The career criminal accused of killing a Queens couple allegedly tried to rob a Verizon store weeks before the double homicide – but ran off after a struggle with the clerk who now wishes he had “dropped his a–.”
The store worker described coming face to face with suspect Jamel McGriff inside a Sixth Avenue location in Manhattan on Aug. 31 – and ultimately chased him away when the victim realized the gun McGriff allegedly brandished was fake.
“The thing is, the general policy for any retail location is just give them what they want, everything’s insured,” the worker, who did not want to be named, told The Post.
“He just picked literally the one employee in the whole damn company that’s just like, ‘No, motherf–ker. Unless you have a real gun pointed at me, I’m not giving you jack.’”
McGriff, a sex offender with a laundry list of past busts, allegedly stabbed and torched Frank and Maureen Olton inside their Queens home Monday before going on a spending spree with the victims’ credit cards.
The stolen card charges — at a Macy’s and the Regal Cinema in Times Square — helped lead cops to the accused killer, who they finally found and arrested Wednesday night.
Eagle-eyed officers spotted McGriff thanks to real-time updates cops were getting on his location and appearance, according to sources.
The suspected perp was only out of prison for two years after he spent 17 behind bars, but allegedly continued a trail of law-breaking following his release.
When McGriff walked into the Verizon store, he raised red flags right away, the worker recalled.
But the clerk believed it might be only an instance of fraud until McGriff allegedly followed him to the back of the store, where a safe was located.
“Right as I opened the safe, he said, ‘I’ve got a gun. Give me the f–king phones.’ I was like ‘No.’ I put the phones back in the safe and closed the safe right in front of him, and was like, ‘Go away,’” he recalled.
“He kept on threatening to shoot me. I caught a glimpse of his hand and saw shiny plastic, which clued me in that he didn’t have a real gun.”
Soon, the two started brawling as the worker tried to grab the possible weapon with his left hand, which he later saw had black paint all over it. The clerk said as he started pummeling the suspect, the alleged robber quickly whimpered off.
“After the first punch, he screamed, ‘It’s fake, it’s fake, the gun’s not real,’” the clerk said. “He didn’t even fight back. After four or five punches, he managed to break away and ran out of the store with me chasing after him, going ‘Get the f–k back here!’”
The store worker said now that McGriff is allegedly connected to the gruesome double murder in Queens, he has one major regret.
“I wish I had actually dropped his a–, so the cops could have carted him off, rather than getting away. That way, the couple might still be alive and have no idea,” he said.
“Was it scary because this guy went out and killed people afterwards? No. I generally just don’t do fear. But at the same time, this guy, literally to me, at least in our fight, was a p—y.”
McGriff was released from prison in 2023 after serving time for robbery, sex act and attempted assault, but never registered as a sex offender and is suspected of being involved in another robbery, records show. It’s unclear why the parolee wasn’t hit with a violation.
Loved ones and neighbors of Frank and Maureen Olton remembered the elderly couple as two of the nicest people they knew.
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