SOLVED: Jonelle Matthews; Abducter Found 38 Years Later

usually the whole concept of try it free for 30 days is just enough time to try it and then completely forget about it or if you're like me it only takes one or two days to try it and then completely forget and I know I'm not the only one because actually over 80 percent of people have subscriptions that they forget about you could be wasting money and not even realizing it but luckily rocket money helps you find those forgotten subscriptions so you can stop paying for the ones that you don't use rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions monitors your spending and helps lower your bills all in one place and Rocket money also helps you manage all of your finances in one place and automatically categorizes your expenses so you can easily track and budget in real time and also get alerted if anything looks off there are over three million people that have used rocket money saving the average person up to seven hundred and twenty dollars a year rocket money truly has been a lifesaver for me I know that I can trust them to take care of my subscriptions and manage my finances all in one place it makes things so much easier so stop throwing your money away and cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com killer that's rocketmoney.com killer again just rocketmoney.com killer [Music] thank you hello everyone what is up welcome back to another episode of Killer Instinct thank you so much for joining me today if you are new here hi my name is Savannah and I am your host of Killer Instinct before we get started make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button that way you never miss an episode WE Post weekly on all podcast platforms and YouTube every single Wednesday and you're not going to want to miss it thank you now for today's episode we are discussing a cold case that was recently solved after 38 years truthfully you guys this is a wild wild case and I'm really interested to see what you guys have to say about it because I was on the edge of my seat researching and it's a tragic tragic case however the family luckily did get Justice fairly recently so we're gonna walk through all of it today so as you can tell we're talking about the case of Janelle Matthews let's jump right on into it Janelle Matthews was born on February 9 1972 in Santa Barbara California now Janelle's birth mother was only 13 years old when she gave birth to Janelle so shortly after Janelle was born she was placed for adoption and one month after she was born in March of 1972. Janelle ended up getting adopted by a couple named Gloria and Jim Matthews Jim and Gloria already had one biological daughter however they were looking to expand their family and were thrilled when they were matched with Janelle the family lived in Greeley Colorado and at the time that this case took place which is in the 1980s Greeley was a very quiet and quaint Midwest Town it was a type of town where parents weren't worried if their kids were staying out playing late at night in the front yard it was a not worrying about locking your doors type of town it was very very safe and Janelle Matthews was a firecracker she was a very sassy and opinionated 12 year old girl she was full of life she loved music she actually had boy band posters all over her bedroom and her favorite band was called menudo which was a Puerto Rican band and it's actually where Ricky Martin got his start in the industry so that's something that I learned in this case so this case begins in December of 19 1984 at the Time Janelle was 12 years old and we're looking at the days leading up to Christmas now both Gloria and Jim were actually from California and in the days leading up to Christmas of 1984 Gloria got some news from her family back in California that her grandfather had gotten pretty ill and so Gloria decided to take the days leading up to Christmas and Christmas itself to go back to California to spend that quality time with her grandfather now Janelle was someone who absolutely loved Christmas it was her favorite holiday she was always making little gifts to give to her friends and of course she loved getting gifts as well it was a time that she truly truly cherished and so her family told her and her sister Jennifer that because Gloria was going to be gone on the actual day of Christmas and she was returning home on the 26th of December the family was going to celebrate Christmas on the 26th instead but they still did everything they could to keep the Christmas magic alive for their daughters so this now brings us to the night of December 20th 1984. now on this night again Gloria was out of town she was in California so it was only Jim at the house with 16 year old Jennifer and 12 year old Janelle now on the night of December 20th both girls had school functions that they needed to attend Janelle had her Christmas choir concert for her Middle School while Jennifer was playing in her basketball game at school now both of these events overlapped in terms of time so Jim was not able to stay and watch Janelle's performance instead he dropped Janelle off at the school and then drove Jennifer to her basketball game and waited there for her to be done now because Jen was not able to drive Janelle home Janelle set up plans to get dropped off back at home after the concert by by her best friend Deanna and Deanna's dad a man named Russ Ross after the concert Deanna Janelle and Russ all got in the car and drove Janelle back to her house where they dropped her off at approximately 8 30 p.m when they got to the house Janelle got out of the car and walked through the garage door and while she was making her way into the house Russ and Deanna waited outside in the car to make sure that Janelle got in safely they waited until Janelle gave them the secret signal which was turning the light switch on and off and that was her signal to Russ that she was inside and that she was safe and once she gave Russ that signal Russ Indiana made their way back home now Jim ended up coming home about an hour later at around 9 30 p.m and Jennifer came home about 30 minutes after that Jennifer wanted to stay around after the game a little bit and just hang out with her friends and Jim just told her he would meet her at home he wanted to get home to see Janelle now when Jim got home he noticed that Janelle was not there and it wasn't until 30 minutes later when Jennifer arrived at the house that Jim would ask Jennifer if she had seen Janelle now when Jennifer was asked this question by her dad she was a little confused because she thought that Janelle was just going to be at home waiting for them when they returned back and so she didn't understand why her dad was really asking her this question Janelle was not the type that was just going to secretly run off or run away from home in fact everyone that knew Janelle knew that she was a little bit into The Dramatics and so if she were to leave the house if she were to run away from home she was definitely going to write a note she was going to make it scene of an exit and so because Janelle was nowhere to be found that is when Jim started to worry now at this point Jim decided that he was going to call Russ and when he called Russ he had asked Russ if everything went okay with dropping Janelle off at home and when Russ got this phone call he was very confused because at this point he had just dropped Janelle off about an hour and a half ago and he didn't think that there was anything wrong he told Jim that he had waited outside for Janelle to give that secret signal and he also told Jim that Janelle went through the garage door to get into the house and that everything seemed fine but there was one thing that Russ mentioned that stuck out to Jim and that was the fact that Russ said that she went through the garage door According to Jim Janelle should have never been able to go through the garage door because when he left the house that night with both girls he shut the garage however Russ told Jim that when he drove up to the house that night to drop Janelle off the garage was open so Jim is now putting the pieces together of he leaves the house garage is shut Russ then drops Janelle off and for some reason that garage is now open and he didn't know why now throughout the night Jim made multiple phone calls to Janelle's friends to see if anyone knew where she was however no one did and it was after making those phone calls to her friends that Jim ultimately decided that he needed to call the Greeley Police Department to file a missing person's report for Janelle and very shortly after that call was made and only a few minutes police arrived to the Matthew home to begin their investigation it was also at that time that Jim made the horrible phone call to his wife Gloria who is still in California telling her that their youngest daughter was missing now when police arrived at the Matthew's house and they started looking through everything and beginning their investigation they noticed that nothing looked out of place there was no signs of a struggle there was no sign of forced entry Janelle had left her stockings that she had worn during the choir concert that night on her bed along with that the shoes that Janelle had worn to the concert that night were sitting at the foot of the couch on the floor which told police that at some point Janelle had gone to the couch and taken her shoes off they also were able to look in Janelle's closet and saw that there were no other pair of shoes that were missing which just added more confusion to everything because this was December in Colorado there was snow on the ground it was freezing temperatures during the night outside so why would Janelle leave without any shoes now police began knocking around on neighbor doors and canvassing the town to see if there were any signs of Janelle or if anyone was able to see her however they came up with nothing however there was one thing that police were able to discover and that was that in the snow wrapped around the side of the Matthew's house there were shoe prints police discovered that the shoe prints outside matched a shoe print that was found in the garage that had stepped in a puddle of grease in the garage so that same shoe print matched the prints outside and the weird thing about the shoe prints is that on the side of the house it appeared that the shoe Prince had walked over to the window of the basement however the window of the basement was shut and locked so if someone did walk over there it appeared that they only tried to look through the window but to make matters even more bizarre some of the shoe prints that were in the snow had been noticeably raked away in order to conceal that they were there in the first place the rake itself was in the garage of the Matthews home hanging up so you have this break that's hanging up in the garage you also have shoe prints out in the snow and by the path of the shoe print it shows that whoever was walking had walked into the garage grabbed the rake from off of the rack walked back outside only raked several shoe prints not all of them so only specifically chose a several few before walking back into the garage and placing the rake back where they had found it this was bizarre to police because they felt if someone was going to try and rake away their shoe prints why would they only rake away a select few and also this clearly was someone who wasn't worried about time because if someone was trying to get out of that house quickly they aren't going to take the time to lift up the rake Take It Outside rake away the shoe prints bring it back inside and place it back where they found it more than likely they would have just raked the shoe prints away and dropped the rake on the floor got into a car are and drove away the next part of this investigation is when police went into Janelle's school to speak to some of her classmates to see if Janelle had talked about anyone that she knew or if there was any weird Behavior coming from Janelle but all of Janelle's friends were consistent in saying that Janelle had acted totally fine in the days leading up to her disappearance she wasn't acting like something was wrong she didn't mention anyone new that had been in her life and they all agreed that there was no way that Janelle would have just up and ran away without making it clear that she was making an exit and also there was no way that she was going to run away this close to Christmas like I mentioned earlier Christmas was Janelle's favorite favorite holiday and there was no way that she was going to miss out on giving her friends gifts and also getting gifts from her family it just wasn't going to happen because Christmas was such a big holiday for her usually the whole concept of try it free for 30 days is just enough time to try it and then completely forget about it or if you're like me it only takes one or two days to try it and then completely forget and I know I'm not the only one because actually over 80 percent of people have subscriptions that they forget about you could be wasting money and not even realizing it but luckily rocket money helps you find those forgotten subscriptions so you can stop paying for the ones that you don't use rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions monitors your spending and helps lower your bills all in one place and Rocket money also helps you manage all of your finances in one place and automatically categorizes your expenses so you can easily track and budget in real time and also get alerted if anything looks off there are over 3 million people that have used rocket money saving the average person up to seven hundred and twenty dollars a year rocket money truly has been a lifesaver for me I know that I can trust them to take care of my subscriptions and manage my finances all in one place it makes things so much easier so stop throwing your money away and cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com killer that's rocketmoney.com killer again just rocketmoney.com killer did you guys know that the month of April is actually Earth month well Earth month and hellofresh is always committed to a cleaner Planet because on average hello fresh meals have a 31 lower carbon footprint than the same meals made from the supermarket ingredients plus nearly all hellofresh packaging materials are curbside recyclable in most areas in the U.S and if you're looking for more ways to save this spring hellofresh is cheaper than grocery shopping and 25 cheaper than takeout and if you're sitting there wondering what is Hello fresh hello fresh is America's number one meal kit with hellofresh you get farm fresh pre-proportioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep you get to skip the trips to the grocery store and count on hellofresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable I don't know about you guys but in my household deciding on what to eat for dinner usually takes longer than making the dinner it self and I can't tell you how much time and energy hellofresh has saved me and my family the last thing you want to do after a Long Day's Work is stare at the fridge and wonder what you can put together to make but luckily hello fresh takes all that hassle away from you so go to hellofresh.com killer50 and use code killer 50 for 50 off plus your first box ships free again just go to hellofresh.com killer 50 and use code killer 50 for 50 off plus your first box ships free hellofresh America's number one meal kit as you guys probably know we are right now in the era of entrepreneurs and small businesses and when every person moment and penny counts in your business you can't afford to take any of them for granted but luckily stamps.com gets it because for the last 25 years they've been helping businesses Like Yours save time and money so you can actually focus on your business knowingstamps.com has all your postage needs covered with premium discounts and great rates with stamps.com all you need is a computer and printer they even send you a free scale so you'll have everything you need to get started and if you sell products online stamps.com seamlessly connects with every major Marketplace and shopping cart stamps.com knows that running a business is not cheap especially when it comes to fulfilling orders for your customers but luckily stamps.com has huge carrier discounts including up to 84 percent off USPS and UPS rates so set your business up for Success when you get started with stamps.com today sign up with promo code killer for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale no long-term commitments or contracts again just go to stamps.com Click the microphone at the top of the page and enter code killer now when it came to the people that police had on their radar the first person that police spoke to was the last known adult to have seen Janelle and that would be Russ Ross Janelle's best friend dad police had spoken with Russ on several different occasions trying to see if there would be a crack in his story however he was consistent every single time he said the same story about how he dropped Janelle off with his daughter in the car Janelle walked in through the garage door flicked the light switch and then he drove away so they spoke to him on multiple occasions however ultimately because he was so consistent with his story and there was no evidence to prove that what Russ was responsible for this police had to change course and it probably will not surprise you when I tell you that the next person that they looked at in this case was actually Janelle's own father Jim Matthews police started to wonder if Jim actually came home to an empty house or if Jim came home to Janelle but Jim told police that on the night of the 20th when he got home he said initially he actually didn't even notice that Janelle wasn't there when he walked in through the door he had called out her name a couple of times however didn't get an answer but he didn't think it was something to be concerned about instead Jim then took a Christmas present that he needed to wrap and wrapped it instead before continuing to look for Janelle now when police heard this this spiked their concern because if Jim was coming home to an empty house and couldn't find his 12 year old why is the first thing that he was doing wrapping a Christmas present but again Jim told police that the last thing that was on his mind was that his daughter was possibly missing what shocked police even further and spiked their concern more was when Jim told police that after calling all of Janelle's friends to see if any anyone had seen Janelle and everyone told him that they didn't know where Janelle was the next person that he called was actually not the police instead the next person that Jim Matthews called was his Pastor Jim said that he called his Pastor because he was looking for guidance he wanted to have guidance in the situation that he was going through and so he called his pastor and According to Jim his Pastor told him that he needed to file a missing person's report because this seemed very very serious so that is when he hung up the phone with the pastor and called the police something else that concerned police was Jim's outwardly calm demeanor he was very stoic and he always maintained that composure and police were worried about that because as we know now having gone through so many of these cases someone's demeanor does not necessarily mean one thing or another in terms of their involvement in a case everyone Grieves differently we know this but it was concerning to police because Jim's daughter is missing and he is maintaining this stoic cool calm nonchalant behavior and both Gloria and Jim weren't really pressing the police for any information and that was viewed in two different ways because from Jim and Gloria's perspective they were sitting back and letting the police do their jobs the police are the experts they know what they're doing but from everyone else's perspective because when children go missing or anyone goes missing typically the family we've talked about it so many times here the family is pressing the police they're hounding the police they want answers they want to know what's going on they want to be a part of the investigation as much as they can and Jim and Gloria kind of took the back seat more so than we have seen before so that raised some concerns as well and beyond all of that Jim was also asked to take a lie detector test and when he did he completely failed he failed on the critical questions in regards to Janelle's disappearance he failed on the questions about do you know what happened to your daughter he failed the questions of do you know where your daughter is right now he completely failed on those questions again as we know polygraph tests are not admissible in a court of law however when police see something like this it tells them that they have to continue digging in that direction now even though Jim did fail the polygraph there was no other evidence linking him to his daughter's disappearance whatsoever police were looking high and low searching every lead they could but ultimately they landed on nothing so because of that they had to switch courses again and in the time of this investigation weeks turned into months which turned in two years and a little bit over a year after Janelle had originally gone missing police started to take a new course of action police had received a phone call saying that they should look in to a man named Norris Drake Norris Drake was unemployed at the time of Janelle's disappearance and he was living with a friend of his Named Dave however he often spent a lot of time at his mother's house and his mother lived right across the street from Janelle Matthews now on the night of Janelle's disappearance Norris was actually at his mom's house and left shortly after 9 00 PM however Norris's mom said that when he left the house that day he got into his car and just sat there and seemed like he was watching something and the car was pointed in the direction of the Matthews home so it appeared to his mom like he was watching Janelle's house police also spoke with Norris's ex-girlfriend who explained how violent Norris really was she claimed that she had been physically abused by him on multiple multiple occasions he also threatened that he was going to kill this ex-girlfriend and that no one would ever be able to find her body along with that he also mentioned how he would kill this ex-girlfriend and in mentioning his blueprint basically of how he was going to kill his ex-girlfriend he mentioned the raking of the footprints which ties into what I mentioned earlier about how the shoe prints outside of Janelle's house had been raked away and here we have Norris Drake telling his ex-girlfriend that he was going to rake away the shoe prints and the most interesting and crucial part about that is the fact that that was actually a piece of information that police did not release to the public they wanted to keep certain things to themselves to hold the Integrity of the investigation and that was one of the pieces of evidence that was not released to the the public so the fact that Norris was now expressing this to his ex-girlfriend it seemed a little too coincidental his ex-girlfriend also expressed that Norris had a fetish for young pre-teen girls and if that was not enough there was also a several hour time period between 9 pm and 2 A.M that Norris is unaccounted for on the night and early morning hours of December 20th and 21st he didn't end up going home until 2 A.M on the 21st and Dave's sister so Norris's roommate's sister was sleeping on the couch at the time and she was woken up to Norris when he came in early that morning so at this point police knew that they needed to speak with Norris Drake when detectives brought Norris in for questioning he told police that on the night of Janelle's disappearance Dave had let him borrow his truck and he went over to his mom's house he said he was leaving his mom's and noticed that Janelle's garage door was open and that there were lights on however he didn't remember anything after that and stated that he just made his way home to Dave's from there now because police already had this information from Dave's sister that he didn't get home until two in the morning police knew that that was not the case and police interviewed Norris multiple times multiple multiple times over the years they started interviewing him in 1983 they continued interviewing him until 1985 and 86 and 87 and at the latter end of those years police started searching through Norris's truck that he drove that night as well as his mom's house however it had been five years later so any substantial evidence that would have been there was more than likely not going to be found at that point and that's exactly what happened there was no evidence found when police went to look and the thing was that at this point about five years after the investigation police still had had not uncovered any remains so because of that Janelle was still considered a missing person and even though Janelle was still considered a missing person after about 10 years of her being missing her family finally decided to hold a celebration of life service for her understanding that the likelihood that Janelle was going to be found alive at this point was very slim so now we fast forward to about 30 years later we're looking at 2013. again this case took place in 1984. so now we're looking at 2013 and it was in 2013 that two new detectives joined this case and that would be detective Robert cash and Detective Mike Prill and when these two new detectives started searching through the over 30 000 pages of evidence there was one name that popped up that stood out to them and through the thirty thousand pages of evidence this name had only occurred two times and so because of that he was never really looked into but now police were starting to notice and that would be a man named Steve Panky Steve Panky had known the Matthews family because they both went to the same church it was called The Sunny View Church they went it there together where Steve worked as a custodian before he ended up getting fired and excommunicated from the congregation he also was connected to Russ Ross coincidentally enough because Russ was actually Steve panky's boss at a 7-Up distributor in the 1970s and the two of them did not get along now here is where things get a little crazy because detective cash and detective Prill learned that in the days following Janelle's Disappearance in 1984 Steve had actually reached out to the police himself and told them that he had information about Janelle's disappearance and more than that he claimed that he had evidence to prove that she was dead however he didn't want to reveal the information he had until police told him what they knew about the case which is a very very weird thing to do it's very cat and mouse it's just it's the whole thing was very bizarre and it sparked detective cash and detective Pearl's interest but that would not be the only time that Steve Panky reached out over the years Steve had reached out on multiple different occasions claiming that he had information on Janelle case but for whatever reason police never took him seriously and never followed up with him to see what he had to say so then finally in April of 2019 so you move even farther now or even farther away we're in April of 2019 detective Robert cash ended up calling Steve Panky himself this initial phone call was 45 minutes and it was a bizarre bizarre call so I'm just going to play you a little bit of a clip of it hello hi looking for Steve Panky please [Music] this is Steve painke it seems to be that you're focused on people in the months weeks days the night that she disappeared and if that's your focus I can't help you I was never at Janelle Matthews House my first knowledge that Janelle Matthews existed and disappeared was six days after the facts so as you can tell based off of that audio Steve is definitely dancing around the subject in the situation and what he was saying and immediately Steve tried to make a deal with the police which again is very bizarre because from the police's standpoint they were saying why do we need to make a deal because what do you even know what how are you even connected to this case why do we need to make a deal and so they kept trying to pry at him however Steve was adamant that he wanted a deal and he wanted an attorney I couldn't say anything until I have firm deal that can't be broken now again at this point police had no idea what Steve was referring to because he was so incredibly vague about everything that he was saying so in the meantime of trying to make that deal and get Steve to talk police decided to do the next best thing which was get in touch with people from Steve's personal life and that included his ex-wife Angela and weirdly enough when police called Angela Angela answered the phone and police introduced themselves over the phone and Angela responded by saying that she had been waiting for police to call for years she was saying that she had waited so long to get their phone call Angela recounted multiple bizarre encounters with Steve that somehow had weird ties to Janelle Matthews Angela said that after living in Greeley the couple moved to Idaho and that one day Steve came home and told and Angela that he had tried to get in touch with the police about the Janelle Matthews case and again Angela was very confused because she felt like it was just a very random thing for him to bring up and try and talk about but that is when Steve tried to reassure her by saying quote you don't think I would hurt her do you she looks just like you end quote now at that point Angela said that when Steve said that her blood ran completely cold and she got a terrible gut feeling Angela said that once Steve said that to her she started thinking about Janelle's disappearance more and more and began remembering little tiny things at the time that were now seeming more and more important for example she remembered that the day after Janelle's disappearance on December 21st Steve told her that the two of them were going to make a road trip to California that day this was bizarre because the two of them had not been planning this trip prior to that day and it was so close to Christmas and they were planning on spending Christmas in Greeley Colorado so for Steve to come up with this bizarre spur of the moment plan to drive out to California was very it was very unlike him and it was very strange however Angela went along with it they drove out to California on the 21st and ended up driving home on Christmas day which was the 25th and on that drive home Angela remembered that Steve was obsessed with listening to the radio only on the stations that would talk about the Janelle Matthews disappearance Angela claimed that throughout that entire car ride Steve had her clicked to multiple different stations to see who was talking about the case then on July 15th of 2019 detective cash received a phone call the call was from a construction crew that was digging a pipeline in a remote part of the county about 20 miles away from Greeley they claimed that they had found human skeletal remains while they were on this work site detective cash in Peril immediately went over to the scene and walked up to the Remains The Remains included a skull with braces still on it just like the ones that Janelle had when she was missing detective cash also noticed clothing that was on the skeletal remains and it was the same clothing that Janelle was described to have been wearing when she went missing a DNA sample was able to confirm that the remains were in fact Janelle Matthews Janelle's cause of death was able to be confirmed when they found a gunshot wound through her head and Final only after 35 years Janelle's family was officially able to lay her body to rest they held a funeral in Greeley and were able to get a small sense of closure however they still wanted Justice and after the funeral detective cash and Prill ended up taking a road trip to Idaho which is where Steve Panky was living at the time the detectives also started to learn more about Steve Pankey and that included learning that he had lived in multiple different cities after moving away from Greeley and in each location that he lived in he got a job as a mortician he also tried to run for governor on several different occasions as well and he was also a liar Steve claimed that he had a degree in criminology which was not true and he also claimed that he was an ordained minister that was also not true and for whatever reason he was always doing whatever he could to tie back to Janelle's case on one occasion Steve ended up getting arrested for a public disturbance at a bank and he went on to write an article claiming that the arrest was because the police were trying to make him an informant in the Janelle Matthews case and trying to get him to admit where the body was located which he claimed in the article he was not going to do because he was afraid of the death penalty it was just all very very strange and so when detective cash in Pearl went to his home in Idaho they were not surprised when it was a very strange interaction when the detectives knocked on Steve's door she started explaining pieces of his personal life to them that police never asked for including his sexual orientation claiming that he was bisexual and that police could find evidence of that on the internet again they never asked but when it came to talking about Janelle Matthews that is when Steve refused to talk again without a lawyer and without a deal he said he wasn't going to talk if he didn't have a lawyer and he didn't have a permanent deal now while they were in Idaho Police were able to have a in-person visit with Angela where they brought her down to the station and were able to continue talking about Steve and when they did that they learned of more stories about Steve and his ties to Janelle Angela claimed that after they had gone on that road trip together the second that they had returned home in Greeley Colorado Steve began Steve began digging around in the backyard she never asked him about it but she thought it was very strange along with that Angela remembered an instant where while the two of them were at church one day after Janelle had gone missing the pastor had started preaching about Janelle claiming that he believed that Janelle was going to be able to come home safely according to Angela she said that when the Pastor said that Steve had gotten noticeably uncomfortable he got up out of his seat and started pacing around the aisles before storming out through the back door getting noticeably angry now even though Steve had refused to speak to the police about Janelle Matthews case he was really willing to talk to anyone else who would listen about it and that included an interview that he did with the NBC station called KTVB where he started spilling what he claimed to know about Janelle's case Steve claimed that his father-in-law worked at a graveyard and that after Janelle's disappearance an officer had approached his father-in-law claiming that this police officer told his father-in-law that he needed to bury a body in a casket like he needed an empty space he needed a casket to bury a body in I'm gonna play that audio right here a cop had come to him and said that he had a body that needed to be buried in a casket they never mentioned the name Janelle Matthews they never mentioned any name that's the total of my knowledge about the disappearance of Janelle Matthews okay that's it there ain't nothing more so after all of those years of claiming that Steve himself he was claiming that he had this groundbreaking information for police that he had all of this evidence that was all he had to say and in that clip he's so nonchalant about it very like why would you think I had any other information why would you ever question it that's all I know when for years and years and years he had been claiming to have all of this evidence and information to prove that Janelle was dead it was just very unsettling so ultimately on October 12th of 2020 because of all of this circumstantial evidence but very strong circumstantial evidence Steve Pankey was arrested in his Idaho home and charged with first degree murder he pled not guilty and the trial began on October 14 18th of 2021 but with this first trial there was actually a mistrial due to a hung jury the jury was not able to come to a unanimous decision however there was a second trial and The Smoking Gun in the second trial is when Angela testified she went on the stand talked about all of the instances that I mentioned in this episode so far she talked about Steve's violent outbursts and she also brought to light a ripped note that she found in her trash can while the two of them were still living in Greeley and it was a ripped up note in Steve's handwriting that read quote snow outside the Matthew's house was raked end quote now Steve himself also took the stand in this trial and his defense talked about how all of the evidence against him was circumstantial there was no fingerprints there was no physical evidence there was none of that and when Steve got on the stage and he talked about all of the lies that he had told and how he couldn't keep up with his own lies and he claimed that the reason that he actually got himself involved in Janelle's case to begin with was because he wanted revenge on the police so I began a series of lies I had told so many lies over the years I didn't know how you can it's just it has to it has to make sense and it all doesn't because I hated the place it was all in one to say I've got information that you want and you can't have it it was a polite way of flipping them the bird it was pure hatred on my part it was no outwardly saying that all of the information that he gave out all the times that he was trying to connect himself to this case was simply just because he was trying to send the police on some sort of wild goose chase it was just very very bizarre but when it was all said and done on the second trial there finally was a unanimous decision on October 31st of 2022 so just several months ago Steve Pinkey was found guilty of kidnapping and the murder of Janelle Matthews and received 20 years to life in prison Steve's earliest possible release date will be in 2040 when he will be 91 years old and that is if he gets out in that you guys is the case of Janelle Matthews I told you it was a wild one it's crazy it's almost unbelievable however finally after so many years after 38 years Janelle Matthews was finally able to receive justice so I'm very interested to see what you guys have to say about this one and with that being said you guys that is all for me today thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Killer Instinct if you're new here hi my name is Savannah and I'm your host of Killer Instinct make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button that way you never miss an episode WE Post weekly here on the podcast every Wednesday you're not going to want to miss it I'll be back next week with a brand new case for you guys and until then stay safe bye guys [Music] thank you