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CNN LIVE SATURDAY
FBI Continues to Investigate Mystery in Erie, Pennsylvania
Aired September 6, 2003 - 18:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI is still working to solve the mystery surrounding a bank robbing pizza delivery man who was killed by a bomb attached to his neck. Yesterday, agents searched the apartment of an Erie, Pennsylvania man seizing his tools and a laptop computer. Now, what connection does he have to the case?
CNN's Mike Brooks asked him directly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For four and a half hours, the FBI searched the upstairs apartment of unemployed former machinist Jimmy Johnson.
JIMMY JOHNSON, INTERVIEWED BY FBI: They were searching for things such as explosives, gun parts, firearms. They went through my toolbox. They seized pliers, screwdrivers. The took our laptop out of the house, which they're not going to find anything.
BROOKS: Johnson said his live-in girlfriend does know Brian Wells, the pizza delivery man who said someone put a bomb around his neck and forced him to rob a bank last week but Johnson says he never met him.
JOHNSON: I don't know nothing. I've never talked to this person. I've never spoken to these people. It's been an ongoing thing. I mean it seems like they're grasping at straws.
BROOKS: Before going to Johnson's apartment, the FBI team searched a garage in another residential neighborhood about a mile away. They were seen carrying away white boxes of evidence.
(on camera): You've never done any work in that garage?
JOHNSON: Never.
BROOKS: OK.
JOHNSON: Never, never stepped foot in it, never, and there's nothing they can see to say that I have. There's nothing. I don't even know those people.
BROOKS: Johnson says he was home washing his car when Wells died in the bomb blast. Johnson said he does have a past criminal record for promoting prostitution. This is the second time he has been questioned by the FBI. JOHNSON: Why would you come into an innocent person's, I mean a totally innocent person's life and turn it upside down like that? You know, I've done nothing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKS: Johnson says the FBI has told him that he is "a person of interest." That means they don't have enough evidence to consider him a suspect. Authorities still don't know who made the collar and locking device that held the pipe bomb around Brian Wells' neck. It's been nine days since Wells died and one source tells us they still don't have much to go on -- Kelli.
ARENA: Mike, this is a very bizarre story. Where does the investigation go from here? I mean is there anyone else that agents tell you they're looking at or interested in?
BROOKS: Right now they said they're still not ruling out any possibilities at all. They're not saying if there's anyone else that they're looking at right now. This person of interest, who they served a search warrant on yesterday, it was the second time that they'd interviewed him.
His girlfriend, his live-in girlfriend, is a supposed cousin of Brian Wells. What connection, if any, he has to the case we still don't know and the FBI is not saying -- Kelli.
ARENA: And we love that term, person of interest, don't we Mike?
BROOKS: Yes, call it suspect light if you will. They still don't have enough to say that he is a suspect but apparently they are looking at him for whatever reason.
ARENA: All right, Mike Brooks on the scene thanks very much.
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