A murder-for-hire case that shocked residents in Markham, Ont., virtually 15 years in the past is getting the Netflix therapy, highlighting the decade-long ruse Jennifer Pan undertook to please her strict dad and mom — a plot that ultimately left one in every of them useless.
What Jennifer Did is the newest feature-length Netflix documentary to hit the streaming platform (on April 10 in Canada), analyzing the early years of Jennifer’s life, her forbidden star-crossed-lovers’ romance and her motivation to rent hitmen to kill her dad and mom.
Explained beneath is the twisted net of lies and deceit that left a mom useless and a household torn aside.
High expectations, great stress
Born to Vietnamese refugees Huei Hann and Bich Ha Pan, Jennifer felt great stress to excel in her research and extracurricular actions and, for years, did simply that.
Her dad and mom, the traditional instance of a Canadian immigrant success story, constructed a affluent life for his or her household and anticipated their daughter and son, Felix, to broaden on their success.
Jennifer was a straight-A scholar at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School in Markham and an completed piano participant, and had her sights set on turning into an Olympic determine skater. By all accounts, she was thriving academically and socially.
Her Olympic goals have been dashed within the eighth grade, when she suffered an damage that sidelined her determine skating profession. From there, it was a sluggish downward spiral.
Jennifer Pan is seen within the promotional poster for Neflix’s ‘What Jennifer Did.’.
Netflix
The self-abuse begins
According to a bit written by one in every of Jennifer’s schoolmates for Toronto Life journal, a torn knee ligament was a critical blow to Jennifer’s self-confidence. Her goals of skating on a nationwide degree have been dashed and he or she started self-mutilating by chopping small slices into her forearms.
As her commencement from center college approached, she absolutely anticipated to be named valedictorian and obtain a handful of medals for her scholastic efforts. When neither of these issues got here to fruition she was devastated, however appeared to brush it off and conceal behind her “happy mask.”
“A close observer might have noticed that Jennifer seemed off, but I never did,” Karen Ok. Ho wrote for Toronto Life.
“I discovered later that Jennifer’s friendly, confident persona was a façade, beneath which she was tormented by feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and shame. When she failed to win first place at skating competitions, she tried to hide her devastation from her parents, not wanting to add worry to their disappointment.”
Over the course of the subsequent two years, her grades started to slide. She went from the highest of her class to posting marks within the 70s, at finest.
Not wanting to fret and disappoint her dad and mom, she started to lie. Armed with a glue stick and scissors, she altered her report playing cards, forging them with As to maintain up appearances.
Meanwhile, her protecting dad and mom saved shut tabs on their daughter’s motion by the world. She was forbidden from typical teenage rites of passage like dances and events. Sleepovers have been uncommon, and once they did occur she could be dropped off late at night time and picked up early the subsequent morning.
A forbidden romance
In Grade 11, and properly on her path to deceiving her dad and mom, Jennifer started courting Daniel Wong. He was within the grade above and the 2 performed within the college band collectively.
That yr, whereas on a band journey to Europe, Jennifer suffered an bronchial asthma assault. Wong was there to assist her by the panic, and Jennifer was grateful for the care and a focus he paid to her. They started courting that summer time.
Jennifer Pan poses with an award and flowers in an undated picture.
Netflix
Wong was, by most accounts, a respectful child however was dabbling in low-level drug dealing. At one level, as a teen, he was charged with trafficking after police discovered a substantial quantity of marijuana in his automotive.
Because she knew her dad and mom would by no means approve of a boyfriend, Jennifer saved the connection secret. Meanwhile, she was accepted to Ryerson University, now Toronto Metropolitan University, however failed calculus in her senior yr and the varsity withdrew its supply.
The lies deepen
Jennifer by no means instructed her dad and mom she wasn’t going to college. She doubled down on the lie and would take transit into downtown Toronto every weekday, holing up at public libraries to take notes from used biology and physics notebooks she thought could be related to the sciences program she was alleged to be attending.
She cast paperwork that stated she was receiving a mortgage for tuition and instructed her dad she’d gained a $3,000 scholarship.
After two years of maintaining her pretend-student charade, she instructed her dad she’d been accepted into the University of Toronto pharmacology program. She satisfied her dad and mom that she ought to spend three nights per week with a buddy within the metropolis to chop down on a gruelling commute — after all, she stayed at Wong’s household dwelling as a substitute.
A nonetheless picture from Neflix’s ‘What Jennifer Did.’.
Netflix
For one other two years, Jennifer saved up the lies. After 4 years, when it got here time to “graduate,” Jennifer faked an ideal transcript and instructed her dad and mom there weren’t sufficient tickets for them to attend her convocation.
An unravelling façade
Jennifer’s dad and mom started to note one thing was amiss when their daughter started enthusiastically telling them a few new volunteer place on the blood testing lab at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children — a gig that may require late-night shifts on weekends.
Hann, ever-observant and taken with his daughter’s profession trajectory, thought it was odd she wasn’t assigned a uniform or key fob to entry the hospital.
Concerned, he insisted that he and Bich drive their daughter to the hospital at some point. Once she was out of the automotive, he instructed his spouse to observe Jennifer. Panicked, she ran from her mom and hid out within the ER ready room till she was sure she had left.
The subsequent day, Hann and Bich positioned a name to the buddy their daughter claimed to be staying with within the metropolis. The buddy admitted that Jennifer wasn’t there. When they confronted their daughter, Jennifer confessed. She instructed them she had lied about graduating, had lied about volunteering on the hospital and, devastatingly for everybody, she instructed them she had a boyfriend and had been sleeping over at his home.
Furious and decided to get his daughter again heading in the right direction, Hann took away her telephone and laptop computer. He started checking her telephone messages. They forbade her from leaving the home for 2 weeks.
Jennifer’s anger escalates
Jennifer’s dad and mom ultimately granted her some small freedoms. She enrolled in a calculus course to lastly end her highschool credit and he or she was allowed to go away the home for piano classes.
But Jennifer was nonetheless sneaking out to see her boyfriend. One night time, her dad and mom discovered her mattress empty and so they cracked down on their daughter once more, this time demanding that she apply to school and forbidding her from ever seeing Wong once more.
Wong, pissed off that Jennifer refused to maneuver out of her dad and mom’ home and bored with having to sneak round, broke up together with her and started courting another person. She was heartbroken and determined to realize again her relationship, however felt like she needed to play by her dad and mom’ guidelines and labored slowly to regain their belief.
Sometime within the two years after she was caught sleeping over at Wong’s home, Jennifer rekindled her romance together with her ex-boyfriend.
Hatching a homicide plan
Still being watched carefully by her mother and pop, Wong produced a spare telephone for Jennifer to speak with him, away from her dad and mom’ prying eyes.
But the parental scrutiny and lack of privateness was nonetheless a serious sticking level of their relationship, to the purpose the place Jennifer and Wong additionally started toying with the concept of murdering her dad and mom and accumulating a $500,000 inheritance.
It was with the spare telephone that Jennifer requested for a success to be placed on Bich and Han.
Over textual content, in 2010, Wong launched his girlfriend to one in every of his legal affiliate pals, Lenford Crawford, whom Jennifer claimed to know solely by the title “Homeboy.”
Crawford, over textual content, instructed Jennifer he may kill her dad and mom for $10,000. She agreed to the plan.
A harrowing name to police
On Nov. 8, Jennifer referred to as 911, frantically telling the dispatcher that armed gunmen had damaged into their dwelling, tied her up, demanded cash and shot each her dad and mom.
Bich had been shot a number of occasions within the head and died immediately. Jennifer’s father, nonetheless, was nonetheless alive regardless of bullets to the shoulder and face.
At first, police appeared to purchase Jennifer’s story. But, 4 days later, Hann got here out of his coma and instructed police that his daughter appeared to be acquainted and pleasant with the gunmen who had entered their dwelling. Remarkably, he remembered all the things from the night time of the assault, together with that his daughter’s arms weren’t tied behind her again like she had claimed on the 911 name.
Det. Alan Cooke, who labored on the Jennifer Pan case.
Netflix
A sequence of interviews with police ultimately unravelled the reality — no less than partially. Jennifer confessed to hiring three hitmen and leaving her dwelling’s entrance door unlocked, however instructed police she had employed the boys to kill her.
Going by the digital proof within the case, police uncovered an analogous plan, 10 months earlier, that Jennifer deserted after realizing the individual she had paid to kill her people had ditched her and brought off with the $1,500.
Jennifer was arrested in late November and two months later, in January of 2011, police had sufficient digital proof to arrest Wong, Crawford and the 2 different hitmen, David Mylvaganam and Eric Carty.
All 5 have been charged with first-degree homicide, tried homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide.
The trial, sentencing and enchantment
The trial for Jennifer and the co-accused started in 2014 and stretched for practically 10 months.
On the stand, she instructed the jury that she had two plans, however neither concerned killing her mom.
The first plan was to have her father shot. When that didn’t work out, she wished to have herself killed by intruders. She instructed the jury she thought each plans had been referred to as off.
She additionally instructed the court docket that her life was a fabrication and that she had betrayed her dad and mom at virtually each flip for years.
“I was conflicted, I was confused, I was not sure what to do,” she stated. “Part of me wanted to come clean. On the other side, I knew coming down, it would bring such shame and embarrassment…. They would be ostracized from the rest of the family.”
A sketch of Jennifer Pan on the stand throughout her trial .
Global News
When her lawyer requested her why she didn’t simply transfer out of her dad and mom’ home, she stated she didn’t wish to be and not using a household.
“I didn’t want them to abandon me. I would be shamed if I moved out and I wasn’t married,” she stated.
On Dec. 13, 2014, Jennifer was discovered responsible of first-degree homicide. She was 28 years previous on the time.
Three of the co-accused, Crawford, Mylvaganam and Wong, have been all discovered responsible of the identical costs for the demise of Bich. At sentencing, the choose ordered that every one 4 spend life in jail with no likelihood of parole for 25 years on the homicide conviction, and life for tried homicide. The sentences are being served concurrently.
(Carty was not current on the time as a result of his lawyer falling ailing through the trial. Carty died inside a B.C. jail, the place he was serving time for an unrelated homicide, earlier than he may face trial for Bich’s demise.)
Jennifer’s household didn’t flip up for her sentencing, however in a written assertion to the court docket, Hann stated his life had been shattered by his spouse’s demise and daughter’s crimes.
“I hope my daughter Jennifer thinks about what happened to her family and can become a good, honest person someday,” he wrote.
Jennifer’s authorized saga, it appears, is just not but over.
In March of 2023, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ordered new trials for the first-degree homicide convictions.
The trial choose erred by suggesting to the jury solely two believable situations for the assault — one during which the plan was to homicide each dad and mom and one other during which the plan was to commit a house invasion and the dad and mom have been shot in the middle of the theft, the court docket stated.
But the trial choose ought to have given the jury second-degree homicide and manslaughter as different potential verdicts in Bich’s demise, the enchantment court docket stated.
The jury may have additionally doubted there was a plan to kill Pan’s mom, however concluded there was a fairly foreseeable danger of harming her with the plan to kill Pan’s father, which might result in a manslaughter conviction, the court docket wrote.
The Supreme Court of Canada is now within the technique of figuring out if it would evaluate the case.
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With information from Global News’ Catherine McDonald and The Canadian Press
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‘What Jennifer Did,’ a documentary by Jenny Popplewell, is out there on Netflix on April 10.
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If you or somebody you already know is in disaster and wishes assist, assets can be found. In case of an emergency, please name 911 for speedy assist.
For a listing of help companies in your space, go to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.
