Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Restock your back-to-school favorites with Super Bogo Savings at Sprouts Farmer's Market. Now through September 3rd, save big with buy one get one free and buy one get one 50% off on easy, healthy finds throughout the store. From hydrating sips and wellness essentials to no-prep dinner solutions, you'll save on everything you need to ease into the new school year routine now through September 3rd. Visit your neighborhood Sprouts Farmer's Market today for Super Bogo Savings.
Freshman year of college is a lot. 100 people classes? I have so many questions. But one thing's a no-brainer. Getting a Brita pitcher with the Elite Filter for your dorm room. You save over $240 a year by switching from plastic bottles to Brita. And it filters out 99% of lead and other contaminants from your tap water. Your emotional support water bottle will thank you. 99% of lead certified by WQA. Substances reduced may not be in all users' water. $240 savings a year versus standard 16.9 fluid ounce water bottles.
Savings assumes pre-purchase of Brita system. This episode is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus, auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Quote now at Progressive.com to see if you could save. Progressive.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary, discounts not available in all states and situations. This is Episode 8, Switch and Bait. It's September 1991, two years after the Pelley family was murdered.
A man in an orange jumpsuit at a federal prison in Atlanta is furiously scribbling words onto a piece of paper. His name is James Chapman, and he's a jailhouse snitch. James claims he knows who killed Bob, Dawn, Janelle, and Jolene Pelley. He's had a lengthy criminal history, and throughout the 1980s and '90s, he's been in and out of prison.
In a letter he penned to St. Joseph County investigators in 1991, James wrote that one of his former cellmates confessed to the Lakeville murders. According to handwritten letters I have copies of, James' story goes like this. In early 1988, James got a new cellmate who went by the name Dave. Just Dave, no last name. Dave told James that he was in prison for stealing a box truck filled with furniture and transporting it over state lines.
Before being arrested, Dave, his wife, and their kids were transients in South Bend, Indiana, and ran out of money. They were told to visit a local pastor. When they did, the Reverend gave the family a $100 check. But the money quickly dried up, and Dave and his wife got into a fight. He hit her, and she ran back to the pastor for help. The pastor got the police involved, and eventually Dave was busted with a truck full of stolen goods.
Dave vowed to James that when he was released, he would, quote, get back at the pastor and blow him off the face of the earth, end quote. Fast forward to a year later, summer 1989. According to James, Dave had made parole at the beginning of the year, and James himself was out of prison too. The two men met up near an interstate in Ohio and shared dinner and a motel room.
That's when James says Dave confessed to murdering a family of four in Indiana in April. James said Dave explained how he used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot all four victims in the head, including two young girls he chased into a downstairs game room. When their mother came down screaming, Dave said he'd shot her too. Dave also told James that he'd shot a man upstairs and stepped over his body and shot him a second time when he tried to get up.
Dave told James he'd stolen a 35mm camera, a bag of coins, and a wristwatch from the family's house. So this scenario sounds a lot like the Pelley murders, right? Maybe. But I'm always wary of jailhouse confessions. James wrote several more letters to Indiana police in the early 1990s about this Dave friend of his being the family's killer. But the problem was his information was not credible.
For example, James doesn't even know the full name of his old cellmate, Dave. Then there's the obvious details that don't fit with the crime scene. Like when James states Dave told him he used a 12-gauge shotgun in the murders. Well, we know from the autopsies and evidence inside the Pelly Parsonage that a 20-gauge was used.
One thing I noticed from news media reports published in the early days of the Pelley murder investigation was that news outlets often incorrectly reported that a 12 gauge was used in the crime. So if it's a scenario where James is making up his story, that's why he says a 12 gauge was used, not a 20 gauge. Because he's basing his details on info that's been misreported in the news.
There's also times in James' letters that he says Dave described the little girls as wearing "long white nightgowns" when he killed them. That too is just not possible. I've seen the crime scene photos of the dead Pelly girls. They were in tank tops and shorts, not nightgowns. There's also no way Dave stole a 35mm camera, because that was collected as evidence from the parsonage.
Needless to say, St. Joseph County detectives didn't give James Chapman much credit. His information wasn't considered legit, but they couldn't write him off entirely, so they took what he said, filed his letters away, and kept moving along. In 1991, Detective John Bowditch was still convinced that Jeff Pelley was the person who killed Bob, Dawn, Janelle, and Jolene. In the two years since the slayings, he'd had some odd interactions with Jeff in Lakeville.
I probably interviewed Jeff 20, 25 times. If I was outside of my house, which is just outside of Lakeville, Jeff was driving by because he ended up moving to an apartment in Lakeville. He stopped by my house. Hey, John, how you doing? Good, Jeff, how are you? Hey, I got a job. I'm working at this place. I'm selling knives or I'm thinking about doing this vacuum cleaner thing. What do you think about that? You know, and people say, and I tell people this, you know, if you knew I was the lead investigator on a case where your mother died
Your stepmother, your father, and your two stepsisters all got killed. Would there be one question you would ever ask me? Even if you hated your stepmother and your stepsisters. Did you ever find out who killed my dad? Never. He never asked that. I'd go see him at his apartment. And that was kind of freaky because some of the furniture he had in there was the furniture that was in the basement of that house.
Sometime in late 1990, Jeff moved from Indiana back to Cape Coral, Florida. He was about to turn 20 years old and wanted to make a fresh start. He took a job working in a credit bureau business in Fort Myers, which was owned by a longtime family friend who attended First Church of the Nazarene when Jeff was growing up. The leader of that family was a prominent Fort Myers businessman named Phillip Hawley.
Phil had five sons: Pierre, Danny, Paul, David, and Martin, all roughly close to Jeff's age. After moving to Indiana, Jeff stayed close friends with the Hollies, especially Martin, who was a classmate of his from Cape Coral High School. In May 1989, Martin was actually interviewed by the Fort Myers news press, reacting to the murders of the Pelley family.
He was 16 when he spoke to the reporter and said, quote, "It doesn't seem realistic. Their family life hasn't gone very well." End quote. According to the report, Martin told the newspaper that he was in Chicago the weekend the Pellys were killed and was heartbroken for his friend, Jeff. In the wake of the crimes and Jeff returning to Fort Myers, the Hawley family didn't just give Jeff a job, they took him under their wing.
Jeff thrived working for Phil's business, chasing payments for delinquent accounts and collecting commissions. He'd basically become part of the Hawley family and even married one of Phil's nieces, a woman named Kim. Things were looking up until all of a sudden, they weren't.
Do you want to set your child up for success? IXL Learning is an online learning program for kids covering math, language arts, science, and social studies. IXL is designed to help them really understand and master topics in a fun way. Powered by advanced algorithms, IXL gives the right help to each kid no matter the age or personality. IXL is used in 95 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S.
There's one site for all the kids in your home, pre-K to 12th grade. Kids can even access IXL on the go through the app or on your phone or tablet. No more trying to figure out how to explain math equations or grammar rules yourself. IXL has built-in explanation videos.
And look, my son is only two and a half right now, but I can already tell by the time he is in school, he is going to appreciate having someone explain why something is the way it is. He doesn't like just to be told. So those explanation videos are going to be super helpful. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And CounterClock listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com slash clock.
Visit iXL.com slash clock to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
This message is sponsored by Greenlight. A new school year is starting soon, and if you're a parent, you want to make this school year an opportunity for your kids to learn important life skills and continue building independence. For that, there's Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app for families where kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely, and parents can keep an eye on kids' new money habits.
There's even Greenlight's Infinity Plan, which includes the same access to financial literacy education that makes Greenlight a valuable resource for millions of parents and kids. Plus, built-in safety to give you peace of mind. My son is only two and a half, but already he knows what a card is and what it does. He actually took it up to a vending machine the other day, swiped it, and, well, let's just say he's going to be a spender when he's older."
And so Greenlight is the perfect thing for him. There's even a chores feature that lets you reward your kids for honoring their responsibilities around the house. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to greenlight.com slash counterclock. That's greenlight.com slash counterclock to try Greenlight for free. greenlight.com slash counterclock.
In the early 1990s, Jeff Pelley graduated from former juvenile delinquent Petty Thief to much more serious crimes. According to court affidavits and hospital records, Jeff was being investigated for suspicion of committing medical insurance fraud. It stemmed from an elaborate scheme to try and get early access to his inheritance from Bob and Dawn's estate.
In 1991, Ed Hayes, who was Don's father and the executor of Bob and Don's assets, noticed Jeff was up to something. At the time, Ed was responsible for allocating and investing life insurance money for Jeff, Jackie, and Jessica. The girls were left with roughly $65,000 each, and Jeff was supposed to get $48,000. Some of his money had already been used to pay for his one year of college.
None of the children were allowed to access any of the funds until they turned 23. According to Ed, not long after moving to Florida, Jeff repeatedly asked for funds from his trust fund, but Ed continually told him no. Fast forward to July 1991, and Ed gets a somber phone call from Jeff. Jeff told Ed that he had skin cancer, the same diagnosis as his biological mother, Joy, and he had surgery to remove it.
Jeff said the doctors were able to remove the growth, but he was claiming he was left with a $20,000 hospital bill he couldn't pay. Wary that Jeff was trying to use the story as a means to access his trust fund early, Ed made Jeff send him the bill from the surgeons and hospital to verify his story. Jeff forwarded Ed the bill, and it seemed legit. When Ed called the phone number on the bill listed for the hospital's billing department,
A woman on the other end who claimed to work for the facility wasn't very helpful. She seemed like she had no idea what she was doing and couldn't answer any of Ed's questions. She also wouldn't transfer him to her supervisor. With no luck there, Ed tried to verify the doctors who were listed on the bill, but he found out they weren't even listed on the hospital staff.
At that point, Ed felt sure Jeff was trying to pull a fast one. He just couldn't figure out how he could have forged the former letterhead and phone number and make the bill look so legit. Ed took his concerns to Florida authorities, and for a few years, federal agents worked the case, trying to expose Jeff for medical fraud.
By 1994, the FBI and John Bowditch and Mark Senter from Indiana were working together. They were trying to see if the pressure of facing federal indictment would push Jeff over the edge. John and Mark wanted Jeff to finally crack and confess to murdering his family. Here's John and Mark to explain how that all went down. We go to Florida and we hooked up with the FBI and the deal, what we were going to do was
because they had a rest warrant for Jeff for fraud. So we go there, set it up for like 6:00 in the morning. We're going to go to the house, and I'm going to knock on the door. I knock on the door. Jeff opens the door and goes, "Hey, John, how you doing?" I said, "Good, Jeff." I said, "You're going to have to come with me." He said, "Oh, okay." I put the handcuffs on him. I don't tell him why I'm even there, you know? I put the handcuffs on him. We're walking to the car. He goes, "Hey, John, can I ask you a question?" I go, "Yeah, what?" He said, "We going back to Indiana today or tomorrow?"
I go, I don't know yet, Jeff. We got to figure it out, you know? So we took him to the FBI office, and Mark and I sitting in with him. He kicked Mark out. And I knew that this was going to be our last shot. If we don't get him in Florida, we're done. I probably talked to him for an hour and a half, two hours or whatever, and he would never give it up. And I said, well, there's going to be some other people come in and talk to you, Jeff. And they came in and read the warrant and arrested him.
Jeff's scheme had officially unraveled. He'd been exposed for forging the medical bill and enlisting the help of his mother-in-law. According to documents, Jeff had set up a phone line in his house and she would answer it, pretending to be the hospital's billing department when Ed Hays would call. In the end, the hospital declined to press charges because Jeff's mother-in-law worked for them and the company just wanted to move on. Keep it hush, I guess.
Ed, on the other hand, wanted Jeff to be punished for his deception. Ultimately, in July of 1994, Jeff pleaded guilty to a lesser count of wire fraud and was sentenced to probation. Jackie Pelley in no way condones her brother's deceit, but she understands where he was coming from. I'm not going to justify what he did because it was wrong, but I can tell you that
One, he wasn't trying to steal my money. He wasn't trying to steal Jessica's money. He was trying to gain access to his money that was in the trust fund. And I know from my own firsthand experience, getting money as per the will was not easy. Again, what he did wasn't okay, but it wasn't, the executors were not playing by the rules either. So it made for a tough situation.
I'll just say, Jackie is a firm supporter of her brother. She thinks the tactic John and Mark used to try and get him to confess to the 89 murders was wrong and borderline illegal. I find that very interesting that they would go all the way to Florida to be the ones to knock on his door for something that happened in Florida out of their jurisdiction.
I'm not one to judge either way. John and Mark did what they did. And still, it led nowhere in nailing Jeff for the murders. So as far as I'm concerned, it's a moot point. What I do know for a fact is that after pleading guilty in 1994, Jeff's life took a turn for the better. He started working with computers and eventually landed a lucrative job traveling internationally as a consultant for IBM.
He and Kim had a son together and moved from Fort Myers to Dade City, Florida, where they bought a half-a-million-dollar home. According to court records, in 1997, things got rocky in their marriage, and they filed for divorce, only to reconcile later. Their split union turned reunion ushered them into the early 2000s with optimism. The same could not be said for John Bowditch and Mark Senter, though. The Indiana detectives were sure Jeff was their murderer, but they just couldn't prove it.
In the year 2000, St. Joseph County went through a series of political changes, most notably the election of a county prosecutor named Chris Toth. John and Mark used this change of guard to convince Chris to pursue charges in the Pelley murders, and it worked. Chris ran his campaign on the promise that he would finally bring to justice whoever was responsible for murdering the Pelley family.
When Chris won his seat, he created a new investigative division within the county prosecutor's office dedicated to solving cold cases. The Pelley murders were on the top of the list, and a brand new investigator who was eager to make a name for himself picked it up and ran all the way with it. There's intense, intense scrutiny on the case. It's high profile. It was a national story even before they had social media.
And there's a lot of pressure on investigators and prosecutors and everyone to get to the bottom of it. That's next on CounterClock. Listen to Episode 9, Years to Wait, right now.
This is Larry Flick, owner of The Floor Store. Labor Day is our last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year. Now through September 3rd, get up to 50% off storewide on carpet, hardwood, tile and stone, waterproof flooring, and a lot more. Plus 18 months interest-free financing and no sales tax on anything. The Floor Store's Labor Day sale. Don't let the sun set on this one.
Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our nine showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose. The Floor Store, your Bay Area flooring authority. A more colorful life starts at an Ashley Store. From earth tones to vibrant colors, Ashley Stores have an array of eye-catching furniture for every room in fun and trending hues that will leave a lasting impression. So it's easier than ever to express your personal style and design a vibrant home that feels just like you.
Your more colorful life starts at an Ashley store. Shop in-store or online at ashley.com.