Saturday, July 23, 2016

Similarities in the Suspicious Deaths of My Brother and Dale Tarapacki

Numerous posts have highlighted the suspicious elements of my brother Mark's truck fire (see especially June 26 and November 30, 2011; May 29, July 22, August 22, September 22, and November 1, 2012; May 15 and November 23, 2013; and August 14, 2015).  Two previous posts discuss problems related to the official explanation for the cause of Dale Tarapacki's truck fire, as recorded in the fire investigator's report (see post of March 19, 2016), and for his death, as recorded in the autopsy report (see May 19, 2016).  Expanding on some of those issues, this post shows that the similarities between Tarapacki's death and my brother's point to foul play in both cases.

Both my brother and Dale Tarapacki were severely burned in truck fires that originated under very suspicious circumstances.  There is no reasonable way to account either for the location of Mark's truck fifty feet into the field across the road from his house in rural Great Valley or for the presence of the gas can in the cab of his truck.  Although within hours after the fire, according to at least one relative, his wife said that Mark had been putting gas into the tank because it had run out of gas, the tank was in fact three-quarters full (see post of September 22, 2012).  As numerous friends of his insisted, Mark also never put gas cans into the cab but rather only into the back of his truck.  It is hard to comprehend how Mark himself got saturated with gasoline, how a flammable liquid, presumably gasoline, was spilled in the driver's seat area, and how the fire then started from that source.

In Dale Tarapacki's case, the truck was found in an oddly remote location off the upper, unpaved section of Hardscrabble Road in Great Valley.  It is very difficult to comprehend what Tarapacki would have been doing there and how his truck would have got stuck off the road.  As to the cause of his truck fire, even an experienced car mechanic found it difficult to comprehend the official explanation as stated in the fire investigator's report.  In particular, the mechanic noted that it is hard for a drive shaft to puncture the fuel line, and the wheel bearings would take a long time to fly off (see March 19, 2016).  Recently, another individual added additional information that further calls the official explanation for the Tarapacki fire into question.  As I was informed, Tarapacki had had his truck skid-plated from front to back and off-road tires installed.  According to my source, Tarapacki's truck was so well protected that the explanation of the damage as accidental in the fire investigator's report could not be true.

When first responders arrived on the scene of both truck fires, my brother and Dale Tarapacki were found not only to have been very seriously burned but also to have been inflicted with other kinds of injuries.  In Mark's case, a wound was observed on his forehead that made firefighter Wayne Frank think someone had hit him with a golf club.  Dr. Edward Piotrowski, Mark's attending physician at the burn unit, told me that he had been concerned about soft tissue swelling on my brother's forehead and ordered a CT scan.  It revealed deep soft-tissue swelling that made the doctor wonder if Mark had been hit over the head (see post of September 22, 2010).

According to more than one reliable source, Tarapacki had a gunshot wound in the area of his right leg.  As these sources also indicated, the investigating authorities (the Sheriff's office) claimed that Tarapacki had been accidentally shot because the extreme heat of the truck fire caused the guns to go off.  Yet, as more than one individual insisted, it does not seem possible that either of the two rifles in the back area of the cab could have hit Tarapacki in the leg while he sat in the driver's seat, where his body was reportedly found.

This post by no means exhausts the similarities in the suspicious nature of both my brother's and Dale Tarapacki's deaths.  But, by itself, the information here suggests deeply flawed investigations that appear to have been covering up, rather than searching for, the truth.  In my brother's case, the State Police investigation clearly protected Salamanca police officer Mark Marowski, who the day before the truck fire, got into a personal argument with my brother at a local club and called in to have him arrested for DWI.  As I learned much later, Marowski was also reportedly having an affair with my brother's wife (see post of August 11, 2014).  Not long ago, I was informed by a reliable source that Dale Tarapacki had also got a DWI not long before his suspicious death.  I do not know the details of that arrest.  Did someone call in to the police to pick him up as well?  Like Mark, Tarapacki is known to have frequented the Holy Cross Club.

All of this information makes one wonder how wide the net is of people who were protected in the investigations into both Mark's and Tarapacki's death and why they were protected.  In my brother's case, Marowski presumably was automatically protected because he was a police officer.  But Marowski was also known to have long been abusing prescription drugs.  According to a fellow police officer who worked with him in the 1970's, Marowski had a problem with prescription drugs even back then (see post of September 13, 2015).  David Marowski recently informed me that around 1990 he was called to a local hospital when his brother Mark was being treated for injuries reportedly caused by a fall and was asked by hospital personnel if his brother had any problems with substance or alcohol abuse.  David informed them about Marowski's use of Valium as well as his long-time heavy drinking (“since probably 10th grade,” as David put it to me).  Clearly, no reputable doctor would have been prescribing drugs to satisfy an addiction.  Marowski presumably got at least some of these drugs illegally.

Reports about other local policemen using drugs illegally are a matter of concern about who gets protected when crimes are committed.  One individual informed me about an incident that took place when he happened to be at the house of a Salamanca area police officer within the time frame of Mark's and Tarapacki's deaths.  According to my source, the police officer told him, “Pick your poison: marijuana, cocaine, heroine.  This is the stuff that didn't get turned in.”