Parbel guilty in drug debt slaying, jury says

At least one of the jailhouse informants seemed to be truly believable, a juror says.

By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
Published November 17, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - Daniel Lee Parbel struggled to put words to the chaos and blood of Sept. 25, 2005.

That's the day authorities say John Jason Benjamin was kidnapped and beaten and knifed, then left to burn inside a gasoline-soaked SUV. It is the day Benjamin lost his life.

Two sheriff's detectives wanted to know what Parbel knew. The videotaped interrogation was shown this week to jurors in Parbel's trial for Benjamin's slaying.

"Could you have stopped this at any time?" Detective Jim Medley asked.

Parbel said nothing. Seconds passed.

Then, he spoke:

"I don't know."

He will have the rest of his life to come up with an answer.

It took a jury of six men and six women an hour Friday to convict Parbel of first-degree murder.

The 37-year-old New Port Richey man was then sentenced to life in prison.

Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis told the judge that life in prison was the only answer to Parbel's crime.

"This case shouts out for that," Halkitis said before sentencing.

The victim's twin brother, Robert Benjamin, said the family wanted the maximum sentence possible.

"I only ask that you do what you can to keep him from hurting others," he told the judge, "like he did to our family."

* * *

What led to Benjamin's death?

A $300 drug debt.

The victim could not repay it, authorities say, so Parbel and co-defendant Christopher Wright took Benjamin captive and threatened him, then beat him, stabbed him and slit his throat.

Burning the body and blood-stained SUV, a witness testified, was an attempt to destroy evidence and hide the crime.

Wright, 46, goes to trial in December. He also faces life in prison.

Parbel betrayed no emotion during the verdict or sentencing.

He only hung his head while he was fingerprinted.

* * *

Benjamin was 37, a father of two, and an optician.

He was also an addict.

"My brother, he had lost his way," Robert Benjamin said, "and he was trying to find it again.

"My family couldn't force him into rehab. We thought he was getting the help he needed."

The family endured two traumas this week: listening to the grisly details of John Benjamin's death, then seeing the criminals and drug abusers he spent his last hours with.

"It was difficult for him being an addict," Robert Benjamin said. "They kept him drugged up through this whole thing.

"He didn't know what was happening until the last minute."

Even then, John Benjamin fought back and nearly escaped his captors after he was taken to some remote woods in Hudson.

After they cut his throat, he somehow commandeered the SUV and almost got away - but it got stuck in the sand, and he was again overpowered.

Said Robert Benjamin: "My brother's always been a fighter."

* * *

At the end of a four-day trial, Parbel invoked his right not to testify on his own behalf.

When the judge questioned him about his rights before closing arguments Friday morning, Parbel said he was on psychiatric medication.

"It mellows me out," Parbel told the judge.

"Is that a good thing?" Webb asked.

"Yes, sir," Parbel said. "I'm a hyper person."

His defense was that Wright committed the murder. In the videotape Parbel said he was at the scene of the attack and even threatened the victim, but denied taking part in the murder.

The defense told jurors the jailhouse "snitches" who testified they saw Parbel attack Benjamin, or heard him boast of it later, could not be trusted.

But a juror said he believed one of those jailhouse witnesses.

* * *

Yusef "Voodoo" Wilson, 34, shuffled to the witness stand in shackles and jailhouse blues.

He testified this week that he saw Parbel and Wright attack Benjamin.

Both even shared the same knife, Wilson said.

"He seemed the most sincere of them all," juror Bill Brodil, 45, said of Wilson. "No one implicated him. You could tell he was scared."

Learning that the victim's blood was found on Parbel's jeans also sealed the deal in Brodil's mind.

He said 11 jurors quickly agreed Parbel was guilty of first-degree murder. They only had to change the mind of one woman.

She wanted second-degree murder.

Jamal Thalji can be reached at thalji@sptimes.com or 727 869-6236.

[Last modified November 16, 2007, 21:50:15]