Burden of Proof review: A brother's quest tears his family apart in this wrenching true crime doc
On the morning of February 10, 1987, Margie and Ron Pandos woke to find their 15-year-old daughter, Jennifer, gone from their Kingsmill, Virginia home. A messily written note left on Jennifer's bed claimed that she was "fine" and just needed "time away from this place." But she never returned, nor was her body ever found.
For years, Jennifer's older brother, Stephen — who was away at college the night she vanished — only knew what his parents told him about his sister's disappearance, which wasn't much. But questions nagged at him. Why did Margie and Ron wait three days to call the police? If Jennifer ran away, why were none of her belongings missing from her room? And why was Margie so "matter of fact" when she first told Stephen the news over the phone? Dogged by doubts for decades, Stephen eventually began investigating the truth about Jennifer's disappearance, with documentary filmmakers Cynthia Hill and Christine Delp (A Chef's Life) in tow. Seven years later we have HBO's Burden of Proof, a riveting, wrenching true crime docuseries that doubles as an almost Shakespearean family tragedy.
Proof's story begins in 2016, as Stephen, now a father to two daughters of his own, devotes his days to following up leads long since gone cold. He tracks down Jennifer's friend, Sharon, who was on the phone with her on the night she disappeared — and heard Jennifer arguing with Ron about ending the call. "It was a tone I'd never heard your dad use before," recalls Sharon. As the first of four episodes unfolds, Stephen shares information about the tensions that permeated his upbringing: Ron, a Vietnam War vet who struggled with PTSD, was "scary" and prone to violence. Meanwhile, Margie — a stoic woman with grandmotherly grey hair and a dulcet Virginia twang — laments how her inability to answer Stephen's questions about Jennifer has led to yet another tremendous loss. "Because I can't say Ron did it, he basically told me he never wanted to speak to me again," says Margie, who divorced Ron in the '90s. "Believe me, if I had the answers, I'd give them to him."
It's this fraught yet relatable dynamic — a son who desperately needs validation from a mother who can't (or won't) provide it — that gives Burden of Proof its intense and moving power. By sending cameras along with Stephen as he interviews Margie, Ron, Jennifer's extended family and friends, as well as current and past investigators in Jennifer's case, Hill and Delp allow his quest to drive Burden of Proof's narrative. People close to Stephen nudge him gently to think about letting Margie, who has no relationship with her grandchildren, back into his life, but Stephen's reluctance is palpable. The filmmakers present it and him without judgment; he is man who survived abuse but will never be completely free of the trauma it caused.
Toward the end of the four-episode series, Stephen admits that in the early days, his investigation into Jenifer's fate "was a way for me to perhaps exorcise a lot of anger toward my father about growing up." It's a sentiment that could support a whole episode's worth of follow-up. If Burden of Proof is lacking anything, it's a deeper examination of the emotional cost of his mission — both for Stephen and those who love him. "I try and understand it," says his wife, Karen. "I'll say, 'It's not really your responsibility to solve this case.' But he's doing the best he can." It feels especially relevant when a major — but maddeningly mundane — update in the case sends the investigation in a new direction, and Stephen is forced to reassess everything.
The inquiry into Jennifer's case is quite propulsive on its own, however, and the story proves persistently unpredictable until the end. True crime is a genre that often lives in the black-and-white, but Burden of Proof exists largely in the grey, as a compelling and poignant portrait of the unsolvable mystery of grief. Grade: B+
Burden of Proof premieres Tuesday, June 6, on HBO and Max.
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