Woman accused of arranging to have parents killed was not behind attack: Lawyer

NEWMARKET, Ont. – A woman accused of arranging to have her parents murdered in a staged home invasion had nothing to do with the real robbery that led to her mother’s death at the hands of a “psychopathic killer” desperate for cash, her lawyer said Tuesday.

Jennifer Pan “would never be part of any plan to hurt her mother and she wasn’t part of a plan to hurt her father,” despite an earlier failed plot to have him killed, defence lawyer Paul Cooper told a Toronto-area court in his closing arguments.

“If this was a planned murder, why carry out the charade of the robbery?” he asked the jury. “Why didn’t the intruders shoot Mr. and Mrs. Pan immediately?”

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The Nov. 8, 2010 attack that left Pan’s mother dead and her father with a serious head wound was part of a “sloppy robbery” led by “idiots in a hurry,” the lawyer argued.

Calling the shots was Eric Carty, Cooper alleged, who was initially among Pan’s co-accused but is now to be tried separately after his lawyer fell ill. Court has heard he is currently serving a life sentence in a 2009 murder.

“Eric Carty is a psychopathic killer with a bad shot,” Cooper said, noting that the victim in the 2009 murder survived for some time after being gunned down.

An experienced criminal with so little money he could rarely afford gas, Carty was a “very dangerous man with nothing to lose” and a tendency to turn violent when thwarted, the lawyer alleged.

When he realized he wouldn’t get the cash he sought from the Pans, Carty unilaterally made the decision to kill them, sending his accomplices into a panic, Cooper said. It was only because of Carty’s poor aim that Pan’s father survived, he said.

Pan, 27, and three others – including her on-again, off-again boyfriend Daniel Wong – are on trial together on a charge of first-degree murder.

Her 53-year-old mother, Bieh Ha Pan, was shot dead. Her father, Hann Pan, 60, was shot in the face but survived.

The Crown alleges Pan hatched a plan to have her parents killed so that she could be with Wong, who they had forbidden her from seeing.

But Pan testified she tried to have herself killed after falling out with her family, only to call off the hit when the situation appeared to improve.

Also charged are Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam.