Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong

PITTSBURGH — All but anonymous in life, Brian Wells now has his own Wikipedia entry, and bootleg TV news video of his grisly demise by a time bomb strapped to his neck is available online.

Jury selection begins today in Erie in the federal trial of the woman accused of masterminding a bizarre 2003 bank robbery plot that ended with the death of the 46-year-old pizza deliveryman.

Prosecutors say Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong needed money from the robbery to pay a hit man kill her estranged father. She's accused of arranging for someone else to order pizzas, rig Wells with the bomb, force him to rob a bank and, afterward, stop the time bomb.

Shortly after Wells took $8,702 from a PNC bank teller — far less than the $250,000 he demanded according to the nine pages of handwritten instructions he was allegedly forced to follow to commit the robbery and get free of the bomb — state police caught up with him. He died sitting handcuffed in a parking lot, waiting for a bomb squad and shouting to troopers taking cover nearby: "I'm not lying! I'm not doing this! This isn't me!"

Defense attorney Douglas Sughrue tried to get the trial moved to another federal court district, arguing that years of news coverage have made it impossible to pick an unbiased jury.

Defending Diehl-Armstrong on charges of conspiracy, using a destructive device in a crime of violence and armed bank robbery, which could result in a life sentence, doesn't figure to be any easier. She has publicly feuded with and fired two previous attorneys and allegedly given incriminating statements to the FBI.

She has admitted killing two lovers — the first, a jury ruled, was justified during an abusive relationship in the 1980s, though she's still serving a seven- to 20-year prison sentence for shooting the second man because, federal prosecutors contend, he knew too much about the bank robbery plot.

Diehl-Armstrong's former fishing buddy, 56-year-old Kenneth Barnes, is serving 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to his role and will be the government's key witness. Prosecutors said Barnes is the would-be hit man on her father.

Diehl-Armstrong's trial was delayed when a U.S. District Judge determined she was mentally incompetent in July 2008. She has since been deemed competent.