The Abduction and Murder of Jonelle Matthews | Murdered at First Sight | Forensic Files

Jingle Bells jingle all the way Janelle was a happy little girl she loves making gifts for her friends
she was a very giving person Janelle as she was growing up was just really coming into her own
we were very proud of her my sister and I were three and a half years apart and had a good sibling
rivalry going on I was 16 and she was 12. a few days before Christmas in 1984 Janelle Matthews all of a sudden
vanished Without a Trace there was no evidence in the home there was no DNA there was no latent prints it
is most likely the largest case that I will be a part of in my career as a police officer
and not knowing what happened haunted us all over the years this case that horrified this entire
Community for decades for 35 years there really was no suspect people held their children closer the
doors were being locked curfew was being enforced there's so many years in between the incident and I'm actually
finding the corpse the perpetrator was very confident perhaps even complacent about getting away with it he didn't
know us he didn't know Janelle was it just Janelle happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time
I can't forgive the person who shot my daughter right in the head [Music] first school picture in her last school
picture um I like those pictures yeah I love this picture right here the two Jennifer was more like a dad
Janelle was more like me more for a home maker Janelle looks a lot like Gloria and nobody ever would have guessed
without being told basically that she was adopted I think Gloria and I never felt like it
was different we felt blessed that we had Janelle we felt blessed that we had Jennifer
and we never kept the fact that Janelle was adopted from her she was always in our opinion she was a chosen child
and that's how we approached it didn't even probably know what the word adopted didn't know any different I don't have
biological siblings so she was my sister [Music] a lot of things we did were church
activities church was life if the church doors were open my family was there we were involved in choir we were
involved in plays Janelle loved to sing and dance and act so that was a very Central Point in our family's lives
December 20th 1984 just was a normal day for me I would get up go to school hang out
with my friends even a little bit after school and then came home it was the last day before Christmas
break Janelle was very excited to give her gifts to her friends the next day on Friday
my mom was flying to California to surprise her parents for Christmas my grandfather wasn't doing well physically
so she just wanted to spend time with them before I left the four of us went down
to the family room and we had apple cider and Janelle was saying well how about our Christmas and I said well I'm
gonna come back on the 26th and we'll spend our Christmas uh then you know we're just going to postpone it for one
day [Music] foreign people started to leave the house Gloria got picked up to take her to Denver for
her flight I took Janelle to the school and saw her get on the bus to go to the Christmas concert with the choir that
she was in with her friends I liked singing let you know we attended church together
she was my first friend that I met in Greeley we'd either go to each other's house and play or or do something
together before school we had the Honor Choir together this is our concert from December 20th
1984. there's Janelle front Rowan Center singing loudly she loved Christmas carols
it wasn't a concert where parents came and sat down to listen it was just something that was filmed on the local
cable television show so there was no congregation to listen to my dad just dropped her off at her school to ride
the bus and then she was going to get a ride home so that he could come to my basketball game
[Music] sometimes I think about well would have happened if I had gone to the concert
and not the basketball game but you can contemplate on that and uh you can't relive it
Janelle needed a ride after the concert [Music] saw my dad pull in and said hey I'm
gonna go with Deanna and her dad and she jumped in the truck with us and we took
her home so we dropped Janelle off she turned around and waved goodbye see you tomorrow I said see you tomorrow
walked inside flickered the light on and off and that was our signal to let us know that she made it in
and my dad and I continued home after the basketball game I came home and it was approximately 9 30.
when I walked in I said hi Janelle and I didn't get a response and I thought well
maybe she was upstairs and didn't hear me so I went downstairs and came back and
noticed that the quartz heater was on next to the chair that she probably had been sitting in and the TV was on so I
went upstairs thinking she was up there and I looked in her room and and there was no Janelle
when I came home my dad was concerned as soon as I stepped inside the house and just asked me if I knew where Janelle
was and right away I knew that something wasn't right because we wouldn't have gone anywhere at that time at night so
for her not to be in the house was just something to be concerned about from the
get-go my dad had received a call later on that evening I was asleep at the time so my
dad had woken me up asking me if I knew where Janelle might be in the neighborhood I don't know that I
realized the full magnitude of what was happening [Music] I thought for sure if she's not here
she's somewhere right I I really didn't quite understand it being a 12 year old I sat and was supportive of my dad while
he called a few other of Janelle's friends just to see if she perhaps was there and then when he called our pastor
and he said to call the police and the police arrived shortly after my dad had called them
the initial officer arrived on the scene at about 11 15 that evening it's a really surreal feeling police in
my room putting fingerprint dust on the walls and you know that's just something
that was never in my wheelhouse I didn't know anything about it so it was all really really strange
investigators didn't find much as far as physical evidence there was no sign of a
physical disturbance there was very little evidence that was collected within the house DNA was not a thing in
1984. fingerprints were dusted but none were found she essentially left everything as it
was the only evidence were shoe Impressions that were found around the exterior windows of the garden level of
the residence there was snow on the outside and there were footprints in the front yard and in
the backyard like somebody had been looking in the windows what was concerning was most of those
shoe prints had been raked out somebody took a rake in the snow and raked out all of the Footwear impressions in the
backyard fear set in at that time just thinking that maybe in the morning there would be
some answers or she would come home in the middle of the night [Music] most the time when somebody doesn't show
up at a certain time maybe they ran away because a lot of times runaways leave a
note well there was no note from Janelle so when I finally arrived in Los Angeles
it was almost one o'clock in the morning and I called Jim Anthony and I said hi honey
I'm here that was well into the night and she still wasn't home and that was a call that I was dreading
I knew right away my stomach didn't feel good and Jim says um Chloe I don't know how to tell you
this but we don't know where Janelle is and that's that's when the nightmare started
I think not only did Gloria feel sick but she wanted to come home I got home the next night
and I remember crying on the airplane the whole time somebody came into our house
and violated us it had to be a stranger I had to be a person who did not know us
Arden no Janelle I tried really hard to be brave but we didn't know anything about
Janelle from that night on [Music] 1984 Greeley was roughly 55 000 people the police department itself was very
small not a lot of experience with something like this stranger abductions are exceedingly rare
in law enforcement so being able to make that determination that is a true missing person case and
not a runaway juvenile case is of utmost importance [Music] when I arrived at school the next
morning there was counselors taking me out of class and I remember that's probably when I
realized that Janelle something happened to Janelle and she was missing I was taken to school in a
police car which is highly abnormal just life was not as we knew it foreign if she were a runaway which we didn't
think that she was [Music] you know she would come back because she wouldn't miss Christmas
[Music] early on in the case the attention for the most part was given to the family
that perhaps it was somebody within the family who was responsible for the disappearance
given the evidence that we had we quickly were able to eliminate any and all suspects including the family
for a few days there was a lot of activity there was helicopters canvassing the neighborhood in the area
I remember just watching them and just processing everything that they were doing to find Janelle and not knowing
how long this was going to last [Music] that Christmas I set the table for four rather than for three
for a long time I included her in everything [Music] but she wasn't there [Music]
so many memories we have forgotten but what I remember about Janelle was her being happy and being feisty at the same
time and loving when you have a missing child you want to get her face in front of as many
people as possible we got the national exposure that we were trying to get later on President Reagan came out and
was talking about missing children and mentioned our daughter Janelle jonelle Matthews of Greeley Colorado
who would have celebrated a happy 13th birthday with her family just last month but five days before Christmas
jonelle disappeared from her home you learn pretty quickly that the longer that a missing child is missing the
greater chance that something evil has happened because there was so little Clues
involved after the first six seven months we didn't have a whole lot of contact with the Greeley Police
Department because there wasn't a whole lot to report on within about a year I would say the case
would go cold definitely by the end of 1985 there just weren't any more leaves [Music]
Wayne was a big thing but not having a round was even bigger we never forgot Janelle never forgot her
birthday and Christmas those were difficult days but you can't let it consume you
so that you start shutting down and so life became what you and I might consider more normal just with the years
starting to go by [Music] I got married a few years later I had my son so my life was progressing
typically but always in the back of our minds was are we ever going to know what
happened to Janelle this case was getting leads called in from all across the country people would
say they spotted Janelle or they had a lead while initially promising they're sort of always tracking down these tips
and didn't really get to see the evidence that was there and really work it [Music]
as we got close to the 10th anniversary of her abduction we had a memorial service at our church
that was the turning point for all of us to lose hope that she's probably not out
there [Music] it wasn't obviously complete closure because we didn't know what happened to
her it was just kind of like relief relief of that burden that had been on our shoulders for 10 years
[Music] we never bought for doing this to us we never did but I did question God why we never
found her I couldn't accept that I couldn't accept the fact that we would never find her
I got involved in the case in 2013 I grew up in this community and to be able to work on it firsthand and be a sign
that was an honor for me to try to solve it for the family the size of the case is enormous that's
why I enlisted detective Prill to come and organize it with me so I had to track down all the police
reports which were strewn everywhere and so I would spend somewhere around 14 to
16 months just bringing this very old case in the the 21st century and so my Hope was that perhaps the suspect comes
to light this case got Nationwide attention and so your common Kooks came out of the
woodwork they're reporting all these strange ideas that they had about where Janelle might be the one thing that
stuck out from the onset was a guy named Steve Panky he had reached out to the lead detective by phone January 19th of
1985 almost a month after Janelle disappeared Steve Pankey was another attendee of the
church that the Matthews family went to he had been excommunicated due to assaults that he was alleged to have
committed another parishioner he purportedly hated the church and hated Authority despite the fact that he
himself ran for Sheriff and governor on multiple occasions this is Steve Pankey as Idaho's next
Governor I intend to keep Simple issues simple and bring together competent people to resolve Idaho's complex issues
a picture of Panky during his run for governor in the state of Idaho failed miserably
but he put himself out there Steve Pankey inserted himself into the case asked if the detective would share
information about the case to him to see if it matched up with information that he might have with the case
he added there was definitive evidence that Janelle had been kidnapped and was likely dead
so he's the first human on the planet to claim Janelle's dead in fact the the kidnapping itself we don't know she
could have run away the guy just came in and talked bad about the church and try and point the
blame to that church at the time the detective decided that he was a fringe element and didn't
deserve any more attention they didn't really take it that to heart because they never had any reason to
there was nothing that linked him to Janelle Matthews they had no reason to think he was involved maybe he was a bit
nosy in their minds but they didn't really consider him a suspect I turned it all over the entire case
it's all done now Rob and here's your follow-up list and it was literally hundreds of things he had to do and I
was 2015. I remember what I wrote in my follow-up list for Robert was Panky comma what's up with this guy
as time really went on decade after decade that's when it kind of starts becoming a
question of is she still alive night time was hard for my mom I think you can kind of go to some dark
places of what might be happening to your child and we had some air vents and I can just hear her crying through the
vents in April of 2019 I had my first and only conversation with Steve Pankey regarding
the general Matthews case Panky was very leery very suspicious of law enforcement's intentions
pinky when he answered the phone said I need a deal I need my attorney to be involved before I talk to you
that's not normal I told Robert we need to go to Twin Falls Idaho and have a meeting with Mr
panky and we started making plans to go out there when the Will County Sheriff's Office
was notified by an oil company scraping the ground to prepare for this next Pipeline and a skull came out of the
ground Well County drove out took a look and said that's clearly human I was the on-call detective for the
Greeley Police Department I received a call saying that the Weld County Sheriff's Department was on a site where
one of the pieces of heavy machinery lifted up what they thought was a bag of garbage
and it turned out to be clothing and skeletal remains and there were braces on the teeth of the skull
General Matthews when she went missing had just had braces put on her teeth the mere fact that it could be Janelle
Matthews was surreal it was otherworldly a feeling that I have not had before the body was found in this general area
The Remains were lifted up it was estimated that there were three to four feet of dirt covering her body there was
no soft tissue the state of the remains were skeleton you could see all of her clothes that
she wore the night of the recital he called me and said hey no doubt this is Janelle
these remains were then taken to a forensic pathologist who through DNA analysis identified the remains
positively as general Matthews [Music] we didn't want anything to get out to the media we needed to call the family
to advise them of the discovery [Music] July 25th never forget that days [Music]
I got this phone call from Robert he said Jim we think we found Janelle's remains
in a shallow grave yeah it just boy it hit and so we go to ourselves we're getting some closure now
now we know what happened to Janelle I was in total shock it automatically made me think that this was just a
miracle that they found her and how they found her was just incredible this is 35 years after her disappearance
even the bones themselves were beginning to decompose the fact that that Earth Mover is just
barely scraped over the top of her and pulled her skull out that had been just a little higher a
half a foot deeper no one would have ever seen her his divine intervention that's all it is
as we were recovering The Remains we were looking for any signs that could tell us how she was killed it was at
that point that we saw that there was a penetrating wound through the skull they shared with us how she died
that was brutal because she had been shot in the head then you have to shift to another very
sad realization that she was murdered but there was also on the flip side some comfort knowing that perhaps she didn't
suffer long we made the arrangements for Janelle's Memorial celebration that second service it was just a lot of
overwhelming feelings you see her casket of just that was just holding skeletal remains and how small that was just
really hit me that she was just a child oh August 15th of 2019 Robert cash and I
made the nine hour one-way drive to Twin Falls Idaho thank you mailed a letter August of
2013. to the district attorney's office and we never received the DA's office had it amongst other letters we
discovered pinky had written Steve panky's name had not been mentioned in that investigation since
January 1985. he provided them unprovoked with an alibi letter that has very detailed information about where
exactly he was the day of the murder and disappearance why would anyone remember
one year ago let alone 29 years ago where they were at on a day that was otherwise meaningless to them
we knocked on his dorm we introduced ourselves Panky immediately insisted he needed immunity which means I can't be
prosecuted for anything that I might admit to any crimes I explained to Panky that there is no crime that he can be
charged for in 2019 that occurred in 1984 except for first degree murder and first degree kidnapping
he said he understood that and he still asked for immunity so as far as I'm concerned he just confessed to me that
he murdered Janelle and then he stopped talking turned and he walked away detective Prill did ask about a Steve
panky all three of us had no clue on who he was talking about we never heard or Steve Banky
we did not come to that church until summer of 1978 when he was already excused from the congregation
I know a lot of times I come through as kind of a dead pen candidate and my delivery isn't as good as it should be
and I apologize for that however I think the substance is there and anyway I really need your prayers God's will be
done thank you foreign an effort to learn more about Steve Pankey I'd learned that Angela Hicks was his
ex-wife that they had been divorced for some time so I figured she would be a good person to talk to about him when
Robert called Angela Angela started her phone call with why I has it taken you so long to call him
Angela Hicks had had numerous conversations with law enforcement in Idaho an officers said that they had
collected all the information that she had gathered and then forwarded all the information to the Greeley Police
Department it was news to me as I had no idea nothing had been sent to the Greeley Police Department as it related
to what she had been talking about Angela Hicks described conversations with Steve Pankey in the 1990s at that
time Steve Panky was having conversations with law enforcement in the Idaho area where they were living
and he said it was about the general Matthews case it was at this point that Angela Hicks
said that her blood brand called that she immediately started thinking about Steve panky's activities and movements
and behaviors in and around the disappearance Angela said she knew that Janelle disappeared on December 20th she said on
the evening of the 21st pinky walked into the house and said we're going to California for Christmas we're leaving
in the morning and she's completely shocked they drive to Big Bear which is about a
20-hour drive they arrived and panky's parents are shocked what are you doing here we
didn't know you were coming in fact we don't even have Christmas gifts because we mailed them to you weeks earlier not
expecting you to be here they would spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there and then return home
the very next day making the long trip back to Greeley on the way back all of a sudden Steve
Panky asked her to turn on the radio I think he just had Angela dialing through the radio stations for the rest
of their trip to find news updates on Janelle's disappearance this is a 20-hour experience for her
[Music] it was then getting into Greeley Steve insists that she drive to a grocery
store and get all the newspapers that she can that have any information about The Disappearance of General Matthews
Steve Panky is a man who's generally disinterested in the news yet in this particular case he seems hyper alert
hyper interested in The Disappearance of Janelle so you have to ask yourself what
is that about he returned home it was getting late he said go inside unpack the car he didn't
come inside rather he got his coveralls on and began to dig in the front yard thank you sat out there digging for
hours on it and finally Angela said two days after they returned she stepped outside to the
backyard and noticed the car was completely on fire and she said thank you walked up to her
and said get back in the oven house when the fire burned out pinky hauled it off
to a salvage yard and by that point panky's my number one saucepan he is the suspect
detective Prill and I returned to execute his first warrant as Steve panky's residence we collected three
cell phones a Macbook and an iPad 13 handguns and about 1100 pages of documents from his house and I would
spend the next 14 months pouring over Steve panky's life he was searching Janelle on the internet
almost daily way before 2019. and then ultimately when he was exhausted he rounded out his 24 Hours by
watching BDSM porn images before passing out that says a lot to me he's my guy there's no doubt at that
point we traveled back out to Idaho and had him arrested for the murder and Abduction of Janelle Matthews
he taunted law enforcement constantly and then when we knocked at his door and put handcuffs on him he could not
believe that all of his tauntings had come to an end he would make no statement I think he
had no time to plan and from that point on we would have no further personal contact with Steve panky
we just arrested the person that murdered Janelle and now you know at that point I'm realizing the most
difficult part would be to actually convict banking we didn't even know him we didn't even know his name
so you could start putting the pieces together but still what's the motive why did he choose Janelle was it just a
crime of opportunity he's the only one that knows the the why [Music] now I wouldn't say that the years have
made it easier after 35 years and they found her body you know that's when things became easy
I didn't cry much because at that time I knew where she was and that was a big Comfort to me anyway
I was glad that they had somebody but they had to prove that it was Steve banke that did it
I think we were both pretty excited that we had got to this point and just hoping for a positive outcome
[Music] we had to wear masks so we didn't see him fully so I think there was a little
bit of cushion when you're just looking at somebody's eyes and because we don't know him there's a
little bit of distance as well I'll tell you he looked like a Broken Man I was just kind of numb
I didn't have a lot of hatred form or anything like this because you know he's just another person
I wasn't going to let him affect me to the extent where I become bitter I wasn't going to be consumed by him
when he got on the stand nobody knew what was going to come out of his mouth and it was 45 minutes of some really
really strange words but when he used the phrase about letting his sin find him out which is a Biblical reference I
put my hand on my husband's knee and I said he's going to confess but that's not the way it came out
he will probably never ever say anything because he believes he's innocent for Steve kinky not to admit his guilts
it's just evil this is cruel what he did police didn't have a lot to forensically
link to the Killer and they had to go more on circumstantial evidence I created a timeline 130 pages long had
5 000 pages of data to back up the assertions that I'm making in the timeline we felt very confident it was a
strong case quite honestly I think the evidence came out even better than we could have ever hoped for
there was a lot of evidence that was put forward but Steve Pinkey had also had his own
reasonable doubt that he was trying to use in his defense and it resulted in a hung jury no verdict could be reached
they were not unanimous it was nine to three in favor of conviction however without all 12
agreeing it was going to result in a Deadlock I was really disappointed that it was a
hung trial but the foreman and two others said to our lawyers you can never proved to me
that he was at the premises at the time that you say he is so that's why it was a hung jury
our team when the word mistrial came did not hesitate to want to fight again so when you see your team reacting that way
it makes you feel good and feel confident we're doing this again trial which began on October 4th 2022
prosecutors came armed with even more evidence against Panky this time they had new information as well as reported
confession that Panky had made to someone he shared a jail cell with yours prior
this inmate said you know I became close with hanky in a sense a spiritual connection we pray together and there
came a point where pinky came to me and said I need to pray for forgiveness and the inmate asked forgiveness for what
and Pinky looked to the ground and said that's between me and my God and then Panky proceeded to pray to God for
forgiveness for what he did to Janelle according to this ending so in this second trial the jury got to
hear about panky's familiarity with the Matthews neighborhood that panky's cousin caught Panky on
several occasions parked outside of her mother's house two blocks from Janelle's
school and she would see him watching the the kids walking home from school and the jury got to hear about pinky
being physically abusive to Angela had indicated that a girl had gone missing Angela Hicks is an amazing woman
both trials that she came down from Idaho to testify she really helped make the case there's no question about it
she helped connect the dots when the jury announced that they had a verdict and all of us were just freaking
out I mean I I don't I do not get jittery or nervous or scared very often but it would you know the
questions are flying back why are they coming back so fast the verdict forms were handed to the
judge when he read guilty for second-degree kidnapping I absolutely knew then that they would
find him guilty of murder I felt Overjoyed when the conviction came back I couldn't believe how lucky I was to
have been a part of this case and to bring the closure that that family so much deserved to have that closure to
have that verdict it took us two times but it's the best feeling ever ultimately Panky received a 20 years to
life sentence meaning the earliest that he could be released is 2042 when he'll be 91 years old
getting a guilty verdict of Steve Panky was the culmination of our Earthly Justice for Janelle he's still going to
have to appear before God and but it's that's everything that could possibly happen
uh here on Earth [Music] I don't think justice has ever served the day after that verdict came back
Janelle was still dead still alive anyone convicted of murder should be spending the rest of their days in
prison and my hope is Pinky dies while he's in prison he is a horrible rotten human being he's
a gaslighter he's a manipulator he is spiteful and hateful and the most atrocious human being I've ever
encountered I asked a Christian you're supposed to forgive everybody but I can't
I just can't forgive evil you know um you know God do I need to forgive him I don't know
I don't want to come across judgmental because only God knows his heart but I think he has a lot of head knowledge
that clearly has not transferred to his heart because if it did he would never have pulled that sugar
[Music] the motive is one that we have never seen there was no clear relationship
between Steve Panky and Janelle Matthews what we do know is that his hatred for the church was enough for him to take
the path that he did which was to abduct Janelle Matthews and ultimately murder her
had Banky shut his mouth in January 1985 and never said another damn thing about
Janelle he would have never been identified in this case he would have never been arrested but he is so
confident in his abilities and his intelligence he was proud of what he pulled off and he knew he could never
get caught until he got caught despite you know having this tragedy in our life being able to finally have
Justice for Janelle is just such a gift and such a blessing and I'm just so so grateful
they found her body 35 years later even though it was a sad thing I'm so happy that all this time she was in
heaven I think she would have been the kind of person that people would notice she would have been a very good mother
she would have shared a lot of happy moments with Jennifer she would have been somebody that
Jennifer and Gloria and I would have been proud of [Music] foreign

During the holidays in 1984, strategy strikes the Matthews family when 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews is abducted from the family’s home and is never seen again. Police work tirelessly to solve the case but it ultimately runs cold until one fateful day in 2019 when the truth about Jonelle’s disappearance is finally uncovered. Murdered At First Sight is a true crime documentary series that tells the first-hand stories of the most complex and hard-to-solve homicide cases: murders committed by strangers.

Brief Summary

The episode recounts Janelle Matthews' abduction, the investigation, and Steve Pankey's conviction for her murder after 35 years.

Key points

The Vanishing of Janelle Matthews. Janelle Matthews, a bright young girl, vanished without a trace just before Christmas in 1984.
A Mother's Nightmare. The pain of a mother who can't forgive the person responsible for her daughter's murder.
The Discovery of Remains. After 35 years, skeletal remains believed to be Janelle Matthews are found, bringing closure.
The Brutal Truth. The shocking revelation that Janelle was murdered, shot in the head.
Steve Panky's Alibi. Panky provided an alibi letter detailing his whereabouts during the murder.
Angela Hicks' Testimony. Angela Hicks, Panky's ex-wife, provides crucial insights into his behavior and the case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I can't forgive the person who shot my daughter.

A mother's pain after losing her child.

1:47WatchOct 16, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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