Tampabay: Suspect charged in killing, coverup

DUNEDIN -- On Saturday, Jenouch "E.J." Pasco tearfully recounted how he tried in vain to rescue Elizabeth Clow Robie, his 69-year-old neighbor, after her house went up in flames.

He invited reporters into his home and told of the horror of finding Mrs. Robie already dead, with "lots of blood" coming from her throat.

But just a few hours earlier, investigators said Wednesday, Pasco repeatedly stabbed Mrs. Robie, then set fire to her home and property to cover up the slaying. Sheriff's investigators arrested Pasco on Wednesday and charged him with first-degree murder for Robie's Friday night death.

Pasco, the 22-year-old son of a Pentecostal preacher, broke into Robie's home Friday night demanding money for crack cocaine, said sheriff's spokesman Cal Dennie.

"A struggle ensued in the downstairs area where the victim was stabbed multiple times," Dennie said. "He tried to cover up the homicide and the evidence by starting a fire at three particular points."

The arrest was a curious twist in a killing in which investigators initially found neither suspects nor motive. As officials combed through Mrs. Robie's home at 427 New York Ave., Pasco was next door at his girlfriend's house, watching and chatting with reporters. He was also cooperative with investigators, Dennie said.

"Bad guys try that sometimes," he said. "They figure if they're open with everyone and they're a concerned person or neighbor, the attention won't be brought to them."

On Saturday, Pasco declined to shake a reporter's hand, saying he had cut his hand as he leaped over the fence to rescue Robie. He told a St. Petersburg Times reporter he was afraid the authorities might think he was involved with Robie's death. He said investigators would probably find his fingerprints on her body and his footprints in her house.

"I touched her body," he said. "I was bleeding."

His 21-year-old girlfriend, Jennifer Watson, sat nearby with their 2-year-old son Jorien and dismissed his concerns. "He tried to save her," she said.

He said the "horrible" image of Mrs. Robie's face had kept him up through the night. At one point, his eyes welled with tears and he paused, shaking his head.

"This is very hard for me," he said. "I need a psychiatrist or something."

On Wednesday, Watson was distraught when she learned of Pasco's arrest. She stood on her front steps smoking a cigarette and staring at the sheriff's cars parked in the street.

"He didn't do it," she said. "She was his friend. E.J. doesn't have the heart to do something like that."

Everyone, she said, was telling him he needed to get a lawyer to protect himself after entering Mrs. Robie's home. Pasco had said he ran to Mrs. Robie's assistance when he saw flames in her house. The elderly woman was on the kitchen floor, Pasco said, and he rolled her over before realizing she was dead.

Watson said Pasco had a good job at a telemarketing company and "wasn't a crackhead." Her friend, Trisha Petersen, 21, of Dunedin, said Pasco would never harm anyone.

"He takes care of his son," Petersen said, bouncing the crying toddler in her arms. "This is his pride and joy."

But authorities say Pasco made incriminating statements when he was interviewed Wednesday.

One neighbor said he had suspected Pasco all along and was grateful authorities got him out of the neighborhood. John Wolf said that all week, parents on the block have been coming home from work early to make sure their kids aren't alone.

"We fingered him from the moment it happened," Wolf said.

Pasco's parents live in Odessa, and his father is bishop of the Triumphant Holiness Church of God in Oldsmar. His parents said their son's arrest was heartbreaking.

They said if the charges are true, their son's drug addiction is to blame.

"We are good Christians, that's what makes this so hard," said his father, Joseph Pasco. "Our hearts go out to the victim's family."

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