Valerijs Grigorjevs Committed A Heinous Crime, Paid For It The Same Day

Valerijs Grigorjevs committed a heinous crime, apparently in a fit of rage, at a bad boss who argued with him over $35 in pay — but Grigorjevs paid the ultimate price for his crime on the very same day he committed it.

The tragedy happened last October 11, in England. Grigorjevs worked for a car wash and valet service owned by Ibrahim Yousef, of Boscombe, a coastal town in the country’s southeast. Reportedly, Yousef employed a number of Eastern European immigrants in his car wash business, paying them the not-very respectable wages of about £25 per day. That’s about 40 bucks in American money.

Grigorjevs, originally from Latvia, was one such employee. But on October 11 of 2013, he failed to show up for work. Yousef, a 42-yer-old native of Iraq, called him demanding to know why. Soon the 27-year-old Latvian arrived at Yousef’s home and the two began arguing loudly.

The information about what then took place comes from the coroner’s inquest into the death of Yousef, an inquiry which was just completed this week. The inquest heard the accounts of neighbors who said they heard “thudding” coming from Yousef’s residence, and loud, angry arguments over what appeared to be a sum of £20, or about $35.

“I heard, ‘Give me my money, give me my money’ in an aggressive tone,” one neighbor, who was not named publicly, told the inquest. But the neighbor was not certain if it was Grigorjevs demanding money from Yousef, or the other way around.

At some point, the argument turned violent. Extremely violent. Blinded by rage at Yousef’s refusal to pay the relatively small sum, Grigorjevs grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed Yousef five times. He also slammed Yousef’s head against the floor.

Realizing that he had killed his boss, Girgorjevs stole Yousef’s Toyota Yaris automobile and fled — driving “aimlessly” into the night, police said.

But early the next morning, Grigorjevs swerved the small car straight into the path of an oncoming truck. He served his own death sentence, just hours after the murder.

The driver of the truck, Brian Linham, had never been in an accident in 50 years of driving, and told the inquest that he had no idea what Grigorjevs was doing driving in his lane.

The coroner’s inquest was not able to determine whether Grigorjevs intended to commit suicide by car, but toxicology tests showed that Valerijs Grigorjevs had multiple sense-impairing drugs coursing through his system at the time of his deadly crash, including heroin, cocaine, methadone and amphetamines.

At the time, police had no idea what happened. But when they traced the ownership of the Yaris back to Yousef, they paid a call on him at his residence. There, they found him bloodied and dead on the floor.

Though he he will obviously never stand trial, Valerjis Grigorjevs is considered by police the only suspect in the death of Ibrahim Yousef.