Episode Transcript
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0:00
On a winter night and a small community near
0:02
Denver, Colorado, Jim Matthews arrived
0:04
home late. He expected to find his twelve
0:06
year old daughter, and then dropped off after a Christmas
0:09
concert. But when he called out, hey Janelle,
0:11
the house was really quiet. His
0:13
daughter's shoes were on the floor, but she
0:15
was gone. And it would be thirty five
0:17
years before she would be found. Dead.
0:20
After the discovery of Janelle Mathew's body
0:22
in two thousand nineteen, the police turned their
0:24
attention to a man who had told law enforcement
0:27
years ago that he knew something. But
0:29
they dismissed him. The man
0:31
did seem obsessed with the case. But is
0:33
that all he was? A true crime fanatic
0:36
or a killer? Hi. I'm Matt Sharon.
0:38
I'm the host of season one of Wondery Campside
0:41
Media's shocking true crime podcast suspect.
0:44
We're back for a new season with a story that
0:46
attempts to separate fact from fiction,
0:49
compulsion from guilt and one man's
0:51
true crime obsession from a motive
0:53
for murder. I'm about to play a clip from
0:55
suspect. Vanished in the snow. While
0:58
you're listening, follow suspect wherever you
1:00
get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members.
1:02
You can binge all six episodes ad
1:04
free on Amazon Music. Download
1:06
the Amazon music app today.
1:12
Weld County is a desert. Feels
1:15
relatively warm outside for Colorado
1:17
in December. And
1:19
this the sky eye is just this
1:21
caribbean blue. It's
1:24
winter, but it's hot out, dry,
1:26
and dusty. The snow happed
1:28
Rocky Mountains are all behind
1:30
us. Ahead, it's
1:33
flat. The horizon goes
1:35
on our f on. I feel like we're on
1:37
the Wikipedia of tumbleweeds. Don't
1:39
you feel rich in tumbleweeds? Yeah.
1:42
Oh, shit. People tear
1:44
ass down this road. A few of the
1:46
trucks passing us are souped up,
1:48
brand new, tires, jacked high,
1:51
Oil and gas workers apparently un
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bothered by speed limits if
1:55
there is a speed limit out here.
1:58
We're relieved to turn into a dirt drive
2:00
way of a lone rambling house.
2:03
Hi, guys. Hello
2:06
again? I'm
2:11
Jody. You can drive. Vance and
2:13
Jody Gilliland lives so far from
2:15
most of their neighbors that it's easier to
2:17
drive. To see them. Across
2:20
from their house is a field that stretches
2:22
about a thousand acres. It's
2:24
full of brush and weeds. The
2:26
kind of place where people often well
2:29
abandon things. Old mattresses,
2:32
washers, and dryers, even boats,
2:35
It's
2:35
like, wow. Almost
2:37
tended to hook that up and take it home and see what I can
2:39
do. But No.
2:42
I mean, people still still do dump
2:44
things out here,
2:44
but it's
2:46
usually quick and run, quick and run. I mean, what
2:48
they can show off the back with trucking two seconds.
2:51
In the summer of twenty nineteen, Vance
2:54
and Jody were in their kitchen when they saw
2:56
blue and red lights flashing across
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the perimeter of their property. All
3:00
of a sudden, there was cop cars
3:03
going by and I was like, uh-oh, until
3:05
it was dark
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actually. They were out there.
3:07
And they were out
3:09
there forever. Vance and Jody
3:12
soon learned those oil and gas workers
3:14
in their fancy pickups, they'd
3:16
unearth a small human
3:19
skull with a single bullet
3:21
hole in
3:21
it. And authorities knew
3:24
exactly who the remains belong
3:26
to. It is the cold case that has
3:28
baffled the Greeley community for nearly
3:30
thirty five years, but tonight, Police
3:32
may be closer to figuring out what happened
3:34
to Janelle Matthews. The twelve year old
3:36
disappeared from her home in late nineteen
3:39
eighty four. Her remains were discovered
3:41
this week by a construction crew in
3:43
rural Weld County. Gone
3:45
for thirty five years today, human remains
3:48
found at an oil and gas I didn't really give
3:50
investigators new leads on a decades
3:52
old cold case.
3:55
Like a lot of Colorado residents who
3:57
had been following Janelle's case since
3:59
the nineteen eighties. Vance
4:01
and Jody watched the news reports with
4:04
fascination. They waited
4:06
to hear what would happen next, hoping
4:09
that the remains in the field would finally
4:11
lead investigators to the killer. As
4:14
it turned out, it wouldn't be
4:16
nearly so simple. This
4:20
is a story about obsession, my
4:23
own. Sure. So
4:25
I am working on podcast
4:28
about the Janelle Matthews case. I
4:30
know you know about that case. Right?
4:32
I assume you're probably well versed. I
4:34
thought I'd probably one last time,
4:37
but also the obsession of a community
4:40
that kept pushing to find Janelle
4:42
to get her name into the national spotlight
4:45
and all the way to the White House.
4:48
For example, I learned about Jonelle
4:50
Matthews of Greeley, Colorado. Who
4:52
would have celebrated a happy thirteenth birthday
4:55
with her family just last
4:57
month. And it's about the obsessions
5:00
of a self scribe true crime
5:02
junkie. A man who had started
5:04
talking about the Janelle Matthews case
5:07
just a few days after police
5:09
responded to a distress call
5:11
from her home. And over the
5:13
next thirty five years, he
5:15
kept talking
5:17
and talking It was just
5:19
me trying to be
5:22
a big man in the case. He's a
5:24
busy body. He gets himself in the middle
5:26
of murder cases. But that doesn't
5:28
necessarily mean he actually was
5:30
involved in them. People are like, oh, he's just
5:32
crazy just he's he's just
5:35
a ding bad or or whatever else
5:37
and he's he's harmless. He wouldn't
5:39
hurt anybody. He's such a good liar
5:41
that he can convince the juror that
5:43
he wasn't involved. So You
5:46
know? He's a liar. He is. He's
5:48
good one. I turned around and I said,
5:50
you're gonna be arrested for obstructing. If
5:52
you don't get back in your car, And
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he says, don't fuck with
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me, officer Rederton. I bury
5:59
more people than you'll know. When
6:01
you shot, you know Matthews in the floor end was she
6:03
dating for her life? Never happened
6:05
to
6:05
me.
6:10
Hey, Prime members, you can binge all six episodes
6:12
of suspect, vanished in the snow, ad
6:15
free on Amazon Music. Download the
6:17
Amazon Music app today.
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