10:28 PM - Dear Bob, I never really knew you at all.
I just found out what happened. What you did. This amazes me. I am literally in shock, having a panic attack and not even being able to cry.
I saw you almost every single day for over a year. No matter how I was feeling, your smile always made my day. We would sit and talk for hours about things going on and you always had the best advice anyone has ever given me. I thought of you not as a customer, but my friend. After I left BP I thought about you a lot because you were one of the most genuine people that I had ever met. I even called you to come help me, because I trusted you.
I would not have, for one second, think that you could have done this...to her...to yourself. Reading up and researching I found out about your dark past and just suddenly realized that we had a lot more in common than I thought. This is why you understood me so well. I would never do what you did, but it all stems from that same place. I obviously got better with time, the people who do things like you did saved me from me. I didn't want to do something like you did. I didn't want to hurt myself and especially didn't want to hurt anyone else. Anger. Most people don't realize how it can really take a hold of your life. You let it take Mary's and yours.
I remember the first time I met your kids and could tell that you without a doubt loved those kids unconditionally...but now I think... if you loved them so much, how could you do this?
I also remember the first time that I met Mary. I do believe Angi and I were working together and you were telling us how much you loved her and you were giving her kisses all over. It was so sweet...but now I think... if you loved her so much, how could you kill her?
We went bowling one night. You, Jimmy, Mike, Chelsea and me. I got to see another side of you that made me think even higher of you. You talked to me about my life situation and said you knew exactly how I felt and you held me while I cried that night after getting a horrible horrible phone call.
Linndale? You lied about Linndale, too. You said you quit there to work at Brooklyn. Liar. You were discharged from there for shooting yourself. That is why you were only part time in Brooklyn and had to work at the Cleveland Clinic.
I never would have thought that I would ever in my life meet someone who was capable of doing this. I would like to think of myself as having better judgement than that. But, that goes along with my theory "No matter how well you know someone, you never really know them at all."
You were one of the last people that I would have ever thought to have gone through these things and felt these things. I could never even imagine you dishonoring your badge. You seemed like one of those cops that really wanted to make a difference.
I feel sorry for you Bob. But usually, when someone passes away you think of how much you respected them...I can't this time, Bob. I am sorry. You might have had some problems, but I now know that I never really knew you at all. How can I respect someone I never knew?
I'll pray for your children and Mary's children and family.
You took away a mother from her children and a father from his. Those kids loved you so much Bob,
how could you have done this?
Clinic officer's act portended slaying, suicide
He wounded himself in 2000 as his marriage faltered
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Donna J. Miller
Plain Dealer Reporter
Seven years before he killed himself and his girlfriend, police officer Robert Grzywaczewski shot himself in the chest.
The Cleveland Clinic police force hired him anyway.
Grzywaczewski shot himself in August 2000 while employed by the Linndale Police Department. He recovered physically but was not allowed to return to work without a psychiatric evaluation.
He resigned two months after the shooting, the same day he started work at the Clinic.
Clinic spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said Thursday that a psychological exam is standard for police officer candidates. A psychologist examined Grzywaczewski and deemed him suitable for the job, Sheil said.
She would not say whether the psychologist knew about the suicide attempt.
Sheil said the hospital also performed a background check.
Linndale Police Chief Gary Teske said no one from the Clinic contacted him or requested to see Grzywaczewski's personnel file, which contained a copy of the letter that ordered him to see a psychiatrist after the shooting or lose his job.
Grzywaczewski was living on North Road in Cleveland in 2000. He and his wife, Iris, had four children. She was threatening to leave him.
On Aug. 13 that year, the couple argued. Grzywaczewski grabbed one of the 19 guns in the home, walked into the kitchen where his mother stood and said, "I can't live without her," according to a police report.
He then fired once into the right side of his chest. His 11-year-son was home at the time. Iris wasn't hurt and filed for divorce.
Last year, Grzywaczewski also worked occasionally as an officer in Brooklyn, a spokeswoman said.
On June 2 of this year, police said, Grzywaczewski, 42, struggled with his girlfriend, Mary Lyons, and shot her in the arm and twice in the chest. He then turned the gun on himself, putting a bullet through his heart, in a bedroom at their home on Onaway Oval in Parma.
Lyons was a 27-year-old cardiac nurse at Euclid Hospital and a mother of two children, ages 4 and 5, who were with their father in Mentor when she was killed. Acquaintances said she planned to return to her ex-husband.
Parma police found the bodies at 7 a.m., after one of Grzywaczewski's supervisors at the Clinic called and asked them to check on him. He had not reported to work.
Police psychologist Michael Aamodt at Radford University in Virginia said other officers have attempted suicide and gone on to have solid police careers.
"Psychologists make case-by-case decisions based on how a person is behaving now," Aamodt said. "You can't predict with certainty what someone will do years into the future."
