Evil Genius: The true story of America’s most diabolical bank heist is a new 4 part documentary series on Netflix. It follows the story of a high profile murder case back in 2003 in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Brian Wells was a Pizza delivery man who calmly walked into a bank with a cane gun and a collar bomb strapped around his neck. After being handcuffed by Police, the bomb around his neck explodes, killing him.
Another Pizza delivery man dies a few days later, while the police find a body in a freezer in a house close to the place where Brian Wells was last seen before he robbed the bank. These 3 deaths are somehow connected and the police begin to connect the dots.
This documentary is excellent. It has you hooked from the beginning, with the first episode grabbing your attention by focusing on the day of Brian Wells murder. The next episodes bring in new characters as the case begins to come together.
The story of this case is extremely hard to believe. It sounds more like a movie storyline than an actual event that happened. It is a crazy story which is just made even more mental when it introduces the main suspect in this story, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.
The story is based on this woman, and the title of the show is very fitting when describing her. As the show begins to delve into her past and the other legal troubles she has found herself in over the years, it is obvious this woman is unhinged. The show does a good job of highlighting why she has committed past crimes, and her connection to the Brian Wells case.
The series is definitely worth a watch. If you have time over the long weekend to watch it then I would definitely recommend you do. It is an engaging watch with some twists and turns throughout.
For better or worse, the ending is quite clear. There isn’t really an ambiguous ending like you would see in other documentaries that would spark debate for months after the show. It is quite definitive in what happened to Brian Wells and who the culprits are.
Some people like ambiguous ending to shows and some don’t. I for one like the fact that you basically know what happened and who exactly committed the heinous crime. There are some parts to this case that don’t get answered at all, which is slightly annoying but doesn’t tarnish the show too much. Why bring a certain aspect up and bring it along to the end until ultimately there is no answer to it?
Other than that however, I would definitely recommend watching this documentary. It is gripping, exciting and has you on the edge of their seat the whole time.
8/10
John McAuliffe