This comes as a follow-up on the previous post (November 15, 2015). It adds further information and questions on two interrelated issues: what specific individuals were on the scene of my brother’s truck fire in Great Valley, N.Y, in 2003 and what they revealed to the State Police investigator.
The previous post reported that Shawn Gregory, a deputy sheriff, was not only present on the scene but was also a close neighbor of my brother’s on Whalen Rd. It added that Mr. Gregory’s wife was the daughter of another close neighbor of Mark’s, Alana Lindell Cloud (recently deceased), who was the sister of Sidney Lindell and the cousin of Todd Lindell, both of whom were also neighbors and close friends of Mark’s. In addition, it mentioned other Lindells and their relatives living in that immediate neighborhood. The Lindell clan, then, seems to have had a very strong presence in that sparsely populated rural area.
That post also called attention to statements reportedly made by Alana Lindell Cloud in a telephone conversation with a friend of hers named Linda Askey Albrecht, who brought them up in an e-mail forwarded to me. In particular, Linda reported damaging claims about my brother’s alleged drinking that are demonstrably false.
Other remarks reported by Linda are of concern here. As a result of her conversation with Alana, Linda referred to being made aware that Mark’s truck fire took place “virtually, in fact, in Alana’s back yard [o]n Hungry Hollow [Road].” Obviously, Alana had drawn attention to the very close proximity of her property to the field where Mark was burned to death. If Mark’s truck fire happened practically “in Alana’s back yard,” was Alana aware of the fire when it was happening or at least when emergency vehicles arrived with sirens blaring? Was Alana--perhaps along with her husband at the time--one of the many individuals reportedly milling around on the scene?
According to Linda, Alana reported that a member of the State Police “came to Alana’s house and asked all kinds [o]f question[s], including some about whether she knew anything about the marital [r]elationship.” Linda did not specify what, if anything, Alana had told her about her responses to the State Police investigator. But one must wonder how Alana herself replied to the investigator’s questions, including those about Mark’s and Susan’s marital relations.
It seems apparent that Alana did not know Mark all that well, given that she was so misinformed about his personal history with the railroad as to assert mistakenly that he had been involved in a serious train accident several years earlier and suffered from PTSD, which led to heavy drinking and kept him from ever going back to work again. She seems to have had some level of acquaintance with his wife, for Linda mentioned a comment by Alana that Susan “had retired from her clerical job at the school district, sold her [h]ouse and moved to whereever [sic] her daughter lived as the daughter had recently had a baby.” Linda also implied a history of familiarity with Susan’s own family since she referred to her as “one of Calla Smith’s twin sisters.”
In any case, what might Alana have known about Mark’s and Susan’s troubled marriage, given her proximity to their house? On the day my brother died, my aunt Dorothy Pavlock, in referring to the poor state of Mark’s and Susan’s marriage, informed me that neighbors had heard their arguments. Some time ago, one of my brother’s neighbors, who lived farther from his house than Alana, acknowledged knowing that all was not well in Mark’s and Susan’s marriage (see June14, 2015). So, what did Alana tell the State Police investigator about that issue?
In addition, according to Linda, Alana asserted that “the state police did interview
[n]eighbors up and down the road.” As mentioned in a previous post, all the neighbors with whom I spoke insisted that they had not been interviewed (see April 17, 2015). Most recently, Mark’s neighbor at the corner of Cross and Hungry Hollow roads, Charles Rinko, confirmed that neither he nor his wife had been questioned by the State Police. Was Alana completely mistaken about the extent of the State Police interviews of Mark’s neighbors? Or have the neighbors been less than honest with me? If so, why would they want to deny that the State Police had questioned them?
I have become aware of a discrepancy between what both Todd and Sidney Lindell told me and what another neighbor reported not long after Mark was killed. In my one conversation with him, in November 2003, Todd said that he had not been interviewed. Not long ago, Sid Lindell told me that he had never been interviewed (see April 17, 2015). When I called Alexis Wright in July 2004 and asked if Mark’s friends Todd and Sid Lindell had been questioned by the State Police, she was not certain and asked her husband Jim. He, however, replied that both of them had been interviewed. Was Jim Wright mistaken?
One must wonder if the author of the anonymous letter referring to an affair between Mark’s wife and Ofc. Mark Marowski was ever interviewed by the State Police. The letter writer mentioned that the two were observed driving around on an ATV on numerous occasions (see August 11, 2014). As several individuals have indicated, if Susan and Marowski had been riding around together on an ATV, they would probably have done it close by, in the fields in that neighborhood. The writer of the anonymous letter, then, was likely one of Mark’s neighbors. If interviewed by the State Police investigator, did that person mention seeing Susan and Marowski together or allude in any way to this alleged affair?
It is troubling that virtually no one in Mark’s neighborhood will admit to being questioned by the State Police about his death. Who, then, informed Inv. Kalfas about the very poor state of Mark’s and Susan’s marriage? Early in the investigation, he told me that many people had brought it up. Even more to the point: why is that issue never mentioned in the police report?
