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Jury Says Pasha Should Die For Killing Wife, Stepdaughter

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By THOMAS W.  KRAUSE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 2, 2007

Khalid Ali Pasha in custody at the Hillsborough County Courthouse Friday.

TAMPA - After about two hours of deliberation, a jury voted 7-5 to recommend that Khalid Ali Pasha die by lethal injection.

In Florida, the jury decision is a recommendation to the judge, who will have final say in the sentencing. Judge William Fuente will set another hearing where he will hear more evidence before making his decision.

Fuente must give the jury recommendation "great weight."

At least six jurors would have had to vote against the death penalty to guarantee a life sentence instead of a death sentence.

This morning, before the jury began deliberation, Assistant State Attorney Jalal Harb held in front of the jurors a white paper jumpsuit, still stained with blood. He held a pair of dirty rubber boots.

"He wore these for what?" Harb asked the jury rhetorically. "To protect himself."

Defense attorneys have described Pasha, 64, as a hardworking, religious, generous man. Harb told the jurors that Pasha reaped his rewards over the years for those attributes. Now, Harb said, it is time for him to face the consequences of his bad decisions.

"Bad decisions led to Mr. Pasha sitting before this court," Harb said. "For this defendant to get something from this jury other than a recommendation of a death sentence is appropriate, is acceptable but is not fitting of his actions."

Defense attorney Robert Fraser told the jury that too many questions are left unanswered to sentence a man to death. No one knows Pasha's motive.

No one knows what Pasha and his wife talked about, Fraser said. He reminded the jury that Pasha's wife, Robin Canady, was drunk at the time she died.

"Wouldn't it be nice, before you recommend the death of a 64-year-old man, that you know what happened?" Fraser said. "You don't and never will. I don't. No one does."

Fraser reminded the jury that Pasha's mother died when he was 2 and that the woman who took him in died when he was 6. He never had another mother figure.

"It's no wonder he could never form lifelong, lasting, deep relationships," Fraser said.

The prosecutors, Fraser said, have nothing but conjecture and speculation as to what happened when the two women died, what was in Pasha's mind and what was in Pasha's heart.

"You are here to bring humanness to the dry courtroom," Fraser told the jurors. "The law is not human, but the law recognizes — and the law is wise for this — that the jury brings humanity to the law."

During the past several days of trial, prosecutors put forth overwhelming evidence that Pasha killed Canady, 43, and her daughter, Ranesha Singleton, 20. The jury took less than 90 minutes to convict Pasha on two counts of first-degree murder.

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 Pasha walk in and out of the woods carrying a shiny object while wearing a white jumpsuit covered with blood. They followed Pasha in their pickup until authorities arrived to arrest him.

In Pasha's van, sheriff's deputies found the jumpsuit, bloody latex gloves and a bloody knife.

Through the woods, investigators found a cul-de-sac and Canady's car, which had blood in it.

Assistant Medical Examiner Sam Gulino testified Thursday that both victims were stabbed and struck with blunt force, starting while they were sitting in the car.

Both women exited the car and collapsed on the cul-de-sac pavement. From there, the bodies were dragged several feet to the spots where officers found them.

Gulino said both victims also had defensive wounds that were made on the arms and hands as they tried to fight off the attack.

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

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