Who Actually Spoke to My Brother the Day of His Truck Fire?

The previous post (May 31, 2020) brought up problems about the New York State Police investigators’ failure to check the telephone records for the night of my brother’s suspicious truck fire, that surfaced in an interview in May 2010 that I had with Cattaraugus County District Attorney Lori Rieman and the senior N.Y.S.P. investigator in Mark’s case, John Ensell.  This post discusses an issue related to the importance of the phone records: who actually spoke to my brother the day of the fire?

Although his name is redacted from the copy of the police report that I obtained by a FOIL request, Rapacioli is clearly the individual “involved with the victim through High School Football fund raising” mentioned in an entry by the lead investigator, Edward Kalfas, for September 25, 2003.  As Kalfas puts it, Rapacioli “was on the telephone with Mrs. Pavlock, looking to speak with the victim, when she advised him of seeing the fire and hung up to call ‘911’.”  According to Mark’s wife Susan in her witness statement, that call began at 10:30 p.m. and lasted for about half an hour.   As mentioned in the previous post, D.A. Rieman insisted that the interview with Pete Rapacioli confirmed the phone call that night.

In June 2004, Mark’s and my cousin Dennis Pavlock informed me of a conversation that he had had with Pete Rapacioli at the Holy Cross Club in Salamanca.  He said that Rapacioli had mentioned that Mark was short on the football pool (the one for which Rapacioli had allegedly called my brother’s house at 10:30 p.m. the night of the fire) but would make it up.

In early November 2004, Dennis explained that he had gone to the Holy Cross Club with Gary Subulski, a friend of his and my brother’s, and happened to see Rapacioli, who had previously worked for the railroad, along with Mark and Gary.  During our conversation, Dennis referred to a comment by Rapacioli that he had spoken with Mark earlier on the day of his truck fire (see post of April 30, 2019).  According to Dennis’s account, then, Rapacioli specifically spoke with my brother about details of the football pool on the day of the truck fire.

Kalfas keeps the summary of his interview with Rapacioli surprisingly and disappointingly brief (see the police report though a link on the blog page).  Did he ask Rapacioli if he had spoken to Mark earlier in the day or when he had actually last spoken with him?  Rapacioli himself specifically told me in November 2003 that he had tried, but failed, to reach Mark earlier in the day and therefore called at night to try to reach him (see posts of December 27, 2012, and May 15, 2013).  Moreover, in June 2013, he claimed to me that he had tried unsuccessfully to reach Mark several times during the day (see post of June 26, 2013).  How can one reconcile the discrepancy between what Rapacioli told me as well as the investigator and what he told my cousin Dennis?

Kalfas acknowledged to Atty. Michael Kelly in September 2005 that he had found no one (except for Mark’s wife) who had seen my brother the entire day of the truck fire.  If he had checked the phone records, as well as verified the alleged call in which Rapacioli spoke with Mark’s wife between 10:30 and 11 p.m., Kalfas would have been able to establish whether there was an earlier call (or calls) in which Mark might have communicated to Rapacioli the information mentioned by my cousin Dennis.  If so, Kalfas could then have asked Rapacioli what Mark had told him about the football pool and why Rapacioli had needed to try to speak with Mark again at 10:30 p.m.

Kalfas’s summary of the interview on September 25, 2003, does not mention the length of the alleged conversation between Rapacioli and Mark’s wife.  Did Kalfas not ask Rapacioli what he and Susan had spoken about for almost half an hour?  Kalfas appears to have taken Rapacioli’s statements at face value.  Why?  Was Rapacioli’s family connection to the Salamanca police (see post of March 17, 2015) a factor?