More on the Information from Firefighter Wayne Frank

A previous post (January 16, 2016) discussed the pressure put on firefighter Wayne Frank not to give me any information about Mark’s death, right after he spoke to me for some length at a high school reunion event in July 2005.  Since Wayne arrived on the scene of my brother’s truck fire immediately after firefighters Gary Wind and Mark Ward, his information was very important.  But he was never interviewed by the New York State Police investigators, either during the investigation or afterwards, when Atty. Michael Kelly asked Sr. Inv. John Wolfe to interview both Wayne and Dr. Edward Piotrowski, Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit. 

The post of January 2016 brought up the major information that Wayne gave me and clarified to Atty. Kelly, who interviewed him shortly afterwards.  Most important, Wayne observed the wound on my brother’s forehead, which caused him to think that Mark had been struck on the head by a nine-iron.  He also saw blood on Mark’s driveway, though he did not make it clear to me precisely where those drops of blood were located.  (A pool of fresh blood, later determined to be Mark’s by N.Y.S.P. forensic scientists, was discovered that night next to where my brother normally parked his truck in a T-section off the main driveway.)  Wayne also had some very specific information about the personal argument between my brother and off-duty Salamanca policeman Mark Marowski at a local club the very day before the truck fire.

Besides the points made in that previous post, Wayne had additional information of relevance to a proper investigation into my brother’s death.  From early on, the lead investigator Edward Kalfas insisted that Mark’s death looked like a suicide, claiming that my brother had been depressed over his dog’s death and then over his DWI the day before the fire.  (Kalfas, however, never brought up in conversation with me or in the police report itself the particular circumstances involving Officer Marowski that led to that DWI.)  Wayne, by contrast, was familiar with my brother and informed me that Mark had been actively engaged in a lot of activities in that period, including coaching little league baseball.  Wayne pointed out that Mark was not drinking when participating in such activities.  He also had information about Mark’s family life that should have been of interest to the investigators.

It is very frustrating that the N.Y.S.P. investigators ignored Wayne Frank during the investigation and ignored the subsequent requests for them to interview him.  It is also frustrating to me that back in March 2004 my cousin Dennis Pavlock told me, albeit reluctantly, about a conversation that he had had at a party in Florida with a firefighter who had been on the scene of Mark’s truck fire.  Dennis, however, would not tell me the name of the firefighter.  But it became obvious from the close similarities in the two accounts that Wayne was the firefighter in question.

It is not clear why Dennis withheld that information.  However, if he had revealed that the firefighter in question was Wayne Frank, I would have been able to contact Wayne and speak with him directly.  In addition, Atty. Tony Tanke, who helped me with the case throughout the investigation into Mark's death, would have been able to inform the Cattaraugus County District Attorney’s office about Wayne’s information before the investigation was concluded.