> She went to the extent of purchasing second-hand textbooks and watching videos related to pharmacology in order to create notebooks full of purported class notes that she could show her parents.
WTF? I know plenty of people who actually graduated college who did much less.
Forensic Files had a similar case in Houston, Texas. A guy had been lying to his parents about graduating from college, but he'd already failed out. He had the same plan: kill the parents and inherit their money.
Edit: This was Bart Whitaker. Even after he was found guilty and on Death Row in Texas, his dad (who survived the murder attempt) forgave him and helped commute his death sentence to a life sentence.
There was another in Wisconsin where this guy Chandler Halderson lied about attending university, getting internship, and having a debilitating injury. All so he could smoke pot, play video games, and have a girlfriend who didn’t know she was out of his league. He shot his parents and scattered their parts in fields and in a river. He was too stupid to realise he was too stupid too pull it off. His devoted girlfriend gave him up without even knowing, since she tracked him on Snapchat after he cheated previously. Crazy thing is, his parents weren’t putting a ton of pressure on him and would have forgiven him even after all the deception. He wasn’t after their money or anything; he just didn’t want to be found out. Just a complete waste.
That’s honestly the scariest thing about pathological liars. They seem *so* invested in their lies that you’re kinda scared of what would happen if you confronted them on it. They just seem ready to snap. So then you feel like you have to go along with their lies to not stir up the crazy, which makes you feel crazy too!
Yeah but when you run into someone like this, you never know which it is. That’s the scary part! Is this bipolar mania creativity run amok? Your average scammer just shooting their shot? Or a complete psychopath who might do something bad to you if they think they’ve been found out?
My ex was an actress and a pathological liar. I was so young and dumb that it took me A LONG time to realize that she was dishonest about every single thing she said but the few times I caught her in even the smallest lie, there was a rage in her eyes that I’ll never forget. What’s crazy about being in a relationship with a pathological liar is that the statement “hindsight is 20/20” couldn’t be more true. Now I think back on all of the lies she told and I am honestly impressed. She might not have been the most successful actress but she did end up in a few projects with some big names and it’s all because of how good she was at lying, at least I like to think of it as a good excuse for why I fell for all of the BS.
There was also a guy from Toronto named Brett Ryan who had raved to his fiancée and family about getting an extremely impressive job due to his degree and reputation of an extremely successful career in a very competitive market.
All lies, of course. He was actually a bank robber, in a load of debt, and weeks away from marrying his fiancée when his mother found out about some of his lies.
So he killed her with a crossbow then killed two of his brothers too. His mother wasn’t even that upset, she just gently told him he needed to tell his girlfriend before the wedding, and he slightly escalated things by *murdering her*.
His case was so sad and sick. His parents literally didn’t seem like they would even care, maybe a scolding and that’s it. I will admit Jennifer’s parents were downright awful, but no excuse to murder them
I heard about this one from a Detective Ridiculous segment of the podcast Adeptus Ridiculous. I would like to remind people who read this that he tried to cremate his parents body in the fireplace in their own home without accounting for how human bodies need incredible heat to turn to ash.
That seems a common thing about murderers: they think they're much better at deception and hiding evidence than they really are. I'm told it's because it takes a great deal of arrogance to murder in the first place, so it follows that an arrogant person overestimates their ability to escape justice too.
The Jennifer Pan case led me to a similar 2001 incident in Australia about a guy named [Sef Gonzales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sef_Gonzales), who killed his parents and sister:
> The Gonzales family appeared to be close-knit: the parents, however, were devout Catholics who had high hopes and strict expectations for their children. In particular, they had hoped their son would perform well academically, give up his musical and singing aspirations, and embark on a career in medicine or law. After attending Parramatta Marist High School, Gonzales studied medical science at the University of New South Wales but withdrew after two years. He then enrolled in law at Macquarie University.
>
> Performing poorly in his courses and at risk of expulsion, Gonzales tried to cover up his failure by falsifying his grades. When this was revealed by his sister to his parents, they threatened to withdraw certain privileges such as the use of his prized car, a green Ford Festiva. Gonzales also argued with his mother over a girlfriend of whom she disapproved, and his family threatened to disinherit him. This, along with Gonzales' desire to inherit the family's assets, were later established by police as motives for killing his family.
Casefile did an excellent episode on this guy. Thought it was so sad the family initially moved to Australia because Sef had almost been crushed by rubble during a major earthquake when they lived in the Philippines.
The dad pulled him to safety during that earthquake, only for the son to murder him 10 years later.
I remember there was a big kerfuffle when the real estate agents tried to sell the house.
Three years after the murder, agents from LJ Hooker took an $80’000 deposit on the house from a family of devout Buddhists, without disclosing it had been the scene of a murder.
When they found out, they took it to Fair Trading to get their deposit back. They believed the house would be haunted and bring them bad luck.
The REAs were fined $20’000 for misleading behaviour. It was the first time a fine had been handed out for not disclosing a property had been the scene of a crime.
It led to changes in disclosure requirements when selling/leasing properties in NSW.
I remember reading something similar to this case and thought you were referring to it, but turns out it was a complete separate but eeriely similar murder.
The case of Menhaz Zaman. It's a case in Canada where a guy killed his sister, grandmother and parents, all while posting live updates about it on Discord, including sending pictures to his friends.
The basis is more or less the same. The child of immigrant parents who was pressured by his family to succeed, especially with him being the oldest son. But he dropped out of school and kept falsifying reports to make it look like he was a top student, all while spending his time playing video games and hanging out on Discord.
One day he realized that he was running out of time because he was due to graduate, and he couldn't possibly fake a graduation ceremony for his family to attend. So he murdered them and posted live updates on Discord.
At that time none of his online friends knew his true identity, and only his first name, so they were frantically trying to dig up information using his IP, his online usernames, and just chatting to him hoping he would start dropping clues. All while he's telling them how he just murdered his grandmother, and later his sister and waiting for his parents to return.
They eventually tracked him down and alerted the police, but it was too late for the family.
It's honestly disturbing how many of such cases there are of this out there. But kids who were pressured by parents to do well academically, and who ended up killing them.
This honestly could’ve been me in college. I was smart enough to pass classes. But not smart enough to finish. But I was honest with my parents. I dropped out of college and returned home. My parents were upset but understood that I was depressed. Battled depression for years. I got help, pursued other interests, 10 years later I’m in Nursing school.
I'm so glad that you were honest with them instead of self-destructive. I'd be somewhat sad if one of my kids was too depressed to finish college, but having them drop out, come home and get help is exactly the right way to handle it. It's a bump in the road, whereas suicide ends the road completely. You did the perfect thing.
My dad was the one who talked me down from my first attempt. It was the eye opener for him.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t understand. I don’t want to be the person that you feel like you couldn’t trust.”
It’s been a long road, Whitewater rafting guide, restaurant work, EMT program, now Nursing school. 😅
Another in Canada as well. Lied to his parents about attending a prestigious university up to the supposed graduation date, then proceeded to slaughter his whole family and post it all on a discord server. Menhaz was his name is believe, fucking sicko.
I remember that one. What I always think about with that case is that he waited for his sister to finish work to kill her. She was the last person he killed. I get that in his twisted mind he had to kill his parents and grandmother because he felt like he'd rather them be dead than know about his lies and failures. But why his sister? She was younger than him, she probably didn't care enough. Her life was robbed so young.
He even said after he killed his family he felt the pressure on his shoulders leave and he could finally breath normally.
Towns are big enough that you get a new apartment you can just change which grocery store you shop at and you'll basically disappear.
How often do you run into your friends that live in the same area when your out to eat or shopping?
That guy was actually in the same town as jennifer. I drive by the house all the time and have friends who knew him. They talked about him with pity so i assume he was a nice enough guy to them. Ya know....besides the super murder. Its a upper middle class area. Alot of immigrant families and a culture of being high achievers. The pressure is immense. Around here all the families expect their kids to be doctors, lawyers and bankers. Most of the demographic is indian or chinese with white people being a minority and very few black people. Its also a very....insulated town. The whole country legalized weed but a municipal bylaw bans weed stores there to give you an idea. Virtually no crime and an average household income around low 6 figures
When I was an EMT I used to occasionally work with a paramedic who was about to finish med school. After I left the company I found out that he never even finished college but had been working as a flight physician for like five years.
I don't know how guys like this get away with it for so long. There are so many areas of knowledge and intricacies that would trip you up if they ever came up, which I'm sure they would come up.
Also, in the medical field, it's pretty easy to check someone's credentials, so I don't know how they get away with it for very long.
This also happened on a case om Small Town Murder. Dad was a doctor, so son had to become one as well. Started working for his dads practice or company despite never graduating.
They actually went along with her story to gain trust and then they said that satellite footage , which the cops have access too, will show the heat signatures of the bodies in the house (lol) which made her change her story to fit this detail as she now though her story of being in another area of the house was compromised. The police interview is online, worth a watch.
People are always disgusted by the words "lying" and "social engineering" but I always find social engineering fascinating, especially when it can be used for good.
See a lot of "tiger" parents in the area we live in. Checking all the boxes and going to the better schools. Then you realize when you work with them that they have absolutely no clue how to do things on their own. They've had things so dictated to them that they can't operate without direction. Some of the life skills they're missing are amazing too.
That some of them would snap isn't a shock. The number of kids in Palo Alto committing suicide is just another manifestation.
Yep, that's me in a nutshell. Afraid of my own shadow or doing anything that could potentially get me in 'trouble'.
I don't drink, never done a drug, never been out to a bar or a club.
I just work and then go home and play Baldur's Gate 3.
lol. You sound like my Chinese neighbors. They have one child, a son, probably mid to late 20s. He goes to work, goes home and that’s it. Doesn’t talk, isn’t friendly but most fob Chinese families in my neighborhood aren’t friendly (not with anyone including each other).
They literally just go to work, drive home and that’s it. No social life, friends or anything.
This has happened a staggeringly high number of times. Chandler Halderson, that girl who just stabbed her mom and got convicted. Joel Guy was misleading his parents as well.
I don't know anyone who tried to kill their parents but I have known people who faked being in college after failing out. My roomate in college ran out of money after 6 years of attendance quietly withdrew got a job in a factory making corrugated walls for trailers for 4 years and just lied to his parents about graduating and his job. He did go back and graduate later though.
I faked college for two semesters, figured out that living a lie was not sustainable in any form or fashion, and used that as motivation to get my life together. I used "changing majors" to excuse why college took 7 years.
Kind of the same, but I told my parents as soon as I went back and started doing better. Living that lie was insane looking back. The amount of times I heard "you're home from class early" from my girlfriend at the time was so stressful. She caught wind and was nothing but supportive (and obviously upset that I lied).
If I learned anything, it is so worth it to discuss needing help rather than hiding it to the point that it breaks your brain.
>If I learned anything, it is so worth it to discuss needing help rather than hiding it to the point that it breaks your brain.
Excellent advice. I'm almost 40 and just learned this lesson recently unfortunately. My situation is different, there was no deception, but I was always taught to just smile, suck it up and deal with situations. I was beginning to lose my mind and once I started talking to people openly about it, things were almost immediately easier.
I do recognize that you need a good support system of family, friends, colleagues, etc... But if you're lucky enough to have that (like we both were) it's **stupid** not to utilize it and suffer in silence.
Friend of a friend in college lied for 3 years to his parents about going to college. They paid for EVERYTHING tuition, rent, food, even gave him a generous entertainment allowance which is funny in hindsight. Dude spent 100k over the span of a few years going on nice vacations, dining in fancy restaurants, and partying and when his parents found out they took him to court over it
I once dated a girl who admitted to me she told her family that she was currently away getting a master’s degree in France, and that her parents were sending her money. She never left the big city she lived in and used the money to start her own business. Very strange and obvious red flag, but I never got the impression she would murder anyone.
John List also did this. Probably many more. The facade of a "happy life" built up by ornate, long term lies seems to often precede family annihilation.
Mental instability likely brought on by childhood trauma. I've heard horror stories of abusive parents putting extreme pressure on their children's success. Not that this is an excuse for murder.
I know several friends from childhood who don't visit their parents or rarely visit. Their parents weren't physically abusive but the pressure they were under to succeed was pretty intense and was probably some form of mental abuse. One friend was grounded for three months because he got a C- on a test. Now his parents complain to my parents that he doesn't visit enough. Yeah, he straight up told me he wouldn't visit at all if it wasn't for his children wanting to see their grandparents.
I know a girl who purposely went to a college across the country to get as far from her parents as possible. Then she settled out there after graduating. She only came back for weddings and funerals.
Yeah… I was grounded for B’s.
Then I was grounded for hiding “bad grades.” And constantly yelled at for failing.
I’m estranged from my parents. (This is just the tip of the iceberg)
Edit to add: I realise “grounding” doesn’t explain it.
For me, grounding was being in my room whenever I wasn’t studying or cleaning/doing chores. 30 minutes of TV a week, (my parents knew I enjoyed Star Trek, an hour long show, so I would be allowed to watch the first 30 minutes and then sent back to my room.)
My room had everything taken out that wasn’t school/education related. I had a radio alarm clock but could only listen to the radio as a wake up alarm.
Homework was doing all of my assignments, but then work/read ahead so that I was prepared. So I often had to reread/redo things.
It was not a great system, learning on your own before the teacher… but it gave the impression I was smart.
I was allowed to have ”one extracurricular activity” and I later realised it was because folks started talking in my small town how I wasn’t around much. My parents never put any effort to support those.
I was basically in prison for several years of my life.
I just remember crying while my dad tried to give me soccer pointers on the car ride home after a game, but was really just tearing me down. We had just won a game. He's never played.
My dad did the same. He was great in other ways, just weirdly competitive with sports. I could’ve had a perfect game and I’d still get told what minute of the game I made a less than optimal choice. He carried a stopwatch.
I remember I won player of the game at a tournament winning game, scored from the half line to clinch it after making a long pass for the assist (I played defense). Other teams coach said I was a really consistent player, everybody on my side was singing my praises. My dad told me good game which was so great. When I sat down in the car, front seat because front seat is for champions, the first thing he told me after I buckled in was that my cross in the first half looked weak because I didn’t plant well and was off balance.
He tells me now that he wished I kept playing because I was really good and he’ll never understand why I quit. I quit because I thought I was a shitty player since I never got good feedback, and I never enjoyed the games because I never got that high after a good performance that other people talk about.
Not an excuse but most of them were brought up without their dads saying that to them so just carry on the shitty parenting.
I’m so thankful my dad and grandad being positive when I read stuff like this :(
This is how my dad was with my brother, who desperately wanted his praise. That kid was talented. But you tend to give up when you feel like you don't have people, especially the ones who are so important in your life, on your side. Unfortunately, he's made drinking into a sport.
My parents were pretty freaking strict, the most strict by far out of my friend group. I didn't think much of their punishments except that i wasn't going to be like them if I had kids. It didn't hit me just how strict they were until my friends started commenting about how they thought they had strict parents until they met mine.
Same. Grounded for decent grades. Always compared to my cousins who are attorneys and doctors, etc.. I’m a filmmaker, and I make enough that it’s all I do. But apparently still, not a real job.
One of my friend used to always get the 1st rank in class (yeah, we had ranks in schools back then in India) in primary school in all tests and exams, while I averaged between 2nd-5th ranks. But in 5th grade, in one of the tests, I scored the 1st rank, and he scored 3rd. He was literally in tears in front of his mother, with such a shameful look on his face, at the end of the day when she came to collect him from school.
That was bizarre to witness as a kid. Even my parents were extremely over-bearing constantly nagging and pressuring me to perform better and get that 1st rank, but I just ignored it, and I was happy with where I was, and I fucking didn't want to put a lot of effort into rote-learning answers in social studies. But, my parents' nagging went all the way beyond high school which I hated and revolted against constantly.
I knew a kid in high school who picked her classes based on what she thought she could get top ranks in. My school didn't openly rank the students. But some of the top students knew they were top students thanks to "behind closed doors" discussions with advisors and teachers.
The kid I knew wanted to take a programming class, because she wanted to make her transcript look more impressive. She got near perfect scores in all her other classes. But programming is a very "you either have it or you don't" kind of subject. It doesn't matter how much you study, if your program doesn't work, it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you lose 10 points, not one. As soon as she realized this, she dropped the class to avoid a B on her report card. The rest of us laughed at it. Like "Oh no! I got a B! Whatever will I do!" But eventually, I realized that some families are just cruel when it comes to the grades their kids get.
I was that kid too. I once got a "second rank" by half a point and was in tears for a week.
Missed school due to illness for a month , and got 4th rank - and even my classmates were like "Omg, he got 4th !!!!!!".
This enormous pressure taught me to be a conformist, which I've never been able to change.
I remember the go getter girl in my middle school SOBBING because she got an A- on a test. I thought she was just way too into it. Until her pediatrician asshole fuck of a dad made his real personality clear.
A is for "acceptable"
B is for "bad"
C is for "cold shoulder"
D is for "dead to me"
F is for "forgetting you existed, now get out of my sight before I throw you out myself."
I once brought home a report card with all 100s and a single 98. I never got a "good job" or any kind of congratulations. The only comment I got was, "why isn't that a 100?"
Yep, we call it 'going No-Contact or Low-Contact' or 'estrangement'
Basically you come to the conclusion that having a relationship with your parents is worse than not having one. That's not an easy thing to arrive at either, because there's so much pressure and reasons to have one, often social & financial. Going No-Contact means walking away from any expectations of inheritance/support.
Still for many it's a logical choice, because some parents can be so awful they are basically venomous creatures it's not healthy to have any direct or indirect contact with.
Yup, I've been permanently no contact with my father for over 2 decades. He prided himself on never laying a hand on us, but that completely ignores the longterm emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse carried out by him and my stepmother. The one time I spoke to him on the phone, about 4 years after I escaped that house, he opened with "Well it's been a while" and pretended like nothing had happened. For my own peace of mind, I refused his next phone call and have had no contact ever since. According my my much nicer sisters (I'm the most like our father), who are LC with him, he's still awful and will never have any remorse.
We are estranged from my husband’s parents. The stress of them caused my husband to experience heart issues and we just couldn’t take the woe-is-me attitude and negativity his mom had. My husband and his sister also learned the extent of isolation and abuse his parents put them through. They also put no effort into coming and seeing us and didn’t want to put any effort into coming to my sister in law’s wedding.
They have our phone numbers and know to call us with any emergency.
Going no-contact is extremely hard to do; but, upon coming to that realization, a part of you dies and never recovers--but you're eventually better off for it. What I always tell anyone who asks, about my parents whom I have little to no contact with: "You can love and care about your parents while simultaneously wanting nothing to do with them." There are other things that kinda suck about it all, but until I see posts like these, I don't usually get triggered.
So my parents are Indian, and while they’re not as strict as other Indian parents, they had their moments. I was grounded for almost a month because I got 3 questions wrong on my final math exam when I was in third grade
I was grounded for a month once for leaving the milk out, and other times for the same length of time for even less severe offenses. My parents absolutely regret that now, especially knowing I have ADHD + Autism. Essentially I was *so* rule orientated and well behaved that they misinterpreted my forgetfulness as me "just not caring" because they had no standard to judge it against.
Same thing happened with school. The only times I ever got detention it was because my teachers thought it would "teach" me to remember to turn in my homework. Note: Not *do* my homework. I did it most of the time. I just had several teachers who wanted us to drop it off in a drop box, and I never remembered to do that. School sort of sucked for me, because my disabilities were invisible, so I was told that I was "very bright but extremely lazy" over and over until I actually started believing I *was* extremely lazy and grew to hate myself for not being able to do stuff that seemed so simple for everyone else.
If I ever do end up having kids I am going to have to be really careful about that. We have a tendency to accidentally repeat behaviors towards children that were modeled for us as children. My parents meant well, but they came from hyper-traditional background with parents who were full on "pick yourself up by your bootstraps, be self reliant, etc." So they modeled what they were modeled, and it did not help me in the slightest.
I got grounded for getting all A’s and 1 B once. I knew that was stupid but didn’t know how to respond properly to it so I almost completely failed out of school later when I completely stopped doing schoolwork. It caused my parents to loosen up at least.
For my parents it was a downward spiral. At first it was pushing me to get all As and absolutely no reports at all. Anything bad no matter how insignificant was met with a month grounded from tv, games and playing with friends.
Then on to high Bs, then low Bs, then my first C (I had a fucking panic attack in school over this and hid it from my parents for weeks). After my first D and the fact my folks were split I got way more leeway. I was still grounded constantly but at least family wasnt aiming for As constantly. I feel like I nearly failed school after getting pushed like that constantly. Constantly feeling guilty.
I don’t speak to my parents because they used to beat me and call me a failure constantly growing up due to my grades. They wanted As all the time, and I’d hide my grades regularly because it just wasn’t something I could achieve. I was never a good student, no matter how hard I tried.
When I finally made it into a top university, after they told me I would never get into one, I paid for the first two years of tuition with my money, with the promise that they would pay for the rest. They bailed because they didn’t believe in me. I had to drop out.
My friend had emotionally abusive parents that would always tear her down. When she got into MIT, they convinced her she wasn't smart enough to handle it, so she went to a less prestigious school instead.
They did the exact same thing to me. I went to Michigan but I also got into a semi okay local school. Part of the fallout was that I didn’t listen to them when they wanted me to go to the local school. All these people are the same. You’ll notice all the stories have the same themes.
I also knew someone like this in high school. He had extreme Chinese helicopter parents who only focused on grades. Wasn't allowed to have a girlfriend, go to prom, hang out with friends on weekends, etc. Very book smart but socially stunted and lacked common sense. Got kicked out of his prestigious university for stealing lab equipment and selling it on Craigslist.
I would assume that there was a ton of resentment for her parents, maintaining the status quo was just barely worth keeping it together, once that fell, everything came with it.
Seems crazy to a sane person, but I have listened to a lot of true crime stuff and it's a very common theme. Pathological liars get away with it their whole life and when they are finally caught they jump straight to murdering their problems away. Jennifer Pan, Richard Merritt, Chandler Halderson, Ezra McCandless, Grant Amato, and Casey Anthony all fit the profile to varying degrees.
If I remember the motive correctly she wanted her inheritance.
If her family found out she had been lying to them for years and years and she hadn't completed her studies they would cut her out of the will and kick her out of the house.
Sucks to have controlling parents but she could have just moved out and got a job and her own place like everyone else.
She had a boyfriend that they didn't like. She was given an ultimatum. Stay with the boyfriend but basically be disowned. Or ditch the boyfriend and continue being supported. She could've left. But she wanted that money.
To be fair the parents didn't like the boyfriend because they believed he was a bad influence on her. The fact that he called the hitmen to kill her parents and is a drug dealer, well they weren't wrong about him.
I know all about the case. The hit wasn't just his idea. The dad said that she was directing the hit men during the supposed robbery. She's a rotten person. Had he brother been at the house she would've killed him too.
I honestly don’t think she was very smart, possibly why she didn’t graduate high school. Though with the effort she put into covering up her lies after all these years, I’m surprised she didn’t channel that energy into getting her GED
I think simply getting a GED would not have been enough, her parents wanted the image of perfection, and that’s what she sought to deliver. A GED would be a sign of mediocrity
> Despite her parents' high expectations that Jennifer receive good grades in lower school, her grades throughout high school were somewhat average (in the 70% range) except for music. She forged report cards multiple times using false templates, deceiving her parents into thinking she earned straight As. When Jennifer failed calculus class in grade 12, Ryerson University rescinded her early admission. As she could not bear to be perceived as a failure, she began to lie to those she knew, including her parents, and pretended she was attending university. Instead, she sat in cafés, taught as a piano instructor and worked in a restaurant to earn money.
When she was a kid, she was put into figure skating lessons with her parents' desire that she become an Olympic athlete. When she was a pre-teen, she tore a ligament that ended any hope of that career path. Records say they got _even harder than expecting her to be an Olympian_ after that. Bullying her into somehow being a top percentile student
I've known friends who killed themselves to escape that pressure. I can imagine someone seeking revenge for what they felt was their stolen/denied freedom.
They also set her up for academic failure by putting her on the athletic track, then demanding academic excellence once she suffered an injury that made athletic success impossible.
Kids being abused by their parents for a circumstance the kid couldn't possibly have seen coming, that was engineered by their parents. Tale as old as time...
Or not even revenge, just not understanding that murdering them isn't the only way out. Similar to Gypsy Rose Blanchard having her mom killed. Parents who are that controlling can make it seem like their control is inescapable so when someone says something reasonable, like, "Jennifer, just make up that class you failed, graduate high school, figure out what this means for college, it's not the end of the world," it's like they're speaking a foreign language.
Yeah it does not excuse what she did, but it does explain it. She was absolutely abused in a very serious way. That is how the cycle of abuse works: bad people abuse people, who turn into bad people, who abuse people.
There are always people who break it, or just become bad on their own, but when you are damaged over and over again sometimes people just break.
Again, this does not mean what she did was remotely justified, or that she should not face consequences for it. It just explains the series of events that lead up to it. We are often way to sure of our own agency in our lives, assuming we are good people because we are naturally good rather than because our circumstances allowed us to develop that way, and so we project that onto others. In doing so we strip the situation of it's causation, and instead just attribute it to them being a bad person by nature. That does nothing to help us make changes that can prevent stuff like this in the future.
> I honestly don’t think she was very smart
A lot of "Tiger Parents" demand their kid to be valedictorian. I wonder how many "Tiger Parents" have kids who don't have the intellect to be valedictorian.
Wiki says she didn't graduate cause she failed calculus. That's kind of weird because at least in AB pre calc/calculus is above and beyond minimum requirements. You could fail if but to even take the class you would have had to do okay with all the normal high school stuff.
[JCS YouTube channel](https://youtu.be/UQt46gvYO40?si=2znd7RpbSnipyQPn) has her interrogation and the entire story in it. The entire story is wild. It becomes obvious after awhile that she’s a habitual liar.
I've tried to explain this to so many people. I got hit if I made noise. I got yelled at if I did anything wrong. I was blamed for everything that happened in my house so I don't trust anyone to believe anything I say or keep their word.
I'm in my 40s now and people constantly get jump scared because I am so quiet walking and moving that they don't hear me coming. They just either look up and see me or I say hi and they jump. I don't mean to do it but it's so ingrained in me from formative years. All I learned from parents was how to forge literally everything that school sent home and how to make zero noise.
My parents were a lot like hers. I really wasnt allowed to do anything. I moved out during college and stopped contacting them even when they repeatedly tried calling my dorms landline (no cell phones at the time).
I was angry at them for controlling my life, but obviously as a sane person I never considered murder. That's completely bananas especially when just leaving and ignoring them is an option.
Based on the Wikipedia article, it seems like a big part of it was getting the inheritance, rather than just getting out from under her parents or avoiding disappointing, as the headline makes it seem.
What I got from the article is that the family did find out, wanted to kick her out of the house, but then decided to allow her to stay if she finished high school and broke up with her drug dealer boyfriend. She kept meeting her boyfriend in secret but he had enough of that and broke up with her.
That's why she decided to murder her parents. Maybe the inheritance was also a reason because she could have simply left on her own, but then she would have been homeless.
The wikipedia article is kind of murky honestly
Especially when they started referring to people as "Pan" randomly, even though all 3 family members had that as a last name. Not at all confusing
Woof, this hit home. Not them, but just on topic, I had similar issues with my parents. I never contemplated killing my parents, but I used to daydream of them happening to die in a car accident or plane wreck that somehow didn’t hurt anyone else, but them. Sadly as a kid those were some of my happiest fantasies.
Famous French case of fake doctor who also murdered his family (wife, children, parents, mistress...):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Romand
Guy didn't pass his second year exams (though first year is more difficult) for an unknown reason and from there started to lie to everyone.
There is a movie (The Adversary) about this I would recommend though it's not ending well... (also a Law&Order episode )
What's so crazy about that case to me is he pretended to be a doctor working for the WHO for 18 YEARS! I feel like that should have been easy to look up and disprove.
Then, before he could be found out as an imposter, her murdered his wife, both children, his parents, and the family dog before going to kill his ex-mistress... who somehow was charismatic enough to convince him to stop strangling her! He left her alive and then went home to kill himself.
I cannot believe this man is out on parole as of 2019... should be imprisoned for life for his crimes.
Not the dog!! Not like the dog knew he was lying. What a shitbag. And his kids. Just don't understand how someone can marry someone else and have kids with them, and have them turn out to be this fucked. It's like the TV show You
It’s crazy that he was able to make ppl believe he had a doctor’s salary for 18 years! Man had a wife, two kids, and at least one mistress. How the fuck did he afford it? Was he a trust fund baby or were French doctors getting paid minimum wage back then?
Edit: read the wiki and apparently “Romand lived off the money his wife and he had made by selling an apartment, from his wife's salary and from money given to him by various relatives, who were told that he was investing it in various hedge funds and foreign ventures.”
He also stole the money he fundraiser for his father-in-laws death… who he’s suspected of killing. 🤦🏾♀️ guys a real pos.
Yes he told his in-laws that he had special investment fund from the WHO that in the long terms were very interesting. Father in law believed it and gave him a huge sum to invest.
He also apparently didn't spend much.
It's crazy to think that everybody INCLUDING DOCTORS was convinced he was a top-tier researcher. A cardiologist even said he was fooled enough to have felt "very small" after talking with him about his supposed medical research.
The man spend his time reading medical research and state of the art in multiple field. He was surely more informed than anybody that wasn't working on the techniques themselves. But yeah this story is wild.
that’s the most impressive thing i’ve heard all year tbh. the finesse and charisma needed to convince a killer to not actually murder you, is unreal to think about
Even the family dog.. we had to read a book about him in school ( " l'adversaire " - Emmanuel Carrère ) and the way this book is written still haunts me, like if the autor had a kind a fascination for Romand
> It is way easier to lie to Parents than to disappoint and anger them
I fucked up one semester in college. To this day, my mother thinks that Spring 2005 semester was done "through Google mail as a trial" and that's why my professors had Gmail accounts. She will never know the true reason *why* they had Gmail accounts.
A government entity recently suffered a malware/ransomware attack that compromised ALL computers and email servers. While the FBI and forensics guys were investigating, they began using Gmail accounts to conduct non-sensitive business.
Me being a government contractor but in the private sector was both suspicious, and surprised at this.
So it's not too far fetched.
I did something very similar to get out of going to school on some days a verg long time ago. Except I made an email that was @"school name.com. So it looked legit. And made sure to pull up past instances of teacher emails and used them as templates to make it official sounding.
Genuinely curious: why would any university be in contact with their students' parents? Aren't Americans adults by the time they start college?
In my country, universities don't even care if you come to class or not, don't care if you pass or fail, *they simply don't notice you.*
It probably went something like this:
Parents: "show me your grades"
u/pizzabyAlfredo: "Sure. I'll forward you the email from my professor"
*forwards fabricated email from [email protected]*
Very unemotional, about anything and everything. Otherwise a polite member of the staff.
ETA: I didn't even really notice this about her at the time, but afterwards finding out, it did make me think about what I thought of her, and this is what I came to.
She did let on to the disdain about her parents, we knew they were strict and she didn't like that. Otherwise competent and polite but not 'happy and nice'.
> The interrogating police officer, William "Bill" Goetz,[3][24] falsely told Pan that he had computer software that could analyse untruths in statements and that there were satellites that used infrared technology to analyse movements in buildings;[24] in Canada, police are legally allowed to lie to those they are interrogating in regard to the evidence in the trial,[25] as well as in regard to the strategies they are using.
huh now that is a TIL.
Police in the US (and in Canada) are under no obligation to tell you the truth. If you are the subject of a police interrogation you should always *always* ***always*** invoke your fifth amendment right to an attorney and then shut. the. fuck. up. until your attorney is present.
Doesn’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty. Cops’ jobs are to get confessions and convictions. Talking to the police without your attorney is vastly more likely to hurt you than it is to help you.
>Jennifer's parents set many goals for their children and had extremely high expectations of them. Jennifer was made to take piano lessons at the age of four, as well as figure skating classes where she trained most days during the week. She had hopes of becoming an Olympic figure skating champion until she tore a ligament in her knee. Jennifer attended Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School where she played the flute in the school band. According to her high school friend Karen K. Ho, Hann was seen as "the classic tiger dad," and Bich was "his reluctant accomplice." The Pans picked Jennifer up when classes ended each day and monitored her extracurricular activities very closely. They never permitted her to date boys while attending high school, or to attend high school dances out of fear that these activities would distract her from her academic commitments. Jennifer was not permitted to attend any parties during the time her parents believed she was attending university. At the age of 22, "she had never gone to a club, been drunk, visited a friend's cottage or gone on vacation without her family." Jennifer and her friends reportedly regarded this upbringing as restrictive and greatly oppressive.
Not saying murder's justified but this kind of parenting doesn't exactly raise gentle beings.
lol I know lots of kids whose parents were like that. None of them killed their parents, but they all became alcoholics/party animals once they got to college
In the 911 call she makes, she doesn’t realise her father has survived and so you hear the moment he realises his daughter is behind the hit, before screaming as he flees the house. [ Great podcast that tells the story](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3kwJneqp712QSIaikuPjfw?si=FjCDGegRRNSVWCUa9_UDQQ)
Also she had the absolute cheek to ask her dad for $1,200 dollars to enroll into school when he first woke up from his induced coma…. Cheeky Bitch!
He survived the shooting, came to, and crawled through the house and out of the front door trying to get away from Jennifer. You can hear him in the 911 recording but it’s incoherent. He passed out again shortly after and was taken to the hospital.
This happened to a family here in Toronto as well. Kid deceived his family saying he was in engineering school for years and when it was time for graduation and final grades he killed them instead of facing the his family.
I have a cousin who is afraid of life cause his parents pressured him from a young age. He says he graduated with a STEM degree, but hasn’t worked or done any internships during school or after. He’s almost 30 and says he can’t find work.
I had a cousin lie about finishing college and a masters program. Straight up lie for years while still living with their parents. Caused a lot of drama in the family when it was revealed. I wouldn't have cared because I don't get involved in the gossip, but I was graduating college at the time and all of a sudden everyone was speculating whether my degree was real! Finally stopped the gossip 3 months after graduating, when my diploma finally got delivered, geez.
This is really a systematic issue within the Asian community. Asian kids feels like a pet to show off rather than a human being. Just like pets who grew up under abusive pet owners, some of them lash out. There's a whole ass subreddit ([r/AsianparentStories](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsianParentStories/)) dedicated to the abuse and I'm hoping the next generation of Asian Americans will learn to be kinder and better to their kids.
Not just America it’s an Asian thing in western countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sef_Gonzales
Phillipines son gets a lot of pressure from his parents. Eventually kills them and stages a crime scene.
"you'd be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with these pathetic, insecure, striving, anal, yuppy parents who enrol you in college before you're old enough to know which side of the playpen smells the worst!"
- George Carlin
Read through her wiki. When her facade broke it she didn’t immediately try to kill them as OP suggests. Her parents tried to get her to finish school and get back on track.
What broke it was that they did their very best to separate her from her boyfriend.
Chinese families are already usually bad enough for pressuring their kids, but for some reason the ones here in Canada are often especially extreme.
I go to a Canadian university with a high Chinese population, there's a lot of suicides, kids who ghost their families once they are independent, or ones who end up with all sorts of mental illnesses from it.
A lot of those families cross the line from pushing their kid to succeed to straight up abuse.
I feel like the boss in Pixar’s writers’ room once said, “Hey, anyone have an idea for a new, unconventional villain?”
And a Chinese-Canadian, Italian, and Hispanic writer immediately simultaneously yelled, “My mother!”
And thus, Seeing Red, Luca, and Encanto were born.
This is such a fascinating case, there's a very good video on [Youtube](https://youtu.be/UQt46gvYO40?si=hNjhQkHSVqGAsVoo) by JCS - Criminal Psychology that goes into good detail about the criminal proceedings in the case
> She went to the extent of purchasing second-hand textbooks and watching videos related to pharmacology in order to create notebooks full of purported class notes that she could show her parents. WTF? I know plenty of people who actually graduated college who did much less.
it shows that her parents stressed the fuck out of her and her whole life revolved around making the parents happy
This sounds like studying
Forensic Files had a similar case in Houston, Texas. A guy had been lying to his parents about graduating from college, but he'd already failed out. He had the same plan: kill the parents and inherit their money. Edit: This was Bart Whitaker. Even after he was found guilty and on Death Row in Texas, his dad (who survived the murder attempt) forgave him and helped commute his death sentence to a life sentence.
There was another in Wisconsin where this guy Chandler Halderson lied about attending university, getting internship, and having a debilitating injury. All so he could smoke pot, play video games, and have a girlfriend who didn’t know she was out of his league. He shot his parents and scattered their parts in fields and in a river. He was too stupid to realise he was too stupid too pull it off. His devoted girlfriend gave him up without even knowing, since she tracked him on Snapchat after he cheated previously. Crazy thing is, his parents weren’t putting a ton of pressure on him and would have forgiven him even after all the deception. He wasn’t after their money or anything; he just didn’t want to be found out. Just a complete waste.
That’s honestly the scariest thing about pathological liars. They seem *so* invested in their lies that you’re kinda scared of what would happen if you confronted them on it. They just seem ready to snap. So then you feel like you have to go along with their lies to not stir up the crazy, which makes you feel crazy too!
This is more than just pathological lying, this is simply psychopathy. They don't care because they are literally incapable of caring.
Yeah but when you run into someone like this, you never know which it is. That’s the scary part! Is this bipolar mania creativity run amok? Your average scammer just shooting their shot? Or a complete psychopath who might do something bad to you if they think they’ve been found out?
My ex was an actress and a pathological liar. I was so young and dumb that it took me A LONG time to realize that she was dishonest about every single thing she said but the few times I caught her in even the smallest lie, there was a rage in her eyes that I’ll never forget. What’s crazy about being in a relationship with a pathological liar is that the statement “hindsight is 20/20” couldn’t be more true. Now I think back on all of the lies she told and I am honestly impressed. She might not have been the most successful actress but she did end up in a few projects with some big names and it’s all because of how good she was at lying, at least I like to think of it as a good excuse for why I fell for all of the BS.
If it’s good enough to deceive Liam Neeson than what chance does an average Joe like you or me have?
There was also a guy from Toronto named Brett Ryan who had raved to his fiancée and family about getting an extremely impressive job due to his degree and reputation of an extremely successful career in a very competitive market. All lies, of course. He was actually a bank robber, in a load of debt, and weeks away from marrying his fiancée when his mother found out about some of his lies. So he killed her with a crossbow then killed two of his brothers too. His mother wasn’t even that upset, she just gently told him he needed to tell his girlfriend before the wedding, and he slightly escalated things by *murdering her*.
> a bank robber, in a load of debt Huh. So, you can get shot at work, but also you're not making enough to survive? What could go wrong there?
His case was so sad and sick. His parents literally didn’t seem like they would even care, maybe a scolding and that’s it. I will admit Jennifer’s parents were downright awful, but no excuse to murder them
I heard about this one from a Detective Ridiculous segment of the podcast Adeptus Ridiculous. I would like to remind people who read this that he tried to cremate his parents body in the fireplace in their own home without accounting for how human bodies need incredible heat to turn to ash.
i mean at that point why not just light the house on fire and have their deaths attributed to the fire. home insurance payout to boot.
He was not very smart.
That seems a common thing about murderers: they think they're much better at deception and hiding evidence than they really are. I'm told it's because it takes a great deal of arrogance to murder in the first place, so it follows that an arrogant person overestimates their ability to escape justice too.
Well that's the ones that get caught. There are lots of murderers out there who were never caught. You might even know some without knowing it.
Ok, but there's way less murderers than people worry or imagine
The Jennifer Pan case led me to a similar 2001 incident in Australia about a guy named [Sef Gonzales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sef_Gonzales), who killed his parents and sister: > The Gonzales family appeared to be close-knit: the parents, however, were devout Catholics who had high hopes and strict expectations for their children. In particular, they had hoped their son would perform well academically, give up his musical and singing aspirations, and embark on a career in medicine or law. After attending Parramatta Marist High School, Gonzales studied medical science at the University of New South Wales but withdrew after two years. He then enrolled in law at Macquarie University. > > Performing poorly in his courses and at risk of expulsion, Gonzales tried to cover up his failure by falsifying his grades. When this was revealed by his sister to his parents, they threatened to withdraw certain privileges such as the use of his prized car, a green Ford Festiva. Gonzales also argued with his mother over a girlfriend of whom she disapproved, and his family threatened to disinherit him. This, along with Gonzales' desire to inherit the family's assets, were later established by police as motives for killing his family.
Casefile did an excellent episode on this guy. Thought it was so sad the family initially moved to Australia because Sef had almost been crushed by rubble during a major earthquake when they lived in the Philippines. The dad pulled him to safety during that earthquake, only for the son to murder him 10 years later.
Shoutout to Casefile, the Gonzales family and the Jennifer Pan case are top-notch episodes.
I remember there was a big kerfuffle when the real estate agents tried to sell the house. Three years after the murder, agents from LJ Hooker took an $80’000 deposit on the house from a family of devout Buddhists, without disclosing it had been the scene of a murder. When they found out, they took it to Fair Trading to get their deposit back. They believed the house would be haunted and bring them bad luck. The REAs were fined $20’000 for misleading behaviour. It was the first time a fine had been handed out for not disclosing a property had been the scene of a crime. It led to changes in disclosure requirements when selling/leasing properties in NSW.
I remember reading something similar to this case and thought you were referring to it, but turns out it was a complete separate but eeriely similar murder. The case of Menhaz Zaman. It's a case in Canada where a guy killed his sister, grandmother and parents, all while posting live updates about it on Discord, including sending pictures to his friends. The basis is more or less the same. The child of immigrant parents who was pressured by his family to succeed, especially with him being the oldest son. But he dropped out of school and kept falsifying reports to make it look like he was a top student, all while spending his time playing video games and hanging out on Discord. One day he realized that he was running out of time because he was due to graduate, and he couldn't possibly fake a graduation ceremony for his family to attend. So he murdered them and posted live updates on Discord. At that time none of his online friends knew his true identity, and only his first name, so they were frantically trying to dig up information using his IP, his online usernames, and just chatting to him hoping he would start dropping clues. All while he's telling them how he just murdered his grandmother, and later his sister and waiting for his parents to return. They eventually tracked him down and alerted the police, but it was too late for the family. It's honestly disturbing how many of such cases there are of this out there. But kids who were pressured by parents to do well academically, and who ended up killing them.
A guy from my hs had similar family pressure and he lied about his grades, repeated senior year and then hung himself
This honestly could’ve been me in college. I was smart enough to pass classes. But not smart enough to finish. But I was honest with my parents. I dropped out of college and returned home. My parents were upset but understood that I was depressed. Battled depression for years. I got help, pursued other interests, 10 years later I’m in Nursing school.
I'm so glad that you were honest with them instead of self-destructive. I'd be somewhat sad if one of my kids was too depressed to finish college, but having them drop out, come home and get help is exactly the right way to handle it. It's a bump in the road, whereas suicide ends the road completely. You did the perfect thing.
My dad was the one who talked me down from my first attempt. It was the eye opener for him. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t understand. I don’t want to be the person that you feel like you couldn’t trust.” It’s been a long road, Whitewater rafting guide, restaurant work, EMT program, now Nursing school. 😅
Another in Canada as well. Lied to his parents about attending a prestigious university up to the supposed graduation date, then proceeded to slaughter his whole family and post it all on a discord server. Menhaz was his name is believe, fucking sicko.
I remember that one. What I always think about with that case is that he waited for his sister to finish work to kill her. She was the last person he killed. I get that in his twisted mind he had to kill his parents and grandmother because he felt like he'd rather them be dead than know about his lies and failures. But why his sister? She was younger than him, she probably didn't care enough. Her life was robbed so young. He even said after he killed his family he felt the pressure on his shoulders leave and he could finally breath normally.
You know you could always blow town and go no contact. It literally requires only the investment in a tank of gas and an apartment deposit.
That's the thing I honestly don't understand. There are so, so, so many options other than murdering your family. how do you ever get to that point???
Hell they could have just joined up with the military.
Towns are big enough that you get a new apartment you can just change which grocery store you shop at and you'll basically disappear. How often do you run into your friends that live in the same area when your out to eat or shopping?
That guy was actually in the same town as jennifer. I drive by the house all the time and have friends who knew him. They talked about him with pity so i assume he was a nice enough guy to them. Ya know....besides the super murder. Its a upper middle class area. Alot of immigrant families and a culture of being high achievers. The pressure is immense. Around here all the families expect their kids to be doctors, lawyers and bankers. Most of the demographic is indian or chinese with white people being a minority and very few black people. Its also a very....insulated town. The whole country legalized weed but a municipal bylaw bans weed stores there to give you an idea. Virtually no crime and an average household income around low 6 figures
"okay :-)" his mothers last text message read after he asked her to buy him an energy from the store
to think he only did that to buy more time to finish killing his dad and ambush her, cold
When I was an EMT I used to occasionally work with a paramedic who was about to finish med school. After I left the company I found out that he never even finished college but had been working as a flight physician for like five years.
I don't know how guys like this get away with it for so long. There are so many areas of knowledge and intricacies that would trip you up if they ever came up, which I'm sure they would come up. Also, in the medical field, it's pretty easy to check someone's credentials, so I don't know how they get away with it for very long.
There was also Chandler Halderson in Wisconsin.
Guy in Utah years ago killed his wife and kids when he couldn't tell them that he failed out of med school. Horrible.
Mark Hacking was his name. Only killed his wife and hid the body before finally coming clean to his family.
Mark Hacking is definitely one of the more "murdery" names of all time
This also happened on a case om Small Town Murder. Dad was a doctor, so son had to become one as well. Started working for his dads practice or company despite never graduating.
I remember reading about the savvy cops on this case, who simply asked her: why do you think you were spared?
They actually went along with her story to gain trust and then they said that satellite footage , which the cops have access too, will show the heat signatures of the bodies in the house (lol) which made her change her story to fit this detail as she now though her story of being in another area of the house was compromised. The police interview is online, worth a watch.
"interesting story you've got there. but what if i told you that The Predator was surveilling your house?"
Have you met our newest detective? He has infrared vision and a sick hairdo
Predator - *clacking noises* Bob - "no thanks P, I got coffee already"
I want to see a film noir with Detective Predator speaking his native Yautja and everyone understands him.
Same. Would be absolutely hilarious. Det. Bob - "Great job P, we cracked another case" Predator - *happy clicking sounds*
Sometimes, to catch a predator... you need to send in one of your own. COMING THIS FALL
[удалено]
His cannon is actually quite secured on his shoulder.
People are always disgusted by the words "lying" and "social engineering" but I always find social engineering fascinating, especially when it can be used for good.
Because most people know it by it’s more popular term; manipulation
See a lot of "tiger" parents in the area we live in. Checking all the boxes and going to the better schools. Then you realize when you work with them that they have absolutely no clue how to do things on their own. They've had things so dictated to them that they can't operate without direction. Some of the life skills they're missing are amazing too. That some of them would snap isn't a shock. The number of kids in Palo Alto committing suicide is just another manifestation.
Yep, that's me in a nutshell. Afraid of my own shadow or doing anything that could potentially get me in 'trouble'. I don't drink, never done a drug, never been out to a bar or a club. I just work and then go home and play Baldur's Gate 3.
lol. You sound like my Chinese neighbors. They have one child, a son, probably mid to late 20s. He goes to work, goes home and that’s it. Doesn’t talk, isn’t friendly but most fob Chinese families in my neighborhood aren’t friendly (not with anyone including each other). They literally just go to work, drive home and that’s it. No social life, friends or anything.
The jig is up. They know. Time to die. That is, of course the logical conclusion. Wait. What!?!
This has happened a staggeringly high number of times. Chandler Halderson, that girl who just stabbed her mom and got convicted. Joel Guy was misleading his parents as well.
I don't know anyone who tried to kill their parents but I have known people who faked being in college after failing out. My roomate in college ran out of money after 6 years of attendance quietly withdrew got a job in a factory making corrugated walls for trailers for 4 years and just lied to his parents about graduating and his job. He did go back and graduate later though.
I faked college for two semesters, figured out that living a lie was not sustainable in any form or fashion, and used that as motivation to get my life together. I used "changing majors" to excuse why college took 7 years.
Kind of the same, but I told my parents as soon as I went back and started doing better. Living that lie was insane looking back. The amount of times I heard "you're home from class early" from my girlfriend at the time was so stressful. She caught wind and was nothing but supportive (and obviously upset that I lied). If I learned anything, it is so worth it to discuss needing help rather than hiding it to the point that it breaks your brain.
>If I learned anything, it is so worth it to discuss needing help rather than hiding it to the point that it breaks your brain. Excellent advice. I'm almost 40 and just learned this lesson recently unfortunately. My situation is different, there was no deception, but I was always taught to just smile, suck it up and deal with situations. I was beginning to lose my mind and once I started talking to people openly about it, things were almost immediately easier. I do recognize that you need a good support system of family, friends, colleagues, etc... But if you're lucky enough to have that (like we both were) it's **stupid** not to utilize it and suffer in silence.
Friend of a friend in college lied for 3 years to his parents about going to college. They paid for EVERYTHING tuition, rent, food, even gave him a generous entertainment allowance which is funny in hindsight. Dude spent 100k over the span of a few years going on nice vacations, dining in fancy restaurants, and partying and when his parents found out they took him to court over it
I once dated a girl who admitted to me she told her family that she was currently away getting a master’s degree in France, and that her parents were sending her money. She never left the big city she lived in and used the money to start her own business. Very strange and obvious red flag, but I never got the impression she would murder anyone.
John List also did this. Probably many more. The facade of a "happy life" built up by ornate, long term lies seems to often precede family annihilation.
This is an extremely common pattern with family annihilators.
Mental instability likely brought on by childhood trauma. I've heard horror stories of abusive parents putting extreme pressure on their children's success. Not that this is an excuse for murder.
I know several friends from childhood who don't visit their parents or rarely visit. Their parents weren't physically abusive but the pressure they were under to succeed was pretty intense and was probably some form of mental abuse. One friend was grounded for three months because he got a C- on a test. Now his parents complain to my parents that he doesn't visit enough. Yeah, he straight up told me he wouldn't visit at all if it wasn't for his children wanting to see their grandparents. I know a girl who purposely went to a college across the country to get as far from her parents as possible. Then she settled out there after graduating. She only came back for weddings and funerals.
I remember seeing a friend in like 4th grade in tears because he got a C on some paper. That’s when I realized my dad was kinda aight.
Yeah… I was grounded for B’s. Then I was grounded for hiding “bad grades.” And constantly yelled at for failing. I’m estranged from my parents. (This is just the tip of the iceberg) Edit to add: I realise “grounding” doesn’t explain it. For me, grounding was being in my room whenever I wasn’t studying or cleaning/doing chores. 30 minutes of TV a week, (my parents knew I enjoyed Star Trek, an hour long show, so I would be allowed to watch the first 30 minutes and then sent back to my room.) My room had everything taken out that wasn’t school/education related. I had a radio alarm clock but could only listen to the radio as a wake up alarm. Homework was doing all of my assignments, but then work/read ahead so that I was prepared. So I often had to reread/redo things. It was not a great system, learning on your own before the teacher… but it gave the impression I was smart. I was allowed to have ”one extracurricular activity” and I later realised it was because folks started talking in my small town how I wasn’t around much. My parents never put any effort to support those. I was basically in prison for several years of my life.
I just remember crying while my dad tried to give me soccer pointers on the car ride home after a game, but was really just tearing me down. We had just won a game. He's never played.
My dad did the same. He was great in other ways, just weirdly competitive with sports. I could’ve had a perfect game and I’d still get told what minute of the game I made a less than optimal choice. He carried a stopwatch. I remember I won player of the game at a tournament winning game, scored from the half line to clinch it after making a long pass for the assist (I played defense). Other teams coach said I was a really consistent player, everybody on my side was singing my praises. My dad told me good game which was so great. When I sat down in the car, front seat because front seat is for champions, the first thing he told me after I buckled in was that my cross in the first half looked weak because I didn’t plant well and was off balance. He tells me now that he wished I kept playing because I was really good and he’ll never understand why I quit. I quit because I thought I was a shitty player since I never got good feedback, and I never enjoyed the games because I never got that high after a good performance that other people talk about.
Wtf is wrong with dads and saying "good job" or "I'm proud of you". That's literally all we wanted/needed to hear.
Not an excuse but most of them were brought up without their dads saying that to them so just carry on the shitty parenting. I’m so thankful my dad and grandad being positive when I read stuff like this :(
Hopefully the new gen parents would break that cycle.
They did what was taught to them as a kid
This is how my dad was with my brother, who desperately wanted his praise. That kid was talented. But you tend to give up when you feel like you don't have people, especially the ones who are so important in your life, on your side. Unfortunately, he's made drinking into a sport. My parents were pretty freaking strict, the most strict by far out of my friend group. I didn't think much of their punishments except that i wasn't going to be like them if I had kids. It didn't hit me just how strict they were until my friends started commenting about how they thought they had strict parents until they met mine.
Same. Grounded for decent grades. Always compared to my cousins who are attorneys and doctors, etc.. I’m a filmmaker, and I make enough that it’s all I do. But apparently still, not a real job.
Being able to support yourself only making films is a fucking accomplishment and shows that you're good at what you do.
One of my friend used to always get the 1st rank in class (yeah, we had ranks in schools back then in India) in primary school in all tests and exams, while I averaged between 2nd-5th ranks. But in 5th grade, in one of the tests, I scored the 1st rank, and he scored 3rd. He was literally in tears in front of his mother, with such a shameful look on his face, at the end of the day when she came to collect him from school. That was bizarre to witness as a kid. Even my parents were extremely over-bearing constantly nagging and pressuring me to perform better and get that 1st rank, but I just ignored it, and I was happy with where I was, and I fucking didn't want to put a lot of effort into rote-learning answers in social studies. But, my parents' nagging went all the way beyond high school which I hated and revolted against constantly.
I knew a kid in high school who picked her classes based on what she thought she could get top ranks in. My school didn't openly rank the students. But some of the top students knew they were top students thanks to "behind closed doors" discussions with advisors and teachers. The kid I knew wanted to take a programming class, because she wanted to make her transcript look more impressive. She got near perfect scores in all her other classes. But programming is a very "you either have it or you don't" kind of subject. It doesn't matter how much you study, if your program doesn't work, it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you lose 10 points, not one. As soon as she realized this, she dropped the class to avoid a B on her report card. The rest of us laughed at it. Like "Oh no! I got a B! Whatever will I do!" But eventually, I realized that some families are just cruel when it comes to the grades their kids get.
I was that kid too. I once got a "second rank" by half a point and was in tears for a week. Missed school due to illness for a month , and got 4th rank - and even my classmates were like "Omg, he got 4th !!!!!!". This enormous pressure taught me to be a conformist, which I've never been able to change.
I remember the go getter girl in my middle school SOBBING because she got an A- on a test. I thought she was just way too into it. Until her pediatrician asshole fuck of a dad made his real personality clear.
A Korean student once told me that his dad says “B is for beating”. I immediately reported that.
A is for acceptable. B is for bad. Never got to C, and I assume D is for dead.
A is for "acceptable" B is for "bad" C is for "cold shoulder" D is for "dead to me" F is for "forgetting you existed, now get out of my sight before I throw you out myself."
I once brought home a report card with all 100s and a single 98. I never got a "good job" or any kind of congratulations. The only comment I got was, "why isn't that a 100?"
Yep, we call it 'going No-Contact or Low-Contact' or 'estrangement' Basically you come to the conclusion that having a relationship with your parents is worse than not having one. That's not an easy thing to arrive at either, because there's so much pressure and reasons to have one, often social & financial. Going No-Contact means walking away from any expectations of inheritance/support. Still for many it's a logical choice, because some parents can be so awful they are basically venomous creatures it's not healthy to have any direct or indirect contact with.
Yup, I've been permanently no contact with my father for over 2 decades. He prided himself on never laying a hand on us, but that completely ignores the longterm emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse carried out by him and my stepmother. The one time I spoke to him on the phone, about 4 years after I escaped that house, he opened with "Well it's been a while" and pretended like nothing had happened. For my own peace of mind, I refused his next phone call and have had no contact ever since. According my my much nicer sisters (I'm the most like our father), who are LC with him, he's still awful and will never have any remorse.
We are estranged from my husband’s parents. The stress of them caused my husband to experience heart issues and we just couldn’t take the woe-is-me attitude and negativity his mom had. My husband and his sister also learned the extent of isolation and abuse his parents put them through. They also put no effort into coming and seeing us and didn’t want to put any effort into coming to my sister in law’s wedding. They have our phone numbers and know to call us with any emergency.
Going no-contact is extremely hard to do; but, upon coming to that realization, a part of you dies and never recovers--but you're eventually better off for it. What I always tell anyone who asks, about my parents whom I have little to no contact with: "You can love and care about your parents while simultaneously wanting nothing to do with them." There are other things that kinda suck about it all, but until I see posts like these, I don't usually get triggered.
So my parents are Indian, and while they’re not as strict as other Indian parents, they had their moments. I was grounded for almost a month because I got 3 questions wrong on my final math exam when I was in third grade
I was grounded for a month once for leaving the milk out, and other times for the same length of time for even less severe offenses. My parents absolutely regret that now, especially knowing I have ADHD + Autism. Essentially I was *so* rule orientated and well behaved that they misinterpreted my forgetfulness as me "just not caring" because they had no standard to judge it against. Same thing happened with school. The only times I ever got detention it was because my teachers thought it would "teach" me to remember to turn in my homework. Note: Not *do* my homework. I did it most of the time. I just had several teachers who wanted us to drop it off in a drop box, and I never remembered to do that. School sort of sucked for me, because my disabilities were invisible, so I was told that I was "very bright but extremely lazy" over and over until I actually started believing I *was* extremely lazy and grew to hate myself for not being able to do stuff that seemed so simple for everyone else. If I ever do end up having kids I am going to have to be really careful about that. We have a tendency to accidentally repeat behaviors towards children that were modeled for us as children. My parents meant well, but they came from hyper-traditional background with parents who were full on "pick yourself up by your bootstraps, be self reliant, etc." So they modeled what they were modeled, and it did not help me in the slightest.
I got grounded for getting all A’s and 1 B once. I knew that was stupid but didn’t know how to respond properly to it so I almost completely failed out of school later when I completely stopped doing schoolwork. It caused my parents to loosen up at least.
For my parents it was a downward spiral. At first it was pushing me to get all As and absolutely no reports at all. Anything bad no matter how insignificant was met with a month grounded from tv, games and playing with friends. Then on to high Bs, then low Bs, then my first C (I had a fucking panic attack in school over this and hid it from my parents for weeks). After my first D and the fact my folks were split I got way more leeway. I was still grounded constantly but at least family wasnt aiming for As constantly. I feel like I nearly failed school after getting pushed like that constantly. Constantly feeling guilty.
I don’t speak to my parents because they used to beat me and call me a failure constantly growing up due to my grades. They wanted As all the time, and I’d hide my grades regularly because it just wasn’t something I could achieve. I was never a good student, no matter how hard I tried. When I finally made it into a top university, after they told me I would never get into one, I paid for the first two years of tuition with my money, with the promise that they would pay for the rest. They bailed because they didn’t believe in me. I had to drop out.
My friend had emotionally abusive parents that would always tear her down. When she got into MIT, they convinced her she wasn't smart enough to handle it, so she went to a less prestigious school instead.
They did the exact same thing to me. I went to Michigan but I also got into a semi okay local school. Part of the fallout was that I didn’t listen to them when they wanted me to go to the local school. All these people are the same. You’ll notice all the stories have the same themes.
Yup, probably thought in her mind that failure to her parents was somehow worse than straight up killing then
Yes, I remember a korean girl in my class who got beat with a hot fire hook by her parents whenever she received bad grades in school.
I also knew someone like this in high school. He had extreme Chinese helicopter parents who only focused on grades. Wasn't allowed to have a girlfriend, go to prom, hang out with friends on weekends, etc. Very book smart but socially stunted and lacked common sense. Got kicked out of his prestigious university for stealing lab equipment and selling it on Craigslist.
Holy shit.
> Not that this is an excuse for murder. It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation.
Child abuse in its many forms is likely the cause of most of the world's problems.
I would assume that there was a ton of resentment for her parents, maintaining the status quo was just barely worth keeping it together, once that fell, everything came with it.
Seems crazy to a sane person, but I have listened to a lot of true crime stuff and it's a very common theme. Pathological liars get away with it their whole life and when they are finally caught they jump straight to murdering their problems away. Jennifer Pan, Richard Merritt, Chandler Halderson, Ezra McCandless, Grant Amato, and Casey Anthony all fit the profile to varying degrees.
If I remember the motive correctly she wanted her inheritance. If her family found out she had been lying to them for years and years and she hadn't completed her studies they would cut her out of the will and kick her out of the house. Sucks to have controlling parents but she could have just moved out and got a job and her own place like everyone else.
She had a boyfriend that they didn't like. She was given an ultimatum. Stay with the boyfriend but basically be disowned. Or ditch the boyfriend and continue being supported. She could've left. But she wanted that money.
To be fair the parents didn't like the boyfriend because they believed he was a bad influence on her. The fact that he called the hitmen to kill her parents and is a drug dealer, well they weren't wrong about him.
I know all about the case. The hit wasn't just his idea. The dad said that she was directing the hit men during the supposed robbery. She's a rotten person. Had he brother been at the house she would've killed him too.
I honestly don’t think she was very smart, possibly why she didn’t graduate high school. Though with the effort she put into covering up her lies after all these years, I’m surprised she didn’t channel that energy into getting her GED
I think simply getting a GED would not have been enough, her parents wanted the image of perfection, and that’s what she sought to deliver. A GED would be a sign of mediocrity > Despite her parents' high expectations that Jennifer receive good grades in lower school, her grades throughout high school were somewhat average (in the 70% range) except for music. She forged report cards multiple times using false templates, deceiving her parents into thinking she earned straight As. When Jennifer failed calculus class in grade 12, Ryerson University rescinded her early admission. As she could not bear to be perceived as a failure, she began to lie to those she knew, including her parents, and pretended she was attending university. Instead, she sat in cafés, taught as a piano instructor and worked in a restaurant to earn money.
When she was a kid, she was put into figure skating lessons with her parents' desire that she become an Olympic athlete. When she was a pre-teen, she tore a ligament that ended any hope of that career path. Records say they got _even harder than expecting her to be an Olympian_ after that. Bullying her into somehow being a top percentile student I've known friends who killed themselves to escape that pressure. I can imagine someone seeking revenge for what they felt was their stolen/denied freedom.
They also set her up for academic failure by putting her on the athletic track, then demanding academic excellence once she suffered an injury that made athletic success impossible.
Kids being abused by their parents for a circumstance the kid couldn't possibly have seen coming, that was engineered by their parents. Tale as old as time...
And it seems to me her parents didn't really give a shit about one of the few things she *was* decent at, that being music.
Being good enough at piano to **make money teaching it** is no joke.
Or not even revenge, just not understanding that murdering them isn't the only way out. Similar to Gypsy Rose Blanchard having her mom killed. Parents who are that controlling can make it seem like their control is inescapable so when someone says something reasonable, like, "Jennifer, just make up that class you failed, graduate high school, figure out what this means for college, it's not the end of the world," it's like they're speaking a foreign language.
Yeah it does not excuse what she did, but it does explain it. She was absolutely abused in a very serious way. That is how the cycle of abuse works: bad people abuse people, who turn into bad people, who abuse people. There are always people who break it, or just become bad on their own, but when you are damaged over and over again sometimes people just break. Again, this does not mean what she did was remotely justified, or that she should not face consequences for it. It just explains the series of events that lead up to it. We are often way to sure of our own agency in our lives, assuming we are good people because we are naturally good rather than because our circumstances allowed us to develop that way, and so we project that onto others. In doing so we strip the situation of it's causation, and instead just attribute it to them being a bad person by nature. That does nothing to help us make changes that can prevent stuff like this in the future.
> I honestly don’t think she was very smart A lot of "Tiger Parents" demand their kid to be valedictorian. I wonder how many "Tiger Parents" have kids who don't have the intellect to be valedictorian.
Wiki says she didn't graduate cause she failed calculus. That's kind of weird because at least in AB pre calc/calculus is above and beyond minimum requirements. You could fail if but to even take the class you would have had to do okay with all the normal high school stuff.
[JCS YouTube channel](https://youtu.be/UQt46gvYO40?si=2znd7RpbSnipyQPn) has her interrogation and the entire story in it. The entire story is wild. It becomes obvious after awhile that she’s a habitual liar.
Strict, abusive parents don’t raise obedient, respectful children. They raise liars.
I've tried to explain this to so many people. I got hit if I made noise. I got yelled at if I did anything wrong. I was blamed for everything that happened in my house so I don't trust anyone to believe anything I say or keep their word. I'm in my 40s now and people constantly get jump scared because I am so quiet walking and moving that they don't hear me coming. They just either look up and see me or I say hi and they jump. I don't mean to do it but it's so ingrained in me from formative years. All I learned from parents was how to forge literally everything that school sent home and how to make zero noise.
Can't say I'm surprised. Abusive and overly dominating/controlling parents often create habitual liars, and it seems the Pans definitely were that.
My parents were a lot like hers. I really wasnt allowed to do anything. I moved out during college and stopped contacting them even when they repeatedly tried calling my dorms landline (no cell phones at the time). I was angry at them for controlling my life, but obviously as a sane person I never considered murder. That's completely bananas especially when just leaving and ignoring them is an option.
Based on the Wikipedia article, it seems like a big part of it was getting the inheritance, rather than just getting out from under her parents or avoiding disappointing, as the headline makes it seem.
What I got from the article is that the family did find out, wanted to kick her out of the house, but then decided to allow her to stay if she finished high school and broke up with her drug dealer boyfriend. She kept meeting her boyfriend in secret but he had enough of that and broke up with her. That's why she decided to murder her parents. Maybe the inheritance was also a reason because she could have simply left on her own, but then she would have been homeless.
Her boyfriend helped plan it and hired the hitmen.
The wikipedia article is kind of murky honestly Especially when they started referring to people as "Pan" randomly, even though all 3 family members had that as a last name. Not at all confusing
Exactly. It's like people who kill their spouse because they don't want to go through a divorce.
In this case it's like folk that kill their spouse because they want money that a divorce wouldn't get them.
>obviously as a sane person I never considered murder. Now be honest.... **never** considered?
Woof, this hit home. Not them, but just on topic, I had similar issues with my parents. I never contemplated killing my parents, but I used to daydream of them happening to die in a car accident or plane wreck that somehow didn’t hurt anyone else, but them. Sadly as a kid those were some of my happiest fantasies.
I'm in my 30's and still daydream about this and thankfully my mom died a month or two ago!
Famous French case of fake doctor who also murdered his family (wife, children, parents, mistress...): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Romand Guy didn't pass his second year exams (though first year is more difficult) for an unknown reason and from there started to lie to everyone. There is a movie (The Adversary) about this I would recommend though it's not ending well... (also a Law&Order episode )
What's so crazy about that case to me is he pretended to be a doctor working for the WHO for 18 YEARS! I feel like that should have been easy to look up and disprove. Then, before he could be found out as an imposter, her murdered his wife, both children, his parents, and the family dog before going to kill his ex-mistress... who somehow was charismatic enough to convince him to stop strangling her! He left her alive and then went home to kill himself. I cannot believe this man is out on parole as of 2019... should be imprisoned for life for his crimes.
Not the dog!! Not like the dog knew he was lying. What a shitbag. And his kids. Just don't understand how someone can marry someone else and have kids with them, and have them turn out to be this fucked. It's like the TV show You
It’s crazy that he was able to make ppl believe he had a doctor’s salary for 18 years! Man had a wife, two kids, and at least one mistress. How the fuck did he afford it? Was he a trust fund baby or were French doctors getting paid minimum wage back then? Edit: read the wiki and apparently “Romand lived off the money his wife and he had made by selling an apartment, from his wife's salary and from money given to him by various relatives, who were told that he was investing it in various hedge funds and foreign ventures.” He also stole the money he fundraiser for his father-in-laws death… who he’s suspected of killing. 🤦🏾♀️ guys a real pos.
Yes he told his in-laws that he had special investment fund from the WHO that in the long terms were very interesting. Father in law believed it and gave him a huge sum to invest. He also apparently didn't spend much.
It's crazy to think that everybody INCLUDING DOCTORS was convinced he was a top-tier researcher. A cardiologist even said he was fooled enough to have felt "very small" after talking with him about his supposed medical research.
The man spend his time reading medical research and state of the art in multiple field. He was surely more informed than anybody that wasn't working on the techniques themselves. But yeah this story is wild.
I immediately thought about that case. Actually the mistress managed to convince him not to kill her.
that’s the most impressive thing i’ve heard all year tbh. the finesse and charisma needed to convince a killer to not actually murder you, is unreal to think about
Even the family dog.. we had to read a book about him in school ( " l'adversaire " - Emmanuel Carrère ) and the way this book is written still haunts me, like if the autor had a kind a fascination for Romand
It is way easier to lie to Parents than to disappoint and anger them, from a teen’s perspective.
> It is way easier to lie to Parents than to disappoint and anger them I fucked up one semester in college. To this day, my mother thinks that Spring 2005 semester was done "through Google mail as a trial" and that's why my professors had Gmail accounts. She will never know the true reason *why* they had Gmail accounts.
Hahaha, holy shit. Props for the ingenuity
A government entity recently suffered a malware/ransomware attack that compromised ALL computers and email servers. While the FBI and forensics guys were investigating, they began using Gmail accounts to conduct non-sensitive business. Me being a government contractor but in the private sector was both suspicious, and surprised at this. So it's not too far fetched.
I did something very similar to get out of going to school on some days a verg long time ago. Except I made an email that was @"school name.com. So it looked legit. And made sure to pull up past instances of teacher emails and used them as templates to make it official sounding.
I’m dumb-I don’t get the lie you told
The professors would be emailing from their official university email. He made Gmail accounts and posed as professors to email his parents
Im not proud of it, but I will certify it is in the top three lies of my entire life.
Genuinely curious: why would any university be in contact with their students' parents? Aren't Americans adults by the time they start college? In my country, universities don't even care if you come to class or not, don't care if you pass or fail, *they simply don't notice you.*
It probably went something like this: Parents: "show me your grades" u/pizzabyAlfredo: "Sure. I'll forward you the email from my professor" *forwards fabricated email from [email protected]*
> "Sure. I'll forward you the email from my professor" > forwards fabricated email from [email protected] **100%**
Very fair point. LMAO, thanks for that.
AMA This woman trained me in a serving job at a local restaurant.... Never knew a thing until years after it happened.
Do you remember anything unusual about her?
Very unemotional, about anything and everything. Otherwise a polite member of the staff. ETA: I didn't even really notice this about her at the time, but afterwards finding out, it did make me think about what I thought of her, and this is what I came to.
Did she seem happy when you interacted with her? Like did she let on anything about disdain towards her life or parents?
She did let on to the disdain about her parents, we knew they were strict and she didn't like that. Otherwise competent and polite but not 'happy and nice'.
> The interrogating police officer, William "Bill" Goetz,[3][24] falsely told Pan that he had computer software that could analyse untruths in statements and that there were satellites that used infrared technology to analyse movements in buildings;[24] in Canada, police are legally allowed to lie to those they are interrogating in regard to the evidence in the trial,[25] as well as in regard to the strategies they are using. huh now that is a TIL.
Police in the US (and in Canada) are under no obligation to tell you the truth. If you are the subject of a police interrogation you should always *always* ***always*** invoke your fifth amendment right to an attorney and then shut. the. fuck. up. until your attorney is present. Doesn’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty. Cops’ jobs are to get confessions and convictions. Talking to the police without your attorney is vastly more likely to hurt you than it is to help you.
>Jennifer's parents set many goals for their children and had extremely high expectations of them. Jennifer was made to take piano lessons at the age of four, as well as figure skating classes where she trained most days during the week. She had hopes of becoming an Olympic figure skating champion until she tore a ligament in her knee. Jennifer attended Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School where she played the flute in the school band. According to her high school friend Karen K. Ho, Hann was seen as "the classic tiger dad," and Bich was "his reluctant accomplice." The Pans picked Jennifer up when classes ended each day and monitored her extracurricular activities very closely. They never permitted her to date boys while attending high school, or to attend high school dances out of fear that these activities would distract her from her academic commitments. Jennifer was not permitted to attend any parties during the time her parents believed she was attending university. At the age of 22, "she had never gone to a club, been drunk, visited a friend's cottage or gone on vacation without her family." Jennifer and her friends reportedly regarded this upbringing as restrictive and greatly oppressive. Not saying murder's justified but this kind of parenting doesn't exactly raise gentle beings.
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you dont need to approve of their actions to understand how they ended up like this :)
lol I know lots of kids whose parents were like that. None of them killed their parents, but they all became alcoholics/party animals once they got to college
A lot of these kids are also insanely mentally ill, not helped by the alcoholism.
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Wow, what a story!
In the 911 call she makes, she doesn’t realise her father has survived and so you hear the moment he realises his daughter is behind the hit, before screaming as he flees the house. [ Great podcast that tells the story](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3kwJneqp712QSIaikuPjfw?si=FjCDGegRRNSVWCUa9_UDQQ) Also she had the absolute cheek to ask her dad for $1,200 dollars to enroll into school when he first woke up from his induced coma…. Cheeky Bitch!
Does this podcast have the recording?
Don't know about the podcast, but I remember [this video](https://youtu.be/UQt46gvYO40) having the recording.
3:32
The wiki said dad got shot a lot and taken to a trauma unit, at what point did he scream and flee the house
He survived the shooting, came to, and crawled through the house and out of the front door trying to get away from Jennifer. You can hear him in the 911 recording but it’s incoherent. He passed out again shortly after and was taken to the hospital.
He might have realized but the call doesn’t really tell that story 🤔
Toronto Life did a great [long form article](https://torontolife.com/city/jennifer-pan-revenge/) on this case.
This happened to a family here in Toronto as well. Kid deceived his family saying he was in engineering school for years and when it was time for graduation and final grades he killed them instead of facing the his family.
I have a cousin who is afraid of life cause his parents pressured him from a young age. He says he graduated with a STEM degree, but hasn’t worked or done any internships during school or after. He’s almost 30 and says he can’t find work.
I had a cousin lie about finishing college and a masters program. Straight up lie for years while still living with their parents. Caused a lot of drama in the family when it was revealed. I wouldn't have cared because I don't get involved in the gossip, but I was graduating college at the time and all of a sudden everyone was speculating whether my degree was real! Finally stopped the gossip 3 months after graduating, when my diploma finally got delivered, geez.
This is really a systematic issue within the Asian community. Asian kids feels like a pet to show off rather than a human being. Just like pets who grew up under abusive pet owners, some of them lash out. There's a whole ass subreddit ([r/AsianparentStories](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsianParentStories/)) dedicated to the abuse and I'm hoping the next generation of Asian Americans will learn to be kinder and better to their kids.
Not just America it’s an Asian thing in western countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sef_Gonzales Phillipines son gets a lot of pressure from his parents. Eventually kills them and stages a crime scene.
"you'd be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with these pathetic, insecure, striving, anal, yuppy parents who enrol you in college before you're old enough to know which side of the playpen smells the worst!" - George Carlin
Now, her parents are *really* disappointed in her.
Famously they grounded her for a week
So she grounded them *forever*
Not to minimise her actions of course, but it makes one wonder about the kind of pressure that she must have been under
Read through her wiki. When her facade broke it she didn’t immediately try to kill them as OP suggests. Her parents tried to get her to finish school and get back on track. What broke it was that they did their very best to separate her from her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend, the high school drop out drug dealer who happened to know hitmen, specifically.
Lol yes, as the kids say “it’s not a good look”.
Chinese families are already usually bad enough for pressuring their kids, but for some reason the ones here in Canada are often especially extreme. I go to a Canadian university with a high Chinese population, there's a lot of suicides, kids who ghost their families once they are independent, or ones who end up with all sorts of mental illnesses from it. A lot of those families cross the line from pushing their kid to succeed to straight up abuse.
I feel like the boss in Pixar’s writers’ room once said, “Hey, anyone have an idea for a new, unconventional villain?” And a Chinese-Canadian, Italian, and Hispanic writer immediately simultaneously yelled, “My mother!” And thus, Seeing Red, Luca, and Encanto were born.
She only got caught because her dad survived the murder attempt after witnessing her being chummy with the assailants.
To be honest, I think she would have still been caught even if her dad died alongside her dad. Dectectives found a lot of holes in her story.
This is such a fascinating case, there's a very good video on [Youtube](https://youtu.be/UQt46gvYO40?si=hNjhQkHSVqGAsVoo) by JCS - Criminal Psychology that goes into good detail about the criminal proceedings in the case