I stumbled upon this case about a week or two ago and was just completely enthralled from the little I read. I started doing some digging and found a deep crazy story. Here is the case of Jennifer Pan.

Background:

Jennifer was the daughter of Bich Ha ( Pronounced “Bick”) and Huei Hann Pan. They were Vietnamese born but immigrated to Canada as political refugees. The couple were married in Toronto and lived in Scarborough. They had Jennifer and a Son named Felix. They worked hard at Magna international an auto parts manufacturer. In which they were able to buy a nice house with a garage and have two decent cars. Providing everything they could for their family.

Early Academic Life:

Around the age of four Jennifer’s parents enrolled her in piano classes, in which she excelled that by the time of her entering elementary school she had a rack full of trophies. Jennifer parents also enrolled her in figure skating in which she hoped to compete at a national level, even having her eyes set on the 2010 winter Olympic in Vancouver. Unfortunately, a torn ligament in her knee prevented that dream.

Fast forward a couple years, at the end of grade 8 Jennifer had no doubt in her mind that she was going to be named valedictorian. Adding to one of the many academic achievements that she had throughout her academic years. As the announcement loomed, Jennifer was left disappointed when she wasn’t named valedictorian. Shocked with not being named her attitude when it came to her education changed. The way she saw it was why is she working so hard when there is no acknowledgment for the effort she puts.

Culture:

The Pan’s were Vietnamese, and their culture played a big part of there lives. Her parents followed traditional parenting styles. Where their children are pushed to achieve and had high expectations placed on them. Many people would consider her parents being pretty strict and harsh. Jennifer’s Parents would always pick her up at the end of the day from school; they monitored all her extracurricular activities. She was not allowed to attend any dances, parties, etc. Dating was also very much off limits. Her parents thought that this would distract her from her academic commitments.

The Boyfriend:

Daniel Wong was her High School sweetheart. Which of course her parents knew nothing about; He was a student at Jennifer’s school who eventually transferred to another school due to poor grades. Danny was also a known marijuana dealer. Danny was a year older and was described as goofy with a big smile. He played the trumpet in the school band, and for the most part, his relationship with Jennifer was platonic until a Europe trip they both went to; After a performance, the hall was full of smokers, and Jennifer started having an asthma attack and started panicking. Danny came and calmed her down coaching her on her breathing. From then on Jennifer saw him as the person who saved her life. Jennifer hid her relationship for seven years, and when it did come out, her parents did not approve.

Jennifer Pan

The Lies:

Jennifer started falling short of the expectations she knew her parents had for her. Instead of being that A student her grades were now just average, basically failing in her parent’s views. She knew there would be consequences if they ever found out. This is where the webs of lies start and never end.

Instead of dealing with what was happening she started forging her report cards and showing them to her parents that she was receiving straight A’s. At the end of her senior year, she received an early acceptance to Ryerson, but failing calculus her final year the college withdrew the offer.

Still not wanting to be seen as a failure, Jennifer pretended to attend university. In reality, all she was doing was sitting at cafés, teaching piano and working at a restaurant to earn some money. The lies kept piling up, telling her parents that she won scholarships and later telling them that she had been accepted into a pharmacy program at the University of Toronto. She even went as far as purchasing textbooks and having notebooks full of “class notes” so she could show her parents. Also, telling her parents that she was staying near “campus” with a friend throughout the week. When in reality she was staying with her boyfriend Daniel (Danny) Wong.

Keeping up with the lies that she was completing her degree, Jennifer told her parents that she was volunteering at Toronto’s prestigious Hospital, SickKids. Her parents became very suspicious about this when they started noticing that she didn’t have a uniform nor a badge for the hospital. One day, both her parents insisted on driving her to work. As soon as the car came to a stop, Jennifer jumped out with her parents on her tail. Noticing that they were following her, she went inside the hospital and stayed at the ER waiting area for a few hours until she knew her parents were gone.

That’s when all these lies came to an end. Her dad confronted her, and she confessed to everything, the volunteering, never going to the University of Toronto’s pharmacology program, and never graduating High School and that she was staying with her boyfriend during that time.

Her dad wanted her out of the house after finding out, but her mom convinced him to let her stay. They took her phone and laptop allowing her to use it with them there and would surprise check her messages. Jennifer was not permitted to see Daniel, and she was only allowed to teach piano classes while also keeping track of the mileage on the car.

After a while, she was allowed some sense of freedom. She signed up for calculus to earn her high school diploma. Behind her parents back she would still find time to see Daniel between her piano lessons. Her parents still found out that she was off and seeing him. They demanded that she enrolled in college and told her that she was forbidden to see Daniel.

Daniel, after a while was done with having a secret relationship. Jennifer was a 24 year old still sneaking around and afraid of her parents, but not willing to make an effort to leave her home. He broke off the relationship and told her to figure out her life. Danny began dating another woman named Christine. Jennifer was not liking this and wanting the attention back from Danny she created an elaborate story. She told Danny that a man had entered her house showing her what she called a police badge and that multiple men had rushed in and gang-raped her in the foyer. Then Jennifer told him that she had received a bullet in her mailbox. In which she claims that they were both warnings from Christine to leave Daniel alone.

The Murders:

Spring of 2010, Jennifer was reconnected with an old elementary school friend, Andrew Montemayor. She claims that he would brag about robbing people at knife point near his home, claims that he denies. Jennifer tells him about the relationship that she had with her father. And he confided in her that he had considered killing his father. For Jennifer, she automatically starts thinking about how life would be so much better without her parents. Montemayor introduced her to Ricardo Duncan in which they hatched a plan for Duncan to kill her father in the parking lot of his work. She gave Duncan $1500 and agreed to connect later to arrange the date and time of the hit. But Montemayor never answered her calls and Jennifer realizes that she had been ripped off.

Around this time Jennifer and Daniel were back in contact and decided to come up with a bigger plan than the original one. They decided to plan a hit on Bich and Hann. She would end up receiving part of the estate her portion being around $500,000, she and Danny would live together, but most importantly she wouldn’t have to be bothered by her strict and overbearing parents. Daniel ended up connecting Jennifer with an acquaintance, Lenford Crawford. Jennifer spoke to him and asked how much it would be for a hit on her parents. Crawford told her that it’s $20,000 but because Danny is a friend he would do it for $10,000. Jennifer went as far as having two different phones, one for all her crime related conversations and another one for her everyday life.

On the morning of November 8, 2010, Crawford texted Jennifer that ” After work ok will be game-time.” That evening Jennifer was watching tv in her room. Her dad was reading the Vietnamese news before heading to bed at around 8:30 pm. Her mom didn’t arrive home until around 9:30 from line dancing with a friend and a cousin. At 9:35 pm Jennifer spoke to a friend of Crawford for about two minutes. She went downstairs to say goodnight, she unlocked the front door and headed upstairs. At 10:02, the light in the study switched on a signal for the intruder and about a minute later it switched off. At 10:05 she spoke to Crawford’s friend again, David Mylvaganam talking for about 3 minutes. A few minutes later three men, Crawford, Mylvaganam, and Eric Carty walked through the front door all of them carrying guns. One stayed with Jennifer’s mom, and the others ran upstairs and shoved a gun to Jennifer’s dad and forced him out of bed and headed to the living room.

Eric Carty, still upstairs confronts Jennifer outside her bedroom. He ties her arm behind her using a pair of shoelaces. They started demanding all the money that they had, while Jennifer parents are pleading that they don’t hurt their daughter. Jennifer is taken upstairs and tied up again her arms to the railing. Her parents were taken to the basement, their heads covered with blankets. Jennifer’s dad was shot twice, once in the shoulder and then in the face. They shot her mom three times in the head, killing her instantly, and leaving back out the front door.

Despite having her hands tied behind her, she manages to reach her phone and dials 911. Pleading for help and telling the operator she doesn’t know where her parents are. What she didn’t expect was hearing the moans of her father, covered in blood and his wife dead next to him, he crawled upstairs to the main floor. Jennifer called out that she was on the phone with 911 and a neighbor who was headed out to work, called 911 also when he encountered Hann stumbling outside.

The Police interviewed her that night; she told the officers that men had entered the house looking for money. They took her parents to the basement and tied her up and shot her parents. Two days later, she was questioned again to give another statement. They had her reenact how she was able to get her phone out of her back pocket with her hands tied up. Investigators are starting to notice holes in her story.

The investigators started questioning if it was a real home invasion, why didn’t they take the car with the keys in plain sight? They didn’t have any weapon to get in, or a backpack to carry stolen items. But the most alarming question they had was why shoot two witnesses and leave one of them unharmed?

Hann woke up three days later from an induced coma. With broken bones near his eye, fragments from the bullets lodged in his face and by some miracle the bullet had only grazed the carotid artery. Hann had remembered everything that happened that night. Two things that he recalls is seeing his daughter softly talking to one of the intruders, seeming like they knew each other and also that her arms were not tied as she was being led around the house.

Jennifer was brought in for a third interview, but this wasn’t about getting another statement. The detective knew she was involved and he wanted her to fess up to the crime and about what happened that night. But like I stated before the lies never stop.

Jennifer told the detective that the attack was really supposed to be to commit suicide. She was done with living but could not go through with killing herself. Instead, she decided to hire someone to kill her. She then called off the hit telling the men that her relationship with her father was better. Somewhere there was a mix-up, and they killed her parents. She was arrested that day. After reviewing cellphone calls and text, they arrested Daniel, Mylvaganam, Crawford, and Carty. All five suspects were charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder

The Trial:

The trial started on March 19, 2014, and continued for ten months. All five pleading, not guilty. There were over 200 exhibits and over 50 witnesses that testified at the trial. Evidence included all the tracking of mobile device movements, calls, and messages which included over 100 messages sent between Jennifer and Daniel six hours before the killings. The other evidence centered around the nature of the “break-in,” “robbery,” shootings, and the gaps in Jennifer’s story. Jennifer spent seven days on the stand trying to convince the jury that initially, she did plan a hit on her father but afterward she wanted nothing to do with it. Another damning evidence was from her father, whose story was vastly different from Jennifer’s and undermined her credibility. All five were convicted on December 13, 2014, each receiving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. Erick Carty’s was later declared a mistrial due to his lawyer falling ill. In December of 2015, he received an 18-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit murder. Jennifer is banned from contacting members of her surviving family as well as contacting Daniel Wong. As of 2016, Jennifer is serving her sentence at the Grand Valley Institution for Women.

My Thought:

As a daughter of parents who immigrated to another country from their home country, I can understand how hard it can be to be stuck between two worlds. At the same time, I don’t believe this is an excusable crime or even try to understand why she thought this was her way out. I do think that she was this girl who felt like her parents were trying to control her whole world, but I think if she would have kept up with school and without the lies, she would have been able to get out of that situation. Even if she failed in school at 18, she could have figured a way out to get away from her strict parents. I feel bad for the entire situation, but I believe she got the sentence she deserved for planning something so cruel.

What are your thoughts about this case? Why do you think she felt driven to this point? Let me know in the comments below!❤️