A Pacific Beach man was ordered Aug. 2 to stand trial for murder in the beating death of a homeless man who lived in the Point Loma area. Shane Brian Grattan, 56, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Darrin Joseph, 45, whose body was found Jan. 19 in some bushes in the 4900 block of North Harbor Drive. A trial date will be set Aug. 24. According to testimony heard by San Diego Superior Court Judge Amalia Meza over two days, Joseph was apparently beaten inside Grattan\u2019s camper and his body was dragged into the bushes where a passerby discovered it. “His body was so badly battered,” said Tracy Guaderrama, a San Diego Police Department homicide detective. Dr. Steve Campman, a deputy medical examiner, testified Grattan suffered from some type of blunt force trauma injuries to the head, neck and chest. Autopsy photos of the victim were also displayed. Deputy District Attorney Amy Maund said she didn\u2019t know of a motive for the slaying. The victim\u2019s blood was found throughout Grattan\u2019s van, although most of it had been cleaned up. Deborah Blackwell, a police criminalist, testified someone used water to clean or dissolve the blood in the van. “It wasn\u2019t a complete cleanup since there was some blood left behind,” said Blackwell. Grattan was arrested Feb. 8 in Pacific Beach at a facility where the homeless often get meals. He apparently lived in his van. Bail remains at $1 million.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Pacific Beach man was ordered Aug. 2 to stand trial for murder in the beating death of a homeless man who lived in the Point Loma area. Shane Brian Grattan, 56, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Darrin Joseph, 45, whose body was found Jan. 19 in some bushes in the 4900 block […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Trial ordered in slaying of homeless Point Loma man","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}