School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
On December twentieth, nineteen eighty four, twelve year old Janelle Matthews spent the evening singing her heart out at a Christmas choir concert in her hometown of Greeley, Colorado, a residential suburb about fifty miles away from Denver. The concert was held at Intro West Bank of Denver, and Janelle, who was in the seventh grade, was part of the Franklin Middle School choir. Janelle was outspoken and opinionated. Friends
and families say that she loved performing. After the concert, Janelle caught a ride home with her friend Deanna and Diana's father. They arrived back at Janelle's house, where she lived with her father, Jim, her mother Gloria, and her sixteen year old sister Jennifer, shortly after.
Eight fifteen pm.
It was already dark outside, and Janelle had a routine. The garage door had been left half open for her to walk into, and then once she got in, she would flick the light twice to let Diana and her dad Russell know that she'd gotten home safely. So Janelle went into the garage, and then Deanna and her dad saw the light come on, so they drove away. Janelle's father, Jim Matthews, who was the principal at Platte Valley Elementary School, got home about an hour later, around nine thirty pm.
He had been at Janelle's sister Jennifer's basketball game at her high school. He and Jennifer rode home separately. Janelle's mother, Gloria, had gone to visit her sick father in Los Angeles, so she was out of.
Town that night.
When Jim got home, he saw Janelle's clothes were scattered around the pantyhose that she'd warned to the concert were draped over a couch, her shoes were on the floor of the living room, and the space heater was pulled close to where she normally sat, near an easy chair that was close to the TV. Her family later told police this was Janelle's routine after she got home. She would pull the space heater close to the chair and
watch TV, and the TV was turned on. All signs pointed to Janelle's settling in for a cozy night, but Jim couldn't find her.
It looked like she had come home.
Nothing appeared to be out of place, There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle, and nothing had been taken from the house.
There were more.
Clues in the kitchen that seemed to point to Janelle's timeline. Shortly after eight thirty pm, Janelle answered the phone, and a note on the blackboard in the kitchen that was used for phone messages showed that a substitute teacher at the school had called with a message for Janelle's dad. Janelle wrote that message on the board, so at first, given all this, Jim thought maybe Janelle had run out to do something else or see a friend. Jennifer, Janelle's sister,
came home at around ten pm from her game. There was still no sign of Janelle. Concern Jim called his pastor, who suggested that he call the police. So he did, and he said Janelle was missing. Janelle was in the seventh grade. She disappeared just days before her thirteenth birthday. Her parents described her as a loving child. She was super in balld in school and sports, including basketball. Deanna later told Dateline that Janelle was in a great mood
that night on the ride home. She was looking forward to the last day of school the next day, Friday, and to exchanging gifts with her friends. She was also looking forward to the upcoming two week Christmas holiday. There was zero's sign that night that she would leave her house for any reason or go away voluntarily. Police showed up at the Matthews house at.
Ten fifteen pm.
They immediately started canvassing the neighborhood, and they immediately announced to the community they believed that Janelle had been kidnapped from her home. Her parents left her presence unwrapped and under the tree in case she came home, but she never came home to open them. Janelle vanished and there was no sign of her until thirty years later. I'm
Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at.
Helen Gone Pod.
This is Helen Gone Murder Line. When police got to the Matthews house and searched it, they had very little to go on. There were no fingerprints found and no stranger DNA. Of course, DNA testing possibilities in nineteen eighty four were very different than they are today, and no one in the quiet, safe neighborhood had heard anything out of the ordinary. Again, there was no obvious sign of a struggle in the home, but police did notice a
few small things that seemed out of place. First of all, the garage door was open, which Janelle's father, Jim, said should not have been. Janelle should have shut it after she came into the house. That was part of her routine. Then there were the footprints in the snow in the front of the house that led police to believe that someone might be looking through the windows. Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion about those footprints.
The Dateline episode about this case is actually called Footprints in the Snow. The footprints were too big to be Janelle's and they were recent. It had snowed several hours earlier. This was the time of year where it was snowing pretty much every day, so these were fresh prints. Police later determined that the footprints were a single set from one person, a mail with an estimated foot size of nine to eleven. There was something else that was odd
about the footprints. Jim had a rake in his garage and it looked like someone had raked over the prince, presumably to try to get rid of them. Police did not share it with the public immediately, but it's a detail that will become very important later. Police of course turned their attention to those closest to Janelle, and naturally to relationships between family members, including between Janelle and Jim Matthews. They gave Janelle's father a light detector test and questioned
him thoroughly. Jim later told Dateline he understood that police had to question him, but he admitted the whole ordeal was painful and that he eventually became frustrated with the process because he had been completely forthcoming. Jim Matthews was cleared by police. Janelle was adopted, since she had been adopted when she was six weeks old by Gloria and Jim. Police also secretly put her birth mother, who was at the time living in Los Angeles, under surveillance for a
period of time. They had to consider all possibilities, including parental kidnapping, but Janelle's mother was quickly cleared as well. There was a massive man hunt, first by law enforcement and later by six hundred volunteers who scoured all parts of Well County, but they found no sign of Janelle. According to the Greenwood's Commonwealth, Janelle's picture was featured on a milk carton and she was mentioned in news stories with other kidnap victims. Including Adam Walsh and Florida and
Aton Pates in New York City. But Janelle's case was a little bit different because she had been home getting comfortable when she was taken. Who would have been bold enough to take her out of her home like that? Since there were no signs of forest entry, police did wonder did Janelle know her abductor or maybe could she have been familiar with them? Was there a reason why she let them in or were they already inside the
garage when she came home, lying there in wait? Was this a crime of opportunity or could someone have been stalking the twelve year old. The case quickly garnered a lot of media attention. CBS News reported that one of the first investigators on the scene was a twenty seven year old police officer named John Gates. He was one of the first officers to canvass the neighborhood. Later, John Gates became mayor of Greeley. Janelle's bizarre abduction touched the
whole town. In twenty nineteen, he told the Colorado Sun quote, it was all hands on deck the minute I walked into their home. I thought that this was probably not a runaway. We walked around the neighborhood.
It was dark. Nobody in that neighborhood saw anything.
It wasn't long before we started thinking this was probably not going to end well, end quote. For a long time, the case went cold, months and then years went by. In nineteen ninety four, ten years after Janelle vanished, she was declared legally dead. Then another heartbreaking twist in the case happened. In nineteen ninety seven, Janelle's mother, Gloria Matthews, received a letter from Janelle's birth mother, who had used
a search consultant to track her biological daughter down. Janelle's birth mother had no idea that Janelle was missing or that she had been put under surveillance by police years earlier, so now Gloria had to break the news to Janelle's birth mother about what had happened to her. Jim and Gloria eventually moved away from the area. They were missionaries in the Philippines for a while, then they moved to Seattle.
Eventually they retired in Costa Rica. But people in Greeley never forgot Janelle's case and the strange circumstances, the footprints in the snow, the open garage, the lack of evidence, but other than a cherry tree being planted in front of Janelle's middle school in her honor and local news covering the case on big anniversaries, there just.
Wasn't much movement.
But then in twenty nineteen, over thirty years after Janelle's disappearance, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a massive break in the case. On July twenty third, twenty eighteen, a crew working on.
An oil pipeline in a rural.
Area southeast of Greeley, about fifteen miles from the Matthew's former family home, found human remains, including a skull with braces on its teeth and part of a jawbone. Police stated a few days later that the Weld County Corner's Office had identified the remains as being Janelle Matthews. Police also announced they found traces of red and blue fabric near the remains, so it appeared as.
Though Janelle was still wearing the same thing that she.
Had been wearing the night of the Christmas concert, a dark gray skirt, red blouse, and graceweater. The evidence pointed to Janelle being abducted and killed the same night she was taken. I cannot begin to imagine how her family must have felt. But often family members say it's a bag of mixed emotions. There's the part of you hoping your family member could still be out there and may one day return, but then also the horrific reality kicks in.
Janelle's sister, Jennifer, talked to the Associated Press in twenty nineteen. She described finding her sister's body after all that time as a miracle. Back in the day in the eighties, the area where the pipeline was dug was just a big deserted field in the middle of nowhere. The land was bought in nineteen seventy four, but was there for years totally undeveloped. Jennifer told the Associated Press quote, if it would have been Doug one foot to.
The left or to the right, she would not have been found. End quote.
Police confirmed very few details at the time, and when they did release the autopsy report to LOFE local news channels, it was heavily redacted, but they did state that the fabric match the plaid skirt, blouse and sweater vest Janelle wore on the night of the Christmas concert. Eventually, they stated Janelle's cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
Manner of death was homicide.
Janelle's family finally had an answer. They knew that she had been murdered. She had been killed almost certainly on the same night that she was taken from her home. Now they needed to find Janelle's killer, and it didn't take long for police to focus on a suspect, a man named Steve Panky. Steve Panky's name had apparently come up early in the investigation. He had written a series of bizarre letters to the District Attorney's office. In those letters,
he claimed to have information about Janelle's case. Eventually, the DA's office started returning the letters to him unopened. Steve Pankey appeared to be kind of a strange character. By his own admission, he lied a lot. He later testified that he made a lot of stuff up, and the Matthews family said back in twenty nineteen, they had never heard that name before. They had no idea who this guy was. On September fourth, twenty nineteen, police traveled to
Twin Falls, Idaho, to where Steve Panky was living. They executed a search warrant on his condominium. It was reported early on that Steve Panky had a tenuous connection to the Matthews family, that he was a neighbor of theirs, and that at some point he was a youth pastor at their church, and he had inserted himself into the
investigation multiple times. Greeley Police Commander Roy Smith announced that Steve Panky had made repeated attempts to speak to detectives about Janelle's abduction, but then when police traveled to Idaho and tried to question Steve, he refused to answer their questions. In nineteen eighty four, Steve Panky lived in Greeley. At that time, he was thirty three years old. He was married with a five year old son. He and his wife lived about two miles away from Janelle and her family.
At one point. Steve actually ran for governor unsuccessfully twice in Idaho as a writing candidate in the twenty fourteen and twenty eighteen elections. Both times he lost by a large margin. He only ever got slightly over one percent.
Of the vote.
Steve Pankey was in the Army. He moved to Greeley in nineteen seventy three. Steve was a very religious man. He was a member of the Sunnyview Church of the Nazarene. This was the same church that Janelle and her family were members of, but Steve and Janelle's family did not attend that church at the same time. He testified later that he served some of the functions of the youth pastor, like teaching Sunday school, but church officials told police Steve was more like a janitor at the church.
Steve always seemed.
To have an answer for why his stories didn't match. He clarified in court that even though he wasn't the official youth pastor, he did do janitorial work. He was performing a lot of those functions. Later, Steve testified he was asked to lead the church. He admitted he developed a hatred for that church and some of the church officials, and he testified that that hatred was kind of the reason he became fixated on Janelle's case in the first place. He believed that there was some kind of a link
between Janelle's disappearance and that church. Steve Pankey did have a criminal record. In nineteen seventy seven, he told the Sun newspaper that he was accused of date raping a piano player at the church, but he said that he was cleared after he took a polygraph test. Steve said that after that he was asked to lead the church, the Suny Viewed Church of the Nazarene, the same church
that Janelle's family later attended. So a lot of the rumors about Steve being the Matthew's neighbor and attending the same.
Church really weren't true.
He lived a couple of miles away and they did not attend the same church at the same time. Steve married his wife Angela in nineteen seventy eight. Their son, Mark was born in nineteen seventy nine. Over the years, Steve Panky was also hit with a lot of lawsuits, both civil and criminal. He seemed to get into conflicts with a lot of different people, and he also made a lot of contradictory statements. So when you listen to Steve Panky talk, it's hard to separate fantasy from reality
at times. The case against Steve Pankey seems to be largely based on statements he made about Janelle's case and his alleged obsession with it. Steve Panky also told police that he had a connection to Russell Ross, Diana's dad, the person who dropped Janelle off at her home on the last.
Night that she was alive.
Steve said that in the seventies they worked at the same seven Up Boss company. Steve was trying to start a union at the company, and he claimed that he and Russell got into an argument over that and that Russell physically assaulted him. In addition to sending letters to the DA over the years, Steve Panky also talked to the press. He did an interview with the Idaho Statesman in September of twenty nineteen, and by that time he had completely changed his story.
In that interview, he claimed that he did not know Janelle or her family.
When he talked to detectives in twenty nineteen, he told them that he had a lawyer and would not talk to them without making a deal. So a big question that came out during this investigation was what did Steve Panky know and when did he know it. His ex wife, Angela, told police that Steve was obsessed with Janelle's case ever since she disappeared. Law enforcement stated they did not believe that Steve Panky owned a gun at the time of Janelle's abduction, and on the night of the abduction, he
had an alibi. He told police that he was at home with his wife and children, but Steve and his family did leave town on the morning of December twenty first, nineteen eighty four, the morning after Janelle was abducted. Steve told investigators that on that day, he, his wife, and his child took a family Christmas trip to Big Bear Lake in California, and that they stayed there with his
family until December twenty sixth. Steve's ex wife, Angela Hicks, ended up becoming a star witness in the case against him. Angela told investigators that over the years, Steve had made a lot of statements implying that he had inside information about Janelle's kidnapping. In two thousand and eight, Steve Panky's son was murdered. After that, Angela told police that at their son's funeral, she heard him say, quote, I hope God didn't allow this to happen because of Janelle Matthews
end quote. According to the criminal indictment, police believed that Steve quote intentionally inserted himself in the investigation many times over the years, claiming to have knowledge of the crime, which grew inconsistent and incriminating overtime end quote. Police also pointed out Steve knew about the rake, which they found suspicious.
Angela said when she and Steve were driving home from that trip to the lake on December twenty sixth, that Steve, who didn't normally allow radio or TV inside their home, suddenly turned on the news and was listening obsessively to the coverage of Janelle's disappearance, and according to the indictment, Angela claimed that after they got home from that trip, Steve started digging in their yard. Over the years, Steve gave many interviews about the case.
Including one with The Times.
In that interview, he said he believed he was being framed because he was a celibate homosexual. The evidence against Steve was entirely circumstantial. Police had no physical evidence. Steve Pankey told local reporters that he had given police a DNA sample, but the Greeley Police told Fox thirty one that they never even made a request to obtain Steve's DNA, so they said that statement was false. With Steve Panky, it's hard to tell which parts of the story are true.
He said in court that Angela was simply bitter and making up a lot of lies. According to an indictment, Steve Panky looked up the details of Janelle's case electronically hundreds of times, but it's really hard to say. Was that because he had a role in Janelle's disappearance or
because he was a true crime fan. Later it was reported Steve followed several true crime podcasts, So could he have gotten the details about the case from online reports or did he definitely know information only known to police. Another thing that made police believe Steve Panky might have had a role in Janelle's death was the rake. Apparently he had mentioned the rape, the one that was used to cover the footprints in the snow outside of.
The Matthews House.
Now, police state that no one knew about the rake at the time when Steve mentioned it. Police also pointed to details of a letter that Steve wrote to law enforcement in twenty thirteen. It read, quote, about a week after the fact, I realized a blanket or comforter or a quilt also disappeared from the Matthews house. Some experiences are hard to forget end quote. Apparently, police believe this could refer to the fact that Janelle's remains were found
wrapped in a bedsheet. On October ninth, twenty twenty, a grand jury indicted Steve Panky on charges of kidnapping and murder. Steve's trial started in October of twenty twenty one. He took the stand in his own defense. At times, he rambled for a long time to answer the questions. Steve described himself as a fantasist and a liar. He admitted that, but again he completely denied any involvement in Janelle's kidnapping and murder. Steve's ex wife, Angela Hicks, was a major
part of the prosecution's case. She talked about that trip that their family took on December first, nineteen eighty four, to Big Bear.
She testified the trip was unplanned.
She said Steve basically rushed in and told her on December twentieth they were packing up and leaving for Big Bear for Christmas and they needed to leave pretty much immediately. Steve completely denied this. He said the trip was planned well in advance. It was not last minute or spontaneous. Steve said that Angela was lying about him because she was angry and bitter. He talked about their relationship, how
Angela was virgin when they met. He said he had basically been pressured by a youth group pastor to marry her, to do what he thought was the right thing at the time. He said he and Angela had never had a good relationship. Steve said he believed that Angela was lying after all this time in order to get some kind of revenge against him. Steve gave details that ran
contrary to Angela's testimony about that Christmas trip. He testified that three weeks or a month before the trip, he worked out with his parents that he would drive to California to where they lived. Steve testified he and his family were having serious financial.
Issues at that time.
He said they couldn't even afford to feed their dogs they had to leave them at the pound. So before the trip, he said, he arranged to have his dad mail them to credit cards so that he could finance the trip. He pointed out all of this planning took time. Steve stated he got the gas credit card in the mail on December twentieth. He said to use the car to put gas in his car at a local gas station. He bought a six pack of pepsi so he would
have something to drink on the road. Steve said that on the night of December twentieth, he and Angela put their son to bed early because they planned on getting up at dawn to drive to Big Bear. Steve said he remembered looking out for weather conditions. He was worried about snow falling through the evening. He wasn't worried about the highways, but he was worried they might get blocked into their driveway. Steve said Angela had already packed the car.
They got up at around four or five am. They drove to Big Bear. He said they drove straight through on the twenty first, stayed at his parents' house, and then came home on December twenty sixth. Steve Panky said he never went to Janelle Matthews's home. In fact, he said he had no idea where she even lived. He said he had never laid a hand on her. When he was asked about being obsessed with Janelle's case, he admitted he did listen to and fall details of the
case like a lot of other people. Steve said he did remember listening to the radio on the car ride back to Greeley, but he said that was just a coincidence. When they drove into Colorado. The news report came on about a missing thirteen year old girl in their area. Of course he was interested. Steve was asked about Angela's testimony, the part where she said that after they got back home from the Big Bear trip, he started digging in
their yard. Steve denied ever digging in the yard. He said they got home late at night, it was around eleven pm. He said, they put their son to bed and went to bed themselves. Steve admitted that he had started what he called a series of lies.
He talked about.
Some of the information being tied to the people who worked at the Sony of you Nazarene church.
He said he hated them, and he admitted he.
Had a personal grudge against Russell Ross, Deirdre's father, but he never really gave a satisfactory explanation for why he started all these lies. Finally, he was asked how he knew about the footprints in the snow.
Steve Pankey stated.
That it was Detective Lockwood, an investigator on the case, who told him in nineteen ninety two or nineteen ninety three that there were footprints in the snow, footprints that had been raped.
He testified that.
He did later sometime in the nineties, tell his wife about the footprints in the rake, but he emphasized he heard it from the police, not the other way around. So you had two very different descriptions of Steve Pankey being presented in court. Prosecutors called him a master manipulator. His attorney claimed he was a mentally ill fantasist. Steve's lawyers also pointed to an alternative suspect, a man named
Norris Drake. Noris Drake had been questioned by police. His mother and sister lived right across the street from the Matthews home, and he was there at his mom's house on the night when Janelle went missing. According to court testimony, his mother said that he was in the house the
whole time that night. She was his alibi. But according to what Steve's attorney said, there was evidence that Norris allegedly went missing for several hours on the night Janelle went missing, but and it's not clear why from what came out in court, police didn't take the lead any further. Police also talked to Norris's girlfriend. She told police that Norris had an interest in young women who had just
reached puberty. Steve's attorney stated in court that Norris made statements about how Janelle had matured and talked about how Norris's ex girlfriend had said Norris had an unusual interest in young girls. Norris also had a criminal record involving theft and drug charges. Apparently he had stolen some personal property from his roommate, so the defense's theory was that Norris could have either gone in through the open garage
door or possibly all the way into the house. The attorneys said the motives could have been theft or sexual assault, and that it's possible that things got out of control. Steve's attorney stated Steve wasn't the only one who knew about that rake in those footprints. He said Norris Drake also mentioned the knowledge of a rake to police. Well District attorney Michael Rohrer said that the statements by Noris
Drake were taken out of context. He said Norris had found out about the rake because he lived across the street and his mom had been talking about it, and the DA also said Norris had made statements about the rake that weren't accurate, including that the rake was used to hide multiple sets of footprints from juveniles. Again, there was only one set of footprints found, with a shoe size of nine to eleven. Police never found a match
to those prints. Steve Pankey's murder trial started on October thirteenth, twenty twenty one. On November four, twenty twenty one, the jury announced they could not reach a verdict on the murder and kidnapping charges.
They did vote to convict.
Steve on one misdemeanor count of making false statements to police. The defense argued that Steve displayed signs of mental illness and that his obsessive interest in the case happened because, according to his attorney, he had Asperger's syndrome. Steve's second trial started in October of twenty twenty two. At the end of the second trial, Steve Pankey was found guilty of felony murder and kidnapping. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty years.
But Steve Panky was seventy one years old at the time of conviction, so for him this is almost certainly a life sentence. Janelle Matthew's family has said they are relieved to have finally found some kind of closure. According to The New York Times once the trial was over, Janelle's mom, Gloria said, quote, I just want to cry. I cannot forgive him for how he killed Janelle. God is the only one who can forgive evil, and this is evil.
End quote.
Steve Panky stated for the record that he was innocent and that this was not justice for Janelle. So Janelle's case is officially closed, but a lot of people still wonder did Steve Pankey really kidnap and kill Janelle? Yes, his behavior was suspicious, but it's also totally circumstantial, and there's not even any evidence that he ever met anyone in the Matthews family, including Janelle. A lot of the early headlines about potential connections are, in my opinion, a
little misleading. They talk about the fact that Janelle and Steve were neighbors and that Steve was a youth pastor at the family church. Of course, when I dug deeper, I found out the neighbors meant miles away, and that they didn't even attend the same church at the same time. And it's still never really explained how or why Steve Panky would be at Janelle's house that night and be able to kidnap her, drive the body miles away and dispose of it. There's no DNA and no evidence that
police even ever asked for it. And as for the other potential suspect mentioned in court, Noris Drake died in two thousand and seven. But among everything else, all the strange facts of this case, I keep going.
Back to the beginning.
I keep thinking about the open garage door. Deanna and her dad said that the garage door was open when Janelle got home. All evidence points to Janelle coming into her house, taking off her stockings, pulling up that space heater, and getting comfortable, snuggling in for a night at TV. At some point she answered the phone, she took the message for her dad, and then presumably between around eight thirty when she took the call and nine thirty pm when her dad got home, someone.
Came into that house.
Could the intruder have been Norris or someone else who was waiting in the garage when she got home. Was it someone who looked at her through the windows of that house and saw an opportunity to attack? And then there are those footprints in the snow, footprints that police say were partially raked away by the rake that was in the family garage. In my opinion, that points to someone spending some time in that garage, at least long
enough to see the rake there and grab it. This, in my opinion, points to a crime of opportunity rather than something that was pre planned. So I find myself wondering who crept into that dark garage and will we ever know for sure? I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of.
School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy Tuggs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Camera mixed in score this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley.
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