Christopher Wyma Guilty Of Murdering Former Best Pal's Parents: UPDATED

BRIDGEVIEW, IL -- The son of a Palos Hills police officer was found guilty of murdering and robbing his former best friend’s parents in 2011.

The jury took only 40 minutes to reach its verdict. The week-long trial was marked by dramatic testimony by star witness and co-defendant Ehab Qasem. In exchange for his testimony, Qasem agreed to plead guilty to one count of murder and a 40-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections. A fourth accomplice, Mohammed Salahat, accepted a similar plea deal last year.

Christopher Wyma was a senior at Stagg High School and one of three teens groomed into a murderer by co-defendant John Granat. Wyma and the other youths were arrested and charged with the murders of John and Maria Granat a month after the couple’s son was arrested on Sept. 11, 2011.

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Wyma appeared troubled during Cook County Assistant Donna Norton’s closing argument, sinking back into his chair and drumming his tattooed knuckles on the defense table.

Norton recounted how Wyma and Qasem beat the couple with aluminum baseball bats as they slept. In his interrogation video, Wyma imitated the gurgling sounds Maria Granat made as she took her last breaths. Qasem and Granat allegedly finished Maria off by stabbing her 21 times.

Describing how Granat showered his high school classmate Wyma with money and gifts. When Granat expressed that he wanted his parents dead, the teens recruited Qasem, then a 19-year-old student at Moraine Valley Community College.

“John Granat needed help from his best friend and constant companion Christopher Wyma,” Norton said. “They expanded the circle of trust to include Ehab Qasem.”

When Qasem asked why Granat gave him $2,300 during a lunch in August 2011 at Tilted Kilt in Chicago Ridge, Wyma told him, “Johnny has your trust,” Norton said.

“Granat and Wyma were buying Ehab’s trust,” she continued. “He wanted Granat’s lifestyle.”

Eventually, Qasem recruited 16-year-old Salahat, the driver, and “the three of them waited for John Granat to pick a date.”

Norton said John and Maria Granat sealed their fates when they threw out their son’s marijuana plants.

“Ehab Qasem told you what happened,” she continued. “Chris Wyma went to the left side of the bed, Ehab Qasem to the right and they started swinging.”

When Granat saw his parents’ blood on Wyma and Qasem’s faces, Granat wiped it off with the wash cloth, which he deposited into a plastic garbage bag with the blood-smeared bats and knife.

In exchange for John and Maria Granat’s screams that Wyma said “I can’t get out of my head,” Granat paid him $8,000 and another additional $4,000 for Wyma to give to his mother to pay bills.

“Each and everyone of them are accountable for the actions of the others,” Norton said. “They were all for one and one for all.”

Assistant public defender Daniel Nolan said despite an impressive array of experts and PowerPoint presentations, “there would be no forensic evidence linking Chris to the scene of the crime.”

“All we have are Chris Wyma washing bats and a knife at his house, and that’s after the fact,” Nolan said. “He exercised extremely poor judgement.”

Nolan told the jury they should reject every word of testimony out of Qasem’s mouth because he was an admitted liar when he lied to a grand jury two days after the murders.

“You saw his demeanor on the witness stand,” Nolan said. “He was flippant and evasive.”

Nolan also blamed “overzealous Cook County detectives” for badgering and coercing a confession out of Wyma.

When the guilty verdict was announced, Wyma took it calmly, unknotting the necktie he was wearing as he left the courtroom. His parents did not speak to reporters as they hurried out of the courtroom.

Wyma is due back Feb. 22 for post-trial motions in front of Cook County Judge Neil Lineham.