‘CounterClock’ Host Delia D’Ambra Re-Examines ‘Complex’ 1989 Prom Night Murders in Season 3 (Exclusive)

On Thursday, Audiochuck released the third season of CounterClock, the captivating true-crime podcast hosted by investigative journalist Delia D’Ambra. Unlike past seasons, which have looked at the cases of Denise Johnson and Stacey Stanton, Season 3 dropped all 20 episodes at once, a move that D’Ambra told PopCulture.com was “to do the story and investigation justice” as she re-examines the decades-old case of the Pelley family murders, sometimes referred to as the “1989 Prom Night Murders.”

On the night of April 29, 1989, the quiet town of Lakeville, Indiana became the center of a gruesome crime scene when Reverend Robert Pelley, his wife Dawn, and Dawn’s daughters Janel and Jolene, were shot and killed at close range with a shotgun. Their bodies were discovered in their home adjacent to the Olive Branch Church by parishioners the following morning, just hours after the town’s high school students celebrated prom when they failed to show up for services. Nearly two decades later, in 2006, Pelley’s son, Jeff Pelley, was convicted on four counts of homicide and sentenced to 160 years in prison, after Frank Schaffer, then an Assistant District Attorney for St. Joseph’s County argued Jeff, then 17, shot and killed his family following an argument over prom. As Jeff’s case continues to move through the legal system and as the 32-year-anniversary of the tragedy approached, D’Ambra embarked on a year-long re-examination of the case to discover “the truth of what happened, for the victim’s sake and for their surviving family members” and to find the “missing pieces of information” that those “closest to the victims, the Lakeville community and the investigation cannot seem to shake.”

D’Ambra presents the case of the Pelly family murders across 20 tantalizing episodes of CounterClock, using “hundreds of hours of research, investigation and field reporting to understand the case, dig into the facts, uncover new facts and conduct interviews.” According to D’Ambra, she viewed approximately 6,000 pages of material, reports, documents and photos throughout the course of her investigation, though it was only “about an hour into” her research when she realized the case was possibly larger than just that one singular night in 1989. As listeners tune in to the new season, D’Ambra brings them with her on her journey as she makes the connection between the Indiana slayings and a number of unsolved crimes in Florida, where the Pelly family also had history.

“I think everyone who listens will have a much more informed understanding of what occurred that night after listening to Season 3. I also think listeners will be forced to ask questions about the legal processes within the criminal justice system regarding Jeff Pelley’s 2006 trial,” D’Ambra said of her hopes for the season. “I think the public has the right to know why law enforcement did what they did and how an investigation was presented at a trial. I want to know the truth of what happened, for the victim’s sake and for their surviving family members. I want people to hold law enforcement investigations accountable and to understand that advancements in technology can shed helpful light on evidence that perhaps couldn’t be evaluated properly 30+ years ago.”

CounterClock Season 3 is now available on podcasting platforms. The season consists of 20 simultaneously released episodes as D’Ambra says the “story is quite complex and involves a lot of characters across 5 decades in two US states. … To do the story and investigation justice I wanted listeners to be able to access the entire story from start to finish all at once.” You can find more information as well as past seasons of CounterClock by visiting the official website here.