“Help me, please I need help,” Jennifer Pan said, her girlish voice hysterical during the 911 call made after both her parents had been shot in the basement of their Markham home.

Screaming from her father Hann Pan can be heard in the background of the call, played at the start of the Crown’s opening address to the jury Wednesday in Jennifer Pan’s murder trial in the death of her mother.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Pan told the operator, claiming that she had been tied up by robbers at gunpoint and had gotten loose.

But she did, Crown attorney Jennifer Halajian alleged in her opening statement.

In fact, the now 27-year-old was the one who planned the staged home invasion to murder her parents for separating her from her boyfriend of six years, who she “relentlessly, obsessively” loved, alleged Halajian.

Pan is charged with the first-degree murder of her mother, the attempted murder of her father, who “miraculously” survived being shot twice, once in the back and once through his face, and conspiracy to commit murder.

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Daughter charged with murder in Markham home invasion

Facing the same charges during the trial are Pan’s boyfriend Daniel Wong, Lenford Crawford, Eric Carty and David Mylvaganam.

The alleged co-conspirators are linked together by a web of cellphone data, including text messages, phone calls and location data, Halajian said.

But the story of the murder plot began with the romance between two teenagers in their final year of high school: Jennifer Pan and Daniel Wong, Halajian said.

Pan’s parents, hard-working factory employes and refugees from Vietnam, disapproved of Wong. Hann and Bich Pan didn’t consider him worthy of their daughter, said Halajian.

So Pan lied, pretending to attend university to become a pharmacist, when she instead lived in Ajax with Wong and his parents, Halajian said.

When her parents found out, she was given an ultimatum: Come home and stop seeing Wong, or leave and never come back.

On the outside, she chose to stay home and fulfill her duty to her family, but in truth, she began to bitterly hate her parents, alleges Halajian.

In the spring of 2010, her father discovered that Pan was not working as a pharmacist as she claimed, and was still in contact with Wong.

He told her that “until (her parents) were dead, she would never be with Wong again. Ever,” Halajian said. They imposed strict rules and a curfew, and said they thought Wong was a bad influence, responsible for her many lies, Halajian said.

Pan told her friends she felt “trapped” and like she was on “house arrest,” Halajian said. Pan began to ask her friends if they knew someone who could help kill her parents, Halajian said.

Coming up empty, she eventually asked Wong in August if he knew anyone who could help.

Wong reached out to Lenford Crawford, a man he allegedly dealt drugs with, said Halajian.

Crawford involved his childhood friend Eric Carty, who in turn involved his younger friend David Mylvaganam, the Crown said. Mylvaganam was one of the men who participated in the “break-in,” said Halajian. Carty was in the area, but it cannot be determined if he was in the house, said Halajian.

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Evidence from text messages collected by police state the price for the murder of Hann and Bich Pan was $10,000, Halajian said. Pan was to have $2,000 ready to pay the men up front, the rest was to come from the inheritance and life insurance she would split with her younger brother on her parents’ death, Halajian alleged.

A week before the murder, Pan learned that Wong didn’t love her as much as she loved him, Halajian said.

After she had returned home to her parents, he began seeing another girl. “I feel the way you feel about me, about her,” Wong told Pan, Halajian said. “I was always walking on eggshells with you.”

Pan responded that then they should call off the murder plot, Halajian said, but Wong told her “you said you wanted this with or without me.”

Later, Wong told Pan: “I did everything, I lined it up for you,” Halajian said.

Halajian alleged that Pan had lied to Wong that she had been raped and threatened in order to win him back, and convinced him that she needed his protection.

The plan was not stopped and on Nov. 8, 2010, it was “game on,” as Pan later told police, Halajian alleged.

That Monday night, as her mother sat in front of the television soaking her feet after her usual line-dancing class and her father was in bed, Pan unlocked the front door after signalling to men waiting outside, Halajian said.

After the couple was forced into the basement at gunpoint, Bich Pan pleaded repeatedly with the men not to hurt her daughter, said Halajian. She was shot three times, once at point-blank range.

Hann Pan was shot twice and lost consciousness, said Halajian.

When he woke up from a coma weeks later, Hann Pan told police that his daughter was speaking with one of the men during the supposed robbery and wasn’t tied up, Halajian said. Jennifer Pan was arrested.

Pan’s younger brother Felix testified Wednesday afternoon that his sister told the family that she had graduated from university and even brought home a diploma to be framed.

Felix was away at university in November 2010.

For part of Felix Pan’s testimony, a lawyer stood blocking his view of his older sister sitting in the prisoner’s box directly opposite him. As he emotionally described having to make funeral arrangements for his mother, Jennifer Pan, who sat with her hands tightly clasped for most of the day, also began to cry.

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