3 of 20: Evidence Race
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According to the official three-page St. Joseph County police log for the crime scene at the Pelley home on Osborne Road, between 10:05 a.m. and 9 p.m., a time span of 11 hours, 25 people came in and out of the parsonage. That included Dave Hathaway, the guy who found the victims, as well as two people from the church who were with him and three paramedics.

The rest of the people in and out were St. Joseph County police officers, two Indiana state troopers, a deputy prosecutor, the county prosecutor himself, a coroner, and a forensic pathologist named Dr. Rick Hoover. Something I found interesting while researching this case is that at the time, it wasn't protocol for a forensic pathologist to respond in person to homicide crime scenes in St. Joseph County.

The county worked and still works on a coroner system, which essentially just means that the elected coroner is the one who comes to collect bodies and take notes. Coroners, by the way, don't have to be pathologists or even certified medical examiners. They can just be doctors or someone who ran for the office and won.

So when I looked at the police log for this case and noticed that Dr. Hoover was logged as coming in and out of the crime scene twice on April 30th, I wondered, why? I saw that he signed in once from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and then a second time from 4.25 p.m. to 7 p.m.,

I asked Detective John Bowditch and former state trooper Mark Senter why Rick Hoover was there if it wasn't standard procedure to call in a forensic pathologist. Dr. Hoover did stop by. He didn't live very far from there, and it was just kind of a fluke that he even stopped by. For a forensic pathologist to stop at a crime scene, I mean, that never happens. But he was on his way home from church and saw everything. What did he do once he was there?

He observed the scene, yeah. And he took some notes of his own. He actually did the autopsies, I believe. John's right. Rick Hoover did do the Pelley's autopsies, and we'll go through those in a minute, but I think it's important for me to explain more about Hoover's presence at the crime scene. By all accounts, like Mark said, it was sheer coincidence that the doctor, one of the only highly trained and experienced forensic pathologists in northern Indiana at the time, came by the Pelley crime scene that day.

I did some research about what John said, that Rick Hoover lived on Osborne Road, and I confirmed that's correct. The doctor did live less than a mile from the parsonage back in 1989. Having Hoover walk into their investigation was a win as far as Mark and John were concerned. They wanted someone who had pathology experience to help them. But for me, I find Dr. Hoover's presence interesting.

I believe in coincidences for sure, but such a lucky coincidence at a quadruple murder makes me ask questions. Most notably, what are the chances?

That's frustrating, because Rick Hoover's name is all over reports for this case.

His work and what he did and didn't do at the parsonage on April 30th during those three and a half hours he was inside is critical to this case. Even though he won't talk with me now, I still have several of his depositions with law enforcement and attorneys in the case from over the years. And according to his testimony in those documents, Dr. Hoover stopped by because he had a growing interest in learning how to interpret blood spatter.

It wasn't something he was forensically trained in, but in 1989, he'd been practicing forensic pathology for almost a decade, and he wanted to get better at blood spatter interpretation. At the time, this was something Mark and John were completely supportive of, because it could help them understand their crime scene better.

But as I've poured over hundreds of pages of this part of the case, I found a discrepancy. Something subtle that you could chalk up to a misremembering, but I find it worth pointing out. According to his own words, Dr. Rick Hoover stated that he arrived at the parsonage in the mid-afternoon, which is correct according to the police log. He signed in at 3.07 p.m.,

In his statement, Dr. Hoover says he was joined by one of his colleagues, another doctor named David Jentz, who was interested in medical photography and was going to assist Hoover. The first thing Hoover says he and Jentz did was meet and talk with the coroner on scene. That's when the coroner provided them with the number of victims and everyone went inside.

The problem with that is, according to the police log, the coroner didn't arrive and sign in until 6:15 p.m., three hours after Hoover first arrived. I found a handwritten police report from that day, which states that at 5:45 p.m., Dr. Rick Hoover actually came out of the parsonage and told the police officer to call the coroner to the scene, which the officer did.

So, it's impossible for Hoover to have met the coroner in the first few minutes he was at the Pelly Parsonage at 3:07 if the coroner didn't get there and sign in until 6:15. One thing that would really help is if I could clarify with the coroner from 1989, a man named Dr. Grewinski, but he died a long time ago.

What's worse is there's no reports that I've been able to find about his office's documentation of that day. No notes, no official coroner's report, nothing. Dr. Hoover has stated in multiple depositions that he didn't take any notes while at the Pelley crime scene. All law enforcement has in this case is Dr. Hoover's autopsy findings for the four victims. And man, do those have so much to tell.

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Around 7:30 at night on April 30th, 1989 is when the coroner in St. Joseph County removed the bodies of Bob, Dawn, Janelle, and Jolene from the parsonage. It took him 45 minutes from start to finish. The bodies were transported to the morgue by ambulance and then refrigerated. 15 hours later, at 10 a.m. on May 1st, Dr. Rick Hoover began the first of the four autopsies. He started with Bob.

When Bob was killed, he was fully dressed, wearing his wedding ring, a blue short-sleeved shirt, a white undershirt, gray slacks, underwear, a belt, socks, and tennis shoes. In his pockets were nail clippers, a folding knife, some quarters, a handkerchief, and a black comb. It was clear to Dr. Hoover, based on what he'd seen at the crime scene and while performing Bob's autopsy, that the pastor had been shot twice with a shotgun and was facing his shooter when he died.

Hoover determined that 20-gauge deer slugs had been used because the bullet holes in Bob's upper right chest and near the right side of his mouth were round and distinct. So it was unlikely that the shooter used birdshot or some kind of ammunition that sprayed pellets out wide, or else Bob's wounds would have shown signs of that.

Hoover determined that the first shot delivered to Bob was to his chest, and that severed his spinal cord, dropping him almost immediately. But he could have still been alive. The second shot, the one to Bob's face, Dr. Hoover believed occurred at close range once Bob was already lying down. Hoover wrote that the high-velocity blood spatter on the low part of the parsonage's hallway wall is what made him think the headshot to Bob was fired second.

He wrote in his report that the headshot to Bob is what certainly killed him. Hoover also determined, based on the blood spatter, that the shooter had to have been standing deep within the house while taking the shots, most likely at the end of the hallway between the entrances to Jeff's bedroom and the master bedroom.

For Hoover, in his professional opinion, based on everything, including the lack of gunshot residue on Bob's clothing, he was convinced that Bob's shooter fired the first shot standing a few feet away from Bob, then fired the second shot basically standing over him. As I read the autopsy, something I found interesting was the trajectory of the first shot to Bob's chest. It was front to back, angled slightly left to right, and was slightly downward.

indicating that whoever fired at Bob was either taller than him or was holding the gun higher than Bob's upper right chest, which would have had to have been at least 5 feet because Bob himself stood at 5 feet 11 inches. The only other important note Hoover made was that Bob's stomach contents consisted of a pale tan liquid, partially digested fruit, popcorn, and ground meat. He had no drugs or alcohol in his system.

The next victim Hoover examined was Dawn. Like Bob, she was also fully clothed when she died. She was wearing her wedding band, some hair clips, a pink long-sleeve sweatshirt, a button-down shirt, blue jeans, a bra, underwear, and white socks. It was obvious to Hoover that she died from a single gunshot wound to her head.

The bullet had entered at close range, near her right temple, and the damage was so catastrophic that there was nothing left of the actual deer slug that entered her head. In fact, the injuries to all of the victims' bodies destroyed the deer slugs that killed them. Just small pieces of lead fragments remained. Dawn's stomach contents showed partially digested fruit in a pale tan liquid, just like Bob's. However, Dawn didn't have any popcorn or ground meat before her death.

Her toxicology was also negative for drugs and alcohol. The last thing Hoover noted for Dawn's injuries was that she was missing two fingers on her right hand. He later stated this indicated she likely raised her hand to defend herself. I've looked at the autopsy photos of those injuries, and I have to agree, they look like last-second defensive wounds.

Hoover performed six-year-old Jolene and eight-year-old Janelle's autopsies on May 2nd, the day after Don and Bob's. The next few pieces of information may be difficult for you to hear. Basically, the girls died the same as their mother. Both had catastrophic injuries to their skulls from single gunshot wounds to the front of their faces. They were fully clothed in tank tops and shorts. The only difference was that Janelle had on shoes and Jolene had on socks.

Based on blood evidence and spatter on the bodies, it appeared Dawn died first, then Janelle, and lastly, little Jolene. Jolene had visible soot deposits on her arms and shoulder, which indicated the shooter had the muzzle of the shotgun within one to three feet of her face before pulling the trigger.

Both girls had some cuts and bruises on their hands, arms, and knees. But Hoover later stated these were a result of skull fragments flying so forcefully that they actually cut the victims. Janelle and Jolene's stomachs both contained the same food as Dawn's: partially digested fruit and pale tan liquid. The autopsies of all of these victims are definitely helpful.

But one big problem with them, if you haven't figured it out by now, is that they were done hours, even a full day after the murders were discovered. Not only that, the bodies were refrigerated as soon as they left the parsonage. Dr. Hoover self-admittedly stated that he took no notes at the crime scene as to what the body temperatures were when the Pellys were found, or what stage of liver mortis or rigor mortis they were in prior to refrigeration.

For those of you who don't know what those last two things are, liver mortis and rigor mortis are indicators of where blood settles in the body after a person dies and how stiff the body is. A lot of forensic pathologists and medical examiners use readings of those two things to try and establish a more precise time of death. But that wasn't the case with the Pellys.

At the time, in 1989, John Bowditch wasn't too concerned about that oversight. In retrospect, though, he admits that was probably pretty important and should have been noted. You know, back then, you got to kind of understand, too, we didn't have all the ability to do things that we could be doing today. On every case we've ever worked, you know, there's a lot of things. You're supposed to take the temperature of the house, you know, the conditions outside, all these things, you know.

Was there a few things that probably could have been and should have been done to you when you look back? Yeah, sure. And you're going to find that in every case you work. Specific time of death or not, John and the rest of the investigators on the case felt that the key to figuring out who killed the Pellys was in the evidence somewhere.

So two officers from St. Joseph County Police decided within just an hour or two of the bodies being found to videotape a walkthrough of the crime scene. Two of the family vehicles are in the drive just west of the garage door. Those two officers' names were Jerry Rutkowski and John Pavlikovich.

Jerry narrated, "It will be the kitchen and dining area of this home." while John filmed. "Located on the floor of this hallway is our first victim, a male wife." I've watched the entire 26-minute long VHS tape three times. It's very dry. But the images of the victims and evidence it shows are important.

Honestly, it's not the best quality, and there are sections where there's clear cuts, like this. On the south side of the hall, which is the bathroom. Stop. Meaning John stopped and started the recording a few times.

What the officers discussed or panned to in those missing fragments of tape, we will never know. But I have to be grateful at least for the fact that I'm able to go back and put myself at a crime scene from 32 years ago. It's something I wish I could do for all of the investigations I've done. It's little details like this. Was she...

A couple of teeth laying on his shirt near his neck. Items from inside his shirt pocket laying on the floor near his left shoulder. Those say a lot about the brutal nature of the shootings and what was going through the killer's mind. After watching the VHS tape a few times through and reading roughly 200 pages of police reports from officers in and out of the home on April 30th,

What I've realized is that there was a lot of evidence present, but nothing super incriminating. For example, there was nothing related to a possible murder weapon found in the parsonage. No 20-gauge shotgun, no additional 20-gauge ammunition, and no shell casings. Meaning, whoever the killer was picked up the spent shells after shooting the Pellys and took the gun plus any extra ammo with them.

In addition to that, there were two different types of shotgun shell waddings found. Wadding in a shotgun shell is what's packed between the gunpowder and the actual metal slug. When a gun fires, the bullet and wadding are driven out of the barrel. So wadding will usually land in or around wherever the shooter was standing.

According to evidence logs and the VHS tape, two different kinds of wadding, plastic and cardboard, were found on or around Bob's body upstairs and in the basement with Dawn and the girls. Located on the floor is what appears to be pieces of cardboard. One, two, three, four, five more pieces of cardboard or small plastic.

Blood was sprayed on the walls and carpet in the hallway where Bob was killed. The south wall of the hallway, which appears to have quite a lot of dried red substance upon it. The basement was even more gruesome. And a vast amount of dried red substance in what appears to be body materials, hair and fiber hanging from the ceiling.

Brain matter and blood were all over the basement walls and furniture. There was also a section of the wall along the stairs that looked like it had been shot into, and a spot on the carpet that looked like it had taken a hit as well. In addition to shotgun waddings and biological evidence, crime scene techs also collected several other physical objects. A full list is on our website, counterclockpodcast.com. But to keep it simple for this episode, I'll go through the stuff that's most important.

Police took Bob's glasses, a disposable camera found on a table in the living room, a 35mm camera sitting in the kitchen, a piece of wood railing from the stairs going into the basement, small cutouts of wall and carpet from both floors of the house, a single, unfired 16-gauge shotgun shell found in Bob's chest of drawers, furniture that contained bullet fragments, a few damp washcloths hanging in the upstairs bathroom, and...

a set of keys found in a trash barrel outside of the house, along with a heart-shaped locket containing a photo of a white man and a white woman. All pretty intriguing stuff, right? Especially those last two items: the keys and a locket. That's not evidence police investigators paid much attention to. Not at all. In fact, a majority of the stuff I just mentioned wasn't even photographed as evidence.

It was items police say they collected from the laundry room and bathroom of the parsonage that got their full attention and steered the investigation towards still unaccounted for 17-year-old Jeff. Listen to episode four, Motive and Haste, right now.

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