Murder of Bich Pan
On November 8, 2010, police in Markham, Ontario, Canada, a suburb of Toronto, responded to a report of a robbery and assault at the Unionville home of Hann and Bich Pan, ethnically Chinese immigrants from Vietnam. Both had been shot repeatedly; Bich died of her injuries and Hann was permanently blinded. The investigation revealed that the crime was not a robbery but instead a kill-for-hire arranged by the couple's daughter Jennifer Pan. She had expected to inherit her parents' money and was angered that they had forbidden her to see her boyfriend after they discovered she had been deceiving them about her education.
At trial, Pan was found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years, the same penalty as her co-conspirators. In May 2023, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ordered a retrial for Pan and her conspirators on the first-degree murder charge, but upheld the attempted murder conviction. Two years later the Supreme Court of Canada sustained the appeal.
Early life and education
Jennifer Pan's mother, Bich Ha Pan, and father, Huei Hann Pan, were ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam to Canada. Hann was born and educated in Vietnam, and he moved to Canada in 1979 as a refugee. Bich also came to Canada as a refugee. The couple were married in Toronto and lived in Scarborough. Jennifer was born in 1986, and her brother Felix was born in 1989. The Pans found work at Magna International, an auto parts manufacturer in Aurora. Hann worked as a tool and die maker, while Bich made car parts. By 2004, Hann and Bich purchased a house with a two-car garage on a residential street in Markham, a city in the Greater Toronto Area with a large Asian population.Jennifer's parents set many goals for their children and were said to have had extremely high expectations of them. Jennifer was made to take music theory and harmony lessons at the age of 12, as well as figure skating classes, where she trained most days of the week. Her aspirations to become an Olympic figure skating champion ended when she tore a knee ligament. At Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School, Jennifer played flute in the school band. According to her high school friend Karen K. Ho, Hann was seen as "the classic tiger dad," and Bich was "his reluctant accomplice". The Pans picked Jennifer up at the end of school each day and closely monitored her extracurricular activities. They never permitted her to date while attending high school or attend dances out of fear that these activities would distract from her academic commitments. Jennifer was not permitted to attend any parties during the time her parents believed she was at university. At 22, "she had never gone to a club, been drunk, visited a friend's cottage or gone on vacation without her family." Jennifer and her friends reportedly regarded this upbringing as restrictive and greatly oppressive.
Despite her parents' expectations that Jennifer receive good grades, in high school they were somewhat average except for music. By forging report cards, she deceived her parents into thinking she earned straight As. When Jennifer failed calculus class in grade 12, Ryerson University rescinded her early admission. As she could not bear to be perceived as a failure, she began to lie to those she knew, including her parents, and pretended she was attending university. Instead, she sat in cafés, taught piano, and worked in a restaurant to earn money. In order to maintain the charade, Jennifer told her parents she had won scholarships, later falsely claiming that she had accepted an offer into the pharmacology program at the University of Toronto. She went to the extent of purchasing second-hand textbooks and watching videos related to pharmacology in order to create notebooks full of purported class notes she could show her parents.
Jennifer also requested permission from her parents to stay near campus with a friend during the week. Wong, of mixed Chinese and Filipino ancestry, lived in Ajax. He was an active marijuana dealer and managed a Boston Pizza.
Adult life
While pretending to study at Ryerson, Jennifer told her parents that she had started working as a volunteer at The Hospital for Sick Children. Hann and Bich soon became suspicious when they realized she did not have a hospital ID badge or uniform. Bich followed her daughter to "work" and quickly discovered her deception. Greatly angered, Hann wanted to throw Jennifer out of the house, but Bich persuaded him to allow her to stay. As she had not completed high school, she eventually began working to finish high school and was later encouraged by her parents to apply to university. She was, however, forbidden to contact Wong due to his parents being from different ethnic backgrounds, or to go anywhere except for her piano-teaching job. The two still remained in discreet contact.By 2009, Wong had grown weary of trying to pursue a relationship with her because of the restrictions imposed on Jennifer by her parents. Wong broke off the relationship and began to date another woman. After learning of this new relationship, Jennifer falsely informed Wong that a man had entered her house, showing what appeared to be a police badge, after which several men rushed in and gang-raped her. She claimed that after this a bullet was mailed to her, and that both of these events were arranged by Wong's new girlfriend.
Attack on the Pan household
In spring 2010, Jennifer was in contact with Andrew Montemayor, a high school friend who, she claims, had boasted of robbing people at knifepoint. He introduced her to Ricardo Duncan, a "goth kid," to whom Jennifer claims she paid $1,500 to kill her father in the parking lot at his workplace. Duncan said that she once gave him $200 for a night out, but he returned it, and rebuffed her entreaty to kill her parents.Jennifer and Wong were back in contact at this time and, according to the police, they came up with a plan to hire a professional hitman for $10,000, calculating that she would then inherit $500,000. They planned to move in together. Wong connected Pan with Lenford Roy Crawford, a Jamaican-born man, and gave her a SIM card and iPhone so that she could contact Crawford without using her usual cell phone. Crawford in turn contacted another man, Eric Shawn "Sniper" Carty, from Rexdale, who in turn contacted Montreal-born David Mylvaganam. At trial, the Crown argued Mylvaganam was one of the hitmen. Carty was later convicted of an unrelated 2009 murder.
The murder took place at the Pan house in Markham's Unionville neighbourhood. On November 8, 2010, Jennifer unlocked the front door of the family home when she went to bed, then spoke by phone to Mylvaganam. Shortly afterward, Mylvaganam and two other people entered the home through the front door, all armed. In the court testimony, the Crown did not establish the identity of the other two hitmen; Wong and Crawford were at work.
Carty stated that he was the driver for those who broke into the house; he also selected them and was involved in plotting the attack. The identity of the triggerman remains unknown.
After demanding all of the money in the house and ransacking the main bedroom, the three men took Bich and Hann to the basement and shot them several times. Bich died, and Hann survived. The three men then took $2,000 from Jennifer and left. Jennifer claimed that they tied her up, but she managed to dial 9-1-1. Hann was treated at Markham Stouffville Hospital, before being moved to a trauma unit at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, by air.
Investigation and arrests
Police initially believed the family's wealth lured the perpetrators into the house, but they grew skeptical as numerous valuables had not been stolen. It also seemed unusual that Pan was left unharmed and had dialed 9-1-1 with her hands bound. The evening after the murder, police interviewed her. Hann later woke up from a coma, and he recalled to police that he saw Jennifer whispering to one of the hitmen in a friendly and soft manner. She was arrested on November 22, 2010, during her third interview. Jennifer admitted that she had hired the killers, but she claimed the plan was to kill her, not her parents. The interrogating officer, William "Bill" Goetz, used the Reid technique to obtain Pan's confession. He falsely told Pan that he had computer software that could analyse untruths in statements and that there were satellites with infrared technology to analyse movements in buildings; in Canada, police are legally allowed to lie to those they are interrogating regarding the evidence they have allegedly collected, and the strategies they are using.Mylvaganam was arrested at the Jane Finch Mall in North York in April 2011. Carty was arrested at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, Ontario, several days later. Wong was arrested on April 26 at work. Crawford was the final suspect arrested, in Brampton the following month. Pan was held at Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, while awaiting trial.
Trials
The trial of Pan and her accomplices began in March 2014, in Newmarket; it lasted 10 months. All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges of first degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. At the trial, York Regional Police evidence included exhaustive tracking of mobile device movements and text message traffic, including over 100 messages between Pan and Wong in the six hours prior to the killing. Further evidence focused on the atypical nature of the "break-in", "robbery", shootings, and irregularities in Jennifer's testimony. Her obsession with Wong, emotionlessness confession regarding the attack, and recognition of the trauma she underwent were also detailed. A major irregularity was that Jennifer was not assaulted, blindfolded, taken to the basement, nor shot, leaving behind an eyewitness to the attack. Hann's very different account also undermined her credibility. The trial included over 200 exhibits; over 50 witnesses testified.Jennifer, Wong, Mylvaganam, and Crawford were all convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Originally, Carty was tried with the other perpetrators. However, Edward Sapiano, his lawyer, fell ill, and in mid-2014, Carty's case was declared a mistrial. In December 2015, Carty received an 18-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit murder, with eligibility for parole after nine years, but he died in prison in 2018. According to Carty, he did not wish to subject Hann Pan to another criminal trial.
The trial took 10 months, with the jury sequestered for the four days it took to reach its verdict. "I lived with daily thoughts of this crime", said foreman Patrick Fleming. "Graphic coroner photos of bullet holes through flesh, the bloody crime scenes and the chilling testimonies." He also recalled regularly reliving the moment he read the verdict, and the screams from the defendants and their families. The sequestration heightened the sense of isolation he felt upon returning home afterwards, as he had not been allowed to visit his father-in-law in the hospital and felt guilty for being unable to support his wife. Fleming later joined forces with another juror who was suing the federal and provincial governments over mental health issues from service on the jury in a different murder trial to advocate for mental-health support to be provided to jurors.