Man seeks witness to mother’s 1983 disappearance from Paradise
By Kelli Saam
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PARADISE, California (KHSL) — A man is looking for a potential witness to his mother’s disappearance more than forty years ago in Paradise. Nancy Penner was 29 years old when she disappeared from her home in Paradise in 1983. She lived with her boyfriend Jeff Jeffries and two young children at home in the 2000 block of Dean Road.
Her son Daniel Penner Cline was four years old in October 1983 when he remembers Jeff Jeffires shooting a gun, and then seeing his mom run out of the house holding her stomach. “The first memories of my life were my mother being wounded and running out of the house never to be seen again,” Daniel Penner Cline said.
Nancy Penner wasn’t reported missing for a couple of months, and the boyfriend told investigators she had left home and never contacted him. Jeff Jeffries committed suicide about three years later. Then 27 years after Penner disappeared, in 2010 Daniel Penner Cline wrote a story for the Chico News & Review about his search for answers about his mother. That prompted his mom’s former neighbor to come forward. The neighbor told Penner Cline the night his mom disappeared, he heard a woman being beaten and heard the voice of a second man at the home who may know what happened to Nancy. Penner Cline is still searching for that second man.
“I know half of it…Jeff. But we never found the second man. We never found the second man, that’s fascinating,” said Penner Cline. “There’s someone out there that potentially has been living with this. At this stage it’s not a matter of anger or anything like that. It’s what happened and where is she? I went to the end of the Earth for this I traveled to Hawaii, Alaska, deep Mexico, and all across the United States interviewing people for several years on the tail who might the second person be, and we just never found him.” Nancy’s boyfriend Jeff Jeffries was never criminally charged. Action News Now checked with the Butte County Sheriff’s office and they confirmed Jefferies was the primary suspect in Nancy’s disappearance before his death. Her son believes Nancy was killed and her body was buried on property the couple owned in the Ishi Wilderness near Cohasset, or possibly near their home in the 2000 block of Dean Road. The home burned in the 2018 Camp Fire. Penner Cline said investigators with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office allowed him to review the case file. They also searched the Dean Road property where a cadaver dog indicated possible remains, but nothing was found.
If you have any information about the disappearance of Nancy Penner or a potential witness call the Butte County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 538-7434. Refer to case number 8318738. You can also email reporter Kelli Saam at ksaam@actionnewsnow.com.
Penner’s case is listed on the California Department of Justice Missing Person website.
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