GUILTY CO - Jonelle Matthews, 12, found deceased, Greeley, 20 Dec 1984 *arrest 2020* #2

[MissLaura]

The detective interviewed claimed that it was information that was withheld from the public. Who was the "neighbor suspect"? Ross? I thought that Pankey was also a neighbor.

I've heard those claims before, and they don't always turn out to be true. To me, that is not "beyond a reasonable doubt" type of evidence. Pankey wasn't a neighbor. He lived there in Greeley. The neighbor I'm talking about is Norris Drake.

 

[katydid23]

I've heard those claims before, and they don't always turn out to be true. To me, that is not "beyond a reasonable doubt" type of evidence. Pankey wasn't a neighbor. He lived there in Greeley. The neighbor I'm talking about is Norris Drake.

They investigated Drake and concluded he had nothing to do with the case. The defense just threw that accusation out there about him liking young girls, with no evidence of that. Common tactic in a murder case.

Pankeys wife of 25 years had important testimony, imo. I believed her about his desperate attempt for an alibi---they had no plans to go to California for Christmas. He refused his parents invitation. But on the morning after she went missing, Pankey came home in a rush and demanded she pack up the kids for a drive to California for Christmas.

She asked how they could get ready so quickly and who'd watch their two Great Danes. HE DUMPED THE FAMILY DOGS in the woods and deserted them so they could leave in a hurry.

When they got to California no one knew they were coming and it was an awkward trip. They didn't bring gifts or anything and the kids were cranky. Pankey got in a big argument with his father so the family drove back to Greeley after 4 days or so.

Incidentally, Pankey used that trip to California as his alibi when police eventually questioned him.

On the long drive back to Colorado, Pankey made his wife keep searching the car radio stations for news reports about the missing girl. She said that was highly unusual as he never listened to news radio in the car before. She said he demanded that she continuously search the dials for new news reports on the radio for the entire drive home.

She also said that he inexplicably set the family car on fire, from the inside. He lit it up in their backyard in the middle of the night. He gave no explanation and she was afraid to keep asking.

She also found ripped up yellow legal pad papers with his hand written notes, all about his thoughts about Jonelle's kidnapping. He wrote about the raking in the snow to cover the footprints.

These notes she found were written BEFORE he was spoken to by the detectives. So he did not learn about that info from them.

His wife wrote all of this info down, and kept those notes from the waste basket, and called Ketchum police, which was her local PD. She spoke to a detective there for 45 minutes and he promised he would call Greeley detectives to send them her evidence. She dropped it off to them. [she had no car to get to Greely]

Ketchum police apparently never made that call. She never heard from Greeley PD until 19 years later I believe. She had already divorced Pankey and had a protective order but was afraid of him so she never followed up on it again herself.

[this was all in an interview with her, from 'The Girl On The Milk Carton' on Oxygen network last night. It was a 3 part documentary---very well done]

 

[katydid23]

Also, the ex wife talked about a very strange connection between Pankey and the church that Jonlle's family attended.

A few yers earlier Pankey had worked at the church. He told people he was the assistant pastor--he even said that in a national interview on tv...but in reality he was the janitor.

And he was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a female parishioner. He got a very high profile attorney and the charges were dropped. But he was fired and no longer attended that church.

He was known to sit and watch the middle school girls walking home from school, and admitted a couple of times that he knew who Jonelle was and had seen her walking home before.

Interestingly one of the people he was very angry at was Ross, the last man known to see Jonelle alive. He and his daughter dropped her off at home the night she went missing, around 8:30 pm. She was gone when her father came home around 9 or 9:30.

Anyway, Pankey hated Ross because he sided with the parishioner that accused Pankey of rape. So Pankey began contacting the police and saying that he was a pastor and Ross had confessed he killed Jonelle.

The police originally reached out to Pankey only to ask questions about Ross, who they had some suspicions about because he was last one to see her.

Pankeys wife said he was kind of obsessed with certain people he really disliked, like Ross. He liked to get back at people, sue them, bad mouth them, etc.

Ross was bringing Jonelle and his daughter home from a school Christmas Concert. Pankey was said to like watching young girls. Makes me wonder if he saw Jonelle getting into Ross's car---maybe followed them home and saw she was alone because the cars were still gone ?

 

[MissLaura]

When I have the time, I plan on watching the Oxygen documentary. This case is so strange to me.

 

[LinasK]

When I have the time, I plan on watching the Oxygen documentary. This case is so strange to me.

It was an excellent summary, but I think I only saw 2/3 parts...