Jury finds man guilty in 2017 Catskill slaying

Self-defense argument fails to sway panel in fatal shooting case

A man charged with killing a romantic rival told a Greene County jury he accidentally shot the man twice — with two different weapons — before entombing him in concrete, as a twisted love triangle came to a violent end in January 2017.

Despite Carlos Graham’s insistence he used the handgun and shotgun in self-defense, the jury on Friday found him guilty of second-degree murder for killing Brandyn Dayne Foster, according to the Daily Mail in Catskill.

Foster, 31, the son of the renowned jazz drummer Al Foster, was a rapper who had built a fan base of his own. He was the father of a 10-year-son, Jazzon.

Graham was also found guilty of two felony counts of possession of a weapon, grand larceny, concealment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, according to the report.

Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione said he will pursue the maximum sentence for all the charges.

“This was a horrific crime,” Stanzione told the Daily Mail. “It’s something you don’t see in Greene County, and something we never want to see again.”

Graham’s sentencing is set for 11 a.m. April 2.

The verdict was the result of a two-year saga that began the night of Jan. 26, 2017.

Graham, 32, and Foster were once close friends, according to Stanzione. Then Graham began dating Foster’s former girlfriend, Sade Knox. All three lived next to each other on Tool House Road in Catskill.

The bad blood came to a head when Foster, who lived at 126 Tool House Road, walked over to Knox’s new home at 124 Tool House Road. Graham had recently moved out of his home at 128 Tool House Road.

Graham testified that Foster came over armed with a shotgun to confront Knox over her affair with Graham and became violent with her, according to the report.

Graham’s attorney, Shane Zoni, told jurors that his client feared for his life and shot Foster to save his own life.

“My client, Carlos Graham, did not murder Brandyn Foster,” Zoni said at the trial. “He did not plan to kill Brandyn Foster. The only thing he planned in the early morning hours of Jan. 27 was to survive.”

But the prosecution laid out a case showing the killing was premeditated and that Graham’s claim that the shooting was accidental relied on a series of near-impossible actions.

On Jan. 26, Graham, Knox and a friend, Ashton Adams, bought a revolver from a Hudson drug dealer, Byrce Hallback. Hallback, who pleaded guilty to federal drug crimes last year, testified she gave the group the gun because Graham was afraid of Foster, according to the report.

Prosecutors said that night Adams and Graham hid in a closet in Knox’s bedroom while Knox texted Foster to lure him over to her house.

Graham testified that he did not call police to report the domestic dispute because he believed it would take too long for them to arrive.

Instead, Graham jumped out of the closet when Foster walked into Knox’s bedroom and told the jury that while in the air he accidentally shot him twice, once with the revolver and a second time with a sawed-off shotgun after Foster pointed a gun at him.

After shooting him, Graham hit Foster over the head with the butt of the gun, breaking it in half. Foster was not wearing pants or shoes when he was shot, according to the report.

Graham admitted that he cut away the blood-stained carpet, padding and flooring before shoving Foster’s body and the guns into the crawl space below. He then covered the body in 9 inches of concrete, telling the jury he didn’t think anyone would believe that the shooting was in self-defense.

Foster’s mother, Bonnie Steinberg of Woodstock, reported him missing four days after he was last seen alive in January 2017. Steinberg had been close to Knox and believed the tale Knox fabricated about Foster going into hiding due to a dangerous situation. Knox warned Steinberg that revealing Foster’s location would put him in more peril.

Investigators got warrants to eavesdrop on Graham, Knox and Ashton Adams.

“We believed listening in on these people would help us find Brandyn,” Stanzione said last year.

Stanzione said the culprits drove Foster’s car to a Connecticut casino, telling his mother that he had fled New York. But when investigators reviewed the casino security cameras, Foster’s former friends were in full view but he was nowhere in sight.

State Police investigators searched for Foster’s body on Tool House Road in October 2017 and returned there to find his remains on Feb. 6, 2018. Graham was arrested a week later.