Problems concerning Mark and Dale Tarapacki in the Driver’s Seat of Their Burning Trucks

Previous posts have pointed out disturbing similarities between the deaths of my brother Mark and a young pharmacist named Dale Tarapacki in Great Valley, N.Y. (see posts of July 23, 2106; February 26, June 13, November 30, and December 31, 2017; and February 28, 2018).  This post considers the specific issue of the assumption by the investigating authorities that Mark and Tarapacki had both been operating their vehicles and were in the driver’s seat when their respective truck fires began.

In my brother’s case, the N.Y. State Police investigators had no reasonable explanation for why Mark’s truck would have been parked in the field across from his house at 11 p.m.  He himself was found about sixty feet from the truck when the first emergency workers arrived.  The location of the truck is especially troublesome because not long before the fire Mark had obviously pulled into his driveway and parked as usual in a paved section off his driveway where a pool of his blood was found shortly after police arrived.  In addition, at least two emergency workers saw a wound on Mark’s forehead, and his attending physician at the burn unit of the Erie County Medical Center was concerned about deep soft-tissue swelling in that very area.  Furthermore, Mark had no reason to put a gas can in his truck that night because his gas tank was three-quarters full (on the gas can, see esp. October 30, 2018).  The State Police investigators, then, should have questioned how my brother could have driven his truck into the field and why he would have done so.

Since the Cattaraugus County District Attorney determined that there was no evidence of suicide or homicide, Mark’s death was declared accidental.  Nevertheless, the State Police have insisted that Mark himself caused the truck fire by spilling gasoline while sitting in the driver’s seat, either accidentally or deliberately.  Yet after being told by my brother’s attending physician at the burn unit that even Mark’s head had been doused with a flammable liquid, I questioned how Mark could have been sitting in the driver’s seat and spilled gasoline on that part of his body.

N.Y.S.P. Lt. Allen simply denied that the doctor could have known that Mark’s head had been doused with gasoline, insisting that only microscopic analysis of tissue would produce that conclusion.  However, a forensics expert whom I consulted stated that the extreme nature of my brother’s burns—almost all third, but even some fourth, degree—would indicate that he had been doused with gasoline.  He explained that when a person is doused with gasoline, even if his clothes are removed, the skin continues to burn.  Mark, then, was clearly not sitting in the driver’s seat when gasoline was poured on his head.

In Dale Tarapacki’s case, the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s investigators apparently had no explanation for the strange location of his truck off an unpaved stretch of remote Hardscrabble Road or for his presence in the driver’s seat after the truck caught on fire.  Although the Sheriff’s office denied my FOIL request for the police report on the investigation, I later received a copy from someone who had obtained it through a FOIL request (see post of April 30, 2018).  Tarapacki, who was only twenty-seven years old, was “burned beyond recognition,” according to the police report.  So why didn’t he get out of his truck well before that point?

According to an entry in the police report dated April 11, 2005 (the day of Tarapacki's truck fire), “Fire Investigators collected a sample of clothing and a piece of shoe and turn[ed] it over to Sgt. Bryant.”  Another entry dated April 13 states, “Investigator Malak also turned over to me one quart can with pieces of clothing from the body of Dale S. Tarapacki which was placed into the evidence room for safekeeping.”  It would appear that “me” refers to Capt. Robert Yehl, who co-signed the document with Sgt. Bruce Bryant.  The police report, however, never indicates if those two items were tested for gasoline.

A possible explanation for why Tarapacki did not get out of the truck to save his life may be implied by a fact mentioned in the police report.  An entry dated April 12 states that during the autopsy x-rays revealed a bullet which “appeared to be in the right rear thigh” and that the bullet was found “on the autopsy table underneath the body.”  The police reportedly claimed that one of the two rifles found in the truck may have gone off in the extreme heat of the fire and hit Tarapacki (see post of April 30, 2017).  Yet, if he was sitting in the driver’s seat, how could such a rifle shot have hit him in the rear side of his thigh?  Tarapacki was presumably shot outside of his truck.  Did he go back into the truck in an attempt to flee?  Or was he forced back into the truck before it was set on fire?