If there’s a genre that has found immense success on Netflix, that’s the true-crime documentary. Only this week, ‘Crime Scene Berlin: The Nightlife Killer’ entered the global Top 10 and there’s another documentary reaching the top spot in the US: ‘What Jennifer Did.’
According to FlixPatrol, a specialized website that collects viewership data, the documentary movie is now the most-watched title on the platform in the US, while also reaching the Top 4 worldwide. Even more impressive, the film only has a day on the platform.
The documentary, directed by Jenny Popplewell, centers around the case of Jennifer Pan, who in 2010 hired hit men to kill her parents. Through archive footage, police interviews and text messages and more, the film chronicles Pan’s life, and how she went from golden child to a criminal convicted of first-degree murder.
What happened in Jennifer Pan’s case?
In November 2010, Jennifer Pan made a 911 call reporting a home invasion in Ontario, Canada, where she claimed gunmen broke in, tied her up, and shot her parents. Her mother died instantly, but her father survived. As investigators dug deeper, suspicions arose about Jennifer’s account, especially when security footage showed three men entering the house without signs of forced entry.
Why did Jennifer want to kill her parents?
Pan lived with her parents, who wanted her to be a pharmacist and a pianist. However, she wanted different things. Especially, being with her boyfriend Daniel Wong, a drug dealer with a criminal record. However, she lied to her parents about her activities, even pretending to have graduated from high school and attending college while photoshopping report cards.
When their parents found out about her lies, they disapproved of her relationship and forbade her from seeing Wong anymore. That’s when Jennifer and Wong started to make a plan to kill her parents, hiring three hitmen (David Mylvaganam, Lenford Crawford, and Eric Carty), who entered the home and carried out the invasion.
How was Jennifer found guilty?
Authorities suspected that Jennifer’s story was misleading from the beginning. However, they were able to prove their hypothesis when her father came out of his coma and revealed that he saw her daughter talking to the criminals. Finally, Jennifer confessed to hiring the killers and leaving her house unlocked.
What was Jennifer’s sentence?
In January 2015, Jennifer Pan was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years for first-degree murder, along with a life sentence for attempted murder, as reported by CBC. Wong, Mylvaganam, and Crawford also received life sentences with parole eligibility after 25 years. Following a mistrial initially, Carty was sentenced to 18 years in prison in December 2015, passing away in jail in 2018.
