The Chilling True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘What Jennifer Did’—Your Questions Answered

The murder documentary What Jennifer Did is currently the No. 1 film on Netflix in the U.S. The film recounts the horrific events that unfolded on November 8, 2010, during a home invasion orchestrated by an estranged daughter. While watching, learn more about the disturbing true crime case and find answers to your burning questions, like where Jennifer and her dad is now.

In January 2015, 28-year-old Jennifer Pan was sentenced to life in prison for hiring hit men to kill her parents. That’s the subject of Netflix’s new Jenny Popplewell-directed documentary, What Jennifer Did, which premiered on the streaming site on April 10, 2024. Using incriminating text messages and interviews with detectives from the case, the documentary details how Pan went from being a child pianist to a criminal convicted of first-degree murder.

What Happened In The Jennifer Pan Case?

On November 8, 2010, dispatchers received a 911 call from a family home in a quiet residential neighborhood in Ontario, Canada. On the phone, Jennifer Pan told police that she was home with her parents when gunmen broke into the house and demanded money.

Jennifer, the only surviving witness, said that the intruders tied her up, shot her parents, and fled the scene, according to Netflix. Jennifer’s mother, Bich Ha, passed away instantly, but the young woman’s father miraculously survived the gunshot wound and was in dire need of medical care.

While it was first thought that the Pans were randomly targeted in the deathly fatal home invasion, detectives started to get suspicious of Jennifer as more details emerged. A neighbor’s security camera also captured footage of three men entering the house with no signs of forced entry.

Why Did Jennifer Pan Want To Kill Her Parents?

Pan was living with her parents at the time. She told her parents lies like she graduated from high school and attended college. (She even went as far as to photoshop report cards and student loan documents.) Jennifer pretended to pursue an undergraduate degree at Toronto Metropolitan University and made her parents drive her to attend “classes.”

Jennifer’s dad wanted her to become a pharmacist, while her mother dreamed she would become a professional pianist. However, she wanted a life differently than what her parents wished. Instead, she spent her time dating Daniel Wong, a drug dealer with a criminal record. The Pans disapproved of the couple’s relationship — and when they found out that Jennifer was lying about attending college — they forbid her from seeing Wong anymore.

That’s when Jennifer asked Wong to help her organize a plot to murder her parents, according to the documentary. They wanted the murder to look like a robbery gone wrong while Jennifer played the part of a witness. They hired three hitmen (David Mylvaganam, Lenford Crawford, and Eric Carty), who entered the home and carried out the invasion.

Investigators started to unravel Jennifer’s web of lies. When her father came out of his coma, he revealed that his daughter appeared to know the people who broke into their home. Finally, Jennifer confessed to hiring the killers and leaving her house unlocked. She claimed that she was the target for the murder-for-hire plot — not her parents. Tens months earlier, she asked someone else to kill her parents, according to Tudum.

Where Is Jennifer Pan Now?

In January 2015, Jennifer Pan was sentenced to life in prison, with no parole for 25 years, for first-degree murder and life for attempted murder, according to Canadian news outlet CBC.

Wong, Mylvaganam, and Crawford were also convicted and received life sentences with the possibility of parole after 25 years. After initially receiving a mistrial, Carty was sentenced to 18 years in prison in December 2015. He died in jail in 2018.

Jennifer is currently serving her life sentence at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, but her time in court is not over. In May 2023, The Court of Appeal for Ontario overturned the first-degree murder conviction for Pan and her three co-accused. (The court dismissed the appeals on the attempted murder convictions.) The court argued that the trial judge should have given the jury a chance to select second-degree murder and manslaughter as the verdict. As of August 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada is deciding whether or not to hear the appeal.

Where Is Jennifer Pan’s Dad, Huei Hann Pan, Now?

Huei Hann Pan testified at Jennifer’s 2014 murder trial. On the stand, he said that was shot in the head, and when he regained consciousness, he witnessed his wife dead on the floor.

Hann Pan also claimed that the hit men had a conversation with his daughter and seemed to know them. “He talked to my daughter. I could not hear what was being said, but they were speaking softly,” the father said, per the Toronto Star.

Huei Hann Pan is currently in his 70s and has kept a low profile since the trial.

What Jennifer Did is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the official trailer below.