On a winter night in a small community near Denver, Colorado, Jim Matthews arrived home late. He expected to find his twelve year old daughter, who had been dropped off after a Christmas concert, but when he called out, hey, John Ell, the house was eerily quiet. His daughter's shoes were on the floor, but she was gone, and it would be
thirty five years before she would be found dead. After the discovery of John L. Matthew's body in two thousand and nineteen, the police turned their attention to a man who had told law enforcement years ago that he knew something, but they dismissed him. The man did seem obsessed with the case, but is that all He was? A true
crime fanatic or a killer wondery. In Campside Media's shocking true crime podcast, Suspect is back for a second season with a story that attempts to separate fact from fiction, compulsion from guilt, and one man's true crime obsession from a motive for murder. I'm about to play a clip from Suspect Vanished in the Snow while you're listening. Follow Suspect on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can start listening to suspect vanished in the snow early and add free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.
Well County is a desert feels relatively warm outside for Colorado in December, and the sky is just this Caribbean blue. It's winter, but it's hot out, dry and dusty. The snow capped rocky mountains are all behind us. Ahead, it's flat. The horizon goes on forever. I feel like we're in the Wikipedia of Tumbleweeds.
Don't you feel rich? And Tom Bridge, it's help.
Yeah, Oh shit, people tear ass down this road. A few of the trucks passing us are souped up, brand new tires, jacked high oil and gas workers apparently unbothered by speed limits. If there is a speed limit out here, we're relieved to turn into a dirt driveway of a lone rambling house.
Hi guys, Hello, nice to meet you.
I'm Jody Vance and Jody Gillilin lives so far from most of their neighbors that it's easier to drive to see them. Across from their house is a field that stretches about a thousand acres. It's full of brush and weeds, the kind of place where people often well abandon things, old mattresses, washers and dryers, even boats.
It's like, wow, almost tended to hook that up and take it home and see what I can do. But no, I mean, people still still do dump things out here, but it's usually quick and rout and quick and run. I mean what they can show up the back with truck in two seconds.
In the summer of twenty nineteen, Vance and Jody were in their kitchen when they saw blue and red lights flashing across the perimeter of their property. All of a sudden, there was cop cars going by, and I was like, uh oh.
Up until it was dark. Actually they were out there, and.
They were out there forever.
Vance and Jody soon learned those oil and gas workers and their fancy pickups. They'd unearthed a small human skull with a single bullet hole in it, and authorities knew exactly who the remains belonged to. It is a cold case that has baffled the Greeley community for nearly thirty five years, but denied. Police may be closer to figuring out what happened to Janelle Matthews. The twelve year old
disappeared from her home in late nineteen eighty four. Her remains were discovered this week by a construction curR in rural Weld County. Gone for thirty five years, today, human remains founded an oil and gas fighting Greeley give investigators new leads on a decade's old cold case. Like a lot of Colorado residents who had been following Janelle's case since the nineteen eighties, Vance and Jody watched the news
reports with fascination. They waited to hear what would happen next, hoping that the remains in the field would finally lead investigators to the killer. As it turned out, it wouldn't be nearly so simple. This is a story about obsession my own. Sure, So I am working on a podcast about the Janelle Matthews case. I know you know about that case, right, I assume you're probably well versed. I
thought i'd try you one last time. But also the obsession of a community that pushing to find Janelle, to get her name into the national spotlight and all the way to the White House.
For example, I learned about Janelle Matthews of Greeley, Colorado, who would have celebrated a happy thirteenth birthday with her family just last month.
And it's about the obsessions of a self described true crime junkie, a man who had started talking about the Janelle Matthews case just a few days after police responded to a distress call from her home, and over the next thirty five years he kept talking and talking.
It was just me trying to be a big man in the case.
He's a busybody.
He gets himself in the middle of murder cases, but that doesn't necessarily mean he actually was involved in them. People are like, Oh, he's just crazy and he's just he's just a being bad or whatever else, and he's harmless.
He wouldn't hurt anybody.
It's a good liar that he can convince the juror that he wasn't involved, so you know he's a liar. He is.
He is a good one. I turned around and I said, you're going to be arrested for obstructing if you don't get back in your car, and he says, don't fuck with me. Officer Edgerton. I've buried more people than you'll know. When you shut Janelle Matthews in the forehead.
Was she begging for her life never happened.
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