The Issue of Mark Doused with Gasoline

This post deals with one of the critical issues concerning my brother's death: he was doused with gasoline.  As a nephew who was at the burn unit the morning after the truck fire mentioned to me, Mark's attending physician told him, “This was no accident.”  According to John McKenna, Dr. Edward Piotrowski explained to him that Mark had been doused with a flammable liquid and that either someone had done it to him or he had done it to himself.  As a forensics expert recently explained, when doused with gasoline, the skin continues to burn even when a person removes his clothing to try to put out the fire.  Thus, Mark's burns were extremely severe, mainly third and even some fourth-degree, over almost all of his body. 

To judge by the police report, this issue was sidestepped in the investigation.  Inv. Edward Kalfas does not directly address it in the police report.  But in early 2004 Mark's and my half-sister Carol McKenna informed me of what Inv. Kalfas had recently told her: Mark had been saturated with gasoline.  Later, however, when urged to re-open the investigation partly because of information revealed to me by Dr. Piotrowski, the New York State Police made conflicting statements about the problem of Mark having been doused with gasoline.  This issue, moreover, is tied up with troubling statements about suicide made shortly after my brother's death.

In a telephone conversation in 2005 with Sr. Inv. John Wolfe about my concerns with the investigation, I asked how my brother’s death could have been an accident, given the severity of the burns over ninety percent of his body and the gasoline on his skin.  Mr. Wolfe, however, insisted that there did not appear to be any burns on Mark’s head and therefore his head had not been doused with gasoline.  Although I was not given the opportunity to see the autopsy photos, it is difficult to understand how my brother’s head could appear unburned.  According to my nephew John McKenna, who saw Mark in the burn unit before he died, his head was so badly burned that his nose was “almost burned off.”  John said that the burns on Mark’s head were clearly third-degree.  Dr. Piotrowski confirmed my nephew's observation by indicating that he did not understand how Mark had also got gasoline on his head, as his burns there were so severe.

Furthermore, Sr. Inv. Wolfe criticized Dr. Piotrowski instead of seriously considering what this experienced doctor had observed at first hand.  I mentioned, for instance, that the doctor had commented on the condition of my brother’s hands as extremely burned, which indicated to him that Mark had been trying to put the flames out and had not been committing suicide.  But Mr. Wolfe replied sharply that Dr. Piotrowski should never have made such a remark because people who commit suicide by self-immolation frequently try to put the flames out because of the intensity of the fire.

When in 2006 I raised the general issue about the dousing with Capt. George Brown, he did not deny it but insisted that my brother could have spilled gasoline on himself accidentally “because of his drunken state.”  Yet when I asked how Mark--even if he had been drinking--could have accidentally got gasoline on his head, Capt. Brown changed his explanation for the death.  He then claimed instead that the saturation with gasoline suggested suicide.  As so often with my questions to the New York State Police, if a particular fact did not fit conveniently with the theory of accident, they then insisted that it indicated suicide, or vice versa.  The State Police were apparently unconcerned about the issue of logic when various facts fit the one theory but not the other.  My brother’s death, however, could not have been an accident for one reason and a suicide for another, as if the two were somehow interchangeable.

After the New York State Governor’s office informed me in 2007 that a representative from the State Police would respond to my questions, a Lt. Allen from Troop A contacted me.  But, in fact, point by point he seemed more interested in staunchly defending the investigation.  When I  brought up the problem of the saturation with gasoline, Lt. Allen asserted that he did not know where that was stated in the records.  I mentioned the reference in the police report to samples of Mark’s clothing that tested positive for gasoline and the statement by the attending physician to a nephew at the burn unit that Mark had been doused with a flammable liquid.  Lt. Allen, however, dismissed the issue, insisting that he did not understand how Dr. Piotrowski could have known that Mark was saturated with gasoline just by examining him, without lab tests.

It is clear that very early on in the investigation the State Police decided that Mark had committed suicide.  The gas can in the cab of the truck, with which they assumed my brother had deliberately or accidentally poured gasoline on himself, was obviously a key factor in their decision.  Yet why, then, did the State Police fail to interview Dr. Piotrowski about Mark's burns during the investigation?  Why did they fail to interview him in 2005, when both Att. Michael Kelly and I asked them to speak with the doctor about the information that he had related to me about the wounds on Mark's forehead and face as well as the dousing with gasoline?  According to Capt. Brown, Dr. Piotrowski, when reached by telephone in late 2005, told Sr. Inv. Wolfe that he did not remember the case and would have to check the medical records.  However, in response to a question of mine in 2005, Dr. Piotrowski said that he did not have to look at his records because Mark had been so badly burned that he could not forget the case.

An entry on that issue in Inv. Kalfas's narrative in the police report is a matter of concern.  For 9/24/03, the investigator states the following: “Member interviews...[about a third of the line blacked out] also states the victim was unable to communicate at any time during treatment.”  It is not at all clear why the name of the medical personnel here (presumably a doctor) should have been redacted.  But who was this physician?  Dr. Piotrowski was without question Mark's attending physician at the Erie County Medical Center.  He not only treated my brother for his burns; he also spoke with the relatives present (I was not informed of my brother's injuries until the 7:40 the following morning, too late to get to Buffalo before he died).  Yet, in my conversations with him, the doctor emphasized that he had never been contacted by anyone in the investigation and therefore thought that the authorities knew what had happened and did not need any information from him.

Another entry in Inv. Kalfas's narrative in the police report is also a matter of concern.  For 11/22/03, the investigator summarizes his interview with someone described as “a good friend of the victim.”  I quote the last sentence verbatim: “He also added 'when he got the DWI with his name in the paper, I think it pushed him over the edge.'”  Since the individual's name is redacted, it is difficult to say for certain who it is.  But when I spoke with Mark's friend Jim Poole in November 2003, he told me that the State Police investigator had interviewed him and asked if he could think of any reason why Mark might have committed suicide.  Jim told me that, because he was asked to speculate, he told the investigator that Mark was a proud man and would have been upset at seeing his name in the paper for a DWI.  But Jim added that he did not find that a real motivation for Mark to commit suicide.  What legitimate reason was there for State Police to black out the names--apart from Mark’s wife Susan, whose identity would be self-evident--of all the individuals whom Inv. Kalfas interviewed (except, oddly, mine)?  Did the statement quoted above refer to Jim Poole?  If so, it does not appear to have represented what Jim actually said in his interview with Inv. Kalfas.

A statement about suicide reported to me by my nephew John McKenna is even more troubling.  According to John, when he called Mark's house a day or so after his death, Susan's sister Calla Smith, whom he had never met, told him that it looked as if the police were going to rule Mark's death a suicide.  How could Ms. Smith possibly have known right after Mark's death that the investigating authorities expected to call Mark's death a suicide?  By contrast, Mark’s wife Susan, according to Carol McKenna, stated the following about the suicide theory: “Oh, Mark would never have done that!”  When Calla Smith made her remark to John McKenna, the investigation had barely begun.  What could her source of information have been?

After nearly nine years of relaying important information about the suspicious nature of Mark’s death (much of which I cannot post on this blog) and engaging two well respected lawyers (Tony Tanke and Michael Kelly) to discuss its relevance with the investigating authorities, what can be said?  A commenter on this blog (post of September 22, 2012) perhaps puts it best: “It’s small town police and small town connections, they didn’t want to do the work.”  But, then again, there is no statute of limitations on murder.