Yet More on the Problem of the 911 Call

Previous posts (see July 1, 2014; September 29, 2021; and July 7, 2022) have dealt with the problem that in the investigation of my brother Mark’s death the NYSP appeared to have ignored the 911 call made by my brother’s wife Susan the night of his truck fire.  This post expands on that issue.

As the earlier posts discuss (see esp. July 7, 2022), a statement in the police report by the first NYSP officer on the scene that he responded to “a report of a male subject possibly attempting to burn himself in his vehicle” raises questions about the source of the potential implication of suicide.  Does it relate directly to the 911 call made by Mark’s wife, or is it an inference made by an official who relayed the call to Trooper Chandler?

As the earlier posts discuss (see esp. September 29, 2021), in September 2005, when Atty. Michael Kelly met with NYSP Sr. Inv. Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, the lead detective in the investigation of Mark’s death, he asked if Kalfas had reviewed the 911 call.  As Kelly informed me, Kalfas replied that he had heard it but couldn’t remember it, and so Wolfe offered to retrieve the tape of the 911 call.  Yet Wolfe abruptly changed his mind, deciding not to retrieve the 911 call unless the case was re-opened.

An official who heard the 911 call remembered it several years later and expressed concerns about it. Furthermore, that individual indicated that the 911 call was quite lengthy, noting that a number of things were mentioned before Susan referred specifically to the fire.  Kalfas, however, does not appear to have shown much interest in the 911 call.  He does not mention the 911 call in his narrative in the police report, and so it is not clear if he gave the kind of careful attention that 911 calls deserve, especially to details that might affect the investigation.

My FOIL requests for an audio or transcript of the 911 call were unsuccessful (see posts of September 22 and October 27, 2011). The NYSP Central Records Bureau stated that they had “failed to locate any records responsive to [my] request.”  A police official mentioned that it can take considerable effort to find records in storage. How thorough a search did Central Records make to locate the tape?

In a conversation with a member of NYSP Internal Affairs, I was advised to contact Capt. Steven Nigrelli over my concerns about the case.  Through communications by phone and email, I brought up a number of issues with Capt. Nigrelli, including the concerns of the official who had heard the 911 call and was troubled by it.  As mentioned in a previous post (July 7, 2022), that individual later confirmed that he had brought up his concerns about the 911 call in the interview with the BCI.  Yet when Capt. Nigrelli responded in January 2015 with a summary of the results of the interviews by the BCI, there was no mention of that individual’s concerns about the 911 call or anything else that individual relayed to the BCI.

Although Capt. Nigrelli did not reveal what member or members of the BCI conducted the interviews, I was informed by two of the individuals that they were interviewed by Christopher Iwanko.  It is unclear why Capt. Nigrelli chose then-Sr. Inv. Iwanko to conduct the interviews.  Iwanko was involved in the original investigation, which very quickly jumped to the conclusion that Mark had committed suicide and ignored or glossed over facts pointing toward foul play.

According to the police report, then-Inv. Christopher Iwanko attended Mark’s autopsy, “taking photographs, fingerprints and a blood kit from the victim.”  When an independent criminologist phoned the NYSP on my behalf in 2011 to ask about obtaining photos of the scene, he happened to reach Iwanko, who told him that they usually purge the records after five years.  The criminologist informed me that at the end of the call when he asked for the investigator’s name, Iwanko hesitated several seconds before revealing it.  It is strange that the investigator apparently seemed reluctant to identify himself.

What is most troubling about the summaries of Iwanko’s interviews is that two of them contradict what the individuals interviewed had told me before I expressed my concerns to Capt. Nigrelli and what they affirmed to me after they had been interviewed.  One of those interviewed by Iwanko was in fact very upset when I read him the summary of his purported interview.  He insisted that the summary did not reflect his statements to the investigator about what he had directly observed of Mark and his interactions with others close to him.

The summary of the interview of the individual who had heard the 911 call and had specific concerns about it completely ignores that issue.  Here is the content of Iwanko’s interview of that individual: the interviewee “could not offer any other specific memories other than previously provided or any evidence to prove foul play.”  Nothing further is stated.  There is no mention whatsoever of the 911 call in the summary.

All these efforts to find out specific information concerning the 911 call about Mark’s truck fire failed.  The NYSP were repeatedly unwilling to examine the 911 call.  They ignored another official’s explicit concerns about that 911 call.  The 911 should have been thoroughly scrutinized but was ignored, much like the pool of Mark’s blood found on his driveway, the wound to his forehead, and the suspicious presence of a gas can in the cab of his truck.  What can account for the NYSP’s precipitous focus on suicide and their failure to press forward on anything that did not conform to that theory?  Was it merely a lack of real interest in the case?