Pandora Zan and Cody Henderson are sharing their side of the story when it comes to the murder of 45-year-old Charles Zan. Nearly 15 years after Pandora orchestrated a plan to kill her husband that was carried out by her son, the mother-son duo are speaking out in a PopCulture.com exclusive sneak peek of Oxygen’s brand new episode of Snapped: Behind Bars, premiering Sunday, Sept. 2.
Snapped first covered Charles’ murder case back in 2019 after the Miamisburg, Ohio man was stabbed to death by his stepson on Oct. 17, 2009. In Snapped: Behind Bars, Pandora, who was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole in 2011, said she wants to “share [her] truth.”
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“I didn’t take responsibility back then. I wasn’t honest in my part in everything,” she tells the camera. “It was easier to act like I didn’t know anything because admitting that I knew what was gonna happen and I didn’t stop it. That sounds so much worse.” She adds, “It took a lot of years of being incarcerated before I would take responsibility for my part in everything, and once I was able to take responsibility, then it let me start healing and growing.”
Henderson, who is also serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, claims in a separate interview that he “never got a chance to tell [his] side of things” and is ready to speak. “I realized my actions hurt a lot of people, but I hope they know that I’d never meant for any of this to happen,” he says. “I made a conscious decision and it was terrible and I didn’t have the right to make it, but I did what I did out of love for my mom, and I’m sorry for anybody that I’ve hurt.”
Not everyone is so sure Pandora and her son are telling the truth, however. “There’s indication that Pandora is not only a master manipulator but she’s [also] a pathological liar,” says John Sedlak, Miamisburg Police Chief. “There’s indication she has lived her whole life that way. There’s no indication that that will change, even though going on 15 years has passed. You still think about such a horrific event.”
Therapist De’Asia Thompson adds in her own assessment, “I can only assume that [Pandora] not taking accountability back then is a way that she has to protect herself because that would break me down as a mom to know that my son is in prison because of me – because of a choice that I made.”
Don’t miss a new episode of Snapped: Behind Bars, which airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET on Oxygen.
