At this point, we’re not really sure what happened and didn’t happen in the case of Jennifer Pan — at least when it comes to the night of the break-in. But if one element of the case proves untrue, like Jennifer plotting to kill her parents, it doesn’t mean that other elements are also untrue. Case in point: the entirely fabricated life that Jennifer fed to her parents for years.
As the daughter of two political refugees from Vietnam, Jennifer felt under extreme pressure from a young age, as Jennifer’s classmate Karen Ho writes on Toronto Life. Even as Jennifer’s parents met with resounding success in their new life — saving enough to buy a house and luxury cars — their daughter felt crestfallen. Jennifer put on her “happy mask,” as she called it, engaged in self-harm, and wilted under the gaze of her “tiger dad” and “accomplice” mom.
Jennifer not only lied about going to the University of Toronto to study pharmacology for a full four years, but also photoshopped report cards, student loan documents, and even her bachelor’s degree. Instead of going to class, Ho says that Jennifer would head into Toronto, fill notebooks with bogus notes, hang out at cafes, and eventually get a job bartending aside her boyfriend, Daniel Wong, at Boston Pizza. Wong was also a drug dealer who made a huge impression on Jennifer. When Jennifer’s parents found out about her deception they were furious, demanded their money back, and forbade their daughter from seeing Wong.
