© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Steven Pankey, a former two-time Idaho governor charged with the kidnapping and murder of a Colorado girl who disappeared in 1984, is featured in this undated mug shot released by Offi. by the Weld County District Attorney
By Keith Coffman
DENVER (Reuters) – Prosecutors will try a second time to convict a former Longshot gubernatorial candidate in Idaho for the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old Colorado girl after her first attempt resulted in a hung jury and misconduct, court records show .
Steven Pankey, 70, is on trial again for the kidnapping and murder of Jonelle Matthews, who disappeared in 1984 and whose remains were uncovered more than three decades later, a status hearing on Wednesday revealed.
After a three-week trial that ended in early November, a twelve-person jury found Pankey guilty of misreporting, an offense, but failed to reach unanimous verdicts on the more serious charges.
Weld County Judge Timothy Kerns then ruled wrong and ordered Pankey to hold a $ 5 million bond.
Matthews disappeared in December 1984 after she was dropped off at her home in Greeley, Colorado, about 50 miles north of Denver, after singing at a Christmas concert.
In 2019, an excavation team working on a pipeline discovered the girl’s remains at a remote oil and gas site in Weld County, police said. The authorities said she died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Prosecutors did not produce direct evidence linking Pankey to the crime, but relied on incriminating statements he had made over the years, including details of the crime scene that only the killer would know.
Pankey was living in Greeley at the time Matthews disappeared and, according to prosecutors, watched the girl and other children go home.
Pankey testified at his trial that he did not kill the girl and that he thought up details “to be a great man on this case.”
Pankey ran for Idaho governor at the Constitution Party in 2014, and lost a second governorate in the 2018 Republican primary.
A new trial date has not been set.
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