A newspaper ad for the first Peoples Temple, a multicultural church founded in Indianapolis by an ambitious young Jim Jones.
A little more than twenty years after the ad ran, Jones would engineer the murder and mass suicide of more than 900 people in Guyana.
“I just came back from the basement. I thought I heard my loving children saying Dad-Dad, I’m cold, but they were dead, they died instantly. Tina died the fastest. Kingston, Boogie, Kina refused to die, so I reloaded the gun with shaking hands, telling them, please, don’t suffer. I will help you die faster … I keep hearing children in the basement saying Dad-Dad, come here, I’m cold, Dad-Dad. I’ve kissed them again and talk to them (their spirit lived, they’re in heaven) … The children’s voice is now getting louder down in the basement. They won’t want me up here, and them down there, for I know they’re just babies.”
– mass murderer King Edmund Bell, who killed his four children, estranged wife, and her mother
“If you’re going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.” – mass murderer and cult leader Charles Milles Manson
Name: Robert Jeffrey (“Jeff”) Pelley
Date of Birth: December 10, 1971
Claim to Infamy: On Sunday morning, April 30, 1989, four members of his family were found shot to death in their home. More than seventeen years later, Jeff Pelley was found guilty of their murders. His only known motive was that he wanted to go to his prom’s after-party but was grounded. The killing of father Robert (38), stepmother Dawn (32), and stepsisters Jonell (8), and Joleen (6) was known in the press as “The Prom Night Murders.”
Indiana Connection: Jeff attended LaVille High School in South Bend. Until their deaths, his family lived just outside of Lakeville, where his father served as reverend to the parishioners of the Olive Branch United Brethren Church in Christ.
Current Status: Serving his 160-year sentence in Wabash Valley Correctional Facility
Random Disturbing Fact: The Pelleys had two other children, Jacque and Jessica, who almost certainly escaped death simply because they were sleeping-over elsewhere the night the murders occurred. The sisters are divided on the question of their brother’s guilt. Jacque believes he is innocent.
Indiana Infamy 