Roger Van Every testifies about parents’ deaths

Two men named in multiple Brantford homicides faced each other in a heavily secured Hamilton courtroom on Tuesday as the trial of Salloum Jassem began.

Jassem, 35, is accused of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiring to commit murder in the deaths of Larry Reynolds and Lynn Van Every, a Park Road South couple who were watering their lawn early on July 18, 2019 at the time they were shot and killed.

His voice breaking with emotion, Roger Van Every took the witness stand

in a tightly secured courtroom

and described how his parents were gunned down in front of him by a masked man who had been circulating the house, trying to get in.

“There was someone knocking on the door,” Van Every said.

“I could see there was a guy with a mask on so I didn’t answer. I woke up Dad and told him to load his gun because something was going on but he sloughed it off.”

Instead, Reynolds stepped outside and began to water the lawn and Lynn Van Every joined him.

Their son, still heavily involved in the drug trade despite being under house arrest for a year, was concerned and returned to his room to inspect video footage from the multiple cameras he had installed around the house.

“I heard gunshots and I ran to the front door. Dad came running through the door first and fell on his back, gasping for air. Mom came through and put her shoulder to the door and locked it. She was against the door. The gun was shooting through the door but he couldn’t get in.”

At least one shot shattered the glass of the door and struck Lynn Van Every in the head.

“I tried to pick up my mom,” Van Every said, and stopped, struggling with emotion.

The couple both died of multiple gunshot wounds, said a Brantford Police officer who also testified about being the first person on the scene.

Van Every told the court his former friend, Jassem, was a high level drug dealer who was teaching him the trade.

Along with being charged in the double homicide case, Jassem and three others were charged in the July 8, 2019 death of Coby Carter, a man Van Every said was his friend and a fellow drug dealer. Jassem was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Jassem was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Soheil Rafipour in York Region, a death associated with the tow truck turf wars in Toronto.

Van Every is currently in custody, facing a first-degree murder charge and an attempted murder charge for a triple shooting at the Galaxy Motel seven months after the death of his parents, court heard. One man was killed, another slightly injured and a third was left essentially a quadriplegic.

Van Every’s long time friend, Shajjad Idrish, pleaded guilty in that incident to second-degree murder and was sentenced in February to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years.

Van Every told the court that before he met the Jassem family, he was making lots of deals selling drugs, but after connecting with Salloum, he had “more things to sell” — mostly cocaine and fentanyl.

Van Every frequently visited “the mansion” — a massive Jerseyville home where Salloum’s brother, Jassem Jassem and his wife, Dila Bataineh, lived.

On June 7, 2018, Van Every said he was eating dinner with them when police raided the home and seized an unknown amount of drugs and several firearms. All three were arrested and charged with possession of fentanyl for trafficking, possession of a firearm and careless storage of a firearm. Charges against Bataineh and Van Every were later dropped.

“I went to jail for a couple of days and was out on house arrest,” Van Every said.

While Jassem Jassem – known as “Jazzy” — was in jail, his brother Salloum would stop by the Park Road South house every few weeks to drop off drugs or pick up payments, Van Every said.

Then Salloum Jassem made him an offer.

“He wanted me to take the charges for his brother,” said Van Every. “I told him I’d think about it.”

Van Every testified that Jassem hired a lawyer for himwho came to him saying Jassem was offering $30,000 to $40,000 if Van Every took the fall for the Jerseyville drugs.

“The lawyer advised me I would do seven to 10 years. He strongly advised me not to take (the offer) and I wasn’t going to go to jail for that long. I got kids,” he said.

Van Every simply didn’t answer Salloum Jassem and “Jazzy” Jassem remained in jail, eventually sentenced in Brampton where he was facing other charges.

Van Every and Salloum Jassem maintained their relationship of buying and selling drugs but, when his parents were killed, Van Every decided that “Sal and his brother figured I knew too much.”

Just 10 days before the Park Road killings, Van Every’s friend Coby Carter, also in the drug business, was killed.

“So, I was kind of suspicious they would come after me.”

In cross-examination on Wednesday, Van Every was questioned about the three Jassem brothers – Salloum also known as ‘Sal’, Jassem Hamdi Jassem, known as ‘Jazzy’, and Seif, known as Sam ‑ and their involvement in drugs.

Van Every testified that after an altercation with a man who hit Van Every in the head, ‘Jazzy’ arranged to “send people from Toronto and take care of it”.

Two men, one White and one Black, showed up and accompanied Van Every to a home but, when the man in question wasn’t there, they all left.

Defense attorney Seth Weinstein probed Van Every about how he was examining the videos from the day of the shooting and his attempts to identify those involved in his parents’ deaths.

“Was one of them one of the people Jazzy sent from Toronto?” asked Weinstein

“I couldn’t recognize any of them,” said Van Every.

The lawyer also pressed Van Every about knowing anyone involved in the tow truck industry, but he denied it.

The lead Crown attorney in this trial is Norfolk’s Shane Hickingbottom, who stepped in after the former attorney left the ministry for another job.

Hickingbottom said in an opening statement that the evidence he’ll present will show Salloum Jassem was not the gunman but the “orchestrator” of the deaths of Reynolds and Lynn Van Every.

“Roger Van Every was viewed as a liability and as a result, Salloum Jassem decided Roger Van Every should be killed.”

Seven men were charged with murder or conspiracy in the case: Kareem Zedan, 27, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for manslaughter and Terrell Philbert, Thomy Baez-Eusebio, Dylan Alridge pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit an unspeakable offense with a firearm.

Philbert was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison while Baez-Eusebio and Alridge got time-served sentences of 29 and 30 months.

Due to the number of accused awaiting trial, an earlier publication ban prohibits revealing many of the details told in court.

Justice Joseph Henderson placed a temporary publication ban on the case Tuesday but lifted it after Jassem’s defense team waived its objections to the public sharing of information.

[email protected]

@EXPSGamble