Mewa Singh Bains, 82, and Shingara Singh Thandi, 79, died after they were beaten and robbed in separate incidents in Surrey's Bear Creek Park in the summer of 2005.

The violence horrified the local Sikh community, which feared that the savage assaults may have been racially motivated....

"I heard banging and screaming," Tyler Rankin, 18, testified during the first day of the trial of two youths charged with murder, assault and robbery in the deaths of two elderly Sikhs who were attacked on successive days.

Mr. Rankin said he could not understand the chilling words he heard. "They were in a different kind of language. It sounded East Indian."

He ran away but saw his two friends shortly afterward. They told him: "We did it."

He asked what happened. "We have money," they replied, according to his testimony....

Mr. Rankin told the court he had been hanging out with a group of friends in the park on July 18, 2005. They had the idea of going to fight with people "and jump [them] for money," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

The two youths in the prisoner's dock had gone into the park's washroom to look for someone to "jump," he continued, while he stayed outside. They did not tell him what happened inside, he stated....

A female friend of the two accused, when she asked why they attacked the old men, testified that one of them told her "we needed money." [Link]