How woman whose ex-husband murdered missing girl on the milk carton was able to bring him to justice

Here's the story of how a woman discovered her ex-husband was linked to the disappearance of a 12-year-old schoolgirl.

In December 1984, a day before Christmas, Jonelle Matthews vanished after being dropped off at her home in Greeley, Colorado by a friend and her dad.

According to her older sister, Jennifer Mogensen, who spoke to The Independent in 2022, Jonelle hadn't been very well for a few days and so her parents had demanded she go home to recover instead of going to Jennifer's baseball game, with that being the last time anyone saw her.

Following her disappearance, the case ended up being extremely difficult for officials to solve, leading to then-president Ronald Reagan to feature Jonelle on a milk carton to attempt to bring her home.

However, the effort did little to yield any results, with Jonelle's mother, Gloria Matthews, believing it was a little too late.

Jonelle Matthews disappeared in 1984 (NBC)

"To be honest, I felt that was the least they could do," Matthews previously said (via The Mirror).

A funeral service was held for Jonelle 10 years after her disappearance, and her family soon departed from Greenley.

The case remained cold for a period of 35 years with investigators struggling to find any leads - that was until 2019.

On July 23, excavators installing a pipeline around 15 miles southeast of the Matthews family's former home discovered human remains, with Weld County Coroner's Office identifying the remains as being those of Jonelle based on DNA evidence, with a forensic report listing the teenager's cause of death as 'a gunshot wound to the head'.

This discovery then led to the arrest and conviction of then-71-year-old Steven Pankey, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on October 31, The Coloradoan reported.

His arrest was the result of his ex-wife, Angela Hicks, and Detective Robert Cash, who'd put together enough evidence on him to result in his conviction.

In court, Hicks said that he'd began to show suspicious behavior following Jonelle's disappearance, 'including making their family leave town, fixating on the news coverage and digging a hole for hours outside their house', according to the Greenley Tribune.

Steve Pankey was sentenced to life in prison (Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Speaking in a 2024 documentary from Sky Crime titled The Girl On The Milk Carton, she said: "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 recalled her husband being 'so focused' on new reports surrounding Jonelle's disappearance, which she 'didn't understand'.

He would also make statements about it which became 'inconsistent and incriminating over time', his indictment stated, including the raked over shoe prints in the snow outside the Matthew's house on the day of her disappearance, which was unknown to the public.

In the late 1990s, Hicks discovered some notes about Joelle written by her husband and took them to the police station.

After discovering this information, Detective Cash recalled: "My blood pressure rose. Steve knew the holdback information. The general public had no idea about the raking."

After his sentencing, Jennifer said she felt 'instant relief', adding: “It was the best feeling ever.”