Something’s Missing : Trail Has Defendant, Attorneys, Judge-but Not a Victim

Everybody relevant to Rodney Lee Graham’s trial on a charge of attempted murder was in Vista Superior Court on Thursday for the first day of the hearing.

Everyone but the victim, that is. No one knows where he is or who he is.

James Douglas Monostero was a clerk at the 7-Eleven store where Graham allegedly stabbed an unknown man repeatedly last December while customers milled around the store and a store security camera caught the attack on tape.

After the attack, the victim stumbled out of the store at Via Las Rosas and El Camino Real in Oceanside and has never been seen again.

Monostero, the first witness in the trial before Judge David B. Moon Jr., testified that a thin Asian man with long black hair frantically ran into the store at 5:20 p.m. on Dec. 6, while the store was still busy with customers.

“He said there was somebody out front harassing him. He obviously seemed scared,” Monostero said.

Seconds later, Graham rushed in, banging into the store’s glass double doors, and began punching the Asian man, demanding money from him, Monostero testified.

After knocking the Asian man down and cornering him, Graham produced a white-handled 4-inch knife and repeatedly stabbed the man in the head, neck and chest, the witness said.

“Graham kept saying, ‘I want my money, I want my money,’ ” Monostero said. “It was almost as though he were tenderizing a piece of meat, (Graham) just kept stabbing him.

“The Asian male then said he didn’t know where his money is, but then he said, ‘I’ve got your money,’ ” Monostero said. “Graham said, ‘Yeah, you got my money, it’s up your

(buttocks).’ ”

Graham then stabbed the man in the buttocks, Monostero said.

When another clerk yelled at Graham that everything was being caught on a security camera, Graham took off his sweater and ran out of the store, Monostero said.

Seconds later, the videotape showed the victim walking down the aisle of the store.

“I saw blood gushing from his neck, and there was blood on the side of his head. It looked like a small geyser . . . . blood was just pouring out,” Monostero said.

“He seemed really out of it. . . . and he looked at me and said, ‘Am I going to die?’ I told him to sit out front and that the ambulance will be here soon,” Monostero said.

But, after the man walked out the door, two minutes after he came in, no one saw him again.

Authorities have scoured morgues and hospitals in San Diego County and neighboring counties and put up flyers in the area asking for help, but to no avail, Oceanside police detective Brian Whitbread said outside the courtroom.

In murder cases, bodies occasionally are missing, since murderers sometimes try to hide them, Whitbread said. But, in this case, Graham had no chance to hide a body, since he was caught less than half an hour after the attack occurred, and it is not clear that anyone is dead, he said.

“If I knew where he was, I’d have him here. We followed the blood trail from the store, and it ended at a Silo parking lot,” Whitbread said.

Outside the courtroom, Whitbread speculated that the Graham’s attack was the result of a drug deal gone awry and said that Graham had a history of drug-related offenses.

Public defender William Saunders during his opening statement said that the dispute was over money for alcohol.

“My client had been drinking alcohol at That Pizza Place. He met this person, the victim, at the Laundromat, which is adjacent to the 7-Eleven, and the victim had agreed to buy him beer, and (Graham) gave him $20 for that purchase,” Saunders said.

“The victim then ran away and the defendant got very angry and went after the victim,” said Saunders, who is arguing for a lesser charge such as attempted voluntary manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon.

Asked outside the courtroom why his 24-year-old client would give money to a stranger to buy alcohol, Saunders replied that the motive was not relevant, but that Graham’s state of mind was the most important factor.

“There is no evidence of malice or a manifest attempt to kill here, only actions that might produce that result,” Saunders said.