>> the last major one we had was in 2005. >> rob, i'll be here with you at 11:00 p.m. for that update. i'm don lemon, at cnn headquarters in atlanta. cnn presents begins right now. a pizza deliveryman robs a bank with a bomb around his neck. and that's just the beginning of one of the most bizarre crimes every. the twisted tale of the man known as the pizza bomber. refund robbery. >> it's like the government putting crack cocaine in vending

machines. >> narrator: this isn't just a truck bust. your tax refund ask at risk. and two florida men have -- >> do you believe that your son is still alive? >> i don't believe that terrance is still alive. >> narrator: the mystery surrounding two missing men, revealing investigations. fascinating characters, stories with impact. this is cnn presents, with your host tonight, randi kay and drew griffin. >> three stories tonight. a scam that's targeting your hard earned paycheck. and the mysterious case of two men in florida who simply vanished. >> one of the most bizarre bank robberies in the annals of the fbi had been committed. a man described by his family as the salt of the earth was dead and a mystery full of strange

twists was about to begin with this phone call to 911. >> 911, what's your energy? >> we have just been held up. >> august 21st, 2004, erie, pennsylvania. a man is surrounded by police, cross legged on the ground. two men captured him and put this bomb around his neck and told him to rob a bank. he asks police to call his boss then to save his life. >> why is nobody trying to get this thing off me? >> 25 minutes tick by, then the device begins to beep. >> i heard this thing beep. it's going to go off. >> in an instant, the bank robber is dead.

>> the death of baseline wells in this parking lot that day turned out to be only the beginning of the most elaborate, intricate and some say still unsolved bank robbery case the fbi has ever had. >> our law enforcement partners solved the puzzle and we achieved convictions and long sentences. >> the fbi, the local police and the u.s. attorneys office simply want this case to be closed. but is it? tonight, you decide. did the fbi catch all the suspects? did the fbi let one of them walk? and did the fbi make a mistake putting blame on a pizza deliveryman whose secrets blew up in a parking lot.

it was a hot thursday afternoon, jean was expecting to see her brother at a party that night, but had an errand to run. aquick stop on peachtree street, but there was trouble. police had blocked the road, cops and cars everywhere. she turned around and went home. it was only later that night watching the 10:00 news, she learned what that traffic was all about. >> my kids are sitting on the couch and then the story airs of this bank robbery and a man came into the bank with a bomb on him. >> you are recognizing your brother? >> my brother sitting there with this bomb on him. i'm thinking, okay, the police have him, they'll find out who did this to him. then as it goes on, brian exploded. the bomb went off and brian's

dead. ani'm like, i can't believe this. >> narrator: after the explosion, one of the first things the cops did was look inside his car and they found these, meticulous notes that amounted to a bizarre scavenger hunt, notes given to brian wells instructing him to follow a lengthy set of orders if he wanted to survive. >> laying out this puzzling, highly complex scavenger hunt directing him to go to specific places. rich shapiro is a journalist who has written extensively about the robbery for wired magazines. >> if he completed these things in the allotted time he would be able to save his life. >> why didn't your brother get in that car and drive straight to the police station. >> i never asked that because brian was in survival mode.

i truly believe he was trying to save his life and others' lives. >> narrator: but the police had no idea what to think. was brian wells a victim? was he in on the robbery? what were those notes all about and who wrote them and why? there were no answers, but plenty of agencies wanting to be involved in the biggest case erie had ever seen. >> we had formed a multiagency task force comprised of pennsylvania state police. the atf, the erie police department, specifically their bomb squad, the united states district attorney's office and the erie county district attorney's office. >> jim fisher, a former criminologist studied the case from the beginning. >> so you had 50 people running

around random investigating leads, with very little coordination, no one seemed to be in charge. >> from the outset, he believes the fbi, the local police, all to the law enforcement agencies involved were on the wrong track. this was not, he says, a bank robbery. >> you believe brian wells was murdered? >> well, he was murdered and it was a first-degree murder. this was an intentional, premeditated homicide. more over, it was extremely cruel in the way the crime was executed. >> narrator: not just the crime, the bomb was a crude -- home made lock, in all made into a bizarre puzzle wrapped around the neck of the victim. and whatever this was, a bank robbery, a violent murder, the case was about to take another,

bizarre, almost unreal twist. >> there's a frozen body in a freezer in the garage. >> a second body, this one hidden in a freezer, and a new suspect telling an even stranger tale. >> what came in first, the body or the freezer? >> the body came in, i put it on a cart -- >> just ahead, the refrigerator, the body, and an ever increasing cast of suspects. adjust to teeth and gums for a better clean. the new pro-health clinical brush from oral-b. here at the hutchison household. but one dark stormy evening... she needed a good meal and a good family. so we gave her purina cat chow complete. it's the best because it has something for all of our cats! and after a couple of weeks she was part of the family. we're so lucky that lucy picked us. [ female announcer ] purina cat chow complete.

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as brian wells was on the ground in that half hour after he robbed the bank, another man was watching everything unfold from across the street, according to an fbi affidavit, the informant said a 60-year-old handy man named william rosstein was sitting across the street in his car. bill rossstein, officials say, was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. >> put the cut piece of green tarp down here to put his body on. >> okay. >> this is bill rosstein a few months after that bank robbery, in a police evidence tape where he's explaining to a detective how he helped a former

girlfriend, marjorie armstrong dispose of a body. >> what came first, is body or the freezer? >> the body came in first and i put it on a cart. >> but what's really going on here, what did that body in the freezer and bill rosstein's confession have to do with the collar bomb that killed brian wells? in a word, everything. bill rosstein told police he was just doing marjorie a favor. he claimed marjorie had killed her abusive ex-boyfriend. but the investigation tells another story, roden knew about the robbery plot and went to

police. >> he took the body out, cleaned everything up. cleaned the walls, replaceded floor boards, everything, patiented, got rid of everything that might have blood on it. >> after rosstein turned her into police for the murder of her ex-boyfriend. marjorie stunneded investigators with another twist. she connected rosstein to erie's big estebani bagest bank robber. >> to build the bomb and -- so bill rosstein was left with two of the most important thing to old over dale armstrong. >> even though marjorie deal armstrong had been talking to police, it took the fbi four

more years before it could tie up all the loose ends. everybody, the fbi said, was involved in the robbery. bill rosstein, marjorie deal armstrong, even another suspect, a crack dealer named kenneth barns and barns claimed brian wells was in on the ploot from the very beginning. >> wells was essentially told he would be robbing the bank, but the device that was being put around his neck was fake so he would not be putting himself in harm's way. as it turns out, he was double crossed. >> criminologist jim fisher says it was rosstein that wanted to pull off the elaborate scheme. the confusing yet meticulously crafted collar bomb, even the white t-shirt brian wells wore

into the bank, spray painted with the word guest, to billf h fisher, all masterminded by a mad man. >> we knew we had a category of crime involving motive of a normal person you can't really understand. >> you're describing bill rosstein. >> that would be bill rosstein in my mind, he fits to a t, the kind of person that would commit such a business sar and pathological crime. >> but now four years after the original crime, the government had to prove in court it's theory was correct. and there were two big problems. rosstein, the alleged mastermind died before even officially being linked to the crime. and the other main suspect

marjorie deal armstrong had told so many lies she was showing evidence of mental problems and a personality disorder. >> the mental illness was a 30-year history, the personality disorders were a 30-year history. >> over many delays and many more years, the government finally obtained convictions on charges of bank robbery and murder. life plus 30 years for marjorie deal armstrong, a lesser sentence for accomplice kenneth barnes because he testified on behalf of prosecutors. and brian wells who died with a bomb around his neck, federal investigators said he too was in on the crime. >> when brian delivered a pizza, he was accosted by a gruoup of strangers he did not know, they

shot at him when he tried to run away, they knocked him to the ground. >> the fbi did agree to sit down with cnn to explain their case and their prosecution. how it all went down. they just wanted to know the day we would arrive here in erie, and where the interview would take place. then the fbi began asking us questions, who else would be involved in the interview and then suddenly the interview was off. the fbi and the district attorney took the easy way out and never really solved the case. >> bill rosstein died about a year after the crime and he died with, in my opinion, all the secrets, all the answers. and to that extent, well, nobody literally dies laughing. he went to his grave knowing that he had outfoxed everyone.

>> neither the u.s. attorney's office, nor the fbi would comment to cnn about fisher's assertions. and yet there is someone who is alive. who kenneth barnes says was at rosstein's house the day of the robbery, but was never charged in the crime. he is the convicted sex offender granted immunity in exchange for testimony he was never asked to give. next -- >> brian wells' family really wants to know about you sir. >> could this man hold the answers that would finally solve the case? -[ taste buds ] donuts, donuts! -who are these guys?

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in her search for justice, jean hyde says he has spent years trying to learn the truth from the one man she believes now holds the key to her brother's innocence. his name is floyd a. stockton, who investigators say was living in bill rothstein on the day of the bank robbery. he goes by the name jay. >> jay stockton is a convicted rapist, serial sexual battery of his wife, and he's out there, he's out there, people. >> he is the only one left alive and sane enough to tell the truth she believes. yet the federal government has allowed him to go free. >> they know that my brother's innocent, 100%. and they know that bill rothstein, jay stockton are the

co-conspirators in this crime that killed brian. >> according to this fbi affidavit, investigators learn of stockton's knowledge to the crime when stockton talked about it in a monitored phone call from jail. stockton was released then given immunity to testify for the government in the pizza bomb case. investigators say they compared stockton's handwriting to this handwriting, on those scavenger notes found in brian's car, there was a perfect match. >> the authorities believe there were at least two people who wrote the notes and jay stockton is definitely one of them. >> my name is kenneth eugene barnes. >> there is also this man, kenneth barnes. >> but i never killed anybody. >> barnes pled guilty and is serving a 20-year sentence for his role in the case.

but it is this fbi affidavit obtained by cnn which raises more questions about why jay stockton has been allowed to go free. according to the affidavit, barnes and others involved in the case say floyd stockton was deep lly involved in the plot, barngs s barnes saying the day of the crime, he went in and got the bomb and handed it to rothstein. when the u.s. district attorney was asked buy -- after our initial phone call, buchanan never talked to us again and at a news conference in erie, the current u.s. attorney, david

hi hickston wasn't talking either. >> marjorie deal armstrong's attorney says there's good reason why the u.s. attorney and the fbi want to keep quite by james stockton. >> he got immunity from the government, absolutely, clear, convicted sex offender, multitime sexoffender. the government felt that he was the least involved person so they gave him immunity. >> they shouldn't have given him immunity. he didn't deserve immunity. he's the guilty one, he killed my brother, he deserved to be brought to justice. >> stockton has been featured on the television america's most wanted, private investigators have tried to track him down, but stockton has literal ly vanished, at least that's what

he believed until we found him. these are pictures of stockton today, two hours east of seattle, down a side street, he told investigators he's been living in this duplex for the past six years but was soon about to leave. a week later, we spotted him leaving the duplex in a pick-up truck. we followed to an rv sales lot where he was eyeing a large recreational vehicle. it was perhaps the first time in years anyone had mentioned his involvement in the pizza bomb case. >> how are you doing, mr. stockton, right? drew griffin, i'm with cnn. how are you doing? it's taken a long time for me to find you. i wanted to ask you some questions. no, sir, brian wells's family is really wanting to know about you, sir. >> as fast as he could, with his driver's side window lowered, jay stockton sped away, not saying a word.

mr. stockton, this is drew griffin again, with cnn, brian wells's family is really just trying to get to the truth of the matter about particularly their brother. you're the only one alive and sane enough to tell the truth. and that's what they're after. >> he has refused all of our phone calls, refused to respond to notes placed at his door. the assistant u.s. attorney who prosecuted the case insists to us, jay stockton would tell us what the federal government has proven in court, that brian wells was involved with the bank robbery. >> he could have sat through this trial with the degree of evidence linking mr. wells to these particular participants. >> stockton repeatedly

implicates jean hyde's brother. he was involved in the planning, was part of the band of criminal misfits trying to rob a bank. jean hyde will never believe that. she believes her government is lying. >> they let an innocent man, my brother die while in their custody and they didn't even lift a finger to help him. this case is going to be looked at for years to come. and they don't want it known that they screwed up. brian never would have done this. >> jean hyde is still claiming her brother's innocence and still says she won't rest until she can prove it. meantime, there's a new book about the case that's scheduled to be published later this year, one of its authors is a reporter for the local newspaper in erie, who's been following the case for years, and the other author,

the fbi agent who was the lead investigator. up next, it's being called the new crack cocaine of crimes, thieves stealing your tax return before you even know it. how do they do it? randi kay's special investigation is next. available with a patented safety alert seat. when there's danger you might not see, you're warned by a pulse in the seat. it's technology you won't find in a mercedes e-class. the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. but why doesn't it last? well, plaque quickly starts to grow back. [ dr. rahmany ] introducing crest pro-health clinical rinse. it actually keeps your teeth 91% clean of plaque even at 2 months after a dental visit. new crest pro-health clinical rinse. has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow.

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imagine filing your income taxes only to be told someone else has already done the same thing and gotten your refund?

>> it's a fraud so big that the irs doesn't even know how much money is getting into the hands of criminals. although law enforcement says it's well into the billions of dollars. >> every taxpayer is at risk and as our investigation reveals, the criminals have gotten incredibly brazen in spite of an irs tax -- the first time in our investigation the fraud unfolds in florida where in some neighborhoods, tax return robbery has become a way of life. >> this is a known gang member. >> we have just rolled up on one of the easiest frauds in america

to pull off. a crime hidden on a piece of plastic, a debit card. >> those debit cards are used to take advantage of fast tax refunds from the irs, those refunds are stealing people's identities. filing with phony information and getting the irs to put the refunds money on the debit cards. >> this is what they're buying. see green dot money cards, target. he went to target and spent $600 and he paid with a debit card. >> what did you get? $1,000 for christmas in gift cards? >> police say the man they have pulled over who's already facing identity theft charge in another case is known for the infamous money avenue gang, which specializes in this kind of fraud. no surprisingly, he's in no mood to talk. >> i'm just curious what you drive to work that you drive

such a fancy car? >> i don't know nothing about that? >> do you know anything about identity -- -- >> of the north miami beach florida police department will later charge him with buying these gift cards with stolen tax return money. police say here's the same guy on video at target using a debit card in someone else's name with a fraud elect tax refund on it. and place say, he used that debit card that buy those gift cards that were on the front seat of the car. he's arrested for marijuana possession, but police later charge him with grand theft in connection with tax refund fraud. he pled not guilty to grand theft. >> it's like the federal government putting crack cocaine

in vending machines, it's that easy. >> i already have one detective on the scene. >> a car just pulled up. as the target, we observed receiving about 23 fraud let me u.s. treasury checks. >> police in north miami beach alone, with just 98 officers patrolling a city of 41,000, have seen over $100 million in tax refund fraud just in the last two years alone. it's big money, the criminals cash in those debit cards as quick as possible, showing off their riches with expensive luxury cards. jaguar, porch, mercedes wednesday, and souped up sports cars with fancy rims. diamond pendants worth $55,000 this one inscribed with the

words money hungry. >> is this all about "fast money," fast lifestyle? >> the response sorries buy the social security numbers at hospitals, doctor's offices, car dealerships, anywhere where you have to give your personal information. larry goeltd man session as soon as the thieves buy a debit card, they're off and running. >> they already have the victim's name, date of birth and social security number for the return they're going to file. >> the identity thieves call it the drop, the criminals then take the drop money to atm machines and grocery stores to get the money off the card as quickly as possible. as these police voideos of suspects who were heard arrested show. and why the deb bit cards -- the criminals are so confident they won't get caught that at times

they even have actual u.s. treasury checks sent to them. in this north miami beach neighborhood where the money avenue gang operates, tax refund fraud has replaced drug dealing. >> so in the cars that you pull over, do you find instead of bricks and drugs, do you find bricks of debit cards? >> and the other thing that we find that we get lucky on is the actual ledgers of the names, social cards and dates of birth. >> and no one is safe. these four detectives in the unit who fight this very crimes are themselves victims of this fraud. detecti >> here we are living a legal life and working a job, you know, and these crooks are rolling around in $100,000 cars and staying in penthouses on miami beach and throwing money at strip clubs at everywhere

else. >> with your money? >> with my money. >> someone else had already filed for his tax return under his name. >> the thing that really hits us hard is that it mostly affects our family. and when you start messing with our family, you get upset. >> mary was expecting $500. love was expecting $6,600. i know from dealing with victims, it's going to be a long time before i see that money. >> coming up, what does the irs say to some officials who charge, it's making it too easy for your money to wind up in the hands of criminals? >> why hasn't the irs stopped that? of hybrid technology, it's already engrained in our dna. during the goen opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. introducing share everything.

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. it's just another night on the streets in tampa, florida. where police say tax refund fraud is the new crack cocaine for criminals. >> that's over $2,000 in cash. >> this lady doesn't have a job, she's unemployed. >> but inside her suv, it looks like she went on a shopping spree and police find this in her purse. someone else's social security number and an online tax filing website, a red flag for fraud. >> she got the information from

somebody, the social, their e-mail address, dollar amount that they're going to put in for to the federal government to get a return on. >> and anyone can learn the crime. this handwritten guide confiscated by police spells out how to get away from it. >> this woman says she teaches friends how to do what's known on the street as the drop, someone else's tax refund dropped on to a fraudster's id card. >> they'll get together and we're going to meet here, and we'll all work together. some people i know get up at 8:00 in the morning and don't finish until 8:00 at night. >> so it's like a full-time job for some people? >> yes. >> do you think anybody involved in tax fraud thinks about the people whose irs refund they're taking? >> they want to be at the top,

they want to be better than the next person. >> the-goal? make money as fast as possible. >> this money, you have to flash it, you have to let others know, hey, i got this. >> even if it means you're going to go to jail? >> yeah. >> and the lure was apparently too much for sheryl. just days after our interview, she was arrested for tax refund fraud. >> the process is broken. in tampa alone, where police estimate the fraud approaches a staggering half billion dollars in the last two years, police chief jane castor says the irs efforts to curtail it aren't working. >> i don't think i have ever seen this magnitude of fraud that is just wide open. it's wide open. and there just doesn't seem to be much being done about it. >> she says suspects charged by local police know the penalties

are light, unless there are federal charges which in most cases don't happen or take a long time to file. >> i take the other side of that equation as to how much god through. >> that's what we wanted to know too. but after weeks of asking, the irs commissioner still could not provide an estimate of the fraud that's been detected. >> you can tell us how much has been caught, but the irs can't say how much of this fraudulent money has ended up in criminal's hands. >> we process 140 million tax returns at irs on a given year. the greatest majority of our taxpayers file a legitimate tax return.

so do some of these fraudsters, perpetrators get an illegal refund? actually yes, but as for the size of the problem, we need to get back to you with a number. >> we're still waiting on that number. typical says tax mayor bob muck. >> they have not been helpful, they have not been a player, they have not taken responsibility for their side of the enforcement. if anything, you know, we have been banging our heads against their door asking for help. and getting nothing in response. the silence has been deafening. >> is the irs missing in action in tampa? what's your response? >> no, the irs is not, in fact we have significantly increased the amount of resources we have devoted to identity theft which is a heinous crime. >> just one week after our

interview, the irs sent a team to meet with tampa and north miami beach police firms. law enforcement tells us there's a simple solution to curbing much of the fraud, don't allow the refunds to be put on debit cards. >> why hasn't the irs stopped that? >> not every taxpayer has a debit account. so the debit cards that are issued by a third party provider are a way for taxpayers to get their refund. >> how much of this has to do with a speedy return? i know you want to get the return to the taxpayer as soon as possible. is that part of the problem? >> the balancing act is something that we're aware of. the american taxpayer who has worked hard all year long and

who is depending on a legitimate refu they have that right to get that refund from irs as quickly as possible. >> and the fraudsters, they know, time is on their side. the faster the irs sends out the returns, the sooner they get some hard working taxpayers cash. >> it's an underground epidemic, it has taken the place of street level drug dealing. it is a very, very scary proposition. >> the treasury inspector general said it may take a year to resolve their cases and this problem is only getting bigger as more criminals learn just how easy it is to pull off. investigators say they have even been told that high school students are doing the fraud leapt returns. up next, the disappearance of two men in florida last seen in the hands of a law enforcement officer, we investigate. hey, i love your cereal there --

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whatever role race may or may not play in the trayvon martin case, recent history in florida and elsewhere give many

a reason to fear police. on hiss blog, the film director tyler perry describes a traffic stop he had in atlanta. and the disappearance of two men in florida whose last encounter was with a sheriff's deputy. mar see ya williams has not seen her son in more than eight years. >> do you have any hope that your son is alive? >> i don't believe that terrance is alive. at this point i have to find out what happened to him. >> what happened to terrance williams is anybody's guess. he was last seen outside this naples, florida cemetery on january 11, 2004, with this man, sheriff's deputy, steve caukins. at one point caukins said he pulled his car over because it was having problems, but when he

called his friend in dispatch, he reported the car had been abandoned. he never let on he had had any contact with the driver, terrance williams. >> i got a homie cadillac on the side of the road here, signal 11, signal 52, nobody around. maybe he's out there in the cemetery. he'll come back and his car will be gone. >> but if the driver was not around, how then was deputy caukins able to run a background check, using terrance's name and birthday. >> last name? >> williams, common spelling. >> birthday? >> 4/15/75. yet four days later, caukins claims to know nothing of the car or the driver. listen to what he says when a sheriff's dispatcher calls him at home. >> do you remember a cadillac, yurm, she said it was near the

cemetery? >> cemetery? >> the people at the cemetery are telling her you put somebody in the back of your vehicle and arrested them and i don't show you arresting anybody. >> i never arrested nobody. >> isn't that amazing, he's a seasoned veteran and he couldn't remember four days later? >> so you don't buy that? >> no, it's not true. it's not true at all. >> eight days after terrance vanished, deputy caukins is instructed to write a report. deputy caukins says he drove the father of four to this circle k store. just months earlier, they had heard the same story from deputy caukins about another missing man. 23-year-old felipe santos disappeared october 24, 2003. after deputy caukins after a

minor accident. >> did deputy caukins tell you where he was taking your brother? >> translator: the officer never told us anything, later we went to the jail and my brother wasn't there. >> when caukins was questioned by santos, an undocumented worker, he said that he dropped santos off at a circle k. >> we have no independent corroboration of anybody tells us that they had williams or santos at a circle kay, that's simply caukins' testimony. >> o'neill says neither of the men were seen on circle k security cameras. and there's more. about a month after steve williams disappeared, steve

caukins gave a statement. he said he called circle k he said he made that call from his work issued cell phone. but when investigators say he pulled his pho records and told him there was no record of call from this circle k to his cell phone, he brushed it off, saying simply, quote, i don't know what to tell you. >> you've been doing this for a long time, you know when something doesn't smell right, do you think deputy caukins has nothing to do with this? >> he's absolutely in the middle of an investigation. >> months after santos and williams went missing, deputy caukins, a 16-year veteran was arrested in connection with the disappearance of santos and william. in the case of terrance williams, investigators say the deputy's car was searched and

described as immaculate. caukins' home was never searched, because according to investigators they didn't have the evidence needed for a search warrant. we wanted to ask steve caukins some questions, but couldn't get past this woman. hi, sorry to bother you, i'm randi kay from cnn. >> get that camera off my property. >> it's not on your property. >> bye. >> is he here? >> bye. >> in 2006, caukins did tell a local paper, he didn't do anything wrong, blaming the coincidences of the missing men on very bad luck. he suggested maybe they ran away. >> if terrance was alive, terrance would have had somebody to contact his mother. i know for sure that's something he would do in