Some missing children’s cases receive national attention while others slip under the radar. Two-and-a-half months after the disappearance of twelve-year-old Jonelle Matthews, her case was thrust into the national spotlight following mention from an unexpected source.

In a speech to the National Newspaper Association on March 7, 1985, President Ronald Reagan encouraged newspapers to publish photos of missing children, believing the publicity would help bring many of them home. In his address, the President referenced Jonelle, taken from her Greeley, Colorado, home on December 20, 1984.

The newspapers took the President’s suggestion and published pictures of many missing children, including Jonelle Matthews. As a result, several kids were found and safely returned to their homes. Despite the publicity gained from President Reagan’s reference, Jonelle was not one of these.

On July 24, 2019, over thirty-four years after she was last seen, the remains of Jonelle Matthews were recovered not far from her home. She had been shot to death.

In 2022, the missing girl who received national attention after being mentioned by America’s highest elected official was again in the national news as a man who had recently sought the highest statewide office was convicted of her murder.

Jonelle Matthews

Jim and Gloria Matthews adopted Jonelle when she was six-weeks-old in 1972. The couple also had another daughter, Jennifer, three-and-a-half years older than Jonelle.

In 1984, Jim was the principal of Platte Valley Elementary School in Kersey, Colorado, ten miles southeast of Greeley. The evening of December 20 was a busy one for the Matthews family. Jonelle and the rest of her middle school choir were performing in a holiday concert in Denver, sixty miles south of Greeley. Jennifer was playing in a basketball game that evening which was attended by Jim. Gloria had recently traveled to California to visit her family and help tend to her ill grandfather.

The Matthews Family

Jonelle’s concert concluded at 7:00 p.m. She arrived home at 8:15 p.m., having been driven there by the father of her friend, DeeAnn Ross.

Jonelle In The Choir

Jonelle took a phone message for her father at approximately 8:30 p.m. Roughly forty-five minutes later, Jim came home to an empty house with an oddly-open garage door.

Inside the home, the television was on. It was a cold evening, and Jonelle’s shoes and shawl lay near the family room heater.

Jonelle Is Not Home

Jennifer arrived home at 10:00 p.m. She had also not heard from her sister.

Jim contacted DeeAnn’s father who had driven Jonelle home. He reported they arrived at the house without incident and that neither he nor DeeAnn had since heard from Jonelle. Jim then saw the message his daughter had left for him and contacted the caller. He also reported nothing unusual when speaking to Jonelle. He then called several of Jonelle’s other friends. None had had any contact with her since the end of the concert.

Growing increasingly worried, Jim contacted the police.

No Trace of Jonelle

Upon arrival at the Matthews home at 10:15 p.m., police found footprints in the snow near a living room window, suggesting someone had been peering into the home. The footprints had been raked over, making shoe or boot impressions irretrievable.

Footprints Found

No signs of a struggle or of forced entry into the home were found, nor were any fingerprints, tire tracks, or other physical evidence.

Because nothing was found missing from Jonelle’s room, police concluded she had not voluntarily run away.

The Matthews Home

Jim and Gloria, as well as all members of Jonelle’s extended family, were cleared of any involvement in her disappearance, as was the child’s biological mother, Terri Vierra, who had not had any contact with Jonelle since shortly after her birth.

For over three decades, few substantive clues surfaced to suggest what had happened to Jonelle Matthews.

Case Goes Cold

On July 23, 2019, excavators installing a pipeline at an oil and gas site in rural Weld County, approximately fifteen miles southeast from where the Matthews family lived in 1984, happened upon a grizzly finding: Human remains buried in the ground.

When police arrived at the scene, they found clothing matching what Jonelle was last seen wearing over thirty-four years earlier.

Clothing Found

Visible amidst the debris were the braces Jonelle was wearing when she disappeared.

Six days later, the remains were positively identified as those of Jonelle Matthews. She had been killed by a single gunshot to her head.

Jonelle’s Final Photo, With The Braces

In October 2020, Steve Pankey was arrested at his Meridian, Idaho, home, ten miles west of Boise, and charged with the 1984 murder of Jonelle Matthews. At the time of Jonelle’s disappearance, the thirty-three-year-old Pankey and his wife, Angela, lived two miles from the Matthews home.

Pankey had previously served as a youth minister at Greeley’s Sunny View Church of the Nazarene but had left the church after a falling out with officials. Several years later, the Matthews family joined the church. Jim and Gloria cannot recall ever having met Pankey or of even hearing of him.

Steve Pankey, Circa 1984

The charges were levied after investigators and prosecutors determined that his former-wife, Angela Hicks, had contradicted his alibi for December 20, the evening of Jonelle’s abduction, and that Pankey himself had made “false statements and superfluous details” about a trip taken to Big Bear Lake, California, the following day.

Authorities also say Pankey “intentionally inserted himself in the investigation many times over the years claiming to have knowledge of the crime which grew inconsistent and incriminating over time”.

Pankey Is Charged

Pankey had moved to Idaho in 1987, two-and-a-half years after Jonelle’s murder. He had tried his hand at politics multiple times but drew little support when running for County Sheriff, then for Lieutenant Governor in 2010, and Governor in 2014 and 2018, when he received 2,704 votes, 1.4%, in the Republican primary.

Former Gubernatorial Candidate

Pankey maintained his innocence, saying he did not know Jonelle Matthews or her family prior to her disappearance. He stated in interviews with the Idaho Times-News, that the Greeley, Colorado, Police Department has a vendetta against him for a 1977 incident in which charges against him were dropped after he was accused of a date rape.

Pankey also claims investigators targeted him for his sexuality, as he now identifies himself as a “celibate homosexual.”

Claims His Innocence

At his trial, Pankey’s defense team proclaimed the son of neighbors who lived across the street from the Matthews’ as a viable suspect in the Jonelle’s murder. It was apparently enough to produce reasonable doubt as the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the murder and kidnapping charges against him.

Pankey was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities and sentenced to six months in jail, but a mistrial was declared on the murder charge in November 2021. The three jurors who voted not guilty cited the lack of any physical or forensic evidence putting him at the Matthews home on the evening of December 20, 1984.

Undeterred prosecutors again filed murder charges.

Mistrial Declared

At this second trial, a cousin testified that Pankey appeared to have a fixation with children as he had been seen watching them, including Jonelle, walking home from school. Angela Hicks also testified that he her former husband had repeatedly physically beat her, and an alleged confession to Jonelle’s murder made by Pankey to his cellmate was also admitted as evidence.

The results of the second trial left Steve Pankey needing a hanky. Halloween 2022 was a day of horror for him as he was convicted of the 1984 kidnapping and murder of Jonelle Matthews. He was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison.

Pankey Is Convicted

Of Jonelle’s Murder

Steve Pankey is serving his sentence at Bent County Correctional Facility is Las Animas, Colorado. He will be ninety-one-years old in 2042, his earliest possible release date.

His motive for murdering Jonelle Matthews is unclear.

Another Politician In Prison

But This Time For Murder

Several years after Jonelle’s disappearance, Jim and Gloria Matthews moved to the Philippines. They now live in Costa Rica, but they returned to Colorado to attend Pankey’s trials.

The couple came home frustrated following the first trial, but returned to Costa Rica with closure following the second trial.

Jim and Gloria Can Finally Bury Their Daughter

In addition to Jonelle’s family and friends, the Greeley community grieved when she disappeared in 1984 and grieved again when her remains were found in 2019.

After over thirty-eighty years, there was finally Justice for Jonelle.

Justice For Jonelle

Jonelle Matthews’ biological mother, Terri Vierra, was only thirteen-year-old when she gave birth to her in California in 1972. Jonelle was adopted by Jim and Gloria six months later. Terri did not know who had adopted her daughter.

For a time after Jonelle’s disappearance, Terri was put under surveillance to see if anything would be observed suggesting she had abducted Jonelle, but she was ultimately cleared of involvement. Terri she was never told that Jonelle had been kidnapped.

In 1997, thirteen years after Jonelle’s disappearance, the now married Terri Vierra-Martinez, still unaware of her biological daughter’s abduction, used a search consultant to locate Jonelle’s adopted parents. Terri wrote a letter to Gloria Matthews requesting permission to visit Jonelle. Only then did she learn of the ordeal.

Jim and Gloria Matthews subsequently became friends with Terri Vierra-Martinez.  I could not find a picture of Terri.

Baby Jonelle

A memorial service was held for Jonelle after she was declared dead in 1994, ten years after her disappearance. Twenty-five years later, after her remains were recovered, a second service was held.

 

Finally Closure

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50885382/jonelle-renee-matthews

SOURCES:

• Denver Post
• Greeley Tribune
• Idaho Statesman
• Idaho Times-News
• KCNC TV Denver CB S Affiliate Channel 4
• KMGH TV Denver ABC Affiliate Channel 7
• KUSA TC Denver NBC Affiliate Channel 9