‘What Jennifer Did’: Netflix doc explores shocking Ont. murder-for-hire case
A murder-for-hire case that shocked residents in Markham, Ont., almost 15 years ago is getting the Netflix treatment, highlighting the decade-long ruse Jennifer Pan undertook to please her strict parents — a plot that eventually left one of them dead.
What Jennifer Did is the latest feature-length Netflix documentary to hit the streaming platform (on April 10 in Canada), examining the early years of Jennifer’s life, her forbidden star-crossed-lovers’ romance and her motivation to hire hitmen to kill her parents.
Explained below is the twisted web of lies and deceit that left a mother dead and a family torn apart.
Born to Vietnamese refugees Huei Hann and Bich Ha Pan, Jennifer felt tremendous pressure to excel in her studies and extracurricular activities and, for years, did just that.
Her parents, the classic example of a Canadian immigrant success story, built a prosperous life for their family and expected their daughter and son, Felix, to expand on their success.
Jennifer was a straight-A student at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School in Markham and an accomplished piano player, and had her sights set on becoming an Olympic figure skater. By all accounts, she was thriving academically and socially.
Her Olympic dreams were dashed in the eighth grade, when she suffered an injury that sidelined her figure skating career. From there, it was a slow downward spiral.
According to a piece written by one of Jennifer’s schoolmates for Toronto Life magazine, a torn knee ligament was a serious blow to Jennifer’s self-confidence. Her dreams of skating on a national level were dashed and she began self-mutilating by cutting small slices into her forearms.
As her graduation from middle school approached, she fully expected to be
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