BOISE, Idaho — Steven Pankey, a former Idaho gubernatorial candidate arrested earlier this month in connection with a 1984 cold case murder, is now in a Colorado jail.
The 69-year-old was booked into the Weld County Jail Wednesday evening.
He is charged with the 1984 murder of Jonelle Matthews and is scheduled to make his first court appearance at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 30.
Pankey was arrested at his home in Meridian on Oct. 12 by the Meridian Police Department.
Pankey is facing two first-degree murder charges, two violent crime charges, and one second-degree kidnapping charge, all of which are felonies.
The former long-shot gubernatorial candidate was arrested in connection to the death of Jonelle Matthews, who was 12 years old in December of 1984 when she went missing. Pankey was indicted by a Colorado grand jury.
In mid-2019, nearly 35 years after she was last seen, Jonelle's body was found at an oil and gas site not too far from where she lived in Weld County, Colorado.
According to court documents, Pankey took Matthews from her family home against her will on the evening of Dec. 20, 1984.
The charging documents say Pankey was armed with a firearm and shot Matthews during the course of the kidnapping.
Weld County Colorado District Attorney Michael Rourke said that Pankey became a central suspect in the cold case over the last two years.
One of the reasons Pankey became a suspect was because of how much he knew about the case.
The grand jury indictment also states Pankey knew about a crucial piece of evidence that wasn't publicly released - a rake that was used to cover up footprints in the snow.
The indictment also listed the times Pankey inserted himself into the investigation. In a 1999 pleading filed with the Idaho Supreme Court, Pankey argued that if the court ruled in certain fashion, "It is reasonable for the appellant to believe he would get the death penalty for revealing the location of Jonelle Matthews' body."
The documents also state he wrote, "without a deal, this case will never be solved." He also repeatedly demanded immunity in exchange for information he claimed to possess about the murder.
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