[4] Steven Pankey was sentenced to life imprisonment on October 31, 2022, after his arrest and trial for Matthews' murder.
[5] Jonelle Matthews was born on February 9, 1972, to 13-year-old Terri Vierra at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California.
[6] On the evening of December 20, 1984, Matthews was performing in a Christmas concert at IntraWest Bank of Denver as a member of Greeley's Franklin Middle School Choir.
[7][8][9] Her father was at her sister's basketball game[9] and her mother was temporarily out of state caring for an ill family member.
Matthews' father arrived home at 9:30 PM and found the garage door open, but no one was in the house.
[2] Years after Matthews' disappearance, her parents moved to the Philippines as missionaries, later relocating after retirement to Costa Rica.
[14] President Ronald Reagan mentioned Matthews in a speech on March 7, 1985, from Room 450 of the Old Executive Office Building.
[19] Excavators installing a pipeline discovered human remains at 4:50 PM on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, near the intersection of County Roads 34.5 and 49 at coordinates 40°14′23″N 104°36′09″W / 40.239848°N 104.602514°W / 40.239848; -104.602514, about 15 mi (24 km) southeast of the Matthews family's former home.
Based on DNA evidence, the Weld County Coroner's Office positively identified the remains as being those of Jonelle Matthews.
He said they were planning to leave town the next day for a Christmas visit with family members in Big Bear Lake, California, and had already loaded their car.
[13] Decades later, Pankey provided investigators with documents concerning this trip, which police said contained "false statements and superfluous details".
[22] A few months following Matthews' disappearance, Pankey attended a church service where a minister claimed that the girl would be found safe.
At his son's funeral, Hicks reportedly heard Pankey say, "I hope God didn't allow this to happen because of Jonelle Matthews.
[25] Pankey's trial began on Thursday, October 14, 2021, ultimately ending in a mistrial on November 4, 2021, due to a hung jury.
The jury voted to convict Pankey on a single misdemeanor count of making false statements to police, but was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on the kidnapping and murder charges.
[27] Upon retrial, Pankey was found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Jonelle Matthews by a Weld County jury on October 31, 2022.
in 2022 on the CBS program 48 Hours[31] and 2024's The Girl on the Milk Carton, a two-part series produced by the Oxygen network.