What part of Netflix’s True Crime Documentary ‘What Jennifer Did’ has used AI-manipulated images?

Netflix recently released a murder documentary, “What Jennifer Did,” last Wednesday, April 10. It instantly topped Netflix’s Top 10, becoming the No. 1 film on Netflix in the U.S. The film recounts the horrific events where a family was shot to death. Though the wife died on the spot, the husband managed to survive despite severe injuries. As the documentary unfolds, it is unveiled that their own daughter was behind the murder conspiracy of her parents. The story is of Jennifer Pan, who was convicted of a 2010 kill-for-hire attack targeting both of her parents.

Directed by Jenny Popplewell, the documentary is being praised by the audience as it tops the Netflix list. However, it has also been garnering criticism for employing pictures of Pan that were manipulated by artificial intelligence.

What is ‘What Jennifer Did’ all about?

‘What Jennifer Did’ is a Netflix crime documentary film that recounts the horrific events that unfolded on November 8, 2010, during a home invasion planned by an estranged daughter. The documentary details how Jennifer Pan went from being a child pianist to a criminal convicted of first-degree murder. The synopsis of the Netflix documentary reads: “When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.”

But the main question is who is Jennifer Pan, and why was she sentenced to life in prison?

Jennifer Pan is a 37-year-old Canadian woman, born to her mother, Bich Ha Pan, and father, Huei Hann Pan, who were ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam to Canada. On November 8, 2010, dispatchers received a 911 call from a family home in a quiet residential neighborhood in Ontario, Canada. The call was made by Jennifer Pan. Jennifer told the police that she was home with her parents when gunmen broke into the house and demanded money.

According to Netflix, Jennifer was the only surviving witness in the family of three. In her statement, she claimed that the intruders tied her up, shot her parents, and fled the scene. Jennifer’s mother passed instantly when shot. But her father miraculously survived the gunshot wound. However, he was in dire need of medical attention.

As per Jennifer’s statement, the case seemed open and shut, as it depicted that  Pans were randomly targeted in the fatal home invasion. However, the detectives didn’t find the witness’s statement convincing enough. They started to get suspicious of Jennifer as more details emerged. It was clearly captured in a neighbor’s security camera that the three men who invaded the house actually didn’t invade Pans’ residence. The footage showed that the men entered the house with no signs of forced entry.

Jennifer’s parents had big dreams for her and had extremely high expectations. Jennifer was made to take piano lessons at the age of four, as well as figure skating classes. The Pans picked Jennifer up when classes ended each day and monitored her extracurricular activities very closely. They never permitted her to date 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.

Jennifer, who was an average kid in studies, often lied to her parents due to their strict attitude. She told her parents lies like she graduated from high school and attended college. In fact, she even forged report cards and student loan documents. Jennifer pretended to pursue an undergraduate degree at Ryerson University (now known as Toronto Metropolitan University).

While Jennifer’s parents had high expectations of her, it never aligned with her dreams. She wanted a life straight opposite of how her parents wanted her to live. While her parents were very restrictive about dating, Jennifer secretly dated Daniel Wong, a drug dealer with a criminal record. When her parents found out about her relationship with Wong, they condemned it, and when they found out that Jennifer was lying about attending college they even forbade her from seeing Wong anymore.

The events impacted Jennifer badly, and she decided to ask her boyfriend Wong’s help to organize a plot to murder her parents. In order to escape from the conspiracy easily, they planned the murder in such a way that it looked like a robbery gone wrong while Jennifer played the part of a witness. They hired three hitmen (David Mylvaganam, Lenford Crawford, and Eric Carty), who entered the home and carried out the invasion as orchestrated.

On inspection, the investigators of Jennifer’s case unraveled many truths that Jennifer had been concealing. When Hann Pan came out of his coma, he revealed that his daughter appeared to know the people who broke into their home. Ultimately, Jennifer confessed to hiring the killers and leaving her house unlocked. She claimed that she was the target of the murder-for-hire plot — not her parents.

Pan was found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years, the same penalty as her co-conspirators. In May 2023, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ordered a retrial for Pan and her conspirators on the first-degree murder charge but upheld the attempted murder conviction.

Regarding her father, Huei Hann Pan is currently in his 70s and has kept a low profile since the trial.

Why is the crime documentary being criticized?

According to a report from Futurism, it has been revealed that What Jennifer Did? may have employed pictures of Pan that were manipulated by artificial intelligence. But where exactly does AI come into the picture? At approximately 28 minutes into the film, a scene unfolds in the documentary when the viewers get to know more about Jennifer’s personality through her high school friend, Nam Nguyen. Her friend  recalls his relationship with Pan and says that “she was great to talk to.” He continues, “Jennifer, you know, was bubbly, happy, confident, and very genuine.” As Nguyen talks about Jennifer,  three pictures of Pan appear in succession.

While the first picture seems fine, the latter two pictures, in particular, have garnered the viewer’s attention for not-so-great reasons. Items in the background of one picture, in which Pan is holding up two peace signs, appear distorted. Her fingers and hands also look altered. As per PetaPixel, in the third picture, one of her front teeth appears much longer than the other, her left ear looks warped, and her right cheek has a gap in it. What’s bothering here is that the use of AI is not acknowledged in the doc’s credits, per  404 Media.

However, the directors of the documentary film did eventually confirm to Variety in an exclusive statement that they “experimented with AI for three still images which [they] edited further and ultimately appear as very brief interstitials in the film.”

The inclusion of AI in a film is nothing new. Movies like Late Night with the Devil have also been criticized for their use of AI. But here, in the case of What Jennifer Did?, the topic of the use of AI seems more questionable as it is a crime documentary and not a work of fiction.

What Jennifer Did is now streaming on Netflix.