Jennifer Pan’s revenge on her 'Tiger Parents'

the real-life horror story that happened inside the pan family's home shattered the serenity of their normally quiet upscale neighborhood can you tell me just a little bit about the pan family well in many ways this is an immigrant's tale the pans were the epitome of an immigrant success story han pan and his wife bick were vietnamese boat people who escaped to find a better life what did they do for a living he was a tool and die maker his wife worked in the same factory as him putting together car parts but he was very intent on his children doing better than he did and the pan children were by all accounts nearly perfect felix was away studying mechanical engineering at a prestigious university han wanted his son to design cars not assemble them and daughter jennifer was an olympic caliber figure skater an award-winning pianist and a straight a student his daughter he wanted to be a doctor eventually changing that to a pharmacist because he said that she didn't have the stomach for it the pans led a very disciplined and frugal life but lived in a nice house and drove two luxury cars cops believe those pricey possessions may have been what lured the three gun-toting thugs into their home that horrible night on this home security camera across the street you can actually see the gunman in front of the house you can see three shadowy figures come into the house together what did they say when they walked in they asked for money it's the beginning of what detective bill curtis describes as 18 minutes of sheer terror assailants come in yes and where do they go and who do they tie up first so initially they confront beak in the living room area hand wakes up to a muzzle pressed firmly to his forehead one goes upstairs and actually rousts a hand pan out of bed and he's taken downstairs jennifer tells police she was in her room upstairs talking on the phone when she hears something strange outside her door she heard footsteps yes not to be her parents somehow she identified that as not being her parents good ears yes jennifer peeks out the door to find a pistol pointed directly at her there were guns to everyone's back they were screaming where is the money it was a horrific time a gunman ties jennifer's hands behind her back with a shoelace and drags her from room to room and ransacks the house and how many assailants did she claim were in there three how'd she describe them they were all male black jennifer hands over twenty five hundred dollars she had saved from teaching piano and another eleven hundred dollars her mother had hidden in a nightstand but it's not enough and explained that he didn't have any money or certainly not large quantities of money one assailant pistol whips hand across the back of his head a robber then takes jennifer back to the second floor and ties her to the banister how was she bound so her hands were behind her back and then they were tied to the banister the gunman downstairs suddenly shoved bick and hand to the basement he orders them to turn around and throws a blanket over their heads bick's final words are pleased for the gunman to spare jennifer's life then five gunshots pierced the night moments later that grainy security video shows the killers taking off for some reason they spared jennifer's life and she dials 9-1-1 what's your name is broken so i'm broke and i heard shots like pop i don't know what's happening i'm tied upstairs do you sound then 34 seconds into the call something unexpected on the 911 call you hear someone else screaming yes that's that's handpan han pan somehow survives what was meant to be his execution do you think your mom is downstairs too don't hear tragically hand finds his beloved wife dead at his feet where was she shot she was shot multiple times in the back and then ultimately the fatal shot was to the back of the head i don't know what's happening that's what police wanted to know too when they get to the house they find jennifer tied up exactly the way she described that raises more than a few eyebrows she's telling the 911 operator that she is tied to the banister but she's also making the call on her cell phone right to the rest of the world jennifer pan was a grieving daughter the survivor of a horrible home invasion that left her mom bick shot dead and her dad han pan in a coma fighting for his life there were 18 minutes of complete horror for her whole family but police were beginning to wonder if the young woman with the angelic voice was really the devil in disguise the obvious question that people ask is how is it that they left someone unharmed to be a witness my initial thought was that there was something odd about it something fishy crime reporter jeremy grimaldi covered the pan's home invasion for the local paper what was fishy about it the criminals who did this would have to be pretty bumbling to to shoot two people in the head and then leave one witness surviving tied up upstairs grimaldi says his reporter instincts told him this was more than a home invasion what was the most glaring thing about her story not much was stolen there was a mercedes and a lexus in the garage they weren't stolen there were tvs there were devices there was money that was found in the house which wasn't stolen thieves that get away into the night without without cash that was left on the counter aren't very good thieves cops have a lot of questions too one of the biggest we were you know concerned about how she could make the 911 call with her hands tied behind her back and she had a flip phone she did making it even harder yes so investigators bring jennifer into police headquarters for a demonstration i want to see how you could physically get your phone out of your waistband we're obviously going to need to know that it's very important we know you made the phone call but questions are going to obviously raise is that if my hands are bound and i'm against the railing how do i talk to a 911 operator at first jennifer appears hesitant put this in the side that you believe it was in great turn around so that only you're looking away from me you're looking exactly like now here is where the banister is put your hands back behind your back is exactly how you remember they were okay now and are you restrained from movement how far can you move your hands from the banister they tied my upper arm yes around the banister yes but my hands are bound together remember she says the robbers used a black shoestring to bind her arms so your hands bound together and this is the arm that's the the strings wrapped around against the banister okay so now how can you get to the phone and how do you make the phone call 911 and do you talk down like that yes i'm yelling at the phone with this and how can you hear i turned the volume on max yes so that's exactly the way that you're talking to her against the railing so it was possible she was telling the truth in that sense yes so at this point you think you have what on your hands it's described to us as a home invasion and we have nothing that would suggest something to the difference with one person dead one shot and the daughter tied up unheard yes but cops still weren't convinced jennifer was telling the truth so they had a secret police detail follow her even to her mother's funeral so how did she act certainly didn't see any tears she didn't cry at her mother's funeral no it didn't appear genuine anyways and after something as horrific as a home invasion robbery your father's in the hospital your mother's been killed your life was supposedly threatened yeah i would think that you you'd probably react a little bit differently detectives immediately went back to work and out of curiosity listened to that 9-1-1 call one more time my dad just went outside screaming and bingo hello hello there was even something about that that made you very suspicious yeah after we heard the 9-1-1 call uh you know the question uh uh begged me answered was you know what parent would notwithstanding your wife has been clearly been shot and you've been shot would not check on their child you know he could hear her screaming but he doesn't but the only person who could answer that question was fighting for his life in icu and pam was an induced coma at the hospital beek had sadly succumbed to the injuries she died after being shot and we only had jennifer's word that this is what happened but that was about to change and pan came out of his induced coma han pan is alive out of his coma and talking some say it's a miracle after being shot in the face at very close range during what his daughter jennifer describes as a horrific home invasion people broke into her house and tells police he remembers every single detail about what happened inside their home the night he almost died and his wife bick was murdered and cops say that's not good news for his daughter when han pan came out of his induced coma he described something completely different than what jennifer pan had described it and it's not the first time jennifer pan has been caught in a lie when she does talk it's a lie he lies about a lot of things almost everything according to crime reporter jeremy grimaldi in fact he claims jennifer pan wasn't anything close to the innocent straight a piano playing daughter she pretended to be what was she really doing with her life she was living with her boyfriend and working grimaldi who's dug deep into the pan family says jennifer started lying as a young child she blamed a lot of her behavior on what's what's known in popular culture as tiger parenting tiger parenting is common in asian culture it's described as tough love some say bordering on tyranny and grimaldi says han pan was the classic tiger dad pushing education over all else even choosing what career path jennifer would follow and instead of praising her academic accomplishments grimaldi says han pan would often tell his daughter she wasn't good enough so how bad did jennifer say it was for her it was so bad that she created lies for them to believe that she was the daughter that they wanted her to be she begins to lead a double life of deception she starts manufacturing report cards with a photocopier she was forging her report cards exactly she never did graduate from high school her parents thought she did they were quite unaware of what was going on jennifer even doctored up a college acceptance letter to an elite pharmacy school the career her dad chose for her so you think she was actually living her lie to the point that it was a fantasy and real for her yes she bought textbooks she had highlighters she had notebooks she would tell her parents about professors and exams and people in her class and you know her her entire family knew a complete false history about her education career and when it came time to graduate so she bought a diploma and her parents thought that they had this wonderfully successful young daughter right another thing often forbidden by tiger parents dating so when jennifer the seemingly good girl met a bad boy named daniel wong grimaldi says she concocted more lies to hide their relationship what was he like he was a part-time drug dealer what was the relationship between daniel and jennifer very complicated relationship no psychiatrist but it looked like jennifer looked to mr wong as something as a knight in shining armor and cops say when jennifer was supposedly away at university she was secretly living with daniel it's like she lived a total double life she did but jennifer's perfectly constructed web of lies spun out of control and finally unraveled her mom and dad got suspicious so they followed their daughter straight to her forbidden lover daniel wong she was caught in multiple lies she was caught out living with him she was caught out not attending university she was eventually locked in her home her parents basically put her on lockdown when they figured out what she was up to yes she's no longer allowed to drive she's no longer allowed to use her cell phone she could only leave the house for piano lessons and i there she said that her father was actually tracking the mileage on the car police say han pan gave his daughter an ultimatum go back to school and quit seeing daniel get out of my house or wait until i'm dead to see him cops say she didn't want to wait that long and she decided i think at that point she she had strategized to move forward to get them out of her life text messages show the boyfriend daniel put jennifer in contact with known hitman he'd met through his drug dealing telling jennifer i did everything and lined it up for you he was the broker or how he was he he knew people um because danny wong uh wasn't necessarily the most outstanding citizen so ten thousand dollars three guys will come in kill the parents look at make it look like a home invasion yeah and that that was the initial agreement jennifer's killer plan may have never been discovered but there was one thing she never expected her dad survived what did the father say happened han pan said that he saw his daughter come downstairs and was unbound speaking in a friendly manner to a white guy now jennifer penn becomes a suspect with hands stunning accusation against his own daughter cops bring jennifer back in for questioning it doesn't feel good to have secrets does it no so she had already shifted in the eyes of the law from victim to possible perpetrator yes there was nothing to arrest her at that point but there were concerns were raised after the interview of han pan all you have to do is tell me that you were involved right you know it we know it it's plain as the i'm 100 percent correct here veteran investigator bill gates says jennifer tells him she finally wants to tell the truth she brings up a whole new story yes cops are on to jennifer pan the seemingly perfect daughter is more like the daughter from hell living a devilish charade she tried to kill her family she snapped and began to devise the most devious scheme i've ever encountered police suspect she methodically hired three hitmen to stage a home invasion as a cover-up in a plot to kill her parents the motive police say forbidden romance her parents told her the love of her life daniel wong had to go or she had to get out wouldn't it have been easier to just move out instead of trying to kill your parents rather than disappoint them she decided to kill them the problem with her evil plan her dad han pan he was shot in the face but lived and told police his daughter lied about being tied up to a banister during the attack in fact he told police that he actually saw jennifer butting up to the gunman who killed her mother and that was the nail in the coffin that would be the nail in the coffin yeah after nine grueling hours of police interrogation i know this has been hell for you you have gone through hell for years jennifer finally cracks she says she's ready to tell detective bill gates the whole truth and nothing but the truth but it's not what anyone was expecting you told these guys to come and kill you she eventually kind of retreats gets her head down and then in a very low ebola she says it was supposed to be me so you're supposed to take the whole family out no just me jennifer says she arranged for a hit all right but she was supposed to be the target it was supposed to be you because i don't want to be here anymore a suicide by proxy jennifer claims she was so upset at not being able to see daniel wong she wanted to die she said that she failed multiple times when she tried to commit suicide so she decided this would be the way that she could meet her fate correctly but cops wonder was this just another lie from jennifer she had hired them to kill her yes and they had shot everybody but her right and then left right jennifer's attorney paul cooper says there's a simple explanation so then what went wrong what went wrong is she called it off and she had to pay a fee these were real bad individuals cooper says jennifer had a last-minute change of heart but the gunman still wanted the ten thousand dollar cancellation fee and when she couldn't pay it they showed up and shot her parents you know that also doesn't make a lot of sense i'm i'm not giving you money to do it i'm giving you money to stop it i'm going to give you money to stop it if you're terrified of these people being actually monsters now cops don't know what to believe so they haul in daniel wong for questioning the forbidden boyfriend i don't know whether who was who is behind it right i just know that her parents didn't want us to be her family didn't want us to be together and she loved you like you would love anybody yeah right she loved you and it would do anything for you yeah right and daniel and jennifer apparently didn't get their story straight beforehand he tells investigators jennifer indeed wanted her parents dead and she's just like don't worry i got it we now have her own boyfriend acknowledging that she had sought to do this cops also discovered daniel had given jennifer a burner phone to contact the hitman but jennifer claimed the sim card containing a history of her texts had mysteriously vanished she seemed to have got rid of a sim card in her phone but she didn't get rid of the phone and the police found text messages on the phone jennifer may have lied to police but her phone records didn't cops uncover hundreds of texts between the hitman and jennifer two of them read i need time of completion think about it game time november 8th these are all texts that we actually had from her phone but the most telling text dropped just minutes before the gunman killed her mother and shot her father in the face saying vip access police are able to link the time of the text to this exact moment right here captured on home security video from across the street police believe that's jennifer turning the light in her bedroom on and off signaling she's unlocked the front door giving the hitman vip access to murder her parents had the father not survived and had the phone messages not been found the question remains open about whether she would have been caught cops cuffed jennifer on the spot she was arrested for the conspiracy and the murder of her parents or her mother in the attempted murder of her father daniel wong and the hitman are also charged but which story would a jury believe the suicide by proxy that went terribly wrong or the daughter from hell who wanted her controlling parents out of the picture so she could have a boyfriend i can't imagine a harder job than having to defend someone who has been seen as a pathological liar and then say but this time she's really telling the truth right there's a difference between being a pathological liar as some people called her and being a killer this time jennifer didn't fool anyone jennifer daniel and two of the gunmen are sentenced to life in prison the third gunman pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit murder jennifer also receives a non-communication order meaning she can never speak to anyone in her family again but before she was carried off to prison her father did address her saying i hope my daughter jennifer thinks about what happened to her family and can become a good honest person her lies created this and her lies were her downfall yes jeremy grimaldi has now written jennifer's story appropriately called a daughter's deadly deception she masterminded one of the one of the greatest tricks in criminal history although grimaldi wonders if she'll ever come clean you wonder at what point is this woman just going to stop lying and tell the truth jennifer pan's story is not something you hear every day so we brought in forensic psychologist dr lou schlesinger for his thoughts doc thanks for being here as always how common is this where a child kills their parents or has their parents killed and why does it happen well there's about 250 cases a year in the united states 250 about about that approximately depending upon the year where a child including adult children kill their parent and the reason they do it falls into three basic categories either they were abused and they killed the abusive parent the second is that they have severe mental illness and active psychosis and the third is they have very significant anti-social thinking and they'll kill the parent for reasons like they want the parents money they don't like the parents control over them they don't like the fact that the parent doesn't like who they're dating jennifer would seem to fall into that third category there was a controversial interrogation technique used in this case outlawed in some countries yeah how do you feel about that in the read technique there's two aspects of it that are very controversial one is the police use of deception meaning the police can lie to a suspect to some degree saying things like your two co-defendants just identified you as the brains of the operation that's controversial we can't lie to the police so the question is why can the police then lie to us the second aspect using police deception with vulnerable suspects juveniles mentally ill and intellectually disabled none of that applies really in this case was she fair game for the read technique i think yes this is not a good example of an abuse of the read technique because it was effective the goal of of an interrogation is not a confession the goal of interrogation is to get the truth but the notion that the police can use deception is very distasteful to a lot of people and that's the reason it's been basically outlawed in some countries dr lou as always thanks for dialing us in i appreciate it

Channel: undefined

Views: 17,437,378

Rating: 4.7570767 out of 5

Keywords: Jennifer Pan, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily

Id: 28LdsO-_UcQ

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/shutage]

Also, One of best Toronto Life articles: https://torontolife.com/city/crime/jennifer-pan-revenge/

[u/skinnypup]

listen to the casefile podcast episode on this instead...

[u/SakuraDove]

Tragic story for all parties involved. Moral of the story: let kids be kids. But also: if you don't like your parents, just move in with your boyfriend and get a regular job. Some lines should never be crossed. :/

[u/StephyStar16]

She went to my high school, though she graduated long before I started. I don't know how she was able to cover up her grades for so long - it's a self-directed school and marks were sent home every 2 weeks. It's insane.

While I understand the pressures she was under, I have no sympathy for her. She had the means to start a new life but instead turned to crime and brutal murder. I can only hope the surviving family members have found some semblance of peace in their lives. I can't imagine the pain they deal with everyday.

[u/bradycorey47]

This was so sad.

It crushed me when the mom was begging "Don't hurt my daughter"

[u/IvoryHKStud]

maybe she's just a shitty kid.

even the best of parents who gives all the possible advantages to their children will end up with shitty children.

case in point, the rich white guy (heir to an aviation company) who murdered the husband/father who was selling his pick up truck on Kijiji.

[u/[deleted]]

Within the first minute, some questionable script choices:

"upscale neighbourhood" and "epitome of an immigrant success story"

I don't think so...

First time I heard the 911 call - she put on quite the performance.

[u/ZeroMayCry7]

i remember reading this years ago. super sad and super fucked up.