Like most people who grew up in Hartford, Davey knew the story of the circus fire. But unlike those who casually read the news stories that reappeared on the anniversary every year, Davey had specialized knowledge. The idea that a carelessly tossed cigarette could have started the circus fire just didn’t make sense to him. He wondered about factors such as the speed and temperature at which a cigarette burns, how much humidity was in the air that day, and whether a cigarette or even a used match dropped on dry grass really could catch fire.
Determining the true cause of the Hartford circus fire became a hobby for Lieutenant Davey. For nine years he studied the case in his spare time, spending countless hours at the archives of the Connecticut State Library, where boxes of materials related to the circus fire are housed. He collected evidence: photographs of the charred remains of the big top, weather records, and witness statements.
Davey dug through the reports from the state fire marshal and the mayor’s special Board of Inquiry, and he reviewed the opinion of Thomas Brophy, the fire investigation expert from New York. The documents all discussed the possibility of the fire having been started by a carelessly tossed cigarette or used match. Commissioner Hickey’s final report stated the fire started on the ground. Yet clearly it had started higher up on the tent wall, based on the hundreds of witness statements and supporting forensics. Davey felt that Hickey’s report was wrong. There was no evidence that a cigarette had started the fire. In fact, Davey thought it very unlikely.
Davey wrote a report containing all the information he’d discovered and presented it to investigators at the Hartford fire marshal’s office. Eventually the case was turned over to the Connecticut forensics laboratory. There the criminalists performed experiments, analyzed the data, and found the following:
It was too humid on July 6, 1944, for a cigarette to start a fire.
The grass around the big top had been cut just three days before; the trimmings would not have been dry enough to catch fire from a cigarette.
The charring patterns on the bleacher seats where the fire started indicated that the fire was burning from the top, not from below on the grass.
The grass under the bleachers was not burned.
Their conclusions showed that a carelessly tossed cigarette did not start the Hartford circus fire.
Then how did it happen? Davey had another theory. He believed the fire was an act of arson—and he believed that Robert Segee, despite taking back his confession, had done it.
During his investigation, Davey had read the 1950 interviews with Robert Segee and the Ohio State Police reports that detailed Segee’s confession. Unfortunately, Segee’s mental instability made him an unreliable suspect, and there was no physical evidence that he had set the fire. When Segee recanted his confession, he claimed that he had been “harassed” into saying what the psychiatrist wanted to hear. But Davey knew the signs of an arsonist. He thought there was a good chance Segee was the one who had set the fire.
- 1991 -
When Davey presented his report, Hartford police reopened the case and assigned Sergeant James Butterworth and Detective Bill Lewis to examine Segee as a suspect. Now 61 years old, Segee still denied setting the fire and told police and reporters to leave him alone. “The confession is not true,” he told the Hartford Courant in 1991. “I really can’t talk about this.” Segee was unhappy that his name was being dredged up again as a suspect. “It’s been very bad on me, and it was unjustified.”
Butterworth and Lewis examined the suspect files for Robert Segee and read through the interviews from the investigation and Segee’s mental evaluation in 1950. Lewis learned that the movie Segee claimed to have been watching downtown, The Four Feathers, was not playing at the time. Was Segee lying about his whereabouts at the start of the fire? His mental state may have been questionable, but Segee was definitely a strong suspect.
In March 1993, Butterworth and Lewis interviewed Segee at his home in Columbus, Ohio. Segee’s daughter Carla was also there, supporting her father during the taped interview.
On the recording, the tone of the interview is friendly. The detectives assure Segee they have no evidence linking him to the Hartford fire and that they are merely there to find out the truth. Segee claims to want to tell the truth and to clear his name once and for all. At times during the interview he appears to plead with the detectives to believe him and says they’re his “only chance.”
Lewis and Butterworth ask questions about Segee’s role in the circus and try to establish his whereabouts before, during, and after the fire. Segee tells the detectives that he worked for the lights department, where he was in charge of the big spotlight. On the afternoon of July 6 someone else took his place so he could go downtown to the movies. Unlike his statements in 1950, Segee now says he attended the movies alone and was not on a date or with a friend.
After the movie, Segee says, he got on the city bus, where he heard about the fire. When he got off at the circus grounds, the big top had already collapsed. Detective Lewis shows Segee a newspaper article from the days after the fire stating that Segee had been burned during the circus fire. But how could that be, if Segee was at the movies? Segee does not address this contradiction in the interview.
Segee tells Lewis and Butterworth it was at least a week after the fire before he was able to leave Hartford. “We was scrutinized pretty closely by the police department and things like that because of the fire,” he tells them. According to Segee, the police questioned him, but only about where he was at the time of the fire, to which Segee responded he was downtown at the movies. Though the state archives have several thick folders of statements from circus employees, witnesses, police officers, and detectives, there does not seem to be a written statement from Robert Segee. In fact, there is no record of the police ever questioning Segee in the aftermath of the fire.
As the interview goes on, Segee’s credibility becomes increasingly weak. When asked about his conviction in setting the fire in Circleville, Segee says he did not do it. He blames the politicians in Ohio for railroading him in order to get elected. “They wanted to clean the Goddamn book. So I was the perfect patsy.” He goes on to blame Ringling Bros. for setting the fire in Hartford in order to collect the insurance money. Segee’s tone makes it clear that he felt like everyone was out to get him.
Detective Lewis asks Segee about his visions and the pictures he drew while he was at the psychiatric hospital. Segee states several explanations: he did not draw them; they were falsified; if he did draw them, they actually reflect a vision of a battle in the late 1700s when Europeans set fire to the open plains after a fight with the Native Americans. The detectives ask about the “the red man” who Segee had said in his 1950 confession had told him to set the fire. “That don’t mean nothing,” Segee asserts on the recording. “They [the psychiatrists] made me do it…. Like I told ya, they messed with my brains.”
And here is where the detectives probably realized they would never be able to pin the fire on Segee. Carla is heard on the recording: “You see, gentlemen, my father is Native American, and within the Native American community … as a holy man, as a shaman, yes, he has visions, but, a lot of times visions can be induced by talking to, in certain ways, where you would think you have seen this, or you have experienced this, but it actually did not come to pass.”
Near the end of the interview, Segee seems tired and quieter than he’d been at the beginning. He again pleads with the detectives to believe him. He insists he is telling the truth about not setting any of the fires. The detectives maintain their even-handed tone throughout the interview, but they must have known they would not be returning to Hartford with any answers.
Butterworth: “I think the final question to ask, to nail this down is, did you start the Hartford circus fire?”
Segee: “No, sir. No, sir, I did not. I wasn’t, I wasn’t even on the grounds.”
In the end, the Hartford police detectives were unable to make a case for arson. “With as
many people that were there, no one saw anyone start this fire,” Detective Lewis said following the interview with Segee. “Could it have been an arson fire? Our finding is undetermined. I have no evidence that it was an arson fire.”
On June 30, 1993, the reexamination of Robert Segee in the case of the Hartford circus fire was closed. On August 10, because of Lieutenant Davey’s research, the cause of the fire was officially changed from “Accidental” to “Undetermined.” Though investigators all agreed that a carelessly tossed cigarette was not the cause of the fire, they still did not have any proof of arson.
Robert Segee died in August 1997. The cause of the Hartford circus fire, one of the most horrific disasters in New England’s history, remains a mystery.
9
A NAME FOR LITTLE MISS 1565
“The eight-year-old who was partial to hair ribbons, cats and dresses has been known worldwide as Little Miss 1565…. Her name was Eleanor Cook.”
—Hartford Courant, March 9, 1991
Detectives Edward Lowe and Thomas Barber stood over the grave of Little Miss 1565, flowers dangling from their hands. The year was 1956. Twelve years had passed since the fire, and the identity of the little girl was still a mystery. Years before, the detectives had made a statement in the Hartford Courant, asking the community for help.
Somebody, somewhere must have cared enough for that little girl to take her to see the circus. In her own neighborhood, there must have been playmates, milkmen, grocery clerks, mailmen, and adults who noticed that some little girl was missing from their everyday lives. It just doesn’t seem possible that a child like that little one could disappear from her own small world without somebody noticing that she had gone and never come back.
In all this time, they’d gotten few leads. Her morgue photo had circulated in newspapers across the county. In 1948, a woman from Michigan saw the photo and was certain Little Miss 1565 was her granddaughter whom she hadn’t seen in four years. She informed the police, and the Detroit Times announced that Little Miss 1565 had been identified. However, soon after, the missing granddaughter and her mother called to say they were alive and well.
Someone suggested she was possibly a girl named Barbara Bluett from Hartford, and a friend of Detective Lowe said he thought Little Miss 1565 was his niece, Judith Berman. These turned out to be dead ends too.
Meanwhile, Donald Cook had grown up. He had never forgotten about his sister, Eleanor, who was lost in the circus fire. His mother kept up the hope that one day her daughter would appear at the door, but Donald knew she was never coming home. In fact, he had a theory. He believed that Little Miss 1565 was his sister.
In 1955, Donald was now 20 years old. He went to the Connecticut State Police and told them what he thought. But the case had been closed, and he got nowhere. Then, in a stroke of coincidence, he spoke about his family’s tragedy with a coworker, Anna DeMatteo. She was struck by the sadness of his story and by his theory about Little Miss 1565. To her, it seemed believable. A year later, DeMatteo became a police officer in Connecticut, and she decided to look into Donald’s story further. Unfortunately, after bringing the matter to her supervisors, she was unable to get them to reopen the case. The following letter to Officer DeMatteo shows a clear misunderstanding that must have been frustrating for her and for Donald.
Your report was reviewed by Chief Michael J. Godfrey, who recalls the persons involved in your report, and he personally talked with Mrs. Cook at the time of the fire.
The young man Donald, who gave you this information, must be misinformed because Mrs. Cook did lose a child in the Hartford circus fire, but it was a boy instead of a girl. Identification was made.
This matter can now be considered closed.
The officer is obviously referring to Donald’s brother Edward, and makes no mention of Eleanor.
DeMatteo and Donald had hit a roadblock, but they didn’t give up. In 1963, they tried again to connect Little Miss 1565 with Eleanor. In a long interview, Donald told DeMatteo everything he knew about the day of the fire and the attempts to find his sister during the aftermath. He explained that his family never discussed the tragedy because it was too painful. Eleanor was “the apple of their eye.”
DeMatteo knew that Emily Gill said Little Miss 1565 was not Eleanor because she believed Eleanor had eight permanent upper teeth. Because permanent teeth generally grow on the top and bottom of the mouth in sets, having eight upper teeth would probably mean there are also eight lower teeth. If Emily were right, Eleanor would have had a total of 16 permanent teeth. Donald believed this could not have been true. Most children Eleanor’s age have four permanent incisors (the top and bottom front teeth) as well as four permanent molars. Eleanor was too young to have had as many as 16 permanent teeth.
In the course of the interview, DeMatteo brought out a picture of Little Miss 1565. Donald had never seen the morgue photographs before. Now he took a long look. This little girl looked similar to his sister, he thought. Her teeth looked different than Eleanor’s, but they had been damaged when the body was trampled during the fire. He thought the hair looked similar. The face looked the same, but Eleanor’s “cheeks seemed rounder” in life. DeMatteo wrote in her notebook that Donald appeared shaken at viewing the photos of Little Miss 1565. Was it possible that he was looking at a photo of his long-lost sister?
Let’s talk to Aunt Marion, Donald suggested. She’d raised the children for several years. Besides his mother, Marion knew the children best. Donald didn’t want to show the photos to his mother yet because he wasn’t absolutely sure his theory was true; he didn’t want to cause her any more pain.
According to Donald, Aunt Marion had a sharp tongue. She seemed to be all business, the opposite of emotional Aunt Emily. When she met with Officer DeMatteo, she confirmed that the girl she’d seen at the armory back on July 6, 1944, was definitely not Eleanor. Her hair length had been wrong. The little girl had all but two baby teeth. Eleanor had eight permanent teeth, four upper and four lower. Marion clearly recalled that the little girl at the armory “had on a white dress, hardly touched by the fire at all.” Eleanor did not own a dress like the one on the body. She believed Eleanor had been wearing a red playsuit on the day of the fire.
Officer DeMatteo spread the morgue photos of Little Miss 1565 on the table. There was silence, and Marion’s eyes filled with tears. Marion thought the hair, the forehead, the shape of the eyebrows, the distance between the eyes, all looked like Eleanor. “This isn’t the same little girl that I saw [at the armory],” she told DeMatteo. Why wasn’t I shown this little girl? Where was she when we were looking for Eleanor? It seemed like Donald had been right all these years. Little Miss 1565 was his sister.
But Marion didn’t want to make a quick decision. She met with another of Eleanor’s aunts, Dorothy, and they looked at the photos together. At first, Dorothy thought the little girl resembled Eleanor. Then she changed her mind.
Marion too, despite her initial reaction, decided it must not be Eleanor after all. Only Donald still thought it was his sister, but he was concerned about the confusion regarding the number of permanent teeth. No one wanted to upset Mildred, so Marion and Dorothy decided to stand by their original decision: Little Miss 1565 was not Eleanor. Officer DeMatteo’s investigation was over.
But that was not the last time Little Miss 1565 would be connected with Eleanor Cook. In 1991, Lieutenant Rick Davey, the same investigator who believed Robert Segee had set the fire, made an announcement that finally gave the people of Hartford a name for the unidentified little girl.
Davey’s interest in the Hartford circus fire had begun in the 1980s. He’d given a talk about the fire at a junior high school and discovered the students knew more than he did about the subject. He promised to return when he knew more.
Davey began his research by looking through old editions of the Hartford Courant and moved on to the extensive archives at the Connecticut State Library. The more he found out about the mystery of Little Miss 1565, the more i
t haunted him. Davey asked the same questions others had for years: Who was this little girl? Why had no one claimed her? He was determined to figure out her identity.
It was Emily Gill’s letter to Commissioner Hickey that led Davey to suspect that Little Miss 1565 was Eleanor Cook, though Emily had rejected this possibility. He compared the list of the unidentified bodies with the list of missing persons. Two little girls had never been found: Judy Norris and Eleanor Cook. Among the unidentified bodies there were two little girls, 1503 and Little Miss 1565. It stood to reason, Davey thought, that Eleanor Cook was one and Judy Norris was the other.
The paper trail had led Davey to connect 1565 with Eleanor Cook. It was now up to him to address the road blocks that had come up in past investigations. There was little direct forensic evidence to go on, however, and Davey would have to rely heavily on the memory of Donald Cook to answer the questions others had raised. But Davey was persistent. He would make his case.
First, the body of Little Miss 1565 was dressed in a flowered white dress and brown shoes. Marion Parsons claimed that Eleanor did not own clothes like these. According to Davey, Donald told him that Mildred had given the children new clothes during their visit, and they’d been wearing them on the day of the fire.
And what about the difference in height between 1565 and Eleanor? In 1944, Eleanor’s family had said that she was tall for her age, and Little Miss 1565 was only 46 inches tall. That would probably make her the shortest girl in her class. In a conflicting story, Davey claims that Donald had told him Eleanor had a disease called rickets, which would have stunted her growth.
The most useful piece of information Davey located in his search through the archives was the analysis of a hair sample. On July 15, 1944, hair samples from Eleanor were compared to hairs from the body of Little Miss 1565 under a microscope. According to the doctor who compared the samples, “It may be concluded from this examination only that both specimens may have been derived from the same scalp. Absolute identification is, of course, impossible.” What later happened to the hair samples themselves is unknown.
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