
On the Thursday before Christmas in 1984, 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews sang at a Christmas concert in her small city of Greeley, Colorado, then asked to watch her older sister, Jennifer, play in a basketball game. Jonelle had been sick for the past two days, however, so her parents told the stubborn sparkplug of a girl that she needed to return home and rest instead.
So her father went to the game with her sister; her mother headed to the airport to board a flight to California for a Christmas visit to family; and Jonelle was dropped home by her best friend and her dad.