Jennifer Pan: How the “Perfect” Daughter Planned Her Parent’s Murder

Jennifer Pan attempted a kill-for-hire attack in 2010 on her mother and father, leaving her mother dead. Her crime was only discovered by her father waking from an induced coma.

Her father, Hann Huei Pan, and her mother, Bich Ha Pan, were Viet Hoa immigrants from Vietnam who settled in Canada in 1979 as political refugees. They were the epitome of success, both finding work at Magna International, an auto manufacturer. Hann was a die and toolmaker, which Bich made auto parts.  

Like many parents, the Pans were intent on giving their children what they never had. They worked extremely hard so that Jennifer Pan and her brother Felix would have every opportunity to do better than them.  

From the outside, their children looked perfect. Felix Pan was going to a prestigious college studying Mechanical Engineering. Hann always dreamed that his son would design the same cars that he assembled.   

Jennifer’s parents practiced what we would now call “tiger parenting.” They set many strict goals for their children and had high expectations. Her parents started her on piano and figure skating lessons from the age of four. She spent most of her week training and even had hopes of going to the Olympics for figure skating before a torn ligament ended her dream. They also relentlessly monitored her activities. They picked her up from school and never allowed her to date boys or hang out with friends. Hann wanted her to become a doctor, but Jennifer gravitated towards becoming a pharmacist.  

In 2010 the family was in a good place. They purchased a large home in Markham, a predominantly Asian City of 300,000 about 20 miles northeast of Downtown Toronto. They had a large savings account and drove two luxury cars.  

Jennifer Pan’s Story

A security camera caught three gunmen in front of the Pan house on the night of the murder. According to Jennnifer Pan, they broke into the house and tied her to a second-floor banister. They then took her parents Hann and Bich, downstairs to the basement, where she heard multiple gunshots. She then called 911 and told them the above. The conversation looked like this: 

911 operator: What’s your name?

Jennifer Pan: My name is Jennifer.

911 Operator: Someone broke in?

Jennifer Pan: Someone broke in, and I heard shots like pop. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m tied upstairs.

911 Operator: Did it sound like gunshots?

Jennifer Pan: I don’t know what gunshots sound like. I just heard a pop.

(You can now hear Hann Pan screaming in the background)

Jennifer Pan: I’m okay! My dad just went outside screaming.

911 Operator: Do you think your mom is downstairs too?

Jennifer Pan: I don’t hear her anymore. Please Hurry. I don’t know what’s happening.

911 Operator: Ma’am, Ma’am, Ma’am

Jennifer Pan: I don’t know where my parents are.

When help arrived, Hann was immediately taken to the hospital with a gun wound in his face and placed in an induced coma. Tragically, Bich died in the basement. She was hot in the back multiple times and then fatally shot in the back of her head. Jennifer was found how she described on the call – tied with her hands behind her back to the banister.

From the outside world, Jennifer Pan looked like a model grieving daughter. The victim of a horrific crime that left her dad in a coma and her mom dead. Her story would quickly come unraveled.   

Jennifer Pan’s Story Was Suspicious. 

Jennifer said that the assailants tied her up to a banister. Detectives found it hard to believe that she was able to call 911 while she was tied up.  

The killers brutally murdering her mother and attempting to kill her father while leaving Jennifer completely unharmed a raised eyebrows. Nobody would leave an eyewitness while committing a violent crime like that. 

The weird holes in her story led officers to start keeping tabs on her. They noticed things like that Jennifer’s crying appeared to be fake at her mother’s funeral.  

Hann Pan Wakes Up

At first, only Jennifer Pan and the attackers knew what happened that night. The cops only had her word to go on. That changed when Hann Pan came out of his coma. It was a miracle that Hann survived a gunshot to the face at point-blank. Hann also remembered the whole night that his wife was murdered clearly, and he almost died. When the police interviewed him, they found the stories didn’t match. This was the strand that untangled Jennifer’s many lies over the years.  

Jennifer Pan Live A Double life

Jennifer wasn’t as innocent or successful as her parents believed. She had carefully cultivated this image over the last few, and nobody was any the wiser. The lies started when she was young. The incredible amount of pressure she faced through her parent’s “Tiger Parenting” drove her to lie to them. She wanted them to believe that she was meeting their expectations, even when she wasn’t. 

Hann monitored her schedule and never allowed her to date or attend extracurricular activities when in high school. Even when they believed she was attending university, her parents closely monitored her schedule and didn’t allow her to attend parties and other events. By the time she was 22, she had never been drunk, gone to a club, or even gone on a vacation without her family. Her friends found her upbringing to be extremely oppressive.  

She had done well in school as a child, but it became pretty apparent that she was an average student when she reached high school. She was a mostly C student, except for music classes, in which she excelled. On multiple occasions, she gave her parents forged report cards showing that she was a straight-A student. Ryerson University briefly accepted her but rescinded it after failing calculus in her last year of high school. As a result, she never ended up graduating. 

Unable to face her parents, she told them she was attending university. She would sit around in cafes, work at a restaurant, or teach piano in the meantime. She lied and said she received scholarships, which is why she didn’t have to pay tuition. It got so bad that she even pretended to be accepted into an elite pharmacology program. She fully committed to the lie by creating fake notebooks full of notes and textbooks for the “classes” she was taking.  

During this time, she could escape from her parents by staying at a friend’s house near campus. In reality, she was staying with Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong, her boyfriend. Wong was a marijuana dealer who had gone to high school with Jennifer Pan. Her parents had no idea that he even existed. 

During this period, Pan also faked employment at The Hospital For Sick Children. Finally, suspicious after she didn’t have an ID badge or uniform, her mother followed her to work and discovered her deception.  

Hann was furious and went so far as to attempt to throw Jennifer out. Bich convinced him to be more lenient. They gave Jennifer an ultimatum – finish high school, go to college, and quit seeing Daniel or “wait until I’m dead.”   

Jennifer Pan’s Relationship

Despite her father, Jennifer continued to speak to Daniel, who she had secretly seen since High School. When she was 24, Wong broke up with her. He was fed up with the effort he had to put into dating and began seeing another woman. Pan began to weave a new web of lies to win him back. She said that a man broke into her house with a police badge, then more men came in and gang-raped her. She received a bullet in the mail after that was from Wong’s new girlfriend. The crazy story worked, and pretty soon, they were planning the fateful home invasion.

Planning a Murder

In the Spring of 2010, Jennifer Pan first attempted to hire a hitman to kill her father. Jennifer’s friend Andrew Montemayor, a highschool friend who bragged about mugging people, introduced her to Ricardo Duncan. She offered him $1,500 to kill her father at work, but he refused. 

Around this time, Daniel and Jennifer began to plot together to hire a professional hitman to kill her parents. They believed she would inherit $500,000, and they could move in together. 

Daniel gave her a fresh iPhone and sim card and introduced her to Lenford Roy Crawford, who brought David Mylvaganam and Eric Shawn “Sniper” Carty into the plot, as well as one more assailant.  

On November 8, 2010, Jennifer Pan unlocked her parent’s house’s front door when she went to bed then called Mylvaganam. He entered the house with two others, all carrying guns. Because Daniel Wong and Crawford were at work, we’re unsure who the other two gunmen were. One was likely Carty, who claimed he was the “driver,” but one has completely gotten away with it. 

After stealing the valuables, the men took Bich and Hann down the basement, shooting both of them. 

The Arrest

Police interviewed Jennifer Pan the night of the murder. Less than two weeks later, they arrested her on November 22, 2010. She confessed to hiring a hitman during her third interview but claimed that she hired them to kill her. Interrogators could get her confession so quickly by lying about lie detection software and infrared satellites that captured the crimes. Canadian police are generally allowed to lie about evidence when interrogating suspects. 

Police arrested her accomplices much later. They arrested Carty, Wong, and Mylvaganam in April 2011, and Crawford in May 2011.  

The Trial Of Jennifer Pan

Jennifer Pan’s trial began on March 19, 2014, and lasted for ten months. The five of them pled not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and first-degree murder.  

The evidence against them was overwhelming. The police presented extensive mobile tracking and text messages, particularly between Jennifer and Daniel six hours before the murder.  

They focused on the strange nature of the break-in and irregularities between Jennifer and Hann’s testimonies. One of the most damning was that she could not recreate how she made her 911 call with her hands bound behind her back.

The court convicted and sentenced them to life with no parole for 25 years on December 13, 2014. Carty the only exception and was eventually given an 18-year sentence with the possibility of parole after 9.

The crime and trial was a media sensation, sending shockwaves across Canada’s Asian population. Many writers and publications began to address the idea that parenting can go too far.  

Where is Jennifer Pan Today?

As of 2016, Jennifer Pan serves her sentences at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario. Her father and brother requested a court order prohibiting her from contacting her family again. She is also prohibited from contacting Wong as well.  

Carty died in Prison in 2018, and the rest are serving their sentences. They’re eligible for parole in 2039, but even then, Jennifer Pan’s life will be under someone’s watchful eye. She will just be trading her parent’s for the government.