Beloved elderly NYC couple pictured for first time days after alleged slaying by career criminal
This is the beloved slain couple who were tied up, stabbed and set on fire in their Queens home this week.
A photo obtained by The Post shows Frank Olton, 76, and his wife Maureen Olton, 77, whose burnt bodies were found in their modest house in Bellerose Monday.
The couple’s son, an FDNY EMT, learned of the fire because of his parents’ home alarm system and alerted authorities, police said.
A manhunt was launched for the suspect, career criminal Jamel McGriff, 42, who was busted in Times Square on Wednesday after using the couple’s credit cards to go on a spending spree, including at the movies and Macy’s.
Police said he asked to come into the Oltons’ home to charge his phone — and then turned on the generous pair, torturing them for hours.
A small memorial stood outside the Oltons’ home Thursday, with flowers and candles.
“There are no words. There really are no words,” neighbor Maryanne Morrison told The Post. “May he get what he deserves.”
McGriff, a parolee who served more than 20 years behind bars before his release in 2023, was hit with a laundry list of charges tied to the killing of the beloved couple on Thursday.
When he was arrested, he chillingly told police, “I’ll admit it. I killed them. I don’t give a f–k. I burned them n—s,” prosecutors revealed at his arraignment late Thursday night.
Assistant District Attorney John Esposito recounted the “horrifying and shocking” details of the couple’s murder to the packed Queens criminal courtroom.
“He tied Mr. Olton to a pole in the basement… stabbed him in the chest and in the neck multiple times killing him,” the ADA said, noting McGriff then allegedly set fire to his chest.
He then set the upstairs of the Oltons’ Bellerose home ablaze, causing an “inferno,” Esposito detailed.
“Maureen Olten was badly, badly burned… unrecognizable,” he said, adding she was tragically alive for at least part of the time that the flames raged on.
She suffered thermal burns, a fractured larynx – a possible sign of strangulation — and “soot in her trachea,” prosecutors revealed.
Toxicology results are currently pending to reveal Maureen’s official cause of death.
Fire Marshals determined both fires in the home were set intentionally after locating fire-starting materials inside the Queens abode.
Just three hours after the ghastly killings, at around 6 p.m., McGriff was tracked to a Macy’s. He was caught on video buying $500 worth of clothing at the department store, then “incredulously creating a Macy’s account in his name,” the ADA said, audibly gasping.
By the next day, the alleged killer was tracked to an ATM in the Bronx, where he exchanged two phones belonging to Frank Olton for cash, the officials testified at his arraignment hearing.
On the day of the arrest, McGriff was caught on camera “reclining in a movie seat” after buying tickets with the Oltons’ credit card. He went to the Regal movie theater in Union Square, where he watched “Light of the World,” law enforcement sources said.
McGriff has 11 prior convictions, including four for violent felonies, prosecutors said.
He was out of prison for more than a year after a 20-year sentence when the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision received word from the NYPD that the career criminal failed to register his address as required on the sex offender registry in 2024, a department spokesman said.
But instead of being slapped with a parole violation, he continued to walk free until he was busted for the shocking double murder.
McGriff is still facing a charge from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office over the alleged sex offender registry rule-breaking, but was released pending trial because the felony count isn’t bail eligible under the state’s criminal justice reforms.
He quit his job last Thursday and did not show up to the shelter where he may have been living and working, it was revealed in court.
McGriff also has had four previous failures to appear in court and several bench warrants.
Before his arraignment, Motormouth McGriff spewed vile nonsense as he was led in handcuffs out of an NYPD stationhouse by detectives on his way to court.
About 10 community members gathered to heckle him.
“F–k you!” one woman shouted back at a ranting McGriff. “Someone should burn you alive.”
Judge Sharifa Nasser-Cuellar ordered McGriff to be held without bail on 18 charges, including murder, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, and identity theft related to the shocking slayings.
McGriff will return to court on Tuesday.
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