This is Not an April's Joke!

In this episode, we dive into the haunting and complex case of Jenny Pandos, as explored in the HBO documentary Burden of Proof. When Jenny disappeared without a trace, the story left behind raised more questions than answers—and decades later, those questions still linger.

Using Burden of Proof as our guide, we unpack the timeline of Jenny’s disappearance, examine the evidence, and explore the emotional journey of a family searching for the truth. We also take a closer look at how the case was handled and the lasting impact it has had on those closest to it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hello everybody, I'm Casey Forbes. And I'm Sarah Cuvier. Sarah, I'm so glad that you're back. Welcome to Let the Good Crimes Roll. I love Derek Forbes. But he is a tough person to podcast with because he does not give me any feedback whatsoever. He's a man of few words, Case.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Man of a lot of words. You probably had to give him a few beers before you record.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Girl, he was like feeling really good after the last one. I think he was falling asleep on the microphone. I'm like, Sarah has to come back.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

I was absent, was it last week or a week before? Yes, it was last week. Because I was finishing up my last week of a certain class that I'm doing.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

So I know that's what I said. Sarah had the audacity to better herself with college. So I decided since we don't get paid for this to grant her the time off. And she was very appreciative.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

So and then so I had last week off. I I think I must have taken all my classes out of order, but I ended up with a finance class this time. Nice. And I was like, I think Casey's gonna have to help me. But it's not like like bookkeeping accounting, it's more like financial strategy kind of thing. So I'm like, I am kind of curious, but numbers have never been my strong suit. So it's just like, well, yeah, okay, I'll lean on Casey a little bit here.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Girl, just ask me to Chat GPT, one of us chat GPT having to work in QuickBooks, even with my like my little business. And I've asked Chat GPT a thousand different things.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Like, how do I record this? Because I'm not really sure. That was one of my least favorite things about owning a small because when I did Plum and Violet, that I did my own bookkeeping. So I had like I had QuickBooks and I was just like, I hate doing all of this.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Then we didn't have Chat GPT back then. No, we didn't. Now it's like I because I'll say, look, I bought inventory with my own money. I I mean, I now have my business account set up, but at the time, like my own money, how do I code this? How do I document this? Like, oh, you need to do a journal entry. I'm like, okay. Okay, so we had a request for this one. I love when y'all message us and ask us to cover certain ones. Yeah, I love that because it gives us ideas. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Because sometimes we're like, okay, what do we need to cover this week? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Jenny Collis Hubert. Are you related to Donald Hubert? Because I graduated with him. He was such a sweet guy. So let me know. It's burden of proof.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That's just Jennifer's note.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I can't erase the things I've done. There is no place left to run. Life is hard, but it goes on. Live my days as if they were my last.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Jennifer Panda was reported missing in 1987.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Never been seen or heard from the Jennifer's brother.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

I reached out to an attorney about whether I could sue my parents for the death of my sister. For the first 22 years of her disappearance, everything I've been told, you know, was was a lie.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

I thought at first she had run away, and then she didn't tell me. And it's like, who is this person?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I think my mother knows what happened.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

You wait two days, please.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

My father scared her to keep this a secret. So you really think I did it? Yes. They both failed poly around. I want to know the truth. I can't tell you something I don't know. The story around the parents. It doesn't make sense. It feels like you've convicted me of something that I haven't done. It's racing a mile a minute.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Everybody has that case that impacted them more than any other.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

It made you question everything. Why are you so consumed about this? Because it's only right, and she deserves better. You think it's crazy. Then all of a sudden it's even more crazy. I'll never give up on Jennifer. I just have to keep on going.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

I've watched the whole thing and they emotionally drained me.

unknown 4:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Because, for one, it's over the course of a bunch of years that this happened. The way I'm presenting this is not how it is presented in the documentary. My brain, the way I work, I like things like in a certain order. Right. So this is in that order. Um, you know, documentaries tend to bounce around.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yes, that's one of my that it's very hard to translate from a documentary to like a spoken word podcast episode because you know they do bounce around, you know, flash forwards and flashbacks and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

So what I do is I go through and I take notes in the I like a I like a linear order. Yeah, I go back from those notes and I put it in the order that makes the most sense to me. But by the end of it, you're absolutely destroyed because things just take a turn and you're like, holy guacamole.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Okay, well, I'm gonna have to like brace myself.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

But we'll get through it together, okay? It's the case of Jennifer Pandos, it's called Burden of Proof. It's a chilly night on February 9th, 1987, in Williamsburg, Virginia. 15-year-old Sharon Stewart and Jenny Pandos are talking to each other on the telephone. They didn't have a cell phone, you guys. Yeah, this is 88, huh? This was yes, this was 1987. They had yeah, they had uh a landline. So Jenny sprawled out on her on her bed, got that cord just reaching. The good old days. The good old days. Giggles shift to shouts when Jennifer's father, Ron, storms into her bedroom and begins yelling for Jennifer to get off the phone. Like he's cussing, he's swearing. It's the middle of tax season, and he's an accountant, and he's elbow deep in W-2s, and he is just not in the mood for this shit. Get off the phone. Yeah. So Sharon, who is safe at home, sits in stunned silence on the other end of the line because she's never heard Mr. Ron talk like this. She's listening as Jennifer and Ron scream at one another. And at one point, she hears her friend call him Ronald. And I'm like, ma'am, this is like flashback. I was gonna say that sounds a lot like you and your dad. I know that because my dad's name is Ron, and he likes to yell at times. And I'm like, okay, Ronald. So Jennifer apologizes to Sharon and hangs up. Sharon goes to bed with an uneasy feeling. The feeling intensifies the next day when Jenny doesn't show up to school. After school, Sharon calls Jenny's house. When her mom answers, she tells her that Jenny missed school because she was sick. Now, Jenny's mom's name is Margie. Just so y'all know. So if I reference Margie, that's Jenny's mom. How old are these girls again? They're 15. They're 15.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

That's Liv's age. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah. The next day, Jenny again is absent from school. And when Sharon calls once more, Margie explains her absence by saying Jenny is out with her dad. By day three, when Jenny has not shown up to school, Sharon does not believe Margie. But she tries to call again, and instead of answering, Margie knocks on Sharon's door. Jenny has run away. And Margie's demeanor struck Sharon as strange. She wasn't hysterical as you'd believe a mother of a missing teen girl to be. She spoke matter-of-factly, like it was just any other day. And after she left, Sharon turned to her mom and said, Her dad did something to her. She just felt it. Meanwhile, Jenny's older brother, Steven, is away at college. He also finds it odd when his mom calls and says that his baby sister had run away and is now missing. He is in his second semester of college and couldn't wrap his head around what was going on. He couldn't believe his sister wanted to escape the home that they grew up in because Steven himself had a tumultuous relationship with his dad. He claims that his father was physically and emotionally abusive towards his mother, his sister, and himself. And so going to college was more than just to receive an education, it was an escape. He's not the only one who talks during this documentary about Ron. Her sisters, Margie has a bunch of sisters, and more than once say that they have seen him strike her. He's physically abusive, and this does not absolutely does not justify anything, but like he's a Vietnam veteran. And it's said that when he went to Vietnam, when he came back, he was just different. Yeah. And Steven was born while he was in Vietnam. He didn't meet Steven until he was 18 months old. So there's not like a bond between Steven and Ron. And it's not because of Steven. I mean, I guess it's because of both of them because they didn't meet each other till for the first 18 months. Because Ron.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

And if you're coming back like mentally unstable when your kid's already a year and a half old, like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

So the case goes cold. Jenny just disappeared. No sign of her anywhere. I don't like this.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

In 2006. Wait, question. Was she like a rebellious kid to where like something like this is not like oh my god, crazy? Or she was a Spitfire.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Yeah. But like none of her friends she would she had a ton of friends and she would have told somebody. Yeah. And she didn't tell anybody anything. So in 2006, the case is assigned to a detective named Wendy Reed. She starts by trying to locate the original case files. The only problem? No one knows where they are. Dude, what? What she is able to find out is this Ron, Margie, and Jenny lived in a gated community. So if someone came in and abducted Jenny, they would have had to go through a gate, a security gate. On the morning of January 10th, 1987, Margie tried to enter Ginny's room, but the door was locked. Eventually, Ron helped Margie get the door open, and Jenny was gone. Resting on her bed was a handwritten note which said, no, this is odd because it was not in Ginny's handwriting. The note said, Quote, Your daughter's with me. She's fine. She's having some problems and needs some time away. I'm fine. I just need to think. Both of you, please go to work tomorrow because I will try to call you. I won't call you at home. Only at one of y'all's work. Do not call the police. I can easily find out if you do. I may never come back. Don't tell my friends about this. Just tell them that I'm sick. The note was ripped from a notebook owned by Jenny. She'd write notes and exchange it with a girlfriend named Carrie. Inside the spiral notebook, Jenny wrote about the tension in her home. Her last entry was the last night she'd been seen on February 9th. And it didn't speak of what of her wanting to run away or harm herself in any way. Ron and Margie didn't report their daughter missing until February 13th. Three days. She was missing. Jenny babysat for a man named Carrie Hendricks. A look into Carrie's background showed an extensive criminal history, including violence against women. It's also reported that he provided Jenny and her friends with alcohol. Now, y'all, this whole episode ain't me listing this off. I just want y'all to kind of get up to date to what Wendy knew. What Wendy was able to find out. Jenny had an ex-boyfriend named Tony Tolbin, with whom Jenny had gotten pregnant and had an abortion. Oh. He bounced between Jenny and another girl, one that he ultimately married. There was teenage drama between Tony, his wife, and Jenny. Ron and Margie lied to family members to explain away why Jenny was missing at family functions. There was one part of, I think, Ron's family that lived in Pennsylvania that didn't know for 10 years that she was missing. They would go to family functions. They weren't, they were like distant family, but they would go to different things. Like they would go to weddings or something. They'd say, Where's Jenny? And they're like, Oh, you know, she's just not here. It's not, no, she ran away and we haven't seen her in 10 years. Wow. Yeah. So Wendy goes and she questions Margie. It's been 21 years since her daughter went missing. Wendy is shocked to discover that in Margie's possession is the note left behind. Why had the police not collected it when she was initially reported missing? Detective Reed requests a warrant to search Margie's home. The belief is that Ron was buddies with the head of security of the neighborhood. The man's wife also worked as a secretary for the police department. Could she have gotten her hands on the original case file and given it to Ron and Margie? They were never able to get the search warrant. It was denied. On Christmas Day 2008, Steven discovers that his father, whom he's not been in contact with, had been arrested in Oklahoma for embezzlement. And one thing I forgot to mention in this, Margie and Ron got divorced around the mid-90s. He sold his accounting firm and she stayed, I believe she moved to North Carolina. He moved to, I think, Oklahoma. Okay. He got married for a second time. There was a divorce there. Then he went to jail. And while he was in jail, he married a third woman. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. He's sitting in jail for embezzlement. Steven convinces his mom, who remember multiple people have reported that she was abused by him, physically and emotionally. He convinces his mom to go into the police station to talk to Wendy Reed. Because Wendy is having trouble getting in touch with Margie. When asked if she'd agree to a polygraph test, Margie hesitated, but ultimately she agreed. And Steven is devastated devastated when the results come back as deceptive. Interesting. Polygraph tests are not admissible in court. And that for a reason. Stephen also learns from Wendy that seven times Wendy, the detective, attempted to reach out to Margie. Every time Margie emailed Ron, who was her ex-husband, who abused her, asking what she should say. Very suspicious. Yeah, that's very suspicious. Yeah. So Wendy is able to get cadaver dogs to go to the home. They don't live there anymore, but the current owner allowed them to go back there. Okay. And on four different occasions, the dogs signaled one spot. So when police started to dig, they didn't find anything, but all that means is that perhaps a body was put there. At some point in time? At some point. That's the theory. While sitting in an Oklahoma jail in August of 2009, Ron also agrees to take a polygraph test. He is found to be deceptive, specifically when they asked if he caused the death of his daughter Jenny. And he doesn't give a direct confession, but he makes these crazy things. He's like, if you get me an airplane, I'll take you to her body. It's just really bizarre. So they're putting all this together. They think, okay, well, we've got a confession here. And at the last minute, he recanted. When Steven hears of this, he brings his mom once again to speak to Detective Reed. This time Detective Reed is really frustrated, and so is Stephen. Wendy explains to Margie that they are willing to offer her immunity to everything but homicide. And she refuses to admit anything and sticks to her original story. Because at this point, the theory is perhaps Ron got physical with Jenny and she died, whether it was on purpose or accidental, and Margie knows what happened and was there and possibly helped cover it up. But they're willing to offer her immunity. Yeah. Margie's just like, no, because I don't trust Ron. Ron will lie. Neither Ron nor Margie like help themselves at all. Steven sits with his head in his hands, beyond angry and disappointed. In February of 2010, Steven visited his father in jail, begging him to admit what he'd done to Jenny, but he also refused. After that, Steven cut off contact with his mom and his dad. In 2014, he had his sister declared dead by the courts, and he hired his own private investigator to help him because the police just there was nothing they could do. They kind of had exhausted every resource.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

So it was like a missing person's case up until that point.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Yes. Yeah, because there wasn't even, besides the note, there wasn't even foul play or anything. There was no evidence of it. In 2016, he begins making a documentary about the case. When the filmmakers speak with Margie, she says that if Ron killed Jenny, she didn't know about it and had no part of it or a cover-up. Okay, so something that was interesting that I don't think I put in here, but I feel like I should have mentioned before now. They had forensic experts look at the note and the handwriting. If you Google this note, the handwriting looks like elementary school child wrote it.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

So it was like somebody who was trying to change their handwriting. They got handwriting samples from both Ron and Margie, and Margie could not be excluded. That's not saying she did it. It's just saying she could not be excluded because there were some similarities between some of the letters in Margie's own handwriting. Okay. At this point, Steve and the son, based off of all of this evidence, all this information, the belief is that his father probably made Margie transcribe this note. And the point of this note was number one, to give them time to like do something with Jenny's body. It said the only time they'll call is while we're at work. Margie went back to work those three days. Like nothing had happened. And supposedly Ron went up to Pennsylvania to tell his mother, but Steven says that never happened. Eventually, Wendy's taken off the case and is given another case, and the case is given to a man named Jake Rice. Ron in 2016 is living with wife number three, and Steven has a phone conversation with Ron and his new wife, and it doesn't go well. Ron's a dick.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

He has no sympathy whatsoever for what Steven's going through. He has no accountability for the way he treated Steven and Steven's mother. Because Steven makes the claim that Ron choked him, beat him. Ron was abusive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

And this is Ron, these are Ron's biological children. Yes, right? Yes. So he's showing no interest in finding out where his daughter is.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Yeah, I mean, he's interested in finding out. He believes wholeheartedly that it was the ex-boyfriend. And that's where he points the finger. But like I said, Ron and Margie do not help themselves at all. Right. They show zero sympathy towards Steven because one of the things that Derek and I talked about when we watched it is that if Ron wasn't such a piece of crap father, then maybe Steven wouldn't be looking at him so hard. Right. Because Steven's like, no, he's capable of harming her. I'm not saying he did it on purpose. Yeah. It would be accidental. And my mom's not helping out either. Margie seems like this really loving, sweet thing, but I think Steven has a lot of anger because he felt like Margie never protected them from his dad. Yes. And Margie's like, yeah, it is true. When he would start yelling and screaming, I would back away. Right. At the same time, if you understand domestic violence and what that does to your brain, even as an adult, you know, children should be protected.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

That narrative is something we've heard when we've talked about domestic violence cases before. Like the children are when when they're grown are angry at the other parent because they didn't protect them.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Right. Why didn't you step forward? Because they would get a worse beaten than you. I mean, like, or they were scared too, or it's not an excuse for it, but yeah, it's just an explanation. To everyone's shock, when Jake takes over the case, he finds the original case files. Oh. And one of the things that's discussed in parts one and parts two is you know, we talked about how the belief is that Ron and Margie somehow got their hands on this case file. There's a lot of items that should be in the case file, like the original. No, there were dental records that were not in the case file. They were with the dentist. So Wendy was able to gather a lot of this evidence, but what they did find in the the original case file was copies of it. Did they say where they found the original case files? Records room. Uh-huh. But Wendy's like, that's just so odd because we searched it three times. Yeah. Oh, that is weird. How did we miss it three times? Was I wonder, was it in just in the wrong spot? It might have been in the wrong spot. Who knows? But there was a lot of things in there that kind of made the Pandosas look a little bit better. There were multiple records where Ron and Margie called repeatedly, wanting to know if there were any updates. They pretty much gave up on the cops because the cops were like, this is just, I mean, you gotta think this is the 1980s. People just didn't think the way they do now. Right. So a runaway wasn't as far-fetched as to say it would be today.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Plus, they didn't have as many resources as we have now. Like there was no digital anything for the cops to work with, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

So with this finding, Detective Jake decides to take a hard nose look at it, and he finds evidence that leads the investigation in a totally different direction. Now, mind you, Steven has cut off his mom and his dad because he believes his dad murdered his sister. Uh-huh. And he believes his mom was there and helped him cover it up. Uh-huh. His parents have not met his wife, have not met their grandchildren. And anytime they've talked, it's very painful. I don't really give a shit about Ron, but my heart breaks for Margie.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Because Margie seems like a very nice person. She'd be the most perfect grandma. You can just kind of tell. When I watched episodes three and four, I cried because I was like, holy sh wow. And so Steven for over 10 years has this belief in his mind. And there's a lot of stuff that comes out in episodes three and four that just takes you in a completely different direction. Ah, okay. Yeah. So in 2016, Steven Pandos, he's not famous. I mean, like he Is a very successful real estate investor. On LinkedIn, he reached out to a documentarian. One of the ones she made was the one about Britney Murphy. Do you remember that they made one about Britney Murphy? So he sent her a LinkedIn message and it basically said, Hey, my sister disappeared when she was 15, and I think my parents are responsible. So of course, she's like, Wow, that's a story that might need to be told.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

So she responded to him, and that's what started this documentary. He was not famous. This case was not famous. This case took place in 1987.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, I was gonna say, because I don't I don't recall anything about this one. Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

So it's not exactly like it was well known. It's something thanks to social media. Steven truly believes that his mom and dad had something to do with his sister's disappearance, and obviously we believe she's dead. He had a court declare her dead so that they could start an investigation into her murder, her disappearance, all of that good stuff. Jenny's classmates, and if you watch the first two episodes, we talked to Jenny's ex-boyfriend Tony, Sims Tony Tobler, and his current wife, Corey. But Corey also went to high school, they all went to high school together. In the first couple of episodes, when they talk to Corey and Tony, you think it wasn't that big of a deal that he bounced between Jenny and Corey. And in today's world, it's not like in your 40s, they're probably close to pushing 50. They might be in their 50s. It's not that big of a deal to them. Yeah. And Corey even says, I think it affected her more than we thought. Because the story with Tony is Tony was living with one parent, and he decided to move in with another parent in high school, and that for took him from one high school, and he was the new kid at their high school, and he was this young new guy. He was really attractive, and the girls went bananas. And he first started dating Corey, but they broke up. And then he started dating Jenny. Jenny's two years younger than him. Okay. Jenny comes from this very prestigious family. They have money. And Tony comes from the other side of the tracks. And this is from Tony's mouth. Tony comes from the other side of the tracks, lives in a trailer park, and he never felt accepted by her parents. But as we had previously spoken about spoken about, both of her parents worked. And so there was like a big gap between like 3 p.m. when they got out of school and like 5 p.m. when they got home. Yes. And she got pregnant. Yes. She had an abortion. Her parents did not know she got pregnant. They didn't find out until after she had had the abortion. She just like announced this to the parents. And both of the parents are very angry about the whole situation because they were like, yeah, we thought it's very upsetting. It's upsetting because their daughter went through this, and like obviously that could be a traumatic thing. Right. You know, right. And the dad was really mad at the boyfriend, as dads, you know. As dads tend to be. It's easier to point the finger at the boyfriend, but the boyfriend was Tony was two years older than her. She was 15. He was 17.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

So it's easy to kind of look at that situation and be like, this is your fault. She had to go through this without her parents there for support, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

I wonder what brought about the her finally telling them.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

I think she was very depressed. Oh, yeah. Because the mom says that she knew her daughter was very depressed. Once this all came out, the parents put a lot of pressure for them to break up. And that's kind of what drove them to break up. And he went back with Corey. And again, in the earlier episodes, the way Corey and Tony are talking, it's like it's not that big of a deal. But Jenny's friends say no, she was devastated. I mean, you think her and him probably have this trauma bond of finding out they were pregnant, going through the abortion, they had this bond together that they went through something together, and then they break up, and instead of him, you know, trying to stay with her, he goes and gets back with his ex-girlfriend.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, that's a lot for a teen girl, a 15 year old. A 15-year-old to handle.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Yes. And like her friends would say that Jenny would intentionally like implant herself in places where they were to make them uncomfortable, as 15-year-olds will do. So and one of her friends, like one of her best friends, is like, sh no, she hated Corey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Hated. Did did her friends know about the abortion? They didn't say. They didn't say. So I'm curious.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Either they don't want to talk about it or they they didn't they didn't say they did, they didn't say they didn't. They just I just hope she didn't have to like go through that alone. Right. You know, you think she would have told I I would imagine she would have told her friends, but the friends don't bring it up. We're dealing with that. And also, as you all know, the original case file, which had been lost, was found by the new investigators. And inside that case file are these journals that Jenny had written. Because Jenny liked to write a lot. There were some really sad things in there. Yeah. There was the stuff she wrote, you could tell she wasn't like in a good place. And it was because of Tony. I mean, you know, 15-year-olds, they think everything's the end of the world, especially when they go through breakups. Yes. And that's kind of what you saw. But they also saw letters and such between her and Tony. And some of these like overlap when they broke up and he got back with Corey. Okay. So it would kind of implied that he was bouncing between the two of them.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

And it really screwed with Jenny's mind. Some of her friends in talking to Steven over the course of the documentary, they're like, Well, you know, she ran away before because of the tension inside her house. But like she always came back. And that's kind of where we recognize that. Because even one of the guys that was friends with her said, The thing was that her parents didn't act like the typical parents would when their child like went missing. They kind of just went along with their lives. Yeah. Because they kept acting normally. Yes. And it just kind of went quiet. Nobody tried to find Jenny. Yeah. And it bothered him because obviously he wouldn't have handled it that way. This documentary takes place over a course of seven years. And when all of this evidence is found, they kind of start looking at Tony Tobler a little differently. There's just like just different things that they find in this, in her notebooks and such, that look like they had a really tumultuous relationship. Like it wasn't this happy go-lucky 15, 17-year-old. It seemed like it was kind of abusive. Oh no. Yeah. And then one of Tony's former friends, a guy by the name of Charlie May, came forward. Now, this is years later, and he claimed that Tony confessed in 1987 to killing Jennifer and disposing of her body in a barrel of acid. This allegation was discussed in the documentary and press coverage, but it's unverified hearsay and has not been corroborated by physical evidence or law enforcement action. I do know that in the documentary there is a scene where Charlie May and Tony, I believe, have to go in front of a grand jury. But obviously, when you're part of a grand jury, like what's spoken about in the grand jury is all confidential. Okay. So no one really knows like why that was. And the police won't really say like why they went in there. Where would a 17-year-old get a barrel of acid? That's a very good question.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I, as a 40-year-old woman, do not know where to get a barrel of acid.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

No clue. Yeah. It's not even new Amazon or what? Yeah. Well, yeah, and then you get caught there because they're like, why did you order 5,000 gallons of acid? That seems a bit excessive. That's a bit much. One of the other things, because remember, one of the allegations was the that infamous letter. And there was a handwriting expert back in the 80s who could not conclusively rule out the mom. He's not right. He didn't say she did it. There are some similarities. I can't rule her out. New information gathered, there's new data, there's new professionals who look at it, and she's basically ruled out. But Tony's handwriting can't be ruled out. And they showed examples like side by sides of things that really are uncanny with the handwriting. What you know what I never understood though? If you're gonna write like a letter and you don't want your handwriting to be discovered, and they bring in handwriting experts, are people just not able to kind of change their handwriting?

SPEAKER_02 30:24

See, I don't know enough about like handwriting analysis to really understand how they do it.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Is handwriting so definitive that we can't just like change the way we curve the A. You would think, but when I see that, I'm like, because my handwriting depends on what mood I'm in. Uh-huh. And even like if I'm if it's that time of the month for me, my handwriting is really messy. Yeah. Because I just don't care.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Well, so for my handwriting, I write certain letters in different in different ways, depending on what letters they're attached to. Like sometimes it'll be like a more of a cursive type thing, sometimes it's not. Like, yeah, and it all depends on like so it's what major it even mine changes. Yeah. And I'm not even trying.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

Like, I would love to do like meet someone who is a handwriting analysis.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

And see if they could figure out if it's my handwriting or not. Like, have you write a line, have me write a line, yeah. And then each of us like just write random lines but in different hand handwriting styles and see if they can figure out. Yeah. Because people can change that.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Can't they? I mean, like, I wonder, does it change if you like change which hand you're writing with?

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Oh, I'm sure. If I'm just writing normal, then yes, I could see you identifying, oh, this case is handwriting. But if I'm writing a letter that I need to keep conspicuous, I don't want them to know it's me writing, like, I might change it up a bit. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Or I mean, like, he was 17 and you know, they're not the brightest. And that's true. True crime wasn't like a thing back then. So maybe it didn't even maybe it didn't even occur to him to try and change things up.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Or whomever wrote the note. There was also DNA that was found on the letter. They couldn't figure out who it was.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

There wasn't enough there. Okay, so it wasn't like a it was just a lack of a sample, basically. It wasn't like when did they test it? Was it back then or like they tested it more recently.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

It it wasn't conclusive as to if it was his. And I think the saddest part about the entire thing is that as we get more towards the end of the documentary, you see a shift in Steven as this evidence starts to come out. Don't get me wrong, he's had every right to not have a relationship with his father. His father is a piece of work who has not treated him very kind, but his mom. His mom truly, if she is not guilty, which I don't think she is, I genuinely don't. The first two episodes, I thought she knew something. Yeah. But I now I just don't think she is. I could be wrong. Like every full moon, I'm wrong. It happens.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

But don't tell Derek that.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

No. They even brought in, like Steven's private investigator brought in a woman who worked in the Navy as an I don't know what her exact title was, but like she basically would study people and their body language. And she questioned the mom and she said, I do not see anything deceptive in her language. And when she took the polygraph, I think she was on some sort of medication that kind of couldn't mess with her blood pressure. Yeah. When that came out, it's like, well, did you know your mom was taking this medication when she took this polygraph test? So those deceptive answers could completely be looked at from a different angle. But the Navy woman who was paid for by Steven's investigator does not believe his mom has anything to do with the disappearance of his sister. And neither do the police. The police have officially cleared Ron and the mom. And even Steven himself at the end of the documentary said, I don't know if they had anything to do with it. And it's really sad because the documentary doesn't really lay out if he had a full reunification with his mom, but it does imply it. Like I know there was more communication toward the end than in the beginning. In the beginning, he was very hostile towards her. And she, if you watch this, she is just this sweet older lady.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

I don't think him and his father have ever reunited.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

I think his father in jail.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

He got out, but he was living in Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Steven lives in North Carolina. Gotcha. So they don't live close. His mom lives close. He said his mom lived just, I think, like six miles away from him. Oh, I wonder if they did. I hope so. Yeah. I really do. Can't imagine. Like you're she lost a daughter. She lost both her kids, really. She really did. And has a lifetime of loneliness.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Yeah, of missing out. That's the story of Jenny Pandos. Do you have any leads or anything about where she is, what may have happened?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

The biggest lead really is the ex-boyfriend. Yeah. That's our biggest clue. And it is still an active investigation to this day. It's a cult. That they can really Well, and they can't talk about it. Like they can't. Because it's an open investigation. They can't release any information because of that. But it's open and it's active. There is a team that looks into every bit of evidence they get, but yeah, they can't talk to the media or anybody because obviously it's an open investigation and they don't want to give anything away.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

So I know she's been missing for 40 years, but is it considered a cold case? Yes. Even though I know she was like missing all that time, but they just declared her dead at some point. Steven Was that recent or was that in 2014?

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Oh, okay. Steven like went to the state and asked them to declare her dead. Okay. And they did.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

I'm sure the investigation changes in logistics when it's like a missing person versus murder or something.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Just disappearing off the face of the planet.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

No. Did you see that case? There was that mom went missing like 30 years ago, and then she turned up just living a normal life.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Yeah, she just walked away from his family.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah, we knew she did that one. Wasn't she arrested then? Yeah, she was arrested for something else though.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Oh, so it had nothing to do with her disappearance.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

I don't think so. I want to say there was like a bench warrant or something out for her arrest. I don't know, maybe an unpaid ticket or something. I don't know. But do that.

unknown 36:05

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

But she, I remember like they they had said that she just told the investigators, like, I'm fine. I want to remain anonymous. So like she just like straight up walked away. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

And she had children.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

She had children. She kissed them goodnight and was like, I'm going to get groceries, and then just never came back.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

That is unreal. I wonder how many kids did she have? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 36:26

I don't. I know of at least one girl, I think. So we'll have to do that. But I want to say there's at least another one.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Can you imagine the trauma that's going into? Even as an adult, like my mother walks away from me on purpose. Like, I mean, and did not and never came back, knew where to find me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

And I'm sure all these years they were like, oh, something had to have happened because she would never do this on her own, you know? Yeah. And then to then to find out she did. Yeah. That's a that's a different kind of rejection.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

So that's horrible. Yes. That's so sad. Oh my goodness. What is wrong with people?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

I know.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Well, y'all, so that's our episode for this week. I'm sorry, it's been a hot minute. We are just busy as I'll get out over here. And let me tell you something. I've got an email. Tell you something. Tell you something. I got an email from this guy about our podcast. And he goes, Hey, I work for this company. We're like a production company. We would love to have a chat about y'all's podcast. And so, of course, I asked ChatGPT. I'm like, is this legit? And he was like, Yeah, it's a legit thing. I'm like, Oh, that's exciting. And I asked him, like, what do you do? And he's like, Well, we'd put y'all on our platform, we would promote y'all, and we would take like a percentage of like the advertisement proceeds, which I'm like, well, that's better than what we get now because what we get now is nothing. And then he goes, like at the very last sentence, he goes, So, about how many downloads do y'all get a month? And I'm like, like a thousand. I don't know, because we're not really consistent, we don't get paid to do this, so we're not like super consistent with it. And he was like, Oh, well, it was nice talking to you when you hit 5,000. Uh, let me know. I was like, Well, you too.

unknown 38:00

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

My 12 listeners would be like, bitch, go on. He just took a zip of water and I couldn't laugh out loud. Yeah, I saw that and I was like, he's talking to you. Like, you reached out to me. That's so funny. I told him, I said, because I was thinking, like, he was like, wow, y'all's podcast has great potential. Yeah. Maybe if you come on our platform, we will help y'all monetize it. Yeah.

unknown 38:25

No.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

So I wonder how he we even got on his radar. I wanted to sit back and be like, you reached out to us. Yeah, you reached out to us, dude. Yeah, we do this as kind of a hobby. I mean, obviously, we have other things going on in our lives and we don't get paid for it. So we do it as we can.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

But I bet he never even listened to one of our episodes. I know.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Somebody was like, You should listen to this podcast. We probably have thousands of listeners. And I'm sure we do, but I mean, or we've got like 12 that listen to us over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

The 12 of you should tell your friends.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Yes. Or like listen to us like 5,000 times a month so that we can tell them we average 5,000 listeners a month.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

And then you'll get more consistent episodes from us. Because if we get paid, well then we'll actually do that.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

Yeah, and we'll give you a better quality too. Because I'd actually sit down and like do a better job of taking notes than like just summarizing it up. But but yeah, so if you want to, thank you so much for the recommendation. We love get them. We don't always respond in a timely manner because I don't always check my Facebook. I'm a TikTok girl.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Message me on TikTok. I don't get notifications for messages from the page. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Like I ain't checked it in a day of Sundays. I'm not. I was like making a TikTok before you came over that said, I hate springtime. Like everybody's outside just smelling the flowers.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Like, I don't know what it's like other places, but down here in the south, like if the wind blows the least bit, all you can literally see the pollen billowing off of the trees. Yeah. And it's like a cloud that comes to you. There's a coat of pollen everywhere. And so if you are remotely sensitive, then you are in agony.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

And my nose goes, you'll shout past this and it shuts my nostrils down to where no oxygen can, it's just completely shut, clogged up. That's awful. And one violent sneeze just is enough to like ruin my day. Especially if there's a computer in front of me and I can't get my hand up in time. It's like I'm prepared to duck out the like out the way if you sneeze. Absolutely. Yeah. Between me and Cade, because Cade has my allergies, and me and him like walk around with tissues. Poor baby. Because if we sneeze, it's just like, nobody look. Cade, go get me a napkin, please. But y'all, well, we will see y'all next time. Bye guys.