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Shownotes Transcript
Well, it was 30 years ago this week at a church parsonage in Lakeville that a minister was murdered along with his wife and two children under the age of 10. Five shotgun blasts killed four members of the Pelley family.
I saw something that day that nobody should ever have to see. Past Bob, his wife Dawn, her two daughters, 8-year-old Janelle and 6-year-old Jolene. She came, opened the door, put me in the front seat, and your whole family's gone. On April 29, 1989, someone murdered the Pelley family in rural Lakeville, Indiana, then cleaned up the evidence and disappeared.
Where's the gun? Where's that gun? So if you find that gun, you're probably going to find the murder weapon. From the start, all fingers pointed to one person. Robert Jeffery Thelmer. Jeff was a suspect from the beginning. His motive, he was 17 at the time, he was grounded, and he wanted to attend prom. In his mind, he never would get caught.
The question in everyone's mind, could a teenage boy, a pastor's son, really be behind such a heinous crime? I had to be a sick person to do something like that. The answer left many close to this case divided. I never asked Jeff if he did it because I had no reason to believe that he did it. Do you think that Jeff is a sociopath? Yes, I do. He terrorized me.
For people in the Midwest, the mystery ended with a conviction more than a decade after the crime. Jeff Belli continues to serve a 160-year sentence for his crimes. This season on CounterClock, I'm investigating if the whole story has really been told. And what I've found is that the secrets in one house divided are only part of the picture.
He had a life before the ministry. He wasn't a minister. He had a previous life. He didn't say who, but people were looking for him. And if they found him, they would kill him, his wife, his children, and a cat and a dog. They would wipe them out. Do you think that he was scared? Yes, I know he was.
I'm forced to ask, is there another family who knows the real truth? They were an old Florida cracker, good old boy family, more or less. They weren't afraid of us. They weren't afraid of anything we could do. Has the truth I'm after been buried for more than three decades? He just about had any knowledge of the murder. He claimed that it was likely a mob hit. If a normal person would look at the series of events, they'd say it makes sense that they would cover up a murder.
With every interview this season, the body count in a story that's led me from Indiana to Florida grows. He had a beautiful family. He had no reason to leave. I never reason to live. And everything I thought I knew about the 1989 Pelley family murders comes into question. The case was unsolved for more than a decade before Jeff Pelley was arrested and convicted of the murders of his family. But the case isn't over.
The Indiana University McKinney Wrongful Conviction Clinic has taken the case and they're promising new evidence that would argue for Jeff Pelley's innocence. None of it is true. It's all machinations and it's so hard to believe. I'm carrying something so large and I know that there's a kid that probably didn't kill his parents.
This April, join me, Delia D'Ambra, as I turn back the hands of time on a mind-bending mystery many are convinced is far from solved. I think it's human nature that we like the spectacular, the mysterious, that there's more to it. I'm convinced more to it is. I just had a feeling inside that something wasn't right, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
Something was wrong inside. I just had this feeling that something was wrong. Counter Clock returns on April 29th, the 32-year anniversary of the Pelley family murders. AudioChuck will be releasing the series a little differently this season and dropping all of the episodes at once so you can binge. Be sure to follow Counter Clock on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ♪