INFAMOUS: Prom Night Murders

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:31] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And do I have a doozy of a case for you today. And here's the thing. This is a well-known case. Like, there's been a 48 hours, books, the whole nine. And if you're from Indiana, like Britt and I, this case defined the small town of Lakeville for years because it seemed like such a senseless crime. There was a pastor, [01:01] were brutally murdered inside their own home for seemingly $1,000. [01:06] No reason, or at least a senseless reason. It took over a decade for an arrest to finally be made, and then another four years before somebody actually went to prison for the crime. But at least it was solved. [01:19] Or at least that's what you've probably heard if you've been around Indiana long enough. And it might be true. [01:26] But if you're a crime junkie, you know there are two sides to every story. And one side of this story has never been told. So take my advice. Stick around to the very last second of this episode. Because AudioChuck's about to tell a whole story.

[01:46] New story. And it's a story no one's ever heard before. [01:51] This is the Prom Night Murders of the Pelly family. [01:56] Thank you. [02:27] Britt, I know you know this, but Lakeville, Indiana is a speck of a thing, like a blink and you'll miss it kind of town just south of where you are right now in South Bend. Yeah, I mean, I pass it, like pass it, not even go through it when I go down to the offices in Indy. It's maybe 10 minutes away from where my husband grew up. It's blink and you miss it. That's the only way to describe it. [02:56] thing holds a tight-knit community together like church. Now, we went to a megachurch back home, but between the megachurches are always tiny little steeples that you can find off long country roads, usually bordered by cornfields on more than one side. And that is exactly the kind of church at the center of our story. A little white chapel with more pews than people, Olive Branch Church on Osborne Road.

[03:25] It was 32 years ago this very week that the community gathered for their normal Sunday service. It was April 30th, 1989. Normally, Bob Pelley, the church's pastor, was there to greet everyone. I mean, he's first one in, last one out to leave. It's like part of the gig. I mean, my dad was an associate pastor for most of my life, and it meant that we basically lived at the church. And in fact, we kind of did. [03:55] a property called Parsonage's. And that's exactly the setup Bob and his family had. So just steps away from this little white chapel was an even smaller little white home. [04:06] But on this morning... [04:07] Bob wasn't there to greet his congregation. In fact, none of the Pellys were. Not Bob, not his wife Dawn, none of Dawn's three daughters, and Bob's two kids weren't accounted for either. [04:21] So the way you said that was a little bit confusing. Can you kind of explain like the family dynamic to me? Yeah. So they're actually a blended family. Okay. According to an Indianapolis News article, both Bob and Dawn had actually lost their previous spouses. So when they remarried, they had kind of like a Brady Bunch situation going on. So they didn't have any children together, but they both came to the marriage with children. Okay. So just refresh my memory. How many kids were there in total? So Bob has two. [04:51] Jackie, who was 14 at the time of our story. And Dawn's daughters were Jessica, Janelle, and Jolene, who, according to the Indianapolis Star, were 10, 8, and 6, respectively. So like five kids total? Yes. Okay.

[05:04] So for a small church to have like seven people MIA, you get why it sticks out. Well, and one of those people is the person who is supposed to lead the service. Like that's a huge gap. Right. So they wait. Right. [05:18] And they wait until the point where Bob isn't just not early. He's straight up late, which doesn't sit right with anyone. [05:26] So according to CBS's 48 Hours, some people from the church decide to walk the few feet over to the parsonage home and see if maybe the family just slept in or something's going on. But on this morning, unlike any other morning before, they were unable to get into the house. Every curtain was drawn. [05:46] Every door was locked, which might not raise alarm bells for some people, but this was so out of the norm for Bob and his family on a Sunday morning. And I don't want to keep coming back to my own experience, so I swear this will be the last time. But there's kind of like this open door policy, almost like in parsonages, or at least where I grew up at the church that I was at. Like, it's not like people can just like come barging in. I mean, but if my mom was at choir practice and I was bored, I would just walk over to your house and let myself in. [06:16] One thousand percent. And the idea kind of was like the church owns the house. So really, you kind of have to always be available to the people who go to the church or whatever. And people would come and go all the time. [06:27] So when they can't get in and all of the call outs and knocks go unanswered, someone from the church goes digging for a spare key to get into the place.

[06:36] When they opened the front door, what they found in that house would change so many lives forever. [06:43] Just a few feet to the left of the front door, Bob Pelley was lying on his back in the hallway with blood spattering the walls. I've actually stood in the very hallway where Bob laid, and his body would have taken up almost the whole thing. In the basement of the house were Dawn, Janelle, and Jolene. And that scene was graphic. [07:13] weapon killed them, but it wouldn't have been hard to guess that each of them were shot in the head. But notably absent from the scene were three of the Pellikits, Jeff, Jackie, and Jessica. [07:24] Now, this is a really small house, so it's unlikely that the churchgoers would have missed them if they were there. But I have to imagine that they hustled out of the basement as quickly as possible to call police. And in no time at all, the house was swarming with cops. Nothing the police were looking at made any sense. But there were a few things the well-trained eye of a detective could spot right off the bat. [07:50] First, it was clear the family had all been murdered. Initially, some officers at the scene speculated that it potentially could be a murder-suicide, but when they didn't find an actual murder weapon near any of the victims, they knew that that was impossible. [08:06] Second, they had all been murdered with a shotgun of some kind. Bob on his own upstairs and Dawn and the girls in the basement all huddled together. Oh, my God.

[08:18] Lastly, according to Indianapolis News, there was no forced entry and nothing of value seemed to be missing from the home. So this right away led police to their third assumption. It seemed like whoever killed the family was. [08:33] had known the family. [08:35] Now, this is based on the position of Bob's body and the fact that a six and eight year old had died in this house. So to police, that meant that those girls would have had to recognize their killer. Otherwise, there's no need to kill like two little girls. But who could that be? [08:52] Before they could even think about answering that question, they first had a bigger question to answer. [08:58] Where were the other three kids? [09:00] Right around this time, Jessica was just arriving home from a sleepover. She recalls to 48 hours pulling up to the house in her friend's mom's car and the home she knew was roped off in police tape. Police were going in and out of the home and her new reality slowly sank in as police told her friend's mother about what happened inside. Her mother, her sisters, her stepfather just gone in the blink of an eye. [09:30] At some point, Jessica is able to tell police where they can find Jackie and Jeff. Jackie was at a church camp thing over at Huntington College, and Jeff could be found at Six Flags Great America with all of his friends. Because you see, the night before was prom for the local high school. And even though Jeff had already graduated, he was going with his girlfriend Darla, and this was their big after-prom planned trip.

[09:56] The police started working quickly to locate Jeff and Jackie and bring them home to break the news. But little did they know, one of the kids might have already had a sixth sense about what happened. [10:11] Thank you. [10:12] Summer breaks should be fun, but it is also important to keep young minds active. Even though my daughter's out of preschool, we are helping her all summer continue to learn and study and just not give up building that muscle. And IXL is a great way to help kids stay engaged and avoid losing progress between school years. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. And as an award-winning online learning platform, IXL helps kids truly understand what they're learning. [10:42] confidence, or strengthening writing skills. Studies show kids who use IXL score higher on tests. Proven in all 50 states, from pre-K through 12th grade, IXL offers personalized, interactive content for each child's level and pace. It is an easy way to support learning now through the summer and into the next school year. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And Crime Junkie listeners, you can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you [11:12] ixl.com slash crimejunkie. Visit ixl.com slash crimejunkie to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. [11:22] Shortly before a police showed up in Illinois to retrieve Jeff and tell him his father had been murdered, something strange happened at Six Flags. Out of nowhere, Jeff, who up until this point had been a totally happy-go-lucky post-prom attendee, all of a sudden started acting off. And when his girlfriend Darla asked him what was up, he would just say like...

[11:45] I don't know. I just have this feeling that something is wrong. Like, [11:50] Something bad happened. [11:52] He couldn't put words to his feelings any better than that, so they just moved on. But that feeling had to have come roaring back hours later when police finally tracked him down and changed his life forever, because something was very wrong. According to reporting by Patrick M. O'Connell in the South Bend Tribune, police wasted no time talking to Jeff. [12:15] By the early morning hours, they had transported him back to Indiana and they had all four went sleep in order to talk to Jeff to see what he could tell them about the day before anything that might lead them to the family's killer. [12:28] And I don't know what the police hoped for, but I don't think they got it from Jeff. Jeff's questioning, which I've actually seen in its entirety for myself, is largely unhelpful. [12:41] Jeff says he has no idea who would want to do this to his family. And he recounts for police his last day at home on the 29th, just how normal it was. I mean, he worked at McDonald's. His dad picked him up because he was grounded, not allowed to drive his car. They came home. They ate lunch. Jeff washed his car. Then some friends came over to take pictures at the house and then he left to go meet up with his date. [13:03] Now, on the way, he says that his car started acting up, so he had to pull over at a gas station to fix it. Now, he called his girlfriend, Darla, from the gas station to tell her that he was running late. But not long after, he meets up with her and his friends, and he'd been with them until police tracked him down. So what Jeff was telling police wasn't extremely helpful. But they weren't so much wrapped up in, like, the words he was saying, but rather how he was acting.

[13:33] Only hours after finding out his only surviving parent, his stepmother and his two stepsisters were brutally murdered, he was killed. [13:43] There was not a tear shed, [13:45] Not many questions asked, even a weird giggle here and there as he recalls dumb stuff he did as a teenager that pissed his dad off. [13:54] But he insisted the whole time that at the end of the day, he and his dad loved each other. But the lead detective was sure that [14:03] Something was still wrong here. Okay, so wait, you said something I want to kind of clarify, at least from my own knowledge. You said his dad picked him up from work because he was grounded. So I assume that meant that he was grounded from using his car, but he was allowed to drive to prom? And that, my dear, that is at the heart of this case. Because ask anyone who was close to the Pellys in the days leading up to the murders, and they'll tell you the same thing. [14:33] from using his car. His dad had literally taken a part out of it so it wouldn't run. Oh, wow. And he was grounded from going to dinner before the prom and all of the activities after prom. So basically, his dad, Bob, was telling everyone who would listen that the only way Jeff was going to prom was if Bob drove him, like literally dropped him off at the dance and picked him up afterwards. But Jeff now is telling police in this interview that his dad just changed his mind. He

[15:03] of heart, they came to an agreement, and he decided to let him go. [15:07] Okay. And that's kind of everyone's thought exactly. It was just too convenient, especially when you combine it with what they learned from the crime scene. [15:18] Like I said, everything about this scene told police that the killer knew the family intimately and they were comfortable in the home. [15:27] The way Bob Pelley's body was positioned is critical to understanding this. So, like I said, Bob was found lying in a small hallway just to the left of the front door of the house. And this hallway, it leads from kind of the living room area to the back bedrooms and bathrooms. So, Bob. [15:46] Again, small house, even smaller hallway. I've stood there myself. So his body takes up almost the entire thing. I mean, hold up. You've stood there. I know you said that earlier. But since when do you visit crime scenes? Girl, I told you this case is different. You'll see. Keep listening. But here is what's key. [16:06] Bob's legs were pointed towards the back two bedrooms and the wall at the end of the hallway. So that means he was standing at the end of the hallway facing someone who had to have either come out of Bob and Dawn's room, which is at the end. [16:22] Or Jeff's room, which is at the end. And then he was shot with the rifle or the shotgun. [16:30] First, he was shot in the chest, that's what knocked him back, and then he was shot under the chin.

[16:36] So when you think about it, whoever shot him wasn't some home invader who caught him off guard by coming in the front door or the back door through the garage. No, whoever shot him came from either his bedroom or his son's bedroom from, like, within the home. Right. [16:53] After shooting Bob, the killer would have had to have stepped over his body and make their way down to the basement. And I mean, you think about this, like surely Dawn and the girls were. [17:06] had to have already heard the first two blasts from upstairs. Right, it's a small house. They had to have been terrified as someone came down the steep carpeted steps one day. [17:19] by one. Cold and calculated, the killer fired three shots from close range into each one of their skulls. [17:27] Investigators on the scene that day said that the sight that they saw from that basement [17:34] was one that no one should have to see. There was blood and brain matter scattered on the floors. Oh, my God. On the walls. Britt, it was even hanging from the ceiling. And I say that not to try and shock you, but for you to understand this next part. In 1989, police were sure that whoever had killed the family would have been covered in their blood. [18:04] It would have been in their hair. There's no way a killer could have walked out of the house without anything on them. Unless...

[18:10] they clean themselves. And police believe that's exactly what happened based on some clothes that they say they found in the washing machine in the basement and some damp washcloths in the shower upstairs. [18:23] So again, all of this combined is telling investigators that the killer was comfortable in the home. [18:29] But there was one more thing that made them even more sure the killer was someone who knew the family intimately. Police had heard that Bob Pelley kept a shotgun in a rack on the wall in his bedroom. [18:43] But when they processed the scene, [18:46] There was no shotgun. [18:48] anywhere. [18:49] So the killer didn't bring a weapon with him? Right. Police believe that the very gun that used to hang on the wall was the murder weapon. So in their minds, the killer was someone who lived in the home. So did the type of gun they have match the shell casings? Because, I mean, there's more than one kind of shotgun. Well, that's the problem. The killer not only took the gun, they picked up everything. [19:14] Every single shell casing as well. Six in total. So they don't know for sure that it's Bob's gun, but like Occam's razor here, it's missing right after the family is murdered. So... That depends on who you ask, though. According to reporting in the South Bend Tribune, Jeff and Jackie say that their dad got rid of all of the guns in the house before the murder. Apparently after a time when Jeff had threatened to take his own life.

[19:44] The flip side, Jessica says that she saw the gun in her mom and Bob's room before she went away that very weekend that the family was murdered. So you have someone coming out of Jeff or Bob's room to shoot Bob with potentially the gun from Bob's room. [20:01] So as reported by Marty Goodlett-Hellene and Patrick M. O'Connell, [20:06] Police believe that their prime suspect was Jeff within hours. I mean, even before they picked him up at Great America. Oh, wow. And so that's part of the reason that they didn't collect any prints at the scene. I'm sorry. [20:20] Record scratch. What? No. None? No. You see, they expected Jeff's prints to be there, and they expected Jeff to be their guy. So in their minds, it wouldn't prove much if they found prints. Okay, but what if you found prints? [20:38] I don't know, someone else's prints. But they weren't looking for someone else's prints. I mean, that seems really narrowly focused. Well, the case was. But part of the reason it was so narrowly focused is because police thought that their window of time was also super narrow and it could only be one person. Let me walk you through the timeline that they started piecing together after talking with people who saw the Pellys that day. [21:06] Now, this all comes directly from a 2006 article in the South Bend Tribune that was put together by Marty and Patrick, who I just mentioned earlier. [21:14] At about 4:30 p.m., this group of kids stops by the Pelly house before prom to take pictures. Jeff is there, but not in his tux yet.

[21:23] 10 to 15 minutes later, this kid named Matt comes by. But then he realizes that he left his dates corsage at home and he leaves to go get it. By 4.50, the group of kids that's at the Pellies house leaves. But Jeff remains behind at the house. So why isn't he taking pictures or going with them or anything? So what I can piece together, it doesn't seem like this is his group of friends. Like they're all from the church. They were coming by so Bob could take pictures of them. [21:53] group from what I gather. So maybe these kids are like youth group kids or something like that, that Jeff maybe just wasn't close to. Sure. And it's a small town, right? Like they go to the same school, but it's not like they're, you know, you have your prom group and they like weren't in the same prom group. Yeah. [22:06] Now, around 515-ish or so, Matt says that he drives by the Pelly's house again. He's got his corsage. He's going to meet everyone where they're going. And he says that he sees Jeff's car there at the Pelly house, 515-ish. But by 515 to 520-ish, Jeff is down the road at a gas station with his car. This is what he was telling police, remember, that he was having car troubles. He pulls into the gas station to fix it. [22:36] He tells her that he's running late. Now, this is not disputed. Like even police say, you know, around 517, I mean, I think it's that specific. They had the phone records around this time. He's at the gas station. He's 100 percent there. No one's arguing that. [22:50] Maybe Matt saw his car a little sooner or, [22:52] I try not to get too hung up on that, but it's a fact that authorities get real hung up on because Jeff told police that he left the house around 455. So they take this as him lying, him trying to distance himself from the crime scene.

[23:09] Now, someone else comes by the house closer to six, like another prom goer who's going to get pictures or whatever. And they find the house locked up, like curtains drawn, no Peli family in sight. And that's because the police believe that by this time, the family was already dead. [23:27] Everyone puts Jeff's car there at, say, let's meet in the middle, 510. Okay. The group left the house at 450-ish. That's 20 minutes left. [23:38] tops. Yeah. [23:40] But... [23:41] Police think it's doable. [23:42] And here's how they think he did it. [23:48] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [24:07] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. [24:17] In a span of 20 minutes, they think Jeff killed his dad by firing one, then two shots upstairs. [24:27] Then he goes downstairs and fires three more, killing Dawn, Jolene, and Janelle. [24:34] He removes his clothes, throws them in the laundry, collects all of the bullet casings, goes upstairs, locks all of the doors and the windows, takes a shower, changes into new clothes, but still not his white tux, grabs his tux, though, along with those casings and the gun that he picked up, and goes to his car and leaves for prom as if nothing happened. And everyone who was with him that night says he was, you know, acting totally normal?

[25:04] idea. I mean, there's even this picture that has become synonymous with this case of Jeff in his white tux laying across the forearms of his friends as they like hold him up and pose. Oh, I can totally imagine this picture. Yeah. I mean, he was just a teenage kid having fun at prom. No one suspected a thing. The only strange behavior that he exhibited in the entire, what, 20 some hours that they were all together was that one moment at Six Flags when [25:34] Did the police search Jeff's car when they went and picked him up from Six Flags? Like, if he took the gun and the casings, I'm assuming, you know, the police would have them in evidence. They don't have them in evidence because they weren't in Jeff's car. [25:48] Oh. Police theorized that he dumped the gun somewhere after he left the house, but before he met up with Darla. Which, again, blink and you miss a town, that's a tiny space. It seems searchable. Yeah. So they searched. The Times in Munster reported that, quote, [26:08] Police divers Tuesday searched a pond across the road from the parsonage looking for the weapon or any other evidence, end quote. But another report that same day from the Herald said that the water was so murky, they had to actually like feel around with their hands and they never found anything. [26:25] Okay, but what about the clothes in the house, or even the shoes he was wearing? [26:30] I mean, if he says he left the house before they died and any of those items have blood on them, I mean, it's a done deal. Well, right after the murders in 89, police sent a number of things off to the FBI. The Muncie Evening Press that reported this didn't say what items exactly, but just said that they were waiting for results to come back. And they keep waiting.

[26:53] Because without something concrete, the prosecutor wouldn't approve Jeff's arrest. Okay, but I have another question. What about time of death? Like, we have this 20-minute window where Jeff had to have killed them, right? Wouldn't we know that for sure from their autopsies? So here's the thing. Same way with not collecting prints. No one ever took, like, body temperatures. [27:23] rigor mortis, liver mortis. There was no like assessment of the bodies to determine that. At any point. That's what you're telling me. Not at the scene, not when they were taken away. No one thought to even think about taking time of death, which again, when you're talking about a 20 minute window, seems so critical because if they're murdered at midnight or even say like early hours Sunday morning, it changes everything. Jeff couldn't have done it. Right. So you can kind [27:53] wouldn't approve an arrest. So the investigators are just left to watch Jeff. They watch him as they let him back into the home to collect some of his things. They watch him at the funeral as he looked stoic, not shedding a tear. And they watched him as he went to live with his maternal grandparents. And. [28:12] Weeks ticked by and every search for the murder weapon turned up empty. [28:17] Without their smoking gun, all they could hope for was that something would come back from the FBI testing that would prove they had their man or person.

[28:24] their kid. [28:26] But later that summer, they did get those results in. [28:29] What they said? [28:31] No one knew for sure at the time because all police would say was that they were inconclusive. What? And that was it. For many more years, nothing happened. Jeff, Jackie and Jessica all went separate ways, living with different family members. Jeff tried college for a time before moving back to rural Indiana and then eventually returning to Fort Myers, Florida, where he and his family had actually lived before they moved to Lakeville. [28:59] He worked for some family friends who had known his dad there, and in 93, he even got married to that very family friend's niece. [29:06] Things were just quiet. The people in Lakeville moved on. A new pastor came. They cleaned out the house, even did an open house to show the congregation it wasn't this bloody crime scene anymore. And this might [29:19] honestly have all gone away. Just another unsolved crime in Indiana's history. [29:25] But... [29:26] A couple of things happened that put Jeff Pelley square back in police's sights. [29:33] First, Jeff reached out to Jessica at some point and asked her if she wanted to come visit him in Florida. [29:40] Now, since the murders, they hadn't had much, if any, contact. And at first, she was kind of happy to reconnect with someone else who went through the same thing that she did. [29:50] But what's interesting is Jessica, who now goes by Jesse, told 48 Hours that after the murder, she never really learned what happened. She was really young. Her family didn't talk about it with her or even in front of her. So she was kind of left to like piece together and fill in the blanks for herself. So for all of these years after she lost her family, she had been believing that it was a murder-suicide. Oh, yeah.

[30:17] Yeah. So, I mean, I have a million questions, but my first one is, I guess, how did she land there as like that's what happened? You know, I don't know exactly. What I do know is that, remember, even the police in those first minutes after arriving to the crime scene thought that this could be a murder-suicide. [30:47] anywhere near the scene. So that's when police started looking squarely at Jeff. So, [30:51] I don't know if her... [30:53] Remember, she's like dropped off by her friend's mom. I don't know if her friend's mom that brought her back, like maybe overheard something or whispers somehow like that gets lodged in or like Jessica overhears something. And like this is what's stuck in her mind. I don't know if there were other feelings that she had about her stepdad that like played into that. I have no idea. Yeah, I guess that was kind of my first thought. Yeah. [31:14] What about your stepdad makes you think... [31:17] that he could even be capable of that. I don't know. But I mean, that's what she had believed for many years. And so fast forward to when Jeff invites her down to Florida. And Jesse says that one of the first things he asks her, like she's like getting into the house and settling in, is he says, who do you think... [31:35] killed them. And she's kind of caught off guard and she's like, "Yeah, well, your dad." [31:40] and [31:41] Jeff just kind of says, oh, [31:43] and walks away. I mean, but surely Jeff knew enough about the case. Like, he didn't think

[31:49] his dad actually did it. I mean, [31:51] I'm sure he didn't. [31:53] But I think you can play both sides of this interaction, right? Like, if you come at this and Jeff is guilty, he wanted to know what she knew, like what she suspected. And all that he cared about was that she didn't suspect him and he moved on. If you want to look at it and say he's innocent, maybe he realized how naive she was. Maybe he didn't see the point in rehashing something so awful. You know, like kind of let her believe what she wants to believe kind of thing. Right. [32:23] And she believes Jeff wasn't trying to protect her by not telling her. She firmly is in the camp that he was a guilty man digging to see what she knew. And anyone who might have thought Jeff was an innocent man had to question themselves when in 1994, Jeff was finally arrested. [32:44] But... [32:45] not for murder, for a completely different crime. In 1994, the South Bend Tribune picked up a story out of Fort Myers, Florida, where Jeff was living. He was arrested, charged, and eventually convicted of wire fraud. Wait, wire fraud? Yeah, he had this whole scheme worked up because his grandpa was in charge of the trust, where his inheritance went after his dad and stepmom died. [33:15] some money and they all had to jump through some hoops to get the money. And same for Jeff. So when he needed it, he had to like go through his grandpa. It was like a whole thing. And like the big chunk of the money wouldn't be released to him until he was much older. So instead of waiting, instead of following the rules, Jeff makes his own rules. He lies to his grandpa. He tells him that he had to undergo an operation that put him in like a bunch of debt and he needs something like $20,000 to

[33:45] this like voided check. He even has a number for his grandpa to call the hospital, which he does. And like he has this whole operation set up, but it all felt sus. Like grandpa knew. And sure enough, when he does some digging, it was it was all bogus. And Jeff was busted. [34:03] Now, did this make Jeff any more guilty for his family's murder? No. I mean, but it's still not a great look. Right. It fit right into the narrative that the Indiana authorities had all along. Jeff Pelley would do anything to get what he wanted. Right. [34:19] By 94, when this all went down, the lead investigator on the Pelley case, this guy named John Bowditch, was super frank with anyone who would listen and quote him. There was no pussyfooting around it. Jeff was his guy. He even told reporter Kevin Bogle for the South Bend Tribune, quote, [34:37] He is my suspect. Everybody knows that. End quote. [34:42] But despite all the commotion, it would be six more years before the public heard Jeff's name again. But in 2000, a series of events get set in motion that would forever change this case. [34:59] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases, and in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[35:18] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. [35:29] The Daily Journal reported on May 2nd, 2000, that the county prosecutor was reopening the Pelley-Poll case, confident that now it could be solved. That's a big statement about such an infamous local case. So everyone kind of held their breath. Yeah. But... [35:49] Six months went by. [35:50] and then a year. [35:52] People had let themselves breathe by the time 2002 rolled around. But that's when an announcement came that sent shockwaves through Indiana. Jeff Pelley said, [36:03] had been arrested in Los Angeles for the murder of his family. You see, in the years since Jeff's fraud conviction, he'd really made something of himself. He got a swanky computer job for IBM. He made good money, got to travel the world. And he was on his way back from Australia when authorities stopped him in LAX and arrested him for the murder of his family back in 89. So when they arrested him, had they found new evidence when they reopened the case? That's the thing. [36:33] No new physical evidence, no new testimony, no new witnesses. The prosecutor's office had changed hands a couple of times between 89 and 2002. And from the outside, it just looks like they finally had someone who was willing to take what they had all along all the way to trial.

[36:54] But… [36:55] Not for years. What do you mean? I mean, he was arrested in 2002, but he didn't actually stand trial until something like 2006. [37:05] I'm sorry... [37:06] Whatever happened to the right to a speedy trial? That's a great question and one of the many messy points in this case. But ultimately, it does go to trial in 2006 with the same cast of characters. Witnesses who said that Jeff didn't like his stepmother. Witnesses that said Bob was adamant about Jeff not driving his car or going to prom activities. But yes. [37:29] Again, we know he did drive his car and he did go to all of the activities. And more information came out to the public, though it had been known to police all along. Like statements Jeff supposedly made to people at a party after the murder where he said things like, I'll kill you just like I did them. [37:48] Or I'll blow your eyes out just like I did hers. Oh my god. [37:53] The same tight timeline gets rehashed over and over, and experts argue over whether the damp washcloths found in the family's bathroom proved that he showered there to clean up from the murder. Same thing with the jeans that police said they found in the washer. [38:10] Despite links the prosecution was trying to draw, Patrick M. O'Connell reported during the second week of trial for the South Bend Tribune, quote, forensic evidence from the gruesome crime scene has done nothing to tie Pelley to the murders.

[38:25] End quote. [38:27] But it must not have been enough reasonable doubt, because ultimately, after 40 witnesses, 100 exhibits, the jury found Jeff Pelley guilty of murdering his family all those years ago. Because he was under 18 at the time of the crimes, he wasn't eligible for the death penalty, but he would be spending the rest of his natural life behind bars. And that was it for years. No one uttered the Pelley name. [38:57] but there was justice. [38:59] But... [38:59] was there. [39:00] Because Jeff, he still swears he's innocent. And his sister Jackie believes him. Together, they've been fighting with Jeff's wrongful conviction attorney for Jeff to get a new trial. And crime junkies, if I have learned one thing by doing this show, by telling you everything the media has reported on a case, [39:23] It's that there is always... [39:25] more. [39:27] And in the case of Jeff Pelley, it's not just a couple of things. Not something I could cover in just a part two of this case. [39:35] And it's not even something that I have the skill set to cover because the truth, the real honest to God truth about these murders isn't in the newspapers or an episode of a TV show. The only side of this story that's ever really been told is the one I just told you. And even this side doesn't even break it down well.

[40:05] might prove they weren't washed. [40:07] But I know, you don't know about all of the evidence at the scene that wasn't collected or ignored. But, [40:14] But I know. And you don't hear about the guy Bob gave all his guns to before the murders or the fact that on the day of the murders, Bob was shopping for a gun himself. [40:44] and family man that he showed everyone in Lakeville. [40:48] Amen. [40:49] but I know his past. [40:51] That's because nine months ago, Delia D'Ambra picked up the Pelley case file. [40:57] She's gone through the interrogation tapes, the crime scene videos. We've visited the crime scene, trial transcripts. She's tracked down people that Indiana authorities never even spoke to. And what she has found is going to blow up. [41:14] your mind. Some of it makes Jeff look guilty. [41:19] Some of it makes him look innocent. All of it will make you think twice about this case. And it is so unbelievable, so unbelievable. [41:28] twisted that you have to hear this story all at once. So for the first time ever, we are releasing all 20 episodes of the new season of CounterClock. CounterClock season three is coming out as a binge. All 20 episodes are dropping this Thursday, April 29th on the 32nd anniversary of the murders.

[41:58] listen because [41:59] everyone is going to be talking about this season. I'm not kidding. We've got TV commercials. We've got billboards. Big stuff is going to be happening and you don't want to be behind. So here, take a listen to what's coming later this week. [42:25] Well, it was 30 years ago this week at a church parsonage in Lakeville that a minister was murdered along with his wife and two children under the age of 10. [42:36] Five shotgun blasts killed four members of the Pelley family. [42:42] I saw something that day that nobody should ever have to see. [42:47] his wife Dawn, her two daughters, 8-year-old Janelle and 6-year-old Jolene. She came, opened the door, put me in the front seat, and your whole family's gone. [43:00] On April 29, 1989, someone murdered the Pelley family in rural Lakeville, Indiana, then cleaned up the evidence and disappeared. Where's the gun? Where's that gun? So if you find that gun, you're probably going to find the murder weapon. [43:17] art, all fingers pointed to one person. Robert Jeff Crittone. Jeff was a suspect from the beginning. His motive, he was 17 at the time, he was grounded, and he wanted to attend prom. In his mind, he never would get caught. The question in everyone's mind, could a teenage boy, a pastor's son, really be behind such a heinous crime? Had to be a sick person to do something like that. The answer left many close to this case divided.

[43:47] I never asked Jeff if he did it because I had no reason to believe that he did it. Do you think that Jeff is a sociopath? Yes, I do. He terrorized me. For people in the Midwest, the mystery ended with a conviction more than a decade after the crime. Jeff Belli continues to serve a 160-year sentence for his crimes. [44:09] This season on CounterClock, I'm investigating if the whole story has really been told. [44:17] is that the secrets in one house divided are only part of the picture. He had a life before the ministry. He wasn't a minister. He had a previous life. He didn't say who, but people were looking for him. And if they found him, they would kill him, his wife, his children, and a cat and a dog. They would wipe them out. [44:41] Do you think that he was scared? Yes, I know he was. [44:47] Is there another family who knows the real truth? They were an old Florida cracker, good old boy family, more or less. They weren't afraid of us. They weren't afraid of anything we could do. Has the truth I'm after been buried for more than three decades? He just had any knowledge of the murder. He claimed that it was likely a mob hit. If a normal person would look at the series of events, they'd say, it makes sense that they would cover up a murder. [45:17] the body count in a story that's led me from Indiana to Florida grows. He had a beautiful family. He had no reason to leave. He had no reason to live.

[45:30] And everything I thought I knew about the 1989 Pelley family murders comes into question. The case was unsolved for more than a decade before Jeff Pelley was arrested and convicted of the murders of his family. But the case isn't over. [45:47] McKinney Wrongful Conviction Clinic has taken the case, and they're promising new evidence that would argue for Jeff Pelley's innocence. None of it is true. It's all machinations, and it's so hard to believe. I'm carrying something so large, and I know that there's a kid that probably didn't kill his parents. This April, join me, Delia D'Ambra, [46:17] history, many are convinced, is far from solved. I think it's human nature that we like the spectacular, the mysterious, that there's more to it. I'm convinced more to it is. I just had a feeling inside that something wasn't right and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Something was wrong inside. I just had this feeling that something was wrong. [46:47] CounterClock returns on April 29th, the 32-year anniversary of the Pelley family murders. AudioChuck will be releasing the series a little differently this season and dropping all of the episodes at once so you can binge. Be sure to follow CounterClock on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[47:17] Don't forget to follow CounterClock wherever you're listening to this right now so you can binge all 20 episodes this Thursday, April 29th. I'm going to be talking about it nonstop on our social Crime Junkie podcast and CounterClock podcast. So if you don't want spoilers, binge it along with me. [47:39] you can find all of the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com and like ashley said be sure to follow us on instagram at crimejunkie podcast we'll be back next week with a brand new episode but you can stick around for puppet of the month [48:31] So [48:33] you [48:34] you [48:35] you [48:35] *music* [48:39] Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So? [48:43] What do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

[48:53] Okay, Ashley, do you want to know something that I love almost more than just propets in general? What? A working propet. Like, the support propets, the therapy propets, the guide propets, the search propets. Maybe it's the best thing. Like, if a propet gets a vest, I'm totally in. Well, and it's also like, once you tell me I can't pet them, I want to pet them more. Right? I am just obsessed. [49:18] who was a hardworking puppet that our listener Meredith submitted. And Meredith also warned me that... [49:26] This is an 11 out of 10 for sad on her scale. So if you're driving, pull over. If you're doing your makeup, don't do your eye makeup yet, at least. You might be late for work. I'm not sure yet. I'm just letting you guys know right off the top. Brace yourselves. Let's do it. So Meredith met Kara when she was at work. Meredith is actually a public defender. [49:47] And Kara... [49:48] was a bomb detection prophet working in the courthouse [49:52] in Meredith's district. And right away, Meredith noticed that Kara was the talk of the courthouse. She followed her handler, Ryan, like a shadow, was super well behaved all the time, like never even on a leash even. And she just silently lay in the courtroom during cases while they were being heard. But when there was a break... [50:13] That's when she went on tour, getting married. [50:16] all the pets and all the treats that she could find. So many treats, in fact, that Ryan had to like...

[50:25] Talk to everyone in the courthouse to limit treat's [50:28] Only to Fridays. [50:29] which that's literally chuck in the office like he's trained everyone to give him treats i was just about saying like it kind of reminds me of an office puppet that cons us out of all the snacks and his name starts with a chuck it ends with a barley yeah yeah when when i read that i was like oh i know kara's personality now yeah we know this dog so again kara was beloved and like even [50:59] She's a bomb detection dog. And so it was in the shape of like a cartoon style bomb with like a whole fuse and everything. Of course. Like something you would do for like your favorite co-worker. [51:11] They did forever. [51:13] Kara, their favorite coworker. Yeah, exactly. And Meredith loved going to the courthouse to see Kara and see how good she was at her job and truly how devoted she was to her handler, Ryan. And I also want to point out that Kara actually got her name because of her demeanor. [51:30] She was sweet Caroline, but it got shortened to Kara for work, which is [51:36] Honestly, so cute. So... [51:39] Here we are. We are [51:41] At the sad part, [51:42] Are we ready? [51:43] Deep breath [51:45] Mm-hmm. Okay. [51:46] So one night, Kara and Ryan were working and Kara was searching for a weapon that a suspect they had been trying to apprehend had tossed.

[51:56] Now, during the search for the weapon, Kara fell from a 50-foot bridge and was severely injured with a broken back, among other injuries. And Ryan made the incredibly difficult decision to have Kara move out instead of suffer. And Kara's end of watch was actually December 21st, 2020. [52:20] Oh my goodness, is she only two? She was three. She had served for two years. [52:25] Oh, my goodness. The whole court community was devastated by the loss of Kara. And even Meredith, who wrote in about Kara, said, you know, as a public defender, [52:36] I shouldn't have liked her. We were on opposite sides, you know, but there's no way anyone could have ever hated Kara. And there are actually a few news articles about Kara and her impact, including one even covering the memorial service that was held for her back in January and an obituary by a local funeral home. And I'm going to link to all of those on our website for [53:06] black lab with a badge I've ever seen in my entire life. Do you want to see a picture, Ash? Of course I do. [53:13] Just doing her job. [53:15] Oh. [53:16] Oh those ears. She's like the sweetest, sweetest looking girl in the world. And I just imagine her walking through a courthouse [53:25] getting

[53:26] all the pets. [53:27] and all the treats and being... Gaining all the weight. Gaining all the weight until Ryan had to say, absolutely not, she gets treats one day. And... [53:37] I mean... [53:38] And there's just a beautiful obituary for her, a beautiful memorial service for her. I was just heartbroken when Meredith reached out to us to tell Kara's story. So this is kind of a short one, but it's sad. So I'm going to say deep breaths, guys. We're through the sad part. And I'm sorry if I made you cry or late for work. But as usual, I also want to bring some attention to a rescue organization that serves the area that Kara served as well. [54:08] which also has an amazing program that I'm now obsessed with called Pets for Seniors, offering discounted adoption rates for senior citizens to adopt their new best friends, which I just think is so, so cool. And as always, we'll be linking that on our website as well. [54:25] Thank you. [54:30] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [54:48] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. [54:52] I think you'll love it too. [54:53] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.