Where Is Jonelle Matthews’ Killer Now? Revisiting the 12-Year-Old’s Murder — and How Steven Pankey Evaded Police for Decades

For over 30 years, Jonelle Matthews’ disappearance remained a mystery. 

The 12-year-old vanished from her Greeley, Colo., home in 1984, with no trace until her remains were discovered during a pipe installation in 2019. 

Though suspicions had long surrounded Steven Pankey — a local man with ties to her church who later ran twice for the governor of Idaho — he wasn’t arrested until 2020. After two trials, he was convicted of felony murder and kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison.

“During those decades, generations of Greeley police officers have never forgotten Jonelle, many living in torment over the possibilities of what may have occurred that grim evening in 1984, and what could be done to solve this mystery,” the Greeley Police Department said in a statement following Pankey’s arrest. 

The statement also shared that detectives began a “renewed investigation” into the girl’s case in 2015.

For years, Pankey had continuously inserted himself in the investigation and displayed odd behavior regarding Jonelle’s disappearance. Even his ex-wife, Angela Hicks, said in Oxygen’s 2024 docuseries The Girl on the Milk Carton that she started collecting evidence against him years before his arrest. 

So, where is Jonelle Matthew’s killer now? Here’s everything to know about what happened to Steven Pankey and how he evaded police for over 30 years. 

Who was Jonelle Matthews?

Jonelle was a 12-year-old middle school student living in Greeley with her parents, Jim Matthews and Gloria Matthews, and her older sister, Jennifer Mogensen. Her family told NBC’s Dateline in 2023 that she was athletic and loved to sing and cross-stitch gifts for her friends.

According to The Denver Post, she had been adopted from Los Angeles when she was 1 month old. Her birth mother was only 13 when she had Jonelle.

What happened to Jonelle Matthews?

On Dec. 20, 1984, Jonelle vanished from her home shortly after a friend’s father dropped her off following a school Christmas concert. The middle school student was alone for just over an hour before her father returned from Jennifer’s basketball game to find her missing.

Her mother was out of state, caring for a sick relative.

“You could tell Jonelle had been there,” Jim said in a November 2024 episode of 48 Hours. “I yelled out ‘Hi Jonelle,’ ‘Jonelle, are you there?’ No answer.”

After Jim called the police, investigators found footprints in the snow near the windows of the Matthews’ home. He told 48 Hours that it looked like someone had tried to mess the prints up with a garden rake.

The young girl was never seen again.

Jonelle’s case caught national attention after she became one of the first kids featured in the Missing Children Milk Carton Program. President Ronald Reagan even discussed her disappearance during a 1985 meeting with the National Newspaper Association.   

On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance in 1994, her family had Jonelle declared legally dead, The Denver Post reported. 

Her case went cold until July 2019, when a group of oil and gas workers discovered her remains while digging a pipeline in an unincorporated area less than 20 miles from the Matthews’ home in Greeley.

Jonelle’s death was ruled a homicide, and her autopsy report revealed that she had been shot in the head. 

Who is Steven Pankey?

Pankey was a fellow Greeley resident, living just two miles away from the Matthews’ home. Though he was a stranger to Jonelle and her family, they attended the same church, where he served as a youth minister.

In 1977, Pankey allegedly left the church after being accused of sexual assault by a woman he was seeing. Prosecutors later dropped the charge, and he told the Idaho Statesman in 2019 that the police have been suspicious of him ever since. 

Prosecutors said during the trial that Pankey had been excommunicated after the incident, which also cost him his job there as a janitor. He also worked as a used car salesman and a security guard, according to The Girl on the Milk Carton.

His ex-wife later claimed during trial testimony that Pankey held a grudge against the church and his former boss, a parishioner named Russel Ross, who also happened to be the father of Jonelle’s best friend and the same father who dropped her off at home the night she disappeared. 

After Jonelle went missing, Hicks said that her ex-husband began acting “suspiciously.” He made them leave town, spent hours digging a hole in their yard and became fixated on news coverage around her case. She started collecting evidence against Pankey in 1999. 

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Pankey also inserted himself into the police’s search for Jonelle and repeatedly hinted to investigators that he had knowledge of what happened. When his son was shot and killed by his girlfriend in 2008, Hicks claimed that she heard him say, “I hope God didn’t allow this to happen because of Jonelle Matthews.”

In his interview with the Idaho Statesman, he denied having any involvement in Jonelle’s case and told the outlet that he was preparing for a trip with his wife the night the girl disappeared. 

“I never met Jonelle, I never met her family, I didn’t know she existed or disappeared until Wednesday, Dec. 26 (1984),” Pankey said, noting that he didn’t learn of the case until he returned from his trip. 

The former janitor and government candidate later relocated to Twin Falls, Idaho, where he unsuccessfully ran for governor twice in 2014 and 2018. Two months after Jonelle’s body was found, police served a search warrant for his home. 

What was Steven Pankey charged with?

Pankey was indicted by a grand jury in October 2020 on charges of murder, kidnapping and crimes of violence. 

According to 48 Hours, the indictment alleged that he took Jonelle from her family home and shot her sometime “during the course of the kidnapping.” The document also claimed that Pankey was aware of the rake used to blur the footprints. 

He was first tried in October 2021, but it ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict on the murder and kidnapping charges. However, he was found guilty of false reporting. 

Two years later, he was tried again and found guilty of felony murder and second-degree kidnapping. Pankey was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, per the Greeley Tribune. Following the sentencing, Gloria told reporters she just wanted “to cry.” 

“I cannot forgive him for how he killed Jonelle,” she said while clutching a picture of her late daughter. “God is the only one who can forgive evil, and I feel that this is evil.”

Pankey only made a brief statement in court, maintaining his innocence and claiming that his conviction was “not justice for Jonelle.” 

Where is Steven Pankey now?

Pankey is currently serving his sentence at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway, Colo. According to the Colorado Department of Corrections, he will be eligible for parole in 2040, when he is 89 years old. 

“He’s an evil person,” Jonelle’s sister told The Independent. “I think he can’t let go of things and holds grudges and doesn’t like people in authority over him … I don’t have a complete understanding of what he did that night, but if you are so driven by anger towards another sector, like a church or people in the church, that you are willing to commit a crime … that says something about you.”

But she added, “I’m not fixated by him. I am not going to harbor just anger towards him, because I will not give him another victim.”