By Hannah Kingsley
Rapidly we can go from being the happiest child ever to having something snap within us. This snap may or may not change who we are, and seldom do we know when things start to snap. Perhaps it’s not a snap but a simple change in attitude towards life. For Jennifer Pan this change or this snap, whatever you choose to call it, changed – in this case possibly ended – her and her parents’ lives.
Jennifer Pan was living with her parents in Markham, Ontario. Her and her parents came to the U.S. from Vietnam, and unfortunately, like most other immigrant families, Jennifer’s parents set very high expectations for her. Expectations that she could never fulfill. Her parents wanted her to go into the medical field, but she had plans to study kinesiology. She also did not do the best in school, which was another expectation placed on her by her parents.
On the night of November 8, 2010, there was a home invasion at the Pan house, leaving Jennifer’s mom dead and her dad in a coma. Jennifer was taken in for questioning immediately after help arrived where she told a convincing story of how the invasion happened. She told the investigator that she was tied upstairs while the invaders shot her parents, leaving them with the question of how she was able to use her phone and why her parents were the target as there was no known plausible reason. There was also no sign of a forced entry, leaving authorities with even more questions.
Investigators then find out about Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend —one that her parents did not approve of. Jennifer had apparently been dating this boy for six years before her parents found out. This ex had a new girlfriend at that time, meaning that he had moved on. Jennifer admitted that she was still in love with this boy and told detectives that she thought this new girlfriend could be behind everything because she was jealous that Jennifer was still talking to him.They later find out that Jennifer had been lying to her parents about going to college for four years (hint: Jennifer is a liar!). This prompts the investigators to bring in a lie detector specialist, where he discovered the truth of the matter. Sometime during these revelations Jennifer’s dad had woken up from his medically induced coma and revealed something shocking to authorities: Jennifer was not tied upstairs. In fact, she was making friendly conversation as she walked downstairs to greet the “invaders.”
The specialist was able to get out of Jennifer the fact that it was a planned attack, and there were text messages between her and the main hitman, but said that the whole thing was meant for her. She claimed that she was suicidal. The detectives on this case got a search warrant to go through her phone and found that the text messages implied that the attack was meant for her parents. By this point, you have more than likely already figured out that this attack was meant for her parents. Jennifer had been texting with a man named “Homeboy,” as was Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend, to hire him and two others to be hitmen and kill her parents so she could be with this boy she loved so dearly and obsessively. This was also not Jennifer’s first attempt to hire someone to kill her parents. She had previously asked one of her friends if she would do it for her.
Jennifer Pan was then arrested for first degree murder and attempted murder. She is serving life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. The three hitmen and Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend are also facing time in prison.
Hannah Kingsley is a student at Fillmore Central High School. She is one of 13 area students participating in the Journal Writing Project, now in its 25th year.
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