Jury: Man guilty in Pasco murder

NEW PORT RICHEY -- First the jury weighed in: Christopher Wright is guilty of first-degree murder, they decided after more than an hour of deliberations today in the 2005 kidnapping and slaying of John Jason Benjamin.

Then Circuit Judge William Webb weighed in: life in prison for Wright, 46.

"I ask for the harshest sentence for what he has done to my brother," the victim's twin brother, Robert Benjamin, told the judge, "for what he has done to my family and also to keep the streets of Pasco County safe."

Wright was one of two men accused of taking Benjamin captive over a $300 drug debt, threatening him, beating him, slashing him and then trying to destroy his body and a blood-stained SUV by setting both on fire.

Jailhouse witness Yusef "Voodoo" Wilson testified at the trials of both men that he saw Wright and co-conspirator Daniel Lee Parbel take part in the attack. Last month Parbel was found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Parbel chose not to testify last month. Wright chose to testify this week on his own behalf. But jurors apparently chose not to believe his story that although he was at the scene of the crime, it was Parbel alone who was responsible for what happened to Benjamin, a 37-year-old father of two.

- Jamal Thalji, Times staff writer