Pal in Palos Parents Double-Murder Case Gets Trial Date

BRIDGEVIEW, IL — A trial date has been set for a Bridgeview man who was a high school student when he was charged with helping a friend kill his parents in unincorporated Palos Park in 2011.

Christopher Wyma, 22, appeared Tuesday before Cook County Associate Judge Neil Linehan at Bridgeview courthouse. Wyma was 17 years old and a senior at Stagg High School in Palos Hills when prosecutors said he helped his friend, John Granat, murder his parents in their beds in September 2011.

Judge Linehan, who has expressed impatience with the slow pace of pre-trial proceedings that have dragged on for five years, set a date of Jan. 9. Jury selection is expected to begin on that date.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2011, 17-year-old John Granat called police to report that he found his parents, John and Maria, “drowning in their own blood” in what he described as a home invasion, prosecutors said.

The son was charged a few days after the killings. Wyma and two other teens continued to go to school and weren’t arrested until a month later on Oct. 9, 2011. During their bond hearing, prosecutors said the teens plotted the couple’s murders over Skype, using the code word “concert.”

Ehab Qasem, then a 19-year-old college student from Hickory Hills, and 16-year-old Mohammad Salahat, of Chicago Ridge, were also charged in the crimes. Salahat was a junior at Oak Lawn Community High School and turned 17 a few days after the brutal killings. The four young men were indicted on 75 counts of murder, home invasion and robbery.

Salahat waited outside in the car while Wyma and Qasem allegedly crept upstairs through the darkened home when prosecutors said the two beat John and Maria Granat with baseball bats. When Qasem informed the younger Granat that Maria was still alive, John Granat is said to have handed him a knife telling Qasem to “finish her off.”

Prosecutors said that Qasem stabbed Maria a few times, then gave the knife to John, who stabbed his mother more than a dozen times. The Cook County Medical Examiner said at the time that Maria Granat suffered up to 20 stab wounds.

After the deed, the four teens went back to Wyma’s house in Bridgeview where they are alleged to have divvied up $35,000 that was found in the home and destroyed evidence.

Mohammad Salahat was sentenced to 35 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections after pleading guilty last March for his role in the plot.

Qasem, now 24, is being held in protective custody in the Livingston County Jail in Pontiac, IL.

Pre-trial motions are set for Dec. 12. Wyma is being represented by Cook County Assistant Public Defender Daniel Nolan.

Granat is due for a status hearing before Judge Linehan on Dec. 6, and Qasem on Jan. 9.