Warning: spoilers ahead! Have you fallen into Netflix's latest true crime docu-series, Evil Genius? If you have, then you are probably wondering one very important question: is Marjorie Diehl Armstrong still alive? The alleged mastermind behind the 2003 pizza bombing heist died on April 4, 2017, a fact that is revealed at the very end of the fourth episode of Evil Genius on Netflix. "Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong died of cancer on April 4, 2017," white text on a black screen reads as the final chapter of the docu-series comes to a close.
Diehl-Armstrong died while incarcerated and serving a life sentence after being convicted of conspiracy and armed bank robbery, as reported by TIME. While the Netflix docu-series claims that Diehl-Armstrong died from cancer, many reports, including the TIME reported noted above, claim she died from natural causes. At the time of her death, Diehl-Armstrong was 68 years old. According to Evil Genius, Diehl-Armstrong was buried in an unmarked grave "not far from the Texas medical facility where she'd been incarcerated." The facility was near Fort Worth, as reported by Go Erie, a local news outlet in Pennsylvania where the bank robbery and pizza bombing took place. There is no information about whether or not Diehl-Armstrong left behind any surviving family members.
Despite being convicted in the bank robbery and pizza bombing that left Brian Wells, 46, dead, Diehl-Armstrong remained adamant that she was innocent. In 2013, two years after she was found guilty, Diehl-Armstrong filed for an appeal in hopes of proving she was innocent, as reported by CNN. At the same time, Diehl-Armstrong claimed that she was mentally incompetent to stand trial. Unfortunately for the convicted killer, the United States Supreme Court denied her appeal which allowed her to remain in prison serving her life sentence. She died four years later.
As if the 2003 bank robbery and pizza bombing were not bizarre enough, Diehl-Armstrong was connected to the case after she was arrested for murdering her boyfriend, James Roden, as the TIME report claims. A former boyfriend of Diehl-Armstrong, William Rothstein, went to the authorities to reveal Roden's fate and, even worse, that Diehl-Armstrong had hidden her boyfriend's body inside a freezer in his garage. Rothstein's discussion with authorities is heavily documented in the second episode of Netflix's Evil Genius, followed by Diehl-Armstrong's arrest and public claims that her ex, Rothstein, was a "filthy liar".
In Rothstein's September 2003 interrogation, he flat-out tells authorities: "She called me the night or the morning that it happened. She came over to my house, and she said that... Jim, or somehow she indicated that Jim was dead." Rothstein's interrogation is shown in the docu-series in a featured black-and-white video where he admits that he "felt sorry" for Diehl-Armstrong, which is why he helped her get rid of Roden's dead body. As per the docu-series, the FBI were able to confirm that Roden had been killed three weeks before local pizza delivery man, Brian Wells, robbed a bank with a live bomb strapped around his neck.
But how are all of these things connected? Well, as shown in the second episode of Netflix's Evil Genius, after a court hearing regarding the murder of Diehl-Armstrong's ex, James Roden, she spoke freely to the press. The footage shows Diehl-Armstrong being escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs before dropping some very interesting but unverified information. "Rothstein should be charged with the murder of Brian Wells and a lot of other charges," Diehl-Armstrong tells the press, completely unprovoked. In the chilling archive footage, the press following Diehl-Armstrong seem to blatantly ignore her comment about Brian Wells. Instead, the continue to ask her whether or not she killed her boyfriend, James Roden.
To find out how this bizarre story ends, make sure you binge through all four episodes of Netflix's Evil Genius. It's available now for anyone with a Netflix subscription!
