Case Has Defendant, but Victim Is Missing

Prosecutor Greg Walden has a crime: the attempted murder of a man inside a 7-Eleven store in Oceanside.

He has a suspect, arrested less than a mile away.

He has witnesses: clerks and customers who watched and cowered as the victim was knifed 10 to 12 times in the head, neck and torso.

Walden even has a videotape of the attack, from the store security camera.

What he doesn’t have is a victim. The unidentified man, perhaps a transient, literally walked out of the store, blood gushing from his neck, and hasn’t been seen since. Nor has he turned up in the morgue or the hospitals.

But Walden doesn’t need a victim to prosecute this attempted murder case. The defendant, Rodney Lee Graham, 24, of Carlsbad, has been ordered to stand trial. He is being held on $250,000 bail.

If a body does turn up, the charge would be first-degree murder, said Walden, a San Diego County deputy district attorney.

“He could very well be lying out below some bush or drainage culvert, dead,” said Walden. “Nobody has seen this guy. He simply vanished. He may have gotten in a car and driven off somewhere.”

Still, there is plenty of evidence, including the videotape. From that and witnesses’ accounts, Walden offers this replay of what happened about 5:30 p.m. Dec. 6:

“You see people purchasing milk and cigarettes and beer and next you see the victim walking into the store, asking for help. He said someone’s pursuing him from outside. Then you see Mr. Graham coming in from the parking lot, pulling a knife from (behind) his back, jumping on top of the victim and stabbing him in the upper thigh.

“At one point, Mr. Graham says, ‘I want my money,’ or something to that effect. And the victim says, ‘You can have the money. It’s up your ass.’ . . . The victim then goes behind the service counter where the clerks are, trying to get away or get help, and Mr. Graham pursues him, knocks him down and begins to stab him again, right at the clerks’ feet.”

“The victim assumes the fetal position on the ground and the defendant straddles him with his legs, sits on his chest and repeatedly stabs him, 10 to 12 times, with a sheath knife. . . . The people inside the store were in shock. They couldn’t believe it. They tried at first to pull the suspect away from the man, but when they saw he had a knife, everyone ran for cover.

“Then the defendant gets up, walks out the store, and the next thing you see is the victim staggering toward the door. The witnesses said there was blood gushing from his neck. The victim asked, ‘Am I going to die?’

“They told him to lie down and they’d get help, but he walks out the door and when they go out to look for him, he’s gone, vanished.”

Someone in the store called police, who found the suspect less than a mile away.

Authorities have searched and found no sign of the victim, Walden said.

Prosecutors will try to enlarge and enhance a frame of the videotape to see whether its publication will bring leads about the victim’s identity.