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Pasha Quickly Found Guilty Of Killing Wife, Stepdaughter

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By THOMAS W. KRAUSE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 1, 2007

TAMPA - Moments after a jury convicted Khalid Ali Pasha on two counts of first-degree murder, Pasha told the judge he was through fighting.

When the jury returns today, Pasha said, he did not want to be in court and did not want his attorneys to make arguments on his behalf. The jury is to decide whether Pasha deserves the death penalty.

Pasha's attorney, Robert Fraser, pleaded in open court for his 64-year-old client to change his mind.

'What you are doing, Mr. Pasha, is tantamount to suicide,' Fraser said.

Ultimately, the defense team convinced Pasha. He will return to court today and Fraser will present evidence in an attempt to spare his life.

After less than 90 minutes of deliberation Wednesday, the jury convicted Pasha in the 2002 stabbing deaths of his wife and stepdaughter, Robin Canady, 43, and Ranesha Singleton, 20.

When Pasha first told Judge William Fuente that he did not want to continue, Fuente said prosecutors would present their case anyway.

'When that happens tomorrow, do you want to be here?' the judge asked.

'I don't want it to happen at all,' Pasha responded. 'I mean the defense side.'

Fuente ordered a mental health professional to determine whether Pasha had the mental capacity to waive the remainder of his defense.

During a lunch break, Pasha's private investigator, Rosalie Bolin, scolded him in a loud whisper. Bolin told Pasha it would be a mistake to 'give up' and accept the death penalty.

When attorneys returned from lunch, Pasha relented. The mental evaluation was not performed.

Fraser said his evidence on Pasha's behalf will include the testimony of Pasha's two former wives and his cousin. Also to testify will be an imam and jail officials who will say Pasha introduced several fellow inmates to the Islamic faith.

Although a jury must vote unanimously to convict, only seven of the 12 must agree for a death sentence recommendation to stand.

At trial, witnesses testified that on Aug. 23, 2002, they were in the parking lot behind Woodland Corporate Center near Waters and North Manhattan avenues. They saw a tall black man walk in and out of the woods carrying a shiny object and wearing a white jumpsuit covered in blood.

While on the phone with a 911 operator, one witness and his wife said they saw the man get into a white van, then drive away as they followed in their pickup.

Deputies stopped Pasha as he waited for a red light at the wheel of a white van he used in his job as an environmental technician.

In the van, they found a white jumpsuit covered in the blood of the two victims and a bloody knife. Through the woods at the corporate center, deputies came to a cul-de-sac and found the car and bloody bodies of Canady and Singleton.

More blood was found on Pasha's boots, on his tank top and on latex gloves found in the van.

Prosecutors, who never uncovered a motive in the slayings, told jurors in closing arguments that proving one was unnecessary.

Defense attorneys, who called no witnesses to testify, told the jurors that the state had not proved its case.

The case took five years to go to trial. Pasha fired four lawyers and tried to represent himself on more than one occasion.

Pasha is a career criminal who spent several years in an Indiana prison, including a prison stint for bank robbery. Pasha represented himself at that trial.

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause @tampatrib.com.

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