Who Was the Last Person to See Mark and Dale Tarapacki before Their Truck Fires?

This post raises the question of the identity of the last person to see both my brother Mark and Dale Tarapacki before their truck fires.  The issue is important since it would help clarify the sobriety, coherence, and state of mind of each of these two victims.

In my brother’s case, the New York State Police report indicates nothing about anyone seeing Mark after his wife's claim in her witness statement that he left for downtown Salamanca about 8:45 that evening, and thus there is no record for my brother’s activities for over two hours prior to the truck fire.  As mentioned previously (see post of August 11, 2014), an anonymous letter sent to me states that right before the fire Mark was at the house of a neighbor, who indicated that Mark could not possibly have had the kind of high blood alcohol level reported by the authorities.  Previous posts have reported that Todd Lindell informed me that Mark had spent the evening following his DWI (i.e., the night before the truck fire) at Todd’s house (see esp. August 14, 2015).  Todd also told me that he had had an “open-door policy” for Mark at his house. Given the reportedly heated reaction of Mark’s wife Susan to his DWI and their strained marital relations in general, it is not surprising that my brother would have been out of the house that evening.  But his friends and neighbors whom I contacted were clear that they did not see him the evening of the truck fire.  It is difficult to come up with anyone other than Todd Lindell whom Mark would have visited just before the truck fire.  It therefore seems strange that there is no mention of Mark’s whereabouts just before the truck in the police report since, according to Mark’s friend Jim Wright, Todd was interviewed by the State Police investigator.

In the case of Dale Tarapacki, a reliable source indicated that the Sheriff’s office stated that Dale had been going fishing the afternoon of his truck fire.  Someone must therefore have reported that claim to the Sheriff’s investigators.  A previous post indicates that Tarapacki, according to a reliable source, was in no condition to go fishing that day (June 13, 2017).  Who offered the information to the authorities that Tarapacki had gone fishing and on what basis?  Not only was Tarapacki not in a proper physical state for a fishing expedition; he was also clearly in a difficult professional position, having abruptly—and apparently with considerable tension—quit his job as the pharmacist for a new Native American pharmacy in Salamanca.  Did the Sheriff’s office check on the reliability of this witness?