Mass. Cops Seek Answers In Death Of Elderly Aviator
Some guys just are not destined to
die in an airplane. We remember Marine fighter pilot Marion Carl,
who retired as a general only to lose his life in his eighties to a
no-account criminal who burst into his home. A similar sad fate may
have befallen southern Massachusetts aviator David Frawley
(pictured, right), whose death on December 16th at age 85 was
initially ruled an accidental fall.
But... there is a chnace that it might not have been. State
Police are reinvestigating Frawley's death in his Mattapoisett
home, and focusing on a man that local cops say stole from him in
life. A few days before his death, Frawley called police to
complain that money had been stolen from his checking account.
Mattapoisett is a small, generally well-to-do but not rich,
coastal community in Plymouth County. A suspicious death here is an
immeasurably rare event.
Suspicion soon zeroed in on Michael Picewick (pronounced
"Pickwick"), 31, also of Mattapoisett. Picewick 9below, right) had
made friends with Frawley and done odd jobs for him, for which the
elderly main paid him nominal sums. But prosecutors say that
Picewick may have changed the numbers on Frawley's checks, looting
$9,590 from the old man's accounts. (Mattapoisett Police Chief Mary
Lyons told CBS 4 TV that "it appears that some checks were stolen
from [Frawley's] checkbook and were fraudulently filled out and
cashed at the bank").
Some of the checks were reported
stolen by Frawley on Dec. 13. Others turned up in an examination of
his accounts by Robert Moore, Frawley's friend and lawyer, and the
executor of his estate. Moore plays a pivotal role in the case, as
Picewick -- whom he describes as "that low-life" -- is his
son-in-law, and once served with him in the Mattapoisett
police.
The checks were deposited in Picewick's wife's -- Moore's
stepdaughter's -- account.
Picewick was at Frawley's house the night before he was found
dead, according to police.
Picewick was released on $2,500 bail -- prosecutors had asked
for several times more, but it wouldn't be Massachusetts if the
judge didn't lean the other way.
Local television station WBZ called David Frawley a
"world-renowned" aviator, which might be overstating the case a
little, but Frawley was well-known among Massachusetts aviators
(who seem to be a long-lived lot; Crocker Snow and John Nelson are
examples from my own North Shore area). The renown that Frawley had
probably came less from any notoriety and more from his long
tenure, wide experience, and love of flying.
Frawley used to say that he was nearest to God when he was
aloft, a sentiment shared by many of us who share his passion for
flight. "He lived and breathed for flying. It was the love of his
life." family friend Kathy Moore -- the wife of Richard Moore --
told the New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times. "He'd say, 'I talk to God
every day up there.'"
"Flying was the love of his life. It's what he was born to do,"
his nephew, Jim Buckley of Delaware, told the same paper. "He let
me do the controls. For me, it was a scary experience. I wasn't cut
out to be a pilot, but that's what he was born to do. Definitely.
From the time he was born, he loved it; he loved every aspect of it
-- the flying itself, the teaching, refurbishing old airplanes, the
history of flight. It was the love of his life."
Frawley had just renewed his second class medical this month,
despite a joint replacement that left him walking with canes at the
time of his death. (When he was found dead at the bottom of the
stairs in his home, it was easy to assume he had had an accidental
fall).
He had an enviable collection of FAA ratings, including ATP
privileges in single- and multi-engine land and seaplanes. (The
multi-sea rating is quite uncommon). He also had commercial
privileges in helicopters. He was type rated in a wide variety of
aircraft, ranging from the Cessna Citation and Hawker HS-125
bizjets to many warbirds, including: Boeing B-17, Consolidated LB30
(the Confederate Air Force's early B-24 variant), North American
B-25, Douglas B-26 (A-26), DC-3/C-47, Lockheed 18, and Grumman TBM
Avenger. He was also typed in the Consolidated PBY-5 and Grumman
Albatross large seaplanes.
Remarkably, all of those type ratings were full ratings without
restrictions, except for the Grumman Albatross rating, which was
restricted to VFR flight only. (Some pilots seeking vintage warbird
type ratings don't intend to fly those types in IMC, and so take an
abbreviated VFR-only checkride for VFR-only privileges).
Frawley was also a Designated Examiner, mostly giving type
rating rides in recent days, in the Citation or the warbirds. He
also owned and flew a restored Waco UPF-7, N29923, a 1940 biplane
with a 220-HP Continental R-670 engine, although the registration
on this plane was transferred to a Concord, Mass. holding
corporation this spring.
In a life full of unusual aviation achievements, one of the most
unusual may have been Frawley's test-pilot duties on the Sznycer
("Schnitzer") BS-12 helicopters, which were designed by Bernard
Sznycer and developed in New Bedford near his home from 1956 to
1960. Frawley did the initial test flight on this type, which was
one of the first twin-engine (Lycoming O-540 or Franklin 6)
helicopters, and one of the first flying-crane types that could
carry a utility pod under the boom, like the later Sikorsky S-64 or
Kamov Ka-26 series. (He also invested in the company, which went
paws up). Today, it's so obscure that we found the picture on a
website in Estonia before we found a New Bedford FBO's site that
had some pictures of the craft's test phase.
Frawley, an instructor during World War II, was a current CFII
and MEI and considered a go-to guy on the operation of
radial-engined vintage aircraft. Like many long-lived New
Englanders, he was lean and angular of frame; and he is remembered
by those who knew him as a man who was friendly to almost all,
including his neighbors and his fellow flyers, but not one to
suffer fools gladly. He was divorced and had no children, but was
proud of the pilots he trained -- over 3,000 of them in sixty-plus
years of active instructing, or almost 1% of the total pilot
population (discounting student pilots). He trained his first
student in 1941.
One statistic of which Frawley was justifiably proud, was that
in over sixty years of flying he had never had an accident.
Kathy Moore said that Frawley laughed at the idea of retiring.
"He had this quote when people asked him about retiring. He'd say,
'Why retire from something you love?'" He was a member of the Aero
Club of New England (www.acone.org), the
continent's oldest (and some say, most prestigious) aero club,
which actually predates the Wright Brothers' powered flight.
Was he too trusting of a young neighbor? Police and crime-lab
technicians are working this holiday trying to answer that
question.
Mike Picewick may be in deep trouble
now, but he was once on the other side of the law. During 2002, he
was a Mattapoisett police officer. He was fired from the
Mattapoisett force for reasons that have not become clear. There
are several Picewick families long established on Boston's South
Shore and on Cape Cod.
"There may be a logical explanation for some of these things,"
Picewick's lawyer, John Strazulla, told the local paper; but Mr
Strazulla did not suggest any logical explanation at this time.
A search of FAA airmen data for Michael Picewick yielded
negative results.
A search of FAA airmen data for David Edward Frawley will show
all the paperwork, as if it had a zombie life of its own, but the
soul behind the ratings has moved on.