One of Netflix’s most popular true crime documentaries has revealed astonishing details about a 2010 murder-for-hire case, including the fact that the perpetrators are currently awaiting a retrial.
What Jennifer Did, released April 10, chronicles the life of Jennifer Pan and the events that led her to kill her mother, Bich Pan, and attempt to kill her father, Huei Hann Pan.
Jennifer was found guilty of hiring hitmen to kill her parents, but she successfully appealed her murder charge and is now awaiting a new trial date.
She remains in jail on attempted murder charges, but will be back in court for her next court hearing in June.
Netflix’s What Jennifer Did has uncovered the shocking details behind Jennifer Pan’s murder plot that led to the death of her mother and attempted murder of her father
The documentary highlights Pan’s complicated relationship with her parents, Huei Hann Pan (right) and Bich Pan (left).
Pan was convicted in 2015 and given a life sentence, but the case will now head to a new trial after she and her three co-conspirators appealed the verdict
Huei Hann Pan fled to a neighbor’s house after suffering gunshot wounds to his face and shoulder, and later went to testify against his daughter, who was only 24 years old at the time.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Pan began plotting her parents’ murder after they forced her to choose between them and her on-off boyfriend, Daniel Wong.
After her parents forbade her from seeing him, the couple allegedly conspired to kill them to get their hands on her $500,000 inheritance.
Pan testified that she had a contentious relationship with her father, whom she called the “rule maker,” but that she had a closer bond with her mother.
The documentary highlights Pan’s complicated relationship with her strict parents, including a web of conspiracy dating back to high school, when she worked on cars, attended college and then lied about her studies.
On the night of Nov. 8, 2010, prosecutors alleged, Pan let go of the door so Wong’s hitmen could slip in and carry out the killings. They shot her parents several times, killing her mother and seriously wounding her father.
In 2015, 28-year-old Pan was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder and given a life sentence without parole for 25 years.
Wong and his co-conspirators, Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam, were also found guilty.
A fourth man, Eric Carty, was also involved in the scheme. He was serving a separate sentence for killing his friend when he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to an additional 18 years.
He died in 2018 after being stabbed in prison, police said.
Pan and her boyfriend, Daniel Wong (left), allegedly conspired to kill her parents to get her inheritance. Eric Carty (right) was also involved in the scheme, but was murdered in prison while serving consecutive sentences
Wong’s hitmen, Lenford Crawford (left) and David Mylvaganam (right), were both found guilty of their involvement in the crime and sentenced to prison.
Prosecutors accused Pan of leaving a door unlocked at the family’s Markham home so the killers could enter.
However, all convictions, including Pan’s, have since been overturned and the documentary ends without explaining why they will be retried.
The overturned convictions came after Pan and the three surviving co-conspirators appealed the verdict.
Attorneys for the defendants argued that presiding Judge Cary Boswell improperly instructed the jury, causing them to consider only two “paths to liability” for the defendant.
Boswell outlined two possible scenarios for how the crime occurred: either the defendants plotted to kill both of Jennifer’s parents, or they planned to “commit a home invasion/robbery” that resulted in death.
The appeal argued that these instructions limited the conclusions jurors could have drawn from the evidence, including a third scenario presented by Pan herself, who claimed she hired the hitmen to kill her, not her parents.
In May 2023, a Canadian appeals panel agreed with the defense.
“In my opinion, this is the most difficult and consequential error raised,” Judge Ian Nordheimer wrote in the ruling.
Netflix’s What Jennifer Did releases on April 10
The group stole some money hidden in the house and then led the parents to the basement where they were all shot multiple times
Police found blood splatter running throughout the house, with an investigator labeling it as ‘something we’d never seen before’
“If successful, a new trial will be necessary for all suspects accused of murder. I have come to the conclusion that this is the case.’
The defendants have remained in jail awaiting their retrial after the court rejected their appeal for their conviction for the attempted murder of Huei Hann Pan.
Unlike the United States, Canadian prosecutors also have the right to appeal at this stage of the proceedings. In August 2023, prosecutors in the Pan case filed their own appeal of the appellate ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Now the case has come to a standstill as the parties await a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada on whether they will hear arguments in the appeal.
If the Supreme Court refuses to do so, or if it hears the arguments but chooses the defense, the new trial order will stand, meaning the parties will then have it up to the lower courts to decide whether to take the case for a new trial .