The Problematic Issue of Guns in the Three Suspicious Deaths

Previous posts have raised the puzzling and problematic issue concerning guns in the deaths of my brother Mark, Tim Nye, and Dale Tarapacki, all of which occurred under suspicious circumstances in rural Great Valley, New York, in a period of roughly a year and a half (see esp. posts of April 19, July 23, and December 26, 2016).  This post considers the gun issue further.

My brother’s case involves a gun that seems to have disappeared.  According to a number of individuals, Mark had bought a pistol (a forty-five) for protection at his job as a security guard at M&M’s, a Seneca Indian-owned business in nearby Steamburg selling cigarettes and gasoline, and kept it in the glove compartment of his truck.  Yet neither the police report nor the fire investigator’s report mentions a gun among the items found in his burned-out truck.  Since firefighter Wayne Frank noticed a wound on my brother’s forehead that looked as if he had been hit by a nine-iron, one must wonder if Mark’s pistol might have been used to cause that wound and essentially knock him out.  When was that pistol removed from Mark’s glove compartment?  And by whom?

Tim Nye’s death was in fact caused by a gunshot wound.  Although Cattaraugus County denied my FOIL request for the police investigation report, they provided a brief document in which the officer who discovered Nye’s body on remote McCarthy Hill Road mentions that a shotgun was lying close by.  However, a relative of Tim Nye added that he had been shot in the gut, confirming what an EMT who knew Nye had told me some time ago.  Many individuals who knew Nye do not believe that he took his own life.  It also seems highly unlikely that Nye could have aimed and fired a shotgun (or rifle, as one individual referred to the weapon that killed him) at his own gut.  Yet the Sheriff’s office, which investigated Nye’s case, apparently ruled his death a suicide.

As a number of reliable sources have stated, Dale Tarapacki had a gunshot wound in the area of his right leg.  According to my sources, the investigators from the Sheriff's office claimed that two rifles in the back of the cab went off in the extreme heat of the truck fire and that a bullet hit Tarapacki.  Yet, as many individuals have insisted, it does not seem possible that either of the two rifles in the back of the cab could have hit Tarapacki in the leg while he was in the driver's seat.

A question that should have been asked during the investigation into Tarapacki’s death is why there were two rifles in the cab of his truck.  It seems unlikely that he owned two rifles rather than just one.  Did the Sheriff’s investigators make an effort to find out what specific gun (or guns) were licensed to Tarapacki?

Did the investigators also consider why he would have had any rifle in the cab of his truck on that April day, apparently in the afternoon?  What use would he have had for a rifle, not to mention two rifles, on that day?  Certainly, one would not normally keep any rifles open to view in the back of one’s cab.  A person might take a rifle on a hunting or camping trip for shooting prey, target practice, or protection but would normally take the rifle out when he came home.  The very presence of the two rifles in Tarapacki’s truck seems troublesome, especially given the gunshot wound to his leg and his reportedly cracked skull.

One must wonder if Tarapacki’s family considered having his body exhumed to determine what injuries must actually have been inflicted on him prior to his death (according to his death certificate) from alprazolam intoxication, inhalation of toxic fumes from the fire, and thermal injury.  My brother Mark’s body, unfortunately, cannot be exhumed, since his wife had him cremated.