because he's been bragging
about building bombs.

That's one reason I broke
my engagement off with him.

Do you think that when Rothstein died,
that helped or hurt your case?

Well, at first I was really happy.

Because I have a belief in karma,
and they think I'm crazy,

but you know what? They've died right
on time, so you tell me if I'm crazy.

I'm Michael Thomas Vogt,
and I'm employed at United Parcel Service.

That night was America's Most Wanted
on TV.

When we watched, my son looked at me
and said, "You need to call."

I didn't call America's Most Wanted.
I didn't want notoriety. I called the FBI.

[Clark]
One of the key pieces of evidence is

the observation
of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong

and Bill Rothstein at the pay phone

where we know the call was made
ordering the pizzas that day.

[Vogt] And I started out that day doing
my normal daily activities for work.

As I drove past the gas station,

I noticed a large man standing
at the pay phone with bib overalls on.

I commented to myself, you know,
"Nice bibs," 'cause the day was hot.

I saw Mrs. Diehl-Armstrong standing there.

As I got closer to her, she turned
and looked at me.

You know, we met, our eyes met.

When she looked at me,

it was a sight that I didn't forget.
To this day I won't forget it.

She was smart enough to know
if somebody saw her at the Shell station,

she was not gonna be able to deny that.
So, what she would do is say:

"I was at the Shell station, but why
I was there was for a different reason."

I was positioned to be up at the Shell
gas station that day by Rothstein.

He was meeting me because he was
my codefendant on the Roden case.

I'm an intelligent woman. I have
the equivalent of five college degrees.

I was top of my high school class,
commencement speaker. I am not a thief.

I am not a bank robber. I had money.
I wasn't going to do something like that.

What's the best evidence that you know of

at this point in time that shows
that you're innocent?

There's no physical evidence against me.
And I'm not a master criminal.

If I had done this, there would be
physical evidence against me.

And I don't want people thinking
I'm blowing up pizza guys,

and I don't want them thinking
I'm a bank robber.

I didn't do the crime.
I really didn't do the crime.

It's the truth.

One of the big breaks, and it was
something the FBI played on well...

is the girls that were in prison.

And there was three or four different
girls that gave big information.

Every one of the ladies in jail
that Marge would talk to said

she shot, uh, Jim Roden

because he was gonna uncover
the pizza bomb plot.

One of them even kept notes.

I mean, she'd write down notes
in front of Marge.

[Borzillieri]
This was an astonishing development.

Inmate Kelly Makela, back in 2003,

while being interviewed
for the frozen-body investigation,

gave Erie police officers notes
she took while talking to Marge.

Those notes revealed information
not just about the James Roden killing

but also about the bank heist.

I've given you the truth. I've tried to do
my best with the notes and everything.

[man] With that, we are gonna end
this interview right now at 12:15 p.m.,

-and we'll go to the next step. Okay?
-Okay.

[Borzillieri] Kelly had repeatedly asked
police to get these notes to the FBI,

but that never happened.

For some unknown reason,
the notes were stuffed in a drawer

in a file marked "Snitch Letters."

[Wick] Why information wasn't
disseminated earlier

obtained during the Roden investigation
that could've helped us,

I don't know. I mean,
there's always that feud between

the federal government
and state and local.

It's unfortunate, but it does happen.
Uh, was that a part of it?

I don't know. Possibly. It would have
been nice to have earlier than we had it.

[Borzillieri] The snitch letters
were turned over to the FBI.

They contained stunning details.

Kelly Makela wrote that Marjorie
told her Rothstein built the neck bomb.

Floyd Stockton, Bill Rothstein's roommate
who had been cleared by the FBI,

was definitely involved in the heist.

And that the heist was linked
to the frozen-body case.

But the most astounding detail?

Marge mentioned Brian Wells.

"It's not like we didn't measure
his neck for the collar."

[Bishop] It wasn't a dramatic thing.
It was just another sentence to her.

And Kelly and I shot each other
a look at that time.

And I got up and walked away
from the table.

And Kelly came up behind me,
you know, a little bit later.

I was just pacing the room. We weren't
allowed to do much of anything else.

And I was just walking around the room,
and Kelly goes:

"Did you hear what she just said?"
And I looked at her and I said:

"About measuring Brian Wells
for the collar? Yes, I did."

I said, "I don't wanna know any more."

I absolutely believe
that Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is

the mastermind
behind the Brian Wells killing.

Marjorie, um, wanted them all dead.

Every one. Jerry Clark, Jason Wick
and Kelly Makela.

[Brooklier] Who said that you confessed?

All of them. The stupid inmates saying:

"Oh, yes, she said
she and Bill called in the pizzas."

They are saying that killing--
I killed Roden to shut him up

because I wanted him to be a getaway
driver and he was gonna go to the police.

That's what they're saying.
I am not the Pizza Bomber.

Every day of my life I have to be in here
with these crazy women.

Scummy drug addicts, dope fiends, and
they accuse me of being a Pizza Bomber,

-and I cuss them.
-Let me get this straight.

It's important. You're saying
you hadn't heard anything

about this plan to rob a bank
using Brian Wells and this bomb

prior to the day
that Brian Wells was killed?

Exactly. Till it happened. It was on
television when I got home that night.

And they both screwed it up,
and they focused on me, an old woman,

an old rich woman, and said I was a bomber
and a bank robber. Give me a damn break.

Do I look like a freaking terrorist freak?
I mean, come on. It's-- It is nuts.

[Wick] Initially, we interviewed Mr.
Stockton at a prison in Washington State.

In my opinion, watching his demeanor,
body language, verbiage,

the things he said he didn't say, um,
he had a lot of information.

[inaudible dialogue]

He became upset with me
because I would push and dig,

and in my opinion, in my experience,
in my, you know--

Of the interviews I've conducted,
he exhibited behavior consistent

with having a lot of information
but refusing or hesitating to tell.

And he'd give answers
that were shallow on the surface,

but wouldn't give us detailed information.

He just refused to talk about it
at that point.

[Borzillieri] Even with
all these new developments,

Marjorie still wasn't concerned.

She said no one would believe
prison snitches. They were all just lying.

As for those reports
she'd been seen near the heist?

Marge claimed she'd been shopping
along Peach Street the day of the robbery.

She was confident no one could
ever tie her to the death of Brian Wells.

[Clark] Trooper Gluth brought Mr. Barnes
to our attention, to his credit.

He knew that Mr. Barnes
and Ms. Diehl were acquaintances.

Ken Barnes?

Talked a lot to Ken.

Ken, uh, I think, likes
to embellish a little bit.

He bolstered himself as "Cocaine Ken."

That's-- That's one of the names
he gave himself.

Ken was a manipulator.

[Clark] Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Ken
Barnes met at the south pier here in Erie,

which is a real, you know,
well-known fishing area,

and they were fishing buddies.

So, they had a long history together.

They-- They had competing
personalities in ways,

but they were attracted to each other
for some reason.

[Wick] Mr. Gluth interviewed
Mr. Barnes first by himself

and came back to us and reported:

"Hey, I like this guy.
I think he has info."

[Gluth] Ken had a connection
to Brian Wells that

they had a mutual friend
that was a prostitute.

Jessica Hoopsick was the friend,

the mutual friend that both Ken
and Brian associated with.

[Clark] Brian Wells
would drive Jessica Hoopsick

to purchase crack cocaine from Ken Barnes.

Actually consummate
their sexual transaction

on the second floor
of Mr. Barnes's residence.

Mr. Wells would pay Jessica Hoopsick
for the transaction.

Jessica Hoopsick would then buy
crack cocaine from Ken Barnes.

In effect,
it was basically one-stop shopping.

All three were happy with the deal,
and it worked out for everybody.

She frequented this West 18th Street area.

So, we would drive up and down,
and back and forth,

uh, ad nauseam, quite honestly,
trying to find her.

I believe she knows more. I think she has
more information about Brian Wells.

I think she knows a lot more
than she divulged.

[Gluth] Ken Barnes being brought
into the investigation,

there was a search of his house.

There it is right there. 617, Ken's house.

[Gluth] You name it,
you found it in that house.

We conducted a search warrant in there,
and there was so much junk

and so many things just stacked
on top of each other,

you had no idea if you were standing
on the floor or not.

[chuckles] Yeah.

[Gluth] The front living room, you had to
walk up on a mound of computer towers.

A lot of it was computer stuff intermixed
with dog feces.

Go upstairs, there was a mattress
in the middle of the floor

where he either slept or the area
prostitutes would turn tricks at.

[Clark] We didn't find anything
in Barnes's house that linked him

to making the collar bomb, but we did
find a lot of different magazines

on building electronics that could
be utilized in an explosive device.

We also found two dogs, Gizmo and Peanuts.

And they were so infested
and their health was so poor

that we had to have them put down
by the vet.

There were several interviews
I did with Ken,

and every time you talked to him, you got
a different piece that he'd give you.

On the second interview, he finally said,
yeah, Marjorie did solicit him

to do the bank robbery
and to kill her dad.

[Wick] Her father was giving away
what she thought was her inheritance.

It was confirmed he was giving money
to neighbors to buy cars,

and she became upset
and solicited Mr. Barnes to kill him.

Her motive was to rob the bank, to acquire
money to pay Barnes to kill her father.

He claims he was never going
to follow through with the murder,

um, but... who knows?

[Borzillieri] Ken Barnes's claim
that Marge wanted to rob a bank

to get him money
to kill her dad sounded outlandish.

But this was not
the first time Ken told that story.

Back in 2003,
during the frozen-body investigation,

Ken reported Marge wanted
to hire him as a hit man.

But again, for some unknown reason,

police never passed
that information along to the FBI.

I got the tapes and stuff from
the interviews and looked at those.

She asked me if I'd kill her dad.
I said, "Why?"

[man] Just like that?
"Would you kill my dad?"

Yeah. There was more money in the estate
that was to be willed to her when he dies.

And she said he'd been giving

sums of $100,000 donated to the church

and giving it away to all his friends.

[man] Hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Yeah. She said that he's giving away her
inheritance, and she was obsessed with it.

And, of course,
I was just joking with her and I said:

"Well, Margie, that will cost you."

She goes, "How much?"
I said, "Quarter million."

And I was playing with her,
and I said, "I want half up front."

I said I wanted $100,000 up front.

Just playing with her,
I won't kill nobody.

-You won't kill anybody...
-No, I'd never kill anybody.

I hate to kill bugs.
I don't like to kill flies.

Hell, I cry when people shoot deers,
you know.

I mean, I like to eat venison,
but I don't like to-- You know?

[man] No doubt in your mind
she wanted you to kill him?

Yeah, she was serious about that,
she wanted that money.

Like I say, I'd never kill anybody.

I wanted to see if she'd be stupid enough
to give me money.

[man] But she actually said,
"I would like you to kill my dad?"

Yeah. And she said--
She said she'd give me the details,

layout of the house,
all that stuff later.

[fly buzzes]

[Marjorie] Oh, please.
Ken Barnes is so stupid.

Do you believe this? Do you believe this?

Here I am, I've killed two boyfriends--

In self-defense,
but I've killed two boyfriends, right?

Would I have to hire Ken Barnes
to kill my father

if I hated my father
and wanted him dead?

Or would I do it for free myself?
Come on! Be reasonable.

They have nothing on me,
nothing in writing, nothing in video,

nothing in voice. I didn't confess
to anybody 'cause I didn't do it.

And trying to give me nothing
and take it all--

Is your father still living?

See, each of-- Each one of these
is gonna be big and red like that.

[Borzillieri] I didn't tell Marge this,
because I didn't know how she would react,

but I went to visit her dad.

I wanted to know how he felt about the
news that his daughter wanted him dead.

You have become what the FBI believes
to be the motive.

You know, your life.

-Oh, yeah.
-Your death.

I-- I heard rumors that she at one time
was gonna have me killed, so--

'Cause she knew I had some money
and I owned property.

Yeah, but she's not even in my will
[chuckles] because of-- Because of that.

[Borzillieri] Harold told me he and Marge
were close when she was little,

fishing together when he wasn't
on the road selling aluminum siding.

His wife Agnes, a schoolteacher,
who died in 2000,

had really doted on Marge,
their only child.

So, when Marge started behaving oddly,

started hoarding,
her parents were heartsick.

I'm not sure they understood
Marjorie had a serious mental illness.

She's not crazy, but...

She--

She ain't 100 percent all there either.

In my estimation.

Harold admitted they had spoiled Marge.

She couldn't hold down a job,
so they gave her money.

She bought two houses and some land
where she kept a classic car.

Marge didn't take care of any of it.

After she got in trouble with the law,
Harold stopped giving Marge money.

He started giving
the fortune he'd saved,

around a million dollars,
to friends and neighbors.

[Harold] I don't wanna give her any money
because that's just a tool

to make her commit more crimes.

I don't have a hell of a lot to do...

and if I ain't helping somebody...

well, then I don't know what to do.

[Borzillieri] Do you ever think about
good times that you had with Marjorie,

you know, back when
she was a young girl and--?

Were you proud of her
because she was an A student?

[Harold] Oh, sure, I was proud of her,
but I--

If she told me something,
I couldn't very well believe her anyway

because she was a good liar.

She, uh--

She'd come around
if she wanted something, and that's all.

And she didn't--

She didn't know the meaning of love.

[Borzillieri] Look how small this one is.
Holy cow.

Look at that.

[Borzillieri] Marge was now obsessed
with Ken Barnes.

In almost every letter and phone call,

she tried to convince me
that he was lying about her.

And now she had a new theory
as to who masterminded the heist.

I didn't know this,
but he had gotten in to conspiracy

with Ken Barnes to do this crime.

You think-- You think Barnes
and Rothstein were the masterminds

-of the pizza bombing case, is that right?
-Yes.

Yes. Of course I think

that Bill Rothstein has much more
intelligence than Kenneth Barnes does.

I could see it coming that I was gonna
get framed, and I was scared of that.

Marjorie, you say you're being framed.
Who's framing you?

[Wick] Myself, Jerry, Marjorie, and
her lawyer decided to go on a vehicle ride

for her to explain the activities and her
whereabouts the day of the collar bomb.

[reporter 1] Marjorie, what about Ken
Barnes? Are you worried he'll rat you out?

[reporter 2] Why did you kill Jim Roden?
Was it to silence him in the Wells case?

Did you--? Were you the mastermind
behind this Brian Wells case?

-Right to that one.
-I wasn't even involved.

-[reporter 1] You weren't involved?
-I did nothing.

-You didn't do the collar bomb?
-[Marjorie] Nothing. I'm innocent.

[reporter 1] Who's framing you?

[reporter 2] Was Bill Rothstein
the mastermind?

Bill Rothstein and the government
are framing me, okay?

And the rest of these lying,
perjuring witnesses.

[reporter 1] Rothstein's dead.
Can't defend himself.

[Marjorie] There's no evidence.

[Clark] On that day, she was just,
I think, glad to be out of prison.

Said, "Marge, you'd like something
to eat?" "Yeah, let's get, uh,

something at the country fair."
We stopped.

Marjorie asked for some pretzels.

So, I went in,
grabbed a bag of pretzel rods,

couple Diet Cokes, and we sat in the back,

and we're eating pretzel rods,
drinking Diet Cokes,

while driving around,
looking at locations.

And it was almost like you had, you know,

your family member
that you're taking around for a ride.

[Wick] She divulged that Mr. Rothstein had
requested two kitchen timers from her.

That was significant
because up to that point, the media

had a lot of information, released
a lot of information on this case,

but they did not know the fact

there were two timers.
When she said Mr. Rothstein

wanted two and she provided two, that
was a significant piece of information.

We sat there. She said, "That's it.
I've put my head in the lion's mouth,

-and I'm done."
-[Wick] That's a quote.

And she stopped the interview.

Hold on. I have to unbuckle you.

Come on. I didn't do that. You know
I won't blow the whistle on myself, right?

I'm not one of these guys
that likes to say, "I'm a serial killer.

Come, I'll show you bodies."
I didn't claim crimes I didn't do.

Listen to this one. I know I didn't do...

[Borzillieri] When I asked Marge to prove
to me she wasn't part of the heist,

she said it was obvious.
She didn't need to rob a bank.

She had plenty of money.

She was always talking about
how much money she had, and she did,

from her parents, lawsuits
and government aid.

But I found out from her, actually,
that in 2003,

she and Ken Barnes had a huge fight about
money she owed him. She refused to pay.

So, Ken told some friends to rob her.

Marge reported that over $100,000
had been stolen from her house.

But no one was ever prosecuted, despite
the fact that Ken eventually confessed.

Ken Barnes got away with that, too.
This guy is the scum of the Earth.

And now how the hell are you
gonna tell me he is credible?

Probably the biggest break in this case
was Marjorie and Ken still talking.

We were dealing with Marge
or we were dealing with Ken.

Neither one had connection
with each other,

so one didn't know
what the other one said.

A line you hear a lot of time:

"The first pig or the first animal
to the trough eats best."

The first one to the trough
was Ken Barnes,

who gave up information
on what happened at the tower site.

He provided a confession,
which really turned the case.

Turned it, you know, made a 180.
Yeah, he confessed to--

To knowing the whole scheme.

[Barnes on recording] She said to me,
"Here comes Brian."

And I said, "Well, let me see him."

And then she said, "Here comes Rothstein."

And I seen his car pulling down
the street.

As she was looking down there,
she goes:

"Ha, ha, ha. Looks like somebody
just robbed a bank!"