More on the Problem of Mark’s Whereabouts the Day of the Fire

This post picks up on a problem previously discussed at length on this blog (see August 22, 2012): where was Mark on September 23, 2003, prior to his truck fire?  None of his friends saw him that day, nor did any of them have any contact with him by telephone, even though efforts were made to do so.  The State Police investigator also acknowledged that he had not been able to find anyone who had seen my brother out that day.  The only person known to have seen Mark that day is his wife, as recorded in her witness statement in the police report. 

The issue is important because shortly before 11:00 p.m., Mark must have been attacked in the extension of his driveway where he normally parked his truck because he left a significant pool of blood there.  As I’ve mentioned in several recent posts, he couldn’t simply have “fallen” and hit his nose or cut his head.  That scenario would presume that he was very drunk, but if so, then he couldn’t possibly have backed his truck in a straight line down his driveway and fifty feet into the field.  But that is the way the truck went down the driveway.  Whether my brother had been drinking or not does not change the clear implications of the physical evidence: he was beaten up, and someone else, presumably one of his attackers, drove his truck down the driveway and into the field, where Mark was doused with gasoline and set on fire and a gas can was ignited inside his truck.  So, how did Mark come to be in such a vulnerable position in or right next to his truck in the extension of his driveway shortly before 11 p.m.?

The only known information about Mark’s whereabouts that day is what his wife Susan says in her witness statement.  She states that Mark was at home in the afternoon and left the house about 8:45 p.m. to go to “downtown Salamanca.”  As the post of August 22, 2012, indicates, it is difficult, then, to understand why several people either expected to hear from my brother but didn’t or attempted unsuccessfully to reach him.  Mark’s friend Jim Poole, for instance, told me that my brother had left a message for him the previous evening that he would explain why he hadn’t come over to help him paint that day, but never got back to him.  More important, at least two individuals said that they had called the house that day for Mark but got no response.  It would certainly be uncharacteristic of my brother not to answer the phone.  More recently, as mentioned in the post of June 26, 2013, Peter Rapacioli insisted in his phone call to me on June 5 that he had called “Susie” around 10:30 p.m. because he had tried numerous times “throughout the day” to speak with Mark by phone but could not reach him. 

I had hoped that by now this case would be reopened and that many such problems would have been resolved.  Obviously, a check of Mark’s and other relevant individuals’ phone records would have shed some light on this particular issue.  But since officials thus far have refused to re-investigate Mark's death, I have no choice but to reveal information passed on to me in hopes that it might motivate some decent person who knows the truth to come forward.  Therefore, I report now a comment made to me by my cousin Dennis Pavlock not long after my brother’s death.

When I expressed concern about Mark’s whereabouts the day of the truck fire, Dennis said that he had been told by one of my brother’s close friends (whose name I will not reveal at this point) that Susan had locked him out of the house that day, as she had done on other occasions.  Stunned at this revelation, I asked Dennis where my brother had slept at such times.  Dennis replied that Mark had slept in his truck and that he had in fact slept there the night of the fire.

I myself, of course, cannot verify that Mark was actually locked out of his house that night.  But my nephew John McKenna indirectly offered some support for what Dennis reported.  Several years ago, John acknowledged that he had been concerned when he discovered that on more than one occasion Mark had had to stay at our mother’s house for several days at a time.  Unfortunately, my mother did not tell me about the problem, but wrote in a letter not long before her death in November 2000 that Susan treated Mark “like dirt.”  Furthermore, according to Alexis Wright, who with her husband picked Mark up from his DWI the day before the truck fire, Susan shouted to him, “Pack your bags and get the hell out!”  As Alexis also mentioned, Susan added that she should have thrown him out long before.  In addition, it is unclear how long my brother stayed at Todd Lindell’s after his truck was retrieved the night of his DWI.  Todd told me that Mark had remained at his house late.  But when I tried to get clarification on that issue as well as on Todd’s statement that “Mark would be alive today if he hadn’t gotten the DWI,” he did not return my call.

Did Mark actually have to stay in his truck the night of September 23, 2003?  In that case, he would have been in a very vulnerable situation if someone with malevolent intentions approached the truck as he slept.  

I can only imagine what my brother was thinking when he lay near death with such severe burns over most of his body.  But I am certain that he would want those who took his life by such a savage act to be brought to justice.  As I am the closest living relative from Mark’s birth family, it has fallen on me to act on his behalf.  Since he has no voice, I speak out for him and will continue to do so until the truth is made known and those who took his life are brought to justice.  If some people are critical of me for revealing “sensitive” information relevant to Mark’s death, they might better look into their own conscience.