Coffee And Crime Time: Jonelle Matthews

she's like a sickness in my brain a vision standing by the window pain she ripples through the blinds and leads me in a daze it's in the way her body moves me the way she grabs me and intoxicates until the signals in my mind forget to operate [Music] hello everybody welcome back to my channel and thank you for joining me for another coffee and crime time this is definitely going to be a coffee and crime time but i'm probably going to use an old coffee and crime time intro just because i've been so sick the antibiotics are making me like super nauseous i don't want to eat i don't want to really even drink anything besides water so i don't want to drink coffee and i don't want to make a pot of coffee just make the intro because that's not only silly but wasteful and really silly but i do want to thank you for joining me for this coffee and crime time and uh we have a very bizarre case very um sad case of course very very sad but really strange like it took a really strange turn of events and i can't wait to get into it with you guys and i really can't wait to talk to you about it in the comments but um there's a lot of like extra uh notes and extra like things i have to read that i printed out because i just couldn't fit it all into my my notes but i really do want to thank everybody who reached out to me whether in the comments section or via email or on social media to say that they hope i'm feeling better guys that's so nice oh my god um it's so nice because i really have not been feeling great and it was just really nice to hear that people cared and uh everybody said i was glowing in the last video they're like oh you don't look sick you're glowing that was not glowing that was sweat i was sweating i've been sweating steadily for a week um hot cold hot cold and then when i get hot i just just start glistening it's it's a layer of sweat over my entire body and and that is what is happening again today so if you think i'm glowing it's it's perspiration and we're actually going to talk about perspiration in a moment when we talk about our sponsor but um first i want to kind of open up this case oh i also wanted to quickly address the people who have been pointing out to me in videos and you know everywhere they possibly can not even pointing out to me but pointing out to others that i'm not wearing my wedding rings when you see me on camera i'm very much still married very much still happy he's the love of my life but i have a table here and when i wear my wedding rings and i talk with my hands like i do because this is just my mannerisms my wedding rings will hit the table and make a big loud noise that i then have to re-record what i was saying and get out of my groove so that's why i don't wear them when i'm recording but i'm still very very happily married so thanks for your concern let's go back to my excessive perspiration in this past week when i've been sick and let's have a word from the sponsor of today's video native i used to think that all deodorants were created equally that it really didn't matter what i was putting under my arms you know if it stopped me from smelling then it did its job but when i started working with native a little over a year ago i realized that it is important to make decisions daily to use products that are not only good for me and my body but good for the planet and as i'm recording this video in april earth month i think it's the perfect time to talk about switching to plastic free packaging wherever possible which is why i use native's new plastic free deodorant natives customers have been asking for plastic free deodorants forever native listened they've been developing this for i think two years and now they have it and they're great and the same great product is inside right but on the outside uh there's a much better product it's now made from paper board packaging and native is committed to sourcing from responsibly managed forests they've sold over 500 000 units of plastic-free products which saves 48 000 pounds of plastic from being manufactured and we're talking single-use plastic right so when you get a deodorant and it's in a plastic case you you throw it away you know and it just goes in a landfill somewhere so i really like that they've switched to the plastic free packaging but the inside product is amazing as well native deodorants come in a wide range of sense my og favorite is the eucalyptus mint but two new scents just launched lilac and white tea and tangerine and citrus blossom the lilac and white tea it's so good uh lilacs are my favorite flower i live in rochester new york and we have a big lilac festival every may and the smell of lilacs just brings back like great memories you know my mom used to have lilac bushes in her yard and she would cut fresh lilacs every spring and put them in the house just elicit such a nice and positive feeling and memories and they smell like real lilacs this deodorant the deodorant is fast drying non-sticky and it keeps me feeling fresh even after a really like heavy duty exercise day or recording a video in front of these hot lights i have this uh rower it's called an ergata roller and it's like you know like a rower and i swear to god in 15 minutes i sweat more than than i would on a treadmill for for two hours but if i've got my native deodorant on after i'm done working out yeah i sweat like i'm soaked with sweat but i don't smell bad best of all their deodorants are made with familiar and simple ingredients such as coconut oil and shea butter but without ingredients like aluminum the deodorants are paraben and sulfate free which is something i also try to avoid in my my beauty products they're vegan and cruelty free which i love and they work all day long even after these intense workouts i'm talking about which is really impressive to me because you you don't need a lot of this deodorant a few swipes is all it takes and then i don't smell bad all day now three plastic free deodorants are normally thirty nine dollars but if you use my link in the code stephanie h7 you'll get them for twenty nine dollars that's 25 off it's a great deal i know that they sell native at target and stuff because i love native body washes they're my favorite all-time body washes i love them so much i will probably never use any other body washes in fact they have limited edition scents you know seasonal scents and there was a rosemary and lemon zest over the winter and i knew it was limited edition i bought like 12 of them because it's my absolute favorite favorite scent of body wash and native i know you're listening to this please bring that back full time make it a full time scent it's amazing but anyways like i said go into the description box click the link use code stephanieh7 and you can get three plastic free deodorants for only 29 that's 25 off the normal price go and check them out i love them thank you so much to native for sponsoring this video let's dive back into the video i want to talk about you know the prevalence of missing children and and what it does to the community as a whole and you know children go missing obviously all over the world in every town city state country but when it happens in a small town it's sort of it sticks right and every small town has one the story of a child who disappeared and changed the people and the lifestyle in the community for these towns there's a before and an after before the disappearance children played outside they stayed outside all day they only came home when it got dark and their moms were calling them in for dinner they walked to and from school by themselves everyone left their doors unlocked everyone trusted everybody after the disappearance now parents all of a sudden want to know where their children are at all times they start driving their kids to and from school meeting them at the bus stop taking an extra few minutes every night to lock their houses up safe because they know that it wasn't their child but it could have been before there'd been safety comfort trust after there was fear anxiety and suspicion the 1984 abduction of twelve-year-old janelle matthews changed the tight-knit town of greeley colorado and for 34 years the shadow of her unsolved disappearance hung over greeley like a dark storm cloud threatening to open up at any moment and cover the city with pounding rain booming thunder and flashing lightning and fear but what police believe happened to janelle is far more scary and bizarre than anyone's overactive imagination could have come up with so janelle's disappearance really shook greely it changed the way people felt about their their previous feelings of safety and security i also want to throw in a disclaimer here i know that the issue of whether law enforcement as a whole is good or bad it's kind of a hot button topic right now personally i approach this question on a case-by-case basis as i try to do with everything i've said before often that broad generalizations of any kind make me incredibly uncomfortable and not only that i find them to be very unproductive divisive problematic just they they're not good in any way shape or form but of course you know people will try to put you in a box they'll try to figure out what you think what you believe what side you're on because their sides now and i've been accused of being anti-police i've been accused of being pro police um you know they have to pull me in a box they have to figure out where i stand and in reality i'm not either of those things i do think we need a different law enforcement system we definitely need law enforcement system reforms i've said that before i've said a million times that our justice system is broken when i say that that means better training for police officers it means reform in in the justice system it means not putting non-violent offenders in prison for 50 years and putting people who hurt other people in prison for longer and not releasing them early so they can go out and hurt other people it means a lot of things but if i'm covering a case and the police involved did a bad job i'm going to say that they did a bad job i'm going to call it out and i'm going to say what they could have done differently because that's my right as a citizen of this country to criticize law enforcement and my government when they're screwing up but i'm also quick to point out when the police did a great job in a case and there's plenty examples of this and i only am talking about this because i recognize and have seen that there are people out there who will use the distrust in police to spin a narrative in their own favor and try to escape justice and in my personal opinion and i think anyone with an ounce of logic would agree that's what's happening here in this case and i do invite you to disagree with me if you disagree with me in the comments you know let me know but i also really want you to listen to the details of this case before you make your decision okay so janelle was not born janelle matthews but janelle vieira on february 9 1972 at cottage hospital in santa barbara california her biological mother teri was just 13 at the time of her birth so terry put janelle up for adoption two months later janelle was adopted by a couple jim and gloria matthews who already had one daughter named jennifer and jennifer was about three at this time when janelle was adopted the matthews had reportedly struggled to conceive jennifer so they decided to adopt their second child janelle and six years later the family moved from california to greeley colorado about 50 miles away from denver and they moved to greeley because jim had been offered a position at day spring christian school joelle was quite the character right she had a very strong personality everybody said that her mother gloria said that janelle was quote strong in everything she was strong physically she was strong-willed all throughout her life even when she was a little girl she knew what she wanted and she let you know gloria said janelle would give her detailed requests before each of her birthdays she would say you know i want a strawberry cake and i want a pink theme and then the day after her current birthday was over you know she would start planning her next birthday janelle had a best friend named deanna ross and the girls went to the same school their families attended the same church and they spent a lot of time together you know they rode bikes they played they had sleepovers they listened to menudo that was janelle's favorite band janelle loved musicals she loved performing she loved being in the spotlight too and annie was her favorite and like i said in general janelle loved to sing and perform diana said that janelle was loud and extroverted which played really well off of deanna's more reserved personality janelle's sister jennifer said that deanna was very strong-willed and opinionated and she would actually instruct the choir director on how to run the show and even though obviously they fought over the normal things that sisters fight over like clothes and chores jennifer loved jonelle very much and she wonders to you know what their relationship would have been like growing up what would they have been like together as adults or as uh you know late teens when they started to develop a more grown-up and close relationship and it was really hard not to love janelle because even though admittedly she could be abrasive at times and loud and she kind of you know walked into the room and everyone knew she was there she was also really sweet and thoughtful and compassionate and fun and she turned even the most boring days into something exciting this happy family was shattered however on thursday december 20th 1984. the next day friday it was going to be the last day of school before christmas break and janelle who loved all things christmas you know she loved the tradition she loved everything about christmas the decorations the excitement the carols she was super pumped to bring her handmade christmas presents into school the next day and give them to her friends she'd spend a lot of time making them she'd put a lot of thought into them and she couldn't wait to give them to her friends that year for christmas 12 year old janelle had asked santa for a cabbage patch doll and it was currently sitting under the tree all wrapped up waiting for her to open on christmas morning christmas morning is as fun for parents as it is for children um it really is it's better i think and janelle's parents were really looking forward to seeing her open it and witness the excitement on her face because i guess this was the hard to get toy of the season you know the furbies the beanie babies um the baby alives the cabbage patch dolls every year there's something else hatchimals everywhere there's something else that that every kid wants and it's impossible to get but they would never get to give her this cabbage patch doll on the evening of december 20th gloria matthews boarded a plane to los angeles at 5 30 in the evening she was flying home to surprise her parents and spend some time with them for the christmas season 16 year jennifer left home to go to the high school because she was playing in a basketball game that night jim matthews and janelle had dinner at mcdonald's and then he dropped her off at the intro west bank downtown where janelle is part of the franklin middle school choir was performing a christmas concert that would be broadcast live on the city's cablevision network [Music] [Music] oh now unfortunately jim couldn't stay and watch the concert because he had to get to the high school for jennifer's basketball game you know he had told her he would be there but it wasn't a big deal because the concert was being televised and because janelle's best friend deanna was also in the school choir and she and her father russell ross would be giving janelle a ride home that evening so she was taken care of russell ross recalled that on the drive home janelle was very excited you know she was chatting along like she always did she was talking about christmas how much she was looking forward to it and when he pulled up in front of the matthews house at around 8 15 p.m john l got out of the car and told deanna that she would see her tomorrow in school russell ross felt that nothing was unusual or out of the ordinary about these moments he had no idea that he and his daughter would be the two last people to see janelle alive besides her attacker he said that when he pulled up the garage door was partially open but that wasn't uncommon like i said everybody felt really safe they left their doors unlocked they left their garage doors open they didn't feel that somebody was gonna come in and you know invade their their home their safe place and russ waited until he saw janelle enter the home and switch on the lights before he pulled away at 9 30 pm jim matthews arrived home after jennifer's basketball game and when he entered the house he said that it was clear janelle had been there the lights were on the television was on the space heater that janelle liked to sit by was on her shoes were there the pantyhose that she'd worn to the concert those had been taken off and draped over the couch jim recalling this night said quote it was like she was there but she wasn't end quote he then began to call out janelle's name but she didn't respond and he realized that his daughter was gone but where would she have gone where would she have gone with snow on the ground outside and her shoes left behind in the kitchen jim matthew saw a note on the blackboard from janelle but it didn't give any hints as to where she might be it was a phone message that she'd taken around 8 30 for her father now at this time jim was the principal at platte valley elementary school and one of the teachers from there had called to say that she wasn't feeling well and she would need a sub for the next day so janelle had taken down the message for her father like she was instructed to janelle's sister jennifer arrived home from her game around 10 and when she had no idea where janelle was jim started to panic and he called russell ross who said that janelle was not with them russell then woke up his daughter deanna janelle's best friend who was sleeping and he asked her if she knew anything about where her friend might be but she didn't feeling that something was very wrong jim called the greely police and reported his daughter missing by 10 15 pm detectives had arrived and they were looking for clues there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry one of the detectives who was first on the scene was then 27 year old john gates and john gates would actually later go on to become greely's mayor john gates remembers walking around the matthews neighborhood that night knocking on doors and asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious and there was essentially no evidence found at the house this was 1984. so if there had been some kind of dna evidence they wouldn't have even known how to collect it especially in a small town like really they wouldn't have had that kind of technology even if it was up and coming there was no fingerprints found they did check for fingerprints in the house those were not found the only thing that was found were footprints in the snow outside of the house which indicated that someone had been walking around the house in the yard possibly looking into windows but what made these footprints even more suspicious was that whoever had made the prince had taken a rake from the matthews partially open garage and used it to rake over their footprints as they walked in an attempt to conceal them now this piece of information was known only by the family and the police department they never made it public and they had planned to use it in the event that they had a suspect that they were questioning aside from those footprints the police had nothing to go on janelle had vanished without a trace and they didn't even really know where to start janelle's father jim was the first suspect but not because he'd done anything shady simply because he was her dad gloria her mom was out of town so he's he's really what's left the family members are always the first ones that are looked at when something happens to a child and he understood why the police had to consider him but once he was cleared which he eventually was there were no other leads no other suspects searches were conducted notably a search consisting of 600 volunteers which took place on janelle's 13th birthday in february of 1985 but they found nothing in march of 1985 ronald reagan who was the president at that time he mentioned janelle in a speech he gave about missing children five days before christmas jonell disappeared from her home janelle was one of the first children to be featured on milk cartons right along with johnny gosch and eaton potts there was posters put up all around town with her face on them but the case soon went cold there was some hope however you know just six months prior to her disappearance the national center for missing and exploited children had been established by congress and the matthews felt that maybe some of the success stories they were seeing of children being returned home to their parents that would become their reality as well gloria even set a place for janelle at the table for christmas dinner they kept her room exactly the same and they kept her wrapped presents under the tree but by the summer of 1985 the chances of janelle coming home seemed incredibly bleak and they took down janelle's menudo posters and converted her bedroom into a guest room they wanted to make jennifer's life as normal as possible you know she was in high school there was a lot a lot going on that's going to be hard for somebody to handle they wanted to kind of have that that sense of normalcy in their home they did get a new garage door opener that locked they got a new deadbolt they took moves to to feel more safe in their home that they no longer felt safe in and then they tried to move forward janelle's disappearance made others in the community a bit more protective of their own children russell ross made sure his daughter diana didn't go anywhere without him knowing every detail like the who what when and where and other children in the community reported feelings of fear that someone was going to climb through their window and take them away and like i said this is pretty common you know this happens especially in these small towns where everyone knows everybody it's tight-knit you feel very safe you're like oh i'm not in a big city there's not going to be an issue with crimea and then this happens and i think that the people who perpetrate these crimes who take these children they not only get off on the fact that they took the children but they get off on the fact that they've now put an entire community an entire town an entire group of people into a state of fear janelle's disappearance went unsolved for almost 35 years then on july 23 2019 a bulldozer operator uncovered a set of skeletonized remains the bulldozer operator was part of a crew digging for a pipeline in this really out of the way rural area in weld county more than 20 miles away from where janelle had lived the skeleton was found with a perfectly preserved set of teeth covered in braces like janelle had and there were scraps of red and blue fabric found amongst the remains and on the night of her disappearance janelle had been wearing a red blouse a gray skirt and a navy blue sweater vest the remains were confirmed through dental records to be those of twelve-year-old janelle matthews she had been shot in the head now here's where things start to get really bizarre i'd like to introduce you to the man who became a person of interest in this case sometime in 2018 early to mid 2018 and um he he's been arrested for her her murder and the reason that this dude became a person of interest is essentially because he made himself a person of interest right he'd inserted himself into this case so many times and he'd said and done so many weird bizarre odd things that law enforcement finally took notice like he was begging them to take notice for years and they finally did stephen panke was 33 years old in 1984 living with his wife and five-year-old son in greeley just about two miles away from the matthews but he claimed he had never met janelle or her family and he had known nothing about her disappearance until six days after now he makes a lot of claims he says a lot of things that have been called into question that that can't be proved and he's quite an oddball but the question that really needs to be answered is not whether steve panky is a strange person because that's fairly evident but the question is is he responsible for the abduction and murder of janelle matthews and the greeley police as well as you know many other law enforcement agencies because this went around different states they seem to think that he is like that he really is but steve panky claims that the police are trying to frame him in an effort to protect the real person who committed this crime who's part of like the church i guess even more strange is that the police did not tell the media that steve panky was a person of interest he told them he told them himself he gave an interview um to the idaho statesman in september of 2019 and he was like oh the police are you know suspecting me and they're harassing me i didn't even do anything but listen i'm getting ahead of myself i'm getting ahead of myself and i thought a long time about this i don't really know what the best way to present this to you is because there's just so much there's so much to talk about because steve panky he never shuts up he hasn't shut up for you know the better part of 30 years 35 years so i guess the easiest thing to do is just to start from the beginning stephen dana panky was born in 1951 in ventura california to his parents dana and ruth pinky as martina patkova put in her 2020 article on medium.com steve was a conservative christian descending from a line of men in positions of authority steve's great grandfather his name was bf panky and he was actually the lieutenant governor of new mexico before he lost everything after a drought i guess he was like a big time farmer and he lost everything steve's grandfather dana panky senior served as the pastor of greeley's bethel baptist church in the 1940s and steve's father dana pankey jr also became a minister also according to steve his brother was an ex-san bernardino county deputy sheriff and steve himself graduated from la punte alternative high school and this is located in the san gabriel valley in california by the 1970s steve and some of his extended family were living in greeley colorado and on january 14 1975 steve enlisted with the us army in denver colorado but he was discharged exactly a year later in fort campbell kentucky we don't know exactly why but according to steve it's because he was gay now this is a really strange part of the story that i can't seem to wrap my head around because steve panky is a very contradictory person when it comes to a lot of things but especially when it comes to his sexuality and its role and its impact in his life but uh we will get to that because steve gave a one hour interview on camera in 2019 and i'm gonna play you portions of this interview and talk about the things that he says but steve told ktvb that after being discharged from the army in 1976 he quote left the gay lifestyle and repented for it end quote those are his words not mine now you have to keep in mind that i had left the gay lifestyle when it got kicked out of the army in 1976 and so then i became i repented for that so this is when we begin to see stephen panke butting heads with all sorts of different people and it's funny because in that interview i was talking about that he gave on camera he speaks about how the police handled him and how it's not the way you win friends and influence people and this is a nod to the book of the same name by dale carnegie which is creepy enough as it is because charles manson loved that book right he read it and he took classes on it while he was in prison and it suspected that what he learned from dale carnegie helped him to go on and manipulate so many of his followers i like a seven part manson series i'll link in the description box if you haven't seen it yet we do discuss that in it but in this specific instance it's kind of ironic since looking at steven's history he doesn't seem to be really good at making friends or influencing people at least not in a positive way like i'm sure he influences people very negatively that's just my opinion don't come for me in 1976 steve was employed as a security guard at the northern colorado detective agency located at 1427 9th street now this same year two students from john evans high school they were 15 and 16 i believe they claimed that pinky had cornered them in the john evans tunnel and attacked them with mace when they had refused to show him their hands now steve claimed that he did this in self-defense he thought they were like messing with his car and he asked him to like put their hands up and i guess he says it was self-defense he maced two teenagers and he he says his self-defense as he's a security guard by the way so he's technically in a position of power and this kind of becomes a pattern for him like he seeks out positions that will put him in power but he also seems to have a real distaste for others in positions of power like government and police and i think that's because he really wanted to be in these positions of power himself like his grandfather and his father and his great-grandfather but uh he was just never capable of it so i think that he resented these other people high people in the church people in you know a local government people in law enforcement but i've spent the last week with steve panke watching lots of videos watching lots of interviews watching him talk a lot that is that is what i believe that's my impression of him okay i'm not saying it's true but i have spent a lot of time with him this week i'm ashamed to admit it i'm also scarred steve panke also claims that he graduated from ames community college with a degree in criminal justice but this claim has never been verified and i tend to think it's not true because it's fairly easy to verify this that's just my opinion don't come for me in november of 1976 a trailer park owner filed an action against stephen panky for unpaid debts and this man claimed that steve would call him repeatedly and either say nothing you know just sit on the phone and just breathe into the phone or threaten him an example of one of these threats was steve allegedly saying quote before you get me in court i'll take care of you end quote by december of that year steve was working as a car salesman at edwards chevrolet located at 1310 8th avenue now in 1977 steve says he became a youth pastor at his church and this church was the sunnyview church of the nazarene in greeley colorado the church has disputed that he was ever a youth pastor there he was a member of the church but it's far more likely that he did janitorial work according to janelle's father jim matthews we do know that steve performed in a production put on by the church he was like a tax collector or something so i wonder what this production was and at this point he also started dating another member who was three years younger than him and if you guys aren't watching you're just listening to me i put air quotes around dating so at this point steve is 27 i believe and this young woman was 24 but she didn't seem to view their relationship in the same way that he did steve says that they were dating and having sex consensually but she accused him of rape on september 24 1977. here are steve's version of events right he says that they were having sex on the regular uh a girl i was 26 a 23 year old woman in the church who was single her and i were dating she was in the choir she played the piano we were having sex together but then she got pregnant and without telling him she went to england to get an abortion and when she came back six weeks later he told her that he was going to tell their church that she'd done this without consulting him as if it's any of the church's business and that's when she accused him of rape that's his story and she and i had sex again and i told her i was gonna tell the church that she got an abortion you know without asking me and uh the next thing i was arrested for date rape and uh that was dismissed okay because i mean frankly it was consensual so so that was 1977. so when you're a youth pastor and you get accused of date rape i'll tell you you're no longer youth pastor and you're not wanted in that church so i was out of there the woman later withdrew this charge and steve responded by filing a lawsuit against her and then using the fact that she withdrew the charge to basically say this never happened that she was lying the whole time but here's the thing this was the 1970s so we have to like we have to look at everything case by case this woman was heavily involved in in the church life and when she accused him she may have been intending to follow through but maybe steve harassed her after this as he does have a reputation of doing harassing people that don't give him his way and maybe the church also put a little pressure on her to keep it under wraps as well i'm not saying that's what happened but it could have right i think that people in general have come a long way since the 1970s that includes the church and um sometimes and you know their their viewpoint of women and women's rights and lgbtq rights and things like that i think that some churches have come a long way since then but this was the 1970s this wasn't a a metoo era this wasn't a believe all women era this was believe no women era and just because she withdrew her accusation it doesn't mean it's not true now steve panky claims that at this time he stopped going to that church because he says once you get like this accusation you know you're no longer welcome but police records show that he reported an assault on may 24th 1978 in front of that very church and members of that church said that steve was still coming to services and although he had dropped out of the choir or he was removed from the choir he continued to be disruptive during choir practices so it's generally believed that steve did eventually stop attending the church in june of 1978 and in the summer of 1978 a new family who had just moved to greeley from california joined the church jim and gloria matthews and their two daughters jennifer and janelle i have never met any of the mouth matthews family never talked to them in an indictment filed against stephen panky in october of 2020 the greely d.a listed like 26 reasons why they believe stephen panke is responsible for what happened to janelle and they believe that there was an overlap between when the matthews joined the church and when panky was still a member there even though he claims that he didn't know any member of the matthews family he didn't know anything about them he never met them he never even heard the name janelle matthews before at the end of 1978 steve got a job at the 7up bottling company and he worked there i think he was doing like delivery and unloading and stuff like that in 1979 stephen panke accused john gates who was then a police officer later would become a mayor he accused him of trying to get him fired from seven up at this time stephen panke was newly married i believe he had gotten married sometime in the mid 70s after his date rape allegations or before i don't know but he was newly married and his wife angela hicks was pregnant with their first son apparently john gates's father owned the building the 7up bottling company worked out of and gates became one of those people that steve just had a problem with and made these random accusations against but john gates wouldn't be the first or the last stephen panky then joined the union and he was apparently accused of organizing other employees and trying to convince them to like join the union and cause a problem for the company and at that point stephen accused russell ross who was the area manager of cutting his delivery routes and mistreating him due to retaliation for this union thing and if that name sounds familiar to you it's because this is the same russell ross who would be one of the last people to see janelle matthews alive and he was the father of her best friend deanna and he went to the same church that the matthews went to and that steven panke went to in my opinion this is also an indication that panky may have known who janelle was in july of 1979 court records showed that someone accused panky of making comments about children at his property and like swinging a leather belt at the children like threateningly in 1982 stephen panke engaged in a verbal argument outside the front doors of a local walmart russell ross was actually named as a witness in this case and panky ended up having to pay 15 in restitution to walmart in 1984 the year that janelle matthews went missing steve pankey's aggressive and strange behavior seemed to go up a notch apparently he was having some issues with his family members specifically one of his aunts she claimed that he was harassing her over a dispute of ownership of this house that i guess steve panky wanted to live in and in this complaint against him she said quote for a year now as panky has been harassing me he is my nephew and gained control on some property i released he wanted the tenants of the property removed at that time and became unhappy when they were not immediately removed since then as panky has followed me to the bank to the post office etc one day i received 58 phone calls from him end quote panki's aunt also described how pinky had allegedly edged near her car as she was driving one night and she felt that he was gonna like hit her or run her off the road so just in general threatening sort of you know domineering behavior in april of 1984 some more family members accused stephen of making repeated phone calls to them and three of those calls were actually tracked and they were discovered to have been made from the weld county mental health center in a statement connected to this complaint a woman wrote that when she was a teenager her parents had let stephen panky stay with them for some time and he'd attempted to rape her and she said quote he's crazy i think this is the beginning and it will get worse end quote she also mentioned that panky had spent some time in a mental health facility in the past which those calls being tracked to the weld county mental health hospital that would sort of confirm that or at least support it on december 19 1984 the day before janelle was taken from her home stephen panky was arrested at the norbel community credit union due to suspicion of harassment and trespassing he'd apparently been told to stay away either from the credit union or specifically one of the tellers he'd been told this multiple times before because he'd gotten threatening and he'd been disruptive and on this day the day before janelle went missing he demanded that the teller give him his money or he wasn't going to leave but the bank was not giving him his money due to some financial reasons specifically it seemed that pinkie owed the credit union twelve hundred dollars in back payments so the teller was like well are you gonna pay us the the back payments because you're not gonna get your money back until you're gonna pay us the back payments and steve you know threw a fit made a scene began became threatening and then he got arrested that day before janelle's disappearance and then obviously he got let go so uh the police aren't trying to harass him too much you know and he makes several statements in a lot of his interviews that he's scared to get arrested because he feels that he's going to be killed in uh in custody that he's going to be silenced while in police custody but he's been arrested before i think while he was in greeley there was something like 20 misdemeanors that that he was kind of taken in for and he claims that a lot of them were just you know like just police harassment but i don't know they seem legit that brings us to december 20th the day of janelle's disappearance and stephen panky story of what happened that day as well as the following days weeks months and even years because stephen panky innocent of doing anything to janelle he just could never let her go he could never forget about her this is where i'm going to be fact checking him based on his indictment and statements from his now ex-wife angela hicks because he he gave this hour-long interview and i'll link it here and i'll put clips in but he gives this hour-long interview and he just says a bunch of stuff a bunch of stuff that's unsubstantiated outright crazy and bizarre and just you know not true and he says some things that i don't even know where he gets them from i don't know so stephen panky story is that on the evening of december 20th 1984 the night janelle matthews was taken from her home just about two miles away from his home he was at his own house with his wife and his five-year-old son and they were going to bed early because they'd planned a trip to spend christmas with his family in california i think it was big bear california and they were leaving very very early the next morning so he said the car was packed in the driveway they were ready to go they didn't have any radios or televisions on because they were getting ready for bed so he's not going to hear any news about you know janelle's disappearance and as he's just shutting the lights off and getting the house ready for for bed he peeked out the front window to check and he wanted to see how much snow had fallen so he would know what to expect when they left the next morning for this this trip while he was looking out the window he saw what he calls an unmarked police vehicle pulled into his driveway and the car sat there and then it flashed its headlights at his house in his neighbor's house and steve was like oh no what now because according to him he had a very bad relationship with the greely police you know they're always on him they're always trying to catch him for something they're always trying to get him in trouble for all these things and he believes that they harassed him constantly so much because quote i have a gay background it's all over the internet it's well known end quote i don't even know what a gay background it is what does that mean exactly stephen panke i had had i have a gay background it's all over the internet it's well known and i had had multiple problems with local law enforcement and so i was thinking oh no here's coming another arbitrary charge i had been told things like once a queer always a queer you have to keep in mind sir this is before your time okay it was different then so um so they just they splash their lights towards my house and towards the house next to me and then they just turned around and left so i thought nothing more about it we went to bed so the police go out of their way to harass him due to his sexual orientation which he himself claimed that he renounced back in the 70s after being kicked out of the army you know he's married with a child he claimed that allegedly at this point he's no longer gay his words not mine but he believes that the police knew about his history um which is all over the internet but this is 1984 and they were going out of their way to make his life miserable because of it so as he's looking out the window the unmarked police vehicle pulled out of his driveway and left and he was like oh okay it was nothing he thought nothing of it and then he went to bed the next morning steve and his wife and their son they all get up and they leave greeley around three or four in the morning and his wife and son slept the whole way so of course he didn't turn the radio on therefore he heard no news about what had happened to little janelle matthews they spent a nice christmas with his family in california and they returned to greeley on the evening of the 26th and at this point he heard on the radio that a child was missing on december 26 1984 six days later we were returning and when we got back into in the evening time in in colorado we heard on the news that a missing there was a missing girl then that was my first knowledge of it and this was the very first time that he was made aware of janelle matthews not just the fact that she was missing but who she was what had happened to her everything well stephen panke's ex-wife angela remembered that trip to california a little differently firstly she said they did not leave early on the morning of the 21st they left the next day on the 22nd and the trip hadn't been planned at all so steve says this was the plan they'd known that they were going to california for months that it was planned his wife knew about it they were all packed up and ready to go angela hicks said he was very last minute she also reported that before they left her then husband steve pinky dumped their two dogs somewhere she doesn't know what happened to them but she never saw them again now this kind of shows me that it wasn't planned right because a you're a really shitty person if you know you want to go on a trip and you don't want to leave your dogs alone but you don't want to bring them with you so you just leave them somewhere i personally think steve panky killed those two dogs but that's just my opinion um but you didn't plan this this trip so you didn't have anyone to watch your dogs you didn't have any provisions made for them so you have to get out of town for whatever reason so you just get rid of the dogs so that you can go on the way back home to greeley angela hicks claimed that steve uncharacteristically listened to the radio searching for news accounts of janelle's disappearance she also said that as soon as they got home on the evening of december 26th steve began digging in their backyard and she didn't know why and then she also said like in the following days he would make her read news reports of janelle's disappearance out loud now steve said that on the night of the 26th they got home unpacked and went to bed he doesn't mention any any digging around in the yard however the next morning they got an unexpected visitor steve's father-in-law dropped by which steve was surprised by since the two of them were not on speaking terms but steve's father-in-law had a crazy tale to tell so he was the groundskeeper at a local cemetery and allegedly he told steve that he'd been approached by a police officer and this police officer told him that there was a body that needed to be buried in a casket and it would look bad for steve his father-in-law never said janelle's name you know didn't mention anything specific about this body didn't say it was a child just that it needed to be buried and a cop had said this to him he doesn't even really clarify whether or not he buried this body or not you know it's a very uh disjointed conversation and steve also felt that the whole conversation was very bizarre and he said that a cop had come to him and said that he had a body that needed to be buried in a casket and that uh uh it would look bad for steve and when i'm listening to this i'm thinking this is kind of like the weirdest conversation i've ever had so i asked him i said are you wearing a wire for the police depart you know what's going on here and he said no and he left and he asked his father-in-law like what's going on here you know are you with the police department are you wearing a wire and steve's father-in-law was like no and then he left and steve felt that this was super weird this turn of events was really strange so he called his local lawyer who happened to be out of the country in israel and and he wasn't set to return until the following week and steve claims that this is when he went searching around his yard on the 27th even though his wife claimed that it was the night before that he'd been digging in the yard i searched all around our acre around the neighbors acre where the cops had flashed the lights like a week before and there was nothing there you know so i was kind of weirded out about this and steve never comes out directly and you know says this but i believe what he's trying to suggest is that a police officer was involved in janelle's death and they'd come to his house the night of the 20th to set him up in some way so he wondered if they'd been there to plant evidence on his property you know to frame him for the crime even though he doesn't say that he saw the police get out of the car um they were just parked there and they flashed their lights but you know my mind can go wild sometimes so i would i'd think to myself if i was somebody in steve panky's position and i was truly innocent i truly felt that the police were trying to set me up i'd be like well maybe they're flashing their lights at me to distract me so that other police officers can go around back and hide evidence in my yard so i get it right but at the same time i don't and get this a few days after he and his family returned to colorado the family car burst into flames in his driveway and steve had to take it to a salvage yard to get rid of it couldn't be that your car burst into flames because you had you know traveled with evidence like organic evidence in the car and you didn't want the police to get a hold of it at this point steve claims he got a newspaper so he could get some information about janelle's case and in my opinion he makes a little slip here in the interview he says something like um you know i got a newspaper because i wanted to to find out more and it was the only murder in the area at that time and he corrects himself and he says disappearance but it takes him quite a while to recover from this and sort of like get back on track now from a normal person's perspective this would not have been a big deal because by the time steve gave this interview janelle's remains had been found so everyone knew that she had been murdered but if steve had a guilty conscience he would have been flustered by his own words because he's telling a story from his point of view in 1984 and in 1984 he wouldn't have known that janelle had been murdered and like i said he's talking about his thought process in 1984 and about reading news articles which would not have been reporting a murder but in abduction so you can see that he's trying very hard to watch what he says and be careful about the words he uses and i think that he felt he'd said something wrong and i also believe that a lot of what he's saying is a pre-rehearsed story a pre-rehearsed lie if you will allegedly just my opinion don't come for me and so he had to kind of um you know get back on track with what his story was but he also felt flustered because he felt he'd made a mistake even though a logical person would be like yeah i mean we all know at this point that poor janelle had been murdered but he's thinking oh did i just say something that made me seem suspicious but i'll show you i'll play the clip for you i got a copy of the newspaper and the janelle matthews thing was all over it it was the only murder in the area that was at the time or disappearance at the time that was talked about so um i uh so then steve's lawyer gets back and steve calls him and steve's like listen my father-in-law said something really weird i'm wondering if it's connected to the janelle matthews case and what should i do now according to steve his lawyer wasn't too happy with him because steve owed him a lot of money and at this time and pretty much for you know the entirety of his life steve panky was in a bad financial position i think he had problems keeping a job i think that he just wasn't the most responsible person in the world so it's not surprising to hear that he owed his lawyer a lot of money steve pinky was also incredibly litigious he was always trying to sue everyone he was always getting caught up in in court battles people were always filing suits against him so i'm sure he kept this lawyer very busy and didn't always pay his bills but at this point the lawyers not being super warm and friendly because of the money that steve owes him so this lawyer simply said you know well i might be worried about obstruction of justice if i were you well since steve had a bad relationship with greeley police he called the fbi office in fort collins and he claims that he spoke with a special agent lyons who made plans to meet with him the next day at the greely police station so steve starts his interaction off with the special agent who's never done anything wrong to him um who who doesn't even consider steve to be like a suspect or a dangerous person at all and he says you know listen i've already spoken to my lawyer and if you guys get rough with me i'm going to lawyer up and that will be the end of it and the question is like the end of what according to steve panky himself he didn't even really get like a full fledged story from his father-in-law and he didn't even know if he could believe his father-in-law story because he didn't really trust the source and he had no idea if it had anything to do with janelle so why would he think that this information he had was so valuable that he would have some leverage to threaten law enforcement with like if you guys treat me in any way i'm out of here you're not going to get the information i have which according to him wasn't really even information that he could be sure was connected he was just trying to avoid an obstruction of justice charge which doesn't make any sense and if an actual lawyer with a degree told him that him hearing that from his father-in-law was going to give him an obstruction of justice charge in a case that he had no idea the information from his father-in-law was connected to i wouldn't pay my bills either honestly if that's the kind of lawyer you have that's the kind of advice he's giving you i don't believe it though i don't believe the lawyer said that what i told lyons on the phone was is i wanted to avoid an obstruction of justice charge i just don't want to have a problem and so the next day he called me back and he wanted me to meet him at the greely police department so i met him there what i told him was somebody had taught i said i'd talk to my attorney and if you get rough with me i'm going to lawyer up and that'll be the end of it according to steve special agent lyons asked him all sorts of things about janelle and steve was like i don't know anything about janelle i don't know and lions was like well do you know if her disappearance could have had something to do with like her older friends and steve was like i don't know i don't know anything about her friends and then special agent lyon was like well do you think it has something to do with like drug dealing that's going on in her neighborhood and steve was like i don't know anything about drug dealing i don't know anything about that neighborhood the then he said did it was the conversation about any drug dealing in the neighborhood and i says i don't know anything about that neighborhood i don't know anything about drug dealing i don't know anything about that once again i don't believe that special agent lions asked steve any of these things about older friends about drug dealing going on in the neighborhood there's no evidence to back up that janelle had older friends that the fbi would be aware of there's nothing to back up that there was drug deals going on in the matthews neighborhood i think it's steve trying to drop breadcrumbs where he thinks he's being slick and he's like oh i'm just going to drop these little tidbits of of crazy evidence into the conversation with this reporter that i'm talking to and then it's going to give me like a benefit of the doubt it's going to give you know people another another avenue to go down like oh well if there was drug deals going down in the neighborhood maybe that's what happened or if janelle had some older friends you know maybe she got in some trouble with them that's what he's doing but he's not slick and he's not sly and he's not smart he's not fooling anybody and besides that uh steve literally said like i don't know anything about janelle matthews neighborhood but that's not necessarily true either because during an interview with law enforcement in march of 1985 stephen panky demonstrated intimate familiarity with the neighborhood when he stated that two police officers lived on the same block as janelle and he also said that he used to like to watch children walk home from franklin middle school where janelle was a student then steve claimed a greely police officer came in while he was talking to special agent lyons and you'll notice that when he talks about greeley police officers steve makes them very cartoonish like exaggerated characters from the sopranos so this police officer is like what's going on you know what's your story like getting on his face and steve was like sir i have a bad relationship with you guys so if you want to know anything you can ask him referring to special agent lions and then steve left because he's not going to sit there and put up with this this horrible treatment from the greeley police and that's the totality of what steve panke knows about janelle and his involvement in the case but that's not true either in the interview that he did on camera steve panky does some talking about the church that he and the matthews were both members of he said that he didn't feel comfortable bringing his own five-year-old son there and he knew that there were some city workers who were members of the church and that there was close relationships between law enforcement and the trusted adults of the church once again his words not mine and he suggests that there was a confrontation between one of these trusted adults at the church and janelle and the police not only helped the church cover it up but they are now working actively to frame steve panke for it when i have been talked to about this nobody seems to want to know or hear anything bad that a cop might be involved in it okay i mean uh i used to be a youth pastor at sunnyview church of the dancer rain where the matthews family went so i knew they're trusted adults my then five-year-old i didn't want them there from some of the things that i knew about them so i have all along since i've had suspicions now suspicions aren't facts it's just suspicion my suspicion is that there was a confrontation with a trusted adult it ended in injury death whatever and i think under the circumstances because there were some close relationships between the police there was a city worker going to the church and all uh that there was some i don't know in early 1985 steve and his wife were sitting in one of the pews and i think this was a different church but i can't be sure at this point and they were listening to a sermon so this is after janelle's disappeared after steve's talked to the fbi and the greeley police after he's gotten this information from his father-in-law that a police officer approached him and asked him to bury a body and that it would look bad for steve as this is supposed to you know make steve's father-in-law feel better about burying the body because steve's father-in-law and steve are in bad terms and apparently the minister or the preacher or whatever i don't know what denomination of church is but but he made some statements about janelle and how she would be returned home safely and so steve panky starts muttering under his breath false prophet and he just keeps doing this and he he gets himself into such a tizzy and he makes such a scene that he's got to be removed from the church so i would say so far from what we know of stephen panke he is the shining beacon of mental health in 1989 steve his son and his wife who was now pregnant with their their second son they left greeley and they floated around for a bit before ending up in ketchum idaho at this time steve claims he could not get janelle out of his head and he would check in and see if there had been progress he even called a man who used to live next door to janelle to find out if any headway had been made in the case and in ketchum idaho a man named kevin schneider became familiar with the pankies since his own son often played with steve's son mark now apparently kevin's son had mentioned that one day he was at the panky house and their dog was barking and it was annoying steve so steve had wrapped duct tape around the dog's muzzle it turned out that steve's son mark didn't really enjoy living with steve and the schneiders actually took mark in for six years because he needed to get away from his father which makes me wonder what was happening to mark in that house at the hands of his father and i have a feeling this and more will come out in the trial it keeps getting weirder though in 1993 steve panky wrote and self-published a book titled graveyards the untold story is anybody else getting chad day bell vibes yes so the main character of this book is a fellow called david darkson who seems to be based on panky himself is anybody else getting michael scarn threat level midnight vibes yes the plot of the book revolves around this church who's led by the reverend james t christie and this is the actual name of the reverend from the sunnyview church of the nazarene in greeley the one that basically you know kicked stephen panky out so in the book the reverend and the other church leaders the trusted adults in the church they're trying to recruit david darksen into their inner secret circle society and the whole point of this inner circle secret society thing is that these people commit rape murders but david darkson is far too righteous and moral to be drawn into such a thing so instead of allowing himself to be pulled into the evil darkness he works to expose them and to shine a light on the murder of a woman named mary pierce who actually was a real murder victim from the colorado area but apparently her murder has been solved by dna but if it hadn't been i'd definitely be looking at david darkson for it i mean steve panky allegedly just saying okay don't come for me it's possible steve panky even includes a character that apparently had the same or a similar name as the woman who'd accused him of rape um back in the 70s and he describes this character as being extremely knowledgeable about sex she's also known to make false rape allegations and to get abortions so great character development here steve so at this point you know it's like around 1992 i believe steve panky's marriage is falling apart i can't imagine why and he decided to join uh the local lbs church because he felt that the concept of families being together for all of eternity was very appealing and he claims that while he was being baptized into this church he was asked if he had anything to confess you know anything that was weighing on him that he wanted to get off his chest and steve said that back when he had lived in colorado a little girl had disappeared and he'd had a very weird conversation about it that had bothered him for years the bishop asked me if there was anything i wanted to confess if there was anything like bothering me that i needed to get off my chest and i said yeah back when i lived in colorado this girl disappeared and i had this weird conversation about it and it bothered me and so um anyway the bishop then told the stake president which is in kerry in there and there was a a lieutenant with the sun valley police department who was also in the kerry state thing so the stake president the then state president contacted me and said you know if you've had a conversation with somebody about a missing person you know we'd like for you to talk to lieutenant mark lockwood now apparently and not surprisingly this information got back to the sun valley police and i believe that this is sun valley's in idaho as well and a lieutenant from the sun valley police contacted him and was like you know if you have information about like an ongoing investigation like you need to go to the police you need to talk somebody and steve said that he was concerned about this case and that hadn't been solved it always bothered him that it hadn't been solved sometimes he even would call people in greeley to see if there was any new developments and he was really upset that there wasn't and it still hadn't been solved and every now and then like i'd call somebody in greeley and check because because when i left agent lyons i thought you know because i slept really good because i thought you know if this was kids that did this to another kid kids crack real easy and and this was going to be solved and it just bothered me that it wasn't solved now at this point steve claims that the sun valley police had his like file you know his lengthy file and he says that um they they started acting as if he was either crazy and just wanted attention and made the whole thing up or he had committed the crime himself and i wonder what would have given them that idea besides everything about you and everything you say i'm crazy and i'm wanting attention and i made up the whole thing or i did it and i'm what are you talking about you know i had a conversation that's it he called my uh and talked to my sister-in-law in arizona well i i uh oh detective cash with the greeley police department and he just out of the blue said that he's got this case of this missing janelle matthews and steve pankey's name's all over it is he mentally ill to her and she's like what so she gave the phone to my brother who's an ex-san bernardino county deputy sheriff and said the same thing to him and he said you know my brother has no mental problems he's eccentric but he's not it's not crazy so uh then my brother naturally called me i mean any relative would do that and so i called the greeley police i looked it up on the website their number i called the greeley playstation i left a voicemail message for detective cash and what i said is is you know my family has a long history of homosexuals and hellfire brimstone baptists and back in 1946 i had an uncle that was arrested on a consensual homosexual charge who was killed in police custody okay this is very my family is very divided on this okay and dealing with my past and everything and i said just please don't contact my family so about two hours later i got a call from and it was from the district attorney's office in weld county which is the seat of greeley it hung up so i called the number back and the lady answered district attorney's office and i hung up then i then the same number called me back again it was detective cash and it was obvious that i was on voice box and that other people were in the room and all and i could hear like papers shuffling and papers being passed and all and he he asked me about it and i said you know i don't know anything and he asked me about my relationship with with russ ross and i said you know it was a very bad relationship with russ ross and uh but that was i don't know 1978 79 it was years before then and he said that he wanted to come here to twin falls and interview me and talk to me about russell ross and the people in the church and i said you know uh without a lawyer president i'm not you know you guys charged me with date rape you charged me with 20 misdemeanors you're scary people like i have a homosexual background i admit it okay i'm not going to talk to you without an attorney present now steve's ex-wife angela hicks claimed that in 1999 steve told her that he was he was really pissed because the sun valley police refused to believe that he had information about janelle's case and they refused to give him immunity for the information that he did have and when angela looked at him confused he said to her quote you don't think i could have hurt her do you she looked just like you end quote i can't even with him the indictment paperwork also states that steve repeatedly searched for information on the internet about janelle's disappearance which he attempted to delete in 2019 when the greely police came knocking so like i'm getting ahead of myself but in 2019 the greely police started questioning him about janelle matthews after her remains were found and he then um tries to delete the stuff off of his computer but then later they take his computer and they found the stuff and they found that he tried to delete it also in 1999 and going forward steve began to file pleadings in multiple cases both civil and criminal so sometimes these were cases he brought against other people sometimes these were cases that other people brought against him and the details of all of these cases aren't super clear but like i said we know that steve was very litigious but in all these cases that had nothing to do with janelle matthews he would bring up janelle matthews apparently one of these cases was because he'd made a scene at another bank and i'm going to play you a little clip where he talks about a manager of a bank or a credit union and he says something like you know this manager of the credit union was gay and then steve says something like let's just call him a friend of mine and he just acts real sketchy but apparently he like harassed this guy or the guy claims he harassed him i'll put the clip of him explaining in his own words because i just i can't do it justice well i was charged with and i can't remember all of them i was charged with 20 misdemeanors that i'd counted up at one time and one fell anywhere which is date rape okay that's a very serious charge i mean i would rather be accused of murdering a man than raping a woman okay so uh uh the the uh of the 20 charges who was a credit union manager who was gay who is a friend of mine okay i'll put it that way he was a friend of mine and uh he accused me of harassing him so that went to a jury trial but in the uh the court records after steve claimed that this conviction was an attempt from law enforcement to try to force him into becoming an informant in the janelle matthews case and he also said that he feared if he did reveal the location of her body he would get the death penalty he also claimed that quote without a deal this case will never be solved and later he told the reporter the one who interviewed him for the the hour interview that that was recorded he said he didn't necessarily mean a deal for himself he just knew from his own experience that this is how things get done um steve's own son his younger son would later be shot and killed and uh it's another crazy sort of story which we'll get into a little bit more in a second but this case had been solved by offering the killer a deal and steve said he wanted janelle's family to have the same closure that he had but the strange thing is i believe that steve's son was killed in 2008 and it looks like steve made this deal comment in the court records before that happened um but maybe not i could be wrong actually i want to look it up because some records say that his son was killed in o4 and some say 2008 but i do know that his son's funeral was held in 2008 so let me just make sure yeah so from what i can tell and this is according to the east idaho news.com um it says that panky's youngest son carl a 20 year old college student was shot and killed by his girlfriend in 2008 in phoenix and this is uh where that 2008 date is the one i see the most so we're gonna go with that one so he definitely made that deal comment in the court records before 2008 but then he gives the excuse to the reporter in 2019 when he's interviewed that he only made the deal comment because of what had happened to his son but i'm like 99 sure that he made that comment before his son was murdered the indictment also states that steve panky had repeatedly demanded immunity in exchange for information that he possessed about janelle's murder in 2001 angela hicks finally filed for divorce and steve panke moved to shoshone idaho where he was considered a mysterious new arrival to lincoln county who suddenly became a regular at public town meetings that's what a newspaper said about him in 2003 steve panky said during a court pleading in his divorce that quote the family should be informed that jonell died before crossing 10th street and apparently 10th street was very close by to the place that she'd given her christmas concert on the night that she went missing and in 2004 despite having no law enforcement or you know political experience steve pinky ran for lincoln county sheriff as an independent write-in candidate he lost in 2008 steve's youngest son he was killed shot by his girlfriend in phoenix i don't know the story it's very difficult actually to find out anything about this case but during his funeral steve was heard saying quote i hope god didn't allow this to happen because of janelle matthews end quote so steve's son gets shot and killed and steve says allegedly at his funeral i hope god didn't allow this to happen because of janelle matthews what does that say to you it says to me that steve panky may have had something to do with what happened to janelle matthews who was shot and now he's saying that this is sort of his like godly karma for what he did to janelle that's just the way i perceive it that's my interpretation but let me know if you see it different this same year 2008 steve ran for the sheriff of lincoln county again this time as part of the constitution party he lost again in 2010 he tried to get the republican nomination for lieutenant governor of idaho because you couldn't get sheriff so let's just shoot for the moon but he didn't get the nomination in 2014 he ran for governor again now i guess he did get the nomination this time from the constitution party and just in case there's people out there who don't know this is a party that well i mean they're all about god in the constitution you know they promote a religious conservative view of the constitution i don't know a lot about it it's one of those like small parties they have zero seats in the senate i just don't know a lot about them so i'm not going to go into detail but i guess that they felt steve pankey was a great guy to team up with but there was trouble in paradise between steve and the constitution party from pretty early on in may of 2014 steve wrote a letter to the attorney general of idaho he also sent this letter to the media and in this letter he allegedly claimed to be idaho's only gay 2014 candidate also in this letter steve urged the ag the attorney general not to appeal a federal court ruling that was going to legalize same-sex marriage in idaho which is great you know that's a great thing to to advocate for idaho is going to make same-sex marriage legal and you know not that i don't think the ag was going to go against it but panky i preemptively i guess said you shouldn't go against this but then panky says something that's i don't know contradictory i yes he's a walking contradiction he's an enigma wrapped in an enigma he said that while he felt churches and private businesses should be able to discriminate against lgbtq couples if they wanted to the state should not i guess it's just strange to advocate for lgbtq rights in one sense but not in the other i don't know maybe that's just me well the constitution party didn't like that because they were not in support of same-sex marriages and following this the party had a convention in august and six of the eight delegates voted to not back steve for his bid for governor but he made some other claims besides this so about what happened at this convention he said that they asked him how his non-white family members were doing and he claims they asked this in a threatening way as if they were suggesting that like if he didn't do what they wanted him to do if he didn't step down that they were gonna hurt his non-white family members he also claimed that they wanted to perform an exorcism on him at this convention to drive the homosexuality out of steve now of course they deny this the party's official statement was that they talked for five minutes about how steve had stopped practicing homosexuality after he'd become a born-again christian once again their words his words not mine and there was never any mention of an exorcism and then steve panke was like well you know i'm still gonna run and hopefully i can make some more moderate steps towards social issues like same-sex marriage and marijuana and if that doesn't work maybe i'll switch to being a libertarian and maybe i'll switch back to being a republican and i completely support like that's the thing about steve pinky because i watched a lot of his uh his videos you know his political videos he he seemed to have a good platform like he was really uh trying to push for social issues he was you know pushing for less government interference less taxes support of small businesses good stuff you know like community policing stuff that i do support but it was just so weird because this is when steve also made claims that he was gay but he was also a christian celibate and he does this a lot you know and i think you've already noticed sometimes where he does this where he'll be like oh i'm not gay i used to be but i'm not anymore now i'm a christian and then he writes in 2014 that he's uh idaho's first or only 2014 gay candidate but he said back in you know the 70s and 80s that he denounced that so like are you gay or are you not and can you just let us know what you are and not seem to use like your sexual orientation for when it's convenient in 2018 steve ran for governor in the republican primary and he got less than one percent of the votes and this is the same year he became a person of interest in the abduction of janelle matthews so he becomes a person of interest before they even find her remains and this is because of his own big mouth and just him talking constantly and like you know throwing barbs at the the police and like constantly bringing her up every chance he got at this time it seems that steve panky had also started collecting guns and law enforcement started questioning him about janelle and in 2019 uh six weeks after janelle's remains were found police from greeley and twin falls idaho where steve was living at that time they got a search warrant for his condo and they they took his electronic devices so i'm going to read a little bit from this article from the east idaho news this was written on september 13th 2019. panki told the statesman on thursday that he was shocked when police searched his home the twin falls police department verified thursday that it had executed the warrant on wednesday september 4th at panky's condo in the 300 block of elm street north a swat team arrived rifles in hand to search his cars in his condo and the team seized his electronics devices and financial documents pinkie said since janelle's disappearance pinky said investigators have asked multiple times to talk to him about her he said he has repeatedly told them he won't speak without his attorney which isn't which isn't true because i mean in 2019 they'd requested to speak to him multiple times and he said he's not going to talk to them without his attorney but before that for the 30-something years before that he was the one talking and he was the one going to them the statesman reached out to the greely police department for comment on thursday and did not receive an immediate response the department issued a statement friday in which it called panky a person of interest in the murder investigation of janelle matthews panky said he had a bad relationship with greeley authorities once you're accused of something like date rape you're forever stigmatized he said he said he was charged over his years in colorado with as many as 20 other arbitrary misdemeanors such as battery and harassment by phone and went to trial multiple times he said he won all the trials these are not my error quotes either like i know i'm liberal with air quotes but these are not mine these are the east idaho news because there's really not a lot of proof that he won all of these cases the statesman could not immediately verify that colorado courts do not have an online record system so the statesman on thursday requested via u.s mail copies of pinkie's criminal charges in weld county panki told the statesman he was sure that after police had his dna they would stop investigating him he was surprised when they didn't so panky said he decided to speak publicly now because of his concerns about law enforcement's ideas about him and because he's a public figure in light of his runs for office he gave the statesman a copy of the search warrant signed on september 3rd by idaho magistrate judge calvin campbell i'm trying to be transparent he said i have nothing to hide panky said he has great empathy for the matthews family panky's youngest son carl a 20 year old college student was shot and killed by his girlfriend in 2008 in phoenix great empathy for the matthews family so he's trying to be transparent right that's why he's talking to the media that's why he was the one who told the media that he was being investigated not the police the police only confirmed once steve had already exposed himself as a person of interest and then he ran for public office again in 2020 running under the campaign slogan no hanky with panky steve panky is running as the republican candidate for idaho governor he has traditional core values with a biblical and constitutional perspective one of steve's focuses is on infrastructure working with a balanced state budget steve plans to help build and maintain excellent roads and bridges he will bring together efficient and competent people who will help him pass policies he's passionate about such as a fair and level low rate business tax across industries and competitive health insurance across state lines steve wants to help our small businesses and work on deregulation for the farm and ranch industry he also wants to create an idaho israel high-tech alliance to make life easier and bring good-paying tech jobs to idaho i humbly ask for your vote on may 15th so together we can make a safe prosperous and moral idaho i'm serious and he told the media that quote public safety is my passion public safety is my mission end quote i'm going to read this right from uh this article that was written about him in may of 2020. so this is an article that's talking about who the sheriff was at the time and there was two other candidates who were trying to take his job as sheriff steve and this other guy and so they're you know they're kind of like pieces done on these people who are running and it says panky is also a person of interest in a cold case murder of a 12 year old girl in greeley colorado the body of janelle matthews who lived several miles away from panky's former residence in greeley was discovered last july several several two two miles since moving from greeley to ketchum then shoshone and twin falls panky has maintained his innocence his experience with law enforcement during the ongoing investigation of the case led him to a strong position against the jailing of innocent people law enforcement's good cop bad cop method has resulted in many false confessions he said panky will stop making criminals out of law abiding citizens and he will jail the actual criminals an online campaign advertisement says adding that he has traditional core values with a biblical and constitutional perspective and then this is a quote from steve pankey like george washington i will do my best to spend the first and last waking hour of every day humbly on my knees seeking god's direction protection and blessing on twin falls county idaho panki says in his campaign literature you need to know there will be no hanky with panky he once told an audience during his first run for lincoln county sheriff no hanky with pinky absolutely none a month after the police went into his townhouse and removed a bunch of his stuff including he claims a dvd of his son's funeral and he's like i don't know why i guess they heard me say something no they didn't hear you say something people who were there heard you say um that you hoped what happened to your son wasn't because of what had happened to janelle matthews so yes they are going to get this dvd and they're going to see if they can hear you saying that they're going to see if you know a lip reader can can see your mouth making those words i get a call on the intercom i answer it and i say hello and he says steve hanke and i say yes he says detective cash and i said are you at my front door and he said yes and i i was surprised because i said to him you know you were told not to talk to me i thought that it's my ignorance but i thought that they couldn't talk to me if the police i thought the police couldn't talk to me if they were told to talk to my attorney and he said he wanted to talk to me as i said who all's with you and he said detective mike prill is with him now these are both greeley it was not a twin falls no twin falls no detective has ever talked to me except except john daubner mike prill got real close to me and said we need to talk to you and it was like intimidating it was like that old school good cop bad cop uh cash was sitting here and it was like this is the first time he'd ever seen me in person so it's like he was studying me he was just like reading me just checking me out you know and prell was like his card said that he was a gang a gang a detective or something and like he gets like he's standing about where you are and i'm standing about there and he gets like right in my face and says he needs to talk to me pril gets right in my face and he starts spitting like he says steve i need to talk to you right now and it's like really arrogant okay like a bar room brawler and it's like and they had said they wanted to sit down in my living room or here and i'm like you know i'm sure it's not going to bring you into my living room with you spitting on me it's the one thing that nobody wants to talk about that that a cop could be i'm not accusing the cop of doing whatever caused her demise i'm saying that i think under the circumstances back then that a cop could have been involved in okay they lied a lot to me if this is if this is the way missing and exploited children are handled okay it's not the way to win friends and influence people and no wonder they're not get there a whole lot of them aren't resolved okay so i think there needs to be a national conversation about that but anyways a month after this steve panke wrote a letter to the local media outlets and in this letter he included a list of names names that he considered possible persons of interest in the murder of janelle matthews and he put his own name on the list he put his own name on the list did you let me repeat it in case you didn't hear me he sent a list of potential persons of interests in the murder of janelle matthews he put his name on the list after saying he's so mad and so disgusted and he just can't believe why the police won't leave him alone about this murder that he had nothing to do with he puts his name on the list i don't know if it was a mix-up if it was the uh you know sort of like his his consciousness coming out like he didn't he did it without knowing that he was doing it a guilty conscience i don't know but why stephen pinky also suggested that the mayor of greeley john gates who you know was the mayor at that time but he was one of the first responders to the matthew's house when janelle went missing he tried to say that that john gates was one of the people trying to set him up and that in 1993 john gates had convinced the sun valley idaho police department that pinky was the golden state killer and uh you know as far as we can tell john gates says this never happened um the sun valley police i think i think they said it never happened too but you know there's no proof to back up the claim that this happened and i just i don't see why john gates would be just so obsessed with stephen panke i mean once stephen panky left greely i'm sure the entire community the entire town just breathed a sigh of relief that he was somebody else's problem so steve panky's lawyer has an explanation for all of this um i don't like to to judge people but steve panky's lawyer his current one not the local one who's mad at him because he didn't pay his bills this current one um he kind of seems like condescending and sort of like a prick and i guess you'd have to be to defend somebody like this but he claims that steve is not a killer he's just a weird guy he loves the limelight he's obsessed with true crime in an unhealthy way he wanted attention so he made himself the focus of this investigation and it was all well and good until he was charged this is this is the lawyer's explanation for everything except for one thing and the one thing that that nobody can explain is something that steve pankey knew so in one of his interviews one of his many interviews with law enforcement that he that just forced himself into steve pankey exhibited knowledge that whoever had taken janelle had left footprints and had tried to cover them with a rake and remember that this was really the one piece of evidence the police department had so they kept it very close to the chest only the matthews family knew and the police department and it was kind of known that none of them should speak about it because you didn't want it to get out especially in a small town like really now does that mean it didn't get out does that mean that a police officer didn't say it to somebody else or somebody in the matthews family didn't say it to somebody else and panky just happened to hear it it's very possible that happens a lot you know this knowledge that the police hold back in order to use later in in an interview where then this this person who's a suspect will give that evidence and the police will be like oh you knew that that means you're guilty i don't think it necessarily means that steve panky did this but he did know about it and it didn't seem to be this this knowledge that was widespread uh steve's lawyer also says that like everything steve's ex-wife said about him was just because you know sour grapes like she's mad that the marriage didn't work out or whatever even though i'm pretty sure she's the one that filed for divorce so she's trying to get back at steve by saying that the the trip was never planned and all these crazy things he said and you know all the things that really just make everything he says look like a lie basically uh the lawyer saying that his ex-wife said this stuff just to like set him up because everybody's trying to set steve panky up because everybody's main existence on this world their main focus their main goal that they want to achieve is just to set stephen dana pinky up with something doesn't matter what just pin something on him somebody who thinks that they are the constant uh target of other people the constant target a constant victim the person that's always being held down the person that's always you know getting the short end of the stick because of other people those people are are narcissistic they're the people that think the government's always watching them and like okay they are i mean they are but they're the ones that think you know that they are the main focus like it's not just this overall belief and understanding that big brother's always watching it's like big brother's always watching but they're not watching anybody else but me i am their main priority like if you go to the nsa right now you will see me stephen panky on every computer screen because that is all they care about that's what i mean this is the kind of person that he is on october 12 2020 stephen panke was arrested for kidnapping and the first degree murder of janelle matthews he was indicted by a grand jury but his lawyer says he's not worried you know because all they have is a weak and circumstantial case and i i agree halfway i think it is a very circumstantial case i don't think it's a weak case i think it is very circumstantial there's no physical evidence there's no fingerprints there's no dna there's nothing to tie stephen panky to janelle matthews or her home that evening this is true but sometimes a very strong circumstantial case can be all that's needed and i think in this case that that's what they have and the police and the the d.a and all these people they really seem to believe that too like as far as what i'm reading it seems like it's a wrap i mean honestly i don't know what to think i want everybody to get their due process even if i think they're guilty i think that even if i'm a hundred percent over here being like this person is guilty as sin they still deserve a trial and to be honest you know if steve's trying to convince someone that he's being set up and framed by the man i'm the best audience for that i guess you know because i'm always down for a good conspiracy but there does still have to be some evidence of that for me and there just is not i don't know what's going on with steve and his sexuality that's not in my business but i do think that he uses his um changing sexuality and and other social issues to make himself seem like he has this moral high ground and that he's a good person an oppressed person a victim and i don't know how much of what he says he actually believes take for instance a quote from his website like president donald trump and justice brett kavanaugh i have been arbitrarily viciously accused because i support traditional core values which is kind of contradictory to you know many of his earlier statements where he says he's being targeted for his sexuality right it feels like he always wants everyone to think he's being attacked but he can't seem to settle on what exactly it is he's being attacked for so it's the paranoia for me does he actually think that no matter what he does or says he's being attacked and targeted here he's being attacked because he's gay here he's being attacked because he's a believer in conservative values those kind of don't go hand in hand and on the same website where he claims he's being attacked because his strong conservative beliefs and values he has a link that's labeled prayer request justice for janelle matthews and underneath that he writes every child has the right to be safe in their own home why does the greeley colorado police only hire white detectives should gpd white detectives be the arbiters of truth regarding what a 1984 white cop did with the body of a hispanic girl like what what and that was one of the newer things he came up with before he was arrested while he was running for sheriff because janelle's birth mother wasn't white suddenly he's made this into a race issue when he has never mentioned that before when it's never been an issue before it just seems like he takes real issues that have real ramifications for real people and he uses them to benefit himself so i guess you know he actually might have had a really successful career in politics if he hadn't been arrested because that's that's what i think most politicians do but when you're using that to not only trick people into voting for you to not only trick people into thinking that you care about these issues that matter to them but you're using it to sort of like take the suspicion of of what happened to this little girl away from you and might i add he never would have been arrested he never would have even been a blip on law enforcement's radar if he hadn't run his mouth all over town from the moment she vanished and maybe that was why he started talking because he wanted someone to recognize what he did because he heard you know the news stories and he saw it in the newspaper and he wanted that notoriety and the recognition for his evil act allegedly but he didn't actually go down for it so he just wanted to be the focus of the media the focus of the police but he didn't want to actually like go to prison for it and he must have been very careful allegedly if he did this to janelle allegedly when he went into her house to not leave behind any physical evidence he wore gloves raked up his footprints he did this specifically because he didn't want to get caught but he didn't want to not be a part of it afterwards so i guess what i'm trying to say here is you know there's good causes and i believe that there's people who truly believe in those causes and fight for them and there are some people who seem to be fighting for those causes but they're doing it for some kind of personal gain or career gain or clout to recognition and they don't actually care about those causes it's all performative so you really have to look more at what a person does than what they say you look at somebody and they they talk to you and they sound like they're an ally but then you look at their actions and you have to ask yourself is this person really an ally or are they just saying what's what's popular are they just saying what's uh socially acceptable are they just saying what they think i want them to say are they just saying what you know everybody else is saying because this is like the new social movement and i think steve panky is a person who says a lot but does very little at least he does very little that that reflects his words of social justice and rights for lgbtq people because then you're also talking about your conservative values and you know how you denounced or renounced your your gayness i don't know i don't know if we'll ever really know who the true steve panky is besides definitely like a creepy person definitely like a strange person um definitely a person who i don't want around my family or my or my children i'm going to read some other points from the indictment just in case i missed something so the indictment said that the offenses charged in counts one through five uh were committed in the following manner one stephen dana panky took janelle matthews from her family home uh without her consent and against her will on december 20th 1984 between 8 30 pm and 9 30 pm stephen dana panky was armed with a firearm stephen danapanke shot janelle matthews during the course of the kidnapping steven dana panky shot janelle matthews intentionally and after deliberation steve and dana pankey watched school children walk home from franklin middle school where janelle matthews went to school steve and dana panky knew of and discussed a crucial piece of evidence from the matthews house withheld from the public by law enforcement specifically a rake was used to obliterate shoe impressions in the snow he intentionally inserted himself in the investigation many times over the years claiming to have knowledge of the crime which grew inconsistent and incriminating over time stephen dana panky filed pleadings in many cases both civil and criminal that contained both direct and veiled statements about janelle matthews even dana pankey stated in a letter dated august 15 2013 quote about a week after the fact i realized a blanket or comforter or quilt also disappeared from the matthew's house some experiences are hard to forget but i must realize justice isn't always served and moved on end quote well blanket how would you realize that a blanket a comforter a quilt had also disappeared from the house now what i think here is that uh that he knew that that that happened and that hasn't been released yet but it's very possible that during the trial the prosecution will reveal that a blanket or a quilt was taken so i believe at this point in 2013 he wasn't being taken seriously everything he said wasn't really making the police take him as seriously as he wanted to be taken so he was like oh i'm just going to really like hit them with something but they still won't be able to tie me to that crime because i know how careful i was so i can throw at them all of this stuff and all they have is circumstantial evidence all they can do is speculate and the last two points because i think i've covered everything else it says steven dana pinky lived approximately two miles from janelle matthews on december 20 1984 and stephen danapanke lived at 27965 weld county road 47.5 in 1980 approximately 10 miles due north of the recovery of janelle matthews body so also what what they're saying here is that in 1984 stephen panky lived two miles away from janelle matthews house but in 1980 four years prior he lived uh you know just 10 miles away from the place where her body was found and i think that they're trying to suggest here that he had some prior knowledge of that area he would be familiar with that area he would know that it was very isolated that it was secluded that there was nothing happening over there and i mean he was right if that's the case because this happened in 1984 when uh when she went missing and she wasn't found until 2019. so no construction crews nothing was happening over there it was very isolated until 35 years later so i'm going to read from a more recent article this was from march 28 of 2021 and this is from cbs news it says just five months prior to his rest pinky was a candidate for sheriff in twin falls county idaho it was the last of several strange attempts to hold office in the state of idaho in all panky attempted seven runs for office there were two campaigns for governor one for municipal council one for lieutenant governor and three runs for county sheriff now panki's awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and first degree murder apparently the trial is set to begin on july 12th this summer and uh greely mayor john gates he said that this is a very odd case and he said quote i mean this is some of the most bizarre stuff i've ever heard and i've been around the black but he says the case is strong and it is strange and he believes that the prosecution will prevail when pinkie's trial begins he said quote i think they did a stellar job and i commend our district attorney for prosecuting the case but you know time will tell it's not over yet so obviously steve panky plead not guilty to these charges he's 69 years old at this point and he's being held at the weld county jail on a 5 million cash-only bond a bond that his lawyer said pinkie would not be able to post i think that's the point the 15-day jury trial is set to begin at 8 30 a.m on july 12th i will be watching if they publicize it i hope they do panky's lawyer said he intends to file for a change of venue within 21 days as is required by colorado law the court may change the location of a trial if it's found that a fair or expeditious trial cannot expeditious expeditious expedient trial cannot take place in the current county or district and i don't know what's gonna happen i tell you what i don't know what's gonna happen i think that he did this okay that's my personal opinion like i said spent a lot of time with steve panky this week time that i will never forget and not in in the best way he definitely did not win friends or influence people in my opinion um it's just he's just really an insane person i think he's not mentally well and i think he did this because no normal person inserts themselves into a case like this um yeah we've seen it happen historically where people will confess to crimes but once the police are like you didn't do this shut up you know they stop they don't keep doing it he kept doing it and his lawyer's excuse of he just likes attention he just wants to be in the limelight that's not good enough for me because even if that's true you're a really shitty person for doing that because a 12 year old girl was shot in the head she was stolen from her home she was shot in the head by the time they found her body she was a skeleton so they can't tell if she was even sexually assaulted they can't tell what happened to that poor girl this poor girl who four days before christmas was stolen and murdered and she was so looking forward to christmas she was so looking forward to being with her friends she had this whole life ahead of her she was so vivacious so bright so beautiful and somebody did this to her and you're going to completely like impede the investigation over and over and over again for years so you're a shitty person to begin with but i really do think that he did this and that is just my opinion don't come for me steve panky's pretentious lawyer um it's just my opinion and i'm allowed to have that but i do want to know what you guys think about it in the comment section you know it's not impossible that steve knew janelle um he went to the same church as her he went to the same church as her and russell ross who he like hated and the matthews in general she sang in the choir he might have seen her perform in the church choir before the christmas performance that she put on the day she went missing that was televised live he could have been at home watching that he could have seen it he could have driven to the place where the concert was being held stood outside and watched you know santa's car outside and watched and then saw janelle get into ross ross's car and followed them home i think in general if you ask me what was his problem i think that he was envious of people in power's position if you look at his history like his family history he descends from this long line of men who hold these positions of authority these positions of power whether it be in the church or the government or law enforcement and he wanted that but he never was able to get that he showed a constant inability to control his temper to control his impulses he showed an instability over and over again he's been accused of sexual assaults from different women it was almost as if it was in his dna to seek out that power and when he didn't get it he became frustrated and you know maybe he is gay and because of his position in the church he felt that uh you know he was shamed by that because he did you know go to church and he said he came from a long line of what is it that he said okay so he claimed that he came from a family with a long history of homosexuals and hell fire brimstone baptists that was what he said those are his words so clearly there's some um you know something in him that maybe didn't feel comfortable with his sexuality because of how he was raised and so in 1984 he's feeling very uh maybe sexually repressed he's feeling very misunderstood he's feeling very frustrated he's having money issues he's having problems with his family he's having problems with you know everybody he's getting fights in front of walmart just a bunch of stuff trying to run his aunt off the road all this stuff's happening he's getting in fights with the teller at the bank clearly it had reached a boiling point for him and then janelle matthews goes missing and then all of a sudden he's like the uh the authority figure on everything janelle matthews and he's fighting for her and every child deserves to feel safe in their own home like how dare you oh okay all right i'm done let me know what you think about this in the comment section i really am interested to know thank you so much for being here don't forget to check out native in the description box don't forget to follow me on twitter and instagram also in the description box also follow my podcast crime weekly i co-host it with uh derek lavasser who is a retired police detective new episodes go out every friday thank you so much for being here stay kind stay beautiful and i'll see you soon bye [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you don't know how deep it goes until it's getting you slowly so you got to let it go i got blood blood [Music] [Applause] [Music] i

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 952,687

Keywords: jonelle matthews, steven pankey, greeley colorado, stephanie harlowe, true crime, coffee and crime time

Id: 94d8Tp8g7lw

Length: 110min 4sec (6604 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021