As several posts have discussed (see esp. post of March 27, 2012), the N.Y.S.P. continued to insist that my brother had committed suicide, even though then-Cattaraugus County D.A. Edward Sharkey determined that there was no evidence for suicide. In his brief report (see narrative section of the police report), Trooper David Chandler, the first N.Y.S.P. officer on the scene of my brother’s truck fire, states that he “responded to Whalen Rd, Great Valley for a report of a male subject possibly attempting to burn himself in his vehicle.” His statement suggests that suicide was already assumed as the first N.Y.S.P. official arrived on the scene. As the first recorded public statement about the truck fire, the 911 call made by Mark's wife the night of his truck fire would be an important source of information.
In September 2005, when Atty. Michael Kelly met with Sr. Inv. John Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, the lead detective in the investigation into Mark’s death, he asked Kalfas if he had reviewed the 911 call. As Kelly informed me, Kalfas replied that he had heard it but couldn’t remember it. Wolfe then told Kelly that he would retrieve the tape of the 911 call. Yet not long afterwards, Wolfe abruptly decided not to retrieve the 911 call unless the case was re-opened, dismissing the possibility that the 911 call might have information that warranted re-opening the case.
As previous posts (September 22 and October 27, 2011) discuss, my FOIL requests for an audio or transcript of the 911 call were unsuccessful. The N.Y.S.P. Central Records Bureau replied that they had “failed to locate any records responsive to [my] request.” A police official mentioned that records in storage can take some effort to find. As a result, it’s not clear how thorough a search N.Y.S.P. Central Records made to locate the tape. The Cattaraugus County Clerk’s Office replied that since it was not their case, they “did not maintain a copy for any reason of the recording.”
Kalfas’s narrative in the police report makes no mention of scrutinizing the 911 call, and it appears that he paid little attention to it. But others also heard that 911 call, including one official who found it problematic.
In 2014, I conveyed a number of concerns about the investigation to N.Y.S.P. Capt. Steven Nigrelli. He indicated that the Bureau of CriminaI Investigation would interview certain individuals who had provided information to me relevant to the investigation into Mark’s death and that he would get back to me after the process was completed.
One of those individuals interviewed was that official mentioned above, who had heard the 911 call made by Mark’s wife Susan and expressed concerns about issues raised in that reportedly lengthy 911 call. That individual later confirmed that issues raised in the 911 call were brought up in the interview with the BCI. Yet when Capt. Nigrelli responded in January 2015 with a summary of the results of the interviews by the BCI, there was no mention of that individual’s concerns about the 911 call or anything else that individual relayed to the BCI.
Why was the 911 call reporting Mark’s truck fire essentially ignored by the N.Y.S.P. during the investigation and then evaded at every subsequent point in discussions and other communications with Atty. Kelly and me?
