'What Jennifer Did' (2024) air date, plot and how to stream Netflix's chilling true-crime documentary
Show name: What Jennifer Did
Platform: Netflix
Date of release: April 10, 2024
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Runtime: 90 Minutes
Director: Jenny Popplewell
Netflix's latest documentary, 'What Jennifer Did', releasing on Wednesday, April, 10, delves into the disturbing case of Jennifer Pan, a Canadian woman who plotted a heinous crime, hiring a hitman to murder her parents.
This documentary exposes the chilling series of events in Jennifer's life, uncovering a tale of deceit and betrayal within her family.
Directed by renowned filmmaker Jenny Popplewell, the film explores Jennifer Pan's double life, which remained hidden until her parents uncovered her relationship with a drug dealer named Daniel Wong. Jennifer had fabricated stories of scholarships to a Toronto university and a successful career in pharmacy.
Upon learning about Jennifer's involvement with a drug dealer, her parents disapproved. Jennifer then devised a horrific plan to have her parents killed. She orchestrated a home invasion involving Wong and his associates, aiming to both maintain her relationship with Wong and secure a large inheritance from her family.
Who is Jennifer Pan?
Jennifer Pan was born on June 17, 1986, in Markham, Ontario, to Bich Ha Pan and Huei Hann Pan. Her parents, who fled Vietnam in 1979, worked hard at Magna International to provide their children with opportunities. They later succeeded, purchasing a large home and luxury cars, and having savings of over $200,000, according to All That's Interesting.
Jennifer's parents enrolled her in piano lessons and figure skating from a young age. Despite excelling academically and socially in high school, a knee injury shattered her dreams of becoming a professional skater. In eighth grade, she began self-harming.
During 11th grade, Jennifer found comfort in dating senior Daniel Wong until he was forced to leave school due to a drug-related incident. Jennifer's grades suffered, and though she was initially accepted to Ryerson University, her offer was rescinded after failing calculus her senior year.
Pan began forging her report cards, falsely stating she would start at Ryerson University in the fall of 2004. She deceived her father, claiming she would transfer to the University of Toronto after two years at Ryerson, and even fabricated receiving a $3,000 scholarship. Proudly, her father bought her a laptop.
In reality, Pan spent her time commuting to cafes or Wong's dorm, pretending to attend classes. She continued her deception by claiming to have successfully transferred to the University of Toronto in 2006, as planned.
As her 2008 graduation approached, Jennifer Pan told her parents that the university only allotted one ticket per student for the ceremony. She claimed to have given her ticket to a friend to avoid excluding one of her parents.
What did Jennifer Pan do?
As a supposed recent graduate, Jennifer Pan claimed to volunteer at a children's hospital in Toronto. However, her parents became suspicious due to her lack of a uniform or ID badge and followed her to work.
When her deception was exposed, Pan had her phone and laptop confiscated and was forbidden from seeing Wong. Despite regaining her parents' trust over two years and having her phone privileges restored, Pan reconnected with Wong. He provided her with a spare phone, which she used to orchestrate a plan to stage a robbery to murder her parents.
Wong introduced her to an associate named Lenford Crawford. Through texts, Pan agreed to pay him $10,000 from her eventual inheritance. Crawford scoped out her neighborhood on Halloween 2010, and on November 8, Crawford texted her, “After work ok will be game time.”
With her father in bed and her mother downstairs, Pan said goodnight to her mother and unlocked the front door. At 10:02 p.m., she turned on the lights in the upstairs study. Three minutes later, Crawford and two others, David Mylvaganam and Eric Carty, entered the home.
Carty tied Pan's hands behind her back and to the upstairs banister with a shoelace, while the others dragged her parents into the basement and covered their heads with blankets. Bich Ha Pan was shot three times in the head, and her husband was shot in the face and shoulder.
How did Jennifer Pan get caught?
Police investigators discovered that Jennifer had fabricated numerous lies leading up to the home invasion. Initially, after her mother's murder and her father left in a coma, she was the only witness to the events of November 8.
However, when her father regained consciousness 2 days later on November 10, he informed the police that Jennifer seemed acquainted with the intruders.
During her third interview with local authorities, Jennifer finally admitted to hiring the killers and leaving the house unlocked. She claimed that she intended for herself, not her parents, to be the target.
Detectives later uncovered that this was Jennifer's second attempt at arranging a murder-for-hire. Ten months earlier, she had approached another acquaintance with a similar request to kill her parents.
Where is Jennifer Pan now?
At her 2014 murder trial, Huei Hann Pan testified against his daughter. Jennifer received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Wong, Mylvaganam, and Crawford were also convicted and received the same sentence.
Carty's trial ended in a mistrial, but in December 2015, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and received an 18-year sentence with parole eligibility after nine years. Carty passed away in jail in 2018.
The court ordered Jennifer to have no further contact with her family. She remains in prison, maintaining her innocence.
In May 2023, the Court of Appeal for Ontario overturned the first-degree murder convictions for Jennifer, Wong, Crawford, and Mylvaganam, arguing that the jury should have been given the option of second-degree murder or manslaughter verdicts.
The Supreme Court of Canada is currently considering whether to hear the case or not.
How to stream 'What Jennifer Did'?
'What Jennifer Did' will be available on Netflix from Wednesday, April 10. Don't have Netflix? Worry not!
Access to the film requires a Netflix membership, available starting from $6.99/month for the standard plan with ads.
The standard plan without ads is priced at $15.49/month, while the Premium plan costs $22.99/month.
'What Jennifer Did' trailer