With hopes of unraveling a 75-year-old mystery, medical examiner’s bid to exhume two unidentified victims of the Hartford Circus Fire gets OK from judge
Judge
Chief State Medical Examiner
"The court finds that there is a reasonable probability that one of the two unidentified bodies will be identified as
Gill said Wednesday that he hopes to proceed with the exhumation in a few weeks.
"We are working on coordinating the exhumation efforts with the cemetery staff and our forensic anthropologist, dentist, and
"We are glad to help shed more light on this tragedy and hopefully contribute to the identification of two people who lost their lives that day," Bronin said.
Cobb had expressed concerns about disturbing the 75-year-old graves and had ordered
"In our jobs as prosecutors, we meet with victims who seek to locate missing family members; and, in the case of a death, confirm what happened, and hold the appropriate persons accountable. If the Medical Examiner, through the
Gill hopes to use the latest forensic technology to extract DNA from the two long-forgotten females. He started researching exhuming the bodies after The Courant asked whether it would be possible, given the advances in genetic testing, to identify the unidentified circus fire victims. Rather than dig up all five unidentified bodies, Gill decided to target the two that could match the DNA of a surviving relative of a missing fire victim that The Courant located.
While their are six unmarked graves at the Northwood cemetery one of them is already empty. In the early 1990's authorities exhumed the body of a young victim known as Little Miss 1565 and identified her as
The victims of the fire were badly burned, making it unknown if DNA samples will be viable. Gill has assigned
Once the bones are exhumed, state officials have explored either having the state police forensic laboratory do the DNA extraction or perhaps sending samples to a laboratory in
If the DNA of the unknown females aren't a match with Sumrow, Gill said he will consider submitting the profiles to the many private genealogy database companies to see if some distant family member has tried to trace their family's history. That technique, known as investigative genetic genealogy, has proved beneficial to law enforcement authorities helping them to solve old mysteries. The so-called Golden State Killer,
Gill told Cobb that two companies have already contacted him about searching their databases for free if DNA samples are obtained. In her ruling Cobb said that the possibility of doing genetic testing on the DNA if it isn't Fifield's was another reason to proceed with the exhumation.
"The state's ability to preserve the DNA from the unidentified exhumed body, and potentially test it by means other than genetic testing, alleviates the court's concerns because, even if exhumation does not lead to an identification, the process will still have a beneficial and legitimate purpose," Cobb said.
Sumrow said her grandmother, who lived in
"Her husband thought maybe she had amnesia and just walked away, but I don't see how that is possible," Darby said. "The mystery is crazy."
Fifield is one of five people still listed as missing from the circus fire. There are two children on the list,
He brought the boy to the fourth floor and placed him on a mattress or gurney in the corridor. Realizing how gravely injured his nephew was, Kurneta set out to find a priest to issue last rites. His body was never seen again.
The mystery deepened when family members found Raymond's shoes with his socks tucked inside of them in a box of victims belongings at
Police searched the armory, every hospital morgue, funeral homes and questioned staff at
The family told police not to continue the investigation to spare another family possibly finding out a mistake had been made and the person they buried wasn't their son. At one point the coroner even asked if the family would consider claiming one of the other unidentified bodies as Raymond to close the cases.
In the chaotic scene at the
There are two other women on the list of missing --
The circus rolled into town late in the day on
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According to interviews with hundreds of circus-goers who attended the
The cry set off a panic in the stands. Many of those nearest the main entrance, where the fire first appeared behind the bleacher seats on the southwest side of the tent, ran to safety through the entrance or by jumping off the the tops of bleachers and grandstands and then escaping by going under the side tent flaps, some of which were sliced open with pocket knives by those who got out first.
Others decided to work their way east out the back entrance toward
According to eyewitness accounts, the 48-foot tall big top burned in less than 10 minutes. Flaming canvass, sealed with gasoline and paraffin wax, burned some victims to death. Extreme heat suffocated others and and the ensuing panic also resulted in trampling deaths. The death toll included 59 children who were 9-years-old or younger.
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