What Happened To Jennifer Pan From The Netflix Documentary What Jennifer Did
True crime documentaries have been killing it on Netflix, and the streaming service hasn't shied away from covering some of the strangest cases out there. Netflix users have been warning each other about the disturbing documentary "Can I Tell You A Secret?" They've been thoroughly unnerved by the true crime docuseries "American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murder."
The curious Canadian case depicted on "What Jennifer Did" enters the Netflix crime documentary catalog with the story of Jennifer Pan, a young woman who seems like an innocent survivor of a deadly home invasion ... but the investigators soon start to suspect the case might be much more complex than they initially thought.
The question of whether Pan had something to do with the attack and what, exactly, she's hiding drives "What Jennifer Did." But what, exactly, happened on that fateful night in November 2010, and where are the people involved now? Let's take a closer look at the woman at the center of Netflix's "What Jennifer Did."
The true story of Jennifer Pan, explained
The oldest of two children, Jennifer Pan was born in 1986 to Huei Hann Pan and Bich Ha Pan, who had both arrived in Canada from Vietnam. Both Bich and Hann worked incredibly hard for their success and wanted the same from their children, but the constant barrage of studying and maintaining an assortment of demanding hobbies was hard for young Jennifer. Even harder was the fact that her failure to balance their expectations with her own — as well as her relationship with her boyfriend Daniel Wong — strained the family's relationship.
"What Jennifer Did" covers some of the story but the double life Pan ended up leading was actually much more complicated than the documentary shows. Her parents were under the belief that she was a university student, but in reality, she never even graduated high school. She spent her days doing odd jobs and hanging out, and used a lot of time forging school work and reading up at libraries so she could keep up appearances in case her parents started asking questions. She also lied to them about other endeavors, such as staying with a friend for extended periods when she was actually with Daniel.
Eventually, Bich and Hann followed Jennifer and discovered the full extent of their daughter's lies ... or so they thought. By that time, Jennifer's relationship with Daniel had become strained, with Daniel seeing someone else and Jennifer trying to bring him back with an elaborate lie. Eventually, they decided to order a hit on Bich and Hann to free Jennifer of their influence — and to get their hands on the inheritance.
What did Jennifer Pan's parents do and did they survive?
Jennifer Pan's father, Huei Hann Pan, and mother, Bich Ha Pan, were hard-working immigrants who made tools and car parts for a living but managed to build a very nice life from themselves. They also wanted their children — Jennifer and her little brother, Felix — to have a similar life, with Hann in particular imposing the need to work hard on Jennifer.
On November 8, 2010, three armed men entered the family's house at night, tied up Jennifer, and shot both Hann and Bich. Hann survived his two gunshot wounds but spent three days in an induced coma. Bich, however, died on the spot. Jennifer gave the aforementioned story when she called 911 after managing to get free. However, the authorities soon found some serious flaws in her story — and it didn't take long for them to realize she was far more involved in the case than she wanted them to believe.
How much time Jennifer Pan got and where she is incarcerated
As the investigators started interviewing Jennifer Pan, they realized the case wasn't even close to a normal home invasion. The gunmen had ignored obvious loot and for some unexplained reason, they left one witness entirely unharmed while ruthlessly killing two others. Jennifer was interviewed multiple times, and when it finally dawned on her that she was a suspect, she attempted to convince the cops that she had hired the attackers to kill her instead of her parents. This didn't go over particularly well, especially since Hann had already woken up by this point and told the police that she'd seen the unbound Jennifer calmly discussing things with one of the invaders.
In 2015, Jennifer Pan, Daniel Wong, and two co-conspirators were found guilty of one murder and one attempted murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years. Pan was incarcerated in the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario.
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Where is Jennifer Pan today?
Jennifer Pan remains in the Grand Valley Institution for Women, where she serves her lengthy sentence. However, the case isn't quite as cut and dry as it seemed to be after the original trial concluded in 2015. In 2023, the Ontario Appeal Court ordered a new trial for the first-degree murder of Bich Ha Pan, citing a mistake in the original trial after an appeal by Jennifer, Daniel Wong, and the other two people convicted of the crimes.
According to the Appeal Court, a new trial is possible because the original trial judge failed to present the jury with the potential verdicts of manslaughter and second-degree murder. The date hasn't been decided yet and could be quite far away, seeing as the original trial of the 2010 crimes didn't begin until 2014. As such, Jennifer will likely remain incarcerated for quite some time ... but with a new trial looming on the horizon, the tragic story that inspired Netflix's "What Jennifer Did" seems to be far from over.