After years of struggling under the strict rule of her "tiger parents," 24-year-old Jennifer Pan finally snapped in 2010 — and hired hitmen to kill them.
Jennifer Pan was a well-behaved teenager, a “golden” daughter in her parents’ eyes. A straight-A student at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School in Markham, Ontario, she was raised by Vietnamese refugees who ran a strict household. Pan did as she was told every day, and soon earned both admission and a scholarship to Ryerson University in Toronto.
Her father and mother, Huei Hann and Bich Ha Pan, exercised strict control over her everyday life and did everything they could to set her up for success. She was forbidden to attend school dances or parties and was forced to learn piano, figure skating, and martial arts. The rules paid off and Pan transferred to the University of Toronto, graduated, and got a respectable job.
York Regional PoliceAfter hiring killers to murder her parents in 2010, Jennifer Pan received two life sentences with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
In reality, however, all of these accomplishments were part of an elaborate lie.
Jennifer Pan never graduated from college, let alone high school. She forged report cards and university transcripts for nearly a decade before her parents finally found out. She even had a secret boyfriend, Daniel Wong, for seven years.
And together, to cover her lies and preserve their life together, Jennifer Pan and Daniel Wong orchestrated a murder plot to have her parents killed. In 2010, the pair hired three hitmen to murder Huei Hann and Bich Ha Pan. The brutal attack left Pan’s mother dead while her father miraculously survived being shot in the head.
Soon, Jennifer Pan’s crimes were uncovered and she was ultimately sentenced to life in prison, with her own father testifying against her at trial.
This is the chilling story of what Jennifer Pan did when she reached her breaking point and decided that murder was the only way out.
Inside Jennifer Pan’s Elaborate Double Life Under The Rule Of Her “Tiger Parents”
Family PhotoJennifer Pan in high school, several years before she conspired to have her parents killed.
Jennifer Pan was born on June 17, 1986, in Markham, Ontario. Her parents, Bich Ha Pan and Huei Hann Pan, had fled Vietnam in 1979 and worked hard to provide their children with opportunities they never had. Both Jennifer Pan’s father and mother worked at auto parts manufacturer Magna International.
They eventually purchased a large home, a Lexus and a Mercedes, and accumulated $200,000 in savings. Disciplining their daughter, they enrolled her in piano lessons at age four and figure skating in elementary school. In high school, she appeared to thrive both academically and socially.
However, when she tore a ligament in her knee, any hopes of being a professional skater were dashed. In eighth grade, Pan began self-harming by cutting.
In 11th grade, Jennifer Pan found solace in dating senior Daniel Wong until he was forced to transfer to a new school after police found marijuana in his car. Pan’s grades began to slide from As to Bs, but she was accepted early into Ryerson University — until she failed calculus her senior year and the college withdrew their offer.
Public DomainJennifer Pan spent years forging report cards and college transcripts to please her strict parents, Huei Hann Pan and Bich Ha Pan. But when they found out, she and her boyfriend Daniel Wong (pictured) decided to have them killed.
Pan started forging her report cards and claimed to be starting Ryerson in fall 2004. She told her father she would transfer to the University of Toronto after two years at Ryerson and even claimed to have gotten a $3,000 scholarship. Huei Hann Pan proudly bought her a laptop.
In the fall, Pan commuted to cafés or to Wong’s dorm pretending to go to class. She even claimed to have successfully transferred to the University of Toronto in 2006, right on schedule.
When her 2008 graduation ceremony loomed, Jennifer Pan claimed the university only gave out one ticket per student — and that she had given hers to a friend so as not to exclude one of her parents.
Jennifer Pan Hires Hitmen To Kill Her Parents
A supposedly newfound graduate, Jennifer Pan purported to be volunteering at a children’s hospital in Toronto. Jennifer Pan’s father and mother grew suspicious at the lack of uniform or ID badge and tailed her to work.
Finally exposed, she had her phone and laptop confiscated and was forbidden from dating Wong.
Court ExhibitJennifer Pan’s father, Huei Hann Pan, and her mother, Bich Ha Pan.
She regained their trust over the next two years and had her phone privileges restored. At 24 years old, she had never been drunk or gone out. But Daniel Wong and Jennifer Pan reconnected, and Wong even provided her with a spare phone, which she used to ask him to help stage a robbery to kill her parents.
Wong introduced her to an underworld friend named Lenford Crawford. Over a series of texts, Pan agreed to pay him $10,000 out of her eventual inheritance. Crawford prepared by scoping out her neighborhood on Halloween 2010. On Nov. 8, Crawford texted her: “After work ok will be game time.”
With Huei Hann in bed and Bich Ha reading downstairs, Jennifer said goodnight to her mother and unlocked the front door. At 10:02 p.m., she turned on the lights in the upstairs study. Three minutes later, Crawford and two others, David Mylvaganam and Eric Carty, entered the home.
Carty tied Jennifer Pan’s hands behind her back and to the upstairs banister with a shoelace. The others dragged her parents into the basement and covered their heads in blankets. Bich Ha Pan was shot three times in the head, while her husband was shot in the face and shoulder.
The Aftermath Of Bich Ha Pan’s Murder And What Happened To Jennifer Pan
As the gunmen fled, Jennifer Pan called 911.
That’s when her father appeared from the basement — having miraculously survived. Although police believed Pan during questioning that night, they were suspicious about how she could reach her phone while bound. Their skepticism grew during a second interview on November 10 when they asked her to simulate how she did so.
York Regional PoliceJennifer Pan was interrogated for 10 hours and eventually confessed.
Waking from his coma on Nov. 12, Jennifer Pan’s father told police he saw his daughter whispering to one of the gunmen “like a friend.” When Detective William Goetz questioned Pan again on Nov. 22, 2010, the jig was up. He told her he knew everything, and Pan cracked.
“But what happens to me?” Pan tearfully asked.
Daniel Wong and Jennifer Pan were arrested — Jennifer that same night. Wong and the hitmen followed in spring 2011.
On Dec. 13, 2014, Pan, Wong, Carty, Crawford, and Mylvaganam were found guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder. They received life sentences with no chance of parole and additional life sentences to be served concurrently. Carty was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in 2015 and received an 18-year sentence.
However, during an appeal in 2023, Jennifer Pan was granted a new trial for the murder of her mother and her conviction overturned. The panel of judges presiding over the appeal decided that the original trial judge had made a critical error by instructing the jury that they were only to consider the option of first-degree murder, as opposed to also being able to consider second-degree murder or manslaughter. But as of August 2023, Canada’s Supreme Court was still weighing whether or not to hear the case.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Pan’s conviction for the attempted murder of her father remains. Thus, the life sentence she received for that crime is still to be carried out.
Regardless of any outcome of a new trial, Jennifer Pan will remain behind bars for many years to come.
After learning about Jennifer Pan, read about Dalia Dippolito and her murder-for-hire plot gone wrong. Then, learn how teenager Erin Caffey had her parents killed.
