When four teenage girls showed up at the front door of Ruth Pelke’s home in Gary, Indiana, about three decades ago, she thought they wanted Bible lessons from her. It was only after she was fatally stabbed 33 times with a butcher knife that Pelke’s family knew the Bible lessons were a ruse to rob her for money to play arcade video games. The fatal episode landed the group’s ringleader, Paula Cooper, on death row. It also left a void on Pelke’s family.
