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Jury Decides Pasha Killed His Wife, Stepdaughter

Greg Fight/ The Tampa Tribune

Khalid Ali Pasha awaits opening arguments in his murder trial Oct. 24.

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By THOMAS W.  KRAUSE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 31, 2007

Updated: 10/31/2007 03:01 pm

Previous Coverage: Double-Slaying Trial Begins

TAMPA - After less than 90 minutes of deliberation today, a jury found Khalid Ali Pasha guilty on two counts of first-degree murder for the 2002 stabbing deaths of his wife and stepdaughter.

Thursday morning, the jury will hear more evidence to help them decide whether Pasha, 64, should spend the rest of his life in prison or die by lethal injection. Although a guilty verdict requires a unanimous vote, a jury decision for the death penalty requires only seven of the 12 jurors.

Immediately after the verdict, Pasha told the judge he did not want to appear at Thursday's hearing and he did not want his attorneys to argue on his behalf.

His attorneys and a private investigator working on his case ultimately persuaded him to go forward with his defense.

When Pasha first told Judge William Fuente that he did not want to continue, Fuente said prosecutors would present their case regardless of whether Pasha shows up.

"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."

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

Fraser pleaded with Pasha, in open court, to change his mind.

If Pasha does not let Fraser argue circumstances that would mitigate Pasha's crime, he would essentially be asking for the death penalty.

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

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

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

When prosecutors and defense attorneys returned from lunch, Pasha said he had agreed to appear Thursday and to allow his defense team to put on a case.

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 in his white van as he waited for a red light. 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 Robin Canady, 43, and her daughter, Ranesha Singleton, 20.

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

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

Pasha's trial attorney, Nick Sinardi, pointed out for jurors that the witness and her husband lost the man wearing the jumpsuit for a few minutes. When they caught sight of him again, moments before he got in the van, he had changed clothes, they said.

Sinardi also pointed out that no fingerprints on the knife, jumpsuit or bloody boots match Pasha's. The items did, however, have seven fingerprints of unidentified people.

No one knows what happened after the guy in the white jumpsuit went into the woods and Pasha came out, Sinardi told the jury. He questioned why law enforcement did not test sweat from the jumpsuit to prove Pasha was the man wearing it.

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 one 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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