Why Did the N.Y.S.P. Investigators Fail to Interview Mark’s Attending Physician?

Two recent posts focused on information provided to me by my brother Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit of the Erie County Medical Center (see December 31, 2021, and January 31, 2022).  As mentioned in previous posts (see esp. April 30 and August 31, 2020), in his interview in September 2005 with N.Y.S.P. Sr. Inv. John Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, who was the lead investigator in the death of my brother, Atty. Michael Kelly directly asked Kalfas why he had not interviewed Dr. Edward Piotrowski, Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit.  According to Kelly, Kalfas replied that he had called to speak with the attending physician, but the doctor had nothing to say.

That claim, however, contradicts what Dr. Piotrowski himself told me in February 2005: that he was concerned about the cause of deep soft-tissue swelling on Mark’s forehead but, since no one from the investigation ever questioned him, he assumed that they had an explanation.  It is difficult to believe that Dr. Piotrowski would have misinformed me about the failure of anyone to interview him since he himself brought the issue up.  Did Kalfas really call the ECMC burn unit, or, if so, did he speak with someone else rather than with Mark’s attending physician?

Whatever the explanation, Wolfe told Kelly at that interview in 2005 that he would contact Dr. Piotrowski himself.  When I spoke with Wolfe by telephone later that month, he informed me that he had not been able to interview Dr. Piotrowski because the doctor had not returned his call.  Furthermore, Wolfe stated that they needed both to obtain Mark’s medical records and to speak with Dr. Piotrowski himself.  When I spoke with Wolfe in October 2005, he had still not interviewed Dr. Piotrowski, explaining that after phoning the doctor’s office, he was told that he had reached the wrong Piotrowski.

After Wolfe obtained my brother’s medical records through a subpoena, in a telephone conversation with me in December 2005 he claimed that he could find nothing in them to verify the information relayed to me by Dr. Piotrowski.  At the same time, he acknowledged that the records consisted of around sixty pages and that he had had a hard time deciphering the doctor’s handwriting.  Wolfe also did not have any medical personnel interpret the CT scan that, as Dr. Piotrowski told me, revealed deep soft-tissue damage to Mark’s forehead.

Atty. Kelly summarized a telephone conversation he also had with Wolfe in December 2005.  According to Kelly, Wolfe claimed that the wound on Mark’s forehead was “positional,” presumably caused when Mark was placed in the ambulance.  However, that could not be the case, since the wound was observed by two of the firefighters who put the flames out on my brother (see posts of January 29, 2019; October 31, 2020; and March 29, 2022), well before the ambulance arrived.

In a telephone conversation in April 2007, N.Y.S.P. Lt. Allen told me that Capt. George Brown had Wolfe track Dr. Piotrowski down in December 2005 and that the doctor said he could not remember the case and could not say anything without having the medical records in front of him.  He admitted that Dr. Piotrowski did not get back to them and they did not pursue the matter any further.

According to Atty. Kelly, Wolfe admitted that he could not rule out homicide in Mark’s death, though he believed it a suicide.  Kelly also informed me that he had not only urged the N.Y.S P. to contact Dr. Piotrowski but also suggested that they get a subpoena if he refused to speak to them.  Why didn’t they do that?