This post deals with the claims by the New York State Police and the Cattaraugus County District Attorney that my brother's death from third-degree burns over ninety percent of his body was the result of either an accident or a suicide. Several officials associated with the investigation openly stated that they thought Mark's death was a suicide. But the authorities admitted that they couldn't “prove” that my brother had taken his own life, and so his death was officially declared an “accident.” The purpose of this blog has, of course, been to reveal the serious problems with the investigation into Mark's death and to show from several perspectives just how suspicious the circumstances surrounding his death really are. At this point, I'd like to take a closer look at the questionable bases for the authorities' position that Mark's death was most likely a suicide.
Claims about the likelihood of a suicide were expressed by Inv. Edward Kalfas, Sr. Inv. John Wolfe, Capt. George Brown, Lt. Allen, and D.A. Edward Sharkey. Although previously asserting that not enough had been done in the investigation, current D.A. Lori Rieman in 2010 abruptly proclaimed her agreement with Mr. Sharkey that Mark may well have committed suicide or simply had an unfortunate accident. Three primary reasons were given to support the theory of a suicide. Inv. Kalfas stated early in the investigation that my brother had been depressed over the following: the death of his dog a month or more earlier, his son's DWI the previous week, and his own DWI the day before the truck fire.
Where did the State Police investigator get the idea that Mark had been depressed over having to put down his dog Scooter? Who told him that? During the period of the investigation, I spoke with all of Mark's close friends as well as some acquaintances whom he saw on a fairly regular basis. Not one of them had observed any depression on his part over his dog's death--or over anything else, for that matter. A cousin in the area who had frequent contact with Mark also insisted that he had not been depressed about putting down his dog. Mark's friend Alexis Wright mentioned that, after the dog was gone, my brother brought over Scooter's blanket and other items that Alexis and Jim's own dog could use. She considered my brother's gesture thoughtful and observed no evidence of depression on Mark's part over his dog. My brother had, in fact, been through this kind of situation before. Sixteen years earlier, Mark and I had gone to a veterinarian to euthanize our family dog, who was suffering from dysplasia. Although very sad about our dog's death, neither of us experienced depression over it. Not long afterward, Mark went out and got the puppy called Scooter. So why did Inv. Kalfas assume that Mark had been depressed over his dog's death?
Where did the State Police investigator get the idea that Mark had been depressed over his son's DWI about a week before his own DWI? Who told him that? When I spoke with my nephew John McKenna the evening of my brother's death, he was aware that Brian had got a DWI a week or so earlier. John mentioned that on Sunday, September 14, he had driven down from the Buffalo area to show Mark his new motorcycle but was informed by his wife Susan that Mark wasn't home. John presumably learned about Brian's DWI at that time, but he seemed to know nothing about any despondency over it on Mark's part. Around five weeks after my brother's death, I spoke with his acquaintance Peter Rapacioli. When I brought up the matter of Brian's DWI, Rapacioli also knew about it. But he insisted that far from being depressed about his son's DWI, Mark had gone to a lawyer and was expecting the charge to be reduced. So why did Inv. Kalfas assume that Mark had been depressed over his son's DWI?
Where did the State Police investigator get the idea that Mark had been depressed over his own DWI the day before the truck fire? It seems clear that Inv. Kalfas made an error in his entry in the police report for September 25, 2003, where he mentions that members of the Holy Cross Athletic Club commented that Mark “was very upset at getting arrested for DWI the day before the fire.” In an interview with Att. Michael Kelly in September 2005, Inv. Kalfas acknowledged that he had not found anyone who saw Mark out the day after the DWI, and my brother did not go back to the Holy Cross Club the evening of the DWI. So these club members had no opportunity to observe Mark's reaction to his DWI.
However, the club members present the day of the DWI would have witnessed the argument between my brother and off-duty Salamanca policeman Mark Marowski. As pointed out in a previous post (July 28, 2011), the altercation reportedly revolved around my brother's view that his son should have been treated more leniently because of the unfortunate circumstances that led him to drive after drinking. As that same post mentions, Ofc. Marowski himself had reportedly arrested Brian for DWI. If that is true, Mark would probably have been very upset, indeed. But, in that case, “upset” would mean “angry” rather than “depressed.” Did Inv. Kalfas, then, actually intend to state that Mark “was very upset the day before the fire over his son's recent arrest for DWI”? If so, it is unfortunate that he did not record the facts correctly. What happened during--and after—the argument between my brother and Ofc. Marowski has never been publicly revealed. But it should be.
Did Inv. Kalfas perhaps read too much into the statement of Mark's arresting officer? According to the police report, Ofc. Darryl Wickham [sic for Whitcomb] “stated that the victim was very upset and depressed that the information regarding his arrest would be available to the newspaper.” The operative words here are “upset and depressed.” Obviously, Ofc. Whitcomb would have been able to see that my brother was “upset,” but he must have used the word “depressed” loosely, in a casual, non-technical sense. One can easily understand how any person would be very upset at being arrested and put in jail, especially if it has never happened before. It must feel sickening. In addition, most people would be embarrassed at having their name in the police column of the local newspaper. That is especially true for those who live in a small town, where virtually everyone knows everyone else. Did my brother also realize at the time that Ofc. Marowski had called in on him right after he left the Holy Cross Club? It shouldn't have been too difficult to figure out since he was arrested just a few minutes later. Was Mark's anxiety in part related to an awareness that he had been set up for this DWI? That might really have given him cause for concern.
During my interview with current Cattaraugus County D.A. Lori Rieman in May 2010, retired Sr. Inv. John Ensell, Inv. Kalfas's immediate superior at the time of the investigation, stated that my brother had been under a suicide watch while in jail. Less than a week after Mark's death, Inv. Kalfas mentioned his arrest for DWI but said nothing to me about any “suicide watch.” Since a suicide watch implies drastic circumstances, it is surprising that Inv. Kalfas didn't mention it. It would be interesting to know more about Mr. Ensell's comment. What, for instance, does a “suicide watch” entail for someone held in a small-town jail for a couple of hours after an arrest for DWI?
Mark's interaction with some friends shortly after his release from jail conflicts with the State Police's position that he was depressed as a result of the DWI. In December 2003, Alexis Wright, who along with her husband Jim had picked up my brother from the DWI, told me that on the way home Mark had said to them, “I'm really screwed now.” But she added that when she reassured him by saying that a lot of worse things could have happened, he responded positively. As Alexis mentioned in another conversation, when he came over to their house early in the evening of the DWI to ask for help in retrieving his truck, Mark did not seem depressed at all, but instead emphasized that he wanted to be able to keep his driver's license so that he could get to work. Mark's friend Todd Lindell saw my brother later in the evening of the DWI. As Lindell explained to me in November 2003, after he got my brother's truck out of the impoundment, Mark stayed at his house well into the evening and was taking the DWI in stride: as with Alexis Wright, Mark told Lindell that he wanted to be able to keep his driver's license in order to get to his job as a security guard. Lindell added that Mark said that he would watch the drinking so that he wouldn't get another DWI.
I brought up this information in a conversation with Capt. George Brown of the New York State Police in early 2007. His response was to dismiss what those two people, who had been with my brother the evening of the DWI, observed at first hand. Capt. Brown replied by insisting that “it might not have registered yet with Mark because he was still drunk after the incident.” It is not comprehensible to me how Capt. Brown could possibly say that Mark was “still drunk” hours after his release from his arrest for DWI. According to Alexis Wright, my brother seemed quite normal (and not at all drunk to her) when he came over to their house early that evening.
In addition to these problems with the three alleged causes of a depression that supposedly drove Mark to want to end his life, various statements by the authorities further suggest that they did not probe the issue of a suicide in any depth. Yet they continued to insist that my brother's death was most likely a suicide. To what extent were they influenced by the statement to me by Mark's daughter that he had left her a suicide letter? I reported the details of my conversation with Christie to the State Police as soon as I found out who was investigating the case. I also explained why Christie's claims did not ring true, including Mark's alleged depression over our mother's and father's deaths.
The investigating authorities should certainly have been concerned about Christie's statement to me that she was not telling anyone else about this letter, except for her mother and brother, because she wanted to protect the insurance money. They should also have discounted her claim that Mark had left her a suicide letter for the following reasons: in an interview with Inv. Kalfas in October 2003, Christie denied knowing anything about a suicide letter, and in an interview with Inv. Kalfas in December 2003, Mark's wife Susan stated unequivocally that he had left “no notes or letters.”
In November 2008, I called D.A. Sharkey's investigator Michael Malak to ask why certain things had not been done by the authorities in the case of Mark's death. Mr. Malak retired some time after the investigation and later became a member of a newly formed Cattaraugus County cold case unit. During this conversation with him in late 2008, I brought up my concern about the authorities' failure to press Christie about her claim that Mark had left her a suicide letter, which she was concealing in order to protect the insurance money. Although I explained why this claim of a suicide letter seemed dubious, Mr. Malak replied that such a thing seemed unlikely to have been made up. Was that, then, the position taken by the State Police and the District Attorney's office during the investigation itself? But why would the investigating authorities want to accept such a questionable, unsupported statement when the individual herself later denied to the police knowing anything about a suicide letter and when her mother also told the police that there was no suicide letter?
D.A. Sharkey, furthermore, made conflicting statements about suicide in Mark's case. In May 2004, just after the investigation ended, Mr. Sharkey told Att. Tony Tanke in a telephone conversation that Mark's death was either an accident or a suicide but he thought it most likely a suicide. Yet in the police report D.A. Sharkey is quoted as stating on December 30, 2003, that "there is no evidence to support the possibility of homicide or suicide." Was Mr. Sharkey not aware of the contradiction in his two statements?
To judge by the information I obtained, the theory of a suicide was based on casually made statements, unfounded innuendos, and a highly suspicious claim about a suicide letter. As a result, the investigating authorities seem to have expended their energies on weighing the merits of accident versus suicide as the cause of the truck fire. That misplaced effort, then, deflected attention from the really important question they should have been asking but never even considered: was Mark's death the result of foul play?
That suicide business just looks ridiculous.
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