Update: Mother is grateful ‘monster’ who killed daughter is convicted

A Stanislaus County jury delivered a murder conviction Friday for the man who stabbed his girlfriend to death and buried her in a shallow grave by Johansen High School in Modesto.

The jury found Anthony Coxum, 40, guilty of killing Eldoris Graham, whose body was found under a pedestrian bridge near the school in January 2013.

“This does not bring my daughter back, but I am just so grateful that that monster, a waste of human space, will never be on the streets to kill again,” Graham’s mother, Kathie Patterson, said by phone from her home in Nebraska, shortly after the verdict. “This day has brought some closure, but he changed my life forever.”

Patterson came to Modesto as a traveling nurse and encouraged Graham to move with her because she thought she’d have better opportunities finding work than in her home state of Michigan. She did find work at a Burger King but also started dating Coxum. They moved in together almost right away, Patterson said.

“The only fault that my daughter had was falling in love with him,” she said.

Graham, 28, had been stabbed in her jugular vein, a lung and her face, her mouth gagged with cloth and duct tape wrapped around her head, neck and hands. A prosecutor on Thursday told a jury that some stab wounds were 4 inches deep, and some wounds occurred when she was stabbed through the duct tape.

She was last seen alive Dec. 13, 2012, and her body was discovered about a month later.

Following Graham’s disappearance Coxum took her car and drove to North Carolina, where he showed up at a friend’s home. That friend testified during the trial that Coxum told him, “That b---- dead, man. That b---- in the ground.” This was before Graham’s body was discovered.

The crime scene and murder weapon never were located, but a bottle of bleach was found in Graham’s car.

Patterson said she is appreciative of the work done by the District Attorney’s Office and the Modesto Police Department and for the support of friends and family, some of whom attended the trial when Patterson couldn’t.

Patterson moved back home to Nebraska after her daughter’s murder because the trauma made worse a pre-existing heart condition and high blood pressure. She had planned to attend the trial, but an ice storm in the area prevented her from driving and her health condition prevented her from flying.

She hopes to make it for Coxum’s sentencing on March 7.

“I hope his conscience eats him up every single day,” she said. “I hope he rots in the hell that he created for himself.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2017 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Update: Mother is grateful ‘monster’ who killed daughter is convicted."