Double-homicide trial hears about vehicle at scene

Testimony continued this week in the trial of Salloum Jassem, the man accused of orchestrating the murders of Larry Reynolds and Lynn Van Every in 2019.

The court heard from a woman who was brought in by a judge’s warrant as she was difficult to locate. The woman told the court how her boyfriend laughed about the deaths of the couple.

The boyfriend – who The Expositor is choosing not to name at this point – was with the woman as they passed the area of ​​Park Road South still cordoned off and busy with police cruisers days after the double shootings.

“He laughed. He was asking the cab driver questions about it and smiling,” said the woman in a Hamilton courtroom.

“I was wondering why he was so interested in all of it and why he was smiling about two people being dead.”

Then the woman found a photo of the Reynolds/Van Every home on her partner’s cell phone.

When she asked him about the photo, he said ‘Don’t worry about it’ and was smiling, she said.

The testimony was part of the trial of 35-year-old Jassem, who is accused of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiring to commit murder.

As well as facing charges in the July 18, 2019 Reynolds/Van Every deaths, Jassem was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the July 8, 2019 death of Coby Carter, a man who has been identified in court as a drug dealer.

Jassem was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Soheil Rafipour in York Region.

The woman also testified about a day her boyfriend and his friend got her to write out a document that a Paris man was signing over two vehicles to the boyfriend.

That victim later testified that the other men had threatened to cut off his fingers if he didn’t give them money and sign over a Chevy Avalanche and his beloved Chrysler 300 – the same fate of vehicle seen on video at the murder scene.

He was so terrified by the threats, he left the province.

In 2021, the two men pleaded guilty to extortion and robbery with ‘the boyfriend’ admitting he was an ‘enforcer’ for a local drug dealer.

While the woman said she couldn’t remember meeting Jassem, who is alleged to have been a drug supplier for the murdered couple’s son, Roger Van Every, transcripts from her earlier police interviews showed she said she met Jassem and once called him for help when her boyfriend was arrested.

The woman said she didn’t remember many details from the time around the murders because she was using drugs.

The court also heard from another man who regularly drove the woman’s boyfriend to Van Every’s house to collect money.

Earlier in the trial, Van Every testified that he had maintained a drug-focused relationship with Jassem through 2019 despite being on house arrest at his parents’ home and under court orders not to communicate with Jassem, as they had both been arrested and charged with possession of fentanyl for trafficking after a big raid in Jerseyville.

A Brantford Police officer testified about removing the GPS unit from the Chrysler 300 which was discovered, abandoned, after the shootings, and tracking its movements for several weeks prior to the violence.

The trial continues next week.

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