More on Mark’s Blood Alcohol Level and His Arrest for DWI

The last two posts (September 1 and September 23, 2013) offered a scientific critique of the post-mortem .25 serum alcohol level (which would have made my brother's blood alcohol level approximately .46 at the time of the truck fire) and discussed implications of the records related to Mark’s arrest for DWI the day before the fire.  As mentioned in the previous post, the police records show that when Mark was arrested for weaving back and forth while driving his truck and for failing all the sobriety field tests given to him, he had a .28 blood alcohol level.  As that post pointed out, if my brother could not drive his truck without weaving on a city street with a .28 blood alcohol level, he could not possibly have backed his truck down his long driveway in a perfectly straight line and fifty feet into the field across the road with a .46 blood alcohol level. 

This post further considers problems with the insistence by the New York State Police that Mark did back his truck down the driveway and into the field, where he spilled or poured gasoline on himself and set his truck on fire, inflicting the fatal burns to his body.  As observed in the previous post, there was a very narrow window--to judge by his wife’s witness statement--for Mark to have drunk the amount necessary to obtain such an extremely high blood alcohol level as .46. 

Two inferences are clear: (1) If Mark was intoxicated the night of the truck fire, then he did not back his truck down the driveway with the tire tracks in a straight line, as witnesses on the scene observed.  State Police members also must have seen those tire marks; according to the police report, Trooper Chandler and Sgt. Frankowski as well as Inv. Kalfas were on the scene that night.  (2) If Mark was not intoxicated, then he did not stumble and fall--as the State Police insist he did–leaving a pool of his blood in his driveway (actually, two circular pools of blood, each about four inches in diameter, according to one emergency worker on the scene).  The blood was located in the area where my brother normally parked his truck, specifically where the driver’s side bumper would have been, according to an emergency worker on the scene. 

The State Police cannot have it both ways: my brother could not have backed his truck in a straight line into the field in an intoxicated state, and in a sober state he would not have fallen next to his truck, losing a significant amount of blood.  Certain conclusions can be readily drawn.  First, Mark did not back his truck down the driveway in a straight line and into the field.  He could not have done that in an intoxicated state, and he would have had no reason whatsoever to do so in a sober state.  Clearly, whoever drove the truck into the field did so with malicious intentions.  In addition, the wound to my brother’s forehead, observed by a firefighter on the scene, and soft tissue damage to both his forehead and the left side of his face, observed by his attending physician at the burn unit, make the existence of the pool of blood very suspicious (see the post of September 22, 2010).  Furthermore, it is not likely that only one person was involved, since Mark was very strong and muscular and would have made an effort to fight off his attackers.  Given these and other suspicious facts (e.g., the gas can in the cab of Mark’s truck), the investigating authorities should have looked carefully at all individuals who had shown noticeably hostile behavior to my brother in the period immediately before his death.

The State Police’s insistence on the “accident” or “suicide” theory, based on the claim that my brother drove his truck into the field in a highly intoxicated state, is particularly troubling, given that Inv. Kalfas told me that he had checked on Mark’s DWI report and knew about the .28 blood alcohol level.  He thus also knew about Mark’s inability to drive his truck without weaving all over the road the day before the fire.  Kalfas’s superiors with whom I spoke also clearly knew about the DWI, yet they continued to reiterate a totally unfounded story of accident or suicide.

Here is what they said about the truck ending up in the field: (1) In October 2005, Sr. Inv. John Wolfe insisted that Mark himself had driven the truck into field.  He claimed, with highly questionable logic, that if Mark had been attacked, he would have to have been placed in the passenger’s seat and then taken out and put into the driver’s seat after the truck was driven into the field.  Deeming that unlikely, Wolfe was insistent that Mark must have driven his truck to the field.  (See the post of February 4, 2013, for a scenario explaining how Mark ended up in the field that is far more consistent with the actual evidence.)  (2) In February 2006, Capt. George Brown also insisted that Mark himself had driven his truck into the field, specifically in order to move it away from the property so that he could commit suicide (i.e., without setting the house on fire).  (3) In April 2007, Lt. Allen offered the following explanation: Mark probably fell in the driveway, hit his head, causing the pool of blood, then got disoriented, and drove his truck into the field.  (If Mark was allegedly not only extremely drunk but was also “disoriented” from the fall and the loss of blood, how then could he have backed his truck down the driveway in a perfectly straight line?)  Given that these State Police officials knew about the DWI arrest record, their claims about my brother backing his truck down the driveway and into the field in an intoxicated state were nothing more than a fabrication.

Why did the State Police invent a scenario that they knew could not be true?  It is very disconcerting to realize that police investigators whose duty it is to enforce the law not only let such a vicious crime go unacknowledged but even put the blame on the victim.  Inv. Kalfas in fact admitted to Atty. Michael Kelly that he never considered murder as a possibility in Mark’s death.  I, however, remain very concerned about the failure of the investigating authorities to probe the actions of a fellow police officer who was involved in a troubling incident with my brother at a local club the very day before he was fatally burned.  In May 2010, retired Sr. Inv. John Ensell claimed that the altercation between my brother and Salamanca police officer Mark Marowski “hadn’t been much of an argument anyway.”  How could he make such an assertion, when Inv. Kalfas himself admitted to Atty. Michael Kelly in 2005 that he had not asked Holy Cross Club members who had been there about that argument? 

In addition, I have since learned that Marowski and my brother had argued on numerous occasions at the Holy Cross Club (see post of April 18, 2013).  There was obviously ill will between the two of them.  So, it was important for the State Police to find out specifically what that last argument was about and how heated it had actually got.  Did it focus on my brother’s insistence that his son should have been treated more leniently when he was stopped for DWI about a week earlier?  Or was there more to it?  Did Ofc. Marowski, as was reported (see post of December 27, 2012), make the comment on his cell phone, “It’s all taken care of,” when he returned inside the club after going out to phone the Salamanca police and have them pick Mark up right after he left?  If true, that comment is puzzling, to say the least, since it would imply that Marowski made another call after phoning in on my brother.  Those questions needed to be answered.

My intention is certainly not to criticize the Salamanca police for arresting my brother for DWI, given that he was apparently very intoxicated.  However, it is problematic that Ofc. Marowski, who was reportedly very drunk himself, phoned in over a personal quarrel to have Mark picked up.  Furthermore, he reportedly got right into his car and drove home in a similarly intoxicated state, but was not arrested.  It seems unlikely that the Salamanca policeman who took the call to have my brother arrested did not also realize that Marowski was drunk and should not be driving.  Many individuals have commented on Marowski’s excessive drinking, for which he was apparently reprimanded within the Salamanca Police system.  Yet it was not until three years after my brother’s death that some police officer picked Marowski himself up for speeding and DWI.  He was then “allowed” to retire.  Marowski, by all accounts, is far from an upstanding citizen.  In addition to his own arrest for DWI, the court cases against him for failing to pay money he owed have already been mentioned on this blog (see post of July 28, 2011).  Several individuals, moreover, have commented on other troubling forms of behavior by this retired police officer. 

Given that background, it remains a matter of deep concern not only that the State Police did not pursue the altercation between Marowski and my brother but also that Holy Cross Club members have been unwilling to admit either that they were present during that argument or that they know anyone who was.  Shortly after my brother’s death, my cousin Dennis Pavlock told me that his and Mark’s friend Gary Subulski had mentioned specific details related to that argument at the Holy Cross Club.  Dennis assumed that Gary had been there, yet Gary himself later told me not only that he hadn’t but also that he didn’t know anyone who had been there.  Another person similarly told me that some of his “buddies” had been there and also mentioned certain information that they had relayed to him about the incident.  However, he later backed off and didn’t name anyone.  Although I’ve asked numerous individuals who were known to frequent the Holy Cross Club at the time my brother was killed, no one has admitted to being there or to knowing anyone who was.  This reluctance to speak up about that argument between my brother and Mark Marowski strongly suggests that people are afraid to say what they know.