A Daughter's Deadly Deception

by Jeremy Grimaldi

  Another time, he says, she told him Hann and Bich took issue with his ethnicity, commenting on the fact that he was only half Chinese. “The next time I asked her, she said it’s not even about how much money you make, it’s the fact that you’re [part] Filipino.” Whether or not the couple wanted to marry eventually became irrelevant, since the house of lies Jennifer had built up so that she could be with Daniel eventually came crashing down with exceptional force. “We were planning to stay together,” Daniel says, “but there was a big issue with her and her parents. They basically said ‘choose us or him.’ When she stopped seeing me and quit all her jobs and went home, basically choosing her family, they pulled everything from her.” He tells Milligan how this meant that Jennifer’s laptop, money, and cellphones were confiscated and she was forced to quit her jobs and return home for good. “When stuff hit the fan, they said ‘You’re not allowed to work there, you’re not allowed to work, period,’” he adds. “So obviously, I said go with your parents, try to work it out, and we’ll see what happens.”

  This, more than anything, Daniel says, spelled the end of the couple’s relationship. “Afterward, her parents didn’t let her out of the house,” he tells Milligan. “She was a prisoner…. It was hard.” As a result, the couple became estranged ever since their breakup in April 2009, he says, except perhaps one visit or the odd phone call. “She tries to call me. If I answer, I answer,” he says. “Or I’ll call her, sort of thing, just to see how she’s doing.”

  When Milligan’s attention turns to questions about Hann and Bich, Daniel pleads ignorance. “In all honesty I don’t really know much about her parents except for what she tells me.” He explains that throughout their seven-year relationship he was only at her house a handful of times. However, he does divulge some of the “unique” parts of the family relationship Jennifer described to him. “From what she’s been telling me, they never slept in the same bed,” he says. “Her mother often slept in the basement and her father slept in the room upstairs. They’d often get into fights. What it seemed like was her father took everything for granted and her mother worked for everything.” Daniel also drops details about a renovation the couple did to their home, paying a contractor some $30,000 in cash. It isn’t long before the questions came back to why Jennifer’s parents didn’t like Daniel, as Milligan tries to steer the conversation toward Daniel’s run-ins with police. But Daniel denies they were aware of his criminal past. (He was busted the first time after he was stopped by Toronto cops, who found a pound of marijuana in his car — a quantity he estimates would be worth between $1,000 and $4,000 on the street.)

  His second run-in with the law wasn’t his fault, Daniel claims, referring to the time a friend borrowed his car and got pulled over and charged with possession. After this, he says, he got out of the drug game for good, finding it too risky. “I didn’t want to be to the point where you’re always looking over your shoulder; what’s going to happen or [thinking about a] competitor or anything like that.”

  Daniel adamantly denies Jennifer was ever involved in his dealing, though. “At one point you were trafficking, and I don’t care about that. We’re over that,” says Milligan. “And at some point, because you dated so long, Jen probably helped you with that, and that’s understandable.”

  “I told her never to touch it,” Daniel replies. “Because I [didn’t] want her to get involved in it.”

  The conversation then turns to the subject of several bizarre communications to Daniel’s cellphone since his breakup with Jennifer, including a series of mysterious calls and texts. “Lately it’s just been happening more and more,” he tells Milligan. “[An unknown person would] call and I’d answer and it would just go quiet for ten seconds and then they’d hang up. It would happen over and over, and when I would [not answer] it would get worse and worse. It got ridiculous. It was up to a hundred times a night.”

  Over time, Daniel says he began receiving text messages of a more threatening nature, texts like: ha ha ha, bang bang bang. And he says he wasn’t the only one receiving these anonymous communications. Jennifer said she, too, was receiving hateful messages calling her “ugly” and “stupid” and questioning why Daniel would ever want to date a girl like her. His new girlfriend, Katrina, wasn’t spared the torment, either, and her phone was inundated with texts accusing Daniel of sabotaging their relationship by continuously contacting Jennifer: Doesn’t he want you to be happy?

  The odd happenings reached a crisis point, he says, after Jennifer’s cellphone went missing and then turned up in her mailbox sitting in a bag containing a white residue. Jennifer even received a bullet in the mail, Daniel says, and was raped by a gang of five Asian men.

  An interesting exchange occurs when Milligan repeatedly implies that Daniel’s drug dealing might have sparked the home invasion that resulted in Jennifer’s mother’s death. “Could it be a competitor?” Milligan asks. “[One who] doesn’t like you?”

  Confronted with this line of questioning, Daniel responds by steering the conversation back to the anonymous communications. “It’s actually the phone calls and the other things that I think it’s related to,” he suggests. “I’m more than 95 to 99 percent sure it has nothing to do with my drug dealing back then. There’s nothing [for a competitor] to compete with. For marijuana, no one is going to shoot you over a gram [of weed].” He insists he limited his drug business to a small and intimate circle of customers, then doubles down on his theory, muddying the possible link between drugs and the murder. “Yeah, I am [worried for my safety],” he says. “I haven’t slept … because I don’t know who it is, if it’s [the crank callers], they call my house private, they call my cellphone, so they have my address. It’s pretty obvious … if they got access to finding her address through her phone number they can find my address through my phone number. My mom couldn’t sleep, either. It kept going through my head: Who could it be? Who is it? Is it really just a random break and enter? It’s actually the phone calls and the other stuff that I think it’s related to.”

  From an investigative standpoint, though, it is Daniel’s revelation that Jennifer has a second cellphone — a Bell Mobility iPhone — that sparks the most interest. “One was her own personal phone [the Rogers cell] that her parents would take away from her, and then there was another phone that I gave her so I could contact her,” he says.

  After his initial denials about their ongoing relationship, the question has to be asked: Just how “broken up” were the two?

  “We were close friends,” Daniel says. “Seven years was a long time, and I appreciated what she did for me, and we were best friends right after [the breakup].” However, Daniel’s most shocking statement comes as the interview wraps up. The stunning proclamation caps a masterful bit of interrogation by the charismatic Milligan as he asks nonchalantly what it costs to have someone taken out. “In the industry, what would you kill somebody [for]? Give me a number.”

  “Any amount,” Daniel says. “If someone is desperate enough, they’ll do it. If someone were to … it would probably have to be around $10,000. I’d be pretty sure for $10,000 someone would do something like that.”

  It is around the time Daniel walks out of the Markham police station — two and a half hours after he arrived — that Jennifer and her family are struck by a further twist of fate. In front of media waiting outside the hospital for Jennifer’s arrival, at least one scribe hears her receive a call as she stands near the elevators. At one point in the conversation Jennifer cries out and begins to sob, quickly seeking the comfort of those around her. As Jennifer and her family continue their vigil at Hann’s bedside, relatives explain to the reporter that Jennifer’s grandfather, Bich’s father, has just died.

  5

  “That Hasn’t Gone Unnoticed”

  From the moment Jennifer left her home that fateful night in November, 238 Helen Avenue became a sealed crime scene. Consequently, she is forced to stay with her cousin, Miche
lle Luong, and her aunt and uncle, whose home is less than a mile away. This isn’t easy on Jennifer. She not only has to borrow clothing from relatives but is forced to live under a cloud of suspicion from her own family as the questions mount. The media are hungry for news about the uninjured girl at the centre of the bizarre home invasion. The public openly speculates about her role in the case. And living in close quarters with her mother’s relatives will result in further aspersions being cast on her by police.

  On November 10 at 9:10 p.m., Michelle, Jennifer’s cousin, is interviewed by police. Michelle informs investigators that hours before her interview, Jennifer specifically told her she and Daniel had broken up. Jennifer also said she was receiving threatening messages on her cellphone. When asked about the comments in a later interview, Jennifer obfuscates, telling investigators she was simply trying to soothe a “nervous” Michelle, only advising her to “tell the truth.” It is clear, though, that the police have grown more skeptical.

  But it isn’t just Michelle; other family members have also noticed Jennifer’s odd behaviour. Her Uncle Juann, for example, confronts Jennifer, alleging that he saw her one day in the months preceding the murder at a Tim Hortons coffee shop accompanied by a black male. There are ongoing questions about who Jennifer called from the pay phone at the hospital and why the call was placed from that particular phone at that particular time. Although it may have been easy for Jennifer, the much-heralded victim, to brush off suspicions at this early juncture, as the days wear on, her family’s misgivings about her increase.

  The next morning, at 9:43 a.m. (November 11), Jennifer looks utterly petrified as she arrives for her second interview at the Markham police station. Video footage from the detachment shows a solitary Jennifer sitting in the interview room like a caged animal. She wrings her hands and cracks her knuckles. During what becomes a four-hour interview, she knows — based solely on the information Daniel shared with the police, which one might assume was relayed to her — that she will have to do plenty of backpedalling.

  “Do you, Jennifer Pan, swear that the evidence that you give in this investigation shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” asks the commissioner of oaths.

  “Yes,” she replies. Her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she sports an outdated knee-length grey cardigan and a form-fitting shirt. On her nose sit her trademark glasses, which she often has to push back into place. She’s done away with her blue slippers and now wears oversized running shoes — footwear no doubt borrowed from a family member.

  “Do you suffer from any mental illness?” Slade asks. “Have you been drinking? Did you take any drugs?”

  Jennifer omits one key detail from her reply. “No drugs, no drinking,” she says before an unwitting Slade moves on.

  The detective has barely taken his seat before Jennifer attempts to manipulate him. “I’m very nervous,” she states, trying to explain away the “mistakes” she fears she will make during the upcoming interview. “I don’t want to say the wrong things, because that day was a lot and I’ve been scattered, and so bits and pieces are here and some pieces aren’t here. I’m getting the last few days mixed up together.”

  His response is simple and concise, providing a window into the focus of the interview by day three of the investigation: “Truth is always the best way to relieve anxiety.”

  When Jennifer is asked once again to explain exactly what happened at her home the night of November 8, she knows something is up. Her leg begins to quake uncontrollably, the fabric of her jeans briskly rubbing together, the sound clearly audible on the recording.

  After first being forced to admit that her education ended after high school, Slade explains to Jennifer that there are multiple questions about the first interview that he wants to ask her about. Sensing her emotionally elevated state, Slade takes Jennifer through some relaxation techniques before the pair delves back in to that horrific day. Jennifer’s hunch is right: her third recounting will contain plenty more glaring “mistakes.” She explains how she sat “frozen” on her bed upon hearing her mother call up to her father in Vietnamese (not English as she previously said). Jennifer recounts how, after peering out of her bedroom door, she was shocked to see Number One coming toward her with his gun drawn (in the first interview, she stated he was carrying a string). Flustered and frightened, she then fails to mention the $1,100 taken from her parents’ bedroom. “I didn’t see them recover anything, no,” she says.

  “Are you sure?” Slade presses. “Because when we spoke the last time there was some mention of some other money.” At this point she recalls that a “couple of hundred” dollars in U.S. currency was found by the intruders.

  It’s not long before she apologizes anew. “I’m sorry,” she says, weeping, her legs still quaking. “I don’t remember everything.”

  “Don’t apologize. The only reason you’d apologize is if you’ve lied to me,” says Slade.

  “No” is her response, delivered in a barely audible whisper, her hands in prayer position in front of her mouth.

  She’s left even more vulnerable when Slade questions why she thought the intruders didn’t ask for the combination to the plainly visible safe in her parents’ bedroom closet.

  One of the names Jennifer likely never intended to mention to police is then uttered for the first time — Andrew Montemayor. She tells Slade how he called her prior to the murder and wanted to meet up. But she was forced to tell him no, explaining to him for the first time how she wasn’t able to leave her house.

  Slade makes it very clear to her that he knows a lot more than he did just two short days ago. “We’ll go in later to your past, to talk about why you couldn’t leave the house,” he says. “That hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

  The Bell iPhone she failed to mention previously is the next subject on tap. Jennifer explains to Slade that her “friend,” Daniel, gave her the phone and was paying the bills. When he asks her where the cell is, she pleads ignorance, stating she hid it to avoid her parents’ detection. “I don’t remember the last time I used it,” she says. “I had it in my jacket pocket, but I don’t know now.” The last time she spoke to Daniel was a week ago, Jennifer adds.

  Jennifer’s physiological anguish is only just beginning. Slade then demands she stand up and show him how she managed to call 911 on her cellphone with her hands tied behind her back. “It’s obviously very relevant. We know you made the phone call, but questions are obviously going to be raised that if my hands are bound and I’m against a railing, how do I talk to a 911 operator?” Slade explains as Jennifer nods, appearing to wince in pain.

  The details of that phone call are very important to Detective Courtice, who later says he questioned how a device could be tucked in the back of Jennifer’s yoga pants without it falling out and without the intruders noticing it. “The phone was supposed to be tucked in the Lulu Lemon pants. Well, wouldn’t it fall down into them? We know she was up there by herself, yet she doesn’t place the phone call until everyone leaves?”

  Whimpering and hesitating, clearly not wanting to oblige Slade’s request, Jennifer takes a large gulp of water, removes her sweater, and puts the dummy phone he’s given her in her waistband. Jennifer slowly rises before somehow managing to contort her body through a plausible display of how she pulled her phone out while her wrists were bound. How she could make the call in this state is another matter. With her head bent toward the phone and her hands bound with imaginary string, she reaches for her ear, but the two remain a significant distance apart.

  “How do you make the phone call,” Slade quizzes her.

  “I’m yelling at the phone like this,” she replies, her dainty wrists glued together, the phone about a foot and a half from her ear. When he asks her how she can hear, she appears to panic momentarily, pausing, before conjuring up a response. “I turned the volume on max,” she responds.

  Her disgus
t at the insinuation that she’s lying is dramatically revealed by her body language, which speaks volumes. She recoils from Slade, acting as though she has been violated by his request for demonstration. She manages to make the veteran officer uncomfortable. Slade, the eternal gentleman, gauges her emotions before he attempts to help her back into her sweater. She refuses his help. Taking hold of her sweater, she stays a healthy distance away. Slade, wanting to coax her back into his realm of trust, asks her if she wants more water and then seems to apologize for requesting the demonstration. “I really appreciate that,” he starts. “Obviously, it’s very important to see it because we can’t put you back in the same position, but we just needed to see how you got the phone out and made the call.”

  In her second interview, Jennifer is more animated. 1. She asks about the investigation and the officer attempts to reassure her. 2. She swears to tell the whole truth. 3. The inspector asks her to demonstrate how she was able to make the 911 call while her hands were bound behind her back. She reluctantly obliges. 4. Jennifer repeatedly denies any involvement in the plot.

  When his questioning returns to the scene of the crime, Jennifer tries to beef up her story about why the intruders left her alive. First she injects a new comment from Number One, stating that he told her: “You obeyed” (by handing over money). Conversely, she notes that Number Three shouted at her father, angry about his disobedience: “Where’s the rest of the money? You lied. There’s more. Where is it? You lied.”

  Just as the distraught Jennifer appears as if she can take no more, Slade heaps more pressure on her, asking her to recount the events once again, but this time backward. Jennifer’s leg starts to quiver anew, uncontrollably now. As her stress level increases, a division develops between the physical and mental, with Jennifer failing to notice how her behaviour might appear to those observing her. With long pauses between each step, once even whispering to herself Am I missing something? she recounts the invasion from end to beginning. Gripping her grumbling stomach throughout, her intestinal gas gets so bad at one point that she passes wind, apologizing to Slade. Astonishingly, though, she once more pulls it off before sheepishly asking, as if she has just taken an oral exam, “Is that okay?”