The Vanishing of Jonelle Matthews: A Colorado Mystery Finally Solved

Prologue: A Small Town’s Nightmare Begins

It was five days before Christmas, 1984. In the quiet town of Greeley, Colorado, families prepared for the holidays, children anticipated gifts and gatherings, and the Matthews family was no exception. Their adopted daughter, Jonelle, was a bright, theatrical twelve-year-old whose laughter filled their home. But on the night of December 20th, Jonelle Matthews disappeared, leaving behind a mystery that would haunt her family, her community, and the nation for decades.

Chapter 1: Jonelle’s Story—From Heartbreak to Hope

Jonelle Matthews was born on February 9, 1972, in Santa Barbara, California. Her biological mother, Terry Vera Martinez, was just thirteen years old when she gave birth—a child herself, forced to make the hardest decision a mother can make. After a month, Terry gave Jonelle up for adoption, not out of lack of love, but because she wanted a better life for her daughter.

That better life came quickly. Jim and Gloria Matthews, a Colorado couple with one daughter, Jennifer, adopted Jonelle within weeks. The family settled in Greeley, a small, tight-knit town sixty miles north of Denver, the kind of place where kids rode bikes until the streetlights came on, where neighbors knew each other, and doors were left unlocked. Jim Matthews worked as the principal of Platte Valley Elementary School, Gloria at a local restaurant. They were active in their church, the Sunny View Church of the Nazarene. Jonelle was the spark of their family—dramatic, funny, and always making every moment a big deal.

Chapter 2: The Night Everything Changed

December 20, 1984, began with excitement. Jonelle had been sick with a cold, but she begged her parents to let her attend the Franklin Middle School Honor Choir’s holiday concert. She had gifts for friends and was thrilled to perform. Jim and Gloria agreed, with one condition: come straight home after the concert and rest.

That evening, Jonelle performed Christmas carols with her classmates. Her friend Deanna Ross was there, and after the concert, Deanna’s father, Russell, drove Jonelle home. At 8:15 p.m., Russell watched Jonelle walk up the driveway and flick on the foyer light—a small-town signal that she was safe inside. Russell drove away, not knowing he was the last person, other than her killer, to see Jonelle alive.

Chapter 3: The Disappearance

At 8:30 p.m., Jonelle answered a phone call from a teacher at her father’s school. She took a message for Jim—polite, responsible, normal. That phone call was the last confirmed contact with Jonelle Matthews.

Jim Matthews returned home at 9:30 p.m., expecting to find Jonelle relaxing. He found the house warm, the heater on, the television playing, Jonelle’s favorite shawl draped across the couch, her shoes perfectly placed by the Christmas tree. Everything looked as if Jonelle had just been there. But she was gone.

Initially, Jim thought Jonelle might be at a friend’s house. He made calls, but no one had seen her. At 10 p.m., Jennifer came home and called out for her sister. No answer. Fear set in. Jim called the Greeley police, who arrived within fifteen minutes.

Outside, officers found footprints in the fresh snow by the living room window—too big to be Jonelle’s. Someone had stood there, peering inside. Even more chilling, someone had tried to rake over the footprints using a garden rake from the Matthews’ garage. There was no forced entry, no signs of struggle, no broken windows, no screams heard by neighbors. Whoever took Jonelle did it quietly and efficiently, knowing enough about the house to cover their tracks.

Chapter 4: The Search and the Milk Carton

Police initially considered the possibility that Jonelle had run away. Jim Matthews insisted there was no reason—Jonelle had a sleepover planned, a church Christmas presentation, presents waiting. What twelve-year-old runs away five days before Christmas? Investigators searched her locker, bedroom, found no note, no plan, no indication of trouble.

Attention turned to Jim Matthews, as is common in missing child cases. He cooperated fully, taking multiple lie detector tests. The FBI’s top interrogator west of the Mississippi told him he failed. Jim took another test with local police. Imagine the agony—your daughter is missing, and the people meant to find her are accusing you. Eventually, Jim was cleared. Investigators also surveilled Jonelle’s birth mother, Terry, who hadn’t been in contact for a decade. Another dead end.

The community refused to let Jonelle be forgotten. Churches held 24-hour prayer vigils. Thousands of reward posters were distributed across the country. Jonelle Matthews became one of the first missing children in American history to have her photo printed on a milk carton—a new effort to find missing kids in an era before Amber Alerts and social media. Her story reached the president. In March 1985, Ronald Reagan mentioned Jonelle by name in a speech about missing children.

Still, nothing. No leads, no tips. The case went cold.

Chapter 5: The Agony of Waiting

Years passed. In 1994, ten years after Jonelle vanished, her parents had her declared legally dead. Gloria Matthews said they’d spent ten years without a reason, motive, or answers. “Doesn’t anyone know anything? Can’t someone just tell us where her body is so we can bury our daughter?” she pleaded.

In May 1985, a portion of a human scalp was found on a Weld County farm. Gloria was asked to examine it. It wasn’t Jonelle. The relief of that moment was swallowed by the agony of still not knowing. Staying in Greeley became unbearable. The Matthews family moved to the Philippines as missionaries, then retired to Costa Rica. Jennifer married and moved to Washington State. But Gloria never stopped searching faces in crowds, dreaming Jonelle would come home.

Chapter 6: Discovery in the Dirt

July 23, 2019. A construction crew working on a new oil and gas pipeline in rural Weld County hit something in the dirt. Human bones. A skull with orthodontic braces. Fragments of fabric—a plaid skirt, blouse, sweater vest. The same clothes Jonelle Matthews wore the night she disappeared.

Two days later, the Weld County Coroner confirmed the remains were Jonelle’s, identified through dental records and DNA. The autopsy revealed a single gunshot wound to the head. Jonelle hadn’t wandered off or run away. Someone had walked her out of the house, driven her to a field fifteen miles away, shot her, and buried her in the dirt.

The remains were wrapped in a white bedsheet. Jonelle’s coat was partially zipped, turned inside out, cuffs tucked into the armpits. When investigators opened the cuffs, small hand bones fell out—Jonelle’s hands tucked under her armpits, trying to keep warm in her final moments. For Jim and Gloria Matthews, the discovery was a devastating relief. The hope that Jonelle might be alive was severed forever.

Chapter 7: The Suspect Who Couldn’t Stop Talking

With the discovery of Jonelle’s body, the question shifted: Who killed Jonelle Matthews?

Weeks later, Greeley police announced a person of interest—Steven Dana Panky. Not a drifter or unknown criminal, but a man who had run for governor twice, given interviews to journalists, written letters, filed legal documents, and woven references to Jonelle Matthews into almost everything he did.

In 1984, Panky was a 33-year-old married father living in Greeley, just two miles from the Matthews home. He attended the same church. The day before Jonelle vanished, Panky was arrested at a bank for harassment and criminal trespass. His used car business had collapsed, and he was spiraling financially.

According to his ex-wife, Angela Hicks, Panky came home and announced an immediate trip to Big Bear Lake, California, to visit his parents for Christmas. The trip was sudden and rushed. On the drive back, despite banning all media from their household, Panky ordered Angela to turn on the car radio, searching obsessively for news about a missing girl—Jonelle Matthews. When they returned home, he bought every local newspaper and made Angela read articles about Jonelle’s disappearance aloud to him three times each.

Within days, Panky donned coveralls and galoshes and started digging in the front yard, claiming septic tank issues. Their septic tank had been recently replaced. That week, a car stored on their property caught fire. Angela found Panky standing next to the burning vehicle, holding a shovel. A sudden trip, obsession with news, unexplained digging, a burning car—all within a week of Jonelle’s disappearance.

Then Panky did something no guilty person should ever do. He called the FBI. One month after Jonelle vanished, Panky walked into the Greeley Police Department, claiming to be an ordained minister who had received information about the disappearance through a pastoral confession. He said he had knowledge that could help solve the case, but wanted immunity first. Police didn’t give it, but noted his name and started watching.

Chapter 8: Decades of Obsession

After initial contact with law enforcement, Panky and his family left Greeley, bouncing around several states before settling in Twin Falls, Idaho. But Greeley and Jonelle never left his mind.

In Idaho, Panky discovered politics. He ran for sheriff three times, city council, lieutenant governor, and governor twice. He lost every race badly. But underneath the campaigns, Panky was writing constantly—letters to attorneys, court filings, petitions to the Idaho Supreme Court. Scattered throughout these documents, in cases unrelated to Jonelle, were random references to her.

When police searched his home, they found over 1,000 documents mentioning Jonelle Matthews. In a 1999 court filing, Panky told the Idaho Supreme Court that a previous conviction was part of an attempt to force him to become an informant in Jonelle’s disappearance. He wrote that he feared the death penalty for revealing the location of her body. Why would an innocent man fear the death penalty unless he knew where the body was?

He also wrote a book, “Graveyards,” found during the search. It was filled with hatred directed at the Sunny View Church of the Nazarene. He told a police officer in the late 1990s he had buried bodies in Colorado. He described himself in legal filings as the subject of a capital murder investigation, a material witness in the Jonelle Matthews case. In almost every letter, the same demand appeared: Give me immunity, give me a deal, and I’ll tell you where the body is.

Chapter 9: The Evidence Only the Killer Knew

Steven Panky knew something only Jonelle’s killer could have known. He mentioned the footprints in the snow—the ones someone tried to rake over. That detail was never released to the public. Police held it back as “holdback evidence,” information only the killer and investigators would know. Yet Panky mentioned it multiple times, including in notes his ex-wife found in the trash: “snow outside the Matthews house was raked.”

There were other disturbing details. During recorded jail phone calls, Panky learned his cousin had died. His first reaction was to ask his sister if the cousin’s accusations that he had been “cruising schools” would now go away. Prosecutors later pointed out that this cousin lived three blocks from Franklin Middle School, where Jonelle was a student.

A few months after Jonelle disappeared, a minister at Panky’s church said he’d received a message from God that Jonelle would be found alive. The congregation was hopeful. But Panky stood up and screamed “False prophet!” at the minister and had to be physically removed from the church. Why would an innocent man be so furious at the idea Jonelle might be alive unless he already knew she wasn’t?

Chapter 10: Arrest and Trial

On October 12, 2020, a Weld County grand jury handed down an eight-page indictment against Steven Dana Panky: first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping of Jonelle Matthews. After 36 years, someone was finally going to answer for what happened to that little girl.

Panky was arrested in Idaho and held without bail. He was 69 years old. The Matthews family returned to Greeley, sat in the courtroom, and faced Steven Panky for the first time, waiting for answers.

The first trial began in October 2021. The prosecution had a problem—no DNA, no fingerprints, no murder weapon. Jonelle’s remains and clothing yielded nothing usable. The case would have to be built on one thing: Steven Panky’s own words and behavior.

The prosecution called roughly 60 witnesses. They walked the jury through nearly four decades of Panky’s bizarre, obsessive, self-incriminating conduct—the letters, court filings, 1,000+ documents, the holdback evidence about the rake, recorded jail calls where he spoke about guns in code after learning Jonelle died from a gunshot wound.

The star witness was Angela Hicks, Panky’s ex-wife. She described the rushed trip to California, obsessive radio listening, newspaper articles read aloud, digging in the yard, the burning car. She told the jury about something that happened in 2008, 24 years after Jonelle disappeared: Panky’s own son had been murdered. At the funeral, Angela watched him lean down, kiss the urn, and whisper, “I hope God didn’t allow this to happen because of Jonelle Matthews.” The name on his lips was Jonelle’s.

Angela also described finding a handwritten note in the trash: “snow outside the Matthews house was raked”—evidence never made public, written by a man who swore he knew nothing. She testified Panky was extremely controlling, banning television, radio, newspapers, and music from their home. He didn’t let her drive. Yet after Jonelle vanished, all those rules broke because Panky needed to know what the world was saying about what he’d done.

Panky himself delivered the most damaging testimony. Against every piece of legal advice, he took the witness stand. What followed was two days of rambling, contradictory testimony. Panky admitted he’d lied for years about everything—the story about his father-in-law and the cop with the body, the pastoral confession, claims about having information. He told the jury, “I made a lot of stuff up out of bitterness for things that happened to me at Sunny View and for things that happened to me at the police department.” His defense was essentially: Yes, I’m a liar. I’ve been lying for 37 years, but I’m not lying now.

District Attorney Michael Rourke asked him directly, “Was Jonelle begging for her life when you shot her in the forehead?” Panky didn’t answer. His own defense attorney later told the jury, “Steve Panky is kind of a jerk. It’s a fact. We can’t hide from it, but a jerk is not the same as a murderer.”

The jury deadlocked. They convicted Panky on a single misdemeanor count of making false statements to police, but couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on murder or kidnapping. The judge declared a mistrial. The Matthews family was devastated. But the prosecution wasn’t done.

Chapter 11: The Second Trial and Final Justice

A second trial was scheduled for October 2022, with a new witness: Patrick Callas, an inmate at the Weld County Jail. He’d been housed in the same protective custody pod as Panky. The two men formed a spiritual bond, praying and studying the Bible together. Panky rarely talked about his case, but one day he asked Callas for forgiveness. “I did some bad things,” Panky said. Callas asked if he was talking about Jonelle. Panky nodded. They prayed. Callas asked if he killed her. Panky’s answer: “That’s between me and God.”

Callas also testified about another moment. Another inmate pounded on the wall and told him to listen. Through the glass, Callas heard Panky say, “She was dead before I crossed the railroad tracks.” Callas wrote a letter to the district attorney after the first trial ended in a mistrial, saying his conscience wouldn’t let him stay silent anymore.

On October 31, 2022—Halloween—the jury returned its verdict: guilty of felony murder, second-degree kidnapping with a deadly weapon, and false reporting to authorities. Panky was found not guilty of premeditated first-degree murder, but the felony murder conviction meant life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. His earliest possible release date: 2042, when he’ll be 91 years old.

Chapter 12: Closure and Grace

Before sentencing, the Matthews family spoke. Jennifer Mojensen, Jonelle’s older sister, told the court that 12,634 days had passed since her sister disappeared. Her husband never met his sister-in-law, her son never met his aunt. The sibling rivalry she and Jonelle had as kids never became a grown-up friendship. Panky stole that from her.

Jim Matthews stood up next. He looked directly at the man who murdered his daughter and said, “You have been obsessed with your actions and your consciousness could not let you forget. You have been a prisoner of your own mind.” Then Jim offered an unexpected grace: “You’ve claimed to be a Christian on many occasions. There’s still hope for you. It is not too late to confess your sins. The gates of heaven can still be open for you. It’s not too late. Steve Panky, God is waiting.”

Gloria Matthews was not as forgiving. In a press conference after sentencing, she said, “I cannot forgive him for how he killed Jonelle. God’s the only one that can forgive evil, and I feel that this is evil.”

Panky, given his chance to speak, said, “I am a Christian. I will be in heaven. I am innocent, and this is not justice for Jonelle.” As of today, Steven Panky is serving his sentence at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway, Colorado. He has indicated plans to appeal and maintains his innocence.

Epilogue: A Town Remembers

12,634 days of silence are over. Jonelle Matthews is no longer a question mark, no longer a face on a milk carton. She is a girl who was loved, who was taken, and who was finally brought home. It took 35 years to find her body, 37 years to convict her killer. But the Matthews family never stopped fighting. Greeley, Colorado, never forgot the girl who disappeared five days before Christmas.

Jonelle Matthews was twelve years old. She loved singing, she loved Christmas, she loved her family—and she deserved so much more time than she got.