Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong: Inside the Mind of a Female Serial Killer

288 Pages·2017·4.86 MB·English

by  Jerry Clark

Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
Inside the Mind of a Female Serial Killer
Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland
20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
Copyright © 2017 by Rowman & Littlefield All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of
Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-4422-6007-8
(cloth : alk. paper) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
To
D. C. and C. P.
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds
divide.”
—John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
“The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Cycle of Death: Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong’s Pattern of Violence
2 In Rare Company: Female Serial Killers in History
3 Killing Like a Man: Angels of Death, Black Widows, and Damsels of
Doom
4 A Cluttered Mind: Marjorie Diehl’s Hoarding and Other Obsessions
5 Dictionary of Disorder: Defining Mental Illness
6 Death of a Boyfriend: A Fatal Shooting, a Suicide, and a Question of
Stability
7 “A Madman or a Natural Fool”: Determining Mental Competency
8 “Scared to Death”: Marjorie Diehl’s First Homicide Trial
9 Flight of Ideas: The Burdens of Bipolar Disorder
10 “Freezer Queen”: Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong Kills Again
11 The Fractured Intellectuals: The Pizza Bomber Plot Unravels
12 Psyche on Trial: Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong’s Final Verdict
Afterword
Notes
Selected Bibliography
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
T
he travails of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong have become almost legendary in
Erie, Pennsylvania, especially at the two places where she stood trial: the Erie
County Courthouse and the United States District Courthouse in Erie. The
records of those and many other cases that involved Diehl-Armstrong are
voluminous, and we thank all those who helped us obtain and review the files
and documents. They include Susan Parmeter, Debbie Mayo, and Jennifer Dash
at the federal clerk’s office; and Bob Catalde, Ken Gamble, Tito Bongiorno,
Kelly Malone, Karla Jeffery, Aubrea Haynes, and Paula Miller at the Erie
County Courthouse. A special thanks also to Max Peaster, the law librarian at
the Erie County Courthouse; and Bob Sparks, of the Nash Library at Gannon
University in Erie. The Federal Bureau of Investigation provided assistance
tracking down records as well. The views expressed in this book are those of the
authors alone, however, and do not necessarily reflect those of the FBI. We are
grateful for the work of copy editor Gary Hamel and, once again, for the work of
our editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Kathryn Knigge, and for the continued
guidance of our literary agent, John Talbot.
Jerry Clark: While researching this book I had numerous hours of reflection
on my law enforcement career in general and my dealings with Marjorie Diehl-
Armstrong in particular. I was reminded of the dedication and persistence of the
outstanding agents, officers, and attorneys with whom I was privileged to work
throughout my dealings with Diehl-Armstrong and the Pizza Bomber
investigation. I especially want to thank my partner in the case, Jason Wick, now
a retired special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to all those who assisted
in the investigation, including employees with the FBI, Pennsylvania State
Police, Erie Bureau of Police, and the Erie Division of the United States
Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, specifically Assistant
United States Attorney Marshall Piccinini. I particularly want to express my
deepest appreciation to Dawn Parnell and Rebecca Hart from the FBI’s Erie
Resident Agency for their invaluable work on the case and for their enduring
friendship. I am grateful for the insights provided by my good friend the late
Dennis Drotar, PhD, who was a professor in the division of behavioral medicine
and clinical psychology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Lastly, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my wife, Danielle, and
children, Michael and Isabelle, for their unconditional and unwavering love,
support, and patience.
Ed Palattella: The morgue of my employer, the Erie Times-News, was an
invaluable resource in researching this book. I thank the paper’s executive
editor, Doug Oathout, and another top editor, Pat Howard, for their continuing
interest and support. In reading all the past newspaper stories on Marjorie Diehl-
Armstrong, I was reminded again of the great talents of my colleagues and
friends at the Erie Times-News. They include Lisa Thompson, Tim Hahn, and
Kevin Flowers, each of whom wrote about Diehl-Armstrong’s later cases,
including the Pizza Bomber case, with insight and verve. I am also fortunate to
continue to enjoy friendships with now-retired Erie Times-News reporters John
Guerriero and Jim Thompson, who covered Diehl-Armstrong’s first homicide
trial, in 1988, and whose articles proved so helpful for this book. And thanks, as
always, to my wife, Chris, and our children, Henry and Nina, for still listening,
with patience and good humor, to all my stories.