CounterClock: The Podcast Reopening America's Coldest Cases

Delia D'Ambra launched CounterClock as an investigative true crime podcast dedicated to reexamining cold cases and contested convictions across the United States, releasing it under the Audiochuck network with a fresh case built into every season.

The show's first season centers on Denise Johnson, whose murdered body was discovered inside a burning home in North Carolina. The case sat unresolved for roughly 20 years before D'Ambra revisited it, digging into evidence that local investigators had left behind.

Season two turns to Stacey Stanton, who was brutally stabbed inside her second-story apartment. Authorities had considered the matter closed after a man was sentenced for the killing, but the season page suggests the story didn't end there.

The podcast's third season examines the 1989 Pelley family massacre in Indiana, one of the most haunting cases in the show's catalog. It walks through the evidence that led to Jeff Pelley's conviction, which was ultimately secured in 2006, more than fifteen years after the killings themselves.

Season seven investigates the murder of 61-year-old Nathaniel Jones, killed in North Carolina on November 15, 2002. Five teenagers — Jermal Tolliver, Dorrell Brayboy, Christopher Bryant, Rayshawn Banner, and Nathaniel Cauthen — were charged and convicted of first-degree murder in connection with his death. What makes the case especially explosive is a detail highlighted on the season's page: the key witness whose testimony helped convict the five men later recanted her account. All five have maintained their innocence for two decades, and the season lays out the chain of events that led to their convictions in the first place.

Season eight is arguably the podcast's most chilling installment, focusing on the unsolved 2008 Lane Bryant murders in Tinley Park, Illinois. A gunman entered a women's clothing store and held six women at gunpoint before killing five of them. The victims — Rhoda McFarland, Carrie Hudek Chiuso, Connie Woolfolk, Sarah Szafranski, and Jennifer Bishop — were named in the season's coverage, which stresses that no suspect has ever been identified in the case, leaving it open more than a decade later.

Beyond its numbered seasons, CounterClock has also covered the death of Douglas Wagg Jr., whose case, according to the podcast's own page, began in 1991 on railroad tracks in North Carolina — another entry in the show's growing archive of cases that never received full resolution.

What ties these seasons together is D'Ambra's approach: rather than simply retelling a crime, CounterClock treats each case as an active investigation, revisiting evidence, interviewing sources, and questioning convictions that authorities long considered settled. For listeners drawn to cold case journalism, the show has built a reputation for pushing past closed files and asking whether the official story actually holds up.

With cases spanning North Carolina, Indiana, and Illinois, and timelines stretching from the late 1980s to the 2000s, CounterClock offers an unusually wide lens on how the American justice system handles — and sometimes mishandles — violent crime. Whether examining a recanted witness statement or an unsolved multiple murder, the podcast continues to make the case that some files should never have been closed.

Sources: https://counterclockpodcast.com/season-seven-nathaniel-jones/ https://counterclockpodcast.com/ https://counterclockpodcast.com/season-three/ https://player.fm/series/counterclock-2584041 https://counterclockpodcast.com/season-eight-lane-bryant-murders/