This is the account of how a woman uncovered her ex-husband’s connection to the disappearance of a 12-year-old schoolgirl.
In December 1984, just a day before Christmas, Jonelle Matthews disappeared after being dropped off at her home in Greeley, Colorado, by a friend and her father.
Jonelle’s older sister, Jennifer Mogensen, told The Independent in 2022 that Jonelle had been unwell for several days. Their parents insisted she stay home to recover rather than attend Jennifer’s baseball game, marking the last time anyone saw her.
The investigation into her disappearance presented significant challenges for authorities, prompting then-President Ronald Reagan to feature Jonelle on a milk carton in hopes of bringing her home.
Unfortunately, this initiative did not produce any leads, with Jonelle’s mother, Gloria Matthews, expressing that it came too late.
“To be honest, I felt that was the least they could do,” Matthews previously remarked (via The Mirror).
Ten years after her disappearance, a funeral service was conducted for Jonelle, and her family eventually left Greeley.
The case remained unsolved for 35 years, with investigators unable to find any leads until 2019.
On July 23, construction workers installing a pipeline approximately 15 miles southeast of the Matthews’ former residence unearthed human remains. The Weld County Coroner’s Office identified the remains as Jonelle’s through DNA analysis, with a forensic report indicating the cause of death as ‘a gunshot wound to the head’.
This discovery led to the arrest and conviction of Steven Pankey, who was 71 years old at the time. He received a life sentence without parole on October 31, as reported by The Coloradoan.
His arrest was largely due to the efforts of his ex-wife, Angela Hicks, and Detective Robert Cash, who gathered sufficient evidence for his conviction.
During the trial, Hicks testified that Pankey began exhibiting suspicious behaviors following Jonelle’s disappearance. This included urging their family to leave town, obsessing over news coverage, and digging a hole outside their home for hours, according to the Greeley Tribune.
In a 2024 documentary from Sky Crime titled The Girl On The Milk Carton, she explained: “My husband Steve was never into Christmas, but for Christmas this year Steve’s dad said, ‘Hey, it would just be wonderful if you guys could come’.
“Steve said we weren’t going to go. The afternoon of 21 December, all of a sudden Steve came home and said, ‘Get us packed, we’re leaving tomorrow morning’.”
Hicks remembered how her husband was intensely fixated on news reports about Jonelle’s disappearance, which puzzled her.
He would also make comments that became increasingly inconsistent and incriminating over time, as outlined in his indictment, including details about shoe prints in the snow outside the Matthews’ home on the day Jonelle disappeared—details that were not public knowledge.
In the late 1990s, Hicks came across notes her husband had written about Jonelle and brought them to the police.
Upon learning this, Detective Cash commented: “My blood pressure rose. Steve knew the holdback information. The general public had no idea about the raking.”
Following his sentencing, Jennifer expressed a sense of ‘instant relief’, adding, “It was the best feeling ever.”