Professor Hex: A year later, bizarre bank robbery killing yields more questions than clues

An excellent article on the horrible death of Brian Wells, unfortunately better known as the "Pizza Bomber". This is one of the stranger cases in the Hex Files, complete with mysterious deaths, shadowy perpetrators, a desperate race against time, and a body in a freezer.

Two of the primary witnesses are dead, one under questionable circumstances. The other, a mechanical tinkerer familiar with robotics, later revealed to police that he had the body of a murder victim hidden in his freezer. Wells's brother, who appears to have a confidential source, claims that a "group of men" forced the collar on Brian. This indicates a well-organized operation involving many people.

Wells was forced to complete a series of elaborate directions in addition to the bank robbery, even though the designers of the bomb knew it would explode in 55 minutes. This means the masterminds behind this crime miscalculated the most important part of their plan--the timeline-- or it indicates that robbery was not the primary motive.

If the robbery was not the primary motivator, then what was? Other scenarios have been mentioned, notably revenge. This seems unlikely. Brian Wells was, by all published accounts, a nice, unassuming guy with no enemies. Brian's brother seems to think it was a warning by one group of criminals to others as a demonstration of their power. It could have also served as effective advertising for the perpetrators's nefarious talents. If this senario is true, I would imagine that the perpetrators took video of the event. I also assume that one or more remote cameras were stationed at Brian's final planned destination. These cameras might still be in place, though I imagine great pains were taken to remove them.

One possibility: The entire event was a success in that it worked as planned. The robbery was never the motive. The motive was to put an average man through the paces and see how far you could push him. Brian Wells's life was sacrificed to an experiment in controlled behavior, literally a "Game of Death". This type of operation could serve a variety of intelligence and espionage purposes, but it does answer one question: How do you create suicide bombers in cultures with no jihadists?

The FBI has released some of the instructions given to Brian, complete with intentional mispellings and curiously stylized handwriting. I think the writer has an artistic background.

posted by Prof. Hex at 4:24 AM

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