The Issue of Mark and Susan’s Marital Problems

Previous posts have discussed numerous problems with the New York State Police investigation into my brother’s death and their refusal to re-open the case after being informed about Mark’s head wounds observed by his attending physician at the burn unit.  As noted in the most recent posts, it would have been preferable to relay particularly sensitive information only to relevant investigating authorities.  But given the unwarranted insistence by the New York State Police that Mark’s death could not have been a murder, I have no alternative than to make important issues public here.

This post takes up one such issue, the very poor state of Mark and Susan’s marriage.  As Inv. Edward Kalfas mentioned at the beginning of the investigation, he was aware that my brother and his wife had a very troubled marriage.  It is clearly routine procedure in cases involving the death of an individual under violent circumstances to look very closely at the surviving spouse.  Such scrutiny, of course, does not imply that the surviving husband or wife is in fact guilty of anything, but naturally all reasonable possibilities in such cases need to be examined.  Here my concern is with the fact that the state police apparently did not follow expected investigative procedures.

Since Mark never discussed with me any marital problems he might have had, I was extremely surprised when I called my Aunt Dorothy to find out if she had been notified about the truck fire.  She was unaware of what had happened to Mark.  However, she immediately told me that she knew Mark and Susan “were not getting along at all” but hadn’t wanted to say anything to me about it.  She explained that when she called their house a few weeks before to let Mark know about the death of an old family friend, she heard Susan screaming at him in the background, “What are you talking to her for?”  Mark, my aunt continued, quickly ended the conversation, saying that he would get back to her later, but he never did.

Another person, who will remain anonymous at this point, stopped by Mark’s house and observed a very unpleasant scene about a month before my brother’s death.  This individual reported that after Mark came in “slightly tipsy” but clearly coherent, Susan kept glaring at him.  Because of Susan’s overt hostility to Mark, this visitor became very uncomfortable and could not wait to leave.

Alexis Wright reported a conversation some months before Mark’s death in which Susan complained to her about my brother’s drinking.  When Alexis said that her husband Jim also drank but she still loved him, Susan replied, “How can you stand it?”  Alexis then suggested that Susan get a divorce, and Susan responded, “I’ve thought about it, but there’s the house and the kids.”  According to John Yonker, who knew my brother from high school, Susan complained about Mark to his wife Diane, a co-worker of hers. 

Among Mark’s friends, only one seemed aware of apparently serious marital problems.  Bill Lewis, who lives in suburban Buffalo but spoke frequently on the phone with Mark, informed me that he was aware of problems in the marriage but didn’t know anything specific.  Whatever negative feelings he may have had about his wife, Mark apparently did not complain about Susan publicly.

At the luncheon following Mark’s funeral, my Aunt Dorothy and her daughter Kathie Marsh seemed almost in shock when they mentioned overhearing a comment Susan had made that day.  According to my aunt and cousin, they heard Susan say that she was glad Mark was dead.

In a phone conversation in December 2003, I was stunned when Bill Lewis reported a rumor that Susan had been having an affair with Pete Rapacioli.  Soon after, I called Bill for clarification about his source for that rumor and was very surprised to learn that Susan herself had mentioned it to his wife.  Why would Susan have brought up such a subject?  Bill said only that he himself found it credible.  Shortly afterwards, I reported the information by letter to Cattaraugus County District Attorney Edward Sharkey.  In October 2004, Bill confirmed that he had been contacted about the issue of an affair by Inv. Kalfas as well as about his view of the possibility that Mark committed suicide, which he told me adamantly he did not believe.  Much later, in 2008, my cousin Kathie Marsh acknowledged that, during the summer before Mark’s death, she had heard rumors that Susan was having an affair.  But Kathie insisted that she did not know who the man was.

Right after my brother's death, I myself wondered if he might have been having an affair and might possibly have been killed by an irate husband or by a jealous boyfriend of an unmarried woman.  He was, after all, very good-looking, as many females I know observed.  But when I asked several of his friends if Mark could have been involved in an extra-marital relationship, they were uniformly shocked at the idea and responded like this: "Mark, have an affair?  No!" 

Besides Bill Lewis, my half-sister Carol McKenna indicated that Inv. Kalfas was looking into the issue of an affair.  In March 2004, she mentioned that Pete Rapacioli as well as Susan had been called in for questioning and that he had been asked by Kalfas if he had been involved with Susan.  According to Carol, Rapacioli denied having an affair with Susan, and Inv. Kalfas replied, “Don’t let me find out down the road that you did.”  Carol did not specify her source for this information.

In an interview with Inv. Kalfas and Sr. Inv. John Wolfe in September 2005, Attorney Michael Kelly asked about this issue.  Kalfas’s reply was that he could not find out if Susan had been having an affair with Pete Rapacioli.  But how hard could he have tried?  People engaged in amorous affairs usually contact each other by phone.  Yet the State Police never checked any phone records during the investigation and refused to do so when they were asked in 2005. 

Although this potentially important issue was touched upon during the investigation, it is very unclear why it appears to have been dropped.  One would assume that, in May 2004, when Susan was asked to take a polygraph test by the State Police at D. A. Sharkey’s request, her refusal to do so would have raised questions.  What might the investigating authorities think about Susan’s reported claim to Carol McKenna in 2013 that Mark actually had left a suicide letter, in blatant contradiction to her formal statement in 2003 that there had been no suicide letter?  How would they explain that?

At the end of this Memorial Day 2014, I include below two photos of Mark’s grave, which was decorated by the VFW with a flag honoring his service in Vietnam.  (Click on the photos for more detail.)  Memorial Day weekend in western New York was extraordinarily beautiful this year.  Mark, who would now be 63, should have been there to enjoy it.