Hillsborough man gets death for two killings

TAMPA -- A man accused of killing his wife and her daughter received two death sentences today.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge William Fuente handed down the punishment.

Khalid Ali Pasha (left), 64, was convicted last fall on two counts of first-degree murder. Jurors found him guilty of killing Robin Canady, 43, his wife of less than one month, and her daughter, Ranesha Singleton, 20, on Aug. 23, 2002. He stabbed and beat them in a cul-de-sac in the Woodlands Corporate Center on Waters Avenue, west of Dale Mabry Highway.

A witness saw a man wearing a bloody white hazmat jumpsuit. Detectives found the suit, a knife and a club in Pasha's van.

In November, jurors recommended the death penalty for Pasha in two narrow 7-5 votes.

Fuente said today that the brutality of the killings weighed heavily on his decision. Though Pasha had lived for many years as a quiet, polite and religious person, the judge also noted that Pasha was on parole for a previous conviction at the time of the killings.

The judge said that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances.

"The scale tilts," the judge said, "to a sentence of death."

Pasha had no reaction. He shook his attorney's hand and went to be fingerprinted.

"We all lose in these things," prosecutor Jalal Harb said. "This is an old man who lived a life of crimes."

-- Colleen Jenkins, Times staff writer

[Chris Zuppa, Times]