This post concerns the quite adamant unwillingness of the lead investigator Edward Kalfas to listen to relevant and potentially significant information to the investigation of my brother Mark’s death. His harsh manner in responding to one particular individual who contacted him early in the investigation left her feeling very intimidated.
Mark’s and my cousin Betty Povlock (her family used an alternate spelling of the surname), a retired Cattaraugus County nurse, was very concerned about Mark’s death. She was grateful for help Mark had given her in planting flowers on her parents’ grave site and driving her to Buffalo when her beloved cocker spaniel needed specialized veterinary care.
In early October 2003, Betty informed me about a conversation she had had with a local Salamanca woman who reported hearing that Mark’s wife Susan had been in a rage over his DWI the day before his truck fire (on the problematic circumstances of that DWI, see esp. posts of September 22, 2010; July 28, 2011; and April 18, 2013). Betty told me the name of the woman with whom she had spoken and the name of the woman who had observed Susan’s reaction to Mark’s DWI. I encouraged Betty to report this information to Inv. Kalfas.
Later in October, Betty called to let me know about her conversation with Kalfas. She was quite upset about how dismissive Kalfas had been toward her. He apparently did not let her finish what she wanted to report but just abruptly told her that he did not want to hear about rumors. In an interview with him in early November, I myself experienced Kalfas’s unprofessional attitude when he gruffly stated that he would no longer speak with me after I asked him a question about the personal argument between my brother and Ofc. Mark Marowski at a local club the day before the truck fire (see post of September 22, 2010, section “Communicating with Inv. Kalfas and the District Attorney”).
Ironically, the information Betty had tried to report in fact reinforced what the couple who brought Mark back home from his arrest for DWI told Kalfas when they were interviewed during the investigation. The wife, who grew up on the same street as my brother and I and remained friends with Mark through the years, told me with no hesitation that she and her husband had reported Susan’s vehement reaction to Mark’s DWI (see post of August 22, 2012).
Surprised that there is no mention of that information in the police report, I requested that Atty. Michael Kelly ask about this gap when he met with Kalfas and his superior John Wolfe in 2005. Kalfas’s response was unsatisfactory: he did not think they had told him “all that much,” and he felt that Susan was “understandably upset” and as an employee in the school system would be embarrassed at the publicity over the DWI.
In his interviews of Susan, shouldn’t Kalfas have asked her about her reaction to Mark’s DWI? The two descriptions of her reaction, the one from eyewitnesses immediately upon Mark’s arrival home from the DWI and the other presumably later, suggest that Kalfas should have followed up on the issue to get Susan’s own view of her response to her husband’s DWI. Nothing in the police report indicates that Kalfas brought up this issue with Susan. His brief references to his interviews of Mark’s wife indicate that he focused on events the day of the truck fire.
What Kalfas dismissively called “rumors” many investigators would call potential leads that warrant some level of investigative effort. It is unfortunate—not to mention unprofessional—that Kalfas rudely cut my cousin Betty off when she tried to relay the information she had been given about Susan’s reaction to Mark’s DWI.
A little over a year after her upsetting conversation with Kalfas, Betty told me that another woman had recently mentioned the name of an individual (allegedly) involved in Mark’s death. Betty added that her acquaintance would not elaborate. Some time afterwards, Betty mentioned that her informant was a member of the local government.
Although the investigation was officially over at that point, new information could have re-opened the case. If Betty had felt comfortable relaying to Kalfas what her acquaintance had suggestively mentioned but refused to expand on, the investigator himself could then have interviewed that member of the local government.
Although the investigation was officially over at that point, new information could have re-opened the case. If Betty had felt comfortable relaying to Kalfas what her acquaintance had suggestively mentioned but refused to expand on, the investigator himself could then have interviewed that member of the local government.
