Hayas Bacall

(Free Press) DETROIT - A jury this morning convicted a Detroit businessman of first-degree murder for shooting his 33-year old nephew to death last year over a debt.

Some in the crowded courtroom put their heads in their hands and wept as the verdict was read. Others whispered, “Yes, yes.”

Defendant Hayes Bacall, 51, showed no visible reaction when the nine women and three men on the jury, some of them looking distraught, announced their verdict. Some jurors were later heard crying after they returned to the deliberations room after the verdict.

The 10-day trial split the large Chaldean family into two — those who supported Bacall and those who wanted Bacall convicted of murder. Bacall contended throughout the trial that he shot his nephew, Saif Jameel, in self-defense.

Outside the courtroom, the two groups kept clear of each other.

“It’s sad, but justice has been served,” said Carolyn Bacall, Saif Jameel’s sister-in-law.

Bacall’s son, Maher Bacall, 24, was angry. “They know this was a crime of passion,” he said calling Jameel a “gangster” who threatened people.

Bacall will be sentenced to life in prison without parole on Sept. 13 before Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rae Lee Chabot.

Hayes, who owned a check cashing business, had loaned Jameel $400,000 in the years and months leading up to the shooting. Hayes testified he took out lines of credit on his home and business to loan the money to Jameel for the eventual construction of a Starbucks coffee shop in Troy.