March 19, 2014 - 9:57 AM
NEWMARKET, Ont. - Prosecutors allege a woman plotted to have her parents killed in a staged home invasion because they forbade her from seeing the man she loved.
The Crown says Jennifer Pan hatched the plan after her parents made her choose between them and her co-accused Daniel Wong, who had been her high school sweetheart.
Pan, Wong and three other men are charged with first-degree murder in the death of her mother, 53-year-old Bieh Ha Pan, and attempted murder in the shooting of her father, Huei Hann Pan.
Crown lawyer Jennifer Halajian says that while they didn't all pull the trigger, each "participated in carrying out Jennifer Pan's plan to murder her parents."
She says others were involved in the plot and some of the intruders aren't among the accused in this trial.
The judge overseeing the trial told the jury that just because all five accused are tried together doesn't mean they should get the same verdict.
Pan, 27, initially appeared to be a victim in the Nov. 8, 2010 incident at her family's home in Markham, north of Toronto.
She was tied up but unharmed while three armed men held the family hostage for half an hour.
Her mother was shot and killed but her father managed to make his way to a neighbour's house after the men left, despite being critically shot.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014