The Problem of Mark’s Location in the Field

Mark’s wife Susan says in her witness statement that after seeing flames in the field and calling 911, she rushed out of the house and found Mark on fire crawling away from his burning truck and tried to put out the flames on him.  By the time emergency workers arrived minutes later, Mark was about sixty feet from his burning pickup truck.  Yet, as was made clear later from photos of the scene taken that night by the NY State Police, there was no fire trail.  Attorney Michael Kelly, who viewed the photos of the scene, informed me that he saw no evidence of any fire trail.

Firefighter Gary Wind says in his witness statement that there were two small spots on fire about sixty feet from the truck, “fully involved with fire to the cab area.”  When I later contacted Wind to find out about these two “spots,” he informed me that they were Mark’s clothes, which were close by him.  He added that Mark might have pulled them off.

According to the police report, portions of Mark’s burnt clothing that were sent to the Western Regional Crime lab tested positive for gasoline (on the burned clothes, see post of December 20, 2022).  Those pieces of clothing presumably were part of the burned clothes that firefighter Wind refers to in his witness statement, as Mark had almost no clothes on when Wind arrived.

EMT and neighbor Cheryl Simcox stated to me that when she arrived on the scene within a few minutes of being toned out, Mark was lying in the field motionless and two-foot flames were shooting from his entire body.  She added that my brother was about sixty feet from his truck, which was completely engulfed in flames.

Mark’s clothes had thus been removed, presumably by him, before Cheryl Simcox arrived.  Yet his body was still burning horrifically, indicating that he had to have been fully doused with an accelerant, presumably gasoline.  As mentioned in a previous post (see November 14, 2022), an experienced forensic pathologist explained that, when a person is doused with gasoline, the skin continues to burn after the clothes are off, which explains why Mark’s burns were so severe over almost all of his body.

The fire investigator’s report states that the origin of the truck fire was the driver’s seat and the driver’s side floor, that an accelerant was used, and that the remains of a gasoline can and a lighter were found on the passenger’s side floor.  The police report lists among five items of evidence “one book of Winston matches - held at BCI Olean Evidence.”  However, it does not indicate specifically where that book of matches was found, if near Mark or near the pickup truck.  Nor does it indicate anything about the condition of that book of matches, whether it was burned at all or was intact, or whether any matches were missing.  Did the NYSP investigators determine if that book of matches belonged to Mark or not?

The NYSP investigators insisted that Mark had poured the gasoline on himself, either accidentally or, more likely, deliberately.  Yet it is difficult to comprehend how my brother could have doused himself with gasoline while sitting inside his pickup truck since most of his body, including his head, was very severely burned.  It certainly makes no sense that Mark would have set the truck on fire and then run off, dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire sixty feet away.  The absence of a fire trail, as an independent criminologist pointed out, would mean that Mark was doused with gasoline and set on fire right where he was found.

Much as the NYSP investigators virtually ignored the pool of my brother’s blood found in his driveway the night of the fire (see post of September 12, 2022), did they even look for evidence of gasoline on the ground where Mark was found with his gasoline-doused clothes?