EVERETT — The promise of money brought Linda Nguyen and Kevin Meas to the little house in Everett.
Money also drew Saroeun Phai and Areewa Saray to that same house on Dexter Avenue, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Edirin Okoloko told jurors Wednesday.
Nguyen, 20, and Meas, 23, ended up dead. Saray, 21, recently was sentenced to life in prison.
Phai, 25, also faces a lifetime behind bars. The Tacoma man is charged with aggravated murder in the 2007 double slaying.
Jurors on Wednesday began hearing testimony in his murder trial in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Phai is accused of shooting Nguyen and Meas inside the south Everett house — the cover for an elaborate indoor marijuana growing operation.
Police found about 750 marijuana plants in the house and another 400 plants growing in a nearby house on E. Beech Street, according to court documents. The growing operations found in the Everett homes are similar to indoor pot farms in Canada, authorities said.
Okoloko told jurors the couple had moved from Massachusetts to earn money by tending the pot farm. He also told the jury Phai and Saray planned to rob the house, believing there was up to $40,000 inside.
They planned to kill anyone in their way, Okoloko said.
Nguyen was shot twice as soon as she opened the door, he said. Meas was shot three times. His body was found in the basement.
Phai and Saray then drove off and later set fire to the car they’d driven to the Everett house, Okoloko said. They returned to Tacoma in another vehicle.
The burned-out car led police to Phai’s cousin, who had lent the Honda to Phai on the night of the shootings, July 2, 2007. The cousin later told investigators the defendants told him something bad was going to happen in Everett and later returned visibly shaken. They tried to work out alibis, threw away clothing and later dumped the guns, Okoloko said.
Police recovered the guns off a pier in Des Moines, the deputy prosecutor said. Investigators were able to test-fire one gun and determined that the bullets matched those recovered from Nguyen and Meas, Okoloko said.
“The evidence of the defendant’s guilt is overwhelming in this case,” he said.
Phai told Everett police detectives he shot the pair, Okoloko said.
Phai’s attorney Philip Sayles told jurors he doesn’t dispute that Nguyen and Meas were killed. He said prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to connect Phai to the homicides.
Sayles told jurors some of the witnesses aren’t honest, including the two men expected to testify that they knew about the killings. He also told jurors to consider the circumstance in which Phai allegedly confessed.
“You must look at all the evidence,” Sayles said.
The trial is expected to last at least a week.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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