Efforts of the Pennsylvania Senator’s Office to Address My Concerns about the NYSP Investigation of Mark’s Death

After learning that Atty. Michael Kelly had not received a response to his inquiries from NYSP Sr. Inv. John Wolfe in late August 2005, I sent a letter and relevant documents to the two Senators from New York about problems with the investigation into Mark's death.  In mid-September, Senator Chuck Schumer responded that although he considered my concerns important, as a matter of Senate courtesy he had forwarded my materials to Senator Arlen Specter as they should be addressed to the Senator from Pennsylvania, where I lived.

Speaking by phone with a staff member at the local office of Sen. Specter, I was advised to forward my summary of Atty. Kelly’s interview of September 13 with NYSP Sr. Inv. Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, the lead investigator of Mark’s death.  When I took the material directly to the Senator’s local office, the staff member informed me that he had reviewed my letter to Senator Schumer and was concerned by the issues raised in it.  He soon reviewed all the materials I had furnished.

After it was determined that it was necessary to work with local and state authorities in New York on the issue of my brother’s death, Sen. Specter’s staff member advised me to contact both the NY State Senator and the NY State Representative from that district and to write a letter of complaint to the head of the NY State Police in Albany.   He added that, if still not satisfied, I should get back to him. 

Although I followed through with that advice and sent letters to NY State Senator Catharine Young, NY State Assemblyman Joe Giglio, and NY State Police Superintendent Wayne Bennett, only Sen. Young responded.  In her reply, although she commended me for "gathering such a detailed collection of the facts and reports surrounding this unfortunate event," she asserted that the matter was not under her jurisdiction and that she could take no action.

In January 2006, I sent a letter to Sen. Specter, informing him of my continued concerns with the NYSP investigation into Mark's death, in particular Sr. Inv. John Wolfe's failure to follow through on his promises to pursue important issues and investigate new information (on that issue, see esp. the post of August 31, 2023).

When I informed Sen. Specter’s staff member about the results of my letters to these NY State officials, he replied that he would call the NY State Police in Albany the next morning to find out what I should do and that he would call to let me know the results.  However, several weeks later the staff member informed me that the NY State Police in Albany still had not returned his call.

At that time, Sen. Specter’s staff member did not make it clear if he had spoken with NYSP officials in Cattaraugus County.  But he told me that although the NY State Police rejected my view of foul play, they did not seem to be able to explain their own position that my brother’s truck fire was an accident (the determination of Cattaraugus County D.A. Edward Sharkey in 2004). 

In February 2007, preparing to write letters of protest to the NY Governor and Attorney General about the NYSP investigation and their lack of serious response to my concerns, I called Sen. Specter’s staff member to find out if he had actually spoken with the Albany office of the NY State Police.  He replied that the NYSP simply told him that an investigation had been conducted; no foul play had been recognized; NYSP members had talked to Atty. Michael Kelly; and there were no grounds for re-opening the case.  He encouraged me to write my intended letters to the Governor and the Attorney General of New York.

I appreciated the willingness of Senator Specter’s office to help one of his constituents with the problem of the suspicious death of a family member from another state.

The response of the NY Governor and Attorney General to my letters will be the subject of a future post.

Did the NYSP Investigator Make Any Inquiries about the Gas Can?

 

It is not clear from the redacted police report what, if anything, the lead NYSP investigator of my brother’s death asked about Mark’s use of gas cans.in his interviews with relevant individuals.  In particular, did Kalfas ask whether, to their knowledge, Mark ever put gas cans in the cab of his truck?  Did anyone inform Kalfas about Mark’s placement of gas cans in his truck?

At their meeting in September 2005, Kalfas informed Atty. Michael Kelly that, according to Mark’s wife Susan, she had bought the gas can, which was half full, and that she had used it to mow the lawn.  The latter seemed surprising, as various individuals mentioned that Mark had always mowed the lawn, which--as the photos of the property indicate--was quite large.  Kalfas apparently did not supply any context to that information from Susan.  Had he asked her why there was a gas can (or cans) in the garage (which she mentions in her witness statement)?  Or had she just offered that information on her own?

However, Susan’s claim in her witness statement that she “later realized that Mark had taken a gas can from the garage” is problematic.  As a previous post (see October 30, 2018) discusses, at the time when Susan was giving her witness statement in their house, the fire investigation team had just arrived and discovered the gas can in the cab of the truck.  Did Kalfas simply accept Susan’s statement as justification for his assumption that Mark put that gas can in the cab of his truck?

Statements by other individuals, however, suggest that Kalfas should have considered another possibility about the gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck.  In a telephone conversation a couple of months after Mark’s death, Alexis Wright informed me that she and her husband Jim had been interviewed by Kalfas at some length, since they not only were friends but also had driven Mark home from his DWI arrest the day before his truck fire (on the circumstances leading up to Mark’s DWI, see esp. posts of July 28, 2011; September 14, 2014; and September 28, 2023).

Alexis stated that they had reported to Kalfas what happened when they dropped my brother off at his house after his DWI arrest the day before the truck fire (on what Alexis witnessed, see post of August 22, 2012).  In that conversation with me, Alexis also was adamant that Mark never put gas cans in the cab but only in the back of his truck.  Although she did not specify whether she had reported Mark’s carefulness with gas cans in her interview with Kalfas, her insistence on that fact suggests that she would have mentioned it to Kalfas.

Moreover, numerous individuals, including two emergency workers on the scene of my brother’s truck fire also emphasized to me that Mark never put gas cans in the cab, but only carefully secured in the back of his truck.  Both emergency workers had been interviewed by Kalfas.  The writer of the anonymous letter sent to my house (see post of August 11, 2014) also could not believe that Mark would have put a gas can in the cab of his truck, as that individual had seen him on numerous occasions securing gas cans in the back of his truck.

When I met in May 2010 with then-Cattaraugus County D.A. Lori Rieman and John Ensell, who had been Kalfas’s supervisor at the time of the investigation of Mark’s death, I brought up the problem of the gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck.  Ensell insisted that Mark’s habit of putting gas cans only in the back of his truck was irrelevant because of his drinking.

But, as I later learned from the anonymous letter sent to me in 2014, a neighbor whom my brother visited immediately before the fire, stated that Mark could not possibly have been as inebriated as the police claimed.  Furthermore, an experienced forensic toxicologist informed me that Mark, as a trim, muscular man, would have been in a coma if he had such an extremely high blood alcohol level.  The .25 post-mortem serum alcohol level recorded in the autopsy report, factored with the time lapsed between the truck fire and the autopsy, equates to an approximately .425 blood alcohol level at the time of the truck fire (see post of September 1, 2013).

In fact, in 2005 Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit insisted to me that the .25 post-mortem serum alcohol level had to be wrong, and Atty. Michael Kelly informed me that the medical examiner of Mark’s autopsy agreed that the .25 serum alcohol level was too high but said it was what the lab technicians had given him.

The NYSP investigators should have realized that Mark’s serum alcohol level from the autopsy as recorded in the autopsy report was not the same as his blood alcohol level at the time of the truck fire.  They should at least have consulted a forensic toxicologist to calculate what Mark’s blood alcohol would have been at the time of the fire.

They would have learned, as the medical experts mentioned above indicated, that the serum alcohol level recorded in the autopsy report was impossibly high and had to be wrong.  In fact, the autopsy report was certainly careless in recording Mark’s height incorrectly as 5’7 ½” (67 ½”) instead of 5’11 ½”.

If Mark’s high serum/ blood alcohol level is invalid, what is one left to assume?  Even the NYSP investigators had to admit that they could not “prove” that Mark’s death was a suicide, as there was clearly no evidence that Mark was suicidal.  Since Mark never put gas cans in the cab of his truck, how can one explain the sudden appearance of a gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side of his truck?  How did the driver’s side get saturated with a flammable liquid and the truck end up engulfed in flames?  What does that suggest to a reasonable person?  But if investigators don’t even consider the possibility of foul play, they won’t find it.

A later post will discuss how I learned, to my dismay, that there is no recourse when the NYSP remain adamant in their insistence about their investigation since they are an autonomous institution, reporting to no one.

What Was Said about the Gas Can

The gas can discovered on the passenger’s side floor of my brother’s burning pick-up truck should have been considered a suspicious element in Mark’s death.  However, the NYSP investigators never appeared to question why Mark’s truck would have been backed down his driveway and parked fifty feet into the field across the road from his house around 11:30 p.m. with a gas can in the cab.  They simply assumed that Mark was responsible for the bizarre location of his truck and the gas can in the cab, and they did not consider any other possibility (see most recently post of October 31, 2025).

Even though he had no evidence that Mark would have taken his own life, NYSP Inv. Edward Kalfas insisted from very early on in the investigation that my brother’s death looked like a suicide.  For Kalfas, then, Mark had put the gas can in the cab to end his life.

The only apparent reference in the police report to Mark with a gas can the night of the truck fire occurs in the witness statement of Mark’s wife Susan, which was taken between 11:30 and 11:45 the night of the fire.  Here is her statement: “After the fire, I realized that Mark had taken a plastic 5 gal. can of gas out of the garage but I don’t know what he did with it.”  (On the issue of general knowledge about the presence of a gas can in the truck before the arrival of the fire investigation team at 11:30, see posts of October 30, 2018, and October 31, 2025.)

A reference to the gas can, according to Mark’s and my cousin Dennis Pavlock, was made by Mark’s and Susan’s son Brian, who telephoned Dennis to ask him to be a pallbearer at Mark’s funeral.  Dennis informed me that Brian explained to him that Mark had taken a gas can to the truck, which had run out of gas, and had got burned.  Dennis was concerned when he later learned that the truck had not run out of gas and that the tank was almost full.

Since Brian was away at school the night of the fire, it is difficult to understand how he got that unfounded explanation for what had happened with the gas can.  It is not clear from the redacted copy of the police report (sent by the NYSP in response to my FOIL request) if Brian was interviewed by Inv. Kalfas (his sister Christie definitely was: see posts of November 23, 2013, and January 31, 2018).  So it is not possible to know if he reiterated to Kalfas what he reportedly told Dennis.

At any rate, Kalfas was clearly aware of Susan’s reference to Mark taking a gas can from the garage.  He presumably had carefully read Susan’s entire witness statement, which was taken by NYSP Trooper David Chandler.  Kalfas, then, would have been aware of her account of rushing to the scene of the truck fire: there, according to Susan, she asked Mark, “What did you do?”, and he replied, “I did nothing.”  Kalfas also records in his own subsequent interviews of Mark’s wife (10/25/03 and 12/12/03) that she repeated what she had said the night of the fire.

Did Kalfas not consider the implications of Mark’s reply “I did nothing,” as recorded by Susan?  Those words certainly indicate that Mark did not take a gas can to his truck to commit suicide and did not spill gas on himself in his truck or anywhere else.  It appears that Kalfas accepted Susan’s statement about “realizing” that Mark had taken a gas can out of the garage but essentially ignored her statement that Mark, on fire, had told her, “I did nothing.”

Inv. Kalfas’s failure to consider more closely the problem of that gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck is connected with his rush to judgment about Mark’s death as a suicide.  (There will be more on the problem of the gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck in an upcoming post.)  But as, for instance, with the pool of Mark’s blood found where he usually parked his truck and the wound on his forehead noticed by two firefighters and by the attending physician at the burn unit, the NYSP investigation left too much unexamined and unanswered.

Photos and Official Documents Back Up

For those of you who may be interested, the photos and the official documents related to this blog are now back up.  They were unavailable for some time because of technical problems.   They can be found in links at the top right of each post.

Why Was Firefighter Wayne Frank Not Interviewed during the Investigation of Mark’s Death?

It is difficult to understand why the lead NYSP investigator Edward Kalfas did not interview one of the three firefighters on the scene of my brother Mark’s truck fire, since all three appeared on the scene within a few minutes of each other and were involved in extinguishing the flames on Mark.  By contrast, one of the other two firefighters was interviewed the night of the fire and the other ten days later, as indicated by their witness statements .

In a phone conversation with me in March 2004, a cousin who lived in Florida mentioned a number of things he had been told about Mark’s truck fire by a firefighter who had been on the scene.  However, my cousin Dennis Pavlock, who had initially been reluctant to reveal the information he had learned, would not tell me the name of the firefighter (see post of October 31, 2020).  At that time, while the investigation was ongoing, I did not know how many firefighters had been on the scene.

In September 2004, a copy of the police report, which I obtained through a FOIL request, included the witness statements of firefighters Gary Wind and Mark Ward.  It was only by chance that the third firefighter’s presence on the scene was made known to me.  At a high school reunion event in 2005, I happened to have a conversation with a former classmate named Wayne Frank during which he revealed that he had been on the scene of Mark’s truck fire as a firefighter.

Although initially reluctant to say anything about it, he soon revealed considerable information about what he had observed on the scene.  He offered several details about the way the truck went down the driveway and its location in the field, among other things, which suggested to him that Mark’s truck fire was no accident.  He ended by saying, “The police should have looked for Mark’s nine-iron.”

After I reported to Buffalo criminal attorney Michael Kelly Wayne’s statements about the scene of the truck fire and his suggestive reference to Mark’s nine-iron, Kelly had a face-to-face conversation with him.  Wayne not only confirmed my report of the statements he had made to me but, even more important, clarified what he had meant by his reference to the nine-iron.  As discussed in previous posts (see March 29, 2022, and August 31, 2023), Wayne saw a wound on Mark’s forehead that looked as if he had been struck by a nine-iron.

Significantly, Wayne’s observation about the wound on Mark’s forehead confirmed important information that my brother’s attending physician at the Erie County Medical Center burn unit had told me earlier in 2005: he had observed deep soft-tissue swelling on Mark’s forehead, along with further soft-tissue, confirmed by a CT scan, that suggested a blow to his forehead (see esp. posts of September 22, 2010; September 24, 2016; and August 9, 2022).  The doctor also confirmed that there was soft-tissue swelling to the left side of Mark’s face.

As also mentioned in earlier posts, when this information was relayed to then NYSP senior investigator John Wolfe, he sarcastically dismissed Wayne’s comment about Mark’s nine-iron (see post of August 31, 2023).  In a number of conversations with Atty. Kelly and with me, Wolfe continued to insist that there was no evidence of a wound to Mark’s forehead and to deny that my brother was likely attacked the night of his truck fire.

Would the NYSP have been able to ignore the existence of the wound on Mark’s forehead during the investigation if they had in fact interviewed firefighter Wayne Frank during the investigation?  It is difficult to understand why Inv. Kalfas did not speak with Wayne Frank shortly after the fire, as he did with the other two firefighters.

Although I did not learn about Wayne Frank’s presence on the scene of my brother’s truck fire until July 2005, I had in fact sent a letter in March 2004 to then Cattaraugus County District Attorney Edward Sharkey in which I informed him about the conversation my cousin Dennis Pavlock had with a firefighter who had been on the scene of my brother’s truck fire.  I provided Dennis’s phone number so that the investigating authorities could contact him and get the name of that firefighter.  However, when I called Dennis after the investigation was over, he told me that he had never been contacted by the District Attorney’s office or the New York State Police investigator.

Why didn’t the District Attorney direct the lead NYSP investigator to contact Dennis to learn the identity of the firefighter who seemed to have additional information from what was reported in the witness statements of the other two firefighters?

Unfortunately, in May 2004 near the end of the investigation, D. A. Sharkey displayed a rude and arrogant attitude in a telephone conversation with Atty. Tony Tanke.  He insisted that there was no evidence of foul play and that Mark’s death was a suicide or an accident, though he believed it was a suicide.  Did D. A. Sharkey have any real interest in, or knowledge of, the facts of Mark’s case?  In the absence of any evidence of suicide, Sharkey ultimately classified Mark’s death as an accident.

The NYSP Investigators’ Lack of Interest in the 911 Call Reporting Mark’s Truck Fire

Previous posts have discussed problematic aspects of the NYSP regarding the 911 call made by my brother Mark’s wife Susan, to report Mark’s truck fire around 11 pm on September 23, 2003 in the field across from their house in Great Valley, NY.  The NYSP Trooper’s statement in the police report that he arrived on the scene in response to “a report of a male subject possibly attempting to burn himself in his vehicle” is concerning since his reference to a possible suicide was made within minutes of the truck fire, and it is unclear if his statement is connected to that 911 call (see post of July 1, 2014).

More problematically, the lead NYSP investigator of Mark’s death does not even mention the 911 call in his narrative in the police report and in an interview with a Buffalo attorney in 2005 stated that he had heard the 911 call but couldn’t remember it.  The NYSP senior investigator at the time then agreed to review the 911 call but soon changed his mind (see post of September 29, 2021).  After I reported the concerns of an official who had heard the 911 call, the NYSP investigator directed by an NYSP Captain to interview the official ignored his concerns and reported only that this official “could not offer any other specific memories other than previously provided or any evidence to prove foul play” (see post of December 19, 2024).

This post concerns a problematic response by an additional NYPS official about reviewing the 911 call.  In a telephone conversation in August 2014, Capt. Steven Nigrelli responded to my concern that the 911 call had not been reviewed by minimizing its importance.  His reply that “911 calls are very different” is doubtless true.  But that fact does not preclude the possibility that valuable information can be obtained from 911 calls, helping, for instance, to build a timeline of events.  Statements made in a 911 call can then be checked against later recollections or remarks made by the caller.  Investigators can then add to or modify a timeline of events or other evidence they may find relevant to a case.

Specific information might have come up in Susan’s 911 call in relation to her witness statement.  According to an official who heard the 911 tape, Susan took a considerable amount of time in her 911 call before she actually stated that Mark was on fire in the field. Did she include any additional helpful information or observations not in her witness statement taken a little over half an hour later?  Did she provide more specific details about seeing the truck on fire and about events just prior to that?  Did she say anything that might clarify her witness statement, specifically about hearing a noise in the garage that she thought was from the cats or about being on the phone for about half an hour before the fire?  Did she mention the gas can which, according to her witness statement, she realized after the fire that Mark had taken from the garage (on the problem of how Susan determined that Mark had taken the gas can, see post of October 30, 2018)?

The answers to one or more of these questions — which might be addressed in some fashion in Susan’s 911 call — may have given the investigation a different and more productive trajectory.

The obvious lack of interest in the 911 call that set in motion the investigation of my brother Mark’s death from horrific burns over 90% of his body is just one of many failures by the NYSP investigation to uncover what really happened the night of that suspicious truck fire.

Why Was Mark’s Truck Not Seen Going up and Exiting from His Driveway Shortly before the Truck Fire?

In May 2005, Buffalo attorney Michael Kelly reviewed the police report and other information related to my brother Mark’s death from the severe burns he suffered when his truck burst into flames in September 2003.  Not long after, Kelly went to the scene to examine the location of Mark’s normal parking space just off his driveway and the path his truck would have taken down the driveway and into the field across from his house in Great Valley, NY.

Kelly wondered why Mark’s wife Susan would not have seen his truck come up the driveway and then turn into the paved area just off the driveway where he normally parked his truck.  (For photos of the front of the house and the driveway area, see post of May 29, 2012.)  Mark must have driven up his driveway and turned into that paved area off the driveway, as a fresh pool of his blood was found right where his truck would have been parked.

In fact, as one of the emergency workers on the scene of his truck fire mentioned to me, the pool of blood was found just where the driver’s side door of Mark’s truck would have been positioned.  In addition, as a firefighter on the scene mentioned to me and soon after affirmed to Atty. Kelly in an interview in July 2005, tire marks from my brother’s truck were observed going straight down the grass at the edge of the driveway and into the field where the truck ended up, facing his house.  Mark certainly drove his truck up his driveway and parked his truck as usual. But the pool of his blood found in his parking space raises doubts that Mark actually backed his truck down the driveway and fifty feet into the field (see post of May 29, 2012).  Yet Mark’s truck did go back down the driveway as it went toward the field.

As Kelly observed, the large picture window in the living room of the house (on the left) provides a clear view of vehicles coming up or going down the driveway, and a smaller picture window (on the right) also offers a good view of the driveway.  Furthermore, Susan in her witness statement taken the night of the fire says the following: “At around 10:30 pm I was on the phone and waiting for Mark to return home.”  One would then assume that Mark’s wife might have been looking out the window in anticipation of his return.  After mentioning that she heard a noise in the garage which she thought was from their cats, she states: “At around that time I saw fire out the front window of our house and after taking a closer look I could see Marks [sic] truck across the street from our driveway on fire.”

The lead NY State Police investigator Edward Kalfas should have asked Susan for clarification about her lack of awareness of Mark’s truck coming and going in the driveway around 10:30 p.m. shortly before the truck fire.  He might have asked her about the content of the phone call she said was engaged in at that time (on that presumed call, see post of May 15, 2013).  But judging from the police report, that does not seem to have happened.

From his interview with Kalfas and his then superior John Wolfe in September 2005, Kelly was surprised that no charts or diagrams of the scene appear to have been made as aids in the investigation.  Such visual materials might have helped to bring out various incongruities in information provided in the investigation.  But by focusing on suicide so early in the investigation, Kalfas did not press on to pursue the full facts concerning the night of Mark’s death.

Why Did the NYSP Investigators Assume That Mark Had Put the Gas Can on the Passenger’s Side of His Truck?

Previous posts have discussed problems concerning the gas can found on the floor of the passenger’s side of my brother Mark’s pickup truck the night of his truck fire (see July 22, 2012; October 30, 2018; and May 31, 2024).  This post considers problems specifically with the NYSP investigators’ assumption that Mark must have placed the gas can in the cab of his truck.

As frequently observed in this blog, the lead NYSP investigator Edward Kalfas very quickly decided that my brother had committed suicide.  As stated in an entry for 12/30/03 in Kalfas’s narrative in the police report, the Cattaraugus County District Attorney determined that there was no evidence to support a conclusion of suicide and that Mark’s death would be classified as an accident.  However, NYSP officials continued to insist that my brother’s death was most likely a suicide.

For the NYSP investigators, the presence of the gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck seemed to clinch the case for suicide.  Yet Kalfas records in an entry in the police report for 9/29/03 that he interviewed employees at the nearby gas station where Mark frequently purchased gasoline and at the gas station where Mark worked (as a security guard), who all stated that they had not seen him for a few days prior to the fire.  Kalfas also told Atty. Michael Kelly in their meeting in September 2005 that he had not been able to find anyone who had seen Mark purchase gasoline the day of the fire.

The only reference in the official documents to Mark taking the gas can out of the garage that night comes from his wife Susan’s witness statement in the police report.  Mark’s wife states that as she was waiting for Mark to return home, she heard a noise in the garage (attached to the house) which she thought was from the cats.  Susan goes on to say: “After the fire I realized that Mark had taken a 5 gal. plastic can of gas but I don’t know what he did with it.”  Furthermore, Susan makes it clear by her witness statement that she did not actually see Mark until after the fire started.

This statement by Mark’s wife strongly implies that the gas can to which she referred was in the attached garage.  Furthermore, as Kalfas informed Kelly at their meeting in 2005, Susan told him that she had purchased the can of gasoline, which she had used to mow the lawn, and that it was half full.

Kalfas apparently never considered any other options about the presence of the gas can in the cab of truck except for Mark putting it there.  Kalfas presumably took Susan’s statement about the gas can at face value.  But it is difficult to understand how Mark’s wife could have known that Mark himself had taken the gas can from the garage or that a gas can was involved in the fire.  Since her witness statement was taken by Trooper David Chandler inside the house from 11:30 p.m. to 12 midnight the night of the fire, she was not in contact with those who found out about the gas can on the passenger’s side floor of the truck.

According to one of the emergency workers on the scene, they found out about the gas can in the cab of the truck from the fire investigators, who arrived at 11:30.  Mark’s own attempts to communicate something about gasoline to two firefighters on the scene were unintelligible (see post of June 30, 2023).  The police report, furthermore, states that Mark was unable to communicate anything at all on the Medivac flight to the burn unit of the Erie County Medical Center.  According to the emergency worker previously mentioned, none of the firefighters who put out the truck fire were shouting anything about a gas can in the truck (see post of October 30, 2018).  Therefore, neither Susan nor anyone who happened to have appeared on the scene would have known about the gas can before 11:30 p.m.

As far as possible locations of gas cans on Mark’s property goes, my brother would also have had another place to keep gas cans if he chose to do so.  There was a utility shed adjacent to the end of extension of Mark’s driveway (the “T-zone”), where he normally parked his truck and where he obviously had parked it that night when he returned home.  (See post of May 29, 2012, on the pool of blood found that night right next to the area where the driver’s side door of his truck would have been located. That post includes photos of the property as it was in 2012.)

In his narrative section of the police report, Kalfas states the following: “On 12/12/ 03 Member interviews the victim’s wife, Mrs. Susan Pavlock, at SP Olean. Mrs. Pavlock . . . is questioned again about the incident. She answers the same as she did the night of the fire and on the 10/25/03 re-interview.”  Susan thus presumably repeated the comment in her witness statement that Mark had taken a plastic five gallon can of gasoline (from the attached garage).  Kalfas apparently was not concerned to find out how Susan knew (or thought she knew) about the gas can at 11:30 p.m. the night of the fire.

Yet since gasoline from that (open) can on the floor of the passenger’s side of the truck presumably caused the fire that engulfed Mark’s truck and took his life, determining how that can of gasoline got there should have been a priority in the investigation.  It was crucial to a coherent investigative narrative about events the night of my brother’s truck fire.  Kalfas failed to do his job as an investigator here.

Furthermore, it was important to know if Mark had routinely or even occasionally put gas cans in the cab of his truck.  One of my brother’s friends who was interviewed during the investigation told me emphatically that Mark never put gas cans in the cab but only in the back of his truck.  One of the emergency workers on the scene similarly informed me that Mark put gas cans only in the back of his truck, never in the cab, and secured them there.  The individual who sent an anonymous letter to my house (see post of April 11, 2014) stated the following: Mark “was compulsive about his vehicle and I cannot believe that he would EVER put a gas can in his truck. In fact, in the past I saw him transport gas cans in the back of his truck, going to the extent of securing the gas can to the bed of his truck to avoid it moving around the truck bed.”

Mark’s extreme carefulness with gas cans in his truck should thus have been an important fact in considering how that can of gasoline ended up on the passenger’s side floor of his truck the night of the fire.  It is hard to believe that Kalfas was not made aware of his diligence, yet he simply overlooked it.

By failing to inquire from Mark’s wife how she could have known that Mark had taken a gas can from the garage before the fire started and by failing to take into consideration the well known fact that Mark never put gas cans into the cab of his truck, Kalfas and his superior John Ensell ignored what should have been the focus of the investigation.  They were looking to close the case quickly with careless assumptions and easy answers.

What the Fire Investigators Determined about Mark’s Truck Fire

The Cattaraugus County Fire Investigation Team, headed by Christopher Baker at the time of my brother Mark’s death, filed an Origin and Cause Report consisting of two pages, with a line-by-line series of preset items followed by a section which in two relatively brief paragraphs summarizes the “Actions taken by Investigators.”  A link to the Fire Investigator’s report can be found here under “Official Documents.”  This post considers specific determinations made by the fire investigators that seem especially at odds with an explanation by Mr. Baker, as relayed to me by a local reporter.

The Cattaraugus County website does not offer much information about the specific duties of the Fire Investigation Team (CATTFIT).  It does indicate that seven members are volunteers from the county fire service and that the eighth is a member of the Sheriff's Office, who “is responsible for maintaining all the fire investigation records, assisting with follow-up investigation on all fires and preparing arson cases for court proceedings, and other day-to-day operations of the Team.”

There are no directives specific to vehicle fires. But the CATTFIT Guidelines page of the county’s website briefly mentions relevant information, as follows verbatim: 

“2. Investigators will need information from first firefighters on scene such as: A) Where was the fire located?... and D) Were there possible tire tracks or footprints in the area?  4. The fire investigation team will attempt to determine the origin and cause of all fires.”

The first page of the Fire Investigator’s report with the line-by-line items indicates that Christopher Baker took photos of the scene.  The narrative section of the report is very brief about their findings on the scene the night of the fire.  The first paragraph indicates that besides taking a “cursory walk around the scene from areas of least to most devastation,” the fire investigators found the remains of a gasoline can on the passenger’s side floor of my brother’s truck.

The second paragraph summarizes their efforts the next day at the N.Y.S.P. crime lab, where the truck had been transported, to try to determine “cause and origin” of the truck fire.  They observed heavy damage to the driver’s side front seat and floor and lesser damage to the passenger’s side, where they found a lighter as well as the remains of the gas can.  (The lighter was presumably metal, since the plastic gas can had melted.)

The team determined that the fire started in the driver’s side and spread through the firewall into the engine compartment and that it spread laterally to the passenger’s side.  In checking fluid levels, they found that the gas tank was about three-quarters full.  Their conclusion was that the fire “was caused by human element.”  The report then states that the investigation was turned over to N.Y.S.P. Inv. Edward Kalfas.

The Fire Investigator’s report thus does not attempt to explain the “human element” responsible for starting the fire, i.e., if it was set by accident or by arson.  The fire investigators spent over three hours on the scene the night of the fire.  (They state two conflicting times of arrival, 23:06 on the first page and 22:30 on the second, but the first must be correct since the alarm went out to the firefighters at about 23:00, i.e., 11 p. m.)  The report does not make it clear what they did in those three plus hours, but Christopher Baker must have spent a fair amount of time taking photographs of the truck and of the scene after the fire was extinguished.

By the time the fire investigation team arrived on the scene, EMT Cheryl Simcox and members of the Kill Buck and Great Valley fire departments had already arrived: first Gary Wind, followed by Mark Ward (both of whom gave witness statements), and then Wayne Frank. N.Y.S.P.  Trooper David Chandler was on the scene before 11:30 (the time when he began his interview of Mark’s wife Susan).  According to Gary Wind’s witness statement, the fire department extinguished the vehicle fire and secured the scene for the fire investigation team.  When Inv. Edward Kalfas arrived at 12:30 a.m., according to his narrative in the police report, N.Y.S.P. Sgt. Frankowski and the fire investigation team were already there.  Inv. Kalfas states that Sgt. Frankowski took 38 photographs of the scene.

Baker and the other members of the team presumably noticed the remnants of Mark’s burned clothing about sixty feet from the truck, where my brother himself had been found with two-foot flames shooting from his body when EMT Cheryl Simcox arrived on the scene.  In a list of items taken from the scene in his narrative for the night of the fire, Inv. Kalfas mentions “portions of burnt clothing from the victim.”  The team then should have also noticed, confirmed by the photographs, that there was no fire trail leading from the truck, which had been engulfed in flames, to the place where Mark was discovered lying on fire in the field (a property that he did not own) across from his house. 

In their time on the scene, the team members presumably walked from the field over to Mark’s property and noticed, as at least two firefighters did, the pool of Mark’s blood in the area off the main driveway where my brother normally parked his truck.  In his narrative for the night of the fire, Inv. Kalfas also lists two cotton swabs with blood taken from the victim’s driveway and secured, to be sent to the N.Y.S.P. crime lab in Albany.  Did Baker photograph the blood?

Did Baker also photograph the tire marks that at least one firefighter noticed just off the driveway leading down Mark’s property to the field?  The team members should have been puzzled as to why and how Mark’s truck went from his own parking area down his long driveway and then fifty feet into the field across the road.

The Fire Investigator’s report is certainly not incorrect in attributing the fire to “human element.”  But a local reporter back in December 2004 relayed to me a shocking explanation for the fire that he said came from an interview with a fire official in November.  According to John Eberth, at that time a reporter for the Olean Times Herald, Christopher Baker told him that he believed the fire was an accident, possibly caused by Mark falling asleep with a cigarette in his hand.

Could my brother possibly have fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand in the driver’s seat, which had been saturated with gasoline, and with an open gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side?  That explanation defies logic: it makes no sense that Mark fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand if the seat was already soaked with gasoline.

A far more plausible scenario can be constructed from suggestions by an independent criminologist, a forensic pathologist, and other professionals concerned about the following:

(1) the lack of a fire trail, which Mark would have to have left if he crawled away from the truck in flames;

(2) the presence of Mark’s truck fifty feet into the field across from his house, where he had no reason to put it;

 
(3) the specific position of the truck, which had been backed down his driveway and thus faced Mark’s property, since Mark was found sixty feet away from the passenger’s side door, which was closed, while the driver’s side door was open, making it implausible that my brother, on fire, went around the truck to the other side and ran from there;

(4) the presence of the gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side of his truck, where Mark never put gas cans;

(5) the extremely serious third-degree burns over ninety percent of his body, which would not have been mitigated even though Mark had apparently pulled most of his clothes off, indicating that Mark had been fully doused with gasoline and contradicting the theory of the N.Y.S.P. that he had deliberately poured or accidentally spilled gasoline on himself in the truck;

(6) the wound to his forehead observed by two firefighters on the scene and confirmed by his attending physician at the burn unit (who also found soft-tissue damage to the left side of Mark’s face); and

(7) the pool of Mark’s blood found in his driveway area the night of the fire.

Here is a possible scenario that fits the facts: Mark was attacked in the area of his driveway when he returned home from a neighbor’s house shortly before the fire (on his presence at a neighbor’s, see post of August 11, 2014).  He was then placed in the truck (possibly in the back of it), which was backed down the driveway and into the field.  He was then dragged away from the truck, doused with gasoline, and set on fire.  His attacker or attackers then opened the passenger’s side door, placed the gas can on the floor, threw in the lighter, slammed the door shut, and ran off to the vehicle in which they had arrived and lain in wait for my brother.

Kalfas’s Unwillingness to Listen to Potentially Important Information during the Investigation into Mark’s Death

This post concerns the quite adamant unwillingness of the lead investigator Edward Kalfas to listen to relevant and potentially significant information to the investigation of my brother Mark’s death.  His harsh manner in responding to one particular individual who contacted him early in the investigation left her feeling very intimidated.

Mark’s and my cousin Betty Povlock (her family used an alternate spelling of the surname), a retired Cattaraugus County nurse, was very concerned about Mark’s death.  She was grateful for help Mark had given her in planting flowers on her parents’ grave site and driving her to Buffalo when her beloved cocker spaniel needed specialized veterinary care.

In early October 2003, Betty informed me about a conversation she had had with a local Salamanca woman who reported hearing that Mark’s wife Susan had been in a rage over his DWI the day before his truck fire (on the problematic circumstances of that DWI, see esp. posts of September 22, 2010; July 28, 2011; and April 18, 2013).  Betty told me the name of the woman with whom she had spoken and the name of the woman who had observed Susan’s reaction to Mark’s DWI.  I encouraged Betty to report this information to Inv. Kalfas.

Later in October, Betty called to let me know about her conversation with Kalfas.  She was quite upset about how dismissive Kalfas had been toward her.  He apparently did not let her finish what she wanted to report but just abruptly told her that he did not want to hear about rumors.  In an interview with him in early November, I myself experienced Kalfas’s unprofessional attitude when he gruffly stated that he would no longer speak with me after I asked him a question about the personal argument between my brother and Ofc. Mark Marowski at a local club the day before the truck fire (see post of September 22, 2010, section “Communicating with Inv. Kalfas and the District Attorney”).

Ironically, the information Betty had tried to report in fact reinforced what the couple who brought Mark back home from his arrest for DWI told Kalfas when they were interviewed during the investigation.  The wife, who grew up on the same street as my brother and I and remained friends with Mark through the years, told me with no hesitation that she and her husband had reported Susan’s vehement reaction to Mark’s DWI (see post of August 22, 2012).

Surprised that there is no mention of that information in the police report, I requested that Atty. Michael Kelly ask about this gap when he met with Kalfas and his superior John Wolfe in 2005.  Kalfas’s response was unsatisfactory: he did not think they had told him “all that much,” and he felt that Susan was “understandably upset” and as an employee in the school system would be embarrassed at the publicity over the DWI.

In his interviews of Susan, shouldn’t Kalfas have asked her about her reaction to Mark’s DWI?  The two descriptions of her reaction, the one from eyewitnesses immediately upon Mark’s arrival home from the DWI and the other presumably later, suggest that Kalfas should have followed up on the issue to get Susan’s own view of her response to her husband’s DWI.  Nothing in the police report indicates that Kalfas brought up this issue with Susan.  His brief references to his interviews of Mark’s wife indicate that he focused on events the day of the truck fire.

What Kalfas dismissively called “rumors” many investigators would call potential leads that warrant some level of investigative effort. It is unfortunate—not to mention unprofessional—that Kalfas rudely cut my cousin Betty off when she tried to relay the information she had been given about Susan’s reaction to Mark’s DWI. 

A little over a year after her upsetting conversation with Kalfas, Betty told me that another woman had recently mentioned the name of an individual (allegedly) involved in Mark’s death.  Betty added that her acquaintance would not elaborate.  Some time afterwards, Betty mentioned that her informant was a member of the local government.

Although the investigation was officially over at that point, new information could have re-opened the case.  If Betty had felt comfortable relaying to Kalfas what her acquaintance had suggestively mentioned but refused to expand on, the investigator himself could then have interviewed that member of the local government.

The Problem of the Lack of a Timeline by the NYSP in Their Investigation of Mark’s Death

Timelines are considered important tools for police in investigations of suspicious deaths and murders as they arrange the events in chronological sequence, providing a coherent framework for assessing a case.  However, after Atty. Michael Kelly met with the lead investigator of my brother Mark’s case and his immediate superior in 2005, Kelly indicated that there seemed to be no timeline or charts detailing the scene of Mark’s truck fire.

A timeline in Mark’s case should presumably have begun with events from the day before the truck fire.  A primary event would be the personal argument at a local club between my brother Mark and off-duty police officer Mark Marowski that resulted in Marowski calling in to the Salamanca police to have my brother arrested for DWI on his way home.  That altercation, however, is not even mentioned in the police report (on that issue see most recently post of February 28, 2025).

Related information for a timeline would be statements made by members of the club who were present during that altercation.  The police report refers to interviews of members of the club who claimed that Mark had been behaving “unusually” and “not like himself” the day of the truck fire.  However, Atty. Kelly reported that at their meeting in 2005, the lead investigator, Edward Kalfas, told him that he had not found anyone who had seen Mark out the day of the truck fire (see post of November 29, 2021).

Kalfas, then, presumably made an error in the police report, confusing the two dates.  If he had made a timeline, which generally includes both dates and specific times of the day, that mistake would probably not have happened.  As it stands, though, his error keeps Ofc. Marowski out of the picture and insinuates abnormal, potentially unstable behavior on Mark’s part.  (On an anonymous letter reporting that Marowski was having an affair with Mark’s wife at the time of the truck fire, see post of August 11, 2014.)

Events on the day of the truck fire, of course, would be crucial to a timeline.  The only references in the police report to Mark’s activities during the day prior to the fire come from Mark’s wife Susan in her witness statement.  She states that “Mark had been drinking beer and maybe slightly intoxicated during the afternoon”; that they “were watching television around 7:30 pm”; and that “around 8:45 Mark left the house to go [to] downtown Salamanca.”

A problem with Susan’s reference to Mark during the afternoon is that several individuals told me (and, I believe, reported to Kalfas) that they had tried to reach him by phone during the day but got no answer.  Atty. Kelly found this discrepancy problematic and suggested to the two NYSP investigators at their meeting in 2005 that it would be useful to know if Susan had gone to work the day of the truck fire.  Apparently, they did not check with the local school where she was a secretary.  A timeline including these discrepancies might have encouraged Kalfas to dig more deeply to try to resolve them.

While Susan refers to Mark leaving at 8:45 p.m. for downtown Salamanca, Kalfas acknowledged that he had found no one who saw Mark out that day, including that evening.  It is not clear if Kalfas checked all the possible clubs or bars.  But clearly it was very important to find out where Mark was in the hours before 11:00 p.m. or so, the time of Susan’s 911 call about the truck fire.

Perhaps Kalfas’s unwarranted assumption that Mark committed suicide (see post of November 30, 2023) blinded him to the possibility of foul play, and therefore he did not consider it crucial to learn where Mark had been in the hours before the fire.  Yet, as mentioned in the post of August 11, 2014, the writer of the anonymous letter sent to me stated that Mark was at the house of a neighbor right before the fire and that the neighbor indicated that Mark was not so intoxicated as the police believed.  There is no mention in that letter of depression or a suicidal tendency on Mark’s part, either.

Had Kalfas interviewed the neighbor whom Mark had visited the evening of the truck fire?  (On problems with Kalfas’s interviews of Mark’s close friends, see post of September 30, 2024.)  Had he also interviewed the writer of the anonymous letter, also quite possibly a neighbor?  If he had, did Kalfas deliberately ignore information that was crucial to an investigative timeline and should have been entered into a timeline?

If not, Kalfas might well have found out that kind of essential information by checking Mark’s and Susan’s phone records (landline and cell).  Mark might very well have called the neighbor before going over to visit that person.  A check of the phone records would certainly have filled in some of the information relevant to a full, precise investigative timeline, including the phone conversation that Susan states she was having when she saw the flames in the field across from their house (on which, see posts of February 28 and April 30, 2019).

More on Officer Mark Marowski and the NYSP Interview in Late 2014

A previous post (September 28, 2023) discussed the extent to which a problematic Salamanca police officer was interviewed in connection with the investigation of my brother Mark’s death.  This post points out ironic aspects of the “interview” of that police officer in late 2014.

As several posts have discussed (see July 28, 2011; April 18, 2013; September 14, 2014; October 17, 2014; July 15, 2015; and June 21, 2016), it has been a matter of concern that the very day before his truck fire, my brother was involved in a personal argument with an off-duty police officer named Mark Marowski at a local club.  Immediately following the altercation, Ofc. Marowski (reportedly very intoxicated himself) called in to the Salamanca police to stop my brother on his way home, which resulted in my brother getting arrested for DWI.

Shockingly, there is no reference to this altercation in the police report.  Instead, the lead investigator of Mark’s death, Edward Kalfas, refers only to comments by members of the Holy Cross club that my brother had behaved “unusually” at that time.

An email in September 2015 from a former Salamanca police officer who indicated that he had been following my blog for about 2 years commented extensively about Ofc. Mark Marowski, with whom he had worked from 1974 to 1978 (see post of September 13, 2015).  According to James Campbell (then a Michigan police official), Marowski had a problem with alcohol and prescription drugs even in the 1970’s.

Among other negative traits, Ofc. Campbell referred to Marowski as a “consummate liar.”  That assessment was reinforced by Marowski’s own brother.  In an email in May 2016, David Marowski mentioned that he had been following my blog on my brother’s death and wanted to provide some insights on Marowski’s character.  According to his own brother, Marowski “has never been trustworthy.  He has been a liar as far back as High School.”

As discussed in a previous post (see September 28, 2023), all efforts to have the NYSP look into the altercation between my brother and Marowski the day before the truck fire proved fruitless.  According to an anonymous letter sent to me in 2014 (see post of August 11, 2014), my brother’s wife and Ofc. Marowski were having an affair at the time of my brother’s death and were observed several times riding together on a 4-wheeler.  

In late 2014, I reported my concern about this latest information and the argument at the Holy Cross Club, among other issues, to NYSP Capt. Steven Nigrelli and also provided Capt. Nigrelli with a copy of the anonymous letter.  Capt. Nigrelli said that he would have an NYSP investigator follow up on my concerns and in January 2015 provided me with a summary of the results (see post of January 16, 2015).

The summary of the interview of Marowski provided by Capt. Nigrelli indicates that Marowski was asked about (1) “his knowledge of the incident surrounding Mark's death” and (2) his relationship with my brother and his wife.  On the first issue, the summary states only: “with no new information developed.”  On the second issue, the summary reports that Marowski “knew both Mark and Susan since they all grew up in the area” and “denied any romantic relationship with Susan Pavlock.”

On his relationship with my brother, Marowski seems to have lived up to his reputation (at least for James Campbell and David Marowski) as a liar.  He apparently failed to mention that, according to several individuals, he had argued with my brother on numerous occasions at the Holy Cross Club and, according to a bartender at that club, had actually bragged about his role in Mark’s arrest for DWI on the very day my brother lay dying in the burn unit and calls were coming in at the club with updates on his condition.  Was Marowski truthful about his relationship with my brother Mark’s wife?

The NYSP officer assigned by Capt. Nigrelli to interview Marowski (presumably Christopher Iwanko) apparently took Marowski’s responses as fact.  It thus seems to have been no real interview at all.  From the beginning of the investigation of Mark’s death and right up the chain of the NYSP hierarchy, Ofc. Marowski remained protected by his shield, even after he was forced to retire because of his own DWI in 2006.

Yet More on the Problem of the 911 Call

Previous posts (see July 1, 2014; September 29, 2021; and July 7, 2022) have dealt with the problem that in the investigation of my brother Mark’s death the NYSP appeared to have ignored the 911 call made by my brother’s wife Susan the night of his truck fire.  This post expands on that issue.

As the earlier posts discuss (see esp. July 7, 2022), a statement in the police report by the first NYSP officer on the scene that he responded to “a report of a male subject possibly attempting to burn himself in his vehicle” raises questions about the source of the potential implication of suicide.  Does it relate directly to the 911 call made by Mark’s wife, or is it an inference made by an official who relayed the call to Trooper Chandler?

As the earlier posts discuss (see esp. September 29, 2021), in September 2005, when Atty. Michael Kelly met with NYSP Sr. Inv. Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, the lead detective in the investigation of Mark’s death, he asked if Kalfas had reviewed the 911 call.  As Kelly informed me, Kalfas replied that he had heard it but couldn’t remember it, and so Wolfe offered to retrieve the tape of the 911 call.  Yet Wolfe abruptly changed his mind, deciding not to retrieve the 911 call unless the case was re-opened.

An official who heard the 911 call remembered it several years later and expressed concerns about it. Furthermore, that individual indicated that the 911 call was quite lengthy, noting that a number of things were mentioned before Susan referred specifically to the fire.  Kalfas, however, does not appear to have shown much interest in the 911 call.  He does not mention the 911 call in his narrative in the police report, and so it is not clear if he gave the kind of careful attention that 911 calls deserve, especially to details that might affect the investigation.

My FOIL requests for an audio or transcript of the 911 call were unsuccessful (see posts of September 22 and October 27, 2011). The NYSP Central Records Bureau stated that they had “failed to locate any records responsive to [my] request.”  A police official mentioned that it can take considerable effort to find records in storage. How thorough a search did Central Records make to locate the tape?

In a conversation with a member of NYSP Internal Affairs, I was advised to contact Capt. Steven Nigrelli over my concerns about the case.  Through communications by phone and email, I brought up a number of issues with Capt. Nigrelli, including the concerns of the official who had heard the 911 call and was troubled by it.  As mentioned in a previous post (July 7, 2022), that individual later confirmed that he had brought up his concerns about the 911 call 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.

Although Capt. Nigrelli did not reveal what member or members of the BCI conducted the interviews, I was informed by two of the individuals that they were interviewed by Christopher Iwanko.  It is unclear why Capt. Nigrelli chose then-Sr. Inv. Iwanko to conduct the interviews.  Iwanko was involved in the original investigation, which very quickly jumped to the conclusion that Mark had committed suicide and ignored or glossed over facts pointing toward foul play.

According to the police report, then-Inv. Christopher Iwanko attended Mark’s autopsy, “taking photographs, fingerprints and a blood kit from the victim.”  When an independent criminologist phoned the NYSP on my behalf in 2011 to ask about obtaining photos of the scene, he happened to reach Iwanko, who told him that they usually purge the records after five years.  The criminologist informed me that at the end of the call when he asked for the investigator’s name, Iwanko hesitated several seconds before revealing it.  It is strange that the investigator apparently seemed reluctant to identify himself.

What is most troubling about the summaries of Iwanko’s interviews is that two of them contradict what the individuals interviewed had told me before I expressed my concerns to Capt. Nigrelli and what they affirmed to me after they had been interviewed.  One of those interviewed by Iwanko was in fact very upset when I read him the summary of his purported interview.  He insisted that the summary did not reflect his statements to the investigator about what he had directly observed of Mark and his interactions with others close to him.

The summary of the interview of the individual who had heard the 911 call and had specific concerns about it completely ignores that issue.  Here is the content of Iwanko’s interview of that individual: the interviewee “could not offer any other specific memories other than previously provided or any evidence to prove foul play.”  Nothing further is stated.  There is no mention whatsoever of the 911 call in the summary.

All these efforts to find out specific information concerning the 911 call about Mark’s truck fire failed.  The NYSP were repeatedly unwilling to examine the 911 call.  They ignored another official’s explicit concerns about that 911 call.  The 911 should have been thoroughly scrutinized but was ignored, much like the pool of Mark’s blood found on his driveway, the wound to his forehead, and the suspicious presence of a gas can in the cab of his truck.  What can account for the NYSP’s precipitous focus on suicide and their failure to press forward on anything that did not conform to that theory?  Was it merely a lack of real interest in the case?

To What Extent Did the NYSP Investigator Interview Mark’s Close Friends?

The lead investigator of my brother’s death Edward Kalfas told Atty. Michael Kelly that he had not found anyone who saw Mark out the day of his truck fire.  An anonymous letter sent to me, however, stated that just before the fire my brother had been at the house of a neighbor, who said that Mark could not have had the kind of high blood alcohol level the police claimed (see esp. post of August 11, 2014).  Several of Mark’s close friends were neighbors, that is, they lived within a mile or so of his house in rural Great Valley, NY, and saw him on a regular basis.

It was certainly important for the NYSP investigators to find out if anyone had seen Mark in the evening around the time he returned home just before his truck burned in the field across from his house.  Inv. Kalfas stated that Mark was depressed about his DWI the day before the truck fire (on the problematic circumstances leading up to that DWI, see most recently post of February 28, 2021) and, with no real basis for that claim, stated very early on in the investigation that it looked as if my brother had committed suicide (see most recently post of November 30, 2023).

How many of Mark’s close friends who saw him regularly were actually interviewed, and to what extent were they questioned?  The police report that I obtained through a FOIL request in September 2004 is heavily redacted, and in Kalfas’s narrative the names of all private citizens interviewed are blacked out, with the exception of Mark’s wife Susan and my own name (in particular, concerning a phone conversation with Inv. Kalfas on September 29, 2003, that does not accurately summarize information I gave the investigator).

Although the name of the individual is blacked out, Kalfas’s entry in the police report for November 22, 2003, clearly represents his interview with Mark’s friend Jim Poole, whom Mark had known since high school.  Kalfas quotes Jim as follows: “[W]hen he got the DWI with his name in the paper, I think it pushed him over the edge.”  Yet when I myself spoke by telephone with Jim Poole on November 11, 2003, he said that he considered Mark "a proud man" who would be humiliated by publicity about the DWI, especially because he did a lot of charity work, but added that he did not find that a very convincing as a motive for suicide (see post of November 1, 2012).  Jim also commented on the shouting that went on between my brother and his wife whenever he happened to be at their house and mentioned that, as far as he knew, the last person who saw my brother was Todd Lindell, another close friend of Mark’s. 

To judge by his entry on Jim Poole in the police report, Kalfas appears to have asked Jim only about Mark’s drinking and about a possible motive for suicide.  He seems not to have been interested in finding out who had contact with my brother the day of his truck fire, and he was obviously not interested in finding out about any other relevant issue.

Kalfas’s interview of Mark’s friend Jim Wright is revealed in a witness statement dated October 24, 2003.  Although Jim’s signature is blacked out, the identities of the five individuals who gave witness statements were left unredacted by the NYSP, presumably inadvertently.  Oddly, Jim Wright’s is the only witness statement by any close friend of Mark’s, whether a neighbor or not.

Stating that he knew Mark for many years and that they were very good friends, Jim mentions that he picked Mark up from his DWI the day before the truck fire.  Although noting that Mark was a regular smoker, he contradicts rumors that Mark caught on fire as he was filling up his tank, since he knew for certain that Mark never let his tank go below half-full (and therefore presumably would have had no reason to fill it up late at night at home).  Jim ends by insisting that Mark had no “suicidal tendencies.”

As with Jim Poole, it seems clear that Kalfas was most interested to know if Jim Wright thought Mark was suicidal.  There is nothing in Jim Wright’s witness statement about what Jim and his wife Alexis revealed to Kalfas (presumably at the time of Kalfas’s interview of Jim) about the reaction of Mark’s wife when they dropped Mark off at his house from the DWI (see post of August 22, 2012).  When later asked by Atty. Kelly about the absence of that information, Kalfas replied that he didn’t consider it important.

Like Jim Poole and Jim Wright, Mark’s friend Sidney Lindell had known him for many years and saw him frequently.  In a phone conversation with me on December 16, 2003, Sid said that he had seen Mark about a week before his death.  He also mentioned that he was surprised to learn that Mark had started drinking again because he had been completely sober for years.  Since Kalfas seemed to think that my brother was an inveterate alcoholic, Sid’s information would have provided Kalfas a useful corrective to distorted views about Mark’s drinking.  However, in a later conversation, Sid told me that he had not been interviewed by the NYSP investigator.

In a phone conversation with me on November 13, 2003, Mark’s friend Todd Lindell mentioned that he had seen my brother on a daily basis for years and had an "open door" policy for him.  Todd informed me that he had retrieved Mark’s truck from impoundment the evening of his DWI and stated that on the day before the truck fire Mark was at his house well into the evening.  Without any explanation, Todd suddenly said, “Mark would be alive today if he had not gotten the DWI" (see most recently post of February 28, 2020, and March 31, 2021).  Although I was later unable to reach Todd, that comment suggests that he may have had some potentially important information for the investigation.  However, he indicated that he had not been interviewed.

In his narrative in the police report for October 25, 2002, Kalfas reports his interviews of three individuals, all of whom, he says, “are friends and neighbors of the victim.”  Kalfas’s summary of these interviews records only references to Mark’s drinking.  In addition to a more extended comment by one of the interviewees about seeing Mark sitting in his truck drinking, the investigator lumps together their views on that subject, as follows: “Each agreed that the victim used to hang around their houses a lot and was often drinking.”

Were Sidney Lindell and his cousin Todd Lindell among these three individuals, even though they told me they were not interviewed?  If so, it is difficult to reconcile the disparity between what Kalfas records and what each one said to me.

 

More on What a Neighbor of Mark’s Said about the Night of the Truck Fire

Two previous posts (April 20, 2011, and August 31, 2021) discuss information reported to me about a ruckus on my brother Mark’s property immediately before his truck went into the field across from his house and burst into flames and the failure to follow up in 2010 by an investigator for the Cattaraugus County District Attorney, who was also the NYSP Senior Investigator at the time of Mark’s death.  This post expands on the two earlier ones.

As the two previous posts observe, the report of a ruckus on Mark’s property was brought to my attention by a chance encounter with the secretary of the local Catholic church in late September 2009.  The secretary, Judy Bess, referred to a conversation that she had with a member of the congregation named Gene Woodworth, who was a neighbor of my brother.  According to the secretary, Woodworth said the following: (a) he happened to be outdoors and heard a ruckus going on outside Mark's house; (b) he observed the truck go down the driveway and saw Mark; and (c) he then rushed over to the scene and even helped bat the flames out on Mark.

As the earlier posts also discuss, when I telephoned him the following day, Woodworth gave me a very different account of what he had heard and done.  Woodworth said that he had seen lights flashing and found out what was happening from another neighbor, Dan Smith, who was leaving as he arrived.  Stating that he never saw Mark at all, Woodworth added that he thought "something [had] happened on the property" and surmised that Mark had backed the truck all the way across the road.  The following day I reported to Judy Bess these discrepancies with her summary of the conversation she had with Woodworth.  Judy, however, insisted that she had reported Woodworth’s statements accurately and added that he had referred specifically to “screaming” coming from Mark’s property.

As the earlier posts also indicate, when I met with Cattaraugus County D. A. Lori Rieman and John Ensell in May 2010, I mentioned Judy Bess’s summary of what Gene Woodworth had told her, including the issue of a ruckus on Mark’s property right before the truck fire.  Ensell immediately insisted that it was not true.  I also explained how Woodworth’s account to me differed radically from what Judy said he had told her.  Although D. A. Rieman instructed Ensell to contact Judy Bess about her conversation with Woodworth, Ensell replied to me by e-mail in December 2010 that he could not find a phone number for Judy.  He also stated that he had interviewed Woodworth, who had little to say about the night of Mark’s truck fire, only that he “saw yellow off in the distance, walked about half way down, and turned around and came back” and that “anything said after that would have been purely speculation.”

Judy Bess apparently was never interviewed, and the issue seems to have been dropped by both Ensell and D. A. Rieman.  In my own conversation with Woodworth, I asked if he had been interviewed by the NYSP during the investigation into Mark’s death.  Woodworth replied that he had not been interviewed.  Given that he lived just down the road from my brother’s house and knew Mark, it seems very odd that the NYSP investigators overlooked Woodworth as a potential source of information.

A few years after my meeting with Rieman and Ensell, another individual mentioned a conversation with Woodworth about the night of Mark’s truck fire.  The details differ from Woodworth’s statements to me and from Ensell’s summary of his interview with Woodworth as well as from what Judy Bess reported to me.  According to that individual, Woodworth stated that his wife had seen the flames from their house and that he had gone up the road to the scene.  As that individual also reported, Woodworth did not want to talk any further about the night of Mark’s truck fire but did say that he thought it likely that Mark had been murdered.

Did the NYSP Investigators Fully Look into the Problem of the Gas Can?

 

Previous posts have discussed the problem of the gas can found on the floor of the passenger’s side of my brother Mark’s pickup truck the night of his truck fire (see esp. July 22, 2012, and October 30, 2018).  As mentioned in the earlier posts, the location of the gas can that night is suspicious because Mark never put gas cans in the cab of his truck, but always secured them in the back of the truck.  This post discusses how thoroughly (or not) the NYSP investigators looked into the gas can itself from a scientific perspective as well as from common experience.

It is well known that gas cans easily explode, if left open and their vapors exposed to a flame or some other source of ignition.  The Fire Investigator’s report specifies that there was no explosion, and the lead investigator Edward Kalfas also told me that there was no explosion.  However, Mark’s neighbor and EMT Cheryl Simcox informed me that she heard an explosion and saw the truck on fire in the field across from Mark’s house; “toned out” about the fire, she rushed to the scene.  Cheryl stated that her husband also heard the explosion.

Surprised when I told her that there was no reference to an explosion in her witness statement in the police report, Cheryl said that she was quite sure she had mentioned it to Inv. Kalfas when he took her statement.  In addition, Mark’s and my half-sister Carol McKenna told me in passing that Mark’s wife Susan had also mentioned hearing an explosion, though Susan does not refer to an explosion in her own witness statement.

Furthermore, Cheryl Simcox said that the explosion had shaken their trailer.  Given such a strong recollection of that event, some form of explosion seems certain.  When Dr. Edward Piotrowski, Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit, asked me if there had been an explosion, I replied that according to Inv. Kalfas there had not been an explosion.  The doctor, however, expressed skepticism about Kalfas’s denial of an explosion since Kalfas had not been on the scene at the time.

In a conversation with an experienced forensic toxicologist, I referred to Cheryl Simcox’s mention of an explosion and Dr. Piotrowski’s interest in knowing if there had been an explosion.  The forensic toxicologist explained that the issue of an explosion is part of a larger picture and that it is important to know if the gas can was open.  I mentioned that firefighter Wayne Frank had told me that it was probably not possible to know the answer because the gas can was so badly burned.  The forensic toxicologist, however, stated that forensic experts would in fact be able to tell if the can was open or not when it burned.

In an entry in his narrative the police report for 09/24/03, Inv. Kalfas lists among five items of evidence "the melted remains of a red plastic gas can -to Western Regional Crime Lab."  Nothing further is stated about the condition of the gas can.  How much of it was left?  Was the cap of the can totally destroyed in the fire?

In an entry for 11/04/03, Kalfas states the following: “Member received lab results from the Western Regional Crime Lab regarding the melted gas can and burnt clothing from the victim.  Items tested positive for gasoline.”  Kalfas states nothing more about the lab results from the Western Regional Crime Lab.  One assumes that the Western Regional Crime Lab was more detailed, but the police report does not include the report from that Crime Lab.  As far as the gas can goes, the information reported by Kalfas suggests that the NYSP investigators (Kalfas and his immediate superior Sr. Inv. John Ensell) were interested only in determining if there had actually been gasoline in it at the time of the fire.

Was there no concern to find out from forensic experts at the Western Regional Crime Lab if the can was open or not when it burned?  Did it cause the explosion heard and felt by Cheryl Simcox?  Part of the “larger picture” referred to by the forensic toxicologist whom I consulted would presumably concern the manner in which the gasoline would have spread through the cab of the truck.  Would the Fire Investigator’s statement that the “heavy damage to the driver’s side seat and floor area” and the “lesser damage” to the passenger’s side be consistent with a finding that the gas can had been open but otherwise undisturbed?

If not, how would one explain the saturation of the driver’s side seat and floor with gasoline?  Mark certainly had no reason to use the gas can late that night: he had not run out of gas as the tank was determined to be three-quarters full.