Two brothers die along with car dealership

Source: AP

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Two brothers die along with car dealership
Pennsylvania auto business collapses from recession and two owners are among casualties.
Ramit Plushnick-Mast / Associated Press


LIGONIER, Pa . -- Third-generation car dealers Gregory and Randolph Graham watched helplessly over the past year as their business collapsed under the weight of the recession. Now the Graham brothers are gone.

Gregory, 61, went out to the dealership lot in the middle of the night last month, set fire to some of his vehicles and died of a heart attack next to the burning wreckage. Then, over the weekend, Randolph, 51, was found dead, slumped over the wheel of his car in what may have been a suicide.

In this western Pennsylvania town of 1,700, residents say the Grahams were victims of the economy, crushed by tight credit, plunging sales and more than $1 million in state and federal tax liens against the business.

"To feel like they were so backed into a corner that that was the only way out is just horrible," said Rachel Roehrig, who went to school with the brothers and is now director of the area Chamber of Commerce.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090325/AUTO01/903250343/&imw=Y

One of the most bizarre movies you will ever see with Johnny Depp and Jerry Louis...the European director, Emir Kusturica had little actual exposure to American life and culture making it seem somewhat avant guarde and downright bizarre at times.

Jerry Louis plays a Caddy dealer who is going out of business and dies because nobody is buying Caddies anymore anyways. Sort of a death of a phase that defined America in America.

This seems the same on a larger scale.

Did these 2 sacrifice enough?

heart attack, the other guy committed suicide. WHY? Was this all they had in life, some kind of weird need to sell vehicles??? They didn't have any personal savings or property or even by gaud a family that stood by them even when times were hard??? The tax liens, why were there tax liens? Seems to me someone was cheating on everything they had and it caught up to them.

Most businessmen have some kind of weird need to do the thing they invested their whole life in doing. That's how it works.

After all, they went to selling school and colleges are not cheap. :(

...despite their best efforts, leaving their families in crushing debt?

I can understand wanting to find any way possible out of that.

that his kids don't understand that they are in enormous debt..those cars that sit on the lot are not theirs but margined to the hilt. That was 10 yrs ago. They have always lived in a very modest home. My heart goes out to these brothers

not selling? where have you been?

Inquiring minds want to know!

supplying cars for the annual parade held in celebration of Fort Ligonier, the French and Indian War-era military compound for which the town was named.

Gregory was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Randolph was once a deacon at his Presbyterian church. Both were married for more than 20 years, and they had five children between them.

Often, the Graham brothers would eat lunch with their employees. Sometimes, their sister, Christy Lopushansky, who was also the dealership secretary, would bring brownies.

"It was just like a little family," 52-year-old Dennis Rummel, a former mechanic in the service department, said while sitting at the bar at Ligonier's VFW post"

chances are they had used all of that up trying to save the business. If you aren´t making sales then you can´t pay your taxes and that results in tax liens. The car business has been in trouble for a bit longer than the recession...when gas prices went up people stopped buying cars.

I'm supposed to feel bad for these jackasses why?

he couldn't sell because he was enraged and trapped. you cannot assume that his intention was fraud.

It makes as much sense - if not more - than your odd psychoanalysis. Man in debt, can't sell cars, burn dealership, collect insurance. Happens every day. It's not that complicated.

doubt. what goes around comes around.

you don´t file a claim..he can burn his vehicles if they belong to him he just can´t claim insurance...the story didn´t say anything about an insurance claim.

Come on. Were we all born yesterday?

You're right. Not much compassion here.

A man loses his life's work, snaps in a moment of passion, and all you can do is assume he's committing insurance fraud. Pathetic.

You're a sucker, a mark. God, this guy could sell you a bridge.

:rofl:

Why else would he be setting fire to his inventory?

Did he also snap when he didn't pay his taxes for God knows how many years?

:rofl:

He was burning up his lot as an environmental protest.

:eyes:

his entire life..i have heard of people stripping down houses before they lose them to a corrupt bank that charged double digit interest...why should we be surprised when someone burns their cars to keep them from the repo man?

:wow:

I had worked my entire life for something and lost it to banks...AIG is a very good reason for people to be angry..how many billions did they get while people are starving to death? They could have given every family in the US around 100k instead and it would have cost about the same.

jeezus people, If you don't think I haven't been there with a damn shotgun in my mouth thinking there was no other way to pay the mortgage or electric bill next month, you are wrong. You don't kill yourself because you're in debt, I don't give a fuck how in debt you are, this is why we have family, yeah, family, extended and close or close and extended. Now what did they leave behind? All the questions about why they didnt' talk to anyone, that everyone would have understood and worked it through if they'd only had the chance. Now it's too late, for them, for the people that mattered the most to them. They walked away from the important things in life.

Now throw your stones.

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do this, if you understand the difference. Money problems are solvable, and killing yourself over them is not an appropriate response. Its like saying, YOU DON'T BEAT SMALL CHILDREN OR ANIMALS -- not that people never do it, but its one of the things you SHOULDN'T do.

the one you should be calling a dickhead is the one that had a heart attack while he was setting the cars he ordered on fire. Nothing like a little insurance fraud or the need for some heat in the cold climates, right? Hell, most car dealers do that as a matter of course, correct?

now, if you know so much, how about giving me the powerball numbers for saturday night.

but you knew that. :eyes:

fuck the insurance companies! you don't think they're fraudulent as hell to begin with? you don't think an insurance co. would defraud you in a heartbeat if it could get away with it? didn't we just have our hard-earned tax dollars go to "bonus" payments for insurance company "employees," the "talent" that got us into this depression? that wasn't fraud?
if someone wants to defraud an insurance co., I say, more power to them. I just hope they can get away with it., and I'm truly sorry this guy was driven to that and to dying.

I used to run infomercials for their businesses all night. They never offered specific prices for specific used cars. Their infomercials repeated the same messages for 28 minutes a shot:

* I'm a great guy.
* I love you.
* Buy from me.

Some added other messages like "I like to dance around in a goofy costume and make stupid jokes," or "I can holler more than anyone you ever knew."

Again, I don't know anything about these specific car dealers. But I think that car dealers are stuck in certain bad patterns of operation. Glittering generalities, stroking one's own egos and repeating your name doesn't inspire trust. Something more concrete might offering exact prices for specific cars, and publicly-published warranties, would make them seem more trustworthy.

I know this can't solve a bad economy or give people the loan money they need, but it might make car dealers able to look at themselves in the mirror without flinching. Or feeling that they did wrong enough that suicide and self-destruction is the only way out.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette carried just short articles on the subject, The Johnstown Tribune Democrat and Somerset Daily American Carried the same Associated Press as did the Detroit paper. The only exception is the Tribune Review do more to the fact Liognier is in Westmoreland County whose County Seat is Greensburg then anything else. Furthermore while the Tribune Review carried more articles on the deaths, no further facts were revealed, just longer articles and pictures of one of the brothers BEFORE he died.

Greensburg Tribune Review:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/mostread/s_617170.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_612220.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_617460.html

Human race? I want a divorce. Now.

Wow. Just wow.

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If there is such a thing as reincarnation,

I don't want to come back as a human.

ANTS are more civilized than we are.

Something to ponder. . .

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I understand somewhat the desperation that leads some of to wish ourselves dead - been there.

But I have an overwhelming desire to outlive some people so I can spit on their graves

or whatever.

It is definitely not the best reason to keep on living,

but it keeps me motivated to take care of myself.

what part of "died of a heart attack" means suicide?

From some of these responses, it seems like the assumption is that both brothers decided to kill themselves.

Yes, the second brother "may" have killed himself, the article doesn't make that clear. But jeez, he'd just lost his brother and the family business. When did we become so judgemental of people who are obviously hurting?

DU never ceases to disappoint...

just sad