By OWEN BOSS
Staff Writer
EASTHAMPTON - Longtime city resident Mark A. Tiffany was found dead Monday morning on a park bench, likely from exposure to the cold, a friend he was living with has confirmed.
Easthampton police said that at 7:04 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a report that a man had been found unresponsive on Union Street near the city's bike path. Police said the death did not appear suspicious.
Although police declined to identify the victim, Elizabeth Janik, who Tiffany had been staying with since the end of September, said police told her the body was that of Tiffany.
"I've been a friend of his for a long time and when he asked me to help him out, that's what I did," Janik said. Tiffany had been homeless for several years.
Janik said she last saw Tiffany, who was 52, when he left her Ballard Street home at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday to go watch football on television.
According to News 22 meteorologist Ashley Baylor, the overnight low temperature Sunday in the Pioneer Valley was around 7 degrees, but would have felt like 6 below zero with the wind chill.
"Usually if he goes out, he'll call me when he needs me to come pick him up," Janik said of Tiffany. She also said there were times that he didn't come home at all overnight and that he was "battling some personal problems."
Janik said her friend was distressed over the deaths of his brother earlier this month and his father in 2009.
"He just lost his brother a couple of weeks ago and he hasn't been right since," Janik said. "He had been going through a lot lately. He was in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally."
Family losses
Tiffany's father, Dwight L. Tiffany Sr., died on Nov. 21, 2009 in Holyoke. His brother, Dwight L. Tiffany Jr., 58, of Glendale Road in Southampton, died at his home on Jan. 2. Two other brothers had also died this past decade - Paul Tiffany, 49, in 2004 and Donovan Tiffany, 47, in 2003.
Janik said she and Tiffany had been in a relationship 10 years ago but most recently were living as roommates. When she noticed Tiffany acting increasingly distant, she said she arranged a phone call between the two estranged brothers over Christmas.
"The one thing I am glad about is that I got the two of them on the phone with each other," Janik said. "They may not have been able to hear each other, but at least they were talking."
Robin Bialecki, director of the Easthampton Community Center, said Tiffany had come in regularly for groceries and dinner for the last four or five years. She said she noticed that he seemed different since the death of his brother Dwight this month.
The last time Bialecki saw him, she said, was on a bench near Nashawannuck Pond the day after Dwight Tiffany Jr. died.
"He said 'I'm just really depressed,'" Bialecki said. "He said, 'I'm the last one of my family ... I don't want to be the last one of my family.'"
Sleeping outdoors
Although he was wearing a heavy jacket he had received at the community center, Bialecki gave him a ride to Janik's home on Ballard Street and told him that it was far too cold to stay outdoors on a bench overnight. His response, she said, was that he "was warm enough."
Bialecki said Tiffany had been known to stay outdoors overnight, often sleeping on a wooden observation deck at Nashawannuck Pond.
When she saw a row of police cruisers near Big E's Supermarket on Union Street Monday morning, Bialecki said she suspected the worst.
"I thought it was him. I said 'Oh my gosh it's probably Mark,'" she said. "I wished when I had been with him last week and gave him a ride that I could have done more. Sometimes as much help as you can give somebody - it's just not enough."
Staff writer Matt Pilon contributed to this story.
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