US: A pizza delivery man told police in Pennsylvania he had been forced to rob a bank and pleaded with them to help him minutes before a bomb strapped to his chest exploded and killed him.
The FBI and police were yesterday trying to solve the bizarre case of 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, who left to deliver a pizza to an address in a remote area about an hour before he turned up at the bank with a bomb strapped to his body.
No one else was hurt in the blast, which happened in front of police as they waited for a bomb squad to arrive.
Local TV captured audio and video of Mr Wells as he sat handcuffed in front of a state police car. "Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he asked.
A state police spokesman confirmed that Mr Wells had made a number of statements, including that he had been forced to rob the bank. The tape shows Mr Wells telling authorities someone had started a timer on the bomb under his T-shirt, and that there was little time left. "It's going to go off," Mr Wells said. "I'm not lying."
The deputy coroner for Erie, Pennsylvania, Mr Korac Timon, said the bomb appeared to have been hanging from Mr Wells's neck, and that he had been told it was of a "very sophisticated construction".
Ms Linda Payne, who owns the property where Mr Wells lived, described him as a private, trustworthy person who liked music and cared for three cats.
"I couldn't believe that he would rob a bank. He doesn't care that much about money," Ms Payne said. "I think somebody lured him into that place delivering a pizza, dropped a bomb on him and sent him into the bank ... He would not have decided to do that on his own."
The address of the delivery was a rural spot along a main drag that runs south of the city, where a gravel road leads to a TV transmission tower.
According to police, Mr Wells entered the PNC Bank branch outside Erie on Thursday afternoon, produced an "extensive note" demanding money and said he had a bomb.
He left with an undisclosed amount of money and got into his car. Police surrounded him a short time later in a nearby parking lot, pulled him out of his car and handcuffed him, authorities said.