WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA: There are a number of unsolved disappearances in the US that have not only gripped Americans but also people across the globe. One such case is that of Jennifer Pandos, who reportedly went missing from her Williamsburg-area family home in February 1987. She left a handwritten note behind her, which apparently said, “I'm fine, I just need time to think. Both of you please go to work tomorrow ‘cause I will try to call you.”
The teenager also reportedly added, “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 home. Don't tell my friends about this. Just tell them that I'm sick.”
‘There was no reason to believe any foul play had occurred’
Since then there is no clue about her whereabouts. James City County Deputy Chief Steve Rubino told NBC’s Dateline, “She was reported as a runaway. There was no reason to believe any foul play had occurred.”
But shockingly, Jennifer’s elder brother Stephen Pandos has accused his parents — Margie and Ronald Pandos — of making his sister disappear. In a new documentary, ‘Burden of Proof’, releasing on HBO on June 6, he reportedly claimed, “I think my mother knows what happened and my father scared her to keep this a secret.”
Who is Stephen Pandos and what does he claim?
Stephen is Jennifer’s brother, who was at college when his sister apparently went missing. In a page dedicated to the teen girl, he wrote, “I have been working closely with Wendi [Police Investigator Wendi Reed] and the James City County Police Department for the last 11+ years to bring justice for Jennifer.”
The upcoming docuseries follows Stephen’s search for truth as he told Boston Herald, “It started for me in 2009, seven years before the filming started when the police suggested that my parents were responsible for my sister’s disappearance. Because I don’t have any other siblings, at that point I felt justice for my sister became my responsibility.”
‘Everything I’ve been told was a lie’
He went on to say, “Initially, my idea was to tell a story about the complications and nuances of trauma. Specifically about my mother, believing that she knew what happened but had compartmentalized it and put it away in a place where she couldn’t or didn’t want to access it.”
In the documentary, the 55-year-old reportedly asserted, “I’m Jennifer’s brother. I’ve reached out to an attorney about whether I could sue my parents for the death of my sister.” He also noted that “everything I’ve been told was a lie."
In his quest, Stephen himself approached director Cynthia Hill so that he can share his story with the world. Hill shared with The Virginian-Pilot, “I had just released a film about domestic violence and so he was able to find me based on that. He was interested in trying to tell the story about his sister’s case, and he thought that we would potentially be a good match because of my experience with domestic violence.”
The director added that initially “we honestly felt as though the part about who’s responsible was sort of understood. We thought that the parents probably had something to do with it when we first started, just because the police seemed to think that. So we weren’t necessarily challenging that but we wanted to understand how they came to that conclusion. That was really what was motivating us initially.”
