US auto dealers face tough times
China Daily | Updated: 2009-03-26 07:49
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, too.
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.
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