NEWMARKET, Ont. -- A Toronto-area woman bristling at her parents' interference in her love life orchestrated an attack meant to look like a violent home invasion so she wouldn't be suspected in their killing, prosecutors told her murder trial Monday.
Jennifer Pan, 28, arranged to have her parents killed so she could be with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Daniel Wong, the Crown alleges, but only her mother died in the Nov. 8, 2010 attack. Her father was shot in the face and left for dead, but survived.
"This case is about the daughter they loved setting it all up, standing by as it happened and telling police she was the victim," prosecutor Michelle Rumble told court in her closing arguments.
The home invasion was a ploy "designed to mislead the police so that everyone involved would get away with it," she said.
Pan and three others -- including Wong -- are charged with first-degree murder in the attack that killed her mother, 53-year-old Bieh Ha Pan, and left her father, Hann Pan, with a critical head injury.
Another man, Eric Carty, was initially among the co-accused but is now to be tried separately after his lawyer fell ill.
Court has heard Pan had lied to her parents much of her life, forging report cards and diplomas and pretending to live with a friend when she was staying with Wong, who she was barred from seeing.
Her web of deceit started to unravel in 2009. She was forced to move back home and break up with Wong, but the two secretly kept in touch, court has heard.
When her parents found out, they gave her an ultimatum: Wong or them, prosecutors said.
"I told Jennifer that she had to cease her relationship with Daniel Wong. If not, then you're going to have to wait until I'm dead," Pan's father testified he told her.
Pan heard those words, Rumble said, "and obviously took them to heart."
The defence argues Pan didn't know about the attack and never meant for her mother to die. She had previously tried to have her father killed but abandoned the idea after the man she hired took off with her money, her lawyer said.
Pan then tried to arrange her own death but called it off when things began looking up for her, Paul Cooper said. She agreed to pay an $8,500 cancellation fee and was collecting the money when the attack took place, he said.
He pinned the robbery on Carty, an "experienced criminal" desperate for cash.
But Rumble said the robbery was nothing but a cover-up for "cold-blooded murder and attempted murder."
What's more, she said, "there never was a suicide plan. This was just another lie by Jennifer Pan."
Also charged are Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam.
Wong and Crawford weren't at the Pan's Markham, Ont., home that night, but served as middle-men between Pan and the intruders, the Crown alleges.
"Daniel Wong didn't do the dirty work...but he lined it all up for Jennifer Pan," Rumble said.
Prosecutors will continue their closing arguments Wednesday.
