Concerns about the Mystery of Mark’s Whereabouts the Day of His Truck Fire

My last post (July 22, 2012) dealt with the problem of the gas can in the cab of my brother’s pick-up truck the night of the fire.  In that context, it pointed to the troubling issue of a statement made by his son Brian (20 years of age at the time) to a cousin of ours a day or so after the fire that Mark had been burned while putting gasoline into his truck after it ran out of gas.  As noted there, Brian’s statement is a matter of concern not only because my brother’s truck had clearly not run out of gas but also because Mark’s daughter Christie (23 years of age at the time) told me the evening of his death that her father had left her a suicide letter, which she later denied to the State Police investigator.  Here, I consider the problem of why apparently none of his friends and acquaintances saw or heard from Mark at any point on September 23, 2003, prior to his truck fire.  The fire took place the day after my brother was set up for a DWI by then Salamanca police officer Mark Marowski after they got into a personal argument at the Holy Cross Athletic Club, reportedly over Brian’s own arrest for DWI (by Officer Marowski himself, according to rumors).

Inv. Edward Kalfas acknowledged to Att. Michael Kelly in 2005 that he had not been able to find anyone who saw Mark out the day of the truck fire.  Although Mark’s absence in public places that day might conceivably have been the result of embarrassment over his DWI the day before, his wife Susan says in her witness statement that he left the house at 8:45 p.m. specifically to go to downtown Salamanca (presumably to one of the clubs or bars, the only places open at that hour).  One must assume, then, that Mark was not so mortified over the DWI as to be unwilling to appear in public.  Yet no one apparently saw him.  In addition, shortly after his death, at least two individuals said that they had tried to reach Mark by phone the day of the fire but got no answer.  His friend Jim Poole also told me that he had been very surprised not to get a call from Mark that day, since the previous evening (after he returned from the DWI) Mark had left a voice mail message promising to call back about helping Jim with some painting.  Mark was by nature a very sociable person.  So this highly unusual absence is a matter of concern to me, as it was to friends of his who asked in the months after his death if I had found out where he was that day.

The mystery of Mark’s whereabouts the day of his truck fire is even more of a concern in light of a statement made to me by my nephew John McKenna shortly after Mark’s death.  John mentioned that on Sunday the week before the truck fire he had driven down from suburban Buffalo to show Mark his new motorcycle.  Susan, John said, informed him that Mark wasn’t home, but he noticed that ordinary things of Mark’s, such as boots and jackets, were not around as they usually had been and that pictures of Mark were no longer on display.  According to John, it looked as if Mark wasn’t living there.  In the same conversation, John also referred to the fact that Mark's and Susan’s son Brian had got a DWI about that very same time.

In later conversations, John mentioned more specific information about Mark not living in his own home.  He informed me that more than once my brother had spent a week or so, apparently not of his own accord, living with our mother (who, protective of Mark, had not revealed anything about this issue to me by the time of her death in November 2000).  John also mentioned that Brian had explained why he himself was living with his grandmother (Mark’s and my mother) rather than with his parents from late 1999 to mid-2000.  According to John, Brian stated that “Mark wouldn’t move out.”  Since when does a sixteen or seventeen-year old boy have the right to expect his father to move out of his own house?  I myself was very surprised to find Brian living in my family home when I went to visit my mother at Christmastime in 1999.  To my query about why he was there, Brian simply replied, “I don’t get along with my father.” 

John also mentioned his shock at Brian’s response when he picked him up at the Buffalo airport (presumably from school in Virginia) early in the afternoon on September 24, just after Mark died at the burn unit.  According to John, Brian asked sarcastically, “What happened?  Did Mark kill himself?”  In a telephone call to me in November 2003, Brian was clearly not happy that I had been phoning Mark’s friends to ask what they had observed about Mark in the period before his death.  He also expressed strong hostility toward his deceased father.  When I asked him what my brother had ever done that was so terrible, he replied that several years earlier Mark had yelled at him for cashing a savings bond to buy a new golf club.  Hadn’t Mark actually done his duty as a father in that instance?  Although I waited to hear something more substantive, Brian had nothing more to say on the subject.

What Mark’s wife Susan says in her witness statement about his presence at home on September 23 also seems problematic.  Susan states that she and Mark were “watching television around 7:30 p.m.”  Yet Alexis Wright told me that when she and her husband Jim brought Mark home from his DWI arrest the day before, she had never seen anyone angrier than Mark’s wife.  According to Alexis, Susan shouted to Mark, “Pack your bags and get the hell out,” among other statements that included vulgarity.  When I spoke with firefighter Wayne Frank in 2005, he said it was well known that Susan had been furious over Mark’s DWI.  One can be very angry, of course, and not act on those emotions.  But Susan’s witness statement seems unrealistically to give the impression of domestic harmony.  It is also a matter of concern to me that when D. A. Edward Sharkey instructed the State Police investigator to ask Mark’s wife to take a polygraph test in April 2004, Susan refused.

Peter Rapacioli’s statement to Inv. Kalfas, as recorded in the police report narrative for 9/25/03, does not in fact square with what he told me.  Although I do not know Mr. Rapacioli, I was advised in early November 2003 by one of my brother’s friends to contact him because he had been involved in a charity football pool with Mark.  According to the police report, Mr. Rapacioli “was on the telephone with Mrs. Pavlock, looking to speak with the victim, when she advised him of seeing the fire and hung up to call ‘911.’”  But when I spoke with him around five weeks after Mark’s death, Mr. Rapacioli told me that he had tried unsuccessfully to reach Mark earlier that day.  He said nothing whatsoever about being on the phone with Mark’s wife late that night when she saw the truck in flames in the field across the road.  That seems too important a detail to fail to mention, especially to the victim’s sister.

The investigating authorities were informed by numerous individuals about problems related to the immediate circumstances of Mark’s truck fire.  However, they clearly focused on the issue of Mark’s drinking (about which I will have more information in a future post).  But they should also have taken other issues into consideration, including problematic attitudes toward Mark and statements about the day of the fire that didn’t add up.

I urge readers of this blog to go directly to the police report by clicking on the link on the right-hand side, where it is listed under “Official Documents.”  The redactions seem unnecessarily abundant.  According to the State Police official who responded to my FOIL request, sensitive information about police procedures would not be revealed.  But why should the names and some of the substance of witness statements be blacked out?  FOIL, after all, refers to freedom of information.  But nonetheless where, for instance, does Inv. Kalfas record the Wrights’ observations when they brought Mark home from his DWI?  Alexis assured me that they had reported that information in their interview with the investigator. 

My brother’s character is also impugned in the police report, as though he had done little other than drink.  But whatever faults Mark may have had (and using alcohol for relief in a period of personal stress is a problem), he was at heart a kind person, who among other things served his country in Vietnam and for many years performed a considerable amount of community service.  He did not deserve to have third-degree burns inflicted over ninety percent of his body, and he does not deserve to have his reputation left as it is in that official record.

Most important, those responsible for Mark’s death ought to be held accountable.  This blog should not have to compensate for an indifferent or ineffective justice system.  But, sadly, that seems to be the case.