Sunday, January 17, 2016

Pressure Exerted in a Small Community: The Case of Wayne Frank



A number of posts have referred to kinds of pressure, internal or external, that have kept people from telling what they know about my brother Mark’s death.  One characteristic of a small rural community is that people are closely interconnected by ties of kinship, friendship, and various other social relations and can therefore be reluctant to reveal information that might cause embarrassment or trouble for individuals in their particular circles.  Such internal pressure has undoubtedly been a factor, for instance, in the reticence of so many of Mark’s neighbors to admit that they were fully aware of the fire as it took place or that they were interviewed by the police.

There may be even more overt pressure that would explain the silence of the Holy Cross Club members who will not even admit to being present at the argument between my brother and Ofc. Mark Marowski.  As mentioned in several posts, that altercation resulted in Marowski calling in to the Salamanca police and having my brother arrested for DWI the day before his truck fire.  This post reveals direct pressure on one particular individual who was on the scene of Mark’s truck fire.

Wayne Frank was on the scene as chief of the nearby Kill Buck, New York, fire department (see post of September 22, 2010).  Sadly, Wayne died recently.  Although I had not seen him since our high school days, he was present at reunion events that I attended in 2005.  When I happened to run into him, I learned that he had stayed in the Salamanca area and also that he had known my brother.  At that time, I did not know that Wayne was a volunteer firefighter, and so when I asked if he knew anything about Mark's death, I was stunned to hear him state, very reluctantly, that he had been on the scene of the fire.

At first, in the same reunion conversation, referring to his “job,” Wayne refused to tell me anything about that night.  But he responded humanely when I let him know how difficult it was to think of the pain my brother must have suffered as he was doused with gasoline and burned to death and then, nearly two years later, to have no credible explanation from the investigating authorities for Mark’s truck bursting into flames in that field across the road from his house.  Wayne then said that he would tell me a little about the scene but oddly added that he “would deny it in court.”

Fortunately, at the same time, Wayne kindly went beyond the bare minimum that he first agreed to reveal.  Although he only hinted at the trauma to my brother’s head, he made the intriguing comment that “the police should have looked for Mark’s nine-iron.”  As the original post explains, he clarified that statement soon after in an interview with Buffalo attorney Michael Kelly by acknowledging that he had seen a wound on Mark's forehead which looked as if he had been hit by a nine-iron.  Wayne also contradicted what Inv. Kalfas told me about Mark’s location in relation to the truck when rescue workers arrived.  Whereas the State Police investigator said that my brother was found lying right by the truck, Wayne said that Mark was about 45 feet from the truck when he arrived, indicating the distance from where we were standing to a concession truck.  When I asked him about others who were on the scene, he offered to check on the issue for me.

As also indicated in the original post, Wayne in the same reunion conversation expressed concern as to why the truck was in the field and how it was parked, facing the road and Mark's driveway with the tires completely straight and aligned.  He noted that it looked as if the truck had been deliberately placed there.  As he added to Michael Kelly, tire tracks in the grass were in a straight line.  Thus, as Wayne clearly implied, Mark could not have been hurriedly removing a burning truck from the property.  These observations by Wayne, along with those by Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit, were sufficient for Atty. Kelly to ask the State Police to interview both Wayne and Dr. Piotrowski and to re-open the case.  But, by all accounts, they did not interview Wayne.  They clearly did not interview the doctor or re-open the case.

It is unfortunate—and problematic—that the State Police did not ask Wayne for a witness statement right after the truck fire and that they apparently did not interview him at any point.  Wayne in fact mentioned a number of other things not included in my original post that might well have shed light on the events related to Mark’s truck fire.  Here, I will refer to two other points that Wayne brought up in that reunion conversation.

First, Wayne was disturbed that, from his perspective on the scene, Mark’s wife Susan did not show any real concern about his dreadful condition and did not even bother to get right into her car and go to the hospital but instead waited a long time before leaving.  This would have been relevant information to the State Police investigator since Susan says in her witness statement that she and Mark were watching television before he left for downtown Salamanca and that she was waiting for him to return when she saw the flames in the field.  A serious investigator would certainly have wanted to reconcile the discrepancy between Wayne’s observations and Susan’s official statement.  Other discrepancies in Susan’s witness statement deserved to be examined as well (e.g., see post of September 22, 2011).

Second, Wayne referred to the argument at the Holy Cross Club between my brother and Ofc. Mark Marowski.  He said that Mark had won a pool and that, when Marowski made some remark about splitting it, my brother refused.  According to Wayne, Marowski then quickly called the police on his cell phone to pick Mark up for DWI.  He added that Marowski had been really drunk at the time.  The specificity of Wayne’s comments implied that he had witnessed the incident at the Holy Cross Club.  Therefore, I hoped that he would elaborate on that point (and others) at a reception prior to our reunion dinner the next day.

The following day I asked Wayne to clarify Marowski’s reaction to the pool that Mark had apparently won.  To my complete surprise, he then responded curtly, “I don't know anything about the incident at the Holy Cross Club.”  I also offered to send him a copy of the police report, which he had looked at briefly with interest the previous evening.  But now he brusquely replied, “No, that's all over with.”  Shocked, I could only wonder what had caused such a complete change of attitude in Wayne, who had been so cordial and understanding the evening before.

When I was seated for the dinner, I noticed Wayne approaching the next table, but he did not look my way, then or at any point during the dinner.  He was greeted by fellow classmate Don DeGain, who for some reason also did not acknowledge my presence.  Don, it turns out, was Wayne’s brother-in-law and (according to my cousin Dennis Pavlock) a relative of Pete Rapacioli (on whom, see esp. post of June 26, 2013).  As several individuals have observed in my search for information on my brother’s death, it seems that everyone you encounter in the Salamanca area is a “cousin” of someone whose name has come up in this case.

Not long afterward, a phone conversation with Atty. Michael Kelly shed some light on the issue of Wayne’s sudden change of heart.  After my two encounters with Wayne at the reunion, Atty. Kelly spoke with him in a follow-up interview, in which Kelly went through the substance of my conversation with Wayne, documenting everything point by point.  I asked Atty. Kelly if he understood why Wayne had not wanted to respond to me at the reunion dinner activities.  He replied that Wayne had mentioned being told by “people” not to say anything to me because of what I was trying to do.  These “people” were clearly individuals who knew that Wayne had spoken with me the on first evening of the reunion events.

Of course, I do not know who specifically pressured Wayne not to give me any further information and referred negatively to what I was “trying to do.”  But why would anyone be so averse to a sister’s efforts to find out the truth about her brother’s death?  And why would anyone want to prevent another person from revealing relevant information about a suspicious death like Mark’s?