Tina: Hi, I'm Tina
Rich: and I'm rich.
Tina: There's one thing we've learned in over 20 years of marriage
Rich: It's that some days you'll feel like killing your wife
Tina: and some days you'll feel like killing your husband
Rich: Welcome to love Mary kill You
Tina: Hey rich, hey Tina, how are you?
Rich: I'm doing very good. How are you?
Tina: I am a little sleepy
Rich: Are you I am I'm gonna be honest yesterday when we recorded part one. I was not feeling the best I think my voice was not great and I was feeling tired and today I feel 100 % better.
Tina: I thought I told you to change your shirt.
Rich: You did. But I didn't do it.
Tina: Oh gosh. You just don't listen to you. Sometimes I just
Rich: enjoy poking at you a little bit. They just
Tina: don't go together. I
Rich: really like them. And
Tina: you had like a meeting and I was like, and it was like an important meeting. I'm like, you make sure you change your shirt and you're like, okay. He's wearing like a zippy, dark blue Michigan
Rich: University of Michigan
Tina: with a turquoise color. Is that
Rich: turquoise? It's a light blue shirt underneath it.
Tina: It's not light blue. That is turquoise. They have two nice
Rich: shades of blue and they go together. They do
Tina: not go together. Please, listeners. If you want
Rich: to post a picture of my shirt on social media, I'm fine with it.
Tina: Oh, speaking of the guy who we were talking about earlier, I think it was Fox News. He had some sort of mask on.
Rich: That's what I think. Yeah. Did you hear more about it?
Tina: No, I think it was just his neck. I think it
Rich: sure looked like a mask to me, but it was, do you think he's
Tina: like a reptile? Well, I
Rich: did see some posts about it on Reddit and these like alien subreddits and stuff like that. No, I don't think he's an alien, but I don't know. What's up? I think it's very strange.
Tina: So I wanted to mention that a lot of people wait in on the chips on the sandwich. Yeah. That was an interesting debate. I love when our listeners get involved. Yeah. So today you can tell me if you think that dark blue and turquoise go together.
Rich: I like to give you a win once in a while.
Tina: You think this is a win because you seem pretty adamant that these two things go together.
Rich: I'm sure you probably will be in the majority. In
Tina: your defense, the weather has been crazy.
Rich: Well that is the challenge. When I get up in the morning, it's really chilly and so I put on a t -shirt because I'm like, well, it'll probably be warm later, but then I'm still cold so I put on something over it and I never take off.
Tina: Yeah. And usually you choose two things that don't match at all. But it's okay. It's just me and you most of the time. Yeah. But I was going to mention Clover. She's been in and out of the room. But I mentioned recently that she couldn't get enough of me. Yeah. She was sort of obsessed with you. And I think she's been listening to the podcast because for like a week she ignored me then. Really? She was like, how dare you talk about me? She
Rich: is.
Tina: There's something weird about her. But this week she's come back around and I'm curious what people do when your pets sleep with you because I never want to inconvenience her. So you're way too
Rich: nice to our cats when you're trying to sleep.
Tina: I know. So I'm like curled up in a ball because she's like a different kind of cat. She's lovely, but she doesn't like to be touched. And the fact that she even wants to grace me with her presence, it's sort of an honor. Right. So I'm just, I think most people do. If you sleep with your pets, you let them win and you don't sleep as well as you could.
Rich: Yeah. I think that's probably true. I am much more blunt with our pets. She doesn't bother me. I hear
Tina: them. They've been very vocal lately whenever we're podcasting.
Rich: Yeah. They are. Yeah. I don't know what's up with them.
Tina: Yeah. Crazy. So we had a kitchen disaster. It was a minor disaster, but I was making you some sour cream chocolate banana bread and I cooked it for an hour, but when I went to take it out of the pan, it was cooked in the middle and it fell apart. But we had gone to the gas station earlier and we had a nice
Rich: little outing.
Tina: We did. It was lovely.
Rich: There was a food truck at the gas station. We got a really nice lunch and then we went snack shopping.
Tina: If anyone is in the Chelsea Dexter area, there was a food truck called Smokey Michigan, I think. And yeah, it was great. We had some good barbecue type things for lunch, but we did go inside of the gas station and in case of an emergency, we both picked out a snack. Both are probably not very good.
Rich: Yeah. I think you're probably right. I think they're both going to be a little questionable.
Tina: So the trend of snacks, like snacks are like a new trend. Like the mall near us, like there's three or four different snack stores. Like a lot of foreign snacks are appearing. So one of these, I don't even know where they're from. Oh, Greenland. They're from, I'm sorry. I had said Greenland. Greenland. They're called Choco Balls. That's what you picked. And I picked a good old American favorite. Oh gosh. I didn't see the Flamin' Hot. Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle Cheetos Puffs. Oh, that sounds so
Rich: awful to me.
Tina: And you have to eat it. Oh, of course. I'll try anything. Okay. We'll be right back. Well, I think it's safe to say we won't be buying those snacks again.
Rich: I thought the Choc Balls were okay, actually.
Tina: The Choc Balls were like, what cereal? Cocoa Puffs. I was going to say I
Rich: would just pour them into a bowl and pour some milk over them. Have at it. Really good. But the Dill Pickle, Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle Cheeto Puffs. That's a lot of flavor. That could be the worst stack I've ever
Tina: had. I kind of liked it, actually. I don't like Flamin' Hot Cheetos, but I thought they were kind of, they're really interesting if you like pickles and I know some people out there do. I would definitely try them. Ready to get to part two? I
Rich: am.
Tina: Do you want to read the summary? I sure
Rich: do. In part one, we introduced the Pelly family. After the death of his wife Joy, Bob Pelly remarried just eight and a half months later to Dawn Huber, who had also recently lost her spouse and was raising three young daughters on her own. Overnight, two grieving families were suddenly trying to become one. Not long after the wedding, the Pellies left behind their stable life in Florida and moved to rural Indiana when Bob accepted a lower -paying job as pastor of Olive Branch United Brethren Church in Christ. Over time, tensions inside the house grew. Jeff, 17, became increasingly rebellious and was caught shoplifting and breaking into a friend's home. In the weeks before prom, Bob grounded him, took away his car, and restricted his prom activities, fueling escalating conflict between father and son. On April 30, 1989, members of Olive Branch Church discovered a horrifying scene inside the family parsonage. Reverend Bob Pelly, his wife Dawn, and Dawn's two young daughters, Janelle and Jolene, had been shot to death. Missing from the home were Bob's teenage son Jeff, who had gone to prom and then Six Flags Great America with friends, along with Jeff's sister Jackie and stepsister Jessica, who had spent the night elsewhere. Investigators quickly focused on Jeff. They believed the murders may have happened in the narrow window of time before prom and centered their attention on the escalating conflict between Jeff and Bob over prom weekend. But even in the earliest days of the investigation, questions began to emerge about the timeline, the missing murder weapon, the handling of the crime scene, and whether investigators had focused too narrowly on one suspect while overlooking other aspects of Bob Pelly's life.
Tina: Do you think we left anything out there?
Rich: Well, you mentioned it in your summary, but the timeline being narrow, there's really like maybe like a half an hour that he could he could have done this and gone to meet his friends and everything. And we know it
Tina: was it was more like 15 to 20 minutes. You're thinking of the half hour between the time he left, between the time that Crystal Easterday came to the parsonage. She found it locked and the windows were all closed. And it seemed as if it must have
Rich: happened by that time.
Tina: Some people would disagree. But yeah, something that I forgot to mention in part one is that Bob did legally adopt Jessica Janelle and Jolene.
Rich: OK,
Tina: the funeral for the Forest Lane members of the Pelly family was held on May 3rd, 1989 at Olive Branch Church. Hundreds of mourners packed the small country church to grieve the loss of Bob, Don, Janelle and Jolene. The service was emotionally overwhelming for many in the congregation. Just days earlier, parishioners had gathered in the very same building, expecting an ordinary Sunday service before discovering the murders next door. Four caskets stood side by side at the front of the church. The two smaller ones for Janelle and Jolene, especially heartbreaking to those gathered. Jeff attended the funeral under the close watch of investigators who continued scrutinizing his behavior throughout the service. Detectives later remarked that he showed very little outward emotion, though others pointed out that after the death of his mother years earlier, Bob had told Jeff and Jackie not to cry openly. Public displays of emotion were not encouraged in the Pelly family. After the funeral, practical matters needed to be addressed. Bob and Don left behind an estate valued at roughly $160 ,000 or about $400 ,000 today, consisting largely of life insurance policies and personal property. The money was to be divided equally among the surviving children, Jessica, Jackie and Jeff. Don's father, Ed Hayes, found himself placed in the uncomfortable role of trustee over the estate. The arrangement would become increasingly strained over time. According to family members, Jeff repeatedly pressured Ed for access to the money and at times spent the truth in an effort to obtain it, further deepening tensions within a family already fractured by grief. The autopsies revealed additional details about the killings. Bob had been shot twice, once in the chest and once in the neck, while Don and each of the girls had been shot once. Don's wound was inflicted at close range, and two fingers on her right hand were missing, suggesting that she may have raised her hand in a desperate attempt to shield herself from the shotgun blast. Janelle and Jolene suffered additional cuts and abrasions to their arms and legs caused by flying bone fragments and debris, underscoring the sheer violence inside the basement. All four victims had partially digested stomach contents. Bob's included popcorn, fruit and ground meat, details investigators hoped might help narrow the timeline of the murders. Some later pointed to the relatively light stomach contents as another indication the family might have been killed before sitting down to eat their dinner meal. Those stomach contents alone are an unreliable way to determine time of death. But some people pointed to the popcorn in Bob's stomach as evidence that the family may have been killed later as he ate popcorn nightly after dinner while watching TV.
Rich: And they found popcorn in a bowl, right? Which we don't know if it was from that day or it could have been from the day before. It could have
Tina: been older popcorn, but it was his nightly habit.
Rich: And remind me what we think the window of time is that Jeff would have had the opportunity had he done this?
Tina: From about 4 .55 to about 5 .15 is the window.
Rich: And do we know when they normally ate dinner?
Tina: We don't, but if you remember, again, Crystal Easterday, who we talked about who came to the Parsonage at 5 .45, Bob and Dawn were supposed to go to her house and see her and take some pictures. And they never showed up, which is why she came. So I don't think that they would have had dinner. They, you know, probably not
Rich: until after that.
Tina: Right. But the girls did go to bed between seven and eight.
Rich: OK.
Tina: A potentially important lead came from a woman named Lois Stansberry, who lived just two houses down from the Parsonage. After hearing investigators publicly narrow the timeline of the murders, Lois contacted Detective Mark Center with information she believed could change it. To support her memory of the afternoon, Lois provided a Kmart receipt time stamped 403 p .m. Rest in peace, Kmart. She explained that after leaving the store, she stopped at a nursery and briefly visited her father before driving past Olive Branch Church around 5 p .m. As she passed the church parking lot, Lois said that she saw Bob Pelly outside, holding a shovel and speaking with an unidentified man standing near a black pickup truck. She waved at Bob and he waved back, though she later recalled that he seemed distracted. You know, you're probably thinking, well, she was just driving by. How did she get all this? But her daughter was in the car, and for some reason, they pulled into the church parking lot. There were some geese or something that she wanted to point out to her daughter. So they were there for, you know, a minute or so. Detective Mark Center collected the receipt and reportedly told Lois that someone would follow up with her. According to later accounts, no one ever did. The receipt itself was eventually lost and investigators never identified the man in the black pickup truck. To critics of the investigation, the incident became another example of potentially important information receiving little attention. If it complicated the theory that Jeff was responsible for the murders. What do you think about this? Does it change anything for you?
Rich: Well, it's definitely an intriguing detail. And the pickup truck adds a new element to it that I wish the police had followed up on. Yeah. But ultimately, it doesn't necessarily change the possibility of Jeff doing this. She could have seen this before he did it.
Tina: Right. She wasn't sure when exactly she was at the parsonage. She estimated between 450 and 510. So, yeah, it's it's it doesn't absolve Jeff.
Rich: Jeff Pelley may have been the only suspect investigators were considering, but the case was far from a slam dunk. Investigators struggled with lingering questions. They believed the murders had been committed with Bob Pelley's own Mossberg 20 gauge pump action shotgun, a weapon that normally held five rounds in the magazine. Yet investigators believed six or possibly seven shots had been fired inside the home. Did the killer stop to reload in the middle of the murders or had more than one person been involved? There were other oddities as well. Investigators recovered two different types of shotgun wadding at the scene, cardboard wadding near Bob's body and plastic wadding in the basement, raising additional questions about the ammunition used during the killings.
Tina: Do you know what wadding is?
Rich: I only know it because I used to do model rockets when I was a kid and you used wadding like it was sort of in between the engine and the the rocket itself. So it's like an insulator. Yeah. It's like a wadded up sort of paper to insulate.
Tina: Yeah. So it is strange that there's two different wadding to use. So it was definitely two different bullets were used. But I should point out that you can put two different bullets in the gun.
Rich: OK, I was going to ask. I don't know how wadding works in a shotgun. Like, it's actually part of the shell, I guess. OK, so yeah, that's it's strange. Another potentially important lead involved a family friend named Thomas Kebb. Kebb claimed that Bob had once given him a bag containing three firearms, a rifle, a pistol and a shotgun to hold temporarily. According to Kebb, Bob never asked for the bag back. Kebb said he stored the firearms in his in -laws basement just down the road from Olive Branch Church. Over the years, he repeated the story multiple times, including to journalist Delia D 'Ambra of the Counterclockwise podcast, to Jeff's attorney, Alan Baum, during a deposition and again in a 2003 affidavit provided to investigator Craig Whitfield. Despite the potential significance of the claim, law enforcement reportedly never interviewed Kebb directly or followed up on his claim.
Tina: This is one of the things that drives me crazy in this case. Like, that's bananas to me that he had this bag of guns. And Bob gave it to him at the time when Jeff was threatening to take his own life. So he said, we're going to get all the weapons out of the house. Yeah, Don might have insisted that happen. I can't remember if that was true or not. But regardless, I can't believe that they never followed up and asked for this bag of guns.
Rich: There's been a few things in this case where it just seems like the investigators really have not have dropped the ball.
Tina: Well, and that would have vindicated Jeff, right?
Rich: Well, so did this guy still have the guns?
Tina: I believe he did.
Rich: Hmm.
Tina: But Jessica, who was nine at the time, remember, she was away for the weekend. She is certain that the shotgun was above Don and Bob's bed before she went away for the weekend.
Rich: So it's frustrating not to know the truth about some of these things. And it really does come down to the police, you know, missing some some things or not documenting things as well as they could have. Despite growing suspicion around him, prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to charge Jeff. The case remained almost entirely circumstantial. There was no confession, no eyewitness, no murder weapon and no physical evidence directly linking Jeff to the killings. Only the narrow timeline investigators believed pointed to him. Prosecutor Michael Barnes later explained that under Indiana law, he could not convene a grand jury unless new evidence emerged. So despite years of suspicion surrounding Jeff, the case remained stalled as they waited for the missing piece of the puzzle. Years into the investigation, as the case went cold, some began questioning how thoroughly Bob Pelley's life before Indiana had ever really been examined. Before entering the ministry, Bob had built a successful career in computer systems and banking. After relocating the family to Cape Coral, Florida, he worked for United Telephone for roughly two years before taking a position with Landmark Bank. Then in late 1986, something happened. About a year into Bob and Dawn's marriage, Bob reportedly received a late night phone call summoning him to the bank over missing money, possibly as much as a million dollars, though the details remain unclear. Within days, the Pelley's abruptly left Florida and relocated to northern Indiana, where Bob accepted a dramatically lower paying position as pastor of Olive Branch United Brethren Church. This is intriguing. When you say reportedly received a late night phone call, who like who is this according to?
Tina: Jackie actually remembered this happening.
Rich: OK. And Jackie would have been how old? She was
Tina: pretty young. She would have been, I guess, like 11 or 12.
Rich: OK. The move to Indiana was pivotal. They left behind financial stability, their home and the Church of the Nazarene, which had long been central to Bob's identity. While the Nazarene and United Brethren Churches shared many conservative Christian beliefs centered on family, morality and faith. The Nazarene denomination was generally viewed as stricter and more rigid in its teachings and expectations. Years later, questions persisted about whether the family's sudden departure from Florida was connected to turmoil at Landmark Bank. Before being acquired by a larger institution, the bank became entangled in a major money laundering scandal tied to the Cali drug cartel. Investigators later uncovered allegations that employees had manipulated records to conceal millions connected to cocaine trafficking. And several bank employees were eventually arrested. It's really wild to think about a bank in the U .S. being connected to a drug cartel in that way. Whether Bob had any direct knowledge of the scheme remains unknown. But to some, the timing of the family's abrupt move from coastal Florida to a tiny rural town more than a thousand miles away felt difficult to ignore. Indiana investigators, however, never meaningfully explored Bob's past in Florida. We'll be back after a break.
Tina: As investigators dug deeper into Bob Peli's years in Florida, they stumbled into a strange and increasingly tangled web of people, businesses and unanswered questions. Years before the Peli murders, authorities in Florida investigated an unusual fraud case involving the identity of Harry William Stewart, an infant who had died in 1947. The case began after a car registered to Stewart was discovered, abandoned in shallow water near Sanibel Island with no body inside. Investigators soon learned someone had been using the dead child's identity for years, obtaining a driver's license, conducting business, and even applying for a U .S. passport. Insurance companies refused to pay the claim and federal authorities eventually opened a passport fraud investigation. One of the men connected to the investigation was Fort Myers businessman and private investigator Philip Hawley. Hawley reportedly filed an insurance claim tied to Stewart's disappearance through one of his investigative or debt collection businesses. Over the years, Hawley and his five sons operated a revolving series of questionable businesses that often collapsed, then resurfaced under new names or generated rumors of fraud and criminal connections. Some people associated with Hawley seemed to disappear under troubling circumstances. One associate, Eric Dawson, was later found murdered, shot in the back of the head and buried beneath bags of pre -mixed concrete. At some point after moving to Florida around 1980, Bob Pelly became close friends with Philip Hawley. Even after the Pellies relocated to Indiana, the families remained close. Phil called Bob his best friend, and despite his questionable business practices, he considered himself a very religious man. Following the murders, Jeff returned to Florida, worked for the Hawley family, entered into at least one real estate venture with them, and in 2003 married Hawley's niece, Kimberly Singletary. Decades later, the overlap between Bob Pelly and the Stewart investigation began attracting renewed attention. Several people connected to the Pelly case believe the man pictured in Stewart's 1976 passport photo resembled Bob. In 2008, investigator Mark Center publicly identified the photograph as Bob Pelly, and others who knew him agreed. The theory sparked speculation that Bob may have once lived under a stolen identity, but despite the intrigue surrounding the photograph, no evidence ever definitively linked Bob to the Stewart fraud. In fact, the theory raises major timeline problems. By 1976, Bob was living openly on Ohio with Joy and their two young children, making it difficult to reconcile with the idea that he had been living secretly another life in Florida under an assumed name. I know that's a lot of information and it's all a little confusing. The Counter Clock podcast spent several episodes talking about this Hawley situation.
Rich: I remember this and it's all very intriguing and very like just very strange. But it also just seems I remember even when listening to the podcast, it felt a little like it was very murky and it felt a little like a red herring. But it is intriguing and definitely worth looking into.
Tina: Absolutely. They should have looked into this. But it does seem like it's all a bit of a stretch.
Rich: Yeah.
Tina: But this passport photo, I'll try to find a picture of it. I haven't seen it yet. But I think Jackie Pelly said that she didn't think it was Bob. And other people were like, well, it kind of looks like him. So it was questionable.
Rich: Yeah.
Tina: And the months after the murders, the surviving Pelly children were scattered among relatives and family friends. Jessica remained with her grandparents while Jackie and Jeff stayed with various families before Jackie eventually settled in Ohio with her grandparents and Jeff wanted to live on his own. So he rented an apartment in Lakeville for the summer. If anyone is confused, so Jackie and Jeff are Bob and Joy's children and Jessica is the only surviving daughter of Dawn's.
Rich: Okay.
Tina: It's kind of odd that all the children had J names.
Rich: Yeah, it is.
Tina: Jeff meanwhile, tried to resume some version of normal teenage life under the cloud of enormous suspicion. That summer, an incident at a keg party became one of the most damaging stories attached to Jeff's name. According to witnesses, several teenagers began taunting Jeff about the murders, asking whether he had killed his family. Angry and intoxicated, Jeff allegedly snapped. I fucking killed them. I killed them all and I'll kill you too. He reportedly yelled. At one point, witnesses claimed he threatened to quote blow your eye out just like I did hers an apparent reference to Janelle who had been shot in the eye. When someone asked what he had done with a shotgun, Jeff replied that he had hidden it in a tree and knew exactly where to find it. Asked how he could have killed his sisters. He answered, they weren't my sisters. There was some kids at the party remember this happening, but other people said this did not happen.
Rich: Boy, just another situation where you just don't know what to believe because obviously this was people were drinking heavily. So it's hard to say if this actually happened or not. It is
Tina: hard to believe though that he would like it is really say those, but it also
Rich: sounds like there were multiple people that remembered it. When you first said this, my, my first thought was, I wish this happened when people had cell phones because it would, somebody would have been recording it. I think in particular
Tina: three fellows said, yeah, this happened. That ball Jeff enrolled at Manchester university, a small liberal arts college affiliated with the church of the brethren in North Manchester, Indiana. Darla also attended the school and despite remaining under suspicion, Jeff continued periodically checking in with investigators about the case over the summer before leaving for college. Jeff visited detective Mark center and asked him directly whether he believed Jeff had committed the murders. Yes, Jeff center later recalled telling him I do seem like Jeff would kind of, I mean, I don't know if he was needling the detective, but the detective felt like he was needling him cause he would stop by and see him and chat with him every now and then, which seems so brazen for a teenager.
Rich: It does, but I'm sure he really genuinely wanted to know, am I about to be arrested? Or, you know,
Tina: After their first year at Manchester, Jeff and Darla ended their relationship and not long after Jeff moved back to Fort Myers, Florida, the same place. The family had abruptly left years earlier before relocating to Indiana. In the summer of 1991, Jeff 20 while living in Florida contacted Ed Hayes, Don's father and trustee of Bob's estate, asking for an early payout from his inheritance. Jeff claimed that he had recently undergone surgery for malignant melanoma and needed $20 ,000 to reimburse his future mother -in -law who had supposedly paid his medical bills. To support the request, he mailed Hayes a copy of a hospital invoice, along with a canceled check from his mother -in -law's bank account. Ed was immediately uneasy after initially being told that the hospital could not release patient information. He kept digging, and eventually he called a different number and reached someone new who informed him that there was no record that Jeff had ever been treated there. Hospital officials became concerned enough by the discrepancy that they requested copies of the documents that Jeff had submitted so they could determine whether the bill itself had been falsified. The deception struck some people as especially disturbing given that Jeff's own mother had died from melanoma just a few years earlier. Jeff's fiance Kim and her mother both worked at the hospital and feared that they would lose their jobs if they became tied to the scheme. Both insisted they had no idea what Jeff had done. Once confronted, Jeff took full responsibility. Investigators later uncovered what they believed was an elaborate attempt to make the fraud believable. The hospital bill contained a fake phone number connected to a second phone line that Jeff had installed inside a closet. Calls to the number were forwarded to a friend instructed to pose as hospital staff, creating the illusion that Hayes was speaking with a legitimate medical office while verifying the bill. Wow,
Rich: this is an elaborate scheme.
Tina: Right? When Indiana investigators learned about the scheme, they pushed for federal wire fraud charges. Prosecutors in Florida initially showed little interest and for a time the case stalled. But then in February 1994, more than two years later, the FBI arrested Jeff at the Florida home he shared with his new wife and mother -in -law. Investigators from Indiana traveled to assist in the arrest, which unusually involved a SWAT team, despite the nonviolent nature of the allegations. To some, the response felt excessive. To others, it reflected how intensely law enforcement still viewed Jeff through the lens of the murders. Jeff reportedly was so shaken during the arrest that he did not initially ask why he was being taken into custody. He remained jailed for roughly two weeks before his wife posted a $50 ,000 bond. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months of house arrest. So this is a crazy story. I mean, it's crazy that he tried to do this, but some people would point out that he was at, he just wanted his money. I mean, it was money that he would have gotten eventually. I think he was supposed to get the money if he graduated from college or turned 26, whatever came first. But he's like 20, 21 here and he just got married. So I think he felt like he had a right to the money, but this, it's, it's crazy.
Rich: That's the thing. Yeah. I can totally understand him, you know, wanting to get access to the money that he was entitled to at some point, but yeah, the, the elaborate nature of the scheme just makes me think that he was maybe planning to go beyond that or maybe, you know, do some additional fraud, but who knows.
Tina: He's a very smart person. But the fact that the officers came from Indiana and there was a SWAT team arresting him. I mean, it does seem a little overkill. The years following the murders continued to be marked by instability, poor decisions and tragedy. In 1993, Jeff was involved in a car accident that killed another driver, Janet Addy. Jeff initially told authorities he had fallen asleep behind the wheel, but later claimed the vehicle's cruise control malfunctioned. Addy's husband eventually sued both Jeff and Honda. Jeff meanwhile was uninsured at the time and claimed he believed that his insurance coverage was included through the lease agreement on his vehicle.
Rich: Yeah, it doesn't work that way, Jeff.
Tina: Then in 1997, Kim and Jeff divorced. But by the year 2000, Jeff's life appeared to be on the upswing. He and Kim remarried and welcomed a son. Professionally he was thriving as well, working as an IBM and Microsoft network consultant and traveling internationally for work.
Rich: As the years passed and the murders remained unsolved, pressure on law enforcement steadily mounted. By the 10th anniversary of the killings, many in the community were frustrated that no one had been held accountable. In 1999, prosecutor Michael Barnes was voted out of office and replaced by Christopher Toth, a young Navy veteran with political ambition and a strong interest in cold cases. On the 11th anniversary of the murders, Toth held a press conference announcing that the Pelley investigation would be reopened. The renewed inquiry quickly exposed serious flaws in the original investigation. Witnesses had never been thoroughly re -interviewed. Certain pieces of evidence, including clothing and shotgun wadding collected from the crime scene, had never been properly analyzed. Some of that material was finally sent to the FBI for testing more than a decade after the murders. But as investigators revisited the case, another problem emerged. Memories had faded, timelines blurred, and years of suspicion surrounding Jeff had already shaped how many people viewed the evidence. Confirmation bias inevitably became part of the investigation, and critics argued investigators had grown too focused on Jeff to seriously pursue alternative theories, ignoring evidence that didn't fit into their theory. Finally, in August 2002, as Jeff returned from a business trip to Australia, he was arrested by U .S. Customs agents at Los Angeles International Airport on a murder warrant issued out of Indiana. More than 13 years after the killings, Jeff was formally charged with the murders of his father, stepmother, and two young stepsisters. He was extradited back to Indiana, where the long cold case would finally move toward trial. The arrest immediately divided the surviving family members. Dawn's parents believed investigators had finally arrested the right person. Bob's mother also believed Jeff was guilty, but Jeff's maternal grandmother, Mary Armstrong, and his sister Jackie, stood firmly by his innocence. The probable cause affidavit alleged that after the murders, Jeff hurriedly stuffed a pink and blue checkered shirt, jeans, and socks into the washing machine before leaving for prom. Investigators claimed he acted so quickly that he forgot to remove paper money, coins, and a store receipt from the pockets.
Tina: But we will talk about this more later.
Rich: Meanwhile, from Florida, Jeff's wife Kim scrambled to find him a defense attorney. She contacted Los Angeles lawyer, Alan Baum, who met with Jeff shortly after the arrest and was immediately struck by the fact that 13 years had passed without what he considered meaningful new evidence. Baum quickly became convinced that Jeff was innocent and agreed to take the case.
Tina: So the new prosecutor took this role and was like, you know, we're, we're going to arrest him and we're going to move forward. Even though there was no, no new evidence. And I feel like that's really telling that, you know, other prosecutors had said, no, we're not going to do this. Some people said that this was a political move. He was going to be out for reelection soon, and he knew that that would get him a lot of attention. Yeah.
Rich: I'm sure there was a lot of pressure with, you know, three cold blooded, four cold, four cold blooded murders like that going unsolved for that many years, more than 13 years after the murders, investigators received an unexpected call. On election day, November 8th, 2002, a man contacted police after seeing renewed media coverage of the Pelley case. He explained that years earlier while hunting mushrooms along highway four, the same road Jeff had traveled toward the Amaco station on the night of the murders, he had discovered a 20 gauge single shot shotgun wedged inside a tree. At the time,
Tina: I left it in a
Rich: tree at the time. He apparently thought little of it and eventually kept the gun. But after seeing the recent news coverage, he began to wonder whether it could be connected to the murders. The man estimated he had possessed the shotgun for eight or nine years before finally turning it over to authorities. Investigators noted a small spot of blood on the weapon, raising hopes that the gun might finally provide a major break in the case, but testing would take time. The FBI crime lab was in the middle of relocating facilities, delaying analysis and forcing prosecutors to request a 60 day continuance while they waited for results. And in one of the stranger details surrounding the case, it was learned that years earlier, a psychic named Sue B had reportedly told investigators the murder weapon would someday be found hidden in a tree.
Tina: Someday I would like to do a study about the times that psychics are used in police investigations. And if it's ever, you know, broken or anything like that. Um, but one thing to point out here, when I read about this gun, I was like, you know, oh, okay, we finally found the murder weapon, but it was a single shot shotgun and investigators were pretty sure that the gun that had killed the Pelly family was a five shot shotgun. And the one that the Pellies had owned was
Rich: a five
Tina: shot shotgun.
Rich: Okay. In pretrial hearings, Jeff's defense pointed to a possible alternate suspect through an Ohio inmate named James Chapman, who claimed his former cellmate Dave had confessed to murdering four people in South Bend, Indiana in April, 1989. Chapman said this Dave described details that loosely matched the Pelly crime scene, including two girls being shot in the basement and a woman running downstairs before being killed. Defense attorney Alan Baum used the testimony to suggest investigators may have overlooked other viable suspects, but the lead ultimately went nowhere. Dave was never publicly identified. The confession could not be verified. And investigator Craig Whitfield admitted he had doubts about Chapman's credibility. For one thing, Dave recalled one of the girls wearing a long white night gown and both Janelle and Jolene were wearing shorts and t -shirts.
Tina: So the inmate never even knew Dave's last name. So it seemed like, you know, just another red herring.
Rich: One of the biggest battles before trial centered on time itself. When Jeff was arrested, more than 13 years had passed since the murders. His attorneys argued the delay had fundamentally crippled his ability to defend himself. Memories had faded, key witnesses had died, evidence had gone missing, and portions of the original investigation had been handled so poorly that some details could no longer be reconstructed at all. The defense argued that while the state benefited from years of hindsight, Jeff's ability to meaningfully investigate the case had steadily eroded. Indiana's speedy trial rules were unusually strict, placing enormous pressure on both sides. Once a defendant formally requested a speedy trial, prosecutors generally had only 70 days to begin proceedings. If they failed to do so, absent delays caused by the defense, court congestion, or extraordinary circumstances, the charges could potentially be dismissed. Jeff's trial was initially scheduled for February 3rd, 2003. Without a continuance or qualifying exception, the state was approaching a critical deadline. As hearings, motions, and delays piled up, the speedy trial issue became increasingly contentious. Prosecutors argued the age and complexity of the case justified additional time, while the defense insisted Jeff could not remain jailed indefinitely while the state struggled to prepare its case. Eventually, on May 28th, 2003, after spending 10 months behind bars, Jeff was released on his own recognizance pending trial. He returned to Florida to reunite with his wife and young son. The charges remained in place, but the court determined he could no longer continue to be held while the case remained delayed. The case became further bogged down by a lengthy legal fight over confidential counseling and social worker records from the period when the blended Pelly family had attended counseling together. Prosecutors hoped the files might reveal evidence of Jeff as an angry or violent teenager. The issue eventually reached the Indiana Supreme Court, adding nearly two more years of delays to an already stalled case. Wow. Yeah, that's so frustrating.
Tina: This case really made me think about when a case is tried so much later, years later after the crime, because it does make it less fair for the defendant.
Rich: Well, yeah, in some ways it makes it harder for the prosecution too. I can see both sides of it, but yeah, absolutely. The
Tina: prosecution, they'd never stopped working on the case, though, you know, it had been investigated for years.
Rich: We'll be back after a break.
Tina: Finally, on July 10th, 2006, the trial began seven men and five women would decide 35 year old Jeff Pelly's fate. Brenda Hale, Jeff's supervisor from McDonald's and a member of Olive Branch Church, testified that on Friday night before the murders, Jeff told her that he was short on money for prom weekend. She offered to buy him a gift certificate and let him pay her back later. That same evening, Hale also spoke with Bob Pelly. According to her testimony, Bob said Jeff would be allowed to attend prom itself, but still would not be permitted to participate in the pre or post -prom activities. One of the most controversial parts of the prosecution's case centered on a pair of jeans. Prosecutors argued that after murdering his family, Jeff hurriedly stripped off his clothes and placed his jeans, shirt, and socks into the washing machine in an attempt to destroy blood and biological evidence before leaving for prom. But years later, serious questions emerged about how strong that evidence actually was. Later reviews of the case, including reporting by the Counter Clock podcast, noted that there was no clear police documentation establishing that the jeans had actually been recovered from inside the washing machine. FBI testing conducted in 2006 reportedly found no traces of blood on the jeans and concluded they were dirty and unwashed. Investigators also found coins, paper money, and a legible receipt still inside the pockets. Details, critics argued, were difficult to reconcile with the prosecution's theory that the clothes had been hastily laundered after the killings. The controversy raised troubling questions about whether investigators had simply mishandled the evidence or whether someone had later placed the jeans with the other clothing from the washer to support the theory that Jeff had tried to wash away the evidence. So if you've listened to the Counter Clock podcast, they talk about these jeans a lot. Yeah. And how important it was. Like they were trying to say that the jeans were in the washing machine, yet they had 34 coins in them. And, you know, this receipt and it appeared that the jeans hadn't been washed. Yeah. Like the FBI conducted, they were like, they didn't have blood on them, but they, you know, were soiled.
Rich: Right. It's just one of the most frustrating parts about this case is that we don't know for sure. Like it just seems like the police really messed up in some of these cases. Like you just have to know whether the jeans were found there or somewhere else.
Tina: Yeah. Um, again, in this, the Counter Clock podcast, she talks about this a lot, but the jeans were stored in evidence in a grocery bag from Anna's grocery store, and that just doesn't seem like that would be police procedure. And the friend, the friend's house that Jeff went to, the mom worked at Anna's grocery store. So it seems as if she was like, oh, here, Jeff, you can just put your clothes in this bag and it had a receipt in it even. So it just definitely was not proper, you know, chain of custody. Years later, even Jeff's attorney, Alan Baum, admitted that he regretted not examining the jeans evidence more closely because it was important. Jeff's attorney ultimately chose not to call Thomas Kebb as a witness. Kebb claimed that after Jeff threatened suicide years earlier, Bob had handed over the three firearms to him for safekeeping. The defense worried that the testimony might unintentionally reinforce the idea that Bob feared Jeff could someday harm himself or possibly others. Prosecutors avoided calling Kebb as well. Investigators had never fully followed up on his claims, leaving significant gaps that could have complicated the state's case. When the defense began presenting its witnesses, Jackie Pelly took the stand. By then she was married to a minister and raising children of her own. Her testimony painted a somewhat different picture of both Bob's parenting style and the conflict surrounding prom weekend. Jackie acknowledged that her father could be strict and sometimes imposed harsh punishments, but she also testified that he often softened later and reconsidered his decisions. According to Jackie, discussions about Jeff's punishment had become an ongoing negotiation in the days leading up to prom. Quote, they were negotiating different options for Jeff to go to prom, Jackie told the jury. She described Bob considering compromises that would allow Jeff to attend more of the prom activities in exchange for extending his grounding afterward. Jackie's testimony supported the defense's argument that Bob may ultimately have relented about prom weekend, weakening the prosecution's claim that Jeff was enraged over being barred from the after prom activities. However, Jackie had been away for the weekend, meaning that she would not necessarily have known whether Bob ultimately changed his mind. Other witnesses testified that Bob had continued to tell people that he planned to personally drive Jeff to prom and would not allow him to attend any additional activities. The defense also called an expert in water evaporation to testify about one of the stranger details from the crime scene, three damp washcloths that were hanging over the bathtub's edge, and water droplets still visible in the bathroom when the bodies were discovered the next morning. After conducting experiments under similar conditions, the expert testified that the washcloths appeared to have been drying for far less than the roughly 17 hours that had passed since Jeff left for prom. He also estimated that the damp bathmat would likely have dried completely within about 10 hours. The defense argued the evidence suggested someone had used the bathroom to clean up long after Jeff had already left the house. Prosecutors challenged the experiments noting that they had been conducted in Arizona rather than northern Indiana. But because Arizona's dry climate generally causes fabrics to dry more quickly, the criticism raised difficult questions of its own about how long the washcloths and bathmat might actually have remained damp inside the Pelley home. Do you remember the very scientific experiment I did the other day when I had you? Oh yeah.
Rich: Yeah. You gave me a couple of washcloths.
Tina: We have two different kinds of washcloths and I had gotten both of them fairly damp and they they were still damp. Right. And it had been 17 hours. Oh
Rich: really? That had been 17 hours? That
Tina: had been 17 hours.
Rich: I was surprised at how damp they felt. I did not know they had been sitting for 17 hours.
Tina: When I first heard this evidence, I thought, oh yeah, that's really that's
Rich: yeah, I would have thought there's no way a washcloth is still going to be damp after 17 hours. Yeah.
Tina: Although the day that I did that, it was very humid. It was really hot and humid here and that would probably make them it would take longer for them to dry.
Rich: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Things like that are going to vary widely depending on the atmosphere that day.
Tina: Jeff did not take the witness stand during closing arguments, defense attorney, Alan Baum, argued that the evidence pointed not to one killer, but possibly to a theory. He said better explain the number of shots fired, the differing shotgun wadding found at the scene and the extraordinarily tight timeline prosecutors were asking the jury to accept. On July 19th, the jury began deliberating at 4 p .m. They deliberated until nearly 11 that night, then continued through the next two full days. Finally, at 9 p .m. on the third day after roughly 31 hours of deliberation, they announced that they had reached a verdict guilty on all four counts. Jeff broke down sobbing. His wife rushed forward to comfort him before sentencing. Jeff tearfully addressed the court. My deepest regret in life is that I was not home that afternoon as maybe maybe I could have done more done something, he said. My family tells me I probably would have been killed, too. I think that it would have been OK. I loved my family dearly. I would not and could not. I did not do this, he continued. My father, my sisters, my stepmother were were ripped away from me and my sisters. And now my family is having me ripped away from them. I just know that I am innocent. Judge William Chambly then addressed the courtroom before imposing sentence. I am going to find that as a practical matter, the law also acknowledges that every wrong deserves its own separate consideration. Mr. Pelley is not convicted of killing one person or two people or three people. He is convicted of killing four people, each of whose lives had a dignity and a value worthy of its own consideration. The judge sentenced Jeff to 40 years for each murder conviction and ordered the sentence to run consecutively. Jeff Pelley was sentenced to 160 years in prison and he has no chance of parole.
Rich: In 2008, Jeff Pelley appealed his conviction to the Indiana Court of Appeals, arguing that the 13 -year delay between the murders and his arrest, combined with mistakes made during the investigation and trial, had deprived him of a fair trial. His attorneys challenged numerous aspects of the proceedings, including evidentiary rulings, jury instructions, and the admission of certain testimony they believed unfairly prejudiced the jury. The appellate court reviewed the case in detail, including the circumstantial nature of the evidence against Jeff. In a split 2 -1 decision, the court ultimately upheld the conviction. The majority acknowledged there was no confession, murder weapon, eyewitness, or physical evidence directly tying Jeff to the killings, but concluded there was still enough circumstantial evidence for a reasonable jury to convict him. One judge strongly disagreed. In a lengthy dissent, Judge Nancy Vadek questioned whether the state had truly met its burden of proof. She pointed to the lack of physical evidence, the narrow timeline prosecutors relied upon, inconsistencies in the testimony, and the many unanswered questions that still surrounded the case. Vadek argued that suspicion alone was not enough to sustain four murder convictions, and warned that the evidence required stacking inference upon inference in order to reach guilt. Despite the dissent, Jeff's conviction remained intact. In March 2022, Jeff's attorneys sought a new trial, arguing that his original defense team had been ineffective, and that prosecutors had failed to disclose potentially important evidence. One of the most dramatic moments of the hearing involved videotaped testimony from Tony Beeler, a woman who had not been allowed to testify during Jeff's 2006 trial. Beeler said she met Bob Pelly in March 1989 while working for United Church Directories, a company producing church photo directories. According to Beeler, Bob told her that the mob was going to kill him because of financial dealings connected to his past life in Florida before moving to Indiana. He allegedly told her, they're going to kill each member of my family, and I'm going to watch, and then they're going to kill me. According to the South Bend Tribune, Beeler also claimed Bob said he had another life prior to becoming a minister and did not want his photograph published because he didn't want to be found. Yet despite those alleged fears, the church directory project moved forward. The Pellies posed for a family photograph, one of the only known images of all seven family members together, and the directory was published just weeks before the murders. Beeler testified that when she tried to share the information with investigators in 1989, the lead was largely dismissed. But ultimately, the courts were not persuaded that the new claims justified overturning Jeff's conviction. Judge Stephanie Steele denied his request for a new trial in 2024, and in 2025, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld that decision. More than 35 years after the murders, Jeff Pelly remains in prison, still insisting he is innocent.
Tina: What do you think of Tony Beeler's evidence?
Rich: Well, like a lot of other things in this case, it's intriguing, but it just seems really bizarre to me that he's saying this to someone that he apparently just met. Like that seems very strange
Tina: to me. I'm not saying that she's lying, but it's really hard to believe.
Rich: Yeah, it really is.
Tina: And ultimately, they did pose for the picture, which makes me question the validity a little bit.
Rich: Yeah. Over the years, Jeff's conviction drew the attention of Fran Watson, longtime wrongful conviction advocate and former director of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic at IU McKinney. Watson, who is now president of the Indiana Innocence Project, has continued to work on Jeff's case and has argued that key parts of the original investigation were either unsupported, overstated, or never fully examined.
Tina: She was a professor at the university and she would have her students work on Jeff's case, which I thought was really interesting.
Rich: Yeah, it took nearly a year for Olive Branch Church to find a new pastor. During that time, parishioners cleaned and repaired the parsonage, eventually remodeling the basement where the murders had taken place. When the new pastor and his wife moved in, they later said the house did not feel eerie or haunted to them. It simply felt like a home. Stephanie, the little girl who had happily skipped over to the parsonage that Sunday morning, only to find the doors locked and no one answering inside, later said her childhood ended that day. Decades later, she still tends to the graves of the Pelley family. After looking for Jessica for years, they were reunited and remained the best of friends. Jessica, who now goes by Jesse, had already experienced devastating loss as a child. She had been extremely close to her biological father, Ed Huber, whose death shattered the family. Then, only a few years later, she lost her mother and two younger sisters as well. In the aftermath of so much tragedy, Jesse later said she spent years feeling untethered, isolated, and forgotten. In the memoir she wrote with her cousin Jamie Collins, I Am Jessica, a survivor's powerful story of healing and hope, Jesse described feeling most connected to her stepbrother Jeff after the families blended. Like Jeff, she struggled to adapt to the rigid structure of the household. While Jackie and Jesse's younger sisters generally tried to follow the rules, Jesse and Jeff often pushed back and were frequently disciplined for their attitudes and behavior. They were the children sent to counseling for acting out. Jesse recalled that Jeff could be dismissive and sometimes cruel toward her, teasing her relentlessly or pulling pranks, though there were occasional moments of warmth too. She remembered him teaching her how to play poker and, at times, making her feel included. For years after the murders, Jesse believed Bob had killed Dawn and the girls before turning the gun on himself. After the killings, she was sent to live with her grandparents in Michigan, but her life became increasingly unstable and she ran away. Grieving, angry, and uprooted from everything familiar, she struggled throughout her teenage years, moving between foster homes and repeatedly finding herself in trouble. Eventually, substance abuse became another battle. She would fight for years. About five years after the murders, Jeff invited Jesse to visit him and his wife Kim in Florida. But rather than feeling comforted by the reunion, Jesse later said the trip left her uneasy. She came to believe Jeff had invited her there for another reason, to quietly gauge what she remembered about the murders and what she may have told investigators over the years. Jesse believes Jeff is guilty. She has said she distinctly remembers seeing the shotgun still sitting in the gun rack above Bob and Dawn's bed before she left for the weekend. At the same time, Jesse has also acknowledged that the trauma she endured left her with significant gaps in her memory, making some details from that period difficult for her to fully trust. She told 48 hours that she has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and alternates between two identities, Jesse and Jessica.
Tina: Her book was heartbreaking and obviously, I mean, she's been through so much. She, you know, really struggled. Everyone that she loved, you know, had died and left her and she just felt like she was the forgotten child. One piece of evidence that I forgot to mention was when she had spent the weekend at her friend's house and she was brought back to the parsonage after the bodies were found and investigators asked her, Jessica, where do you think Jeff is? And she said, Great America. And some people pointed to that as, well, she knew he was there. So had, you know, Bob said that Jeff could go to Great America. Yeah, and then there was some money like in the checkbook that was like in the memo, it said like money for Jeff, for prom or something like that. So there were a couple of other, you know, hints that maybe he was allowed to go. Yeah, that is really interesting. But the thing that I keep going back to is, is Bob told four different people on Friday and Saturday? No, I'm driving Jeff the prom.
Rich: Right. Jackie is married with a family of her own and chooses to live a private life. She believes in her brother's innocence and runs a web page for him, justiceforjeff .com. Both Jesse and Jackie participated in the Counter Clock podcast. Rest in peace, Bob, Dawn, Janelle, and Jolene.
Tina: Well, I've thought about this case a lot and I wish I could say this all contemporaneously, but I wrote something instead. While the timeline for Jeff to commit the murders was undeniably tight, the same was true for anyone else. If Jeff left the parsonage sometime between 5 and 5 15, then whoever killed the Pellies had about a 30 minute window before Crystal Esther Easterday and her date arrived at 5 45 and found the house dark and locked, strangely sealed off with the drapes and blinds drawn. While both Bob and Dawn's cars were still outside, by then I believe the family was already dead.
Rich: And Crystal Easterday's timeline of 5 45 is pretty firm, right? I can't remember why. Yeah, because
Tina: she had waited until like 5 30 when Bob and Dawn were supposed to go to her house. So she waited and so she knew that she was there about 5 45. That leaves a small window for an outside intruder to arrive, move through two levels of the home, murder four people, collect the shell casings, move the weapon, clean up and disappear without leaving behind any obvious trace. And the sheer coincidence required if someone other than Jeff committed the murders. The killer would have had to arrive during the exact narrow stretch of time that Jeff happened to be leaving the home before anyone else stopped by unexpectedly on the very same night that Jeff was in serious conflict with his father over prom weekend. It's certainly possible, but it would be an extraordinary convergence of timing. The position of Bob's body with the sheath of papers surrounding him shows to me that he was likely caught off guard and he also had no defensive wounds. Why would an outsider take the time to pick up shell casings, lock the doors, close the blinds, and leave the home looking undisturbed? And if this truly had been some kind of professional hit tied to Bob's past in Florida, the scene itself feels oddly chaotic and personal. A loud 20 gauge shotgun requiring multiple reloads is not likely a professional killer would choose, and a professional wouldn't need to have killed two little girls or possibly even known that they were home because they were in the basement. Whatever trouble Bob may or may not have been involved with before moving to Indiana, more than two years had passed by the time of the murders. There is no evidence that he had become an informant or posed any ongoing threat to dangerous people. And if revenge against Bob had truly been the motive, it's difficult for me to understand why the killers would also murder his wife and children and then close the blinds, lock the doors, gather the shell casings, and vanish without leaving behind so much as a shoe print. I think when Bob had been away from the parsonage for several hours that afternoon visiting parishioners, Jaft during that time, could have fixed his car, placed his tuxedo in the Mustang, and even loaded the shotgun. If he did all of that in advance, the timeline becomes more manageable. I think Jaft may have removed most of his clothing before the shootings, which could help explain the lack of blood evidence later tied to his clothing. Investigators believed Dawn and the girls were shot near the basement stairway and depending on where the shooter stood, some of the shots may have been fired from higher up on the stairs and that would limit the direct exposure to blood spatter. In the scenario that I just outlined, the killer may have needed only a quick shower, a change of clothes, and a few minutes to close the blinds, lock the doors, and leave the house looking quiet and undisturbed. So that is my opinion. I think that Jaft is guilty. All right, give it to me because a lot of people think that Jaft is innocent. So what do you think?
Rich: Well, I hate to say this because I feel like we always end up kind of thinking alike about these things. We
Tina: do. We agree a lot. But
Rich: I do. I think you've summarized it really well and I'm glad you put this together because I've been thinking through this as we've talked through it and trying to form my own thoughts. And really, I feel like you, what you wrote there echoes my own thinking as well. Like I really think it's unlikely that anyone else could have done this. I think the scenario you outlined makes a lot of sense and definitely provides a way that it could have happened within the timeline. I do think there are a lot of red herrings in this case. I do think the police botched the investigation to some degree. Like there's a lot of things. On the time of
Tina: death, a lot of people point to that because we don't really know definitively. Had someone taken their temperatures in the morning, we would have been able to say, oh, they've only been dead for six hours or whatever.
Rich: I know it's an inexact science but there are a lot of things that they didn't follow up on or didn't document correctly or really track evidence correctly.
Tina: Something I want to point out really quickly before I forget. I just don't believe that Bob's life in Florida, like it made him a target. And he wasn't, it's not like he had a lot of money. He embezzled money. He was living this quiet life and I just don't think that anyone would go after him. It
Rich: seems really unlikely and especially like you said, two years after they moved to, it just doesn't add up. I do question whether there was enough evidence to convict Jeff. Like to me, it's a separate topic. We're
Tina: getting to the question phase now. So yeah, go ahead and answer that. Do you think that there's, do you have reasonable doubt? I
Rich: didn't sit through the trial. As we always say, if I had sat through the trial, maybe I would feel differently. But it does feel like there's some doubt, at least a little bit of doubt for me.
Tina: Yeah, I have reasonable doubt. I don't know if I would have, like you said, if I had sat there through the evidence. One thing that I forgot to talk about though was the murder weapon. Where is the murder weapon?
Rich: That baffles me because he really did have limited time. So if he did it, it's got to be somewhere within a certain area. And I would assume they searched pretty well.
Tina: Well, I feel like it's, I don't know how hard it is to take apart a shotgun, but he also could have, this is going to sound outlandish. So when they got back from prom, he could have maybe taken it out then. Yeah, I forgot to mention that. I was going
Rich: to ask you if there was a chance that, or could he have come back to the house and cleaned up or done anything back at the house at that point? Could he have slipped out during the middle of the night? But yeah, I do wish the gun had been found. That would make me feel a lot more comfortable in that conclusion.
Tina: Yeah, definitely. The church parishioners were surprised that the doors to the parsonage were locked when they arrived on Sunday, April 30th. The Pelley's house was usually unlocked. People said the garage was always open. The doors were always open. If Bob Pelley's life was in danger, why would his home have been unlocked all the time?
Rich: Yeah, that's a really good point. And
Tina: so the doors were locked. And who would have a key to lock the doors? I guess some doors. Some
Rich: doors you can lock from the inside and just close them. So it's hard to say.
Tina: It could be. I don't know if it required a key to be locked or not. Jeff's appeal stated the prosecution's entire case was circumstantial. The opinion repeatedly emphasizes that there was no direct evidence tying Jeff to the murders. No weapon, no eyewitnesses, no confession, no blood evidence. The Indiana Supreme Court specifically notes that the state relied on motive, timeline, inconsistent statements, and the theory that the murders appear to be an inside job. Do you agree?
Rich: Do I agree with the Supreme Court ruling? Yes. I mean, it does seem like the case pretty much relied on, you know, all of those things, which are all circumstantial, but circumstantial cases get convicted all the time. You know, there's, there's different levels of circumstantial evidence, and you can certainly convict someone based on that.
Tina: Do you believe, like, the theory that I put forward that that would allow enough time? Yeah,
Rich: I do. I really do. I mean, I really do believe that based on everything I've learned through the course of this case, that it is most likely that Jeff did this. And I do think, yeah, it was certainly possible in the timeline to do it.
Tina: Before we go, I want to mention my sources. I read a book by Carlton Smith called The Prom Night Murders, a devoted American family, their troubled son, and a ghastly crime from 2009. Excellent book. I also read I Am Jessica, a survivor's powerful story of healing and hope by Jessica Pelli. And I watched a 48 hours episode that was really good and featured a lot of Jessica and her friend. That was really a powerful episode. And then the counter -clock podcast, I listened to that as well. And it was really well done. What do you think about that?
Rich: I remember listening to it. It was a long time ago that I listened to it. So I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember it was very well produced.
Tina: The first half was so good, but then it kind of lost me after episode 10 or 11.
Rich: I mean, I really want to say I really appreciate podcasts that go into a deep investigation and interview a lot of the people involved and really delve into it. I just sort of started to get a feeling after a while that the podcast was, they really wanted Jeff to be innocent or there to be a lot of... I wanted
Tina: Jeff to be innocent too.
Rich: Yeah, but I just felt like they were kind of coming up with things and maybe making a bigger deal out of some things than really they truly were.
Tina: Well, the one piece of evidence that Gilead D 'Ambro really focused on was the jeans. And she did really kind of investigate that on her own and she found that bit of evidence. And I think that she really wanted to focus on that a lot.
Rich: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tina: One thing that I noticed in the podcast was because I read multiple sources, some of the things that she kind of claimed that she uncovered were actually in The Prom Night Murder Book, which was from 2009. So I think she definitely read that and used it. You know, it's
Rich: funny. I do remember when I listened to the podcast that it felt like she was kind of trying to give herself a lot of credit. And I wondered at the time like how much of this is really real.
Tina: I mean, they did a great job, but yeah, there definitely was some of that felt like she was the only one that had worked on the case. And I also read a ton of articles from the South Bend Tribune.
Rich: Did you feel like the book The Prom Night Murders was objective and unbiased or did the author did the author have an opinion one way or another? Or did it come across as being?
Tina: No, I think it was pretty objective. Well, that is the tragic story of the Pelley family murders. And if you disagree with my conclusion, let me know what you think because it's OK if you disagree with me.
Rich: It's one of those cases that there are is certainly room for differing opinions on. And I love cases like that. You can debate and disagree. And like you said, it's fine.
Tina: Well, all this talk of prom has taken me back to high school. So, yeah, I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask you, did you go to prom?
Rich: I didn't, but I do. I do have a story of almost going to prom and.
Tina: How do you almost go to prom?
Rich: So there was this girl that I was sort of hanging out with a little bit, and I used to. I had this one class that my teacher would let me skip all the time. She I would be like, can I go to the library? And she'd be like, yeah, fine. And this girl worked in the library. So I would go hang out with her in the library and we would just chat or whatever. And I kind of liked her, but I didn't like her, like her. And it got close to prom season. And I would go to the library we would sometimes read each other's horoscopes. And she read her horoscope one day and it said something like somebody is going to invite you to an important event today. And she was like, oh, I really like my horoscope. And she was dropping these major hints. Like, please ask me to prom. And I did. You
Tina: weren't inferring.
Rich: No, I know. She was definitely dropping hints and I thought I should invite her to prom. But then I'm like, I don't know. I don't really like her that much. I kind of like her. And anyway, I was I waffled. I should have just asked her because what you know, what harm would come of it? But
Tina: maybe we wouldn't have been.
Rich: Right. Exactly. My whole life could have been
Tina: happy.
Rich: Yeah. So I didn't ask her and we she kind of dropped our friendship after that. She think, oh, really? Yeah, she was not happy. And I felt very
Tina: what's her name? We can let's give her a shout out. Let's go live call. Love, Mary, kill.
Rich: That's all right. Well, I should know the answer to this, but I can't remember. Did you did you go to prom?
Tina: I did not go to prom. Oh, wow. No. And it's funny because looking back, people were like, you're going to regret it if you don't go to your prom. And I really, I really don't have any regrets at all.
Rich: Yeah, I don't really regret it either.
Tina: Well, it's kind of dumb because I'm not bragging, but people did ask. But I never had like a ton of money. So that was part of it for me. Like, I think back when, you know, they were a little older, people didn't go to prom with friends. It was like you went with a date and maybe you had multiple couples. People didn't go as singles. If you didn't have a date, you would have gone with probably like a group of friends in that situation. But I just felt like I didn't want to spend the money to go with like the guys that asked me. There was one guy probably, you know, like your situation that I, oh, my gosh, I liked him so much. And I thought he was going to ask me and he never, and I kept waiting and waiting and he never did. And so I was, I was just sad because I really had a huge crush on him. He was the best. Is his name Jeff? Shut up. No, it wasn't Jeff. Jeff was
Rich: not going to ask you. We all know that. Shut up.
Tina: Oh, my God. You're so mean. I mean, no, you're right, though. I mean, he was not, Jeff was not, we're not going to say his last name. He was in another league. Yeah, he was. I mean, he really, I mean, he was the big man on, on, he was, oh, he was so handsome. Oh, gosh. But the other guy was, I mean, he was just a really sweet guy. And yeah, I hope, I hope he's well. But once again,
Rich: your life could have been completely different. So it's probably good that he didn't ask you. Yeah. Well, OK.
Tina: But maybe we should have a Love, Marry, Kill prom. Oh, yeah, that would be fun. It could be like a, like a, it could be like a carry. Like everyone could come, you know.
Rich: That's kind of what I'm picturing. Yeah. Like an old fashioned prom in a school gym with like, you know, paper mache or, what are they, paper ribbons and things like that. Yeah, you're such
Tina: a boy. Was your prom held in like your high school gym? I
Rich: don't know. I don't even know either. Like
Tina: I should know. But I, I do remember hanging out with like a bunch of my girlfriends and we really had a senior prom. We had a really fun time. So yeah, no regrets.
Rich: Well, we would be remiss if we ended the episode without talking about the latest true crime documentary sensation because everyone is talking about the crash. Which is out on Netflix came out like a couple of weeks ago or a week ago. And we watched it. It's about a young, if you haven't watched it, you should. It's really, really compelling and interesting documentary, but it's about a young girl, 17, I believe at the time that this happened and she crashed her car with her. Her boyfriend was in the passenger seat and another friend was in the back seat and the boyfriend and the other friend were killed instantly. She survived.
Tina: Horrific crash.
Rich: Yeah, and it's one of these things that seems like, oh, what a horrible accident. But then as they started looking into it, it was like, well, wait a minute. It seems like she did this
Tina: intentionally.
Rich: And I think the one of the most interesting aspects of it is that her parents took part in the documentary and were interviewed and people hate these parents.
Tina: Wasn't the dad fired from his job this week?
Rich: He was put on like administrative leave, but because the parents were really.
Tina: Permissive.
Rich: Yeah, they came across as like, oh, you know, so she smokes pot. That's fine. And she met her boyfriend when she was probably like 14 or 15 and he was maybe 17. And they were like, oh, that's fine. You know, she was living with him and it just people just really it. The thing that blows me away is I think these the mom and dad went on this show thinking, oh, we're going to be interviewed and everyone's going to be like understand our side of the story. And I think they are among the most hated people in America right now.
Tina: I mean, it's it's hard when I don't like to judge other parents, but it does seem like there are a lot of red flags in this young woman. And, you know, I don't know, maybe she had been in counseling, but she definitely needed it. And I heard her behavior in prison isn't so great. So yeah,
Rich: one of the things I didn't notice when we watched the documentary, but I saw a few people commenting on is the dad during the interview. He was wearing a shirt. His T -shirt said boom on it, like a big explosion, which is just like just not like reading the room, like you're talking about this horrific accident. And yeah, you're wearing this goofy T -shirt that says boom on it.
Tina: Just one of our listeners told me that there is an A &E show about it. And she said that we haven't had time to watch it, but it had information that was not featured in the Netflix show. Sometimes Netflix does do that. Not just Netflix, but, you know, it's hard to have everything in, you know, an hour and a half documentary, but there was some details. Yeah, we should definitely watch that. I don't know what they are yet, but yeah, maybe this weekend we can watch that.
Rich: Yeah, well, if you've watched it, let us know what you think of it, too. I think it's really a fascinating story, because just to imagine that someone, you know, drove straight into a wall at 100 miles an hour to intentionally kill, try to kill the people in her car is just mind blowing to even think about that.
Tina: My takeaway is that kids in social media are so toxic and the front facing camera has ruined our society. Yeah, that's when, you know, everyone is always looking at themselves, taking their pictures. And there
Rich: was so much of that in this documentary of her, like posting stuff about herself and her friends and everything. And yeah, it definitely felt very toxic.
Tina: A lot of young people are struggling and that's really hard to see.
Rich: Yeah, once again, you've all wasted another hour and 20 minutes listening to Love, Marry, Kill. But we are so thankful to have you. We appreciate you. Please rate, review, follow and subscribe.
Tina: Find us on social media or YouTube. Oh, my gosh, I'm so done.
Rich: Or send us an email at lovemerrykill at gmail .com
Tina: Until next time,
Rich: don't kill your wife
Tina: and don't kill your husband.
