Soon after, Lenford, who she says was the youngest of the bunch, was nabbed by police as a young offender after getting involved with drugs. Megreta knew then that she, too, had to make her way to Canada. Her husband, Albert, was eventually sponsored, and Megreta followed him north to Toronto and was reunited with her son in 1999.
Keen on his success, Albert helped Lenford, now seventeen, get night-shift work with him at a pastry manufacturer cleaning machinery in Toronto. Lenford also went to school in the city for body work and mechanics and soon started doing oil changes, brakes, and tires at a local garage before eventually getting a factory job at Rexdale’s Kik Custom Products, a manufacturer of bottled household products.
Although it’s unclear how Daniel Wong and Lenford Crawford met, many say it was through their respective love of cars. Like Daniel, Lenford was a hard worker who got promoted quickly. He joined Kik Custom as a stock boy, and three months later when managers noted his dedication to the job, he was promoted to line mechanic, not only operating machinery but repairing it when it went down. Lenford was making about $17 an hour, often worked overtime, and owned his own car. He rarely took vacations and, at times, worked seven days a week, according to his mother. “He’s not a troublemaker; he’s not a gangster,” she insists. “He’s a hard-working guy. He’s never even been on welfare.” True to her words, life for Lenford was routine to the point of appearing downright dull, with him usually going to work between 3:30 p.m. and midnight and then going home to his mother’s Rexdale home or to his girlfriend’s place in Brampton where they often stayed together with their young son. For his age (he was now twenty-seven), Lenford was a very dedicated father and held plenty of love both for his girlfriend and son, his mother adds.
In his new city, Lenford set about making a place for himself, meeting new people and earning extra money by selling marijuana. It’s unclear exactly how he met Eric, but police say they were introduced through the drug trade. To his friends, Lenford was known by a number of names, including his middle name Roy and also “Columbia” and “Columbs,” because of his link to British Columbia. Over the years, he called Toronto’s challenged neighbourhoods of Rexdale and Jane-Finch home, and also lived in the nearby city of Brampton. Lenford said he’d known Eric long enough to have met his “whole family,” and he regularly referred to Eric as “fam” — in other words, the pair were close friends. According to Lenford, the pair got to know each other through several young women they both knew.
While Lenford’s hard work paid off — he had a steady job, a car, and money in his pocket — Eric struggled financially. Historically, he came into large sums of money often, but by late 2009, because of extenuating circumstances, he was only getting by with the help of the women in his life, at whose homes he’d spend his nights.
Another of Eric’s good friends was a man from Rexdale named David Mylvaganam. David was born in Montreal to a Sri Lankan father and a Jamaican mother. David eventually split his time between living in Quebec with his father and in Toronto with his mother. He grew up near Eric Carty and his girlfriend, Leesha Pompei. Leesha says she remembers him as “just some little kid running around the neighbourhood.”
But as David grew up, he allegedly got involved in a number of criminal endeavours, including the sale of guns, although he managed to stay largely out of trouble with the police. His nicknames included his middle name Ramu as well as “Rambo,” “Indian,” and “Coolie.” When he was in his early twenties, David fancied himself a rapper and used his nicknames as aliases in his music videos, some of which are credited to “Mad Indian.” He has two sons with two different women.
David, like Lenford and Eric, was very close to his kids and cared deeply for them. When a picture of his son and the child’s mother, Denise Brown, was later shown in court, he welled up. However, the couple’s relationship eventually grew strained because of what she called his immaturity. Bearing in mind that he was just twenty-two at that point, Denise says he was not only more involved with his friends than his young family, but also unfaithful and irresponsible with money. As a result, she broke off the relationship.
Lenford eventually introduced Eric and Daniel to each other, which led to a newfound partnership between the three. Daniel and Lenford were close friends, as were Lenford and Eric. But three’s a crowd, as they say, and Eric and Daniel didn’t see eye to eye on a number of issues. Eric didn’t consider Daniel experienced enough for the drug trade. As in most of his relationships, Eric was the senior partner in the triumvirate, with Lenford in the middle, and finally Daniel, the junior partner — this despite Daniel providing many of the drug contacts for the trio. At various points throughout their relationships, Daniel and Lenford spent a considerable amount of time trying to show just how “street” they were to those they were attempting to impress — Daniel to Lenford and Lenford to Eric.
Although up until that point, Daniel was relatively well versed in the small-time drug trade, meeting Lenford heralded an introduction into new partnerships, larger quantities, more money, and an expanded clientele. Daniel became Lenford’s understudy, taking up the role of his little brother as he introduced him to bigger deals. But larger quantities and new colleagues bring with them new dangers that Daniel either didn’t realize or chose to ignore. Although it’s unclear exactly how much weed the trio was selling each week, they were allegedly regularly purchasing half pounds, paying $2,700 for higher-quality weed and $1,900 for bottom-end stuff. In the lead-up to the Pan murder, Lenford and Daniel spent much of their time working or hanging out with their girlfriends. More than Daniel, Lenford and Eric passed much of their time smoking pot. However, both were very highly functioning: being high was both a lifestyle and a leisure activity.
10
An Early Christmas Present
On November 23, 2010, at three o’clock in the afternoon, television crews, newspaper reporters, and radio journalists, all with microphones in hand, crowd into York Police Headquarters in Newmarket to find out the latest on a case that many in the media — a skeptical bunch at the best of times — had more than an inkling of suspicion about to start with.
This story, as reporters put it, has “legs.” The crime was not only committed in the middle of an upper-middle-class suburban neighbourhood, but it involved a young, attractive female and two hard-working parents who were caught off guard while relaxing in their home. But unlike so many murder investigations, this one ensnared both sexes as well as people from a vast array of the cultural backgrounds and ethnicities that make up Toronto’s diverse diaspora.
Simply put, the case has all the hallmarks of intrigue, from horror to passion and, from the public’s point of view, the seduction of a “whodunit.” But at its core, this is a tragic tale of the destruction of an innocent family.
This big public reveal comes the day after Jennifer Pan’s arrest. During the press conference, Chief La Barge — who only two short weeks earlier told reporters the Pans were attacked “for absolutely no particular reason” — alters the public’s view of the investigation with one statement: “We had nothing to indicate what the motive was…. That changed.”
When the first press conference took place two weeks earlier, Hann Pan was “in no way, shape, or form prepared to be interviewed” by investigators. Since then, he has spoken to officers and is being held, police say, at an undisclosed location. Detective Sergeant Larry Wilson admits that it was after interviewing Hann that the focus of the investigation began to shift to the victims’ daughter, twenty-four-year-old Jennifer. Although the police remain tight-lipped about the possible motives, the media are able to garner some nuggets of information from the press conference.
Hann is now the “key person” and is providing police with a new description of the men being sought. This indicates to everyone that Jennifer lied in her initial description of the intruders. Newspapers discover from anonymous family members that Jennifer was living at home with her parents and didn
’t work. Furthermore, the fact that Jennifer has been charged with first-degree murder means the police believe “some planning and deliberation” occurred between her and the shooters.
After Jennifer’s arrest, police attention shifts to the others involved: a male, black, twenty to twenty-five, six feet two inches tall, with muscular build; a male, black, twenty to twenty-five, between six feet and six feet two inches tall, with skinnier build; and a male, white, twenty to twenty-five, six feet tall with heavier build and a round face.
When they return to their desks after the press conference, homicide detectives say their phones are inundated with calls from reporters.
The local impact of the murder is also deeply felt, with parents worried for the safety of their families. “I’m glad that there is some kind of closure to this, because people in the neighbourhood were really concerned that it was a random … act,” says Aurelia Fernandez, one of the Pans’ neighbours. However, as with many cases that evolve over time, new information does little to dispel the feeling of insecurity many feel in modern society. “I don’t think you’ll ever be safe in a world like this one,” Fernandez adds.
News of Jennifer’s arrest is broadcast on news channels across the city, province, and country. This is an unwelcome development for the others involved in the crime, and they all respond to the news differently. For three of the men who will eventually end up the subject of police inquiries, one detail looms larger than their freedom: money. The actions they take at this point in time will make this quite clear.
For police, Jennifer’s arrest is the easy part. Now the real work begins — trying to find the men who were in the tinted-windowed late-model Acura that zoomed down Helen Avenue at 10:30 p.m. on November 8. But finding men intent on not being discovered and then proving they’re responsible is no simple task. This is especially true when all you have to work with are a couple of phone numbers.
Two days after Jennifer’s arrest, on November 25, Detectives Courtice and Cooke receive a “snapshot” from the call logs on Jennifer’s Bell iPhone. The first thing they discover as they scan the information it provides, is that Daniel was deceitful with them. Despite the fact that he told Detective Milligan he hadn’t “spoken with [Jennifer] recently” — on November 8 alone, he engaged in thirty-six text messages and fourteen calls with her.
In addition, there were numerous suspicious calls and texts that day to and from other numbers. But these weren’t your typical phone numbers registered to named individuals with cell contracts and credit card information. These were from prepaid phones — called “burners” on the street — that are often used by drug dealers. They are simple to buy, burn through, dump, and repeat. In the case of several of these phones, the users had cheek, and in one case, at least, they seemed to be clearly taunting police — using as an alias the name of a man with a blatant hatred for law enforcement. Detective Al Cooke says that on top of having no forensic evidence from the crime scene, most of the phones in this case were assigned to people who didn’t exist. “It [very quickly] became a phone case,” he says. “It’s very frustrating. Everybody has a phone or two or three phones in different names.”
Investigators initially focus on the last four numbers to call Jennifer on her iPhone before the murder. One call, which came in at 6:12 p.m. on November 8, draws their particular attention. This number includes the digits 8 and 5 and has a Toronto area code, just as Jennifer told them Homeboy’s did. But at that point, police aren’t sure what parts of Jennifer’s statement they can believe. Another call came in at 8:16 p.m. and lasted twenty-eight seconds, and yet another at 9:34 p.m. — this one a minute and forty-two seconds in duration. The last call was received at 10:05 p.m. This time the two parties talked for three minutes and twenty-three seconds. The home invasion occurred five minutes after this conversation ended, at 10:13 p.m.
The records for these phones and the corresponding tower information attached to them are requested immediately by police, in the form of a warrant, but it can take up to thirty days to receive the information once requests have been signed off by a judge. While waiting for that data, the police decide to take a chance and call the numbers. All but one let the calls ring right through. The only number where they get an answer is the one that called Jennifer at 8:16 p.m. on the night of the murder. The phone, of course, is registered under a bogus name, James Anderson. The owner, it turns out, is a real joker — Demetrius Mables, who later describes the initial phone conversation he engaged in with police on November 26 as one of mystery. “At first I didn’t know it was the police. They were talking to me like they were trying to do me something,” he says. “I’m like, I’m not going to tell you who I am, and I don’t even know who you [are]. When he told me it was an investigation of a homicide, I’m like What the hell?”
When Mables rejects the police’s assertion he had anything to do with the murder, Detective Courtice conveys his frustration. “Mr. Bloodpressure [Courtice] came and picked me up and told me how I’m getting his blood pressure high,” Mables later says. “‘What am I doing? What am I talking about?’ I came over and co-operated with him because I know I’m innocent. We went to his car, we sat down in his car, he put on his little microphone, and he started talking.”
Detective David MacDonald, meanwhile, has an even harder time while trying to reach the owner of the investigation’s target phone — the one that called six minutes before the entry — but no one answers. So he throws a Hail Mary pass and texts the phone: Hello, it’s the police, please call me back as soon as possible. Det. MacDonald.
He receives no response.
The phone goes silent from then on, but police are far from done with it. The following day, the police attempt another long shot and drive out to Brampton to knock on the door of the address listed on the phone they now know is registered to a Peter Robinson. Detective MacDonald’s heart sinks when an elderly male answers, completely mystified as to why a homicide detective is on his doorstep. MacDonald might have suspected as much, considering Peter Robinson is the name of the former mayor of Brampton.
Later that day, though, Detective MacDonald, who’s been working for months on-shift from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. without a day off, catches a break. The clean-cut former military man, who rose through the York Regional Police ranks quickly to become a detective in homicide that year, raps on the door of Lenford Crawford’s family home in Rexdale, the only legitimate address listed on any of the phones that called Jennifer’s iPhone that day (at 10 a.m. and 6:12 p.m.). Lenford’s parents are none too pleased to find police searching for their boy; it’s unclear how they would have reacted if MacDonald told them he was from homicide. Rousing him from his slumber, a seemingly relaxed Lenford agrees to be interviewed at the police station as long as officers promise to get him to work on time for his shift. But despite granting them an interview and showing police plenty of respect during it, he doesn’t give them much in terms of information. After a lolling but friendly description of his work, family, and personal life, during which he details his attempts to mend his relationship with the mother of his child, the conversation eventually turns to Daniel Wong — a man Lenford knows by the nickname “Bruce.”
“I used to hang out with my friends,” he says, referring to Daniel and others. “[But] I don’t really have time to talk to them anymore because of my son.” It is at this moment that Detective MacDonald drops his unassuming, pleasant demeanour, his expression growing dour. It signals a shift from pleasantries to business.
“How do you know Jennifer Pan?” he asks point-blank, staring right into Lenford’s eyes. Seemingly unfazed, Lenford continues to plead ignorance. Once pressed though, he admits he might have spoken to Jennifer while trying to get hold of Daniel. But he denies having a conversation with her. “What did you guys talk about at 10:00 a.m. [on November 8]?” Detective MacDonald asks.
“It would have to be about [Daniel] or me trying to get hold of him,” Lenford
replies.
MacDonald, sensing he’s being misled, warns him not to play with the police. “I want to make sure you understand the gravity of this,” he tells Lenford. “It’s important it’s truthful. When you’re talking to me straight, you’re looking at me in the eyes. When you don’t talk to me straight, you’re looking somewhere else. Tell me the truth … that’s what we’re after.”
Lenford doesn’t bite and remains balanced, entering into a long, drawn-out story about being owed money by Daniel’s friend. He says the man’s name is Vince, a “drug addict” who owes him $500. Before long MacDonald goes at Lenford again, this time directly asking if he was involved in Bich’s murder, but the young man insists it wasn’t him: “I wasn’t involved, absolutely not.”
Unsatisfied with the response, MacDonald presents Lenford with a scenario. “A guy who was short of cash, finding the pinch of life was closing in on him, and was offered money in order to do a job, then finds himself in over his head, and ends up having to deal with the consequences even if he was only a little bit involved,” he proposes. “What do you think should happen to a guy like that?”
Lenford responds, “Unless I know the full situation, I’m not one to judge people … but believe it or not, I’m telling the truth.” Under further pressure, and sensing he has little option but to throw MacDonald a bone, he admits to contacting Daniel about drugs.
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