Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Jennifer Pan has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2010 death of her mother, nearly a year after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new first-degree murder trial for the Markham, Ont., woman in a case that drew international attention and spawned a Netflix documentary.
One of Pan’s lawyers, Breana Vandebeek, confirmed the plea was entered in court on Wednesday.
An agreed statement of facts says that while Pan did plot to kill her father, she didn’t intend to kill her mother — but ought to have known that Bich Ha Pan could be in the family house when the plan was carried out.
Pan was convicted in 2015 of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the attack that left her mother dead and her father, Hann Pan, with a serious head wound.
Her three co-accused — including her former boyfriend — were convicted on the same charges.
The Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that there should be new first-degree murder trials for all four accused in the case, but affirmed the convictions for attempted murder.
Pan arranged for parents to be killed, Crown argued
On Nov. 8, 2010, three armed intruders entered the Pan family home in Markham, north of Toronto, took the parents into the basement and shot both of them. Jennifer Pan was tied to an upstairs banister with a shoelace, and initially considered to be one of the victims of a home invasion.
The Crown successfully argued at trial that Pan, who had a difficult relationship with her parents, arranged for them to be killed.
But Ontario’s Court of Appeal later ordered new trials on the first-degree murder convictions for all accused, saying the trial judge erred by suggesting to the jury only two scenarios for the attack — one in which the plan was to murder both parents, and another in which the plan was to commit a home invasion, in the course of which the parents were shot.
A new true crime Netflix documentary titled ‘What Jennifer Did’ tells the story of Jennifer Pan, a 24-year-old from Markham, Ont., who hired hitmen in 2010 to kill her parents. CBC’s Michelle Cheung was a reporter on the story at the time and shares her insights on the case.
The Appeal Court said the judge should have presented the possible verdicts of second-degree murder and manslaughter to the jury in the death of Pan’s mother.
The Crown appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the order for new first-degree murder trials.
Former boyfriend helped to organize hit, document says
The agreed statement of facts presented in court Wednesday says that while Jennifer Pan did not make a plan to kill her mother, “in light of the arrangements made to kill her father, Ms. Pan knew or ought to have known that Bich Ha Pan could be in the house when the plan was carried out.”
“In all the circumstances, it was an objectively foreseeable consequence of the unlawful plan to kill Hann Pan that Bich Ha Pan would suffer non-trivial bodily harm,” it says.
The statement of facts says Pan’s relationship with her father had been deteriorating in the months leading up to November 2010 and she “arranged to finance his death,” enlisting her former boyfriend, who helped organize the hit and find accomplices.
The Supreme Court had said in its ruling that Pan regarded her parents, and especially her father, as strict and controlling, and had lied to them about graduating from high school and attending university, among other things.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter on Wednesday, Pan received a life sentence but will now be eligible for parole, her lawyer confirmed.
The case was the subject of a 2024 documentary on Netflix called “What Jennifer Did.”
