Killer of Realtor in Ravenna calls crime justified

By Michael Sangiacomo

Plain Dealer Reporter

Ravenna

In the warped thinking of Robert Grigelaitis, justice had to be served: Two men had cost him his $80,000 life savings and suffered no consequences. For two years they had walked free.

Getting even was Grigelaitis’ obsession. It gnawed at him and ultimately destroyed his life. It also left a real estate agent shot dead in a basement.

“He could not get past losing the $80,000,” Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci said when the Grigelaitis case was over.

“And for that, he murdered a man.”

On Sept. 20, Grigelaitis lured Ravenna real estate agent Andrew VonStein to a home for sale and shot him to death. VonStein had arranged the sale of a Ravenna Township house by owner Richard Doak to Grigelaitis seven years earlier. The house eventually went into foreclosure, costing Grigelaitis his entire investment, but VonStein had nothing to do with that.

Grigelaitis killed him anyway.

Investigators say Grigelaitis aimed to kill Doak at the same time but was unable to arrange a rendezvous because he had the wrong phone number for Doak. Doak declined to be interviewed for this story.

A month after the murder, Grigelaitis surprised everyone by pleading guilty to murdering VonStein, a crime for which he remains unrepentant.

“He has no remorse,” said Vigluicci. “He was willing to pay the price for what he has done. He is unbelievably cold and calculating.”

And yet Grigelaitis apparently follows his own code of justice.

Portage County Sheriff David Doak, a distant cousin of Richard Doak’s, learned about Grigelaitis’ personal code of ethics during an interview.

“We were talking about the murder and I asked him if he had robbed anyone,” said Doak. “I mean, he was on the run. He had no money and he had a gun. I asked if he used it to rob anyone, since we knew he was desperate.”

Doak said he’ll never forget the reaction.

“He was really offended that we would even suggest it,” he said. “He said something like he could not believe we would think he would do such a thing. He looked stunned that we would ask.”

Doak said he reminded Grigelaitis that he had just killed a man.

“He said that was different, that VonStein had done something to him,” Doak said.

The seething hatred Grigelaitis held for Doak and VonStein was born in 2006 when a house Grigelaitis and his wife Shirley purchased on a land contract three years earlier in Ravenna Township went into foreclosure. They lived in Florida but had a son dying of brain cancer in Ravenna. They bought the house for $120,000 after one walk-through so she could spend time with her son. Grigelaitis stayed in Florida where he had a girlfriend, Vigluicci said.

The son died about three months after Shirley Grigelaitis moved here.