Media Attention
The incident and the subsequent investigation made the national media several times as the case continued to develop. When the story first broke, many wrongly believed the incident to be terrorism related. America's Most Wanted featured the story three times with newly released evidence in hopes officials could gather new clues behind the puzzling case. Anderson Cooper 360° highlighted the story as one of the FBI's most mysterious cases. Wells was also featured on Fox News Channel's In the Line Up profiling evidence regarding new suspects and new details in the case.
The 99 Most Bizarre: Crimes included the incident in its feature "Most Bizarre". A collection of news articles that reported developments in the Brian Wells story was analyzed in a scientific study of information novelty.
The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Pas de Deux" bears a striking resemblance to this event, as does the Bones episode "The Goop on the Girl".
The basic synopsis of this man's story is also very similar to the film 30 Minutes or Less, where a pizza delivery boy is called to deliver pizzas to a remote part of town. Two men kidnap the delivery boy and strap a bomb to his chest, informing him that he must rob a bank in order to receive a code to deactivate the bomb. The kidnappers were hoping to use the bank money to pay a hitman to kill the father of one kidnapper, in order to receive a large inheritance. Despite the similarities to the case, the cast and filmmakers claimed to have had no prior knowledge of the incident, although the screenwriters admitted to being "vaguely aware" of it.
The story was described in detail in the January 2011 issue of Wired magazine.
The Investigation Discovery documentary series Deadly Women featured Wells' death while focusing on Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's role in the attempted robbery as part of the episode "Kill For Cash".
An episode of the show 1000 Ways to Die features the death of a bomb-wearing robber under the same circumstances in the segment titled "Withdrawn" (although the robber in the show is depicted as acting solely on his own, with the bomb detonation being accidentally caused by a distant car key fob activated by someone else).
Read more about this topic: Brian Douglas Wells
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