YOUNGSTOWN — The three employees working at the Burger King on McCartney Road in Campbell the night it was robbed Oct. 28, 2018, testified Wednesday they recognized the voice of one of the robbers as former restaurant shift manager Israel Graham.

Each took the witness stand and gave much the same answer: The man’s face was not visible, but the man spoke to them or near them, and they recognized his voice.

Graham left the restaurant’s employment two weeks earlier.

Graham, 23, is charged with aggravated robbery, robbing a safe and three counts of kidnapping. He is accused of being one of two men who arrived just before closing and robbed the restaurant of about $2,000.

The three employees, a former girlfriend and two police officers testified during the first day of the trial, which resumes today in the courtroom of Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

It is the first jury trial at the courthouse since November because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first witness was Nechelle Caban, who also was shift manager at the time of the robbery.

She was near the employee break room when the two males came into the restaurant. One put a gun to her head and took her to the manager’s office, where the safe is located. Two other female employees were in the office. He was wearing a reddish sweatshirt.

During her testimony, prosecutors played surveillance video showing the suspect moving her into the office and Caban kneeling down and moving money from the safe into a bag. It took a minute or so to empty the safe.

At some point, the fourth employee working that night, Donte Shaw, was forced into the manager’s office. He had been in the kitchen, but the second suspect ordered him into the office.

Caban said she heard the voice of the second suspect say, “Don’t point that at them.” She didn’t know why the man said that, but she recognized the voice, she said.

KNEW THAT VOICE

“How did you recognize that voice?” Assistant Prosecutor Aaron Meikle asked.

“It was a recognizable voice. I heard it before,” she said.

“How well did you know this person?” Meikle asked.

“Not well. It was strictly work related,” she said.

“Whose voice was it you heard?” Meikle asked.

“Israel’s,” she said of the defendant, clarifying a second later “Israel Graham.”

She then identified Graham in the courtroom.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Ed Hartwig, Cabal agreed that she did not see the man she believed to be Graham, only heard his voice. She said she worked with Graham for about a year.

Shaw testified that when he saw a man in black “jump over the counter” with a knife, he thought it was a joke, but realized it wasn’t a joke when he told him to open the cash register. Shaw didn’t know how to open the register because he was a cook. The robber got someone else to open the register and put Shaw in the office, he said.

Shaw said when the robber spoke to him, he recognized his voice as being Graham, a former manager.

OBSTRUCTION

Tyrica Stephens, 20, another of the women working that night, testified that she was indicted on similar charges as Graham but cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty last year to felony obstructing official business and expects to get no prison time.

She was in a relationship with Graham at the time of the robbery, she said. He told her a few days in advance that he was going to rob the restaurant, she said. He gave her $400 as “hush money” after it was over, $200 less than he promised her, she testified.

Another witness was Aliza Patterson, a student at Kent State University, who said she and Graham had been dating about a year at the time of the robbery. She said Graham came to her apartment the night of the robbery but she does not know for sure what time.

“He wanted me to say he was with me at home while I was doing homework at the time of the robbery,” she said. It would have been a lie, she said.