Incriminating statements, lack of physical evidence again at forefront of Pankey trial

On Friday — one of Northern Colorado’s first frigid fall days of the year — a grey sky loomed over Greeley’s Centennial Plaza.

Inside, Weld County courtroom 1D was white-walled but warm, its golden oak benches filled with a smattering of court staff, witnesses, onlookers and reporters.

For Jim and Gloria Matthews, an older couple seated in the gallery, the nondescript room might as well have been a time machine.

With the man accused of kidnapping and killing their youngest daughter, Jonelle, on trial for the second time in two years, Jim spent the afternoon on the witness stand, once again unfurling the events of Dec. 20, 1984 — when 12-year-old Jonelle vanished from her family's Greeley home.

Friday marked the beginning of what is supposed to be a weekslong retrial for Steve Pankey, the now-71-year-old Idaho man accused of kidnapping and killing Jonelle nearly 38 years ago.

What happened to Jonelle Matthews?

On Dec. 20, 1984, 12-year-old Jonelle returned from a Christmas choir concert, stepped inside her family's Greeley home and was never seen alive again.

Her disappearance confounded investigators and sent shockwaves through Greeley. Jonelle's fate would remain a mystery for nearly 35 years, until the preteen's skeletal remains were unearthed by oil and gas workers digging in a rural Weld County field on July 24, 2019. Jonelle's remains were found with the same clothes she went missing in and her cause of death was determined to be a single gunshot wound to the head.

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Just over a year after Jonelle's remains were found a Weld County grand jury indicted Pankey in her kidnapping and murder. Pankey, who resided in Idaho in the years leading up to his arrest, was a 33-year-old used car salesman living in Greeley with his then-wife and young son at the time of Jonelle's disappearance.

Soon after Jonelle vanished, Pankey inserted himself into the police investigation, Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke told the jury during his opening statements Friday. In the decades that followed, Pankey would continue to make incriminating statements in both Colorado and Idaho, Rourke said.

Due to the state of Jonelle's remains, extracting DNA evidence that could lead to her killer was impossible, Rourke said. There is no physical evidence tying Pankey to Jonelle's disappearance, murder or remains, Pankey's attorney Peter Harris said in his opening statements Friday.

Pankey is currently facing charges of first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping — the same charges he was tried for in Weld County last fall. His 2021 trial ended in a mistrial because jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. They did, however, find Pankey guilty of false reporting to authorities — a misdemeanor — after he testified that he lied to police on several occasions, claiming to have information on Jonelle's disappearance when he did not.

Who is testifying during Pankey's retrial?

With Jonelle's seventh grade class picture glowing on a monitor beside him, Jim Matthews sat down Friday afternoon to testify as the prosecution's first witness.

When asked what his youngest daughter was like, Jim paused.

"Jonelle was ... unique," he said, eliciting knowing chuckles from the handful of Matthews family members and friends in the gallery.

"When she came in the room, you knew Jonelle was in the room," he said noting that Jonelle was loud, opiniated and a natural performer who attracted a big group of friends.

Answering questions from Weld County Assistant District Attorney Robb Miller, Jim walked the jury through what the Matthews family home looked like the night Jonelle disappeared. He also spoke of the night's timeline and how Jonelle's disappearance quickly became a national news story.

Since last year, two witnesses who testified for the prosecution during Pankey's 2021 trial — the owner of a salvage yard Pankey used in 1985 and Jim Christy, the family's pastor at the time of Jonelle's disappearance — have died, according to Rourke and the DA's office.

During Pankey's retrial, Rourke told the jury they're going to be hearing statements Pankey has made over the years — dating back as far as Jan. 16, 1985, when the car salesman walked into the Greeley Police Department falsely claiming to be a Baptist minister who had gleaned possible information about Jonelle's disappearance via a "pastoral confession."

The jury will also hear "a lot" about Russell Ross, a family friend who dropped Jonelle off at the Matthews house after her choir concert on Dec. 20. Ross and his daughter, Deanna, who was friends with Jonelle and sang in the same choir, were the last known people to see her alive.

Ross was also Pankey's boss at one time and a member at the same church Pankey attended in the late 1970s — around the time their relationship soured, leading Pankey to "hate" Ross, Rourke said.

Pankey's ex-wife, Angela Hicks, will also testify during this trial, Rourke said. Hicks, who was married to Pankey at the time of Jonelle's disappearance, will walk jurors through her memories of late December 1984, including what Rourke described as a last-minute road trip to visit Pankey's parents in California that began on Dec. 23 that year.

In a new development, Rourke also said the prosecution will be introducing statements made by a jailhouse informant who befriended Pankey while they were both in custody at the Weld County jail.

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What will Pankey's defense look like for his retrial?

Physical evidence in Jonelle's case — or lack thereof — appears to be at the forefront of Pankey's defense, according to Harris' opening statements.

"Steve didn't do this," Harris said simply Friday, outlining how there is no DNA, no fingerprints and no physical evidence or witness testimony placing his client at the Matthews home on Dec. 20, 1984 or, decades later, at Jonelle's remote burial site.

Like during last year's trial, the grown son of one of the Matthews' neighbors will be introduced as an alternate suspect.

The man, whose mother lived across the street from Jonelle, was at his mother's house the night Jonelle disappeared, Harris said, indicating that the jury will hear about statements the man made soon after Jonelle vanished.

Harris told the jury they'll be hearing "a lot of peripheral issues" relating to Pankey from the prosecution, but asked them to keep the "hard and fast" facts of the case top of mind.

"... As the evidence unfolds, you're going to see that there's speculation involved, there's leaps of logic that have been undertaken because of that pressure — understandable pressure — to solve the case, to find finality."

"This is how an innocent man gets convicted," he added. "A case like this."

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in court. Arrests and charges are merely accusations by law enforcement until, and unless, a suspect is convicted of a crime.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Family remembers Jonelle Matthews as trial of accused killer starts