FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) — A Coral Springs man accused of beating his wife to death and dumping her body in a lake was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, Wednesday afternoon.
Sixty-seven-year-old Munawar Toha lowered his head and showed no emotion as Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson sentenced him to life in prison for the March 30, 2010 murder of his wife, Surya Sari-Prihatin.
Jurors said, although there was no DNA evidence linking Toha to the crime, the circumstantial evidence to convict him of first-degree murder was irrefutable. “The evidence as a whole came together,” said juror Shirley Bass.
“We went through all the evidence again. We asked to see the grainy video,” Bass said, referring to the surveillance footage showing Toha driving his wife’s car on the night of the murder.
The video also shows the defendant taking a bicycle out of the trunk, then pushing the car with Sari-Prihatin’s lifeless body inside the lake. “I don’t think we were looking for anything specific, but like I said, circumstantial evidence, the business with the bicycle, the video, how the car went into the water, I mean, it was disturbing, but it all kind of came together,” said Bass.
Shortly after the murder, Toha begged for his wife’s safe return during a tearful plea at a news conference. “We miss you, we love you. Surya, your children miss you, please come home,” he said as he broke down.
“It was the right verdict; I think it was a just verdict,” said prosecutor Tom Coleman. “There’s definitely a feeling of accomplishment and that we’ve done something, and we’ve resolved it, and the bad guy’s going to prison.”
Toha is already serving a 30-year term on a related conspiracy charge.