Sunday, December 31, 2017

Who Was the Last Person to See Mark and Dale Tarapacki before Their Truck Fires?


This post raises the question of the identity of the last person to see both my brother Mark and Dale Tarapacki before their truck fires.  The issue is important since it would help clarify the sobriety, coherence, and state of mind of each of these two victims.

In my brother’s case, the New York State Police report indicates nothing about anyone seeing Mark after his wife's claim in her witness statement that he left for downtown Salamanca about 8:45 that evening, and thus there is no record for my brother’s activities for over two hours prior to the truck fire.  As mentioned previously (see post of August 11, 2014), an anonymous letter sent to me states that right before the fire Mark was at the house of a neighbor, who indicated that Mark could not possibly have had the kind of high blood alcohol level reported by the authorities.  Previous posts have reported that Todd Lindell informed me that Mark had spent the evening following his DWI (i.e., the night before the truck fire) at Todd’s house (see esp. August 14, 2015).  Todd also told me that he had had an “open-door policy” for Mark at his house. Given the reportedly heated reaction of Mark’s wife Susan to his DWI and their strained marital relations in general, it is not surprising that my brother would have been out of the house that evening.  But his friends and neighbors whom I contacted were clear that they did not see him the evening of the truck fire.  It is difficult to come up with anyone other than Todd Lindell whom Mark would have visited just before the truck fire.  It therefore seems strange that there is no mention of Mark’s whereabouts just before the truck in the police report since, according to Mark’s friend Jim Wright, Todd was interviewed by the State Police investigator.

In the case of Dale Tarapacki, a reliable source indicated that the Sheriff’s office stated that Dale had been going fishing the afternoon of his truck fire.  Someone must therefore have reported that claim to the Sheriff’s investigators.  A previous post indicates that Tarapacki, according to a reliable source, was in no condition to go fishing that day (June 13, 2017).  Who offered the information to the authorities that Tarapacki had gone fishing and on what basis?  Not only was Tarapacki not in a proper physical state for a fishing expedition; he was also clearly in a difficult professional position, having abruptly—and apparently with considerable tension—quit his job as the pharmacist for a new Native American pharmacy in Salamanca.  Did the Sheriff’s office check on the reliability of this witness?

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Items Missing from the Two Burned-out Trucks


This post raises the issue of certain items that, oddly, were not found in the trucks of my brother Mark and Dale Tarapacki, both of which were badly burned under suspicious circumstances.  In each case, the fire investigator’s report, which I obtained through a FOIL request, provided information on the condition of the truck.  In my brother’s case, the fire investigator’s report and the police report list the contents of the truck, in particular, a gas can suspiciously found in the cab of Mark's truck on the floor of the passenger's side (see esp. post of July 22, 2012, and September 22, 2010; also the official documents attached through links on this blog).

An earlier post (April 30, 2017) refers to the pistol (a forty-five) that my brother told a number of individuals he had bought for protection at his job as a security guard at a Seneca Indian-owned business in nearby Steamburg and that he kept in the glove compartment of his truck.  Since Mark had concerns for his safety on that job, presumably at night in particular, it is not at all likely that he would have removed the pistol.  However, the police report and the fire investigator’s report do not mention a gun among the items found in his truck.  The wounds my brother received to his forehead and face, reported to me by his attending physician at the burn unit, Dr. Edward Piotrowski, strongly suggest that he had been attacked.  Was his pistol removed by someone to prevent him from protecting himself the night of the truck fire?

A point that has not previously been mentioned on this blog is that something was also reportedly missing from Dale Tarapacki’s truck when his burned-out vehicle was discovered.  According to a reliable source, a compact recreational vehicle (RV) was in the back of his truck late the night before his truck ended up on fire just off remote Hardscrabble Road in rural Great Valley in the early afternoon of April, 11, 2005.  (On Tarapack’s death, see posts of May 19, July 23, and September 24, 2016; February 26 and April 17, 2017).  Tarapacki himself would not have been able to remove that RV.  As my source reported, it suspiciously resurfaced just after Tarapacki’s death.  Why and how did it disappear, and why and how did it reappear?

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

More on Threats to Individuals Who Have Spoken Out

This post is concerned with threats made to individuals with relevant information who have spoken out against the appalling deaths of my brother Mark, Tim Nye, or Dale Tarapacki, all of which occurred in a period of a little over a year in rural Great Valley, N.Y.  It expands on a previous post (March 27, 2017) that brought up the issue briefly in the context of a variety of efforts to impede the search for justice.

Each of these deaths, at least initially, was reportedly considered by investigating authorities to be a suicide (see esp. January 27, 2014).  In my brother’s case, that was clearly the prevailing view because the lead investigator Edward Kalfas in fact told me outright, “It’s looking more and more like a suicide!”  The District Attorney at the time, Edward Sharkey, also told Attorney Tony Tanke that he thought it was a suicide.  But when the investigating authorities could in no way support that premise, they took the default position of an “accident.”  In spite of numerous indications of foul play, one N. Y. State Police official later acknowledged that they never even considered the possibility of a murder in Mark’s case.  More than one person who knew Dale Tarapacki alluded to a claim of suicide by officials (see October 15, 2016), though his death was apparently ruled an accident (see August 24, 2016).  In spite of the incongruous location of the wound to his gut inflicted by a rifle, Tim Nye’s death was reportedly ruled a suicide (see April 19, 2016).

The post of March 2017 referred to the alarming instance of a threat against an individual, who was worried about the welfare of his family.  In fact, the person mentioned that several threats had been made.  More than one involved the threat of using fire, a particularly chilling detail in light of what happened both to my brother Mark and to Dale Tarapacki (see esp. July 23, 2016).  Recently, another individual mentioned that he, too, had been threatened after vocally expressing doubts about the alleged suicide of one of these three victims.

Several posts have discussed the very strange unwillingness to come forward of any individual who was present at the Holy Cross Club during the personal argument between my brother and Salamanca policeman Mark Marowski, which resulted in a DWI the very day before Mark was burned to death (see esp. November 16, 2014, and June 21, 2016).  Some of these club members claimed to be close friends of my brother.  Have personal safety and a real fear of retaliation kept them silent?

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Problematic Police Behavior toward the Two Truck Fire Victims in Cattaraugus County


Several posts have discussed similarities in the suspicious truck fires of Salamanca pharmacist Dale Tarapacki and my brother Mark (see esp. July 23, August 24, and September 24, 2016; February 26, April 30, and June 13, 2017).  The investigations into both deaths clearly glossed over or ignored many troubling facts, including significant wounds to the body.  As observed in numerous posts on this blog, the New York State Police did not pursue the role of Salamanca police officer Mark Marowski in the events the day immediately preceding Mark’s truck fire that led to my brother’s arrest for DWI.  This post raises the issue of reportedly antagonistic behavior toward Dale Tarapacki by another local police officer.

A reliable source informed me that some time before his death Tarapacki was being harassed by a Salamanca police officer over an issue that had nothing to do with police business but rather was a strictly personal matter.  This Salamanca policeman reportedly accosted Tarapacki on several occasions in a menacing manner over a private matter which angered the officer, but for which Tarapacki himself was not responsible.  The incident that spurred this policeman’s hostility reportedly took place at the Holy Cross Club.  Out of concern for the source of the information, this post will not name the Salamanca police officer or state the specific nature of the incident.  But the unprofessional, and quite disturbing, behavior of that officer appears not to be an isolated example of policemen in the Salamanca area abusing their authority to try and settle private grudges.

Not long before his death, according to more than one source, Tarapacki was picked up for DWI.  It is not clear if the officer who hassled him was in any way responsible for his arrest.  But it is difficult not to see a parallel here with the events that preceded my brother’s death.  In that case, the time frame is clearer, and there is no question about Marowski’s action of calling the Salamanca police to arrest Mark for DWI immediately after he left the Holy Cross Club following their heated personal argument.  But, in both my brother’s and Tarapacki’s case, what followed a DWI was an unthinkably savage and suspicious death by fire that the investigating authorities (New York State Police in the one and Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office in the other) swept under the rug.