The Problem of the Gas Can

The previous post (September 29, 2018) raised the issue of the time frame in which my brother arrived home, received injuries to his head, left a pool of blood in his driveway, and finally ended up lying on fire in the field across from his house, with his truck engulfed in flames sixty feet away and a gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side.  As noted in that post, my brother's wife Susan mentions the gas can in her witness statement, indicating that Mark himself took it out of the garage that night.  This post takes another look at the evidence for the gas can the night of the truck fire.

How and why that gas can suspiciously ended up in the cab of Mark's truck was cavalierly brushed off by the State Police investigators.  They assumed without hesitation that my brother had put it there.  But Mark never put gas cans in the cab of his truck (see posts of September 22, 2010, and August 11, 2014).  Here are the explanations they offered me: (a) my brother fell asleep in the truck after driving it into the field and then lit up a cigarette with the gas can open in the cab; (b) he accidentally spilled gas on himself in a drunken state; or (c) he deliberately poured gasoline on himself in the truck as a way of committing suicide there (see post of February 2, 2012).  However, those scenarios are absurd in light of these facts: the pool of blood in his driveway (see post of May 29, 2012) and the head wounds my brother suffered (see post of September 24, 2016) in themselves contradict the sleep (whether from intoxication or not) and suicide theories posited by the State Police.

It is obvious that the State Police investigators simply took at face value what Susan says in her witness statement.  First, she states, “I heard a noise in the garage and I thought it was the cats,” but at the end adds, “After the fire, I realized that Mark had taken a plastic 5 gal. can of gas out of the garage but I don't know what he did with it.”  In addition, when Atty. Mike Kelly asked about the gas can in his meeting with Inv. Kalfas and Sr. Inv. Wolfe in 2005, Kalfas told Kelly that Susan stated she had bought the can of gas and at the time of the fire it was half-full because she had used it for mowing the lawn.  Susan’s assumption that Mark had taken that gas can out of the garage is odd since she states that she was waiting for him to return home that evening and obviously did not see him.

It is also unclear why Susan, as indicated in her witness statement, immediately assumed that the fire in the truck was ignited by gasoline from that can.  There are in fact numerous recognized causes for vehicle fires, including fuel system leaks, electrical system failures, and overheated engines or catalytic converters.  If my brother’s truck had had a fuel system leak the night of the fire, lighting up a cigarette would presumably have been disastrous.

But that is not what happened.  Examination of the truck by the fire investigation team determined that there were no mechanical problems leading to a fire (see fire investigator’s report through the link on this blog).  An accelerant (presumably the gasoline from the can) was used; the fire appears to have started in the driver’s seat area, where the heaviest damage was; and a gas can (presumably open) was found on the passenger’s side floor.

It does not appear from the police report that the investigators ever considered any other explanation for the appearance of the gas can in the cab of the truck other than that Mark himself had put it there (see esp. post of July 22, 2012).  They do not seem to have questioned Susan’s view that Mark had taken that gas can out of the garage.  However, her confident assumption should have been examined more thoroughly.  For one, she had no opportunity to check for the gas can in the garage, according to neighbor and EMT Cheryl Simcox, who remained with Susan from her arrival about 11:05 until 1 a.m.

Furthermore, in a conversation with an emergency worker who had been on the scene of the fire, I asked if the gas can had been common knowledge early on that night, for instance, through shouts about a gas can in the truck.  The emergency worker heard nothing about a gas can from others on the scene, and that individual learned of it only after the fire investigation team, which arrived at 11:30 [erroneously noted as 22:30 in the fire investigator’s report], finished its work.

It is thus very unclear how Susan was so certain about the gas can between 11:30 and 11:45, when she gave her witness statement to the State Police official then on the scene. The State Police should have considered other possibilities rather than assume that Mark had taken that gas can and put it in the cab of his truck.