3 Illinois teens charged in deaths of friend's parents
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Weeks after a suburban Chicago teen was charged in the brutal slaying of his parents, authorities announced Tuesday that they charged three of his friends in what they now say was a months-long plot to rob and kill the couple.
"They conspired over the course of months to come up with a plan to kill John Granat's parents and take their money," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said.
High school senior John Granat, 17, was charged with first-degree murder Sept. 13, two days after his parents, John Granat, 44, and Maria Granat, 42, were found dead, all but unrecognizable, in their Palos Park bedroom. The walls, ceiling and floor were splattered with blood.
On Sunday investigators started interviewing Christopher Wyma, 17, Mohammad Salahat, 17, and Ehab Qasem, 19. The three quickly gave detailed, videotaped confessions, Dart said, and led investigators to where they had hidden a knife, baseball bats, bloody clothing and cash taken from the victims. The three are charged with first-degree murder and Cook County Judge Peter Felice denied them bail during a Tuesday bond court appearance.
The teens even had a code word for their plan, Dart said.
"The code word was 'concert,'" Dart said. "And the concert was on."
Granat had a Skype computer conversation with his three friends on Sept. 11, telling them to come over, Dart said.
The three friends came over and Granat let Wyma and Qasem into the house with baseball bats. They went upstairs, one standing on each side of the parents' bed, and started hitting the couple, prosecutors said. Wyma hit the father and Qasem hit the mother with the father waking at one point and fighting back, prosecutors said. Salahat stayed outside in the car, but Dart said that he knew of the plot and what his friends were doing inside.
Granat also beat his parents, but at one point went downstairs to look for money, prosecutors said, before Qasem came down to tell Granat his mother was still making noise.
Granat handed Qasem a knife and told him to "go upstairs and finish them off," Dart said. According to a synopsis of the slayings prepared by prosecutors, Qasem stabbed Granat's mother a few times and then gave the knife to Granat, who stabbed her more than a dozen more times.
The teens then ransacked the home looking for money and got away with $35,000 cash, prosecutors said. They drove off to divide the cash, wash the baseball bats and burn the gloves the Wyma and Qasem wore. Then, as part of the plan, Granat started driving home to call the police.
On his way home a police officer pulled over Granat for a broken tail light. Granat went home and called 911 just after 7 a.m., telling an emergency dispatcher that the house had been ransacked and his parents "were drowning in their own blood."
But a police officer responding to Granat's 911 call quickly recognized him as the driver he'd pulled over for the broken tail light. The case quickly unraveled and Granat was charged. He is held without bond in the psychiatric wing of the Cook County Jail hospital. Police have recovered $21,000 cash.
"John the son did not like his parents at all and they also wanted to get some money," Dart said.
Salahat's attorney, Joel Brodsky, has raised concerns about the confessions, calling his client an impressionable teenager.