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[Bleepey]

Bich Ha and Huei Hann Pan were classic examples of the Canadian immigrant success story. Hann was raised and educated in Vietnam and moved to Canada as a political refugee in 1979. Bich (pronounced “Bick&#8221 came separately, also a refugee. They married in Toronto and lived in Scarborough. They had two kids, Jennifer, in 1986, and Felix, three years later, and found jobs at the Aurora-based auto parts manufacturer Magna International, Hann as a tool and die maker and Bich making car parts.

[Their expectation was that Jennifer and Felix would work as hard as they had in establishing their lives in Canada. They’d laid the groundwork, and their kids would need to improve upon it. They enrolled Jennifer in piano classes at age four, and she showed early promise. By elementary school, she’d racked up a trophy case full of awards. They put her in figure skating, and she hoped to compete at the national level, with her sights set on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver until she tore a ligament in her knee. Some nights during elementary school, Jennifer would come home from skating practice at 10 p.m., do homework until midnight, then head to bed. The pressure was intense. She began cutting herself—little horizontal cuts on her forearms.

She had been a top student in elementary school, but midway through Grade 9, she was averaging 70 per cent in all subjects with the exception of music, where she excelled. Using old report cards, scissors, glue and a photocopier, she created a new, forged report card with straight As. Since universities didn’t consider marks from Grade 9 and 10 for admission, she told herself it wasn’t a big deal.

Hann was the classic tiger dad, and Bich his reluctant accomplice. They picked Jennifer up from school at the end of the day, monitored her extracurricular activities and forbade her from attending dances, which Hann considered unproductive. Parties were off limits and boyfriends verboten until after university. When Jennifer was permitted to attend a sleepover at a friend’s house, Bich and Hann dropped her off late at night and picked her up early the following morning. By age 22, she had never gone to a club, been drunk, visited a friend’s cottage or gone on vacation without her family.

Jennifer met Daniel Wong in Grade 11. He was a year older, goofy and gregarious, with a big laugh, a wide smile and a little paunch around his waistline. He played trumpet in the school band and in a marching band outside of school.... He pretty much saved my life,” she later said. “It meant everything.” That summer, they started dating.

Jennifer’s parents assumed their daughter was an A student; in truth, she earned mostly Bs—respectable for most kids but unacceptable in her strict household. So Jennifer continued to doctor her report cards throughout high school. She received early acceptance to Ryerson, but then failed calculus in her final year and wasn’t able to graduate. The university withdrew its offer

In order to keep the charade from unravelling, Jennifer lied to her friends, too. She even amplified her dad’s meddling ways, telling one friend, falsely, that her father had hired a private investigator to follow her.

Eventually, Jennifer’s fictional academic career began to collapse...She confessed that she didn’t volunteer at SickKids, had never been in U of T’s pharmacology program and had indeed been staying at Daniel’s—though she neglected to tell them that she’d never graduated high school and that her time at Ryerson was also complete fiction.

Bich wept. Hann was apoplectic. He told Jennifer to get out and never come back, but Bich convinced him to let their daughter stay. They took away her cellphone and laptop for two weeks, after which she was only permitted to use them in her parents’ presence and had to endure surprise checks of her messages. They forbade her from seeing Daniel. They ordered her to quit all of her jobs except for teaching piano and began tracking the odometer on the car.

Jennifer was madly in love with Daniel, and lonely, too]

Jennifer resisted, but Daniel had grown weary of their secret romance. She was 24 and still sneaking around, terrified of her parents’ tirades but not willing to leave home. He told her to figure out her life, and he broke off their relationship. Jennifer was heartbroken. Shortly thereafter, she learned that Daniel was seeing a girl named Christine. In an attempt to win back his attention and discredit Christine, she concocted a bizarre tale. She told him a man had knocked on her door and flashed what looked like a police badge. When she opened the door, a group of men rushed in, overpowered her and gang-raped her in the foyer of her house. Then a few days later, she said, she received a bullet in an envelope in her mailbox. Both instances, she alleged, were warnings from Christine to leave Daniel alone.

Jennifer went downstairs to say good night to Bich and, as Jennifer later admitted, unlock the front door (a statement she eventually retracted). At 10:02 p.m., the light in the upstairs study switched on—allegedly a signal to the intruders—and a minute later, it switched off. At 10:05 p.m., Mylvaganam called again, and he and Jennifer spoke for three and a half minutes. Moments later, Crawford, Mylvaganam and a third man named Eric Carty walked through the front door, all three carrying guns. One pointed his gun at Bich while another ran upstairs, shoved a gun at Hann’s face and directed him out of bed, down the stairs and into the living room.

Carty led Jennifer back upstairs and tied her arms to the banister, while Mylvaganam and Crawford took Bich and Hann to the basement and covered their heads with blankets. They shot Hann twice, once in the shoulder and then in the face. He crumpled to the floor. They shot Bich three times in the head, killing her instantly, then fled through the front door.

Over nearly four hours, Jennifer spun out an absurd explanation. She said the attack had been an elaborate plan to commit suicide gone horribly wrong. She had given up on life but couldn’t manage to kill herself, so she hired Homeboy, whose real name she claimed not to know, to do it for her. In September, however, her relationship with her father had suddenly improved, and she decided to call off the hit. But somehow wires got crossed, and the men ended up killing her parents instead of her. Police arrested Jennifer on the spot. In the spring of 2011, relying on analysis of cellphone calls and texts, they nabbed Daniel, Mylvaganam, Carty and Crawford, and charged all five with first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Before the jury delivered the verdict, Jennifer appeared almost upbeat, playfully picking lint off her lawyer’s robes. When the guilty verdict was delivered, she showed no emotion, but once the press had left the courtroom, she wept, shaking uncontrollably. For the charge of first-degree murder, Jennifer received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years; for the attempted murder of her father, she received another sentence of life, to be served concurrently.

http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2015/07/22/jennifer-pan-revenge/

Not that short of a summary but I found all of it so interesting. Well worth reading the whole thing

Edit: My summary was apparently ass so

Student has parents who pressure her to always do more.
Lies to parents.
Parents find out about lies.
Hires hitmen to kill parents.
Hitmen kill parents.
Lies to police that it was a suicide attempt.
Police see through lies.
Student + hitmen all in jail.

 

[Zombine]

I have no idea what I just read. I think the TLDR version is that some woman is basically controlled by her parents, she seeks revenge, wants to kill herself but wants them to feel bad so she puts a hit on herself? But something goes wrong and the parents get hit but the police come and arrest her?

My mind right now...

 

[Maximus.]

Everything in that story is fucked.

 

[Syriel]

I have no idea what I just read. I think the TLDR version is that some woman is basically controlled by her parents, she seeks revenge, wants to kill herself but wants them to feel bad so she puts a hit on herself? But something goes wrong and the parents get hit but the police come and arrest her?

My mind right now...

Student has parents who pressure her to always do more.
Lies to parents.
Parents find out about lies.
Hires hitmen to kill parents.
Hitmen kill parents.
Lies to police that it was a suicide attempt.
Police see through lies.
Student + hitmen all in jail.

 

[Mimosa97]

Wow ... just wow ...

Why wouldn't just leave your parents, start a new life and be done with it ? Why kill them ?

 

[Zombine]

Student has parents who pressure her to always do more.
Lies to parents.
Parents find out about lies.
Hires hitmen to kill parents.
Hitmen kill parents.
Lies to police that it was a suicide attempt.
Police see through lies.
Student + hitmen all in jail.

Thanks. I couldn't really completely wrap my head around it due to some of the quotes and the bolded lines.

 

[rtcn63]

This is some

shit

 

[idlewild_]

Sad story. I think leaving out the parts in the middle regarding hiring the hitman made the OP much more confusing.

 

[Jpop]

Wow ... just wow ...

Why wouldn't just leave your parents, start a new life and be done with it ? Why kill them ?

Peoples' minds don't work that way. Continual stress breaks down on reasoning and judgment.

 

[LegalEagleMike]

first time i had heard the expression tiger parent. Fucked up all around.

 

[Syriel]

Same.

I heard about this story. Sounds like this girl has some deep mental issues.

Where was her brother in all of this?

Story says that there were no mental issues raised at trial and she seemed perfectly competent throughout.

Sounds like someone who got caught in a web of lies and couldn't admit they screwed up.

 

[RS4-]

I worked at the local mall near their school where teens hang out etc etc, so I'm very sure I met both of them, but more likely Daniel. Got some friends that were in school the same time as them.

Fucked up story all around.

 

[Jpop]

Story says that there were no mental issues raised at trial and she seemed perfectly competent throughout.

Sounds like someone who got caught in a web of lies and couldn't admit they screwed up.

It seems more like an inexperienced teeneger got caught up trying to fulfill false expections and eventually reached a point of no return.

 

[Otakumegane]

Well.

That was something I feel like I should be careful about when having kids of my own.

 

[Archaix]

It seems more like an inexperienced teeneger got caught up trying to fulfill false expections and eventually reached a point of no return.

She was 24 years old when the attack happened. It's a story that's hard to relate to at all, but the idea that she didn't just move out of the house at that point is impossible for me to understand. I can't wrap my head around it. Her justification was not wanting to be alone or for her family to hate her and...well...this was better?

 

[Syriel]

It seems more like an inexperienced teeneger got caught up trying to fulfill false expections and eventually reached a point of no return.

She was 24. That's fully an adult.

If you can't handle living at home, you move out at that point. Her Dad told her to move out.

 

[Jpop]

She was 24. That's fully an adult.

If you can't handle living at home, you move out at that point. Her Dad told her to move out.

This has been happening since she was a teeneger.

 

[Jenov]

Wow ... just wow ...

Why wouldn't just leave your parents, start a new life and be done with it ? Why kill them ?

She wanted the inheritance money (500k supposedly).

 

[Savitar]

She was 24 years old when the attack happened. It's a story that's hard to relate to at all, but the idea that she didn't just move out of the house at that point is impossible for me to understand. I can't wrap my head around it. Her justification was not wanting to be alone or for her family to hate her and...well...this was better?

I've seen people like this before, knew some.

The degree's to which the parent controls the person is beyond what most people could ever hope to understand. It is control, fear and usually a good degree of self hatred with depression mixed in. They are afraid of the one in control, the parent(s) usually have controlled them to such a high degree the person is afraid to leave what they know. Some times it's because they fear losing what they do own, maybe even a pet. And yeah I knew one who was afraid that her mother would get rid of all her stuff and her cat too if she left. She was beyond afraid.

Terrified actually is more like it.

If any failure is even detected or deviation from what is expected they are torn down until they are in tears. They fear disappointing the people, it haunts them. They fear doing what many people take for normalcy. Even going out doors just to walk around or being with some people.

The case I'm thinking of was....unbelievable. The stories I heard. It was cruelty and from the one who gave the person birth who had even bullied her husband into submission or else.

Even now recalling what I saw and heard, it's hard to believe it was real. Yet it was.

It was pure manipulative mental and emotional cruelty the worse I ever personally bore witness too.

 

[anaron]

I read this earlier.

it's a horrifying situation all around and what she did is unforgivable and absolutely NOT ok. but reading about her life growing up, you can't help but feel somewhat sorry for her in a lot of ways.


her dad sounded like a real garbage human being and that style of parenting is far too common in the Asian community growing up. so many of my friends would concur with things described in the article

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Wow ... just wow ...

Why wouldn't just leave your parents, start a new life and be done with it ? Why kill them ?

It's hard. She probably never developed the independence you need to be an individual for yourself. She was never given a chance to be herself, she was just someone would do what her parents wanted and when they wanted.

When you grow up like that, you either do what they plan for you and then gain independence and continue the cycle with your kids, you break loose very early on, or you continue to be what your parents wanted you to be. Very early on, according to the article, she failed at gaining that independence-that is, getting the grades to get out and go to a university. Instead of rebelling, she lied and pretended to be doing fine. So she was always in the vice of her parents. Eventually her lies fell apart, and the parents tightened the grip on her. She probably broke and decided the only way to gain independence was to kill her parents.

I mean, it's fucked up. It's complicated, what she did is fucked in many ways. I'm sure you could spend hours talking about her situation and why she did the things she did, whether the environment was a point of pressure..

 

[jstripes]

first time i had heard the expression tiger parent. Fucked up all around.

It's a fairly new term, but if you live in an area with lots of immigrant and first generation Asians, you know what it's all about. Those parents can be soul-crushingly demanding.

 

[anaron]

It's a fairly new term, but if you live in an area with lots of immigrant and first generation Asians, you know what it's all about. Those parents can be soul-crushingly demanding.

yup

 

[TimeEffect]

Oops.

Yeah tiger parents suck

 

[rtcn63]

Wow ... just wow ...

Why wouldn't just leave your parents, start a new life and be done with it ? Why kill them ?

Because strict, not-particularly-knowledged parents can really fuck a person up. I've met a lot of kids who were told to study and get good grades, often without giving a how or a why. (Common around immigrant parents from third-world countries, they simply had no grasp of how the education system actually worked) The kids weren't allowed to have friends or go out, which had an adverse affect when it came to group projects or anything that required them to be somewhere else, even a classmate's house. And many of them weren't exactly destined to be popular, so what few friends they did make in school... it scrambled their brains. So bad. Not to mention impromptu beatings were sometimes a fact of life.

That said, this girl... looked on her way to being a psychopath regardless.

 

[firehawk12]

There was a brief second when I thought she had tigers for parents.

This is a very specifically Asian phenomenon though, but I've never seen it go anywhere as far as this.

 

[Layell]

Yeah the whole tiger parent thing is a huge problem, and is probably going to end up hurting 2nd/3rd generation families from retaining any sense of their own culture. My GF for example said she has no intentions to ever teach any children she has her native language. Not that her folks were in any way like this.

One of the hardest parts is even when these sort of parents loosen their grip, the don't really. "Don't be so hard on yourself, we just want you to do your best" sort of things just don't help.

I do wish Canada had more of a support network for students like this, for some teachers it should be incredibly obvious what students are being incredibly pressured at home to bring in the grades.

 

[Zaptruder]

The culture of tiger parenting is one that needs to die... And while not condoning murder - these sort of stress and misery induced attacks on tiger parents is symptomatic of how unhealthy a dynamic that sort of relationship has on the people.

What's worse with Tiger parenting is that the range of achievement expected is narrow and specific. It's not a general encouragement for achievement. It's simply you must get good grades in the traditional subjects or you bring the family shame and dishonour.

Of course that vein of thinking is frighteningly common in Asia - where people see subservience to family before self as the norm and expected... and Tiger parents are merely the expected deviation from norm in terms of extremes of such an understanding.

 

[GankzyMcfly]

Story says that there were no mental issues raised at trial and she seemed perfectly competent throughout.

Sounds like someone who got caught in a web of lies and couldn't admit they screwed up.

True story... This girl lied throughout high school compulsively. They make it seem like she had the pressure of a 8th year med student when she was going into like 9th grade...

 

[Mysterious]

I don't get why Daniel was arrested and charged?

 

[idlewild_]

I don't get why Daniel was arrested and charged?

Helped plan and contract out the hit, there's quite a bit more info at the link.

 

[ActStriker]

I don't get why Daniel was arrested and charged?

Accessory

this:

Police arrested Jennifer on the spot. In the spring of 2011, relying on analysis of cellphone calls and texts, they nabbed Daniel, Mylvaganam, Carty and Crawford, and charged all five with first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

 

[Windam]

Fuck, I remember this story on the news back when it happened. Absolutely sickening. Didn't know that the father actually survived... no idea how he manages to carry on after all that.

Shit, they lived a 20 minute drive away from where I do. :/ Goddamn.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

Huh. I didn't know what a "tiger parent" was. Didn't know such a thing existed. Fucked up that her parents raised her like that. What she did was inexcusable but could have been avoided, definitely.

 

[Magik]

Yeah the whole tiger parent thing is a huge problem, and is probably going to end up hurting 2nd/3rd generation families from retaining any sense of their own culture. My GF for example said she has no intentions to ever teach any children she has her native language. Not that her folks were in any way like this.

Probably? It already has and I would consider myself a result of it. All this constant pressure to do well in school and emulate or follow in a tiger parent's footsteps, or worse, a relative, really messes up people as a lot of the skills they think they are learning to benefit them in the real world really doesn't translate well to the real world. Spending hours studying and trying to get in the top 1% means nothing if you can't interact with people from a work environment or life in general.

One of the hardest parts is even when these sort of parents loosen their grip, the don't really. "Don't be so hard on yourself, we just want you to do your best" sort of things just don't help.

It definitely doesn't because by the time that conversation even happens, the damage is done. You can easily see it in how a lot of 2nd/3rd gen children struggle to integrate themselves in the world, workforce, and relationships.

For me personally, I'm 32 and I'm playing catchup in life right now and trying to unprogram and rewire my brain is tough.

I don't hate my parents for it because they ultimately wanted the best but it really put me in a hole that I"m just trying to get out of.

 

[JPLMD]

She has mental health issues. Any self respecting mental health counselor or psychiatrist would evaluate her as such.

Problem is mental stigma in Asian culture is so bad that most don't bother to seek help.

Academics are just one part of a persons package. A high GPA means nothing when you don't have the ability to do anything else besides study. I don't care about your 4.0 GPA when all those numbers mean jack shit in the real world when applying information and learning it well actually matter and has an effect on how much money you make and overall job performance.

 

[xbhaskarx]

Oops.

Yeah tiger parents suck

Not nearly as much as murderers.

 

[Dennis]

I feel sorry for her.

 

[rtcn63]

Not nearly as much as murderers.

To be fair, quite a few murderers and monsters seem to be products of fucked up parents, at least to some extent.

 

[Dennis]

Not nearly as much as murderers.

True. But in this case the murders seem extremely related to how her parents treated her for 22 years.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

It seems like it takes more effort to fake your entire university career than it is to just get into and go to university.

 

[Toparaman]

I'm never going to treat my kid(s) like that. As long as they're good people and they're happy, that's all I care about.

 

[WrenchNinja]

This is totally bonkers.

 

[norm9]

Holy shit.

 

[dabig2]

That is 1 hell of a story. Everyone's got a breaking point, but to break to the point that you would have your parents brutally murdered, I don't know. I can't pretend to understand.

All those lives ruined. No one escaped from this clean and well.

 

[Septimus Prime]

She has mental health issues. Any self respecting mental health counselor or psychiatrist would evaluate her as such.

Problem is mental stigma in Asian culture is so bad that most don't bother to seek help.

Academics are just one part of a persons package. A high GPA means nothing when you don't have the ability to do anything else besides study. I don't care about your 4.0 GPA when all those numbers mean jack shit in the real world when applying information and learning it well actually matter and has an effect on how much money you make and overall job performance.

I see the bolded part a lot, and I strongly disagree with it. The high GPA shows that information was learned well, retained, and applied. Applying the information poorly (or not learning it at all) would lead to a lower GPA. On top of this, in order to attain a perfect GPA, you also have to perform well in your breadth/general education classes, which often include at least a few classes--such as literature or writing--where the scoring is subjective and yet you still apply what you learn well enough to score well.

Tiger parenting is a problem, though, but I honestly think this particular case has less to do with that and more to do with the girl handling pressure in a bad way. Most children of tiger parents don't kill their parents.

 

[xbhaskarx]

To be fair, quite a few murderers and monsters seem to be products of fucked up parents, at least to some extent.

How many murderers and monsters are that way because of "tiger parents"?
All those "tiger parents" getting murdered by their own kids, it's a real epidemic...

I'd guess most probably just, you know, actually perform fairly well academically and get into universities, instead of flunking out of high school and deciding to fake their entire college careers and subsequently murder their parents when their elaborate web of lies inevitably falls apart.

 

[Crud]

LET

YOUR

CHILD

LIVE.

They are not fucking robots. Sad situation.

 

[ZeroX03]

I was feeling for the girl until the crimes started. At which point it's evident she's extremely mentally ill and the tiger parenting merely exacerbated it.

 

[Yukiari]

Unfortunately this type of thing has happened before and will happen again. :/

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/teen-boyfriend-charged-killing-parents-article-1.878992