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How Jennifer Pan's "Web of Lies" Led to a Plot to Kill Her Parents
Take a look back at the 2010 case of 24-year-old Jennifer Pan, a woman accused of trying to have her overbearing parents killed, as once featured in Oxygen's Snapped: Killer Couples.
In 2010, Vietnamese refugee parents Huei Hann Pan and Bich Ha were shot in what appeared to be a burglary gone wrong. Only one would survive the attack that shook an entire Ontario community, and attention would soon turn toward the couple’s ambitious 24-year-old daughter, Jennifer Pan.
The far-reaching case would later be featured in Season 6, Episode 3 of Snapped: Killer Couples, now in its 17th season, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and streaming the next day on Peacock.
Jennifer Pan's Strict Upbringing
Jennifer Pan grew up in the Canadian neighborhood of Markham, Ontario, described as the “Golden Child” of her hardworking — and arguably overbearing — immigrant parents. She had one younger brother in what appeared, at least on the outside, to be the quintessential American dream.
Her father, Hann, and mother, Bich (pronounced ‘Bick’), expected their eldest to excel in academics and extracurricular activities, which would eventually influence Jennifer’s decision to have her parents murdered. Hann, a tool and die maker, and Bich, who worked in car parts, toiled away to buy their residential home in 2004, expecting Jennifer to work as hard.
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They enrolled Jennifer in piano lessons by age 4 and entered her into the figure skating circuit. Jennifer went on to win numerous trophies and even held hopes of competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
A torn knee ligament would later dash those dreams, however.
With the parents’ high expectations came restrictions, which greatly affected Jennifer once she entered high school. Jennifer wasn’t allowed to date, nor was she permitted to attend events outside her studies, including school dances and social activities. Reports cited Hann as “the classic tiger dad” and Bich as the reluctant stand-by mother.
“He wanted his children to be focused only on education,” one of her defense attorneys said in the Snapped spinoff.
In Jennifer’s junior year, after much pleading, Hann and Bich allowed their daughter to attend a school trip to Europe to study music. There, she fell for Daniel Wong, a high school senior and marijuana dealer who lived about 20 minutes from Jennifer.
What did Jennifer do?
On November 8, 2010, three men — later identified as Lenford “Homeboy” Crawford, David Mylvaganam, and Eric Carty — forced their way into the family home and shot the married couple in what the defense later called a scene staged to look like “a sloppy robbery” by “idiots in a hurry,” according to CBC (Canada’s Broadcasting Corporation).
“The events of that night were never supposed to happen,” said Jennifer’s defense attorney, Paul Cooper.
Jennifer called 911, reporting, “Someone broke in, and I heard shots like pops. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m tied upstairs, and I think my dad went outside… and he’s screaming.”
The married couple was roused from their sleep and forced to move to the basement, where Bich sustained two gunshot wounds to the head at point-blank range, while Hann was shot in the face and shoulder.
Bich died of her injuries, but Hann managed to make his way upstairs before losing consciousness. The father eventually woke and barely made it to a neighbor’s house, later placed in a medically induced coma.
Hann survived the attack.
He later told authorities that he and his wife were sleeping when he woke to a gun in his face, according to CBC. However, he witnessed Jennifer speaking nicely to at least one of the men, leading him to wonder if Jennifer knew the assailants.
"Mr. Pan was interviewed almost a week after the murder, and his version of what transpired inside the Pan residence varied dramatically from the versions told by his daughter," said York Regional Police Det. William Courtice, according to CBC.
As featured in Killer Couples, investigators unwrapped a plot orchestrated by Jennifer, resulting in murder charges against her, Wong, Crawford, Mylvaganam, and Carty.
Carty — later convicted for a separate 2009 murder — was acquitted the double shooting.
Phone records and messages quickly tied Jennifer to her co-conspirators, and soon, Jennifer confessed to police that she’d staged the whole attack. In her defense, Jennifer admitted she offered Crawford $10,000 but said the payment was to have herself — not her parents — murdered so that Jennifer’s younger brother could inherit money from her life insurance policy, according to CBC.
Authorities believed Jennifer had her parents killed because she stood to inherit $500,000 and because her parents forbade her from seeing Daniel Wong.
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A Web of Lies
Jennifer had hatched what even her attorney called “an absurd web of lies (and) deceit spanning 10 years,” according to CBC.
It might have started at age 18, when Jennifer was accepted to Ryerson University. But what Hann and Bich didn’t know was that Jennifer chose the Toronto school because she planned to secretly live with Wong, who was then managing a pizzeria. Jennifer visited her parents’ home on the weekends, telling them she lived on campus and expected to transfer to the University of Toronto after two years to study pharmacology.
But it was all a lie: Jennifer Pan wasn’t even attending college, instead idly spending her days in cafes and other local places for the next couple of years.
Per Snapped: Killer Couples, Ryerson had, in fact, rescinded their invitation after Jennifer failed calculus her senior year in high school. Jennifer then forged documents to make it look like she’d received a loan and a minor scholarship, despite never graduating.
To keep up with the façade for her parents, Jennifer purchased used school textbooks and filled notebooks with study notes. Meanwhile, she’d taken up small jobs, including as a bartender at the same pizza parlor where Wong worked and taught piano on the side.
Jennifer’s charade soon unraveled when Hann grew suspicious of his daughter’s claims that she volunteered at a children’s hospital’s blood-testing lab, according to Toronto Life. Hann wondered why she held no hospital identification nor uniform, later discovering the truth after followed her movements.
A confrontation between Jennifer and her parents had Hann strip Jennifer of her finances and electronics and force the young woman to sever all contact with Wong. They even monitored her car’s odometer.
“Because she had to break up with Daniel, she was heartbroken and depressed that she was given all these restraints at home where she couldn't go out,” a journalist told Killer Couples. “She was essentially at home all the time. She said she felt like a prisoner.”
Prosecutors stated that Jennifer and Wong eventually reached out to Crawford, who reached out to Mylvaganam, who reached out to Carty. The lovesick couple devised the murder-for-hire in hopes of inheriting the life insurance money and living happily ever after.
Jennifer reportedly left the door unlocked the night of the murder so Crawford, Mylvaganam, and Carty could enter the home.
Carty allegedly tied Jennifer to a banister with a shoelace, while Mylvaganam and Crawford took the parents downstairs and covered their heads with blankets before the shooting.
The triggerman remains unknown.
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Before Jennifer confessed to hiring the men, police were suspicious of Jennifer’s ability to call the police while tied up. Furthermore, they questioned why purported thieves left money and valuables behind.
Hann’s statements after he woke from a coma confirmed investigators’ suspicions.
In late 2014, Jennifer, Wong, Crawford, and Mylvaganam were found guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
"When I lost my wife, I lost my daughter at the same time," Hann stated during sentencing. "I hope my daughter Jennifer thinks about what happened to her family and can become a good, honest person someday."
How many years did Jennifer Pan get?
Jennifer and the three men were found guilty, and all four were sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 25 years.
Since featured on Snapped: Killer Couples in 2015, the case is back in the spotlight. In May 2023, an Ontario high court ordered a retrial for Jennifer on the grounds that the judge in the original trial “deprived” the jury by not presenting all possible theories outside a home invasion gone awry and murder for hire, according to CBC. Other options could have put second-degree murder and manslaughter on the table.
A new trial has yet to be scheduled.
Catch up on new episodes of Snapped: Killer Couples, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and streaming the next day on Peacock.
