7-Eleven clerk stabbed at Troy store talks about terrifying attack

TROY, Mich. (WJBK) - An altercation between a clerk and customer took a violent turn in Troy.

What ended in a stabbing started with an argument over customer service - now the victim who narrowly survived has some words for his attacker.

"If it was a matter of disrespect, you could've left and it would've been said and done," said Joe Cain. "Instead you kept coming back."

And because Cain wasn't getting some cigarettes and Lotto tickets quick enough, the 30-year-old says the customer, 49-year-old Allan Adams of Macomb, stabbed him in the gut with a knife he had hanging around his neck.

"He came back twice," Cain said. "One to tell me I was doing a bad job and he came back again to tell me how he was going to threaten my life. Then he came back again to tell me a third time and actually stab me."

The stabbing happened early Thursday morning at the 7-Eleven on Crooks and Wattles. Cain says he was walking Adams to his car after he returned a third time to cuss him out.

"He was like you're an (f-ing) a-hole I'm going to beat your (expletive)," Cain said.

There were words, but Cain says, no physical fight, then he felt the knife.

"I felt this sharp pain in my side," he said. "I was like wow, just in shock that he stabbed me. Of all things, you stabbed me."

The blade narrowly missed his organs.

"He lunged at me, then stood there for a minute and looked at me before he pulled out," Cain said. "That's what caught me. He was just so calm about it, and walked away."

The scar on his left side is where Cain had to have emergency surgery to stop some internal bleeding. He posted video from the hospital to let his friends know he was okay.

Cain is well on his way to making a full recovery. Meanwhile the alleged stabber, who was quickly arrested during a traffic stop, has been released on a $2,500 bond after being charged with felonious assault.

"Maybe he should've stayed in jail a little while longer at least until his trial," Cain said. "What's to say he's not going to come back to finish the job or make sure I was taught a lesson, or whatever the case may be?"

Cain says he's getting closer to feeling physically up to going back to work, but is worried because he doesn't know where this man is, or what he might do now.