What the Fire Investigators Determined about Mark’s Truck Fire

The Cattaraugus County Fire Investigation Team, headed by Christopher Baker at the time of my brother Mark’s death, filed an Origin and Cause Report consisting of two pages, with a line-by-line series of preset items followed by a section which in two relatively brief paragraphs summarizes the “Actions taken by Investigators.”  A link to the Fire Investigator’s report can be found here under “Official Documents.”  This post considers specific determinations made by the fire investigators that seem especially at odds with an explanation by Mr. Baker, as relayed to me by a local reporter.

The Cattaraugus County website does not offer much information about the specific duties of the Fire Investigation Team (CATTFIT).  It does indicate that seven members are volunteers from the county fire service and that the eighth is a member of the Sheriff's Office, who “is responsible for maintaining all the fire investigation records, assisting with follow-up investigation on all fires and preparing arson cases for court proceedings, and other day-to-day operations of the Team.”

There are no directives specific to vehicle fires. But the CATTFIT Guidelines page of the county’s website briefly mentions relevant information, as follows verbatim: 

“2. Investigators will need information from first firefighters on scene such as: A) Where was the fire located?... and D) Were there possible tire tracks or footprints in the area?  4. The fire investigation team will attempt to determine the origin and cause of all fires.”

The first page of the Fire Investigator’s report with the line-by-line items indicates that Christopher Baker took photos of the scene.  The narrative section of the report is very brief about their findings on the scene the night of the fire.  The first paragraph indicates that besides taking a “cursory walk around the scene from areas of least to most devastation,” the fire investigators found the remains of a gasoline can on the passenger’s side floor of my brother’s truck.

The second paragraph summarizes their efforts the next day at the N.Y.S.P. crime lab, where the truck had been transported, to try to determine “cause and origin” of the truck fire.  They observed heavy damage to the driver’s side front seat and floor and lesser damage to the passenger’s side, where they found a lighter as well as the remains of the gas can.  (The lighter was presumably metal, since the plastic gas can had melted.)

The team determined that the fire started in the driver’s side and spread through the firewall into the engine compartment and that it spread laterally to the passenger’s side.  In checking fluid levels, they found that the gas tank was about three-quarters full.  Their conclusion was that the fire “was caused by human element.”  The report then states that the investigation was turned over to N.Y.S.P. Inv. Edward Kalfas.

The Fire Investigator’s report thus does not attempt to explain the “human element” responsible for starting the fire, i.e., if it was set by accident or by arson.  The fire investigators spent over three hours on the scene the night of the fire.  (They state two conflicting times of arrival, 23:06 on the first page and 22:30 on the second, but the first must be correct since the alarm went out to the firefighters at about 23:00, i.e., 11 p. m.)  The report does not make it clear what they did in those three plus hours, but Christopher Baker must have spent a fair amount of time taking photographs of the truck and of the scene after the fire was extinguished.

By the time the fire investigation team arrived on the scene, EMT Cheryl Simcox and members of the Kill Buck and Great Valley fire departments had already arrived: first Gary Wind, followed by Mark Ward (both of whom gave witness statements), and then Wayne Frank. N.Y.S.P.  Trooper David Chandler was on the scene before 11:30 (the time when he began his interview of Mark’s wife Susan).  According to Gary Wind’s witness statement, the fire department extinguished the vehicle fire and secured the scene for the fire investigation team.  When Inv. Edward Kalfas arrived at 12:30 a.m., according to his narrative in the police report, N.Y.S.P. Sgt. Frankowski and the fire investigation team were already there.  Inv. Kalfas states that Sgt. Frankowski took 38 photographs of the scene.

Baker and the other members of the team presumably noticed the remnants of Mark’s burned clothing about sixty feet from the truck, where my brother himself had been found with two-foot flames shooting from his body when EMT Cheryl Simcox arrived on the scene.  In a list of items taken from the scene in his narrative for the night of the fire, Inv. Kalfas mentions “portions of burnt clothing from the victim.”  The team then should have also noticed, confirmed by the photographs, that there was no fire trail leading from the truck, which had been engulfed in flames, to the place where Mark was discovered lying on fire in the field (a property that he did not own) across from his house. 

In their time on the scene, the team members presumably walked from the field over to Mark’s property and noticed, as at least two firefighters did, the pool of Mark’s blood in the area off the main driveway where my brother normally parked his truck.  In his narrative for the night of the fire, Inv. Kalfas also lists two cotton swabs with blood taken from the victim’s driveway and secured, to be sent to the N.Y.S.P. crime lab in Albany.  Did Baker photograph the blood?

Did Baker also photograph the tire marks that at least one firefighter noticed just off the driveway leading down Mark’s property to the field?  The team members should have been puzzled as to why and how Mark’s truck went from his own parking area down his long driveway and then fifty feet into the field across the road.

The Fire Investigator’s report is certainly not incorrect in attributing the fire to “human element.”  But a local reporter back in December 2004 relayed to me a shocking explanation for the fire that he said came from an interview with a fire official in November.  According to John Eberth, at that time a reporter for the Olean Times Herald, Christopher Baker told him that he believed the fire was an accident, possibly caused by Mark falling asleep with a cigarette in his hand.

Could my brother possibly have fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand in the driver’s seat, which had been saturated with gasoline, and with an open gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side?  That explanation defies logic: it makes no sense that Mark fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand if the seat was already soaked with gasoline.

A far more plausible scenario can be constructed from suggestions by an independent criminologist, a forensic pathologist, and other professionals concerned about the following:

(1) the lack of a fire trail, which Mark would have to have left if he crawled away from the truck in flames;

(2) the presence of Mark’s truck fifty feet into the field across from his house, where he had no reason to put it;

 
(3) the specific position of the truck, which had been backed down his driveway and thus faced Mark’s property, since Mark was found sixty feet away from the passenger’s side door, which was closed, while the driver’s side door was open, making it implausible that my brother, on fire, went around the truck to the other side and ran from there;

(4) the presence of the gas can on the floor of the passenger’s side of his truck, where Mark never put gas cans;

(5) the extremely serious third-degree burns over ninety percent of his body, which would not have been mitigated even though Mark had apparently pulled most of his clothes off, indicating that Mark had been fully doused with gasoline and contradicting the theory of the N.Y.S.P. that he had deliberately poured or accidentally spilled gasoline on himself in the truck;

(6) the wound to his forehead observed by two firefighters on the scene and confirmed by his attending physician at the burn unit (who also found soft-tissue damage to the left side of Mark’s face); and

(7) the pool of Mark’s blood found in his driveway area the night of the fire.

Here is a possible scenario that fits the facts: Mark was attacked in the area of his driveway when he returned home from a neighbor’s house shortly before the fire (on his presence at a neighbor’s, see post of August 11, 2014).  He was then placed in the truck (possibly in the back of it), which was backed down the driveway and into the field.  He was then dragged away from the truck, doused with gasoline, and set on fire.  His attacker or attackers then opened the passenger’s side door, placed the gas can on the floor, threw in the lighter, slammed the door shut, and ran off to the vehicle in which they had arrived and lain in wait for my brother.

Kalfas’s Unwillingness to Listen to Potentially Important Information during the Investigation into Mark’s Death

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.

The Problem of the Lack of a Timeline by the NYSP in Their Investigation of Mark’s Death

Timelines are considered important tools for police in investigations of suspicious deaths and murders as they arrange the events in chronological sequence, providing a coherent framework for assessing a case.  However, after Atty. Michael Kelly met with the lead investigator of my brother Mark’s case and his immediate superior in 2005, Kelly indicated that there seemed to be no timeline or charts detailing the scene of Mark’s truck fire.

A timeline in Mark’s case should presumably have begun with events from the day before the truck fire.  A primary event would be the personal argument at a local club between my brother Mark and off-duty police officer Mark Marowski that resulted in Marowski calling in to the Salamanca police to have my brother arrested for DWI on his way home.  That altercation, however, is not even mentioned in the police report (on that issue see most recently post of February 28, 2025).

Related information for a timeline would be statements made by members of the club who were present during that altercation.  The police report refers to interviews of members of the club who claimed that Mark had been behaving “unusually” and “not like himself” the day of the truck fire.  However, Atty. Kelly reported that at their meeting in 2005, the lead investigator, Edward Kalfas, told him that he had not found anyone who had seen Mark out the day of the truck fire (see post of November 29, 2021).

Kalfas, then, presumably made an error in the police report, confusing the two dates.  If he had made a timeline, which generally includes both dates and specific times of the day, that mistake would probably not have happened.  As it stands, though, his error keeps Ofc. Marowski out of the picture and insinuates abnormal, potentially unstable behavior on Mark’s part.  (On an anonymous letter reporting that Marowski was having an affair with Mark’s wife at the time of the truck fire, see post of August 11, 2014.)

Events on the day of the truck fire, of course, would be crucial to a timeline.  The only references in the police report to Mark’s activities during the day prior to the fire come from Mark’s wife Susan in her witness statement.  She states that “Mark had been drinking beer and maybe slightly intoxicated during the afternoon”; that they “were watching television around 7:30 pm”; and that “around 8:45 Mark left the house to go [to] downtown Salamanca.”

A problem with Susan’s reference to Mark during the afternoon is that several individuals told me (and, I believe, reported to Kalfas) that they had tried to reach him by phone during the day but got no answer.  Atty. Kelly found this discrepancy problematic and suggested to the two NYSP investigators at their meeting in 2005 that it would be useful to know if Susan had gone to work the day of the truck fire.  Apparently, they did not check with the local school where she was a secretary.  A timeline including these discrepancies might have encouraged Kalfas to dig more deeply to try to resolve them.

While Susan refers to Mark leaving at 8:45 p.m. for downtown Salamanca, Kalfas acknowledged that he had found no one who saw Mark out that day, including that evening.  It is not clear if Kalfas checked all the possible clubs or bars.  But clearly it was very important to find out where Mark was in the hours before 11:00 p.m. or so, the time of Susan’s 911 call about the truck fire.

Perhaps Kalfas’s unwarranted assumption that Mark committed suicide (see post of November 30, 2023) blinded him to the possibility of foul play, and therefore he did not consider it crucial to learn where Mark had been in the hours before the fire.  Yet, as mentioned in the post of August 11, 2014, the writer of the anonymous letter sent to me stated that Mark was at the house of a neighbor right before the fire and that the neighbor indicated that Mark was not so intoxicated as the police believed.  There is no mention in that letter of depression or a suicidal tendency on Mark’s part, either.

Had Kalfas interviewed the neighbor whom Mark had visited the evening of the truck fire?  (On problems with Kalfas’s interviews of Mark’s close friends, see post of September 30, 2024.)  Had he also interviewed the writer of the anonymous letter, also quite possibly a neighbor?  If he had, did Kalfas deliberately ignore information that was crucial to an investigative timeline and should have been entered into a timeline?

If not, Kalfas might well have found out that kind of essential information by checking Mark’s and Susan’s phone records (landline and cell).  Mark might very well have called the neighbor before going over to visit that person.  A check of the phone records would certainly have filled in some of the information relevant to a full, precise investigative timeline, including the phone conversation that Susan states she was having when she saw the flames in the field across from their house (on which, see posts of February 28 and April 30, 2019).

More on Officer Mark Marowski and the NYSP Interview in Late 2014

A previous post (September 28, 2023) discussed the extent to which a problematic Salamanca police officer was interviewed in connection with the investigation of my brother Mark’s death.  This post points out ironic aspects of the “interview” of that police officer in late 2014.

As several posts have discussed (see July 28, 2011; April 18, 2013; September 14, 2014; October 17, 2014; July 15, 2015; and June 21, 2016), it has been a matter of concern that the very day before his truck fire, my brother was involved in a personal argument with an off-duty police officer named Mark Marowski at a local club.  Immediately following the altercation, Ofc. Marowski (reportedly very intoxicated himself) called in to the Salamanca police to stop my brother on his way home, which resulted in my brother getting arrested for DWI.

Shockingly, there is no reference to this altercation in the police report.  Instead, the lead investigator of Mark’s death, Edward Kalfas, refers only to comments by members of the Holy Cross club that my brother had behaved “unusually” at that time.

An email in September 2015 from a former Salamanca police officer who indicated that he had been following my blog for about 2 years commented extensively about Ofc. Mark Marowski, with whom he had worked from 1974 to 1978 (see post of September 13, 2015).  According to James Campbell (then a Michigan police official), Marowski had a problem with alcohol and prescription drugs even in the 1970’s.

Among other negative traits, Ofc. Campbell referred to Marowski as a “consummate liar.”  That assessment was reinforced by Marowski’s own brother.  In an email in May 2016, David Marowski mentioned that he had been following my blog on my brother’s death and wanted to provide some insights on Marowski’s character.  According to his own brother, Marowski “has never been trustworthy.  He has been a liar as far back as High School.”

As discussed in a previous post (see September 28, 2023), all efforts to have the NYSP look into the altercation between my brother and Marowski the day before the truck fire proved fruitless.  According to an anonymous letter sent to me in 2014 (see post of August 11, 2014), my brother’s wife and Ofc. Marowski were having an affair at the time of my brother’s death and were observed several times riding together on a 4-wheeler.  

In late 2014, I reported my concern about this latest information and the argument at the Holy Cross Club, among other issues, to NYSP Capt. Steven Nigrelli and also provided Capt. Nigrelli with a copy of the anonymous letter.  Capt. Nigrelli said that he would have an NYSP investigator follow up on my concerns and in January 2015 provided me with a summary of the results (see post of January 16, 2015).

The summary of the interview of Marowski provided by Capt. Nigrelli indicates that Marowski was asked about (1) “his knowledge of the incident surrounding Mark's death” and (2) his relationship with my brother and his wife.  On the first issue, the summary states only: “with no new information developed.”  On the second issue, the summary reports that Marowski “knew both Mark and Susan since they all grew up in the area” and “denied any romantic relationship with Susan Pavlock.”

On his relationship with my brother, Marowski seems to have lived up to his reputation (at least for James Campbell and David Marowski) as a liar.  He apparently failed to mention that, according to several individuals, he had argued with my brother on numerous occasions at the Holy Cross Club and, according to a bartender at that club, had actually bragged about his role in Mark’s arrest for DWI on the very day my brother lay dying in the burn unit and calls were coming in at the club with updates on his condition.  Was Marowski truthful about his relationship with my brother Mark’s wife?

The NYSP officer assigned by Capt. Nigrelli to interview Marowski (presumably Christopher Iwanko) apparently took Marowski’s responses as fact.  It thus seems to have been no real interview at all.  From the beginning of the investigation of Mark’s death and right up the chain of the NYSP hierarchy, Ofc. Marowski remained protected by his shield, even after he was forced to retire because of his own DWI in 2006.