More on the Problem of the Phone Call Just before the Truck Fire

This post considers further the issue of the phone call that allegedly took place between my brother’s acquaintance Peter Rapacioli and his wife Susan for twenty-five minutes or more immediately before the truck fire.  As mentioned in previous posts (September 22, 2010, and December 27, 2012), the New York State Police refused to check the phone records, even though there were several important reasons why they should have.  Their failure in this matter baffled both Atty. Tony Tanke and Atty. Michael Kelly, who explained to me that checking the phone records should have been a matter of basic procedure.  

According to an entry in Inv. Kalfas’s narrative in the police report for 09/25/03, 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.’”  Yet when I spoke by phone with Rapacioli about Mark’s death in early November 2003, he never mentioned calling Mark’s house and speaking with Susan just before the fire (see post of December 27, 2012).  Inv. Kalfas’s entry does not refer to the length of the call.  However, in her witness statement, Susan mentions that she was on the phone around 10:30 and that she hung up to call 911 as soon as she saw the fire in the field.  In preparing to make a FOIL request for a copy of the 911 call (on which, see posts of September 22, 2011, and October 27, 2011), I was given the incident number and the exact time of the 911 call as 10:59 p.m.  Furthermore, Inv. Kalfas’s entry for 09/25/03 does not indicate why Rapacioli spoke with Susan after learning that Mark was not at home, apparently for about twenty-five to twenty-nine minutes. 
                       
As mentioned in the original post, 10:30 p.m. seems very late for a business call.  It is also late for a social call, especially in this particular instance.  I was told on several occasions that Mark’s wife Susan went to bed very early, around 9 p.m., in part because she needed to be at work at 8 a.m.  My mother, who died less than three years before Mark was killed, informed me that she never called Mark’s house after 9 p.m. because she knew that Susan would be in bed and didn’t want to wake her up.  Apparently, Susan’s habit of going to bed early had not changed around the period of Mark’s death.  Not long afterwards, his friend Alexis Wright mentioned to me that in the summer of 2003 her husband Jim had happened to go over to Mark’s house and noticed that someone had apparently slept on the couch.  According to Alexis, Mark explained to Jim that he had spent the night on the couch because he had returned home late from his job as a security guard and didn’t want to disturb Susan.

One would assume, then, that Rapacioli’s conversation with Susan must have been important enough to keep her up well beyond her normal bedtime.  It is surprising, then, that there is no mention in the entry for 09/25/03 of any explanation by Rapacioli for such a lengthy call at that time of night.

It is unclear from the police report to what extent, if at all, Inv. Kalfas asked Rapacioli why he had spoken with Susan for nearly half an hour that late at night after failing to reach Mark.  There appears to be no entry in the police report for a second interview with Rapacioli (as noted in the original post, almost all the names in the police report are redacted).  However, I was told that Rapacioli was interviewed a second time.  On November 4, 2003, I went to the Olean office of the New York State Police because I wanted to know just how badly my brother’s truck had been burned and knew that it would not be kept at the State Police compound much longer.  At that time, of course, I assumed that my brother had been burned while in the driver’s seat when the fire started, and I needed to see for myself his beloved truck that had unthinkably become the setting of his death.  Inv. Kalfas seemed surprised and not at all pleased that I had come, though he did let me see the truck.

A few months later, Mark’s and my half-sister Carol McKenna mentioned to me that both Susan and Peter Rapacioli had been interviewed by Inv. Kalfas on the same day that I had gone up to see Mark’s truck.  There is no entry in the police report for any interviews on that date.  But if Inv. Kalfas did interview Rapacioli again, did he question him about that phone call?