(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(SCOOTER ENGINE RUMBLING)
♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JEFF SEIBERT: She had the scooter.
She was kind of, you know,
"I'm gonna do what I wanna do when I wanna do it."
A young teen girl on a scooter was uncommon,
but it's this great image of she's just breezing around
this neighborhood that she lived in.
That was her kind of spirit. Like, "I'm gonna go
where I wanna go."
TONY TOBLER: A scooter? Like a moped?
I know a lot of kids in that neighborhood did have those.
But I don't remember her having one.
CORI TOBLER: I don't remember a scooter.
SHARON ROSE STEWARD: From what I remember, she was a fun, outgoing girl.
She knew things about music and makeup
and her heels and with her hair done.
She was very much a girly girl.
MARGIE PANDOS: She was not a girly girl,
not one to sit and play with dolls.
Rocks, and tadpoles, and shells, and sand, she enjoyed.
And she liked blue jeans and the high-top Reeboks.
Rugby shirts, she loved those.
She was never really an affectionate child.
JEFF: I guess empathetic is the right word.
KERRIE CAMPBELL: She's always nice to people who didn't fit in.
SHARON: I always thought she was spoiled rotten.
JEFF: Kind of quiet.
-TONY: She was outgoing and carefree. -CORI: She was just needy.
MARGIE: Her disposition was like most 15-year-olds,
but her highs were higher, and her lows were lower.
RON PANDOS: She was just a typical teenager.
♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC FADES) ♪
STEPHEN PANDOS: Okay, this is Jennifer's note.
So this is a photocopy of the note that was left
when my sister disappeared.
Jennifer was reported missing in February of 1987.
I was in college in North Carolina,
and for the first 22 years of her disappearance,
you know, uh, everything I've been told,
you know, was... was a lie.
How I got all this information was for years of trying to do
the right thing by Jennifer.
In 2014, I reached out to an attorney in Williamsburg
about whether I could sue my parents, uh...
for the death of my sister.
Um, and it was not... not about money.
I don't want money, or, you know, anything.
I just wanted, you know, a judge to say, uh,
"You're responsible and... and you did it."
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
MARGIE: It was February, it was cold.
Stephen was away at school.
You know, it was getting on towards bedtime.
Jenny.
MARGIE: I asked Jennifer, "Will you call your grandmother?"
Will you call your grandmother?
MARGIE: "And pick up your room."
And pick up your room?
JENNIFER PANDOS, ACTOR: Okay, I will after homework.
MARGIE: She was most agreeable.
She had her bed and there was a chest of drawers.
There was a big wicker rocking chair.
A dressing table,
which had been a family heirloom.
For the most part, she was orderly.
You know, I could see her right now.
In her room, at the end of her bed.
In the panda night shirt.
JENNIFER, ACTOR: I did, yeah.
It was after fourth period, before gym.
Mm-hmm, okay. So, I was thinking
I'm gonna put a note in his locker.
Because I have to tell him.
(BIRDS CALLING)
MARGIE: That morning, I went downstairs,
not hearing her shower,
and realizing, "Hmm, she could have overslept."
Jenny. Jennifer Lynn.
MARGIE: And her door was locked.
Jennifer, unlock this door.
MARGIE: And you know, here I am twisting the door
and pushing on it and pulling on it,
and calling her name, and not getting anything,
and calling for Ron, who's upstairs.
Jennifer Lynn, open this-- Ron!
God! What? Jesus Christ.
MARGIE: And getting him to come downstairs,
and we finally get something to push the lock open and...
-(GRUNTS) -MARGIE, ACTOR: Jenny.
MARGIE: She's not there.
Her coat was gone, her handbag was gone.
Her contact lens were there, her retainer was there.
And finding that note at the end of her bed.
It could have been on the bed
it could have been on the cedar chest,
at the foot of her bed.
But finding it there,
that's...
where my world ended.
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
MARGIE: When Jennifer disappeared,
we were living in a townhome
backed up to, just a little finger,
of what they call Kingsmill Pond.
Kingsmill was a gated community.
Somebody that would have picked her up
would've had to have come through the gate.
If she were on her own,
and could have gotten to Highway 60,
she could have been picked up at the convenience store, or,
you know, that's the road to the brewery.
There were probably trucks running 24/7.
Anything is possible.
Ron filed the report with the police
that she was missing.
They did what you'd call a 'Missing Person Report.'
I guess it just went cold with them.
I think they just thought she was a runaway,
and she would eventually show up at a friend's house,
or a grandparent, or show back up at home.
To me, there was nothing much ever done.
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
MARGIE: Ron and I would sit...
at night on the stairs looking out the window
into the driveway and the parking lot
of the condo complex.
Just watch for cars.
It was days and nights sitting by the phone.
Just... sitting and waiting,
and I'm still sitting and waiting.
(WIND HOWLING FAINTLY)
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (POP SONG PLAYING OVER CAR RADIO) ♪
(CAR DOOR OPENING)
(NEWS ANCHOR SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY ON TV)
PUNDIT: (ON TV) Yeah, no. And I'd say there's a big difference
between Trump going into election day
in the mid-forties versus the low forties...
(CELL PHONE RINGING)
STEPHEN: Sharon, this is Stephen Pandos,
I'm Jennifer's brother.
I'm trying to get to Williamsburg,
here in the next few weeks, and would like to meet you.
Thanks very much.
Sharon was the... the girl who was on the phone
with my sister the night she disappeared.
It's so weird saying that.
Saying, "This is Stephen. This is Jennifer's brother."
I don't...
I don't ever...
have reason to say that really.
(CAR ENGINE STARTING, RUMBLING)
STEPHEN: I've been at this now for almost ten years,
trying to figure out the truth and what happened to Jennifer.
STEPHEN: I went to college in the fall of '86.
Jennifer disappeared in February of '87.
And what I remember is getting a call from my mother
and her asking me if I had seen Jennifer.
She thought that she'd run away,
and for whatever reason, she may stop and see me,
however she was getting around.
My mother was not hysterical or frantic.
It was very matter-of-fact. I remember asking questions,
and not getting especially good answers.
And when you tried to talk about it with my mother,
she would just kind of shut it down.
-SHARON: Hi. -Hi.
-Stephen. -STEPHEN: Yeah, Sharon.
-Nice to see you. -Good to see you. You too.
-STEPHEN: You too. -Come on in.
I believe I found-- This must have been...
We were on our off time. (LAUGHS)
-STEPHEN: Yeah. (CHUCKLES) -Look.
But then we made up because she was like...
BOTH: "Thanks a lot, Sharon."
She had a good sense of humor about it.
SHARON: She did.
"Sharon, thanks for what you did to my picture.
You've been a great friend.
And even though we've had our ups and downs,
we've pulled it through. Gotta cruise.
Love you, Jenn Pandos."
Yeah, that's Jennifer, right?
-(LAUGHS) -STEPHEN: Yeah.
And then in high school, you were on the phone
that night, that, you know, when whatever happened.
And... can you tell me a little bit more about,
you know, that conversation?
-We-- -STEPHEN: What you remember?
-We were talking... -STEPHEN: Right.
...and your dad had opened the door,
I could-- I knew he had opened the door. And it was,
-"Get off the phone." -STEPHEN: Right. Yeah.
And she was like, "Okay, Dad."
-STEPHEN: Right. -And he's like--
Second time he came in. It was the second or third time,
and it was like, "Get off the effing phone,"
or the "GD phone." I mean, it was--
And it was a tone I'd never heard your dad use before.
Right.
SHARON: It was the way he yelled.
-It can be intense. I mean-- -It was intense.
-And like, "Okay, Ronald!" -STEPHEN: Right.
Or "Just a minute, Ronald." Or some--
I remember, she called him Ronald.
-STEPHEN: Oh, right. And that just-- -And I'm like, "Oh, my God..."
-STEPHEN: Yeah. -"...he's going to kill you."
-STEPHEN: Right. -SHARON: That had to have been
between, like, nine and ten o'clock.
So we hung up the phone, "I'll see you tomorrow."
And the next day. I waited for her...
-STEPHEN: Right. -...and she didn't show.
-So I called your house. -STEPHEN: Right.
And your mom told me she was sick.
-Right -SHARON: Okay.
Again, the second day...
-STEPHEN: Yeah. -...the same thing,
I waited for her.
She didn't show, I called the house.
And I think your mom had said, she was out with your dad.
-Right. -And then it was the third day,
your mom came to our house.
And, um, I remember, I was in the kitchen.
And my mom had answered the door,
-and I heard your mom's voice. -STEPHEN: Right.
And I came around,
and I was like, "Oh, my God, what happened to Jennifer?"
-Like, "Where's Jennifer?" -STEPHEN: Mm-hmm. Right.
And your mom was like, "We don't know."
She ran away. I'm like, "What?"
You know, "Have you heard from her?"
"No, we hadn't heard from her."
It wasn't the, you know, the frantic mom, like,
"Oh, my kid's missing, what am I gonna do?"
-Mm, no. No. -Right? Right.
I mean, Stephen, she came in our--
she came in the door.
She kind of stood in the foyer.
-Right. -She never took her coat off.
I think I thought at first she had run away.
-STEPHEN: Right. -And she that didn't tell me,
and it's like, "Who is this person?"
-Like we share everything. -She doesn't--
-(SHARON CHUCKLES) -Right, yeah.
Exactly. You shared everything. How would you--
How would you not know that she was having,
you know, such problems
that she would've felt like she would need to run away?
-Right. -She didn't take anything.
There was nothing missing from her room.
That's what I always said, like,
she would have never left with no clothes. (LAUGHS)
I believe with, you know, all that I am
that my father is responsible.
My mom had said that was one of the first things
I had said though. "Her dad did something."
I'm like, "I said that?" She was like,
"Yeah, you said that.
'Her dad did something to her.'"
(WIND HOWLING FAINTLY)
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RON, ACTOR: Baby, listen, it's after 10:00.
-JENNIFER, ACTOR: I know, -And you know the rules?
There's no calls after 10:00, please get off the phone.
No. No, no. No, no.
That doesn't mean start a whole new conversation.
Okay, okay. Just give me a second to say goodbye.
What part of "get off the goddamn phone"
don't you understand?
Fine, Ronald. I'll get off the goddamn phone.
Sharon, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
INTERVIEWER: Can you talk about the dynamics
in your household?
Yeah, my father was the heavy. Yeah, for sure.
What I remember is just always walking on eggshells.
My parents divorced in the mid to late '90s.
My father sold his accounting practice,
and moved to Texas.
I don't have a relationship with my father now clearly,
and didn't really before. He scares me.
And Jennifer and I, dealt with my father
very differently.
Where she would fight back. I was just,
"Give it to me and let me get out of here."
We were three and a half, four years apart,
in really different orbits. I was rarely at home.
I was always at the golf course, or always with friends.
And Jennifer was spending weekends away from the house.
And I think it was a survival technique.
Because being at home just didn't feel safe.
My mother never protected my sister
or me from my father, ever.
When my father would get angry and violent,
my mother, she stayed away.
MARGIE: That looks like a school picture for Stephen,
but that's probably just a JCPenney snapshot,
or something of her.
Stephen has made it his mission to convict his father.
And that's fine if Ron did it.
But because I can't say that Ron did it.
He basically told me,
he never wanted to speak to me again.
I don't have a relationship with my grandchildren
because of this.
Believe me, if I had the answers I'd give them to him.
But I don't.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC FADES) ♪
INTERVIEWER:
I think that the, um... the police department
doesn't wanna put any more resources
into this.
They think it might be like a deathbed confession,
you know, kind of thing.
I-- I don't understand why...
why there's not more effort put into finishing something
that they seem to be so close on.
WENDI REED: My name is Sergeant Wendi Reed,
I'm with the James City County Police Department,
and I was assigned this case in 2006
when I became an investigator.
I was working on patrol.
In one of our hallways was a bulletin board,
and on that was a missing person flyer
for Jennifer Pandos.
She had disappeared
and had never been seen or heard from since.
That kind of sparked my interest.
♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: When I got the case,
not much had been done on it for probably about 18 years,
because the case file
had gone missing from the police department.
And there had been no contact with Margie or Ron Pandos.
Because we didn't have that original case file.
We had no idea
when the family reported the crime,
who was listed as suspects or who was interviewed.
So starting from scratch
was my only option at that point.
I started out just trying to find out about Jennifer
through her friends.
People's past behavior is usually a good indication
of what they're gonna do in the future.
So knowing a lot about Jennifer and how she was as a person
could lead us to what happened to her.
I'm Cori Tobler.
And I'm her husband, Tony Tobler.
INTERVIEWER:
I knew her from elementary school.
She would come and spend the night at our house with us.
And I met her I think
just coming to a new school, meeting people.
INTERVIEWER:
Yes.
INTERVIEWER:
Started dating, dated for a couple months.
A group of us were friends, so it just happened.
I think whatever happened with her was February,
and her and I stopped dating the summer before that.
-Very high school. (LAUGHS) -Yeah.
Yeah. Very, very high school.
CORI: She had no fear.
I don't feel like she ever had fear.
Like I just thought she left with somebody.
TONY: Yeah, like, just ran away.
She is that person who-- "Oh, I could pull that off."
Like, you know, I just-- "Wow, she really did pull it off."
WENDI: As I was investigating this case,
I got in contact with Cori Tobler.
She had spoken about a Kerry Hendrix
that was an older man that Jennifer had babysat for.
He would provide them with alcohol.
He would buy us, um, alcohol if we wanted it.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think about that situation?
Then? No, I thought it was awesome. It was cool.
You know, somebody was letting us do
what we wanted or whatever.
-But now? -Yeah. Now you're older
-and you have your own kids... -Yeah, I wouldn't do that.
I wouldn't want my daughter
babysitting for somebody like him either, so...
WENDI: I ran a criminal history
and found that he had numerous convictions for crimes
that were fairly violent towards women.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WENDI: In March of 1990,
he was charged with attempt to commit rape.
He was also charged with felony kidnapping.
He would be a very good suspect to look into.
INTERVIEWER:
I was not able to locate Kerry Hendrix
when I had the case in order to speak with him in person.
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
WENDI: When we're investigating cases,
we have to keep an open mind to everything.
I interviewed Margie at her home.
Margie advised me that she believed
that Tony Tobler had something to do
with her daughter's disappearance.
When I asked her why, she said that,
she wasn't really sure,
he had been involved in martial arts,
but she had never seen him
be violent towards Jennifer at all.
If you become closed-minded
and believe this is strictly a runaway,
you've failed to see things that are right in front of you.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC FADES) ♪
WENDI: Now, this is the note. On March 10th, 2007,
I had gone down to Charlotte to speak with Margie Pandos,
we had her fill out a questionnaire,
and one of the questions stated something to the effect of...
"Are you hiding anything
that is pertinent to this investigation?"
And she got to that question, and had her pen on the paper
and she sat there for a little bit
and then looked up at me and said,
"Well, I have the note if you want it."
I was like, "Yeah."
That was the first opportunity I ever had to really see
what was said in the note.
The handwriting was very messy.
It appeared as if someone wrote it
with their non-dominant hand.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEPHEN: "Mr. and Mrs. Pandos, your daughter is with me.
She is fine. She is 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 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.'"
And that's the end of it.
During that conversation,
Margie advised me that
the last time Jennifer had been seen
was February 9th of 1987.
She and Ron waited until Friday, February 13th,
to call the police department to report Jennifer missing.
We really don't know
what happened in those three days.
Ron has told us that he hung up flyers
at her school and talked to her friends,
but I have yet to find a friend that has said
that they saw any fliers
or that they talked to him at all.
At one point, Ron said he went up to Pennsylvania
to tell Jennifer's grandmother that she had run away.
At some point, they say they both stayed home.
At other points, they say they both went to work.
When I asked Margie why she did that,
she told me that the note said she needed to go to work,
so that's what she did.
I then asked her about the statement
in the note about putting the money they owe Jennifer
into a bank account.
And she couldn't give me a reason
why they went to work like the note said,
but didn't put any money into Jennifer's account,
like the note instructed them to do.
With all the conflicting stories,
our suspicions started to move towards
Ron and Margie Pandos knowing more about this case
than what they were disclosing to us.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC FADES) ♪
I am Karen Lichtin, and I am Stephen's girlfriend.
S-- You know, life partner.
Whatever you wanna call it.
INTERVIEWER:
Uh, four years, a little over four years.
We met through a mutual friend and went out. And then,
I think maybe a week later went on a second date.
And on that date was sort of when he told me everything.
When you're older and dating, you know, you just--
You don't play games. You just sort of
lay it all out there on the table.
So we both sort of aired the... the issues in our life.
Stephen's previous marriage was not a great one.
But he had two amazing daughters.
He adores them. There's nothing he wouldn't do for them.
And I'm sure it crosses his mind.
They're around the same age as his sister was
when she disappeared.
He has this horrible thing he's dealing with.
I try and understand it.
I don't know if I can fully explain it
'cause I'm not in that head of his,
which sometimes I wish I was, but I'll say,
"You know, it's not really your responsibility
to solve this case," but he's doing the best he can.
DONNIE NORRELL: I think this is a very solvable case.
I retired from Norfolk Police Department
in 2003.
-I was there 26 years. -Oh, wow.
And I did a little over ten years in homicide.
BRUCE WHITE: And I was in homicide for eight years,
and I've worked a lot of cold cases, and a lot of stuff.
There are a couple of things
-that I have to ask you. -STEPHEN: Sure.
BRUCE: Just to get it on the record here.
-STEPHEN: Yeah. -Did you kill your sister?
No.
Do you know who killed your sister?
STEPHEN: I believe that my father did.
Tell us a little bit about your father.
He suffers from post traumatic stress disorder from Vietnam.
Very, very short-tempered, can be violent.
-BRUCE: Did he ever spank you? -Or worse, yeah.
What do you mean, "Or worse"?
Uh, hit, kick, choked.
BRUCE: What would fire your father up the most?
STEPHEN: In that situation with my sister
probably that night, just being disrespectful.
And if she had smarted off at him,
you know, if he's--
It's February, you know, and he's an accountant
in tax season,
he'd probably been working 120 hours a week.
Why are you so consumed about this?
STEPHEN: Because it's only right.
And Jennifer, she deserves better.
This is getting to the point where it's gonna come down
-to probably someone talking or admitting to something. -Right.
Would your mom be open to an interview?
I bet she would.
I can tell you this, there are a couple suspects
outside of the family.
-Hmm. -Okay? The boyfriend,
and then there was a guy that she babysitted for,
I think his name was Hendrix or something.
-Yeah. -And that guy had a bad record.
In fact, he got arrested for some abductions
-and some stuff later on. -Right.
The thing that I can't get over is the note.
Who is this mystery man that wrote the letter.
None of her friends know anything about this man
that's "like a daddy to me."
-But nobody knows, not even her best friends know. -STEPHEN: Right.
And then for the handwriting to be disguised.
And the personal information...
Look, you're running away from home, okay?
STEPHEN: Right. And you don't take anything.
-Who gives a crap about some money going... -That's right.
...in your account or cancelling your doctor's appointments?
I mean, if something doesn't smell right
-it's not right. -STEPHEN: Right. That's right.
-You know? -BRUCE: It's gotta make sense.
It's gotta make sense.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
YOUNG MARGIE: "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Pandos..."
"Your daughter is with me. She's fine.
She's having some problems, though.
She needs some time away from this place."
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC FADES) ♪
INTERVIEWER:
I've never, physically...
seen...
But it's just weird how, you know, it starts off,
"Mr. and Mrs. Pandos," and then there's quotes.
STEPHEN: If Jennifer wrote it,
why would she dictate this
-to someone else to... -Right.
...to write it?
But it's also like, the way I see this.
There's like a lot of scratching out.
STEPHEN: Right, you're trying to come up
with a story on the fly.
-Yeah, or you're like-- -At the end of something,
whatever horrible just happened.
And you're trying to piece this together.
The premise that an adult is gonna go into someone's home
in the middle of the night, and help someone run away
in Kingsmill, of all places.
You know?
♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It's crazy.
This was the main thing for me. This note.
My name is Kenneth Morris, and I was called in
as a criminal profiler with the Virginia State Police.
Well, as a profiler, what I do is go to a crime scene,
and then tell investigators
what type of personality committed that offense.
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.
Doctor's 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 in a Nancy Drew
or Murder, She Wrote.
STEPHEN: When I spoke to Ken Morris,
he said that was one of the most ridiculous things
he's ever seen in law enforcement,
and that it was consistent with staging,
which I totally believe.
Yeah, I better put my glasses on.
"The leaving of a note
in a missing person 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."
-♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -"Mr. and Mrs. Pandos,
your daughter is with me, she is fine."
KENNETH MORRIS: "It is my opinion
that Jennifer had nothing to do with the creation of the letter.
It is 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 averred that the letter
is 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."
WENDI: In August of 2007,
we sent the note for handwriting analysis.
Jennifer, Ron,
and another individual were ruled out.
Margie, the mom, was not eliminated
as being the producer of that handwriting.
KAREN LICHTIN: What are your thoughts
on what makes the most sense out of all this?
(HESITATES) I think that my father...
basically threatened my mother.
-And made her write it. -And made her write it.
As an investigator, I just feel that this right here
is the key to the whole case. And that this note
is what's gonna lead to this case being solved.
Even in suicide notes, like, if I was to commit suicide,
and I left a note here,
the police would come in, take the note,
stick it in plastic,
where they could protect any fingerprints.
They would make a copy of the note,
and put a copy in the file,
and the original note would be put in evidence.
♪ (INTRIGUING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
INTERVIEWER: What was going through your mind
when Margie produced that note?
I couldn't believe it.
I didn't think this note existed anymore.
The former investigator that worked this case said,
that the original note was in the original case file
and that he had never given that back to the Pandos family.
There was no logical reason why Margie should have had it.
So when she gave it to me, I was kind of floored by that.
DONNIE: So one of the mysteries of this case is,
the missing case file.
And in 2006,
there were two detectives assigned to the cold case.
And that was investigator Wendi Reed
and Sergeant Jeff Vellines.
So, I guess Jeff contacts Margie,
and Margie has somehow located a set of dental records,
which were supposedly turned over,
according to the dentist, to James City Police.
So that's two items
that were initially in possession of the police.
And I got to believe that Jeff's thinking,
"What the hell's going on?
How the heck is this evidence getting from our files
to the family?"
-Hey, how you doing? -JEFF VELLINES: Hey, how are you?
-Good. Jeff? -Good.
Jeff, Jeff Vellines.
DONNIE: Hi, Jeff. Donnie Norrell.
Nice to meet you, Donnie. Come on in the house.
I understand that you picked this case up as a cold case.
You weren't the original investigator on it,
-right. -Right?
We started in the process of cold case investigations.
At that point, I needed the file and the file was missing.
DONNIE: Hmm.
VELLINES: And that gave me great concern.
There's no question in my mind, the file disappeared
from the police department.
But when Margie produced those X-rays and stuff...
-VELLINES: Right. -...you knew at that point--
Going in the back of my mind, I'm thinking,
"Okay, this is my probable cause that's kicking in."
Right. Right.
I placed a call to the Commonwealth Attorney's Office of Virginia.
Hmm. Here.
And I said, "I think I've got enough probable cause
to get a search warrant for her house,
because we're getting the dental records,
we're getting this, we're getting that,"
and I was denied.
What would you have been looking for?
I'd have been looking for the case file.
DONNIE: Okay.
And you believe she possessed the case file?
I believe she did.
Did you ever find the original file?
No.
-Well, thank you again. -Yes, sir.
-I appreciate it. -Thank you.
-Good meeting you. -You too.
-♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -VELLINES: I'll walk you out.
DONNIE: So talking to Sergeant Vellines,
both of us had a little bit of suspicion
that something nefarious may have happened to the file,
and his theory was
that Ron had been golf buddies or friends
with the chief of security at Kingsmill,
and that's where Ron lived at the time.
And the chief of security's wife was actually a secretary
for James City County Police Department.
They thought some arrangements had been made
between the three of them for her to obtain the file
and remove it from the police department,
so Ron could actually see what the police knew,
and what the police had in the file.
DONNIE: Mm-hmm.
DONNIE: Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC FADES) ♪
INTERVIEWER:
Nothing.
That I could tell from our end, you know?
Uh...
INTERVIEWER:
Well, the speculation is that Ron has it,
or did have it.
And I've never really known him to throw away anything.
So he probably still has it somewhere.
I've never come across it here.
INTERVIEWER:
Hmm. No, I don't.
Um...
There's, you know...
the speculation that he killed her.
Uh...
And if he did, I'm assuming that that's why
he wanted it to see if they were, you know...
looking at him as a suspect.
♪ (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (GENTLE MUSIC FADES) ♪
-Hey, Stephen, how are you? -Hey, Wendi. How are you?
-Good to see you. -Good, you too.
I was just asked a couple of weeks ago,
what your biggest professional regret has been,
and it's this case, 'cause it drives me crazy
that we haven't been able to bring it
to any kind of resolution.
My opinion is my father is responsible.
Two, I think my mother knows more than what she says.
I think the evidence definitely points in that direction.
And I think your mom's gonna be the key to it.
I mean, you know, she's gonna be the one who's gonna say what happened.
-She's the weak-- the weakest link. -WENDI: Mm-hmm.
Do you have any objection to me talking to her?
I don't, it's not my case.
Your mom would never contact me.
I can't recall her ever calling me,
or ever emailing me first.
-It was always me reaching out to her. -STEPHEN: Right.
Your dad, on the other hand, was always fishing
for what's going on with the case,
almost as if he was trying to insert himself
in the investigation.
So if you were back on the case now,
what would you do next?
Those woods behind the house, I'd explore a little more.
There's some overheads of the house.
DONNIE: This is water.
STEPHEN: Yeah, this is the mill pond.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
INTERVIEWER: Where do you think she is?
MARGIE: I don't know. The police asked me that.
And I told them, "In the river,
in the pond or on the railroad track."
And...
I don't know who put her there.
DONNIE: Your mother, she names three places.
She said something about some railroad tracks.
And I think that's another time where she's almost coming out
and saying where they took the body.
Are you okay with the fact that your mother could be
just as involved in this as your father?
No, I'm not okay.
You just-- Do you wanna know the truth?
I wanna know the truth.
And I don't believe that my mother...
I think my mother knows what happened.
And I think my father scared her,
and threatened her to keep this a secret,
and it was a bad decision
that has snowballed into a catastrophe.
So when was the last time you talked to your mother?
Probably at my grandmother's funeral
some years ago.
-DONNIE: And you live... -Twenty minutes from her.
...20 minutes from her.
Have you had any phone conversation at all?
-Has she seen your kids? -Mm-mm. Not since the funeral.
I just, you know, I--
If-- I can't go along with this charade.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEPHEN: After my sister disappeared,
I would ask questions from time to time.
I remember asking my mother far more than my father.
Just getting a "We don't have an update"
kind of an answer.
That changed, Christmas Day, 2008.
I walked into my mother's house,
and I knew that she would ask me if I called my father
because we only spoke three times a year,
birthday, Father's Day, Christmas.
My parents were long divorced by then.
And then she said to me,
"I don't mean to ruin your Christmas,
but your father's a convicted felon in jail,
and got remarried two years ago."
Needless to say, I was-- I didn't know any of that.
WENDI: In 2008, Ron Pandos was in jail in Oklahoma.
He had opened six bank accounts for NFL players,
and embezzled over 54,000 dollars.
He had pled guilty,
and then violated his probation by possessing firearms.
STEPHEN: And it wasn't too long after that,
that Wendi Reed came and asked my mother
some questions about Jennifer, and my mother asked me
if I would be there. And I said, "Sure."
And then Wendi asked my mother to take a polygraph,
and that was the first really weird moment
that registered with me.
When Wendi asked, my mother glanced,
to the left as she was thinking
about whatever she was thinking about,
and I answered for her. I was like, "Yeah,
of course she'll take a polygraph."
-(BIRDS CHIRPING) -(DOGS BARKING)
WENDI: At this stage of the investigation,
we were given permission to bring in cadaver dogs
that could detect human decomposition.
Initially, they went around the outside of the residence,
and showed interest under the house into the crawlspace.
We dug several holes,
we were unable to find any human remains.
According to the K9 handlers, that indicated the possibility
that a body had been there, but not buried there.
After that, the Secret Service conducted
a polygraph examination on Margie.
I proceeded to take the lie detector,
and fail it miserably.
One-hundred percent...
failure.
Which further convinced him that I was protecting Ron.
I couldn't believe it. How did she fail the polygraph?
I dug into it,
learning that when my parents moved
from Williamsburg, they didn't call
and update contact information with the police department
for like two and a half years.
How do you do that?
After that, I said, "This really could be reality
that my parents are involved in my sister's disappearance."
SUSAN DAVIS: All right.
-MILDRED 'MIMI' ROBERTS: Oh, you got eggs. -SUSAN: Another one.
Oh. Oh, my goodness, yes, I've got eggs.
MILDRED: I didn't know you had a thing
about eggs in your potato salad. Now, where did this come from?
I was 17 years old when it happened.
So all I know
is what I've really been told as an adult,
which was only probably in the last 15 years.
Because it's just something that was not talked about.
I got the call. She'd been gone a month is what I remember.
And very calmly, no hysteria, no panic.
"Jenny's gone. She's missing. Have you seen her?"
(VOICE BREAKING) Not a hysterical mother
out of her mind with worry.
-(CAR ENGINE RUMBLING) -♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEPHEN: After my mother failed her polygraph,
I called my mother's sisters,
so I could talk to all of them at the same time
and tell them everything that was going on.
And then my aunts came to Charlotte that weekend,
kind of like a family intervention.
And my mother didn't really have a good story about any of it.
MILDRED: After talking with Margie that night
at her house, and supposedly what went on,
and all she can say is,
"I excused myself from the situation."
And what are we to think? Did she hear what was going on?
The hypothetical fight.
It's like she knew too much.
And then we had Stephen come over the next day,
and that just ended up being-- in a screamfest.
And we really didn't get anywhere.
I knew there was strain on their side of the family.
I did see one incidence in-- It was 1996, Ron struck Margie.
And that was the first time I'd ever seen
any physical violence.
It's just hard to wrap your head around
the level of emotional abuse that Margie has been under
all of these years, that she would defend this man
over her daughter.
That's why I don't understand why she doesn't roll on Ronnie.
You know, if Jenny's gone, why not take him down?
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC FADES) ♪
(KNOCKING ON DOOR)
MELISSA MCMAHAN: So here you are.
Hey, there.
Hey. How are you?
Mm, I'm okay. I'm okay.
SUSAN: Are we ready to eat? Is everybody starved?
STEPHEN: It seems like all-- alls I remember is eating at the little kids table.
(ALL CHUCKLE)
MILDRED: The little kids table.
-Can we ask you? -STEPHEN: Mm-hmm.
What-- What do the girls know?
They don't know any of the details at all.
They know about Jennifer, that she's missing.
So they've asked why they don't see Grandmother?
STEPHEN: Yeah. And I've just told them
that I just have a disagreement with my mom.
After, you know, that one time we went to Charlotte
and had the big sit-down with your mom,
I still don't think we've ever all sat down,
and talked about it, any of it, ever again.
That did me in, that day, you know?
That was it for me. I knew right then and there.
Somebody had gone down. Something had happened.
Why can't she go after the guilty one? The one--
Why can't she go after the abusive husband, father?
MILDRED: That's what we don't understand.
Their relationship's over.
And-- And he's-- my father's been off and remarried twice since then.
I wish she would take the risk, right?
I mean, it's what she has to gain.
-Not what she has to lose. -What does she have to gain?
Peace. You know, the chance of a relationship
with her son and grandchildren?
MILDRED: Have you actually said those words to her?
That she could have...
MELISSA: What if you forgave her?
If that would be the peace, that would...
-There are no magic words. -There's gotta be a--
There's gotta be a-- There is though.
-No, no. -There's gonna be a ma--
We don't know what it is.
STEPHEN: There are no magic words.
MILDRED: People take this to their deathbed.
And I hate-- I really would hate that
that would be our situation,
that she would take this to her deathbed.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
INTERVIEWER: So Stephen, you have been at this
since like 2008.
Do you ever think about just moving on?
I feel like I have just, um,
have more resolve.
Like I want resolution one way or the other.
Even if, you know, if it's... a dead end and nothing...
nothing to follow up on.
Okay. Well, then get to that point.
'Cause I, you know... I haven't given up on Jennifer.
I would never give up on, you know,
heaven forbid something happened to either of my daughters.
I would-- You just don't-- You don't quit.
No matter what, you do not quit.
INTERVIEWER:
Yeah, I think I've-- For sure I've learned,
you know, more about Jennifer than...
than I knew.
And a lot of affirmations, right,
I always thought of, you know, Jennifer, as a...
you know, a fighter.
She was not gonna back down from anybody,
even our father and Sharon reaffirmed all that.
And it makes me sad for what I missed, right?
How would she have evolved?
What would have become, you know, of her.
You know, beyond a 15-year-old.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JENNIFER, ACTOR: "I can't erase the things I've done.
There is no place left to run.
Life is hard, but it goes on.
The times of the past are forever gone.
I can no longer sit and dwell. I have to leave my lonely shell.
Go on with my life. Start anew.
Live my days as if they were my last,
without looking back and forget the past."
STEPHEN: Pandos.
GUARD:
-STEPHEN: Huh? -CAMERAMAN: I'm just filming him.
STEPHEN: Just me.
-Okay, awesome. Thank you. -GUARD: There you are.
STEPHEN: This is the place that our parents lived
in Williamsburg.
I haven't been back here in a long, long time.
It was this last condo here on the end.
This is... strange.
-PAUL Fortin: Hi. -STEPHEN: Hi, there.
STEPHEN: I used to live here years ago.
-PAUL: -STEPHEN: Yeah.
Yeah. My parents rented it from you, probably.
-PAUL: They may have. -Yeah, Pandos.
I lived here in the--
My parents lived here in the mid to late '80s.
PAUL:
STEPHEN: That's right.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
STEPHEN: Yeah.
-PAUL: -Yeah. (CHUCKLES)
Yeah. No, no, I'm sorry.
-PAUL: Okay. -Oh.
It's okay. All right, thank you.
INTERVIEWER: I'm gonna see if he'll let us come inside the condo.
STEPHEN: Sort of being in here makes me think about,
you know, what happened that night.
I can hear it, you know, as Sharon described my father
yelling at my sister, "Get off the phone."
I can see him.
You know, I can just hear it.
-(WIND HOWLING FAINTLY) -♪ (EERIE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(STEPHEN GRUNTS) -(CAR DOOR OPENING)
♪ (EERIE MUSIC FADES) ♪
-STEPHEN: Hello. -PAUL: Hi.
-Hi, I'm Stephen Pandos. -PAUL: Stephen Pandos. Yeah.
Paul Fortin.
-STEPHEN: Mr. Fortin, nice to meet you. -Yeah.
-STEPHEN: Uh, thank you for... -Yeah, okay.
-...letting us in your home. -Okay.
This is like, the master bedroom
-over here. -STEPHEN: Correct. Mm-hmm.
PAUL: And I don't know y-- whether your sister was here.
Yeah, she-- Her bedroom was here.
PAUL: That's surprising. Where was the parents'?
Upstairs.
So the parents were not in the master bedroom.
-STEPHEN: That's right. Right. -Okay. Okay.
Well, then there's the room right there.
STEPHEN: The story goes that my parents came in.
Uh, Jennifer's bed was exactly there.
Um, and there was a cedar chest at the bottom of the bed,
where they found the note,
and none of Jennifer's things were missing.
All of her clothes were here. Everything. Yeah, this is it.
Yeah, when did the police come back?
Were you here when they had the cadaver dogs
and stuff over here?
Uh, I was unaware
that this incident ever occurred at all.
They brought the cadaver dogs in and I said,
"Geez, after 17 years
what the hell are they gonna find?"
-STEPHEN: Right. -They said, "Don't worry.
They can find ancient bones." You know?
And they really never got a hit.
-Yeah. -The only place they got a hit
was in the living room where I keep candy, in a drawer.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
And they wanted to do the outside
and underneath the house.
Yeah, the cadaver dogs that were here, you know,
underneath the house where they all had positive hits
in the same place, and you know, this was it.
Uh...
It's strange being in here.
God, the leaves are really falling down
-like crazy now. -STEPHEN: Yeah.
Oh, it was windy, yeah.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEPHEN: My father would've brought Jennifer's body in here
and the dogs got hits close up to the front of the house.
Just on the other side of those two sort of columns
towards the front that way.
Yeah, this is creepy.
Um...
-But yeah, that's... -PAUL: Yeah.
That's where it would have been.
Um...
PAUL: This must be very emotional for you.
Yeah, I could feel-- When we were coming in here--
I mean, I haven't been here since-- since my parents moved away.
-Yeah. -You know? And as I'm driving in,
I can feel, you know, my chest getting tight,
my heart is racing a mile a minute right now.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC FADES) ♪
WENDI: On August 19th of 2009,
the Secret Service conducted a polygraph on Ronald Pandos
who was in jail in Oklahoma.
The polygraph examiner asked him,
"Did you cause the disappearance of Jennifer?"
Ronald answered, "No."
And the polygraph examiner advised
that he was showing deception.
Ron began to draw out an overhead
of the area that they lived in.
He also put an X in the woods.
Ron began to say he was sorry for what happened,
and told the Secret Service agents
that if they could get a plane,
he would take them to Jennifer's body.
And then changed his mind,
and said he didn't know what happened.
STEPHEN: Here, these are interviews with my mother.
I got a call at six o'clock on Wednesday night
that my father had failed his polygraph.
At noon, the following day, I had my mother in the car
and took her to Williamsburg
to finally talk to the police department
about all this,
that there was just too much information,
and too much was out, that she had to tell the truth.
WENDI: The following day, Stephen brought Margie
to be interviewed.
And I spoke with our commonwealth attorney.
He was willing to provide immunity
for Margie on all charges except for homicide.
STEPHEN: Her telling the truth with immunity
was an opportunity for her to be in some control
of the events.
She knew what it meant.
WENDI: That day was different.
Obviously, having great expectations
because Margie was coming up to tell us
what happened to Jennifer.
WENDI:
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC FADES) ♪