Volume 4 · Chapter 8
The Tiger Parents
Jennifer Pan, Daniel Wong, Lenford Crawford and others
Victims: Bich Ha Pan · Huei Hann Pan
Case at a glance
- When
- November 8, 2010
- Where
- Markham, Ontario, Canada
- Perpetrator
- Jennifer Pan, Daniel Wong and others
- Victims
- Bich Ha Pan, Huei Hann Pan
- Outcome
- Convicted of first-degree murder in 2014; new trial ordered on appeal; pleaded guilty to manslaughter in March 2026
The case
Jennifer Pan grew up in suburban Toronto under intense pressure from her parents, Bich Ha and Huei Hann Pan, to excel. For years she hid a secret: she had not finished high school. She forged report cards, invented a university career, and kept up the story long enough that her parents believed she was on her way to a pharmacy career. When the truth began to surface, her parents clamped down, including on her relationship with her boyfriend, Daniel Wong.
On the night of November 8, 2010, three armed men walked through the front door of the Pan home in Markham, Ontario, which had been left unlocked. Bich Ha Pan was shot dead in the basement. Huei Hann Pan was shot twice and survived after a medically induced coma. Jennifer was found tied up and made the 911 call.
Her father’s memory of what happened, and phone records, told a different story, and she was convicted along with three men of first-degree murder in 2014. In 2023 an appeal court ordered a new trial, and Canada’s Supreme Court later upheld that ruling. In March 2026, Pan pleaded guilty to manslaughter in her mother’s death.
Read the full story
This case is told in full in True Crime Case Histories, Volume 4 by Jason Neal.
Get Volume 4 on AmazonCase photographs
4 photos
Where it happened
Why this case
“This case is often told as a warning about strict parents, but I think it is really about a lie that grew too big to put down. Jennifer had a hundred chances to tell the truth. The choice she made instead cost her mother her life.”
— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories
