The new Netflix documentary exploring the case of Jennifer Pan ends on an unexpected note.
On 8th November 2010, three armed men broke into the home of Bich Ha Pan and Heui Hann Pan in what appeared to be a robbery gone wrong.
The crooks ransacked the Ontario house, waking the couple up and demanding all their money.
They then tied their daughter Jennifer Pan up, took her parents into their basement – shot them – and fled.
That’s the version of events that Pan presented to the police when she dialled emergency services, but law enforcement soon began to suspect that Pan knew more than she was letting on.
The 2010 case is being explored in the new Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did, which comes from American Murder filmmaker Jenny Popplewell.
Viewers who’ve reached the end of the documentary will have noticed it concludes with a surprising revelation: Pan, along with three other individuals jailed in the case, Daniel Wong, Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam, were granted a retrial by the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the first-degree murder of Pan’s mother, Bich Ha Pan.
With no explanation given for this decision in What Jennifer Did, read on for everything we currently know about the situation.
Is Jennifer Pan getting a retrial?
Pan was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after she was found guilty of both first-degree murder and attempted murder, without the possibility of parole for 25 years. She has always maintained her innocence.
Her co-conspirators – Wong, Crawford and Mylvaganam – received the same sentence.
In May 2023, however, the Ontario Appeal Court ordered a retrial for all four defendants on the first-degree murder charge.
Their lawyers argued that the original judge had wrongfully presented just two plausible scenarios for the attack, preventing the jury from considering other verdicts such as second-degree murder or manslaughter.
However, it should be noted that the attempted murder charge of Pan’s father was upheld.
The court said in its decision: “In this case, the jury might have had a doubt about the planned and deliberate murder of Pan’s mother but be satisfied that the appellants knew that the murder of Pan’s mother was a probable consequence of a plan to kill her father. This could give rise to a conviction for second-degree murder.
“It was also possible for the jury to have had a doubt about the planned and deliberate murder of Pan’s mother but to have been satisfied that there was a reasonably foreseeable risk of non-trivial bodily harm to Pan’s mother through the implementation of the plan to kill Pan’s father, such that a conviction for manslaughter would arise.”
In response, the Ministry of the Attorney General confirmed in August 2023 that the Crown had filed its own appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to decide whether the original decision or the Appeal Court’s decision was correct.
At the time of writing, the Supreme Court of Canada is in the process of determining if it will review the case.
Jeremy Grimaldi, executive producer of the documentary, who was also a crime reporter who covered Pan’s trial and wrote a book about the case, has said he hopes the documentary will challenge people’s preconceived notions about the case.
“She was really made out to be the daughter from hell. In fact, that was a front page of the Toronto Sun, ‘Daughter from hell,’” he said [via CBC].
“Now, with a bit of time, we can look back and see it’s maybe a bit more of a nuanced story and that it’s more complex.”
What Jennifer Did is available to watch on Netflix now. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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