Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #501 Jason Flom with Delia D'Ambra on Jeff Pelley

Transcript

#501 Jason Flom with Delia D'Ambra on Jeff Pelley · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: April twenty ninth, nineteen eighty nine, was prom night in
0:05
Speaker 1: the small town of lake Ville, Indiana, and although high
0:09
Speaker 1: school senior Jeff Pelly had been grounded, two of his
0:12
Speaker 1: sisters and his girlfriend believed that his father's resolved had softened,
0:16
Speaker 1: allowing Jeff to attend. But on the morning after the prom,
0:20
Speaker 1: his father, stepmother, and two stepsisters were found fatally shot
0:25
Speaker 1: in their own home. Then the state ignored the autopsy
0:28
Speaker 1: findings his girlfriend, his sisters, and several other witnesses, along
0:33
Speaker 1: with a compelling alternate suspect theory to argue that Jeff
0:38
Speaker 1: had killed them simply to gain access to this teenage
0:42
Speaker 1: right of passage. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to
0:53
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the
0:56
Speaker 1: LoVa for Good podcasts one week early and ed free
0:59
Speaker 1: by subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
1:10
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have the story
1:13
Speaker 1: of a teenager named Jeff Pelly who was accused of
1:15
Speaker 1: killing his father, his stepmother, and two stepsisters in Lakeville,
1:19
Speaker 1: Indiana in nineteen eighty nine. Unfortunately, Jeff was not available
1:24
Speaker 1: to record, but this story needs to be told. So
1:28
Speaker 1: to help us do that, we have one of my
1:31
Speaker 1: absolute favorite investigative journalists, Delia Diambra, who dedicated an entire
1:37
Speaker 1: season of her hit podcast Counterclock to this case. It's
1:41
Speaker 1: going to be linked in the episode description. So Delia,
1:43
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us.
1:45
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
1:47
Speaker 1: And with her we have Jeff's post conviction attorney, the
1:50
Speaker 1: president of the Indiana Innisis Project, Fran Watson.
1:53
Speaker 3: Fran welcome, Well, thank you for Carrie.
1:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't shake this one. So this story acquires
2:01
Speaker 1: quite a bit of background. So let's go back and
2:03
Speaker 1: start where it all started. In Cape Coral, Florida.
2:07
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy Bob Pelly met his first wife, Ava
2:11
Speaker 2: Joy Armstrong and they got married and then their first child,
2:15
Speaker 2: Robert Jeffrey Pelly. He's born in nineteen seventy one, so
2:19
Speaker 2: Carrie is his dad's name, but goes by Jeff and
2:21
Speaker 2: then they have their daughter, Jackie. They have a large
2:24
Speaker 2: community at the Nazarene Church. Bob was working for a
2:29
Speaker 2: bank called Landmark Bank as a data analyst. They're living
2:32
Speaker 2: happily in Cape Coral, Florida, which at that time was
2:36
Speaker 2: sort of underdeveloped as compared to the city that it
2:38
Speaker 2: is now, But back then it was sort of wild
2:41
Speaker 2: West in terms of real estate development, and I think
2:44
Speaker 2: a lot of people from other states and even other
2:47
Speaker 2: countries saw that as an opportune time to capitalize on
2:51
Speaker 2: Florida's growth.
2:53
Speaker 1: It's also rumored that there were organized criminal interests in
2:56
Speaker 1: the area, either coming in from Miami or even as
2:59
Speaker 1: far away as Detroit, and Landmark Bank was processing a
3:03
Speaker 1: lot of the land deals being made as Cape Coral developed.
3:06
Speaker 1: Two of the players in the market were a developer
3:08
Speaker 1: from Michigan named Derek Dawson, as well as another Nazarene
3:12
Speaker 1: parishioner named Phil Holly.
3:14
Speaker 2: The Holly family attended the Nazarene church in Fort Myers
3:19
Speaker 2: that the Pelly family also attended. The families knew one
3:23
Speaker 2: another and spent time together.
3:25
Speaker 3: Mister Holly called mister Pelly his best friend.
3:28
Speaker 2: And yes, Phil Holly had several businesses, construction businesses, they
3:34
Speaker 2: debt collection business some of which were later alleged to
3:36
Speaker 2: be fraudulent businesses, and Phil had banking interests at Landmark Bank. Also,
3:42
Speaker 2: Bob had done it work for Phil Holly.
3:45
Speaker 3: There isn't any doubt that mister Pelly knew a lot
3:48
Speaker 3: about mister Holly's business, and I don't think there's any
3:51
Speaker 3: doubt that the Hollys were up to criminal activity.
3:55
Speaker 1: Fast forward to nineteen eighty five, Joy Pelly had been
3:57
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cancer and after fighting bravely, she tragically lost
4:02
Speaker 1: her battle. And later on that year, Bob met a
4:05
Speaker 1: widow named Dawn who had three daughters of her own, Jesse, Jannell,
4:08
Speaker 1: and Joe Lene, and they soon married. And to add
4:11
Speaker 1: to this tumultuous situation, Bob abruptly uprooted this newly blended
4:15
Speaker 1: family from a comfortable life in Cape Coral and moved
4:18
Speaker 1: to a very different situation in Lakeville, Indiana. In nineteen
4:23
Speaker 1: eighty six.
4:24
Speaker 2: Bob Pelly was incredibly secretive and abrupt about the family's
4:30
Speaker 2: move to Indiana. Jackie her words were, he showed up
4:34
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night and said there was
4:36
Speaker 2: money missing from the bank, and within either the next
4:39
Speaker 2: day or the day after that, the family was gone
4:42
Speaker 2: from Cape Coral and moved to Lakeville.
4:44
Speaker 1: Later on, the pastor at Nazarene Church confirmed that Bob
4:48
Speaker 1: was tormented by fraud that he'd uncovered at landmark, and
4:51
Speaker 1: to add another twist, he didn't pick up another banking
4:55
Speaker 1: or it job. He actually became a pastor at the
4:59
Speaker 1: Olive Branch and I Brethren Church on Osborne Road in Lakeville, Indiana,
5:04
Speaker 1: and the Pellys live next door in a ranch style
5:06
Speaker 1: home owned by the church called the Parsonage. The kids
5:10
Speaker 1: had to go to new schools, of course, and make
5:12
Speaker 1: all new friends, all while still acclimating to new step
5:17
Speaker 1: parents and siblings. So you know, they were in family
5:20
Speaker 1: therapy and in April nineteen eighty eight, Jeff threatened to
5:23
Speaker 1: commit suicide.
5:25
Speaker 2: In the spring of eighty eight, when Jeff makes this
5:27
Speaker 2: declaration that he was going to take his own life,
5:29
Speaker 2: Bob gets all the guns out of the home. Thomas Kebb,
5:32
Speaker 2: who's an individual who claimed to have received firearms from
5:37
Speaker 2: Bob Pelly. Bob Pelly came to him and it's like, here,
5:40
Speaker 2: take him out of our house.
5:42
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back in Cape Coral, the real estate developer from Michigan,
5:45
Speaker 1: Eric Dawson, had gone deep into debt with the Hollys
5:48
Speaker 1: and soon received cash infusions from their business on other
5:52
Speaker 1: development deals. By late nineteen eighty eight, Dawson's body was
5:55
Speaker 1: discovered in a Florida wildlife preserve.
5:58
Speaker 2: Eric Dawson was shot execution style and then sunk into
6:04
Speaker 2: a makeshift concrete grave in the middle of a cypress clearing.
6:09
Speaker 2: With the Florida conditions the way they are, that concrete
6:12
Speaker 2: sort of broke open and allows, unfortunately odors of decomposition
6:16
Speaker 2: to escape, and then the wildlife, a lot of wild
6:19
Speaker 2: hogs and boars and snakes came in and began to scavenge,
6:24
Speaker 2: and that ultimately allowed his clothing and things to come
6:27
Speaker 2: out of that and was discovered.
6:30
Speaker 1: Eric Dawson had been shot with a twenty two caliber pistol. Curiously,
6:35
Speaker 1: Bob Paley had given Thomas keb a twenty two caliber
6:39
Speaker 1: pistol which came in and out of his possession around
6:42
Speaker 1: the time of Eric Dawson's murder.
6:44
Speaker 2: It's back in the home by January of nineteen eighty
6:47
Speaker 2: nine and then subsequently disappears again before the April twenty ninth,
6:52
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine massacre in the home. So this twenty
6:55
Speaker 2: two pistol, why was it going in and out of
6:58
Speaker 2: the home? Where was it? And then when you look
7:01
Speaker 2: at the case in late nineteen eighty eight in Florida,
7:04
Speaker 2: with Eric Dawson. He was murdered definitively with a twenty two.
7:09
Speaker 1: The Halies were suspected of that murder and police found
7:12
Speaker 1: Landis that Dawson had signed over to the Hallies the
7:15
Speaker 1: day before his disappearance.
7:17
Speaker 3: If you look at what's happening in Florida the month
7:20
Speaker 3: of Pelley family is killed, that's when they serve the
7:22
Speaker 3: search warrants, and that's where they find clear evidence that
7:26
Speaker 3: ultimately convicts the Hallies forging those documents. They're never able
7:30
Speaker 3: to charge the Hallies or anyone with the murder of
7:32
Speaker 3: the business partner, but they were able to charge and
7:35
Speaker 3: convict the Hollies of the fraud tied to taking the asset.
7:39
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Bob was in Lakeville and he was very much
7:42
Speaker 1: aware of the danger. Just according to a person named
7:45
Speaker 1: Tony Beeeler who was hired to take photographs for a
7:47
Speaker 1: church directory, Bob made her swear on a Bible and
7:51
Speaker 1: explained why he didn't want his picture taken and made public.
7:55
Speaker 2: He expressed to her there are people from my past
7:58
Speaker 2: in Florida that we'll find us and harm us. And
8:02
Speaker 2: he was very resistant to their identities being out there.
8:06
Speaker 2: And then they're all massacred like what.
8:09
Speaker 1: Curiously, the Pellies were in touch with the Hawlies, who
8:12
Speaker 1: knew that they'd moved to Lakeville, but Bob was certainly
8:15
Speaker 1: afraid of someone. Meanwhile, in Lakeville, the police were investigating
8:19
Speaker 1: a string of petty thefts, and Bob discovered that his son,
8:22
Speaker 1: Jeff and his friends the Herzogs, were involved, So he
8:25
Speaker 1: took away Jeff's Mustang and forbade him from attending the
8:29
Speaker 1: prom or any after prime activities, including a day trip
8:33
Speaker 1: the next day to Six Flags Raided America.
8:35
Speaker 3: That's definitely part of the story is that mister Pelly
8:38
Speaker 3: had told many people that Jeff was grounded from the prom,
8:42
Speaker 3: and the fact we always cite in responses, Well, if
8:45
Speaker 3: Jeff wasn't going to the prom, then how did Jackie
8:48
Speaker 3: know to tell the police he'd be at Great America
8:50
Speaker 3: this pre date cell phone. She'd not been home since
8:53
Speaker 3: Friday nine. So if Jeff wasn't going to the prom,
8:56
Speaker 3: how does Jackie think he's at Great America?
9:00
Speaker 1: According to those closest to the situation, Jeff's sisters Jackie
9:04
Speaker 1: and Jesse, and Jeff's girlfriend Darla, it appears that Bob
9:07
Speaker 1: had softened his result as early as Friday, which was
9:11
Speaker 1: the night before the prompt. Additionally, the Pellies had written
9:14
Speaker 1: checks the week prior to cover Jeff's tuxedo and other
9:18
Speaker 1: prom fees. Yet the state still contended that this punishment,
9:22
Speaker 1: along with access to his mustang, was the motivation for
9:26
Speaker 1: him to commit a quadruple homicide against his own family.
9:29
Speaker 1: That happened sometime after five pm on April twenty nine,
9:33
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. So let's back up to earlier that
9:36
Speaker 1: day so we can establish the timeline.
9:38
Speaker 3: He worked at McDonald's that Saturday of the prom, starting
9:42
Speaker 3: at five am, and then when his father picked him up,
9:45
Speaker 3: the dad stopped at the gun store. Now, the state's
9:49
Speaker 3: theory was the dad stopped at the gun store because
9:51
Speaker 3: he was afraid of his son.
9:53
Speaker 1: But if you know the context about Florida, this stop
9:56
Speaker 1: makes more sense. According to the store, Bob inquired about
9:59
Speaker 1: a gun for Dawn, but he didn't purchase anything.
10:02
Speaker 3: Mister Pelly's kicked his son up at noon brought him home.
10:05
Speaker 3: They all had lunch together and watch baseball. People came
10:08
Speaker 3: over to show their prom dresses.
10:10
Speaker 2: There was a girl named Kim and her date David.
10:13
Speaker 2: A boy named Matt Miller came over at that same time,
10:16
Speaker 2: so they're all there between four thirty and five o'clock,
10:19
Speaker 2: maybe five after five at the most.
10:22
Speaker 3: So the state's theory is that after this dear friend
10:25
Speaker 3: and church people leave, he just goes into a rage
10:28
Speaker 3: and kills everyone and then goes to the prom and
10:31
Speaker 3: acts normal.
10:31
Speaker 1: And according to the dear friend and church people, Jeff
10:35
Speaker 1: had been wearing blue jeans and potentially a pink pin
10:37
Speaker 1: striped shirt. And the promgoers left around five pm to
10:41
Speaker 1: pick up Matt Miller's date.
10:42
Speaker 2: Matt Miller forgets his corsage for his date, so he
10:46
Speaker 2: goes back home. And as Matt is passing back on
10:50
Speaker 2: Osborne Road headed to go meet Kim and David at
10:53
Speaker 2: his date's house, he passes the parsonage and sees Jeff's
10:57
Speaker 2: Mustang still park there. This is at right around five
11:00
Speaker 2: point fifteen. And then there's I think one of Jeff's
11:03
Speaker 2: friends that was mushroom hunting in the area. Here's Jeff's car,
11:07
Speaker 2: the noticeable engine roar down Osborne Road a little after
11:11
Speaker 2: five point fifteen. And then we have Dennis Nico Dimes,
11:14
Speaker 2: who is the clerk at the Mco gas station, who
11:17
Speaker 2: has an interaction with Jeff who says it's five p
11:20
Speaker 2: seventeen when Jeff is at that gas station.
11:23
Speaker 1: From then on, Jeff is accounted for wearing a black
11:26
Speaker 1: Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans, followed by his tuxedo. So,
11:30
Speaker 1: according to the state, Jeff committed this quadruple homicide between
11:33
Speaker 1: five and five sixteen pm. But there's the specter of
11:37
Speaker 1: this black pickup truck, which wasn't mentioned by the promgoers
11:40
Speaker 1: either while they were there as they left, or by
11:43
Speaker 1: Matt Miller as he drove by, but rather by a
11:46
Speaker 1: woman named Lois Stansbury who saw Bob Pelley after the
11:49
Speaker 1: prom goers left and potentially after five sixteen PM.
11:54
Speaker 3: She's probably part of the reason Jeff wasn't charged in
11:56
Speaker 3: eighty nine. She was a local, good standing citizen who
12:00
Speaker 3: said she'd been to kmart. She came back up the
12:03
Speaker 3: road to visit her father and saw mister Pelley talking
12:06
Speaker 3: to someone in a black truck.
12:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, her purchase at kmart was documented and on her receipt.
12:11
Speaker 2: I want to say like four thirty to four forty,
12:16
Speaker 2: and where that kmart was located the Osborne Road. I
12:19
Speaker 2: think we drove it and it was like maybe ten
12:22
Speaker 2: or twelve minutes, so based on her movements and that receipt,
12:26
Speaker 2: and like one other pit stop she made on the way,
12:28
Speaker 2: she's got to be seeing him to be generous a
12:31
Speaker 2: little after five to five twenty.
12:34
Speaker 3: And according to the witness, mister Pelly had a shovel
12:36
Speaker 3: in his hand, and he looked a bit circumspect, in
12:39
Speaker 3: other words, he wasn't his normal waving self.
12:43
Speaker 2: And when she came forward to law enforcement a week
12:45
Speaker 2: or so after the crime, she provides that receipt to them,
12:49
Speaker 2: saying like, Hey, here's how I know when I saw
12:51
Speaker 2: Bob from five to five twenty. So if Bob's alive
12:54
Speaker 2: standing in his driveway talking, is someone in a black
12:56
Speaker 2: pickup truck, He's not getting murdered by his teenage son
13:00
Speaker 2: in the home.
13:01
Speaker 1: Mysteriously, that receipt later went missing, and the state contends
13:06
Speaker 1: that it must have been earlier and the prom goers
13:09
Speaker 1: just missed it somehow. Now after this sighting, we aren't
13:13
Speaker 1: sure what happened with the Pellies. At five point thirty,
13:16
Speaker 1: Bob was expected at the home of another prom goer, Crystal,
13:19
Speaker 1: Easter Day, but when he didn't show up, she and
13:21
Speaker 1: her date came over to the parsonage between five pointy
13:24
Speaker 1: five and six pm, and they found the Pelly station
13:27
Speaker 1: wagon in the driveway and the curtains drawn, and there
13:30
Speaker 1: was no response when they knocked on the door.
13:32
Speaker 3: She made later statements that the doors were locked in
13:35
Speaker 3: her earliest statements, there's nothing that suggests she tried to
13:38
Speaker 3: determine whether they were locked or not. But that was
13:41
Speaker 3: a strong fact the state used because their claim was
13:44
Speaker 3: that the Pelly family had already been slain inside that home.
13:49
Speaker 2: Everything that happened after Jeff is accounted for by witnesses.
13:55
Speaker 2: You don't know what's then happening with Bob and Don
13:58
Speaker 2: and the girls. They're either already deceased or they're potentially
14:02
Speaker 2: still at home for whatever reason, didn't fulfill their plans
14:05
Speaker 2: for the night. Were they taken somewhere and then brought
14:08
Speaker 2: back to the home. That's obviously a possibility, a little
14:11
Speaker 2: bit more involved, because you would think that someone would
14:13
Speaker 2: have seen that were they being held at their home
14:17
Speaker 2: that evening, potentially through the early morning hours.
14:20
Speaker 3: I think mister Pelly got in that black truck myself.
14:24
Speaker 3: If mister Pelly's got some inklingess is going on. What
14:27
Speaker 3: if mister Pelly left in the black truck and said
14:29
Speaker 3: to the family, prom goings over. Lock the house, don't
14:32
Speaker 3: answer the door.
14:34
Speaker 1: No one saw anyone coming or going for the rest
14:37
Speaker 1: of the night, although there's mention of a limousine with
14:39
Speaker 1: Florida plates nearby. Additionally, the next door neighbor, Sheila Saunders,
14:43
Speaker 1: noted that the Pelly's basement light was on at nine
14:46
Speaker 1: to fifteen PM and two am, but when Bob didn't
14:49
Speaker 1: show up for Sunday service and the scene was discovered,
14:52
Speaker 1: it was noted that the basement light was off.
14:55
Speaker 2: So Sunday morning, April thirtieth, around nine fifteen, already in
15:00
Speaker 2: the morning, a man named Dave Hathaway, who's sort of
15:03
Speaker 2: like an elder at the church, realized that Bob wasn't
15:07
Speaker 2: in the sanctuary. His stepdaughters weren't running around anywhere. Don
15:11
Speaker 2: was not there, and so Dave eventually walks over he
15:16
Speaker 2: needs a spare key. Dave walks in through the garage,
15:20
Speaker 2: gets a couple steps in to go let the other
15:22
Speaker 2: elder in, and before he even gets there, he kind
15:25
Speaker 2: of looks over into this hallway that leads into the
15:28
Speaker 2: bedrooms and sees what he recognizes as Bob Pelly's kind
15:32
Speaker 2: of thicker glasses on the carpet, some blood, realizes something
15:37
Speaker 2: is very wrong, and then obviously, law enforcement is called.
15:41
Speaker 1: Dave Hathaway initially mentioned that the blood was still wet,
15:44
Speaker 1: but he later recalled it differently and said that the
15:46
Speaker 1: blood was dry. Now clarity on that would have been
15:50
Speaker 1: very helpful when establishing the timeline. But let's go back
15:53
Speaker 1: to the scene.
15:54
Speaker 2: I think the thought always was initially by law enforcement,
15:57
Speaker 2: that Bob Pelly died first in the hall way upstairs,
16:01
Speaker 2: and then the killer or killers completed the crime downstairs
16:05
Speaker 2: with Dawn and the girls unfortunately with their bodies sort
16:08
Speaker 2: of positioned on or next to one another, and I
16:11
Speaker 2: think that would indicate that they all died at the
16:15
Speaker 2: same time or in very quick succession.
16:17
Speaker 1: There's also a gun shot in the stairwell heading down
16:19
Speaker 1: into the basement that appears to have been a near miss,
16:22
Speaker 1: which may support that theory of succession. Interestingly, the shooter
16:25
Speaker 1: must have collected the shell casing, so all they found
16:28
Speaker 1: were the spent twenty gage shotgun slugs, and watting, which
16:32
Speaker 1: is either a paper or plastic part of the bullet
16:34
Speaker 1: between the gunpowder and the slug.
16:36
Speaker 2: This watting usually falls or flutters to the floor, and
16:39
Speaker 2: in this case some of it is in the wounds
16:41
Speaker 2: or on the clothing of the victim, which just goes
16:44
Speaker 2: to show how close in proximity the shooter was to them.
16:47
Speaker 2: There is watting discovered from two different types of shotgun
16:52
Speaker 2: shell casings by different manufacturers, which begins to open the
16:56
Speaker 2: door of was there one shooter? Was there two shooters?
17:00
Speaker 2: It just raises a lot of questions, and.
17:02
Speaker 1: Establishing the time of death would have gone a long
17:04
Speaker 1: way to answering them. Unfortunately, the coroner lost that information
17:08
Speaker 1: when he refrigerated the bodies before determining it. But there
17:12
Speaker 1: were some interesting findings at autopsy.
17:15
Speaker 2: We do see popcorn in Bob's stomach. Jackie Pelly always says,
17:20
Speaker 2: like her dad's evening snack before he'd had to preach
17:22
Speaker 2: a message the next day, it was popcorn. So it's like, Okay,
17:25
Speaker 2: why would he have been eating that in the middle
17:27
Speaker 2: of the afternoon or late afternoon. He didn't really have
17:30
Speaker 2: opportunity to do that because we know he was visiting
17:32
Speaker 2: with parishioners all throughout the afternoon on Saturday, right up
17:35
Speaker 2: until about four o'clock. And then all these kids come
17:38
Speaker 2: over to get their pictures taken. So it's like, did
17:39
Speaker 2: they eat those things either right up until they were
17:42
Speaker 2: killed or later that night? But how could they have
17:44
Speaker 2: eaten them if they were already dead? And so it
17:46
Speaker 2: really begins to kind of throw off the timeline.
18:00
Speaker 1: Episode of Wrongful Conviction is proudly sponsored by Erase PTSD Now.
18:04
Speaker 1: Every day, countless individuals face the invisible wounds of trauma
18:08
Speaker 1: and PTSD. Your support empowers us to provide life changing
18:12
Speaker 1: treatments like the Stelli Ganglion Block SGB, which inhibits nerve
18:16
Speaker 1: impulses and helps to restore hope, reclaim lives, and save
18:20
Speaker 1: lives after incarceration. Together, we can ensure that those wrongfully
18:24
Speaker 1: convicted receive the care they need to heal and reintegrate
18:28
Speaker 1: into society. Join us in this mission to erase PTSD
18:32
Speaker 1: and uplift our communities. Visit ERASEPTSD noow dot org. That's
18:36
Speaker 1: erase PTSD now dot org for more information and ways
18:41
Speaker 1: to get involved.
18:46
Speaker 2: When they first began processing the scene, there was a
18:50
Speaker 2: Indiana State trooper who came to the scene and was
18:54
Speaker 2: familiar with Jeff and Bob Pelly because he was in
18:58
Speaker 2: a community club with Bob and had gotten to know Bob,
19:01
Speaker 2: and Bob had opened up to him a little bit
19:03
Speaker 2: about his sort of parental struggles with Jeff and some
19:07
Speaker 2: thefts and people that Bob didn't like that Jeff was
19:09
Speaker 2: hanging out with, and bad attitude and things like that,
19:12
Speaker 2: the lamenting of a father of a teenage son, and
19:15
Speaker 2: so the state trooper came into the crime scene investigation
19:19
Speaker 2: with that sort of back history.
19:21
Speaker 1: Even though the autopsy findings Lois Stansbury and Sheila Saunders
19:25
Speaker 1: all suggest that the murders happened later on that night,
19:28
Speaker 1: it appears that tunnel vision had already set in and
19:31
Speaker 1: the state turned him into some sort of master criminal
19:35
Speaker 1: with prowess that would be something out of a spy
19:38
Speaker 1: thriller or something.
19:39
Speaker 2: The lack of physical evidence says a lot in this case,
19:42
Speaker 2: because it's not just someone would have had to clean
19:45
Speaker 2: themselves up from the biological material, but they would have
19:48
Speaker 2: had to get all those shell casings. Be careful not
19:51
Speaker 2: to step in any blood, because there's no tracking of
19:55
Speaker 2: blood or footprints or shoeprints or sock prints. There's no
19:58
Speaker 2: smearing on the floor of any sort of transfer like that.
20:03
Speaker 2: So this is someone who is being extremely careful, extremely methodic,
20:08
Speaker 2: picking up shellcasings and then able to close curtains and
20:13
Speaker 2: lock doors get rid of all incriminating evidence.
20:16
Speaker 1: All between five and five sixteen pm.
20:20
Speaker 2: Law enforcement and even the prosecution over the years has said,
20:24
Speaker 2: it's tight, it's a tight window, it is a hard cell.
20:27
Speaker 2: We get that. But we believe that he did it
20:30
Speaker 2: because we believe that he pre planned to do it.
20:33
Speaker 1: And so they located as surviving Pelly children. Jesse and
20:36
Speaker 1: Jackie were each at their friends' homes, and they said
20:39
Speaker 1: that Jeff was at Great America, so that dispels the
20:42
Speaker 1: state's motive. But then Jackie and Jesse disagreed about whether
20:47
Speaker 1: or not the family's twenty gage shotgun was in the home.
20:50
Speaker 2: Jesse, she says that before she left for her sleepover
20:53
Speaker 2: on Friday, that the gun was there, that the gun
20:56
Speaker 2: was on the rack. That's her memory. She's obviously young, idea,
21:00
Speaker 2: don't know how often she went in there and like check,
21:03
Speaker 2: so I don't know if that's a memory from a
21:05
Speaker 2: pre existing entry into her parents' room or not.
21:09
Speaker 1: But according to both Jackie and Thomas Keb that shotgun
21:12
Speaker 1: was not in the parsonage. Next, Lakeville PD went to
21:16
Speaker 1: get Jeff near Great America. They searched his car, found
21:18
Speaker 1: a paper grocery bag containing his black Hawaiian shirt and
21:21
Speaker 1: blue jeans, which also had a dollar bill and thirty
21:24
Speaker 1: four coins in the pocket, and there was also a
21:27
Speaker 1: legible receipt in the bag. Jeff was then brought back
21:29
Speaker 1: to Lakeville for an interview with the cops in the
21:31
Speaker 1: company of his grandparents.
21:33
Speaker 3: So five am Monday, he waives his rights and he
21:36
Speaker 3: gives a statement. It's recorded. When they ask him, can
21:40
Speaker 3: you think of anyone that would do this, he readily
21:43
Speaker 3: says the only thing I can think of is it
21:45
Speaker 3: could be the herse ags And I'm paraphrasing. My dad
21:49
Speaker 3: was investigating a theft ring. These kids are mad at
21:52
Speaker 3: my dad. You need to go talk to Detective Center.
21:55
Speaker 1: Who confirmed what Jeff said. Now without a confession, police
21:59
Speaker 1: began to say speculate about Jeff's reaction to the news,
22:02
Speaker 1: which is never convincing evidence of guilt or innocence, but
22:05
Speaker 1: people do it anyway. Now, they also inspected his body
22:09
Speaker 1: for any injuries and they took pictures.
22:11
Speaker 3: Those photographs show that Jeff has not a single mark
22:15
Speaker 3: on his chest. So the theory is he took that
22:18
Speaker 3: family twenty gauge and he fired it at least six
22:21
Speaker 3: times within the confines of a small hallway in a
22:24
Speaker 3: small basement area without at all one bruce. That's Monday morning.
22:31
Speaker 3: So later the grandparents agree to bringing back Monday evening
22:35
Speaker 3: for a polygraph. And at this point they agree they
22:37
Speaker 3: purposely separating from his grandparents for the purpose of getting
22:41
Speaker 3: him to admit this, and you know what, he didn't confess.
22:45
Speaker 1: But in between interviews they discovered something that Jeff hadn't
22:49
Speaker 1: mentioned in his first that he'd stopped at two gas
22:52
Speaker 1: stations on the way to Darla's house. So he explained why,
22:55
Speaker 1: an issue with the car and access to tools that
22:58
Speaker 1: he needed to work with the car, and they said
22:59
Speaker 1: that discrepancy made them doubt his story that he must
23:02
Speaker 1: have done it all while the threat of the death
23:05
Speaker 1: penalty loomed large and importantly, the second interview was not recorded,
23:11
Speaker 1: just some of his answers were jotted down, and the
23:14
Speaker 1: detective alleged that Jeff said something that sounded incriminating.
23:18
Speaker 3: They say, he says something like if I tell you
23:21
Speaker 3: what I know, well I get the death penalty or something.
23:24
Speaker 3: They testify at trial that he said that, Well, maybe
23:27
Speaker 3: that's related to the her songs he told you about them.
23:31
Speaker 2: I think that statement on its face is certainly like
23:33
Speaker 2: what who would say that? But you also just have
23:36
Speaker 2: to know where it's coming from, and also how people
23:39
Speaker 2: respond to questions they're asked, and if only their response
23:43
Speaker 2: is written down and the context of the question is
23:46
Speaker 2: not included. I mean, I've done this with now multiple
23:49
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction claim cases where it's like, wow, okay, now
23:53
Speaker 2: that I know what was asked, that changes how I
23:55
Speaker 2: see the response.
23:56
Speaker 1: Without a recording, we don't even know what exactly was said,
24:00
Speaker 1: let alone why. And it also seems that misrepresentations aren't
24:04
Speaker 1: exactly outside the realm of possibilities in this case. And
24:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that later, but for now,
24:09
Speaker 1: we do know that Bob Pelly and the Herzogs were
24:12
Speaker 1: at odds.
24:13
Speaker 3: People in the beginning in the community thought it was
24:16
Speaker 3: about this thievery. Mister Pelly was trying to shut down
24:22
Speaker 3: at the funeral home. One of the her Sogs showed
24:24
Speaker 3: up and if people got into a fight, we put
24:27
Speaker 3: on Jackie. At the PCR hearing to say, the her
24:29
Speaker 3: Sogs came over to our house to threaten.
24:31
Speaker 1: Jeff, and we only raised the Herzogs to give potential
24:34
Speaker 1: context around what was allegedly said in this unrecorded interview. Meanwhile,
24:38
Speaker 1: in addition to the clothing from the paperbag in Jeff's car,
24:41
Speaker 1: the police retrieved clothing from the Pelly's washing machine. According
24:45
Speaker 1: to records they sent to the FBI, there was a
24:47
Speaker 1: pink pin striped shirt and tube socks with no biological
24:51
Speaker 1: material found, which became sort of a running theme.
24:54
Speaker 2: I think the state they just kept hitting walls with
24:57
Speaker 2: this physical evidence piece, even down to to the point
25:00
Speaker 2: of analyzing the washing machine for blood and biological material.
25:04
Speaker 2: The lumina went kind of wild on the floor or
25:07
Speaker 2: in the retention of the washer, I think. But right
25:10
Speaker 2: away the experts say it's probably from the detergent, which
25:13
Speaker 2: like absolutely picture it.
25:14
Speaker 3: Picture it. You go to a washing machine after killing
25:17
Speaker 3: four people, trying to get out of those clothes to
25:20
Speaker 3: wash away the biological material of the dead. You take
25:23
Speaker 3: your clothes off. What happens. It falls where you're just
25:27
Speaker 3: robing where was that. You'd have to clean it up
25:30
Speaker 3: and that would leave a pattern when they sprayed that luminol,
25:34
Speaker 3: there were no patterns, so nobody wiped anything up.
25:37
Speaker 1: Also, importantly, if Jeff had done this, his blue genes
25:40
Speaker 1: should have held onto some biological material. But the FBI
25:43
Speaker 1: confirmed that there was no blood on the jeans and
25:46
Speaker 1: that they had not been washed. The police even found
25:49
Speaker 1: a bloody T shirt in a nearby field that they
25:51
Speaker 1: asked the FBI to try to compare it to the
25:52
Speaker 1: clothes found of the paper bag to try to find
25:55
Speaker 1: a connection, but to no avail. And between Thomas cab
25:59
Speaker 1: Lois Stansburg, Sheila Saunders, the autopsy findings, and the lack
26:03
Speaker 1: of a confession or physical evidence, the state couldn't charge
26:07
Speaker 1: Jeff the prosecutor.
26:08
Speaker 2: The subsequent prosecutors who were elected, none of them would
26:11
Speaker 2: bring charges. The case, in their eyes, lacked what it
26:16
Speaker 2: would need to have a successful prosecution, and so.
26:19
Speaker 1: Life moved on for the surviving Pelly children. For now.
26:23
Speaker 2: Jackie went to live with her grandparents in Kentucky, came
26:27
Speaker 2: into adulthood, and got married, and she's kind of moved
26:30
Speaker 2: all over with her husband and their family. Jesse goes
26:33
Speaker 2: to live with I believe Don's family, and then kind
26:37
Speaker 2: of just carried on life.
26:39
Speaker 1: And remember, Jeff was fifteen when they left his friends
26:42
Speaker 1: in Florida, and he had no clue about anything that
26:44
Speaker 1: was going on between Phil and his dad. Plus he
26:47
Speaker 1: was close with Phil's youngest son, Martin.
26:49
Speaker 2: Jeff obviously was getting a little bit older. He graduated
26:52
Speaker 2: high school. He then moved to Florida in the Fort
26:54
Speaker 2: Myers area, he started working for Phil Hawley. Jeff then
26:58
Speaker 2: married Phil Hawley's daughter so could have merit into that family.
27:03
Speaker 2: And it was kind of throughout that mid nineties timeframe
27:06
Speaker 2: that Phil Hawley and his sons are all on trial
27:09
Speaker 2: for not Eric Dawson's murder, but the fraud that they
27:13
Speaker 2: had committed against Eric Dawson.
27:15
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back in Lakeville, one of the assistant prosecutors from
27:18
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Christopher Tough, ran for Saint Joseph's County
27:21
Speaker 1: prosecuting Attorney, promising to open a cold case unit. He
27:25
Speaker 1: was elected in November nineteen ninety eight and they began
27:27
Speaker 1: reinvestigating the Pelly case. But the situation didn't really change
27:31
Speaker 1: until two thousand and two, when the blue jeans from
27:33
Speaker 1: the paper grocery bag with thirty four coins, a dollar bill,
27:36
Speaker 1: and a legible receipt were viewed again, but this time
27:39
Speaker 1: in a different light.
27:41
Speaker 3: And as the court agreed, they clearly confused the blue
27:45
Speaker 3: jeans and make an assumption that the blue jeans were
27:48
Speaker 3: what were in the washing machine having been washed. When
27:50
Speaker 3: that police officer made that assumption, he sent those blue
27:54
Speaker 3: jeans away again for testing, and in two thousand and
27:56
Speaker 3: two the FBI said they were heavily stained, found no
28:00
Speaker 3: blood on them.
28:00
Speaker 2: If it's established that the genes weren't in fact washed,
28:04
Speaker 2: had coins in the pocket, and there's a receipt in
28:06
Speaker 2: the bag that they pulled from an evidence storage, then
28:09
Speaker 2: it means that law enforcement can't say he committed the
28:13
Speaker 2: crime and then covered up and washed his clothes.
28:15
Speaker 3: They never asked themselves. Thirty four coins stayed in the
28:19
Speaker 3: pocket of a pair of jeans washed off, thirty four
28:22
Speaker 3: of them? What are you talking about?
28:24
Speaker 1: Not to mention that evidence, especially wet physical evidence, typically
28:29
Speaker 1: would never be placed in a paper grocery bag. Now
28:33
Speaker 1: it's unclear where exactly Detective Whitfield's belief falls on the
28:37
Speaker 1: scale of honest mistake to pure evil, but either way,
28:42
Speaker 1: no one along the way ever questioned the belief, and
28:45
Speaker 1: he obtained an arrest warrant, which was executed at Los
28:48
Speaker 1: Angeles International Airport. Jeff was arriving from a business trip
28:51
Speaker 1: with his wife and Jackie, who then found him a
28:53
Speaker 1: California attorney named Alan Baum to handle the arraignment. After
28:58
Speaker 1: seeing the facts of the case, Allen State on board.
29:01
Speaker 1: But even more information came to light after Jeff's arrest.
29:05
Speaker 3: Tony Baylor, she comes forward once there's a trial date,
29:08
Speaker 3: and she goes to the police department, not to mister
29:11
Speaker 3: Pelly's lawyers, to the police department and they record her
29:14
Speaker 3: statement and she describes this encounter with mister Pelly and
29:18
Speaker 3: the church in which he expresses fear for his family's
29:21
Speaker 3: safety from his experiences from Florida following him to Indiana.
29:27
Speaker 2: Which obviously doesn't really point in Jeff's direction. So that's
29:31
Speaker 2: like not super great for a prosecution.
29:33
Speaker 3: And that particular tape of Tony Baylor never made it
29:38
Speaker 3: into the jury trial because mister Pelly's lawyers never knew
29:42
Speaker 3: of her.
29:42
Speaker 2: I really don't think, based on what the records show,
29:45
Speaker 2: that it was a reinvestigation to try and solve the homicides.
29:50
Speaker 2: I believe it shows that the reinvestigation was to ultimately
29:54
Speaker 2: clear or not clear Jeff Pelly as a suspect, and
29:58
Speaker 2: those are two very different things. And ultimately I don't
30:01
Speaker 2: think they pursued really avenues of clearing him. I think
30:04
Speaker 2: they pursued more avenues of arrest.
30:06
Speaker 1: From two thousand and three, Jeff was held in pre
30:08
Speaker 1: trial detention with no bond until his attorney finally got
30:13
Speaker 1: one set in two thousand and five, and he wasn't
30:15
Speaker 1: tried until two thousand and six.
30:18
Speaker 2: From nineteen eighty nine to like two thousand and three
30:21
Speaker 2: is a huge delay.
30:22
Speaker 1: That's a very cold case, right.
30:24
Speaker 2: I think his attorneys have argued like that in itself
30:27
Speaker 2: could have been prejudicial or was prejudicial? Do you then
30:30
Speaker 2: have all the way until six before you get a
30:32
Speaker 2: trial because of different clocks in the court going at
30:35
Speaker 2: different speeds, and then you know, in that timeframe from
30:37
Speaker 2: the arrest of the trial, the state pauses for like
30:39
Speaker 2: over a year to say they need these family counseling records,
30:42
Speaker 2: and then they get them and they never use them.
30:44
Speaker 1: Maybe they were just stalling because the case was so weak.
30:47
Speaker 1: The prosecutor, Frank Shaeffer, even admitted to the jury that
30:51
Speaker 1: they had no physical evidence.
30:53
Speaker 2: There's no blood found on Jeff for his belongings. There's
30:57
Speaker 2: nothing of his found on the victims way in which
31:00
Speaker 2: that would indicate he was present for the crime. They
31:03
Speaker 2: don't find the firearm, they don't find the shellcas things,
31:06
Speaker 2: they don't find a bundle of clothing and a dumpster
31:08
Speaker 2: somewhere that was somewhere he made a stop. Nothing physical
31:11
Speaker 2: evidence wise connects Jeff to the crime.
31:15
Speaker 1: It was a circumstantial case. The investigators described the scene
31:19
Speaker 1: and then they established their timeline with the prom goers,
31:22
Speaker 1: which was countered by Lois Stansbury. But her Kmart receipt
31:27
Speaker 1: had mysteriously disappeared, just vanished, so the state was able
31:31
Speaker 1: to explain her away, along with other aberrations like the
31:36
Speaker 1: popcorn in Bob's stomach and the light that was on
31:38
Speaker 1: in the basement at nine to fifteen pm and two am.
31:42
Speaker 1: So then the stage was set for between five and
31:45
Speaker 1: five sixteen pm.
31:47
Speaker 2: The prosecution was relying on individuals that knew Jeff and
31:53
Speaker 2: Bob Pelly to talk about their tumultuous relationship and the
31:57
Speaker 2: issue of a prom Could he go, could he not go?
31:59
Speaker 2: Could take a car? Could he not take his car?
32:01
Speaker 2: And so even though the state doesn't really have to
32:04
Speaker 2: prove motive. They knew that was the only way they
32:06
Speaker 2: were going to be able to convince jurors that Jeff
32:09
Speaker 2: had done it.
32:09
Speaker 1: The problem with that is Jackie and Jesse both testified
32:12
Speaker 1: that Jeff was allowed to go, but they disagreed about
32:16
Speaker 1: whether the family's twenty gage shotgun was in the house,
32:19
Speaker 1: which could have been cleared up by Thomas Kebb.
32:21
Speaker 2: Thomas Kebb never testifies at the trial. Obviously the defense
32:26
Speaker 2: would have wanted to use him because he's saying, no,
32:29
Speaker 2: there was no guns in the Pelly home. All the
32:31
Speaker 2: guns came to me before the murder, which sort of
32:33
Speaker 2: takes away the state's point of there was a shotgun
32:36
Speaker 2: hanging on a rack in the bedroom and that's what
32:38
Speaker 2: Jeff grabbed and killed his family with. Well, if the
32:39
Speaker 2: gun isn't there, then Deff can't do the crime. But
32:43
Speaker 2: Thomas Keb was problematic because I pointed out in the
32:47
Speaker 2: show that the defense got into why he had the guns.
32:50
Speaker 2: They had to go into the point that Jeff had
32:52
Speaker 2: threatened to take his own life the year before, and
32:55
Speaker 2: I think Jeff's trial attorney saw that as does that
32:59
Speaker 2: paint Jeff as a stable.
33:00
Speaker 1: But an unarmed Jeff can't shoot his family, unstable or not.
33:06
Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, that wasn't his team's only failure.
33:09
Speaker 3: The initial claim in the proble cause Affidavid says that
33:12
Speaker 3: the blue jeans were washed. The defense attorneys never looked
33:16
Speaker 3: inside the brown bag to know that the blue jeans
33:21
Speaker 3: themselves were dirty.
33:23
Speaker 2: He just accepted the prosecution's established fact that the jeans
33:27
Speaker 2: had been washed.
33:28
Speaker 1: So the state's misrepresentation that the jeans had been pulled
33:31
Speaker 1: from the washing machine went unchallenged, and the jury was
33:34
Speaker 1: left with the impression that Jeff covered his tracks by
33:37
Speaker 1: washing those Jens.
33:38
Speaker 2: What I found absolutely unbelievable is that Craig Whitfield, the
33:43
Speaker 2: investigator who took up the case that reinvestigated and ultimately
33:47
Speaker 2: submitted the arrest affidavit and arrested Jeff Pelly, was never
33:50
Speaker 2: called to testify at his trial. So the absence of
33:53
Speaker 2: Craig Whitfield, I think says a lot as far as
33:56
Speaker 2: how the prosecution potentially saw downfalls of his work.
34:00
Speaker 1: But it appears that the defense may not have prepared
34:02
Speaker 1: cross examination anyway.
34:05
Speaker 3: The evidence was so weak that I think the defense
34:09
Speaker 3: they weren't as prepared as they needed to be to
34:12
Speaker 3: attack some of the state's points and totally missed the
34:16
Speaker 3: Florida stuff. Totally missed that at the point that the
34:19
Speaker 3: families killed is right when the Holy Famili's getting arrested.
34:25
Speaker 1: But it's not like the defense didn't try to raise
34:27
Speaker 1: the specter of Bob's past.
34:29
Speaker 3: So at trial, the defense is trying to go into
34:32
Speaker 3: the Florida facts without witnesses that have firsthand knowledge, and
34:37
Speaker 3: so the defense attorney says someone saw a limousine with
34:42
Speaker 3: Florida plates. The defense attorneys never found the person who
34:46
Speaker 3: actually saw the limousine.
34:48
Speaker 1: And without a witness with firsthand knowledge, the Florida facts
34:52
Speaker 1: were denied. Unfortunately, Tony Bieler's video statement appears to have
34:56
Speaker 1: been unavailable as well.
34:58
Speaker 3: The defense attorneys testified at the post conviction hearing, had
35:02
Speaker 3: they known about that statement, they would have talked to
35:04
Speaker 3: that witness.
35:05
Speaker 1: So the jury never heard about the danger from Florida.
35:08
Speaker 1: But the defense did continue down that alternate suspect road,
35:12
Speaker 1: presenting the shotgun wadding evidence suggesting there may have been
35:16
Speaker 1: multiple shooters.
35:17
Speaker 2: And if there's more than one shooter, that kind of
35:20
Speaker 2: takes Jeff off the chessboard, right, because it would just
35:22
Speaker 2: be sort of illogical to think that he had a
35:25
Speaker 2: co conspirator that's been quiet like all these years. So
35:29
Speaker 2: the difference in the wadding types means two types of
35:32
Speaker 2: AMMO were used, but same gauge. So either it's two
35:35
Speaker 2: different shotguns or one gun is loaded with different types
35:40
Speaker 2: of AMMO, same gauge, but you know, just different types
35:43
Speaker 2: of AMMO, which like, okay, that's not impossible, but it
35:46
Speaker 2: would be odd.
35:47
Speaker 1: But again, it's not impossible that one shotgun was loaded
35:50
Speaker 1: with the same gauge made by two different manufacturers. So
35:53
Speaker 1: the evidence fell flat without the Florida facts. And then
35:56
Speaker 1: the defense tried to raise doubt about the state's timeline,
36:00
Speaker 1: put on an expert who had done studies on the
36:02
Speaker 1: rate at which different materials dry and testified that the
36:06
Speaker 1: washcloths which were alleged to have been used by Jeff
36:09
Speaker 1: at five PM on the day prior would have been
36:12
Speaker 1: drier by the time they were collected as evidence.
36:15
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that really fell flat for the defense because their
36:18
Speaker 2: expert that they had hired from out of state was
36:20
Speaker 2: just not very thorough with his sort of recreation of
36:23
Speaker 2: figuring out what rate they would have dried at and
36:26
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.
36:27
Speaker 1: Plus, the expert had conducted his experiments in Arizona, a
36:31
Speaker 1: totally different and obviously much drier climate than Indiana, which
36:36
Speaker 1: made the evidence easy to impeach. The state also played
36:40
Speaker 1: the recorded interrogation in which Jeff did not confess, but
36:44
Speaker 1: then the state put on the stand the detective who
36:47
Speaker 1: had conducted the second unrecorded interview, who testified that Jeff
36:51
Speaker 1: had allegedly said, if I tell you what I know,
36:54
Speaker 1: will I get the death penalty? And then the defense
36:57
Speaker 1: didn't raise the context of that response and what it
37:00
Speaker 1: could have meant about the Herzogs that, along with Tony Bieler,
37:04
Speaker 1: the Florida facts, photos of Jeff's unbruised chest, as well
37:08
Speaker 1: as the truth about the blue jeans, well, they simply
37:11
Speaker 1: were not available to the jury.
37:13
Speaker 2: And deliberations, and they're saying, hey, we need more on this.
37:16
Speaker 2: We'd like to hear one of those.
37:17
Speaker 4: It's the blue jeans and some curiosity about Florida and
37:22
Speaker 4: Bob Pelly's past, which is super interesting that the jurors
37:26
Speaker 4: at trial are.
37:28
Speaker 2: Like, well, that seems like there's something there. Can we
37:31
Speaker 2: know more? Can we hear a witness or whatever, and
37:34
Speaker 2: of course, you know, it just that never happens. After
37:49
Speaker 2: she was interviewed as an adult Jesse, she began to
37:52
Speaker 2: look back on her experiences and memories about Jeff and
37:57
Speaker 2: began to have serious doubts about whether or not someone
38:01
Speaker 2: else committed the crime. And he did. And so by
38:04
Speaker 2: the time she is that trial, you know, she was
38:06
Speaker 2: very convinced that Jeff had committed the crime and that
38:10
Speaker 2: he was trying to continue to get away with it,
38:13
Speaker 2: so to speak. She was pleased by the verdict and
38:16
Speaker 2: there was some closure, but you know, it was never
38:19
Speaker 2: one hundred percent closure for her because she genuinely just
38:22
Speaker 2: missed her sisters and her mother and she felt so
38:24
Speaker 2: much had been taken from her. I know, for Jackie,
38:27
Speaker 2: she never thought that Jeff did it. She had no
38:31
Speaker 2: reason to think that he did. At his arrest and
38:34
Speaker 2: at his eventual trial, she was one hundred percent supportive
38:38
Speaker 2: of her brother. She thought he did not do this
38:41
Speaker 2: and that he should not have been convicted for it.
38:43
Speaker 2: She was obviously upset with the verdict, but she's also
38:46
Speaker 2: a very determined individual. So really, from the moment it
38:49
Speaker 2: was read, it was like, Okay, what's next. What's the
38:52
Speaker 2: next phase, what's the next fight? When are we getting
38:53
Speaker 2: back in court?
38:55
Speaker 1: If you recall, it took about three years to take
38:58
Speaker 1: him to trial once he was finally arrested, thirteen long
39:01
Speaker 1: years after the crime. So his direct appeal attorney argued
39:05
Speaker 1: that a number of issues that caused that delay had
39:07
Speaker 1: violated Jeff's right to a speedy trial, which was then
39:11
Speaker 1: ultimately prejudicial.
39:13
Speaker 3: The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed the four murder convictions
39:17
Speaker 3: and said that there was a speedy trial violation, the
39:19
Speaker 3: state had wasted too much time, And the Indiana Supreme
39:23
Speaker 3: Court put those four murder convictions back and said that
39:27
Speaker 3: there was no a speedy trial violation.
39:30
Speaker 1: So his sentence of one hundred and sixty years remained.
39:33
Speaker 3: Then, after that decision, I agreed to represent him in
39:37
Speaker 3: the post conviction action, where, for example, you allege an
39:40
Speaker 3: effective assistants, a council, and constitutional speedy trial violations. Let
39:45
Speaker 3: me say this to you that no one, not the
39:49
Speaker 3: defense team and not the Saint Joseph County prosecutor, according
39:54
Speaker 3: to the evidence, had the FBI file. I got the
39:57
Speaker 3: FBI file because there's no way I believe you could
40:00
Speaker 3: wash a pair of blue jeans sufficient to remove every
40:04
Speaker 3: piece of blood, but leave thirty four coins in the pocket.
40:09
Speaker 3: There's no way I'm going to believe that. Look at
40:10
Speaker 3: the coins, they're dirty. Look at the jeans, they're dirty.
40:14
Speaker 3: The FBI said they were dirty. So I start from
40:17
Speaker 3: the premise this is not right.
40:19
Speaker 1: Frand made it clear that the defense completely neglected to
40:22
Speaker 1: explore how the blue jeans had not been retrieved from
40:25
Speaker 1: the washing machine or how they were falsely represented as
40:28
Speaker 1: evidence of guilt. Then the defense neglected to show how
40:31
Speaker 1: photographs and a lack of bruising showed that Jeff had
40:34
Speaker 1: not likely fired a twenty gage shotgun. Plus there was
40:37
Speaker 1: the failure on the Florida facts.
40:39
Speaker 2: There were ways he could have gotten it in at trial,
40:42
Speaker 2: even the judge threw him a bone, so to speak,
40:44
Speaker 2: at times in sidebar conversations like well, you need to
40:48
Speaker 2: do X, Y and Z. If you want to get
40:49
Speaker 2: this in this way, you gotta do this. You got
40:51
Speaker 2: to give me something to get these facts in that
40:53
Speaker 2: you want to argue about Florida and Bopelly in an
40:55
Speaker 2: ultimate suspect that didn't happen is also those that knew
40:59
Speaker 2: his attorney and had hired him for Jeff said, he's
41:03
Speaker 2: out in California, He's doing his thing. He's not as
41:06
Speaker 2: engaged with the trial. He's doing other trials like those
41:09
Speaker 2: sorts of allegations. And I think that his attorney has
41:11
Speaker 2: even come bored and said, yeah, could I have done
41:14
Speaker 2: a better job on all fronts? Absolutely, I did what
41:17
Speaker 2: I thought was best at the time. But now that
41:19
Speaker 2: I am being told and shown all these things, I
41:22
Speaker 2: agree an IAC complaint is completely valid and let's go,
41:27
Speaker 2: which is I think kind of rare.
41:29
Speaker 1: So they filed the post conviction motion raising ineffective assistance
41:32
Speaker 1: of counsel and speedy trial violations, and they were granted
41:35
Speaker 1: a hearing in twenty twenty two in which they presented
41:38
Speaker 1: evidence of those claims, along with other evidence supporting his innocence,
41:42
Speaker 1: including Tony Bieler.
41:44
Speaker 3: So, she testified at the post conviction hearing that conversation
41:48
Speaker 3: with mister Pelly was in the weeks before the family
41:51
Speaker 3: was murdered, and she didn't come forward in eighty nine.
41:55
Speaker 3: She was afraid, and she testified about that conversation with
41:58
Speaker 3: mister Pelly. And if you look, the state didn't ask
42:01
Speaker 3: her one cross question. We called a lot of witnesses
42:03
Speaker 3: about the actual Florida facts. We believe that the jury
42:07
Speaker 3: should have heard from the mouths of witnesses, including Detective Kopinski,
42:12
Speaker 3: who believed that the Hawleys had murdered their business partner.
42:17
Speaker 3: So we put in lots of evidence about what was
42:19
Speaker 3: going on in Florida that would have caused mister Hawley
42:23
Speaker 3: to want to foreclose any witnesses from coming forward. And look,
42:27
Speaker 3: if you're a father and you've incloves your sons in
42:31
Speaker 3: a business enterprise that's criminal, and you've ratcheted up to murder,
42:35
Speaker 3: I imagine you'd do a lot to protect your.
42:37
Speaker 1: Sons, laying the groundwork for the danger from Florida and
42:41
Speaker 1: a potential professional hit. They also hired a cold case
42:44
Speaker 1: investigator to take a fresh look at the crime scene evidence.
42:47
Speaker 3: We presented an expert, mister Sopoli. He testified about the
42:53
Speaker 3: lack of proper investigation and how the state's theory wasn't
42:57
Speaker 3: consistent with the forensics. I mean, there's a lot of
43:00
Speaker 3: the crime scene, as our expert witness to Poli testified,
43:04
Speaker 3: that would cause one to question whether it was the
43:07
Speaker 3: actions of a seventeen year old on his way to
43:10
Speaker 3: the prom.
43:11
Speaker 1: Or where mister Sopoli lands that this crime was so
43:14
Speaker 1: clean that it likely was a professional hit.
43:18
Speaker 3: So Poli says, they took big trash bags and they
43:21
Speaker 3: just step in him to take their clothes off. That's
43:24
Speaker 3: how professionals do it. But we tried the case and
43:27
Speaker 3: then it took the judge well over a year to rule,
43:30
Speaker 3: and the judge ruled on the anniversary of the murders,
43:34
Speaker 3: which felt harsh. Jeff suffers the deaths of his family,
43:38
Speaker 3: he mourns them. So we lost, and now we take
43:43
Speaker 3: an appeal of the denial of state post conviction relief,
43:47
Speaker 3: which if we lose, will be a prelude to federal
43:50
Speaker 3: habeas and our hope is that the courts will see
43:54
Speaker 3: that the constitutional speedy trial rights and the right to
43:57
Speaker 3: the sixth Amendment effective assistance of council we're violated.
44:01
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we'll link ways to reach Jeff's legal
44:03
Speaker 1: team in the episode description, So if anyone has information
44:06
Speaker 1: about this case, please reach out. You just might be
44:10
Speaker 1: the person that could make a difference here. So with
44:13
Speaker 1: that and with a heavy heart, we're going to go
44:14
Speaker 1: to closing arguments, where I thank you both for helping
44:17
Speaker 1: us tell this harrowing story. And now I'm just going
44:20
Speaker 1: to kick back in my chair and close my eyes
44:22
Speaker 1: and listen to any closing thoughts you may have. We'll
44:26
Speaker 1: start with Delia and then close it out with fran.
44:29
Speaker 2: I've really landed, based on what I know and what
44:31
Speaker 2: I've learned, if Jeff Pelly committed this crime, which is
44:35
Speaker 2: a huge if based on what we know now, but
44:37
Speaker 2: even if you look at that scenario, he did not
44:40
Speaker 2: do it in any of the ways that the state
44:42
Speaker 2: and investigators came to conclude that he did. It does
44:47
Speaker 2: not hold up against what we know about the physical evidence,
44:50
Speaker 2: and even with some of the circumstantial testimony, And so
44:54
Speaker 2: then you really have to really switch gears and be
44:57
Speaker 2: open to the possibility of Okay, let's take him off
45:01
Speaker 2: the board. Now what do we look at? And in
45:03
Speaker 2: most criminal cases, you would say, here, here, that's kind
45:07
Speaker 2: of thin, that's hard. But in this case, there are
45:10
Speaker 2: so many credible and legitimate pursuits of investigation that show
45:17
Speaker 2: that other individuals or another individual could have committed this crime.
45:23
Speaker 3: I would close by saying thanks for your interests, thanks
45:26
Speaker 3: for the willingness to look at the facts without a
45:29
Speaker 3: bias and with some neutrality. I think this is a
45:33
Speaker 3: case of injustice in which the state pursued the charges
45:38
Speaker 3: against Jeff without evidence that was truthful in terms of
45:44
Speaker 3: the Blue Jeans and in terms of the allegations even
45:48
Speaker 3: about the twenty gage. So I appreciate your audience and
45:53
Speaker 3: their interest, and again, as you said, if there's information
45:56
Speaker 3: out there that would help Jeff, I more than one
46:00
Speaker 3: to know that the Pelly family cares that people believe
46:06
Speaker 3: in his innocence, because that can be sustaining when you
46:10
Speaker 3: have these court battles, and in all of these cases,
46:14
Speaker 3: when we incarcerate the innocent, we let the bad guy
46:18
Speaker 3: go free. Nobody wants that.
46:27
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
46:29
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
46:32
Speaker 1: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
46:35
Speaker 1: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
46:38
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
46:41
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
46:45
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
46:47
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
46:50
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
46:53
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
46:56
Speaker 1: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
46:59
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
47:03
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
47:05
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
47:08
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
47:10
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Love of for
47:13
Speaker 1: Good