It’s been almost a decade since a 28-year-old Jennifer Pan was sentenced to life in jail for hiring hit males to kill her dad and mom. Now, a brand new Netflix documentary, What Jennifer Did, launched at present (April 10), examines how Pan went from a star pianist as a baby to her conviction for first diploma homicide, primarily based on incriminating textual content messages and interviews with detectives concerned within the case.
On Nov. 8, 2010, Pan’s mom, Bich Ha Pan, was killed and her father, Huei Hann Pan, was left in a coma after a violent assault at their residence in Markham, Ontario, about 20 miles outdoors of Toronto. Pan was the one surviving witness, and the documentary consists of footage of police interviews with Pan within the aftermath of the house invasion.
Within the documentary, detectives clarify they have been suspicious of Pan from the get-go. As director Jenny Popplewell places it, “Why go away a surviving witness? If you are going to shoot two folks, you’ll shoot the third.” Plus, a neighbor’s safety digital camera footage confirmed three males getting into the home, however no indicators of compelled entry.
Via footage of Pan’s questioning, the documentary reveals how Pan tangled herself up in an internet of lies. She lied about graduating from highschool and attending faculty, even forging report playing cards and scholar mortgage paperwork utilizing Photoshop. She instructed her dad and mom she was pursuing an undergraduate diploma at Toronto Metropolitan College (previously Ryerson), and her dad and mom even drove her there as a result of they thought she was attending lessons. Her dad had desires that she would grow to be a pharmacist, whereas her mom needed her to observe piano in all of her spare time. She was an award-winning pianist, but it surely was clear that her father or mother’s expectations weren’t her passions.
Actually, her ardour was Danny Wong, a pizza restaurant employee and a drug supplier she dated for seven years. After her arrest, police discovered diary entries by which Pan wrote about how they dated on and off and the way her dad and mom didn’t need her to be with him. She turned so depressed that she began chopping herself and instructed police that she employed the hitmen to kill her as an alternative. “I wanted them to kill me,” she says in footage of her questioning by a detective. “I didn’t wish to dwell anymore…as a result of I used to be such a disappointment.”
The documentary attracts closely on analysis and police footage crime reporter Jeremy Grimaldi had used for his 2016 e book on the case, A Daughter’s Lethal Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story. Via a 2014 data request, Grimaldi obtained textual content messages from Jennifer’s telephone exhibiting that Wong mentioned he lined up a hitman named “homeboy.” Within the documentary, police concerned within the investigation say they imagine Wong needed Pan’s dad and mom lifeless as a result of he hoped to learn from the life insurance coverage and home Pan would come into, maybe to finance his drug dealing. Within the documentary, detectives additionally found that Pan was so critical about killing her dad and mom that she supplied to pay one other male good friend to do it however that plan didn’t come via. In 2015, Pan, Wong, plus two males she employed, Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam, have been all sentenced to life in jail with no chance of parole for 25 years for the first-degree homicide of Pan’s mom, and life in jail for the tried homicide of Pan’s father. In Might 2023, they received an attraction as a result of the jury wasn’t given the choice of second diploma homicide within the case of Pan’s mom’s homicide. Now it’s as much as Canada’s supreme court docket to resolve whether or not there shall be one other trial. The documentarians hope the Netflix movie will assist deliver new consideration to the case, as detectives are nonetheless on the lookout for a 3rd hit man. Pan and her father declined to be interviewed for the documentary, and what actually went on within the Pan family main as much as the killing might by no means be identified. Popplewell hopes that Pan’s troubled psychological state will encourage viewers to suggest assist for family members who seem as remoted as Pan. “This is not an instantaneous snap, this was a gradual unraveling that had a possibility to be intercepted and for her to get assist,” Popplewell says. “And sadly, it would not appear that she was capable of converse to the fitting folks about her feelings and the way she was feeling…Moderately than direct her to help, Daniel gave her the telephone variety of ‘homeboy.’”
