'I Can't Get Their Screams Out of My Head'

BRIDGEVIEW, IL -- Puny John Granat wielded so much power over his best friend and accused co-accomplice, that Chris Wyma claimed he feared for his life as he swung an aluminum baseball bat on the skull of his friend’s father, a Cook County Sheriff’s detective said during the pair’s double-murder trial.

In a profanity-laced, police interrogation video played for the jury, an agitated Wyma, then 17, told Detectives Steve Moody and Sajid Haidari that “John went HAM,” urban parlance for “hard as a motherf-----” and murdered his parents, John and Maria Granat in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2011.

Wyma told the detectives that he and 19-year-old Ehab Qasem, another alleged c0-accomplice, were on a blunt run when asked why cellular tower data placed his phone near the Granat house in unincorporated Palos Park for approximately one hour when the couple’s murders were said to be taking place.

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Moody told Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Norton that Wyma asked for a piece of paper and drew a “very accurate depiction” of where the bodies appeared in John and Maria Granat’s bedroom.

Norton played clips from Wyma’s interview at Cook County Sheriff’s Police headquarters in Maywood that took place on Oct. 9, 2011 and Oct. 10, 2011.

The afternoon before the murders, Wyma claimed that Granat came to his house in Bridgeview, described by prosecutors as a place where kids could get high and crash without parental interference. Wyma claimed that he and accused co-accomplice Ehab Qasem tried to calm Granat down, who was talking crazy.

“John came over to my house pissed off at his parents,” Wyma told the detective. “He said, ‘I want them dead today.’ Ehab and I told him not to do anything stupid.”

Granat arranged a code word, “Concert,” which meant come over to his house because he had killed his parents, Wyma says in the video.

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Wyma alleged that his friend has been talking about murdering his parents for months, asking other students at Alonzo Stagg High School, where Granat and Wyma were both seniors, if he should kill his parents.

A month before, when Maria Granat found her son's marijuana plants, she threw them away, fearful that she and her husband would be arrested for young John’s illegal activities, Wyma said.

During the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2011, Wyma began receiving frantic messages from Granat -- “cam, cam” which meant to get on Skype. Using the code word “Concert,” Wyma told the detectives that Granat wanted him and Qasem to come over immediately.

Another teen charged in the plot, Mohammed Salahat, drove Wyma and Qasem to Granat's house, where he dropped them off at the corner. Granat greeted the youths outside his parents home at 12762 81st Court. Wyma said that Granat was wearing a miner's light strapped to his head.

“We went into the garage,” Wyma explained in the video. “He’s like ‘uh, yeah, they’re upstairs. My dad’s in a puddle of blood. Go up and check to see if he’s dead.’”

Wyma said that he and Qasem were “freaking out.” Granat was looking everywhere in the house for money, including the attic, where he believed his father kept a safe.

“I stared at [Mr. Granat]. I’m like, ‘bro, he’s dead,’” Wyma said.

Later in the video-taped interview, Wyma’s story changes again. He imitates the sounds Maria Granat made as she took her last breaths, “like she was gargling blood.” Wyma admitted hitting his friend's father in the stomach with a baseball bat after he was already dead. He was afraid Granat would kill him if he didn’t.

“John made Ehab and I both hit his parents so we would get blood on us,” Wyma tells the detectives. “I feel so much better telling you all this.”

Wyma said Granat was screaming and sick to his stomach as he gathered gloves, bats and a knife used to stab his mother into a plastic garbage bag. Granat suggested to Wyma that he clean the blood off the knife and hide it with the rest of silverware in the Wyma kitchen.

“I’m like, no f------ way,” Wyma said.

Granat followed his friends back to Wyma's house because “he was afraid his parents were still alive and would get up,” Wyma said.

As detectives wore Wyma down, he admits that he and Qasem both swung baseball bats on the sleeping, defenseless couple. He claims that he and Qasem never went over to the Granat home to kill them, even though they carried bats in the car.

In turn for helping Granat destroy evidence -- tossing the knife into a vacant lot across from Wyma’s house, ditching the bats in Junk Creek Woods, and burning gloves and Clorox wipes “in my bonfire" -- Granat paid them thousands of dollars. After he took over his father's construction business, Granat promised to give them both jobs that paid "$20 an hour."

Wyma’s ex-girlfriend Stephanie Wydra testified that she went to Wyma's house the Saturday before the murders, where she overheard her boyfriend, Granat, Qasem and "Mo S" say "it's on for tonight." As the news broke of John and Maria Granat's slayings, Wydra told the jury that Wyma was "acting a little weird and not himself."

Wyma also gave her a blue T-shirt to take home, because it had a speck of blood on it, which later matched Mr. Granat’s DNA, that she stashed under bed. Wyma also gave her a guitar bag containing $15,000 and a bag of marijuana to hold. She said she gave all the money back to him a few days later.

Days later, she said her boyfriend suddenly blurted out: "I can't get their screams out of my head."

Dr. James Filkins, of the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, also discussed the autopsies he performed on John and Maria Granat. Filkins said John Granat died of blunt force trauma; his wife, Maria, of blunt force trauma and sharp incision injuries. The manner of death for both was homicide.

Filkins also performed toxicology tests on the older Granat, who was accused by his son in police interviews of being an angry alcoholic. Filkins said that Mr. Granat’s tests came back negative for opiates, cocaine and alcohol.

Photo: Sept. 11, 2011 booking photo: John Granat, 17, Christopher Wyma, 17, Ehab Qasem, 19, and Mohammed Salahat, 17. | Cook County Sheriff