The disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews was a haunting case that plagued Colorado for more than three decades until any form of answers emerged. The Matthews family exhausted all efforts in their decade-long search for their daughter before eventually accepting her death, despite the absence of any concrete evidence. Although the case eventually went cold, the memory of Jonelle and her family remained etched in the minds of many. However, after 38 years, closure finally came as the events of the night of December 20, 1984, were revealed.
Background:
Jonelle Matthews was born on February 9, 1972, in Santa Barbara, California. Her birth mother was only 13 years old when she had her so soon after the birth Jonelle was put up for adoption.
In March of that year, Jonelle was adopted by a couple named Gloria and Jim Matthews who had one biological daughter of their own, Jennifer, who was just a few years older than Jonelle
The Matthews lived in Greeley Colorado and in the 1980’s Greeley was a very quiet and safe town where people didn’t worry about locking their doors at night.
Jollene was a bright and energetic 12-year-old who had a love for music. Her room was covered in various boy band posters including her favorite, Menudo. She also loved Christmas and everything that went with it. She was always making gifts to give to her friends and she loved to receive gifts.
Case:
December 1984:
Gloria had received news that her grandfather was not doing good health health-wise and lived in California. Gloria decided she would take a few days before Christmas and Christmas itself to go back to California to spend that quality time with him. Because of Jonelle’s love for Christmas, the family promised her and her sister that they would Celebrate when her mom got back on the 26th.
December 20, 1984:
Gloria was already away so it was just Jim and the girls. Both girls had school functions that night that overlapped. Jonelle had her Christmas choir concert which started first so Jim dropped her off and then went and took Jennifer to her basketball game.
Jonelle made plans for her best friend Deanna and her dad, Russ Ross after the concert. They dropped her off at around 8 pm and entered her home through the garage door, we know this because Deanna and her father waited for Jonelle to get inside before driving away. This was something Russ always did when he took Jonelle home to the point that they even had a secret sign of Jonelle turning on and off her porch light. Which she did that night.
Jim arrived home at around 9:30 pm and Jennifer came shortly after at around 10 pm after hanging out with some friends for a little after the game.
When Jim came home, Jonelle wasn’t there. When Jennifer arrived and Jim confirmed that she had not seen or knew where her sister was, Jim started to worry. He called Russ and asked if everything went okay dropping off Jonelle. He confirmed that Jonelle had gone inside safely and even gave him their secret sign, but when he mentioned that she entered through the garage door Jim worried even more. Jim said that Jonelle shouldn’t have been able to go in through the garage because when he left with them he shut the garage.
Jim called anyone he could who knew Jonelle to see if they knew where she was and when no one did he called the Greeley police who were at his house in minutes.
In these couple minutes, Jim made the awful phone call to Gloria telling her that their daughter had gone missing just a few days before Christmas.
Investigation:
Matthew House
When police did their investigation they noticed some main things. Jonelle’s shoes that she wore from the concert were at the base of the couch, meaning she had come in and taken off her shoes on the couch but the stockings she had worn were on her bed, meaning she had also gone into her room. There was nothing out of place in the house and there were no signs of struggle or forced entry. Police also noted that no other shoes were missing so Jonelle did not leave willingly – it was December in Colorado there was snow everywhere and it was very very cold.
Because of the snow, the one thing investigators were able to find were shoe prints wrapping around Matthew’s house which matched a shoe print they had found in the garage. Some of these prints outside had been noticeably raked away from a rank in the garage to try and hide some of their prints.
The investigators noticed how strange it was for whoever this was to have walked around outside, gone inside and got the rake, and gone back outside to only cover some of their prints – Also showed that whoever this was was not worried about time.
The footprints outside led to the basement window, which was locked and shut so whoever had walked over there only looked into the window.
With signs of someone outside but no signs of struggle, police interviewed anyone close to Jonelle who all reported that she was not acting strange in the days leading up to her disappearance and that there was no way she’d run away this close to Christmas.
Interviews and Suspects:
With the positive assumption that Jonelle did not leave her home willingly, the Police started to look into anybody they could to find some clues. They started with the last adult to see her alive, Rob Ross.
The police interviewed Rob on multiple occasions making him retell his memories of taking Jonelle home to see if they could find any gaps in his story. Every time Rob came in, however, he maintained the same story that he dropped her off, she went through the garage, gave him their signal and he left. With no reason to keep suspecting Rob, they moved their interest to the next adult would might have seen Jonelle.
Jim Matthews was brought in for questioning multiple times. Police wondered if he arrived home to an empty house and with pressure, they found out that Jim did not know Jonelle was missing when he first arrived home. He claimed he called her name but got distracted wrapping a Christmas present and he didn’t look for her until he was finished.
This made the police even more suspicious.
Searching Jim’s call records they discovered that after calling all of Jonelle’s friends on the night of her disappearance, he called his pastor. He said he needed guidance and his pastor told him he should file a missing person which was when he called the police.
Jim was also asked to do a lie detector test which he COMPLETELY failed. He failed every question to do with whether he knew what happened that night, where his daughter was, and if he came home to an empty house. This made police so incredibly suspicious but after pushing and searching everything of Jim’s they found no reason to suspect him further.
Someone else the police had been watching from the start was Jonelle’s birth mother.
A little over a year after her disappearance police had gotten an anonymous tip to look into Norris Drake.
Norris Drake:
Norris Drake (picturedabove) was unemployed at the time of Jonelle’s disappearance and was living with his friend Dave. Dave reported that Norris spent a lot of his time at his mother’s house, who lived right across the street from the Matthew’s. On the night of the disappearance, Norris was at his mother’s house and he reported leaving around 9 pm and going straight home.
His sister, who was sleeping at Daves that night on the couch, reports getting woken up by Norris returning home at around 2 in the morning. Leaving police no whereabouts for him from 9 pm to 2 am.
Norris’s mother claimed that when he was leaving he spent a while sitting in the driveway, his car facing the Matthews, and he appeared to be watching the house. When police asked him about this he said that he saw the garage door open and lights on but no car was home so he was just watching to make sure, but claimed he saw nothing.
Wanting to look into Norris’s past and personality more police contacted his ex-girlfriend who said he abused her on multiple occasions and even threatened to kill her, going into detail about how he would do it.
She said that in one of these tellings, he said he would “rake away his shoe prints” which heavily stood out to the police.
She also mentioned that Norris had a nasty fetish for pre-teen girls.
Police pressed Norris about any involvement from 1984 to 1989 when the case went cold. After almost 10 years of no evidence, police had no choice but to put the case on the back burner.
A life without closure:
Jonelle’s disappearance deeply impacted her community and garnered attention from the Greeley Tribune, which covered the story extensively, bringing the mystery of her sudden vanishing to every household in town.
Her case gained national prominence, and even President Ronald Reagan mentioned Jonelle in a speech on March 7, 1985. She became a symbol for missing children nationwide, with her name appearing in the Congressional Record for the United States House of Representatives.
In a bid to raise awareness and potentially locate Jonelle, her image began appearing on milk cartons across the country. While the country searched for Jonelle, the Matthews family grappled with a world without her. They held a memorial service at their local church, planting a chokecherry tree in front of Franklin Middle School in honor of Jonelle. Sadly, the tree perished after a few years, and a plaque bearing Jonelle’s name also vanished, echoing the poignant mystery of Jonelle herself.
In 1997 Jonelle’s birth mother sent the Matthews a long heartfelt letter and asked to meet Jonelle, unaware of the tragic events. She had enlisted a search consultant in hopes of finding Jonelle, getting the Matthews contact. The Matthews had to be the bearers of the awful news.
Breakthrough:
In 2013 the case got two new investigators Robert Cash and Mike Prill. When they got the case they wanted to ensure that any evidence was thoroughly looked over and no concerns were left unsearched. There were over 30,000 pages of evidence for the Jonelle Matthews case but these two new investigators found a name that only appeared twice that would be their newest person of interest.
Steve Pankey:
Steve had a few connectiosn to the Matthew family. He was a youth pastor at teh church wehre the family attended and he only lived about 3 miles from them.
He was also connected to Rob Ross, who was his boss in the 70s when they both worked at 7-up. These two did not get along.
While looking into Steve police learned that he had contacted police about the Jonelle case multiple times.
The first time was a few days after her disappearance when he called and said he had information and proof that Jonelle was dead, but he would not talk to the police unless they made him “a deal” and told him what they knew about the case.
The police never took him seriously so every time he called he was never contacted back or taken seriously.
April 2019:
Detective Cash decides that since they cannot find any outside evidence to convict Steve of the murder they decided they need to take a head-on approach.
Detectiv Cash calls Steve and they have a 45-minute conversation. Investigators tell him they want to talk to him and hear all this “information” he has about Jonelle. Steve continued to say that he would only tell the police what he knew once he had an attorney and they had made him a deal.
At this point, Steve was the main person of interest in the case but they had no evidence to do anything.
Remains Found:
On a typical Tuesday afternoon, July 23, 2019, gas workers who were in the process of installing a pipeline stumbled upon an unusual discovery. They found human remains near a quiet crossroads, which is approximately fifteen miles southeast of Jonelle’s residence. This location is easily overlooked if one is not paying attention while passing by, as it is concealed among the vast expanses of rural Weld County, the same county where Jonelle disappeared.
When Cash was on the phone call they headed to the scene where they discovered a skull with braces still attached to it and clothing that matched what she was wearing. Jonelle had braces at the time of her disappearance. Once the skull was transported to Weld County Coroner’s office it was confirmed by DNA that they were Jonelle’s remains.
Her cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head but sadly because of just how long her remains went untouched, we’ll never know what the poor young girl endured before her death.
Steve Pankey’s Arrest:
When he refused to talk to the police until they made him a deal on multiple occasions, they knew they needed to look deeper.
They moved to people in Steve’s personal life and landed on his ex-wife Angela who had a lot to tell him. When the police called Angela, she said that she had been waiting years for the police to call her.
Angela (pictured above) told police that at the time of her disappearance, he and Angela were living peacefully in Greeley Colorado, and were not discussing moving. She claimed she was not suspicious of him at the time but now looking back on everything she finds everything so strange.
The day after Jonelle’s disappearance, December 21, 1984, Steve surprised Angela with a road trip to California. Angela found this strange because they had not talked of a trip to California at all which she said they would have. After all, Steve was not the type to be spontaneous. On top of this, it was 4 days away from Christmas which the two agreed they were spending in Greeley.
Angela went along with it and they went to California on the 21st returning on Christmas day. She recalled him telling her to change the radio multiple times to have it always be on a channel that was talking about the Jonelle case.
She told them about a time in Greeley when they had gone to church together and the pastor had started talking about Jonelle and how he believed she’d return home safely. Steve got visibly uncomfortable and started to pace around before storming out of the church seeming very angry.
The two abruptly moved to Idaho (Multiple different towns) where Steve had run for Governor multiple times and was always working as a mortician wherever they went. In Idaho, at some point, she remembers him returning home from work and telling her he tried to contact the police about the case but he got no callback.
When she questioned Steve about why he would he know anything about the case he went around her question and just responded with “Honey, you don’t think I hurt her do you? She looks just like you.” This freaked Angele out enough to not ask again.
After months of investigators digging around for evidence, on October 12, 2020, Steve Pankey was arrested in his Idaho home for 1st degree murder to which he pleaded not guilty. His trial began in October began on October 14, 2021, but his trial led to a mistrial due to a hung jury. (Could not come up with a unanimous decision.)
Second Trial and Conviction:
In his next trial, his ex Angela took the stand and told her first-hand accounts of all the weird instances mentioned above. She mentioned all of his violent outbursts and even brought in a note written by Steve she found in her trash can saying “The snow outside the Mathew’s house was raked.”
Jim Matthews said during victim impact statements that the family has been haunted by the case since her death 38 years ago.
“As these two trials have shown, you have been obsessed with your actions, and your consciousness could not let you forget,” Jim Matthews said. “You have been a prisoner of your mind.
“You’ve claimed to be a Christian on many occasions,” Matthews continued. “There’s still hope for you. It is not too late to confess your sins, which is the first step to your forgiveness. The second step is to repent or turn away from your evil ways. … It’s up to you, and it’s not too late, Steve Pankey.”
Finally, on October 28th, 2022, Steve Pankey was convicted of the murder and kidnapping of Jonelle and was sentenced to life in prison. Steve was 71 at the time of his conviction and will have absolutely no way to hurt another child again.
The Matthews family suffered for way longer than any family who has to face this kind of tragedy but thanks to Greeley investigators never forget Jonelle, her family was given some more closure.
Sadly we may nev know what events actually occured on the night of December 20th, 1984 or how long Jonelle had to be terrified of what was happening to her. We may never even know how exacly Steve got inside the Matthew house or why he choose to take Jonelle.
My Thoughts:
Reminder: These are all just my options and you are 100% able to disagree with me, respectfully of couse. Feel free to share your thoughts and theories in the comments. And remember to always do your own research before forming your set options <3
Ever since doing research on this case and learning more about the person convicted of the crime, I can’t help but question if he really did it. Steve’s family has come out and claimed he was with them at the time Jonelle would have gone missing. Norris Drake however was literally right across the street watching the house. It’s a little weird how they were quick to convict Steve basically once the body was found but could they just have been trying to tie off a lose end?
