The Relentless Stupidity of Steve Pankey

Intro / Opening Theme I've listened all your statements each one of them and I'm really sorry this is Joseph DeAngelo if you're at all familiar with or interested in True Crime which your presence here indicates you probably are you might know exactly who this is and the circumstances around his arrest but in the case you don't I'll give you the spark notes version Joseph D'Angelo aka the Golden State killer was a serial killer and rapist who was active between 197 4 and 1986 during his reign of terror he committed at least 13 murders 51 sexual assaults and 120 burglaries the identity of the Golden State killer remained a mystery for four decades until it was discovered that it was none other than Joseph D'Angelo who was 72 years old by the time he was charged with the crimes even more interesting perhaps is the way they finally caught the Golden State killer through DNA primarily through genetic genealogy which allowed investigators to track DNA through a suspect's familiar line using this they built 25 different family trees and from there using information such as sketches physical descriptions time place of residence they narrowed the suspect pool down to just one Joseph D'Angelo and it was as far from A Reasonable Doubt as could be and this is kind of how the general population expects cold cases to be solved nowadays typically via some development in technology usually DNA and with so much certainty pointing at the individual responsible that it is Way Beyond A Reasonable Doubt there are many examples of this and if you watch any episode of the new Cold Case Files you might assume that almost any cold case that is solved today revolves around DNA or some new invent of the modern era but that is not always necessarily true sometimes cold cases are solved simply off the stupidity of the perpetrator it might be less common but it happens around Christmas of 1984 a young girl would go missing from her home in gy Colorado and for over three decades this case would be cold until eventually it wasn't leading to a suspect that no one saw coming and an eerie interview that sits as a shiny example that no matter how cold a case is there is always the possibility of Justice eventually being served this is the case of Janelle [Music] Matthews The Disappearance of Jonelle Matthews Janelle Matthews was 12 years old on December 20th 1984 in gy Colorado this was a particularly busy day for the Matthews family her father Jim who was the principal of the local school was going with Janelle's sister to her basketball game Janelle's mother Gloria had traveled out of state in order to visit her father who was sick and Janelle was scheduled to sing in the choir for a Christmas concert sponsored by her middle school and hosted at a local bank the int West Bank of Denver so with all of them spread out doing different activities no one from Janelle's family could actually attend her concert that evening but her father was going to drop her off at the school where a bus would take her to the venue after this her father went to the basketball game and Janelle was headed off to the concert after performing in the concert Janelle got a ride home with one of her friends Deanna Ross and Deanna's father Russ they arrived at Janelle's home at around 8:15 p.m. this is where Russ notices something strange but not so strange that he would make a big deal about it the garage to the Matthews House was open but he quickly dismissed it as Janelle made her way inside and turned on the lights inside the home shortly after this Deana and her father pulled away from the Matthews house at 8:30 p.m. it is determined that Janelle is still safe at home and this is corroborated due to her taking a phone call and a message from a staff member at the local school who was looking for her father at around 9:30 p.m. Jim Matthews Janelle's father pulls up to the house and is greeted with the same strange sight the garage door is still open Jim also shugs it off and heads inside where the house is early quiet he calls out for Janelle but there is no answer upon entering the living room he sees that it appears Janelle had been home and the room was set up for Janelle to have a cozy evening in after her concert but Janelle isn't there around 10: p.m. Janelle's sister Jennifer arrives home Jim asks her if she knows where Janelle is and Jennifer says no and now Jim is starting to get very worried shortly after this Jim calls the police and an investigation begins before long the FBI was involved and they were combing the area asking questions of Janelle's friends family and Neighbors in an attempt to locate the missing 12-year-old they looked into Jim is a possible suspect based primarily on statistics as when something happens to a child more often than not a family member had something to do with it over a stranger they also looked into Janelle's biological mother as Janelle had been adopted as an infant by Jim and Gloria but neither of these panned out and they got no closer to finding Janelle law enforcement did everything they could to generate leads in the case they canvased the area multiple times looked into other cases of missing children nearby even had Janelle's picture printed on milk cartons if you saw the last Unsolved Mysteries video I put out on this channel you might remember that during this time printing the faces of missing children on milk cartons was a fairly new thing and Janelle was one of the first missing children to be featured in this Eerie way but still all of their efforts generated no leads and the case was getting colder and colder Janelle Matthews case would remain cold for over 30 years in 2018 the police in gley Colorado reignited the Cold Case by taking a fresh look at the case and the evidence and after reexamining the evidence police came to what they believed was a definitive profile regarding the person responsible for Janelle's disappearance due to the small window of opportunity this individual had to reach Janelle about 1 hour between her being confirmed at home at 8:30 p.m. and her father Jim coming home at 9:30 p.m. this person must have been been watching Janelle they must have known when she was home and that no one else in her family was home and this meant that it was very likely that the person responsible was someone local sometime after the gley police department reignited the case what seemed impossible years ago finally happened Janelle's remains had been found will investigate the death of a young girl who went missing 35 years ago Janelle Matthews was only 12 when she disappeared from her parents home in gley that was back in December of 1984 when last year there was a huge break in the case Janelle's remains were found in a field in rural Weld County the district attorney says the rules surrounding grand jury secrecy prevent him from providing any other details on the investigation in July 2019 in a field nearly 20 mi south of gley workers digging an oil pipeline came across remains that were later determined to be Janelle Matthews and shortly after this police named their first legitimate suspect a man by the name of Steve Panky who was also a former Idaho governor candidate and although the Matthews family knew little of Steve the police had definitely come across his name before weeks after Janelle had got missing Steve Panky was quick to try to insert himself into the investigation and continued to do so subsequent times throughout the years in response to gy police publicly naming him as a suspect Steve Panky decided to do some interviews to try and clear his name of Suspicion so let's see how that went my name is Steve s t v e Panky p Steve Pankey's Strange Interview and Paul a n k y all right so Steve why don't we just start from the beginning on December 20th 1984 uh I was home with my then wife and my 5-year-old son and and uh uh we were our car was parked in the driveway we lived on an acre just outside of town the car was parked in the driveway it was packed to the max to go to California Big Bear Lake California for Christmas to visit my folks okay so I promise I'll let this play out for longer stretches so you can hear him tell his side of the story but it is worth mentioning that Steve doesn't hesitate to mention how packed his car was and how they were just about to leave for a trip this obviously isn't a police interrogation this is a completely voluntary interview that Steve is doing of his own free will however his desire to fill his story with nebulous details that he feels will distance himself from the case and make him seem less of a suspect like implying that his car was so packed how could he possibly have used it to abduct Janelle is exactly what many suspects do when they are trying to preemptively throw suspicion off themselves ironically though it typically ends making them look more suspicious something that Steve does multiple times throughout this interview uh we were going to bed early we put the little boy to bed early we were going to bed early we had no radios no TVs on uh I looked out the kitchen window the front window to see uh like snowfall to make sure that our 2ye drive car could get out early the next morning we're going to leave 6 Seven 8 hours later and um uh a an unmarked sheriff's car in a pickup pulled into the driveway turned around and left I had had uh I have a gay background it's all over the Internet it's well known and uh uh I had had multiple problems with uh local law enforcement and so I was thinking oh no here's coming another arbitrary charge okay so I said I would let him keep going for a minute but it seems worth to point out that Steve sees what he believes is an unmarked sheriff's car pull into his driveway and then leave and he thinks to himself oh here we go another arbitrary charge this is not the typical thought an individual would have who has not run a foul of the law in the past he tries to explain away his previous entanglements with law enforcement by stating he has a gay background but soon the real reason he had dealings with law enforcement in the past will be shared um so they just they flash 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 uh we got up 3: or 4 the next morning uh got the little boy up uh got in the car uh my my wife and son were sleeping as I was driving so there was no radio on we went to California had a wonderful Christmas with my parents on December 26th 1984 uh 6 days later we were returning and when we got back into uh in the evening time in in Colorado uh we heard on the news that a missing there was a missing girl uh then that was my first knowledge of it we went home we unpacked we went to bed doesn't it seem strange to you that he remembers so many Vivid details from 1984 when in reality if he had nothing to do with Janelle's disappearance it would have just been another typical day another typical forgettable day also he continues to Pepper into his story various filler details that only serve to make him look even more suspicious the next story he tells here is quite interesting so I'll let it play out without interruption uh um the next day was December 27th uh my father-in-law came over and I had a really I was not on a speaking terms with my father-in-law so I was surprised that he came there he was groundskeeper at uh the cemetery and uh 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 so then I called my attorney his name is Don Jano the attorney I had at the time and uh s Cy was his secretary and she said Don's out of the country in Israel so he would be back the next week so I searched all around our acre around the neighbors acre where the cops had FL flash the lights like a week before um and there was nothing there you know so I was kind of weirded out about this now my father-in-law never said the name Janelle Matthews he never said anything about a child he never said anything about a man a woman anybody um I got a copy of the news newspaper and the Janelle Matthews thing was all over it it was the only murder in the area that was at the time or or disappearance at the time that was talked about right okay so quite a bit to unpack in this segment first of all the story he tells regarding his father-in-law if you found yourself a little confused listening to him tell that story you aren't alone essentially he's implying that his father-in-law had something to do with Janelle's disappearance as well as law enforcement but sudden implied that rather than his father-in-law getting blamed it would actually look bad for him his response to this are you wearing a wire a strange choice of response a response from someone who wasn't involved at all might be something like what are you talking about or I have no idea what you're talking about or are you on drugs or something in that hemisphere not are you wearing a wire also there was this moment it was the only murder in the area that was at the time or or disappearance at the time so obviously it doesn't look great since at the time no one knew Janelle had been murdered but to play Devil's Advocate at the time of this interview Janelle's remains were already found so it's possible he could have gotten confused now that it was confirmed that Janelle was indeed murdered or it could have been an enormous Freudian slip so um I uh what what I did is the very next week when my attorney got back I called him and I said I don't know if this has anything to do with the general Matthews case or not but I may have some information and I don't know what to do and he said that he would be concerned about uh obstruction of justice and he didn't go into any detail after that uh and I owed him a lot of money and his voice was like not real friendly about this so I thanked him I got off the phone I then called the Fort Collins cuz I had a bad relationship with the gly police department I called the fort cins FBI um the FBI um uh I talked to an agent named Lions a special agent lions and he said he'd call me back the next day and tell me where we'd meet well what I told liance on the phone was is I wanted to avoid an obstruction of justice charge I just don't want to have a problem uh this is the first time that Steve inserts himself into the investigation and uh so the next day he called me back and he wanted me to meet him at the uh uh gy police department so I met him there what I told him was somebody had T I said I had talked to my attorney and if you get rough with me I'm going to lawyer up and that'll be the end of it uh but I said uh I talked to my attorney somebody had talked to me about a body they never mentioned the name Janelle Matthews they never mentioned any name but I thought the conversation was weird and I don't totally trust the person that said it and I said on sleeping on it thinking about it if they come to me again I will refer them to you and you can deal directly with them so special agent Lions then said he just listened intently and then right afterwards he asked me he said did the conversation have anything to do with Janelle's older friends and I said no I don't know anything about her friends the then he said um um 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 thing about that and uh he said he said uh something about uh uh again like people she knew who didn't like her and I said I don't know any of them I said I know Russ Ross who is him and his daughter were the last ones to see her I knew I knew Russ very well and I had uh won a national labor labor labor relations lawsuit against him and uh so that was the end of it and then a gy detective came in and he he was kind of like uh uh you know uh what's your story and I said you know I've got a bad relationship with uh with the gy police department I talk to the FBI you can talk to him and deal with that and I left and that was the end of it that's the total of my knowledge about The Disappearance of Janelle Matthews okay that's it there ain't nothing more he proceeds to talk about how he volunteered to give DNA samples take a polygraph and a voice stress test as well as throw shade at the Matthews family from when he knew of them when he was working as a youth pastor big yikes on that one by the way as well as give his own half-baked Theory as to what happened so we're going to skip ahead a little bit here to another section of the interview in this section of the interview we get a little clearer picture as to what Steve's history with law enforcement was in 1977 now you have to keep in mind that I had left the gay lifestyle when I got kicked out of the Army in uh 1976 and so then became I repented for that and I became the youth pastor uh a girl that I was 26 a 23y old woman in the church who was single her and I were dating uh she was in the choir she played the piano we were having sex together she got pregnant she went to England and had an abortion and uh she came back like a month later and or 6 weeks later and she and I had sex again and uh I told her I was going to tell the church that she got an abortion you know without asking me and uh the next thing I was uh arrested for date rape and uh that was dismissed okay cuz I mean frankly it was consensual the quote and the next thing I knew I was being arrested for rape suggests that there might be some details of old Steve's story that he's omitting during his retelling let's skip ahead once again this time the interviewer point blank asked Steve why he has a bad history with the gy police department and now you said you had a bad relationship with the gy police department how come well I was charged with and I can't remember all of them I was charged with 20 misdemeanor that I counted up at one time and one felony with which is date rape okay uh 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 uh Credit Union manager who is 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 uh my aunt accused me of making phone calls to her harassing phone calls that went to a jury trial and uh oh yeah I was charged with uh driving UH 60 miles an hour in a 25 Zone which was a misdemeanor all three of those went to jury trials all three times the jury heard the evidence picked a foreman and then ruled me not guilty within 45 minutes in all three of them okay here Panky casually mentions how he was charged with date rape harassment and harassment over the telephone he says these things is casually as you'd order vanilla ice cream there are some parallels that can be drawn here I'll be at extreme if you've ever seen videos of serial killers such as Russell Williams BTK or even Ted Bundy verbally recount their crimes or charges many of them have a similar calm straightforward demeanor as Steve does of course they are admitting to much more graphic things than Steve is admitting here but the cold distant matter of fact tone of voice and manner of speaking is Eerie in either case also from more context regarding the harassment charge from his aunt she alleged that he stalked her by following her around for a whole day and calling her repeatedly on one single day she had 58 phone calls logged coming from Panky in 1984 another complaint was made regarding Panky from a woman claiming that Steve Panky was staying at their home and while there he tried to rape her yeah so I guess you could say weird situations just follow this guy around let's skip ahead again the uh 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 uh back when I lived in kifado this girl disappeared and I had this weird conversation about it and it bothered me and so um anyway the bishop then told the State president which is in Kerry and the and there was a uh a lieutenant with the Sun Valley Police Department who was also in the Kerry State thing so the State president the then State president contacted me this would have been 92 993 I'm guessing right in there uh 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 uh Lieutenant Mark Lockwood so I talked to him and I told him you know that I was concerned and um what what I said is I had this conversation and it was weird and every now and then like I'd call somebody in gy and check cuz cuz when I left agent Lions I thought you know cuz I slept really good cuz 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 and so I talked to him and uh he got a hold of the uh gy police department got the whole file on it and he had like this huge file thing the next time he talked to me and then it went from it was either his attitude was is either either 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 this is the next time that Steve somehow becomes self-inserted in the Jan Matthew's case we won't even get into just how dubious the story he told the bishop was but by now you're probably getting the sense that something in Steve Panky will not let him fully remove himself from the Janelle Matthews case the interviewer now goes on to ask about the most recent time investigators approached him about Janelle's disappearance so then when um you know an officer from gy knocked on your door here in Twin Falls with a uh twin PA's Deputy um was that did that surprise you did that shock you yeah on we had had conversations before that on uh April April 8th he called my uh and talked to my sister-in-law in Arizona who's he well I I uh oh detective cash okay with the gy police department and he just out of the blue said that he's got this case of this missing Janelle Matthews and Steve panky'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 the next uh San berino 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 he's not crazy so uh then my brother naturally called me I mean any relative would do that and so I called the gy police I looked it up on the website their number I called the gy police station 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 Baptist 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 2 hours later I got a call from and it was from the District Attorney's Office in Well County which is the seat of gy and 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 and it was detective cash and it was obvious that I was on voice box and that other people were uh 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 uh 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 from here Panky continues to ramble about his interaction with law enforcement all the while providing useless details self-deprecating remarks about his homosexual background which he seems to blame all of his problems with law enforcement on as well as emphasizing his mistrust of the police department and investigators as well as alleging that a police officer could have been the one who is responsible for Janelle's disappearance so we'll skip ahead again to a later point in the interview ah here's a good part another thing that bothers me this was 1984 and I can tell you from my personal background homophobia and racial Prejudice the two go hand in hand uh Janelle Matthews was adopted she was biologically Hispanic what why don't they have a his why why doesn't the gy police department have Hispanic detectives why don't they have a Hispanic detective do it you know I I have said when I've been contacted why isn't the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado not checking this out okay okay let's skip to another part I don't think they're going to find anything but I think they're going to leave this shadow of this appearance of evil with me you know am I going to go to church and people are going to hide their kids am I going to you know what I'm saying uh there are easier ways to do this imp panel a grand jury put me under oath ask me questions be done with it you've got my they've got my DNA give me a polygraph test give me a voice stress test I mean have you heard from gy police since they searched your um condo here I haven't heard anything from them okay they haven't tried calling you or you haven't heard anything from your lawyer no gotta all right well unless there's um anything The Trial(s) else okay we've made quite a few comments here at Steve's expense and that's warranted because Steve is weird however it goes without saying that acting weird does not necessarily equate guilt and while Steve's comments mannerisms and personal anecdotes regarding the Janelle Matthew's case comes across as unsettling at best and self- implicating at worst his behavior alone does not prove that he committed Janelle's murder so in your opinion on a scale of 1 to 10 how well do you think his interview did in clearing his name and making him seem innocent yeah not so good one thing that does raise eyebrows regarding Panky which which we discussed earlier and was plainly seen in his interview was his seeming compulsion to insert himself into the case at one point which was not discussed in this interview Steve actually Drew up his own list of potential suspects and put his own name on the list probably not the best idea Steve's lawyer would combat the increasingly negative image Steve was garnering in the media by simply stating that Steve loves the Limelight and loves attention and that was the only reason he inserted himself into the case he was talkative but not a murderer officials announced today that Steve pinky who was named a person of interest very early on in this case has been indicted on charges of murder well investigators disagreed and Panky was arrested and charged with Janelle's murder among the evidence presented at Steve's trial were his seeming obsession with Janelle's case statements he made to individuals in his church such as the story he told about the bishop statements he made to law enforcement and his internet search history regarding the case Steve went to court and his first court case actually ended in a mistrial but the second case did not here's a clip from the opening statement made by the prosecution which outlines their case against Steve what you will hear over the course of this trial is the type of evidence that is as old as time itself statement statements of the defendant statements that span 37 years statements and behaviors that will ultimately lead you to but one conclusion that the defendant is the person that police were looking for for 37 years ultimately Steve Panky was found guilty for the murder of Janelle Matthews at his sentencing Janelle's parents James and Gloria were able to express themselves to Steve Panky after all these years of their daughter's disappearance and murder being unsolved good afternoon Mrs Matthews thank you judge CNS if I had an opportunity to address the defendant this is what I would say so many thoughts go through my mind every time I hear Janelle Janelle Matthews as Mom I remember much yes she's feisty yes she's opinionated but she's also tenderhearted sensitive and loving I cannot at this moment say that I forgive you Steve Panky how you ended Janelle's life God will forgive you we all know that but he's waiting for repentance and a heart that wants forgiveness I hope in the days ahead you will hear hear and obey what God is telling you and that his word will penetrate your heart thank you and eventually Steve Panky himself was given an opportunity to speak I I am a Christian I will be in heaven I am innocent and this is not Justice for Janelle okay finally the actual sentencing occurred we close that count out with credit for time served as to count three that is merging with count two Mr Panky consistent with the authority and the statutory requirements at the time of the offense the court is imposing life possibility of parole after 20 years there is statutory fees and costs Court will wave ADC fees Court will presumably wave any further advisement regarding appeals understanding his Council and I presume that process will start so maybe you find yourself drawing Drawing Conclusions some reasonable conclusions the first one might be wow Steve Panky is quite an idiot but simultaneously you might also be thinking wait a second what did they actually have on Steve Panky both of these are valid trains of thought due to the way technology has progressed and the way investigations are conducted we might be used to seeing some kind of a Smoking Gun that is discovered which points undoubtedly to a single individual as the perpetrator of a crime such as genetic genealogy pointing directly at Joseph D'Angelo as the Golden State killer or DNA from a slice of pizza which pointed to Lonnie Franklin as the Grim sleeper or a combination of DNA taken from a slice of pizza and triangulating cell phone data which enabled law enforcement to catch the killer of the Gilgo 4 possibly the Long Island serial killer or Lisk but that simply wasn't the case here there was no smoking gun or DNA evidence pointing directly at Steve Panky or video surveillance footage of him moving a body or a half-eaten pizza crust that tattled on him to police there was simply his statements and his behavior from the beginning he attempted to insert himself into the investigation this didn't just happen once it happened time and time again over the course of years he created narratives around what could have happened to Janelle each time attempting to throw suspicion at other parties when police came to speak with him about Janelle's disappearance over 30 years later he immediately requested a deal which triggered law enforcement to wonder why he was behaving so strangely and what they unraveled was over 30 years of odd behavior surrounding Janelle's disappearance is that enough evidence a jury thought so and maybe you do too or maybe you think that perhaps there's a chance that Steve Panky is innocent that the court got it wrong and in that case it would mean that he was essentially convicted based on his stupidity alone