Police launched a massive manhunt on Tuesday for a violent sex offender and career criminal suspected in the horrific Queens fire that killed an FDNY paramedic’s elderly parents.
Jamel McGriff, 42, an ex-con on parole with a history of career arrests, has been identified as a suspect in the brutal deaths of Maureen Olton, 78, and her husband, Frank Thomas Olton, 76, who was discovered bound to a pole in the basement with multiple stab wounds after their Bellerose home was set on fire Monday, according to police and law enforcement sources.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated that McGriff is “armed and dangerous” and has a 30-year criminal history.
“The suspect’s MO is to go door to door, asking for some kind of assistance until he can gain entry,” Tisch said.
“Investigators for the NYPD and our partners on the Regional Fugitive Task Force are working around the clock to locate and to apprehend Mr. McGriff,” she told the crowd. “We appreciate the public’s and the media’s assistance here.”
Tisch said the suspected killer entered the 254th Street home via a backdoor around 10:15 a.m. Monday and was caught on surveillance footage fleeing after terrorizing the elderly victims for nearly five hours.
According to sources, Frank Olton was doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze, while both victims were stabbed repeatedly.
Fire alarms went off 14 minutes later, prompting firefighters to respond to the blaze.
Maureen Olton’s body was discovered on the first floor, and her husband in the basement, where he had been chained and lifeless before the fire, according to sources.
Tragically, police said their first responder son was alerted to the fire at his parents’ home and was present when it was extinguished.
McGriff served nearly 17 years of a 20-year sentence in state prison for robbery, sex act, and assault in 2006, and was still on parole when he was released in 2023, according to state corrections records.
McGriff robbed a 34-year-old man at knifepoint on a F train on November 12, 2005, stealing a $200 watch and $40 in cash, according to sources.
The fiend was also convicted of molesting a 23-year-old female employee at knifepoint inside a business on 16th Street and Seventh Avenue on November 21, 2005, and was scheduled to be released on parole until at least next year. He also stole around $300 from the store, according to police.
He was arrested on December 2 of that year and charged with criminal sex act, burglary, robbery, and sexual abuse.
However, despite failing to register as a sex offender after his release, police said he remains free and is the prime suspect in at least two robberies in New York City since his release.
In July, he allegedly walked into a GameStop on 125th Street in Manhattan with a gun and stole money, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
On August 31, McGriff allegedly forced an employee at a Verizon store on Sixth Avenue into a back room at gunpoint, only for the victim to realize it was a fake gun and chase him away.
It is unclear why McGriff was not jailed for a parole violation, despite the sex registry violation and suspected robberies.
Officials from the state Department of Correction and Community Supervision did not immediately respond to a request.
“[McGriff] had been checking in regularly [with his parole officer,]” according to Kenny. “And this parole officer actually did a great job for us, not on one, but on two occasions, because he also did the identification for us for the robbery that took place in the confines of the 13th Precinct, which was the Verizon store.”
