Robbery-plot suspect's father not surprised
Harold Diehl isn't surprised to hear that his daughter, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, is accused of concocting an elaborate and bizarre bank-robbery plot that included seeking to hire someone to kill him and locking a bomb onto the neck of a pizza deliveryman.
ERIE - Harold Diehl isn't surprised to hear that his daughter, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, is accused of concocting an elaborate and bizarre bank-robbery plot that included seeking to hire someone to kill him and locking a bomb onto the neck of a pizza deliveryman.
"She'd have a tendency to do anything that's possible because I think her mind is a little bit goofed up. I don't think she's completely sane," Diehl, 88, said as he sat yesterday on a porch swing in front of his house in Erie.
Diehl-Armstrong, who is in prison for killing her boyfriend, was accused this week of being the ringleader of a 2003 plot to rob the bank so she could pay a hitman to kill her father. She and a fishing buddy, Kenneth E. Barnes, 53, both have been charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms violation.
Barnes, jailed on an unrelated drug charge, pleaded not guilty during a brief arraignment yesterday.
New information emerged yesterday about a possible connection between the plotters and the pizza deliveryman, Brian Wells, who was killed after the holdup when the bomb around his neck detonated. Prosecutors have said Wells had a limited role planning and staging the robbery but by the end may have become an unwilling participant. His family insists he did not know the suspects.
An attorney representing a prostitute who knew both Wells and Barnes said yesterday that he expected his client to be called as a witness in the case to establish that the two men knew each other. The woman, Jessica Hoopsick, said Wells regularly paid $15 to $20 to have sex with her at Barnes' house, attorney Daniel Brabender said.
Diehl-Armstrong's initial appearance on the federal charges, previously scheduled for today, was delayed until Tuesday.
Her father said his daughter, now 58, was an only child who was born and grew up in the house in which he still lives.
Diehl is a retired salesman who traveled through Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York selling aluminum siding, awnings and windows. He and his wife, Agnes, a elementary-school teacher, were married for more than 50 years. She died about 10 years ago.
Diehl described his daughter, a straight-A student and the valedictorian of her high school class, as intelligent but gullible, and said he was not surprised to hear she was accused of wanting him dead.
"I wouldn't doubt that. I heard that years ago and I believe it," he said. "Don't forget, her mind is, in my estimation, not the mind of a stable person."
He added: "She would probably help kill someone or something, in my estimation, if she thought it was the right thing to do."
Diehl, who at times loses his train of thought, cannot recall exactly when his daughter began getting into trouble, but he is convinced her behavior took years off his wife's life.
Diehl said that he had not seen his daughter in years and did not want to.
His daughter, much like the bizarre collar-bombing she is accused of plotting, remains a mystery to him.
"I don't know much about her," Diehl said. "I don't think I ever will."