Defense suggests double homicide was home invasion

A defense attorney hammered home inconsistencies in testimony from a Crown witness who has already been convicted in the deaths of two Brantford residents as the first-degree murder trial of Salloum Jassem continued in a Hamilton courtroom this week.

Kareem Tamir Zedan, 25, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in April 2021 after pleading guilty to two counts of manslaughter in the deaths of Larry Reynolds and Lynn Van Every, rather than the first-degree murder charges he faced, largely due to a deal made with the Crown, he said.

“You wanted this deal. You don’t want to end up in prison for 50 years – five zero – right?” asked Jassem’s lawyer, Jaime Stephenson, noting the entire deal depended on the honesty of Zedan.

But Stephenson pointed out numerous discrepancies and changes in the Pickering man’s story from several interviews with police, to an agreed statement of fact that’s been entered in court, to some of the testimony he gave this week.

“You just didn’t want to tell the truth,” Stephenson accused. “You can’t tell the truth.”

Zedan admitted he lied extensively when he first spoke to police because he was trying to protect some of the others involved.

He initially indicated only he and one other person went to the home at 10 Park Rd. South on July 18, 2019 when the couple, parents of known drug-dealer Roger Van Every, were shot.

Zedan also gave the police false names or nicknames of others but, he said, he eventually told the whole story.

But Stephenson suggested another theory, saying the group had come to Brantford planning a home invasion to steal Van Every’s drugs.

She also suggested Zedan only involved her client because Jassem was moving in on Zedan’s drug territory.

Zedan said Jassem, known as “Sal”, put out a contract on Roger Van Every for $50,000 and, when Zedan accepted the contract, he was given information on what Van Every, known as ‘Sago’, looked like and where he lived.

Cruising around the home early in the morning with a crew of five and two vehicles, Zedan thought it must have been the wrong address.

“It didn’t look like a ‘trap house’,” he said in interviews, referring to a drug house.

Zedan said he tried to contact Jassem through SnapChat, an app that deletes messages after a short time. According to GPS records, one of the vehicles went to Jassem’s family home at 1 Trillium Way where Zedan knocked on the door but got no answer.

Stephenson noted Zedan didn’t know Jassem had moved to a new home on Pinehill Drive.

Back on Park Road South, Zedan said he approached the home but backed off after he saw a surveillance camera and was spotted by Van Every.

He stated that he instructed one of the crew, who was to be the shooter, to go to the house but cover his face.

Stephenson pressed about what the rush was all about.

Zedan admitted he had taken the contract for the killing several months earlier and had not been in touch with Jassem since.

“There was no imminent need to get this done? You know you’re seen on camera and you decide you’re going to keep going anyway? You’re so unsure of the house you call Sal to confirm and go to his home to speak to him in person but, despite all this uncertainty you do it anyway?”

“Right,” said Zedan.

“Because that’s not why you were there,” said the lawyer. “You were there to home-invade Mr. Van Every.”

“No,” was Zedan’s reply.

When Zedan was sentenced in 2021, the public and media were excluded from his trial but, a publication ban, put in place due to what a judge called a “fluid investigation” that could have caused “flight risk and destruction of evidence”, was later lifted.

Eventually seven men were charged in the two deaths.

The Crown’s theory, presented earlier at Jassem’s trial, was that Jassem “orchestrated” the events after Van Every declined to take the blame for a large amount of fentanyl that was found in a Jerseyville home where the accused’s brother, Jassem Jassem, lived.

Justice Gethin Edward, who sentenced Zedan in 2020, called the double homicide a botched “cold-blooded contract killing”.

Before he was sentenced, Zedan had walked out of a Thunder Bay court by impersonating another prisoner, who was being released. He was re-captured the following day.

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