‘What Jennifer Did’: Netflix doc explores stunning Ont. murder-for-hire case

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 finally left one among them lifeless.

What Jennifer Did is the most recent feature-length Netflix documentary to hit the streaming platform (on April 10 in Canada), inspecting 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.

Defined under is the twisted net of lies and deceit that left a mom lifeless and a household torn aside.

Excessive expectations, great strain

Born to Vietnamese refugees Huei Hann and Bich Ha Pan, Jennifer felt great strain 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 develop on their success.

Jennifer was a straight-A pupil at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary College in Markham and an completed piano participant, and had her sights set on changing into an Olympic determine skater. By all accounts, she was thriving academically and socially.

Her Olympic goals had been dashed within the eighth grade, when she suffered an harm that sidelined her determine skating profession. From there, it was a gradual downward spiral.

The self-abuse begins

In line with a chunk written by one among Jennifer’s schoolmates for Toronto Life journal, a torn knee ligament was a severe blow to Jennifer’s self-confidence. Her goals of skating on a nationwide degree had been dashed and she or he 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 “joyful masks.”

“An in depth observer might need seen that Jennifer appeared off, however I by no means did,” Karen Ok. Ho wrote for Toronto Life.

“I found later that Jennifer’s pleasant, assured persona was a façade, beneath which she was plagued by emotions of inadequacy, self-doubt and disgrace. When she didn’t win first place at skating competitions, she tried to cover her devastation from her dad and mom, not wanting so as to add fear to their disappointment.”

Over the course of the following two years, her grades started to slide. She went from the highest of her class to posting marks within the 70s, at greatest.

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.

In the meantime, her protecting dad and mom saved shut tabs on their daughter’s motion via the world. She was forbidden from ordinary teenage rites of passage like dances and events. Sleepovers had been uncommon, and after they did occur she can be dropped off late at night time and picked up early the following morning.

A forbidden romance

In Grade 11, and effectively 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 via the panic, and Jennifer was grateful for the care and a focus he paid to her. They started courting that summer time.

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 automobile.

As a result of she knew her dad and mom would by no means approve of a boyfriend, Jennifer saved the connection secret. In the meantime, she was accepted to Ryerson College, now Toronto Metropolitan College, however failed calculus in her senior yr and the varsity withdrew its provide.

The lies deepen

Jennifer by no means advised her dad and mom she wasn’t going to school. 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 can be related to the sciences program she was imagined to be attending.

She solid paperwork that stated she was receiving a mortgage for tuition and advised her dad she’d received a $3,000 scholarship.

After two years of maintaining her pretend-student charade, she advised her dad she’d been accepted into the College of Toronto pharmacology program. She satisfied her dad and mom that she ought to spend three nights per week with a pal within the metropolis to chop down on a gruelling commute — in fact, she stayed at Wong’s household house as a substitute.

For an additional two years, Jennifer saved up the lies. After 4 years, when it got here time to “graduate,” Jennifer faked an ideal transcript and advised 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 couple of new volunteer place on the blood testing lab at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Youngsters — a gig that may require late-night shifts on weekends.

Hann, ever-observant and concerned with his daughter’s profession trajectory, thought it was odd she wasn’t assigned a uniform or key fob to entry the hospital.

Involved, he insisted that he and Bich drive their daughter to the hospital in the future. As soon as she was out of the automobile, he advised 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 following day, Hann and Bich positioned a name to the pal their daughter claimed to be staying with within the metropolis. The pal admitted that Jennifer wasn’t there. After they confronted their daughter, Jennifer confessed. She advised them she had lied about graduating, had lied about volunteering on the hospital and, devastatingly for everybody, she advised them she had a boyfriend and had been sleeping over at his home.

Livid and decided to get his daughter again heading in the right direction, Hann took away her cellphone and laptop computer. He started checking her cellphone messages. They forbade her from leaving the home for 2 weeks.

Jennifer’s anger escalates

Jennifer’s dad and mom finally granted her some small freedoms. She enrolled in a calculus course to lastly end her highschool credit and she or he was allowed to depart the home for piano classes.

However Jennifer was nonetheless sneaking out to see her boyfriend. One night time, her dad and mom discovered her mattress empty they usually cracked down on their daughter once more, this time demanding that she apply to varsity and forbidding her from ever seeing Wong once more.

Wong, annoyed that Jennifer refused to maneuver out of her dad and mom’ home and bored with having to sneak round, broke up along 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.

Someday within the two years after she was caught sleeping over at Wong’s home, Jennifer rekindled her romance along with her ex-boyfriend.

Hatching a homicide plan

Nonetheless being watched intently by her mother and pa, Wong produced a spare cellphone for Jennifer to speak with him, away from her dad and mom’ prying eyes.

However the parental scrutiny and lack of privateness was nonetheless a significant 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 cellphone that Jennifer requested for a success to be placed on Bich and Han.

Over textual content, in 2010, Wong launched his girlfriend to one among his felony affiliate associates, Lenford Crawford, whom Jennifer claimed to know solely by the identify “Homeboy.”

Crawford, over textual content, advised Jennifer he might 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 house, 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, nevertheless, was nonetheless alive regardless of bullets to the shoulder and face.

At first, police appeared to purchase Jennifer’s story. However, 4 days later, Hann got here out of his coma and advised police that his daughter gave the impression to be acquainted and pleasant with the gunmen who had entered their house. Remarkably, he remembered the whole lot 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.

A collection of interviews with police finally unravelled the reality — not less than partially. Jennifer confessed to hiring three hitmen and leaving her house’s entrance door unlocked, however advised police she had employed the boys to kill her.

Going via the digital proof within the case, police uncovered the same plan, 10 months earlier, that Jennifer deserted after realizing the individual she had paid to kill her of us 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 had 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 almost 10 months.

On the stand, she advised the jury that she had two plans, however neither concerned killing her mom.

The primary plan was to have her father shot. When that didn’t work out, she needed to have herself killed by intruders. She advised the jury she thought each plans had been referred to as off.

She additionally advised 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 used to be conflicted, I used to be confused, I used to be undecided what to do,” she stated. “A part of me needed to come back clear. On the opposite aspect, I knew coming down, it will carry such disgrace and embarrassment…. They’d be ostracized from the remainder of the household.”

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 with no household.

“I didn’t need them to desert me. I’d 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 outdated on the time.

Three of the co-accused, Crawford, Mylvaganam and Wong, had been all discovered responsible of the identical costs for the loss of life of Bich. At sentencing, the decide ordered that each one 4 spend life in jail with no probability 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 unwell through the trial. Carty died inside a B.C. jail, the place he was serving time for an unrelated homicide, earlier than he might face trial for Bich’s loss of life.)

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 loss of life and daughter’s crimes.

“I hope my daughter Jennifer thinks about what occurred to her household and might turn out to be a very good, trustworthy individual sometime,” he wrote.

Jennifer’s authorized saga, it appears, isn’t but over.

In March of 2023, the Court docket of Attraction for Ontario ordered new trials for the first-degree homicide convictions.

The trial decide erred by suggesting to the jury solely two believable eventualities for the assault — one by which the plan was to homicide each dad and mom and one other by which the plan was to commit a house invasion and the dad and mom had been shot in the midst of the theft, the court docket stated.

However the trial decide ought to have given the jury second-degree homicide and manslaughter as different potential verdicts in Bich’s loss of life, the enchantment court docket stated.

The jury might have additionally doubted there was a plan to kill Pan’s mom, however concluded there was a fairly foreseeable threat 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 docket of Canada is now within the means of figuring out if it can assessment the case.

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With information from World Information’ Catherine McDonald and The Canadian Press

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‘What Jennifer Did,’ a documentary by Jenny Popplewell, is offered on Netflix on April 10.

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