Chinese Woman Who Slapped Trelawny School Girl Charged
The 53-year-old Chinese woman seen in a viral video slapping a teenage girl and accusing her of stealing at her grocery store in Clarks Town, Trelawny has been charged. Yuemei Pan was arrested after a report was made to police on Thursday afternoon. The teen was wearing her school uniform at the time.
Yuemei Pan Apologises
The Chinese businesswoman who was caught on camera slapping a teenage girl she accused of stealing from her grocery store in Clarks Town, Trelawny, has apologised to the youngster. Yuemei Pan, 53, was arrested on December 7 after video of the incident went viral online, sparking outrage and calls for her arrest. She appeared in court this week, but was freed after no evidence was offered against her. On Monday, Pan was forced to close her shop early after residents of the community staged a protest in front of the store. She was also visited by dancehall artiste Mr Vegas and was captured on video saying sorry to the teenager. The Gleaner understands that the youngster who received the slap is a straight A student.
Bail Extensions
A 17-year-old girl who is charged with the stabbing death of her sister has had her bail extended when she appeared in court. The accused, who is a ward of the state, reportedly got into a scuffle with her sister, who is also a ward of the state, after she made derogatory comments about her at their home in Highlight View, Mud Town, St Andrew. She then allegedly stabbed her sister with a knife and she died while undergoing treatment.
Bail was also extended for a bus driver contracted to transport call centre workers who is accused of kissing his female passenger while taking her to her destination. Winston Burrell of Central Village in St Catherine has been ordered to return to court on May 21.
Pan Arrested
During her police interrogation, Pan’s web of lies began to unravel, per Toronto Life. The documentary reveals how she faked her way through high school and college, forging report cards and student loan documents with Photoshop, to please her parents. They were hoping she would become a pharmacist or a dentist, and were concerned when she was studying piano instead of science.
After her arrest, authorities uncovered a series of text messages between Pan and Wong. They found that she was so serious about killing her parents that she tried to pay another male friend for the task, but he backed out.
The text messages led investigators to an apartment in Alabama that was rented under a false name, according to prosecutors. In addition to the false identity, a search turned up seven cellphones, $19,000 in cash, several SIM cards, and Jiang’s father’s Chinese passport.
A month after the murder, authorities uncovered a series of Instagram posts that made it clear that Pan and Jiang were engaged. She also posted photos of her in a wedding dress. She later changed her Instagram password, but police were able to track down her phone number and find the new account.
After a months-long nationwide manhunt, authorities finally caught up with Pan on May 14 in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Her next court date is scheduled for July 13.
The murder rocked the local Asian-American community, said a pastor who spoke to Toronto Life. He said he was “really surprised” to hear of the murder and that many young people in the community looked up to Jiang, who worked as an IT engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A judge has appointed a public defender to represent Pan. Her private criminal defense attorney, Kevin Smith of Pattis & Smith Law Firm, has been released from the case. The state’s public defender, Sanford Bruce, will take over her case. A competency hearing is pending for Pan. It is not clear if she is mentally capable of standing trial. If she is found not guilty, she will be sent back to jail.
Pan Charged
As a second-generation Canadian immigrant, Pan’s parents expected much from her. They pushed her to excel in school, and even encouraged her to pursue a career in medicine. But, as the Netflix documentary reveals, Pan’s life began to spin out of control in her late teens and early 20s. Pan started faking her report cards and lying to her parents. She was also reportedly dating her now-husband, Daniel Wong, a pizza restaurant worker and drug dealer who was a known criminal.
Eventually, she lied about going to university to study pharmacy, and told her parents she was getting a great internship at the Hospital for Sick Children. She was even able to convince her parents that she’d moved back in with them, though they said she hadn’t. It wasn’t until her father woke up from his coma that the truth came out. It was then that the family learned much of what Pan had told them over the previous decade was a lie.
Detectives were suspicious of her from the beginning, as shown in footage featured in the documentary. They found several inconsistencies with her story, and she was ultimately arrested for murder and attempted murder along with the three men she hired to kill her parents. They were all sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
After the conclusion of the original trials, Pan appealed her first-degree murder conviction. In May of 2023, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Pan and her co-conspirators, Wong, Crawford, and Mylvaganam, should get a new trial for killing Bich Ha and Huei Hann Pan. The appeals court argued that the jury in the original trials was only given two scenarios for the attack and that they should be allowed to consider manslaughter as well.
The case will now go to the Supreme Court of Canada, which will decide whether to uphold the Court of Appeal’s decision or change it. If they do change the ruling, it would be a major setback for Pan, who still has not been cleared to leave jail.
