False or Dubious Claims about a Suicide Letter

This post raises the issue of disturbing claims about a suicide letter in the deaths of my brother Mark and Dale Tarapacki immediately following their suspicious truck fires. In both cases, death was ultimately ruled “accidental,” in spite of the suspicious circumstances surrounding their truck fires.  So it is a matter of concern that in each case one or more individuals claimed to have knowledge of a suicide letter.

As mentioned in a previous post (November 23, 2013), on the very evening of his death, just hours after his horrific truck fire, my brother’s 23-year old daughter Christie told me over the telephone that Mark had left her a suicide letter.  Claiming that her father had in fact told her he no longer wanted to live, she stated that the suicide letter he had written began, “By the time you read this, I will be dead.”  After I reported this information to the N. Y. S. Police, Christie was questioned by Inv. Edward Kalfas but denied knowing anything about a suicide letter.  Mark’s wife Susan also told Inv. Kalfas that she too was unaware of any suicide letter (see also police report).  Yet how would Mark’s daughter have failed to mention this purported suicide letter to her mother?  Would she also have failed to mention to her mother her phone conversation with me?  Although I asked the State Police investigator to look into this issue, he simply dropped it.  According to a nephew, Mark’s wife later reportedly changed her story and told another relative that he really did leave a suicide letter (see post of November 23, 2013).  No suicide letter was ever produced.  It is safe to say none ever existed.

In Dale Tarapacki’s case, according to a reliable source, who felt strongly that he had not taken his own life, someone claimed to have knowledge of a suicide letter.  Another reliable source made an even stronger claim about a suicide letter allegedly left by Tarapacki.  Yet the circumstances of Tarapacki’s death in a very suspicious truck fire, which has some striking similarities to my brother’s (see posts of July 23, August 24, and September 21, 2016; February 26, April 30, June 13, November 30, and December 31, 2017), also clearly rule out suicide.  Since the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s office denied my request for the police report and other relevant materials on Tarapacki’s death, except for the fire investigator’s report (see posts of March 19 and May 19, 2016), it is not clear if they actually investigated this issue.

It is worth pondering what motives a person or persons may have in making claims about a suicide letter when the victim did not leave one.

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?

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?