Going West: True Crime - Jennifer Pandos // 382

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

In February of 1987, a 15-year-old girl went missing from her Virginia home, leaving nothing behind but a ransom note from her alleged captor. But when a spotlight is shone on her inner circle, suspicions begin to fall on her parents and their potential involvement. But are they responsible? Or was it one of the other strange characters in the case? This is the story of Jennifer Pandos. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/jennifer-lynn-pandos 2. Finding Jennifer Pandos: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100065268769430 3. The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jun/07/burden-of-proof-hbo-docuseries 4. Burden of Proof: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8637336/ 5. New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/hbos-burden-of-proof-and-the-problem-of-the-passive-mother 6. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/ron-pandos-now/ 7. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/margie-pandos-now/ 8. NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/no-answers-32-years-after-jenny-lynn-pandos-disappeared-virginia-n965906 9. Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/burden-of-proof-hbo-max-stephen-pandos-parents-killed-missing-sister-jennifer-1234765082/ 10. JenniferPandos.com: https://jenniferpandos.com/index.html 11. The Virginia Gazette: https://www.newspapers.com/image/870934741/?terms=jennifer%20pandos 12. Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/GSRNews/comments/143mddd/what_happened_to_jennifer_pandos_and_has_she_ever/ 13. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/cori-and-tony-tobler-now/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on, True Crime Fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. Big thank you to Tamara for recommending today's case. This one involves a terrifying ransom letter and some really suspicious characters. Suspicious indeed and some of those characters are very very close to home.

But I don't want you guys to forget to check out Daphne's new podcast, Nightwatch. It is amazing, she puts so much work into it, and it's officially out everywhere, and it showcases various terrifying true stories every episode, every Thursday. So go check it out. Go subscribe, and go follow her on Instagram. Thank you, and thank you to everybody who has already listened.

I actually dropped the episode in the Going West feed, so in case you wanted to listen before looking it up or whatever, if that's easier for you. They're just creepy stories that I tell with lots of sound effects and music and it's really creepy and fun. So yeah, check it out. It's called Night Watch.

And if you wanna follow her on Instagram, she's at Night Watch Stories. Alright guys, this is episode 382 of Going West, so let's get into it! In February of 1987, a 15-year-old girl went missing from her Virginia home, leaving nothing behind but a ransom note from her alleged captor. But when a spotlight is shown on her inner circle, suspicions begin to fall on her parents and their potential involvement. But are they responsible? Or was it one of the other strange characters in the case?

This is the story of Jennifer Pandos was born on October 29, 1971 in Williamsburg, Virginia. She joined parents Margie and Ron Pandos and an older brother named Stephen. The family resided in the very nice gated community of Kingsmill in the quiet quaint city of Williamsburg, Virginia. As a teenager, Jennifer was well liked and seemed to have a plethora of friends who described her as fearless and ambitious. However, unfortunately, things weren't so easy at home, which you guys will learn all too well throughout this episode. But basically, Jennifer and Steven's father, Ron Pandos, who owned an accounting practice, was a Vietnam veteran

who reportedly suffered from PTSD and had issues controlling his anger. He was known to strike the kids and even his wife, Margie. His frequent outbursts and penchant for physical violence set the precedent that the household should live in fear and walk on eggshells around him. Stephen recalls spending as much time away from home as possible when he was a child and that he and Jennifer grew up in survival mode. Shortly before her disappearance,

Jennifer wrote in her journal quote, "'There are great problems in my family. "'It just doesn't seem that way. "'The tension in my family is so great. I don't let many people know how I feel inside because I don't care what happens to my family. We were never a family. My parents think they can make us one big happy family. I let them think it's working, but it isn't and it never will. So Steven moved out of state for college as soon as he was able to,

and then he settled in North Carolina. But for younger Jennifer, things weren't going smoothly in her personal life because now she's stuck at home by herself. So the year prior to her disappearance in 1986, 14 year old Jennifer had started dating a fellow student named Tony Tobler, who was two years for senior, and also studied at Lafayette High School. Tony was new in town, having moved to Williamsburg from Newport News, Virginia to live with his mom.

The new kid in town, Jennifer was quite taken with him, and were called being charmed and swept off her feet. However, Tony claims that they were never particularly serious, as he was still seeing other people during their relationship, including one of Jennifer's friends, Corey. But based on their correspondence via letters, as well as the detailed Jennifer Pendant or Journal, the two had a strong connection. And though they may not have been together for long, there was a significant amount of history between them. In the summer of 1986, Tony sent dozens of love letters to Jennifer, including writing

that he wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, getting married and raising children. In June of 1986, Tony wrote to Jennifer, quote, as long as we work out our problems, we will stay together, unless you cheat on me or I cheat on you. Don't think nothing like that will happen though, because we love each other, and you know that I would kill you and whoever it was, which obviously, you know, this is a teenager writing this,

but comes off as kind of a threat here. And, you know, while this may be simple hyperbole from a teenager, he was very much infatuated with his girlfriend, in retrospect, it does come off as a little bit of a threat. But things between this young couple soured when in August of 1986, Jennifer, who was just a couple months shy of 15, became pregnant.

Jennifer's parents, well, especially her father, Ron Ron were furious at this because Tony was 17 at the time and Jennifer was just 14 So Jennifer had an abortion and her parents instructed her to stay away from Tony so that nothing of the sort happened again Margie recalled quote he had gotten her pregnant and we had an abortion She just came out and told me what she and Tony had decided they wanted to do about it. And then Ron added, quote, how did I react to it? Shocked, pissed off, wanting to know what in the world was going on with both of them. I did not want her to see Tony. I did not want Tony to see her.

Tony also remembered Ron looking down upon his background and upbringing, telling Jennifer that Tony just wasn't good enough for her. Tony explained, quote, The community they lived in, like I said, at the time it was the premier gated community in Williamsburg, and I lived in a trailer park. Her parents did not like that. Her dad was a very controlling person, like with the whole family. So after he was forced to end things with Jennifer, Tony began seeing Cory more frequently,

but also continued to sneak around with Jennifer, likely unbeknownst to both Cory and Jennifer's parents, and their correspondence via letters continued. But their relationship, however casual it was at that point in time, struggled under the weight of the unplanned pregnancy. Tony's insecurity about her family's clear bias against him and Jennifer's frustration that he was seeing Corey on the side, and Jennifer's friends claim that it took a toll on her mental health. But against all odds, they continued their relationship. In a letter that Jennifer wrote to Tony in October of 1986, she hinted at him being violent with her.

Though how serious this was can only be known to them. She wrote, quote, My arms have marks on them, not to mention bruises from where you threw me on the bed. I hope you're happy. Stop throwing me around like some dumbass whore. Call me back and call me when you say you are. I told you I didn't care if it was 2 in the morning. Just call me back when you say you are. Stop lying to me. I know you couldn't stay away from Cory one freaking day. Now I see why you didn't want me to go to the mall with you because you would already plan to pick up Cory.

It's hard to guess where their relationship stood at the time of Jennifer's disappearance, which was just a few months later, but it seems very likely that the two were still seeing each other, despite Tony's new girlfriend and Jennifer's parents' wishes, that she'd stay away from him. In February of 1987, Jennifer was a model student with plenty of friends, and the problems at home

were not apparent in her day to day life outside of the home. She wasn't known to drink, smoke, do drugs, or sneak out, aside from the occasional liaison with Tony, which she kept under wraps. She also rarely missed a class and she was never late. On the evening of Monday, February 9th, 1987, as it started to get late, Margie popped into Jennifer's room to say goodnight, and that was the last time that she claimed she saw her daughter. Jennifer spent the evening chatting on the phone with a friend named Sharon, who was

believed to be the last person who spoke with Jennifer before she disappeared. After saying goodnight to Margie, the girl stayed on the phone for a while longer after her parents instructed her to go to bed. And while on the phone, Sharon remembered Ron coming into Jennifer's room screaming at her to end the phone call. But while the call was still connected, a short shouting match between Jennifer and her father Ron ensued, wherein she called Ron by his first name, and then he snapped at her saying, quote, hang up the goddamn phone.

The girls ended their call, vowing to see each other at school the next day, and hung up between 9 and 10 p.m. The next morning, Margie claims she woke up around 6 a.m. when she could normally hear Jennifer in the shower getting ready for school. Wondering if she had overslept, she tried to enter the room to check on her daughter, but found that the door was locked.

Now, this was odd and out of character for Jennifer who was never known to lock her door, so Margie fetched Ron, who forced his way into the bedroom to find it static and unchanged from the evening prior. Her bed was made, her school belongings and clothes were untouched, and her coat was still there even in the chilly Virginia winter. The only thing she had taken was her purse. But there were only two items that were out of place in the room. The blinds over the window, which were disturbed as if someone had been peering to the outside

from within the room, and a letter scribbled on notebook paper. The note was penned in red ink and written in slanting, sloppy penmanship as if it was written with a non-dominant hand. The note contained multiple mistakes that had been scribbled over, but it read, quote, Mr. and Mrs. Pandos, your daughter is with me. She is fine. She's having Pandos, your daughter is with me. She is fine. She's having some problems though. She needs some time away from this place.

Three to five days max. She is like a daughter to me, and I'm like a dad to her. Here are some of Jennifer's quotes. I'm fine, I just need some time to think. Both of you, please go to work tomorrow because I will try to call you. I won't call at home only at one of y'all's work. Cancel my doctor's appointment on Friday. Please put money into my bank account. Do not call the police. I can easily find out if you do and if you do, I may never come back home.

Don't tell my friends about this. Just tell them I'm sick. Please do what I've asked." So it's definitely weird because obviously if somebody wrote this in their non-dominant hand, then you would think that they don't want the letter traced back to them, but if she's just going away for three to five days, then why would you care about that? Yeah, I mean the most alarming part of this is the fact that a 15 year old it doesn't appear that it's being written from Jennifer's mind. It's written by somebody else because it mentions quotes from Jennifer, right? Which is also a really weird part of it. Like here's a quote from her. It's not like it's a voice memo. Anybody could write those words.

Yeah, exactly. And in my opinion, it feels all too convenient to have these quotes from Jennifer saying, hey, I'm fine. Don't do this. Don't do that. Go to work tomorrow. Like, it feels like it's intentionally

trying to throw people off. Yeah, and yeah, trying to say wait a few days, like it's trying to buy time. Exactly, yeah. But then also, which remember that, but then also I want to talk about the fact that it says, cancel my doctor's appointment on Friday. Now remember that too when we're talking about who could have written this letter, because I honestly don't think that if this really was Jennifer's words

that she would even care to mention that. You know, like who cares about your doctor's appointment if you're leaving a ransom note behind? Like that's the last of your worries. But it does kind of pinpoint that this is somebody that would be close to Jennifer because they would have to have some sort of knowledge that she had a doctor's appointment that Friday, right?

Exactly. So her parents claim that they were shocked and concerned by this note, but strangely, they neither did what the note said, nor did they contact police. So they simply waited, assuming that Jennifer had written the note herself and that this was a rash

attempt at revenge for her fight with her father the night prior. They also wondered if it was perhaps a teenage girl's reaction to the stress of having gone through an abortion, which was likely very traumatic for her, and then there was the added stress of losing her first boyfriend. But whether or not they were actually concerned, only the Pandosis can know this. But they waited for their daughter to apparently return home and both reported to work the next day. However, they did not put money in her account as they were instructed to do, and they did not even covertly contact authorities.

Jennifer's brother, Steven, was a sophomore in college at this time and recalls Margie calling him to let him know that Jennifer was gone. However, he remembers that she seemed eerily calm and that she didn't have answers for any of his questions. He seemed more concerned about Jennifer's welfare than her own parents were. Similarly, Jennifer's friend Sharon, with whom she was on the phone before her disappearance,

called the house the next day, only for Margie to tell her that she was sick and that she couldn't chat. Which is what the letter said to say to friends, so they didn't do that. Exactly. And the following day, Sharon called called again growing concerned about her friend a Normally punctual and responsible student who had missed two days of school in a row Now on the second phone call Wednesday, February 11th Sharon was told that Jennifer was out with her father at the moment and again just couldn't talk

Finally on Thursday February 12th, three days after Jennifer was last seen at home, Sharon called the house yet again and was told that Jennifer was missing. The last time they saw their daughter was on the evening of Monday, February 9th, 1987, believing her to have gone missing sometime overnight between the 9th and the 10th,

but she wasn't reported missing until Friday, February 13th, 1987, Friday the 13th. Though Margie and Ron say that they now regret their decision to conceal her disappearance from the police for three days, they maintain that they thought that they were doing what was best, abiding by their daughter's request. Margie, who has multiple sisters, also concealed the news from them that their niece was missing. One of her sisters recalls hearing about Jennifer's disappearance a month after Jennifer vanished. Which is so crazy to not even tell your extended family that your daughter is missing for an entire month. It's pretty suspicious.

And Ron actually took years to explain what had happened to his side of the family. Even weirder. Even weirder. So this began the series of strange behavior that landed Margie and Ron Pandos in the midst of suspicion for decades to come. When Jennifer's parents finally spoke with Williamsburg law enforcement, police couldn't help but question why they'd waited so long.

The parents explained that they hoped to bring her home by obeying her strange request, to go to work and await a phone call, not calling the police and concealing her departure from her friends. But they couldn't answer for why they had not fulfilled her final request, which was to supplement her bank account if they were trying to do right by her list of demands. Which makes you wonder if maybe it's because they knew she wouldn't need it. Right. So Ron claims that he had done a quiet, covert search of the town of Williamsburg, which was home to about 11,000 people at the time, and encompasses nearly 15 square miles or

24 square kilometers. He even claimed that he had created missing flyers for his daughter, though no one close to Jennifer reported having seen them posted anywhere. So was this the indication of two guilty parents who discovered too late that they should have done more for their missing daughter, or was it an early admission of fault? Though law enforcement had lost three days of valuable time, arguably the most precious time in the investigation, they attempted to make up for lost ground.

Jennifer's family lived in a gated community, meaning that anyone who left or came in would have had to have been cleared by the security guard unless they snuck in on foot. Which means they would have had to sneak out on foot as well. Exactly. But Jennifer did however live on the first floor suite, which had easy access to the outside with both a door and a window. While her parents were on the second floor, so it is feasible that she could have snuck in or out, or even been abducted without her parents hearing much as it had been the middle of the night.

Right, so getting out of the house could be easy, but then again, how would she get out of the house could be easy, but then again, how would she get out of the neighborhood unseen? Well police spoke to her friends and parents, but no one seemed able to provide any indication as to what happened to her. They held out hope that the note was truthful, that she had left on her own accord and that she would be back, but she wasn't. I think this is probably because she was a minor, but I am at least glad that police were looking for her,

despite the letter making it seem like she left on her own accord, because if she had been over 18, I don't think it would have been the same case. I think they would have not looked for her. Yeah, they would have just said, well, she's an adult, she can do what she wants to do, but the thing that really pisses me off about this case is the fact that she is 15 and just thinking about it, you know, from a parent's perspective, I'm not a parent, but if I was a parent,

I would be extremely terrified that something happened to her. I would be doing everything in my power to try and find her, but it just seems like they really don't give a shit. Well, I think it is weird too, that it's like it's one thing to not look for her, not report her to the police, even if it's like, even though she did say, then I'll never come home, but it's like,

okay, well, we need to find you and figure out what happened. But even if you put that aside, the fact that they didn't put money in her account to make sure that she could pay for food and other things while she is gone, if that's what happened, and that the dad is saying, or Ron is saying, that he put out missing flyers

and nobody even saw them. Like there's just some other weird things. Yeah, exactly. And then we go back to the part where, you know, they didn't even covertly try to contact police. Like they weren't even like, oh, maybe we should like just try to talk to the police about this because the letter said,

oh, I'll know if you try to contact the police. It's like- Which how would she know anyway? That's a really weird part of the letter as well. That's what I'm saying. It's like, how would anybody know? How would anybody know? And it's, it would make, it's make like if she is trying to get away from

The house for a few days. She's not watching the house to see if a police car shows up So that is a really suspicious part of the letter that makes me even more confident that this is not from Jennifer's hand or mind Right, but even though police did start looking for her, there was very little effort made, and a year after she went missing, Jennifer's case officially turned cold. In the six years following her disappearance, 75 tips came in, but none of them led to any substantial developments in the case, and after that, they stopped coming in at all. And by the way, I know a lot of you guys are probably wondering about the security guard,

kind of being able to pass through the Gata community and seeing who did or didn't, but we are gonna talk about that in a little bit. So anyway, one tip placed Jennifer in Tampico, Mexico, where a young woman reported having met a young traveler named Jenny Pandos. Another reported having met a teen named Jenny Pandos at a woman's clinic in Virginia Beach, supposedly receiving an abortion. So was it possible that Jennifer and Tony got pregnant again and this was true?

In 1989, two years after Jennifer vanished. A man claimed to have met a sex worker named Jenny Pandos in Pennsylvania, who said she had been working in the industry for about a year. The man recalled her being covered in cuts and bruises as if she had been beaten up. But as the tips dwindled, so did the leads,

and her friends and family were left with what little information Jennifer, or the person who took her, left behind. And that's when her brother Stephen hatched a new theory, the involvement of their parents. Now, according to Stephen, quote, for the first 22 years of her disappearance, everything I've been told was a lie.

So based on inconsistencies in their stories and their odd behaviors in the days following Jennifer's departure, Steven began to suspect his own parents had something to do with Jennifer's disappearance. And this began to drive a wedge between him and his parents, or an even bigger wedge, and began a decades-long quest for answers and justice that is still ongoing today. Frustratingly, Jennifer's case wasn't looked at again until 2003, but more alarmingly, her case file had been lost. A few years later in 2006, the case was assigned to Sergeant Wendy Reed,

who took it upon herself to find answers for the family, whether or not Jennifer's parents were involved. In a renewed effort to seek answers for the family, Virginia State Police hired a criminal profiler to build out a description of the type of person who would commit a crime like this. Criminal profiler Kenneth Morris recalled of Jennifer's disappearance, quote, with this case here, of course, there was no crime scene.

I looked at the letter that was left in her bedroom, and by reading that, I was able to come up with a profile. There's intimate knowledge contained within that note. Doctors, appointments, bank accounts, things that only Jennifer, or someone who knows Jennifer, would be familiar with. It's pretty much, I'm leaving with a father figure, I'll come back, I'll contact you in a few days.

It's written to delay the investigation. It's not realistic. It's something you might see investigation. It's not realistic. It's something you might see in a Nancy Drew or Murder She Wrote. Kenneth called the note both juvenile and amateur, and guessed that it had been staged. He continued, quote, The leaving of a letter in a missing person's case is unusual. Typically, its only purpose is to explain the disappearance.

If the absence is by force, the message will be a demand for some type of ransom or action needed for the safe return of the victim. It is in my opinion that Jennifer had nothing to do with the creation of the letter. It's rare for a teenage girl to run away from home without previous warnings of her intentions. Awkward wording and the use of quotes highly suggest Jennifer's contribution was absent during the formation of the letter. There's no evidence to the claim of a devoted stranger.

No close friends were aware of this man, and the writing style suggests a distant, emotionally detached, loveless writer. The inclusion of personal information in the letter suggests the writer had an extremely close relationship to Jennifer. It can thereby be avert that the letter is an instrument created to facilitate a staged crime scene. Based on this premise, your most plausible offender It's an instrument created to facilitate a staged crime scene.

Based on this premise, your most plausible offender would be one or both of the parents. Well the lead investigator on this case, Wendy Reed, also brought in an expert in handwriting analysis and after scouring the note for any clues as to who in Jennifer's life may have penned it, the expert ruled out Ron and even ruled out Jennifer. The penmanship was so specific that she didn't believe Jennifer could have achieved that specific script even with her non-dominant hand, which would have been her right hand. However, the expert surmised based on samples that the note could have been written by Margie,

who again is Jennifer's mom. So with this, Steven began to suspect that Ron had killed her by accident in a fit of rage and that working quickly to cover their tracks, Margie had written the strange letter and concocted the story that Jennifer didn't desire to be found. And remember, the last thing that she did before she supposedly went to bed that night was talk to her friend Sharon on the phone. And what was the last thing that happened in their phone call? Her dad was screaming at her. She called her dad by his first name. Right, the big fight. Yeah, yeah, they had a huge argument. So it's definitely easy to picture that the fight

went wrong and that the mom, Margie, helped cover it up. Right. And we know that Ron was extremely abusive. So is it possible that he accidentally killed his daughter and then forced Margie to write this letter? Or else he was going to do something to Margie, who knows, or maybe they both were in on it. But I don't want to speculate too much on that, but yeah, in the letter, the fact that it has something to do with Father figure kind of is alarming to me and kind of piques my interest because of the fact that she called her dad Ron the night prior, and maybe he felt like he was extremely disrespected

by her, you know, not calling him dad. It is a weird thing to add in the note though, because if this person was a father figure, why would they say that? Like why would you want to clue anybody to who you are? Especially if you're taking such care as to use your non-dominant hand to write the letter, yet you're giving a clue about who you are. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, like I'm a father figure

Don't you think they're gonna go look at anybody in Jennifer's life that could be considered a father figure? Yeah, it is really strange So after all of this Steven hired a private investigator named Donnie Norell Who connected with one of the original detectives on the case, whose name is Jeff Vellines, and together Donnie and Jeff hatched the theory that perhaps Ron was able to procure the police file through his connections to the police department, rendering it as lost. Now, apparently Ron was friends with the chief of security for the Kingsmill Gated community in which they lived, and the security guard's wife worked for the police department, so that could be how things or how at least Ron was able to get a hold of that file.

But obviously, we do not know that for sure. Though the Pandoses had divorced and moved out of the townhome years prior, Wendy Reed led an investigation of the grounds of their town home, including the deck, which Jennifer's room led on to, and which would have provided a convenient shelter for a fresh grave if Jennifer hadn't made it out of her home alive on the night that she vanished. In addition to the efforts of the police officers, Wendy also employed cadaver dogs specifically to search

the deck area. Now the dogs did indicate to the area underneath the patio, but they were not able to locate any remains. In a relentless effort to find answers for Jennifer, Wendy also requested that both Margie and Ron submit a polygraph test. Though they both agreed to take them, they both failed the examination. In Margie's words, she quote, failed miserably. In March of 2007, Wendy phoned Margie multiple times to talk about developments in Jennifer's case, but Wendy noted that instead of calling back after receiving seven missed calls from her, Margie instead emailed her former husband, saying that she had just received a call from

Wendy Reed and that she wanted to speak with him before she called back. That's so weird. I mean, you would think, and everybody's experience is different, but speaking from my own kind of experience, my mom's sister went missing, which a lot of you guys know, but talking to my mom and grandma about it, any time they got a call from a detective, they spoke to them right away because you never know what they're going to say, what they're going to ask. You want to be helpful because if you help them, they might be able to help you. Yeah, and answers could be coming with that next phone call, you just never know.

But also seven phone calls, and then to not answer, to not call back, but then email Ron and say, hey, I wanna talk to you first. Is it cause you're in cahoots? Yeah, kinda seems like it. Well, Ron responded by asking her what she thought was going on,

and if she was okay, which Wendy found exceedingly suspicious. She couldn't fathom why the parents of a missing person were impeding the investigation to locate their missing daughter. The Pandos has also moved away from Williamsburg following their divorce, and took years to call the police station and give out their new information so that they could be tracked down if there were any advancements made in Jennifer's case. It's like, why are you moving away and then you're not staying in contact with the only

people that can help you find your daughter? Do you even care? So all of this strange behavior following the disappearance seemed to point to the parents, but maybe it wasn't that simple. It is still possible that Jennifer left of her own accord or maybe took her own life. But if those were the case, why would she leave that note? And who wrote it for her?

You know, like I think in this case, knowing what a tumultuous home she lived in, it's easy to think, oh, maybe she ran away from home so that she could get away from the abuse, right? Especially because her brother had moved out and maybe she wanted to do that too. But I can't see her doing that and at least not telling her brother, Stephen.

Like her brother, Stephen, hired a private investigator. He did all these things. He wouldn't do that if he knew that Jennifer was out there somewhere alive. And you would also imagine that at least after she became a legal adult, she would have told the police department or her parents that she did run away like to go away forever, doesn't make any sense to me, especially with this weird note. And actually more on Steven's kind of search for Jennifer. So in 2023, so last year, HBO produced a four-part documentary series on Jennifer's disappearance

called Burden of Proof, which followed Steven on his quest for justice for his younger sister. The documentary chronicles seven years of research and investigation, and heavily features both Wendy and Steven who have been leading the crusade for information. Initially, Steven was brutally honest with the filmmakers that he blamed his parents for Jennifer's disappearance and likely death. He hadn't spoken to either of them in years,

even keeping his children from them based on the assumption that they were to blame. But the renewed efforts in the investigation due to the documentary revealed two explosive new theories. Stephen and Wendy's investigative efforts tracked down a lead that was never followed up on. One of Tony Tobler's friends who claimed Tony had killed Jennifer. In recent years, Tony's childhood friend Charlie May

served a sentence for an assault charge in Florida, and since then, was homeless and a bit of a vagrant. Charlie claimed that Tony confessed to the crime back in 1987, claiming that he had killed Jennifer and then left her to dissolve in a vat of acid. By the way, 1987 is the year after Jennifer went missing. So why Charlie hadn't come forward with this apparent information sooner is a mystery.

But based on his criminal history, he seems like a super unreliable source. And Steven and Wendy even questioned whether or not Charlie himself was involved. The reason we mentioned all of Tony's letters earlier and kind of harped on them is because Tony's handwriting was also measured against the handwriting left on the note by a handwriting expert and tested for his DNA. But both tests were inconclusive.

Charlie's DNA comparison proved inconclusive as well, and Tony participated in the documentary himself as did Corey, to whom he's actually now married to. When questioned about his involvement in Jennifer's disappearance, Tony responded, quote, Did I think that other people thought that I had something to do with it? Not until years later talking to a police officer. And my response was, I think I was 16 years old, okay? What would I have to do with it? He also mused, quote, how long do y'all think that her and I dated?

Because it wasn't long. It wasn't like years or nothing. Both Margie and Ron believed that Tony was involved, though they couldn't explain why. Interesting. Yeah, very interesting. I think he's kind of an easy one to suspect at first, maybe, because it may be you think, oh, she ran away with Tony because they were kind of barred from being together

and he had gotten her pregnant and the parents didn't want them to be together at all. So it does make sense to you. You could think that and, of course. You know, he was cheating on her and going back and forth with Corrie and Jennifer. Right, and then like you had mentioned earlier in that one letter, he kind of seemed to threaten her like, if you're with another dude, I'm gonna kill you and him. So, you know, it's easy to kind of think of him as doing it,

but if there's no evidence of him coming in or going out of the community, and again, why would he kill her? Like he wanted to be with her, even though their relationship wasn't very serious and he was seeing somebody else seeing another girl again, who he ended up marrying. So why would, what would be his reason for killing Jennifer? Yeah,

I don't think that there would really be a motive there unless possibly he had gotten her pregnant again when he was now with Corey and wanted to basically cover that situation up. Who knows, but also I really do want to go back to this gated community and talk about it for a minute, so let's do that. So first of all, Daphne, you said that you used to live in a gated community as well, and that eventually they would get to know people who were coming in and out, but if it was someone that they had never seen before, you had to stop at the gate, let them know who you are.

So wouldn't they have a list of people who went in and out of that gate on that night? Yeah, I don't know what it was like to live in a gated community in the 80s, but in the 90s and early 2000s. So I don't know. I just remember that they would get to know you. I mean, I was a. So I don't know. I feel like I just remember that, you know, they would get to know you. I mean, I didn't, I was a kid. I didn't drive. So like, for example, I'm driving in the car with my mom or my dad and we come up to the gate and the security guard looks at us and waves and opens the gate because he knows us because we live

there. But if you don't know somebody, then you drive up to the gate and the gate is closed and you can't get through it unless the security guard opens it., then you drive up to the gate and the gate is closed and you can't get through it unless the security guard opens it. So then you would say, I'm going to this house. If you're not on the list, then they have to call the house and say, do you, you know, do you agree to let this person into your, into the community, into your home? So they, they would have to do that unless you were on an approved list, but then there would be evidence of that too. So also, yes, you can get in and out by foot technically, right? It is a gated community. It's not a prison, but

that just doesn't seem like a plausible way to enter or exit, which is why if the parents are involved, it would make more sense if they buried her somewhere on the property, but they didn't find her remains, though the cadaver dog did alert to an area. Yeah right, or it's possible that if the parents were involved they could have possibly put her in the trunk of the car and got out of the gated community very easily and then dumped her body elsewhere, but- And they don't record who leaves, it's just like anybody's allowed to leave, right? You don't have to talk to the guy to go.

So if they did leave and then they came back in, if you did drive back in though, they would need the security guard would need to see your face to know if you A live there or B are a visitor and so that would have been logged and I wish we had that information of if that happened with the parents or what the security guard has to say, but again, this dude was friends with the family like we mentioned earlier. Yeah, and there just seems to be such a lack of information regarding this security guard and that night who came and went from the community, it's just, you know, it's hard not knowing who entered and who left that gated community that night. It's a really important piece of this story that is just not available.

Well back to the letter, so thankfully Jennifer's original note survived being lost with the rest of the case file. Four different Y chromosomes were recovered from the note, which would have had to have belonged to a male, but because it had been so mishandled in the years following Jennifer's disappearance, DNA and fingerprint tests were inconclusive. Revisiting the note, the handwriting expert hired to work for the documentary stated that she doesn't actually believe that Margie could have written it, and Steven was forced to question beliefs that he had maintained for almost four decades. But let's get into another kind of strange theory here, so another suspect offered by

the documentary was Cary Hendricks, a local father who Jennifer used to babysit for. Jennifer's friends recall how inappropriate he was with her, openly hitting on her and the other young women who worked for him, as well as purchasing alcohol for them. But get this, it gets even stranger, so Carrie also had a history of violence against women, including kidnapping and attempted rape. Carrie's involvement would certainly explain the father figure portion of Jennifer's note. Again though, why would you admit that? Yeah, right. But a lack of evidence kept him from being connected to the case.

In 2019, a grand jury heard evidence about the disappearance of Jennifer Pandos. Charlie May and Tony Tobler were both in attendance, but again, a lack of evidence kept any convictions or public information at bay. So Margie and Ron divorced in the 1990s and Ron moved to Texas and remarried. He was actually caught embezzling funds in excess of $54,000 and sentenced to three years in prison of which he served one.

He remarried a third time and now resides in Oklahoma. Margie now lives in Charlotte near where Steven lives and Steven continues to fight for justice for his sister saying quote, in the absence of justice for Jennifer, closure is me being comfortable with knowing that I've done my very best for her. The case file was eventually located, but has brought no answers for Jennifer. Wendy Reed is now retired, but still maintains a website and a Facebook page for updates on Jennifer's case. Jennifer Lynn Pandos is described as weighing about 100 pounds and standing at 5 feet 2 inches tall.

She had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a mole on her left shoulder. If you have any information on her case, please call the James City County Police Department at 757-253-1800. zero. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into.

This is a tough case because of you know Some of the pertinent information not being public information at this time since it's an unsolved case But it's so hard because I also hate suspecting parents in any case because Everybody acts differently under stress and grief and it's hard to know whether or not they were involved based on the information that we have But I think it's a little easier for me to kind of suspect them because of the abuse in the household, so it's kind of like, fuck you anyway. I was going to say that. Ron didn't seem like a very good father.

I mean, he beat his wife, he beat his kids. Yeah, absolutely. So, but I still do kind of feel like that theory makes the most sense to me, but I'd love to hear what everybody else thinks. So go follow us on our socials and comment on our posts with whatever your theories are, your thoughts. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West Pod, and we're also on Facebook.

All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you for watching!