A Daughter's Deadly Deception

by Jeremy Grimaldi

  “Because I was very scared.”

  “You’re not scared. You’re selfish and you’re greedy.”

  “I don’t agree with that.”

  Scott carries on in this vein, painting Jennifer as the “attention-seeking” daughter in a fascinating courtroom diatribe. “You love to be the centre of attention,” he suggests. “You love getting awards [for skating and piano] … it gets you attention and it gets you recognition and people pay attention to you. You’re not invisible. And you loved playing the victim with Daniel Wong because it got you attention. And you like telling the jury that you’re a self-harmer and you cut yourself because it makes people look at you and say, ‘Wow, we should be concerned about you.’ It gets you more attention, doesn’t it? And when you planned this murder of your parents, I’m going to suggest to you, you loved being the centre of attention. You loved that Andrew Montemayor was in contact with you constantly to talk about it on the night of this murder. That someone was interested in you and interested in this drama, right? I’m going to suggest to you, you were excited at the prospect that, the day after this murder, you’re going to be a victim yet again on the front page of every Toronto newspaper and people will pay attention to you and say, ‘Poor Jennifer Pan.’ And you were in a good mood on the evening of November 8, right? And when you’re in a good mood with your boyfriend, Daniel Wong, you guys do the baby talk and ‘Hey, monkey, monkey, and oooo, what do monkeys say [referring to the couple’s baby talk that night].’ That’s when you’re in a good silly mood and you’re having fun with Daniel Wong. You do that when you’re in a good mood, because we’ve seen you in a bad mood. The evening of November 8 you were in a good mood. Things were coming together for you. That was going to be the night of the start of your new life. Your new life with Daniel.” He adds one more shot across the bow. “It is coincidental that on that day and in the evening [of the murder] you were in contact with each and every one of these co-accused that are in court today, right? Just a coincidence?” he tellingly asks her.

  When Laurence Cohen approaches his cross-examination, his association to Daniel Wong, as his legal representative, seems to win him some favour with Jennifer. At the outset Jennifer begins to agree with much of what Cohen puts to her, presumably in part because they happen to be her true feelings. However, this turns out to be a huge miscalculation on Jennifer’s part. Cohen’s approach mirrors that of the police, acting as though he understands Jennifer’s feelings to gain trust and information before turning the tables on her. The problem for Jennifer is that, in agreeing with his assertions, she reveals the type of person she is to the court — the eternal victim. The exchange that takes place between the two largely consists of Cohen weaving scenarios Jennifer is comfortable enough with to accept, then using that very testimony against her, eventually making her out to be the manipulative ex-girlfriend who essentially got Daniel caught up in a murder investigation. “You bore the brunt of the [house] cleaning and your brother was elevated to be this prince that goes wherever he wants and comes home and does what he pleases,” he says.

  She admits she felt “unappreciated.”

  “You, Jennifer Pan, are a good person and you’re unappreciated for your endeavours. ‘I do good acts and I get abandoned. I get abandoned by the people who love me. I give and I give and I get nothing back.’ People have judged you harshly.” Jennifer agrees to all of these statements during Cohen’s masterful cross.

  LC: You appreciate the horrific nature of this crime, right?

  JP: I cannot tell you how many nights I have not slept.

  LC: The allegation that someone could kill their parents, who provided and sacrificed their lives, is the ultimate in betrayal, right?

  JP: You nailed it.

  LC: You’ve lived under that shadow, that horrible suspicion, for many, many years now.

  JP: Correct.

  LC: You’ve been put under the microscope of being this horrible person, a murderer, they’re suggesting.

  JP: A cold-hearted one, yes.

  Over time Cohen begins to alienate Jennifer, suggesting she isn’t a victim but rather a “pathological liar” — someone who is habitually untruthful and essentially believes her own lies, an individual who repeatedly used mind games and deceit to control and manipulate Daniel along with everyone else in her life. It is no doubt an effective line of defence for Daniel, but in the end it is nowhere near enough to sway the jury from its final decision, which is likely based primarily on its opinion of Jennifer, who takes a beating during these days.

  Part of the problem, of course, is that, besides acting as her defence, Jennifer’s version of events provides all the lawyers a treasure trove of information they can use in their own crosses to bring her down a notch. However, one must wonder how this will affect the fates of their clients, all of whom sit directly beside Jennifer and her sinking ship.

  Out of one side of her mouth, Jennifer tells the jury members that she did mastermind a plot to shoot and kill her own father, but then out of the other she tells them that November 8 was all one big mistake. Jennifer enthusiastically admits to creating a world of deceit for much of her adult life, but then wants everyone to believe that in this one instance, after all these years, she is being honest. Finally, to believe her version of events, Jennifer is asking the court to engage in a quantum leap of rationality, which no one is willing to do. So much so, that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to impugn her character and point out inaccuracies.

  17

  A Spanner in the Works

  It is during an almost month-long break in the middle of Jennifer’s testimony that one defence lawyer suffers a health crisis — Edward Sapiano, counsel for Eric Carty, the man the Crown has described (along with Jennifer herself) as being the plot’s linchpin. Unable to seek a new lawyer seven months into a very complicated trial, it is decided that Eric’s case will be severed from the rest and will be heard separately in an entirely new trial. This turn of events, which almost claims Sapiano’s life, has a profound impact on the trial. After all, Eric is the accused with the most dubious past; in fact, he is the only defendant with any significant criminal record at all. It isn’t until November that the jury and the public discover the truth about Eric’s police record involving gun-related crimes.

  Although Peter Bawden (lawyer for David Mylvaganam) has been granted the right to bring Eric’s past out in court from the get-go, he refuses to do so, possibly fearful of reprisal attacks on his own client by Sapiano (representing Eric Carty). So, in the end, it is Jennifer’s lawyer, Paul Cooper, who brings into evidence the fact that at the time of his arrest for the Pan murder, Eric was already being held in prison on charges that he killed a man named Kirk Matthews — a first-degree murder charge (of which he is later convicted).

  Although the police say Eric is a suspect in at least one other shooting, it is the murder of Matthews that lands him in significant trouble.

  It was 3:25 a.m. on a wintry night, and Eric was skulking near the projects on Rexdale’s San Pietro Way. As he approached the target vehicle, he is alleged to have seen twenty-four-year-old Kirk sitting with his girl in his SUV outside his mother’s house. Kirk’s girlfriend said Eric asked for either a cigarette or a light. When Kirk exited the vehicle to oblige, Eric shot him in the chest. Kirk’s girlfriend ran to the house of her boyfriend’s mother screaming, while Eric is said to have run in the opposite direction, jumping in a getaway car waiting in a nearby parking lot, and made good his escape. Kirk’s mother quickly called 911 as she ran to her son’s side. When she asked her dying boy what had happened, he responded “Snypa shot me” — a statement recorded by 911 operators. As he lay dying on the road, he told his mother not to worry: “I’m going to be okay, I’m going to beat this thing.” Those were his final words.

  Although the police identified Eric as a suspect within days, putting out a warrant for his arrest, it was a long while before they finally cau
ght up to him. Eric was on the run for more than a year before he was caught.

  The Matthews case raised some uncomfortable questions for the Toronto Police Service, considering Eric remained in “hiding” for such a long period of time. Although he was certainly keeping a low profile, he was also out and about, at one point appearing in a very public hip-hop video. He was also living with known girlfriends and even attending his children’s birthday parties. The bottom line is that the Pan murder was committed while Eric was a wanted man. One wonders if he might have been caught sooner if the murder he was implicated in had taken place outside the violent confines of Rexdale.

  Eric’s removal from the courtroom alters more than a few game plans as the trial continues. Up until that point, all the defendants remained united. But that doesn’t last long after Eric’s seat is vacated, leaving neither he nor his lawyer in the courtroom to contest any evidence brought forward. Jennifer’s lawyer, Paul Cooper, attempts to further solidify her defence that the murder was a robbery gone wrong by a gang of thugs led by Eric, a man he can now refer to as a “psychopathic killer with a bad shot.” Cooper suggests that Eric — hungry for money and unwilling to wait for Jennifer’s “cancellation fee” — took it upon himself to rob the Markham home where he expected to find a huge cache. Enraged when he didn’t find the loot he was looking for, he and the group killed Hann and Bich.

  Peter Bawden, David Mylvaganam’s lawyer, also takes the opportunity to paint Eric as the chief bad guy, a “street rat” who, unwilling to use his own cellphone for fear of police detection, chose to use the phone of his young cohort, David — little more than a pawn in his game. Despite this strategy, it must be said that neither Jennifer nor any of her co-defendants ever turn on one another during the trial. As a matter of fact, Jennifer even assures the jury that none of the men in the prisoners’ boxes were involved in the home invasion. “I know the descriptions I gave to police. I know their faces in my head, and sitting here alongside them … indications, whether voice or certain distinctions, don’t match the intruders,” she says, making more than a few people question exactly who was using these men’s phones on the night of the murder to call her.

  In the end, it is only Bawden who changes course, selecting a different path in defence of his client. After Jennifer, it is David who faces the most problematic defence. After all, he was the primary user of the “Peter Robinson” phone. It was this phone that was tracked travelling from Rexdale to Markham and then used to call Jennifer before the murder. It was also used after the attack to allegedly bridge calls to the others allegedly involved. Furthermore, Hann, a man who was clearly never supposed to survive, picked him out of a lineup two months after his wife was gunned down. It is also suggested by the Crown attorneys, who show the court plenty of phone communication directly and indirectly mentioning the sale of firearms — Get me ur cheapest book [gun] u have. Even if its [sic] worn out just plan 2 do a quick ting and dump it — that David was a gunrunner. He also happened to be the unlucky user of a Telus phone that received the following text: 5 each ting and Bt u all da way and all ten 4u. Easy ting was the response. Later this will be translated to mean that each life he took was worth $5,000 and that if David killed both, he’d get all $10,000.

  Instead of accepting a jury verdict against his client — which is growing increasingly likely — Bawden decides to fight against the impending doom with what’s known as an “alternative suspect defence.” Bawden’s approach to this is simple: now that Eric’s trial has been severed, he will increasingly paint Eric as the violent manipulator who took advantage of all those around him, including David, his younger, less-experienced understudy.

  “Why did [David] let Carty use his phone if he knew Carty was planning murder?” Bawden asks the jury. “Carty … would never use his own phone. Carty was the organizer of so many of these events. Mr. Carty has a propensity for violence. As much as we know now about Eric Carty … did anyone in the car know that night what Eric Carty would do when he was in the home? I would submit the answer is no.”

  Despite his suggestions, to this day there remains no evidence — disregarding the original assertions of Jennifer that Eric was Number One — that Eric was ever in the Pan house that night. The reason for this strategy is simple: Hann’s descriptions involved two dark-skinned males in the house and one lighter-skinned male. Bawden is essentially saying those two men with darker skin were Eric and another man who was not on trial, a Black male by the name of Maurice Green.

  Rather than conducting the murders himself, Bawden argues that David remained in the car as a getaway driver. He didn’t know the robbery would escalate to murder, and if anything, he should be convicted of manslaughter. “I’m going to start by being blunt. [David Mylvaganam] is in a car on his way to Markham and there are some … guys that are in that car in dark clothing, baseball caps, and carrying guns, “ he says. “Clearly, there’s a plan of some kind, and he’s involved in that plan. Those are facts that you just can’t dispute. Did the defendant know that another participant would probably murder Mrs. Pan and attempt to murder Mr. Pan in the commission of a home-invasion robbery? The answer I would urge you to find is no.”

  Things must have been growing increasingly desperate by this point for David to allow his lawyer to further implicate Eric, a friend and mentor with a penchant for violence. But Bawden’s legal strategy also implicates Maurice Green, who has plenty to lose, including his freedom — considering until that juncture, he is free of prosecution, notoriety, and charges. This betrayal won’t be looked upon kindly in either man’s neighbourhood. Luckily for Maurice, although he has been a person of interest in the police investigation, he is never charged. This means he is in a unique position of essentially being his own witness, meaning there are allegations against him but no firm evidence or people waiting in the wings to discredit his testimony.

  For the Crown, which is well on its way to securing four convictions, minus Eric, this is an unwanted development that can possibly lay waste to all the work they have so meticulously put in so far. If Bawden is effective in his questioning, Maurice’s testimony could derail the entire trial, putting doubt and confusion into the minds of the twelve jurors, who are only meant to focus on four people in the prisoners’ box. As such, it is left to Rob Scott to essentially act as Maurice’s defence attorney, objecting to lines of questioning, discrediting witnesses, before repeatedly attempting to divert the eyes of the jury during Bawden’s questioning of Maurice, as well as those attempting to implicate him — “Move along folks, nothing to see here.”

  Among the eight witnesses called as part of the defence’s alternative shooter theory is one of Eric’s good friends, Silvia Powell. Silvia is the woman whose phone number was stored in Lenford Crawford’s phone as “Gully Side.” But this isn’t the only link Silvia has to the case: besides being Eric’s close friend and often putting him up for the night, she is also close friends with two of his girlfriends, Katherine “Kat” Chum and Leesha Pompei. Furthermore, in the lead-up to the murder, her phone number shows up repeatedly in many of Eric’s associates’ call logs, with police suspecting Eric repeatedly used her cell to conduct business so to create distance between him and his activities.

  As she approaches the stand, Silvia, who many suspect of being Eric Carty’s girlfriend at one time, strikes a very lonely figure, seemingly torn between the two men in her life. On one side, of course, is Eric: “He’d give me advice [about] what to do [about my children’s] fathers, because they’re not helping in any sort of way. With my son’s father, he did try to talk to him and be in the picture with him. He was funny and nice and very outgoing. He cared a lot about kids, and he was just always supportive.” On the other side is Maurice Green, the former boyfriend she says was initially so great with her and her three children that she thought she was living in a “fairy tale.” It was a relationship she thought “was going to last.” But the fairy tale soon turned sour, she says, admitti
ng to the court that Maurice lied to her, telling her he was twenty-six, that he had his own place, and implying his name was “Darius.” In reality, he was thirty-five years old, sparsely employed, and living with his mother. Despite these revelations, the couple remained together for several months (August 2010 to spring 2011).

  Silvia recounts for the court the events of one evening in and around November 8, 2010, that stands out in her mind. (She doesn’t recall the exact day, but knows it was around this time.) Before nightfall she and Maurice became embroiled in an argument about his belief that she was having an affair with Eric, something she denied. Silvia then tells the court how Maurice told her he was leaving to go “on a move with ‘S’” (meaning Eric, a.k.a. Snypa). After she saw him leave in a dark car with black-tinted windows, she says she became involved in a discussion with her roommate, Kat Chum, over Kat’s concerns that her boyfriend, Eric Carty, was cheating on her. Silvia tells the court how Kat felt Eric was “playing her for a fool” by two-timing her. “She thought a lot of times that he had somebody else,” Silvia says. “But she never knew for sure.”

  The pair decided to text the girl Kat thought was Eric’s mistress, Silvia says. To their surprise, the girl texted back, and after they described Eric’s appearance and body shape to her, she told them that she was, in fact, dating this man. They then used Silvia’s phone to try to call Eric, but got no answer. Although Silvia can’t remember doing so, phone records then show that her phone called Maurice’s phone six times in a three-minute period around the same time. The implication is obvious: when she and Kat couldn’t reach Eric directly, they called Maurice, knowing the two men were together.

  When Maurice and Eric returned to the apartment later that night, Silvia says she noticed that Maurice was dressed in different clothing. After she and Maurice went to her room, he handed her a bag of clothing, the same clothing he had left in, but now they were covered in blood. When she asked Maurice what had happened, she says she was told: “Don’t worry about it. Just get rid of them.” It was on Valentine’s Day in 2011 when she confronted Maurice anew about that night, during which she says an upset Maurice told her he “went on a move with S and it was like S wasn’t even there.” In a police interview, she said Maurice told her: “Don’t ask me about that. I don’t want to talk about it.”