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Hey, weirdos. I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
and i just waved at you you did you waved at me and it was uh it wasn't off putting i didn't wave at you i waved at the weirdos well that's the end of this episode because i quit i'm done she didn't wave at me fuck that if it makes you feel better i just knocked mustaniel over and it's good all the ice shattered good didn't spill on that was instant karma it was actually it would have been more karmic karmic karmic karmic I like that it spilled on me but it didn't but um anyway I'm gonna move it that's a great idea because it'll clang clang clang live updates with that and bang bang bang bang
bang bang bang so yeah um what updates do we have do we have updates uh we don't even know when this is going out so nah we don't you should buy Elena's book obviously pre -order that book The Butcher Game it's coming out September 17th you can pre -order it anywhere but the butcher game .com has all the places uh barnes and noble smaller bookstores amazon all those play target all those places there you go all of them um by the time you're hearing this we probably made another new tiktok so go over to elena to the max and go see that tiktok and if it inspires you pre -order that book and interact
with the tickety -tockety with the tickety -tockety tick tock i did a shimmy but i did arm day yesterday and like that was a light shimmy like no but like it hurt right here like under my armpits you're like right here but i'm getting swole swole you know what else is getting swole because we've been in a humid heat wave all the doors every door that existed on the east coast every time you open a door in massachusetts right Right now, it is like a CrossFit event to open the door.
We have that problem at our apartment.
It would get super deeper swollen in the summer.
And like you'd have to like slam it.
And then in the wintertime, it like wouldn't like latch properly when you closed it.
Because I think it like fucked up the alignment of it.
Oh, yeah. That makes sense.
Annoying. So that's Swollen Doors with Ash and Alayna.
It's a new segment that we're introducing today.
today where we just talk about all the swollen doors look out for the next one you ever did see uh so today's episode is so sad i believe that it's so sad oh um and it's a little local here it's the hartford circus fire and yes we're talking about hartford connecticut i've been there um you have been there we've all been there yeah uh it's this is really it's from 1944 1944 okay um so sort of old -timey yeah a little i mean it's where i live and it's just a really sad story it's very tragic a lot of people lost their lives a lot of people got hurt it's a very unsettling scene just warning you this is like
the intro to all of your cases unfortunately it's so unsettling it's tragic it's it's all horrifically sad all of the above yeah all of of the above um so without further ado I suppose we just get into it let's go um so first things first you're the realist I'm the realist I never really liked the circus because I don't like animal shows like I don't like animals having to do tricks yeah I think I'm trying to think of like because I know one of my mom's boyfriends was like let me impress this bitch and took me to the circus like with my mom and I'm trying to think if animal it's only recent that animals
were taken out of the circus right let's look it up because I mean like childhood trauma makes it so that I don't recall a lot of events in my life but I can't remember if there was animals there or not I think it was I feel like it was like really recent same kind of look do you remember animals being there when you went to the circus I have I do not remember specifically what was there I I do remember my dad took me when I was much younger.
Which is adorable. When your dad takes you, it's cool.
Yeah. When your mom's boyfriend takes you, you're like, who's this fucker?
Like, thanks for trying to take me somewhere, but I don't even know you.
Yeah, see, my dad did, like, he loved to do just, like, the me and him hangouts.
I love that. So he would take me to, like, all the Disney movies that came out.
What was that like?
That was, like, his thing.
I'm just kidding, sorry.
It was great, I will say.
Papa did fun shit with us.
He did. He did a great job.
And this was one of the things he did because he's an electrician.
And at one point he did like the lights for the show.
He also did the lights for a Celine Dion concert.
He did. And then he met her in the elevator and he said she was one of the nicest people he's ever met in his life.
He did. And he said one of the most, he was a very, she was a very beautiful woman in person too.
She is beautiful. So that was very nice.
And he also did the lights for the Olympic trials, the gymnastics trials once.
I don't think I fucking knew that.
Yeah, he took tons of pictures and he gave me all the pictures because I used to love watching the gymnastics.
That's cool. Yeah. Damn, I don't know that I knew that.
Yeah. Puppa's the coolest. He's pretty cool.
Shout out to Don Bob.
He was in a submarine.
He was at like, thinking of him being in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean for like months at a time.
I'm like, you're a badass.
Months at a time. Actually, wait, can you tell the story?
Because I don't tell it perfectly, but how he hurt his back.
How he hurt his back.
So the story is that my dad was, like, almost paralyzed in the military.
He was, like, in horrible shape when he got out of it.
And some guy was about to fall down the ladder in, like, the hatch. I don't know how this works.
All I know. Don't at me.
Don't at me about it.
Because he doesn't even really talk about it.
He told us the story, like, once.
Yeah. Ma tells it sometimes.
But he grabbed the guy.
And as he grabbed the guy to try to help him, he slipped and hit his back on the rungs of the ladder and then fell down into the hatch. And he ended up having to have crazy surgeries on his back.
He's got a massive scar down his back.
It's crazy. But he walks around like it's nothing now.
I think he literally had to learn how to walk again.
And now it's like you'd never know it happened.
Unless you see his back and you see that giant massive scar on his back.
I think it might have been like a rogue wave or something.
Yeah, I was going to say there was a reason that like something happened that like jostled everything where this person fell.
Yeah. But he was trying to help that guy out and he grabbed him.
That's our guy. That's our guy.
That's what he does.
That's our guy right there.
But yeah, so he's a pretty big badass and he did the lights for the fucking circus.
Have you figured out when they got rid of the animals?
I haven't figured it out.
It's kind of hard to figure out.
So I feel like it was always kind of an, it was always a thing that people were up in arms about.
Yeah. Like it always became a thing where people were questioning how these animals were treated and whether this was humane or not.
The answer to me is no, it is not humane.
Did you ever watch that movie, Water for Elephants?
No, of course I didn't watch that movie.
Yeah, that checks. It would make me cry and I don't want that.
Oh, I can't watch it anymore.
more but I watched it one time and it made me absolutely sob.
Yeah see that and that's the thing I've heard that that's the reaction and anytime somebody tells me a movie made me sob it's off my like I don't like being I don't like being manipulated by movies to cry.
I get that sometimes I watch a movie like if I have to cry but there's like certain movies that I'm like I can't cry I can't have that kind of cry.
It's a different kind of cry.
Yeah when it's like gut -wrenching and you're like now I just feel sad.
Yeah and if I'm feeling sad for an animal I'm not going to recover cover for days and also elephants are my favorite animals so yeah so that's just that's all bad but getting into this um on july 6th 1944 an estimated 7 000 people mostly women and children gathered at the barber street fairgrounds in hartford connecticut to see the ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus after the lion show had just ended tragedy struck oh no Within 10 minutes, the entire tent had burned to the ground, 139 people were dead, and hundreds were badly injured.
And in the weeks that followed, another 28 would die from their injuries.
Oh, my God. Yeah. It was like a massive loss of life.
At the time, the Hartford Circus Fire was one of the worst fires in American history, and it remains one of the biggest tragedies in the state's history, especially.
I believe it. So in the summer of 1944, just to give you an idea of like what was going on then and why there were just so many women and children and like elderly people in attendance to this one particular show.
In the summer of 1944, as the Allied forces were beginning to overtake the Nazis across Europe, Americans at home were just trying to find ways to distract themselves from the horrific losses of life.
You know, the Normandy invasion, the battlefields, like you were hearing all kinds of awful stuff.
And among the more popular summer pastimes in both 1944 and years before that, you know, were the things we think of, the fairs, the carnivals.
Like, you think of those old timey carnivals and stuff.
And they were newer too, you know, like at that point in time.
And circuses that traveled to small towns and big cities across the country.
And each year, companies of varying quality would bring their animal shows, their games, their various big tops, all those attractions to town.
And locals could just pay a small fee and spend the day being entertained, eat some carnival food, ride some rides.
One thing about me, I fucking love carnival food.
Oh, carnival food is top notch. I thought you were going to say toxic.
No, absolutely it is, but it's top notch. Also toxic.
like toxic yes fried dough me the fuck up you will never john loves a fried dough yes that man i feel like i should just like for one of his birthdays just have like several food trucks of different fried doughs show up at the house obviously you're going to invite me to that but if you don't invite me to that i'm going to kick you i'm going to kick your shins And honestly, that's a scary threat.
So, but yeah, so, but when it came to the circus, there was none better.
And at the time thought none better quality and more well known than Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus, which everybody knows those names.
Yes. So the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus officially began operating when the two businesses merged in 1919.
Oh, wow. I was going to say, it all was much earlier.
Yeah, I didn't actually realize that.
But their individual histories date back to the early 19th century in one form or another.
Oh, fuck me then. I was like, yeah, this was a new thing, everybody.
You're like, I have a sentence coming up that's going to rock your world, bitch. But within a decade, the organization had purchased other traveling companies and kind of consolidated them into one large exhibition that they dubbed, what did they dub it everybody?
The greatest show on earth.
Oh wow. Was it? The circus generally traveled from one location to another by train because I mean train was the way to travel.
Yeah. And it carried the entire operation the train.
Performers, tents, animals, attractions, it all came on the same thing.
I saw water for elephants.
There you go. Following the merger the company employed over more more than like a thousand people at that point yeah um and they all traveled with dozens of camels large cats bears more than two dozen elephants and over 700 horses and countless other animals those poor animals think about it two dozen elephants when elephants are in like short supply right now and two dozen of them were just working for the circus And just like stuffed into train cars, like they're fucking elephants and bears and big cats.
It's like lions. All these animals are like endangered now.
And you wonder why.
Yeah. Now, throughout the economic turmoil of the first half of the 20th century, you know, traveling circuses and Ringling brothers in particular became really important opportunities for short and long term employment.
Like they offered a lot of opportunities for work.
And especially those who were desperate just to do any kind of work, they could take it.
In fact, by the early 1940s, their power and influence was so crazy that President Roosevelt, recognizing the relief from wartime tensions that the circus could provide for the American public, granted them special rail privileges.
Wow. So, like, the president.
That's crazy. I didn't know that.
Yeah. Well, others were restricted due to military activities.
So like they got this special privilege to go on the rail, like just to get to these places, because he recognized, listen, everybody needs a distraction.
That's crazy. Like we all need to be entertained by something.
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Yeah. Now, despite their power and influence, or maybe because of it, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey were often targets of criticism for a number of issues.
She told us that. You know, their frequently inhumane treatment of animals, which is just proven.
Fucked. um there was exploitation of workers yeah there was a lot of lax safety protocols i'm sure and while there are always going to be you know some amount of risk especially around such a large scale operation like this um particularly one with uh unpredictable wild animals you know other issues like fire safety was something that like management should have had better control of absolutely like you know you're gonna have risk you have performers that are doing very you know very dangerous things that you can't necessarily control you have performers tossing fire into the sky yeah and it's
like and wild animals you can't control wild animals you can try to and you can do it for a little bit of time but you're never really in control no but when it comes to the safety issues you know like they should have been able to control some of these they should have put better stuff in definitely and circus fires were actually a common occurrence at ringling brothers others, and others.
Circus fires happened a lot.
There's a very common and well -known joke that when you say, have you heard of a circus fire?
And somebody says, it was intense.
What? And you say, it was intense.
And it's supposed to be that double little, it was intense, but also it was in the tense.
I love that joke, but after reading this, now I feel icky about that joke.
Yeah, that's fair. You know, that's one of my favorite little like, oh, I have a funny little joke for you.
Have you you heard about the circus fire and now i'm like i have heard about the circus fire and it's very sad that's the thing i think a lot of people telling that joke hadn't heard about the circus it's true and now there's a lot of circus fires when you look into it it happened a lot but in 1940 for example a fire at the clyde beatty circus uh stop in rochester indiana resulted in the death of a majority of the circus's animals including and this just no this will destroy you no six Six lions.
No. Six lions died in a circus fire.
Oh, that's horrible.
And like, I'm not saying like that, you know, one loss of life is worth more than the other.
I'm not saying like, oh, I know humans died.
But like this one in particular, the animals were the ones who died.
There was no human deaths.
but six lions two leopards 15 antelope and 100 monkeys oh all died in that fire when the fire broke out in the animal pens oh my god like that's a lot that's hard that's horrific that's oh my god that makes me want to cry and again so many of these animals are fucking fucking endangered they're going in stinked and it's like what the fuck six lions and you said more than a hundred monkeys more at least a hundred monkeys oh and a similar tragedy occurred during a 1942 ringling brothers show in cleveland ohio and that resulted in the death of dozens of animals and an estimated 125 000 in damage
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Happy wedding! Now, because of the frequency and cost of circus fires, accidental and otherwise, one would assume circus managers would be a little more vigilant when it came to fire safety.
Maybe. But the problem just kept on going through the decades with honestly very little attention paid to it.
Because they just figured they could just get more animals, just keep going.
Yeah, we're just letting animals burn it down.
It's not a big deal.
No big deal. And then tragedy struck in 1944.
That's wild. And this demonstrated how truly fucking hellacious the cost of lax fire safety could be in these environments.
So from the moment the Ringling brothers and Barnum and bailey arrived in hartford connecticut on july 5th 1944 things were off there was a but there's something like a lot of these things theaters circuses kind of like these kind of productions productions there's a lot of superstition yeah involved in it that is very fascinating when you look into it they're they're superstitions and they're like traditions and stuff very fascinating i love that if you've ever been involved in like a theater company or anything like that you know know that there's a lot and they're very, very serious about it.
We should cover some more of those.
We should. That'd be fun to look into.
Yeah, that would be an interesting one.
But, and this is one of those situations that you sit there and you go, well, fuck.
Like, because things were going wrong.
In that morning, a late start out of Providence caused them to miss their first performance of the day.
They call that a sign where I'm from.
Well, that's something that superstitious members of the crew said, that's bad luck.
The fact that we lost, we didn't get that first performance, that's bad luck.
Wow. Wow. I mean, I believe it.
Yeah. And once they arrived, the crew worked very quickly to get everything set up, including the circus's big top, which was a 200 by 450 foot tent with 15 foot high canvas walls.
You see, me, me and mine, we want you to work as slow as you need to, as methodically as you need to, to get that massive of a fucking thing up in the air that is going to be responsible for holding many women and children and elderly people in.
Yeah, and animals. And animals and fire throwers, like all that kind of thing.
Take as much time as you need.
But they worked quickly because they had a late start.
Yep. And when it was fully assembled, the big top stood 48 feet tall.
Damn. And included the three rings for the performers.
Two stages, a large hippodrome, and multiple big seating areas, like balcony bleacher kind of things.
Yeah. And that July, it was super, super hot, like now.
Retweet. Yeah. And so the freshly cut grass, hay, and wood shavings where the tent was going to be raised upon, super dry.
Very dry. And so what they were doing though, they were thinking of this, but they ended up being lax about it.
It was requiring like many soakings with a hose, like they would just keep soaking this to make sure.
And it was mainly one because you don't want that to dry up.
But two, it was making a lot of dust and debris kind of go in the air when it dried up.
Oh, and that's terrible for what you're about to be doing.
So that's not good for anyone to be breathing.
So they would soak it to try to keep it dry or keep it wet.
So with everything in place, the management was able to get the gates open for the evening show.
And the next day, and that one went okay.
And actually the next day, the papers announced that audiences found that show to be bigger, better, and smarter than ever.
Wow. And in addition to the usual, you know menagerie of animals the show also had something called the cloud ballet which sounds beautiful yeah um it's a high wire spectacle and it included dozens of girls on swings and trapezes engaged in aerial acrobatics think of that like in the 1940s that's in that kind of thing fascinating totally i'll watch people do that kind of stuff i don't want to see the animals like cirque de soleil kind of yeah like those kind of things we were talking about this earlier yes There's something called Cirque Berserk, I think it's called.
I've never seen it.
I've seen little clips of it.
I don't even know if it's still happening.
But fuck, I want to go to Cirque Berserk.
Wait, am I fucking nuts or was Bridget in Cirque Berserk?
Was she? Wasn't that an episode of Girls Next Door?
I know she was in one of the Cirque du Soleil things, but maybe I'm forgetting one.
but i need to know if cirque du soleil is still around okay so bridget trained with cirque du soleil because i think she was in the particular one that was like oh and it had like water in it it's like cirque du soleil oh um yeah because they have like different versions of cirque du soleil i think you're right like they love and stuff so we looked up some shit it's it's surprisingly harder to confirm all this than we thought yeah truly but somebody call Dave I don't know Dave help um but there is something called Cirque Berserk and it's the one with a z that we're and it's got like um it's got
like burlesque kind of things going on it's very it's like spooky carnival vibes yeah and that looks cool and I kind of want to see it there's also something I just a so -called paranormal circus or paranormal cirque and it looks really cool too it's spooky i love haunted carnival vibes like we still have to go to that um remember it's like that like um abandoned fairgrounds you covered it like yeah when we were in the laundry room yeah i want to go to there we do need to go to there we do starts with an s um the uh it popped into my head and me too yeah shawnee whoa i was like it's coming it's
coming that was incredible i wasn't looking at anything you could ask gosh i was literally just touching my she was touching her temple with her eyes closed and going shawnee i was like it's there it's there it's there all right continue with the story this is getting old school morbid and i'm I'm loving this, which every once in a while that is just, but yeah, so sounds like this was awesome.
The Cloud Ballet, so cool.
High wire spectacle, dozens of girls, swings, trapezes, you know, aerial acrobatics.
That's crazy. So cool.
And Victoria, Rietta, and Frank, who hold a giant swing from their teeth while a young woman does assorted turns in midair.
Can you say that one more time?
Victoria, Rietta, and Frank, who hold a giant swing from their teeth.
From their teeth, you guys.
While a young woman does assorted turns in midair.
From their teeth? From their teeth.
I try to hold my keys in my teeth, which is gross.
And you shouldn't do that.
And not as hard. It's still hard. Weird. But the positive reviews in the morning papers on July 6th was going to ensure that the next performance was going to be pactful.
Big old crowd. And that next performance was scheduled to begin at 2 p .m. that day.
So that day was what they described at the time as perfect weather for a day out.
To me, it sounds horrific.
It's nearly 90 degrees and sunny without a cloud in the sky.
Fuck a whole bunch of that unless I'm like near a body of water.
I don't even want that.
I'm inside with the AC.
Fair enough. All the shades pulled.
Too sunny. Sweatshirt on.
Hate it. But that, you know, there wasn't a lot going on.
So of course they're going to go out.
If it's 90, I feel like you need a cloud in the sky.
I need clouds. But the grounds had been watered earlier that morning.
So they were keeping up with that.
But by the time the audiences started arriving at the gate around 1 p .m., they had dried already.
And then the person responsible for keeping them wet was distracted by how many people were coming in.
So they weren't getting it done.
That's not great. No. And it being, you know, the war years at the time, a significant number of American men were sent to Europe and the Pacific.
So that's why the audience was mainly comprised of mostly women, children, and elderly people.
Because, like, a lot of men were overseas.
Sure. So despite the sweltering heat inside the tent, thousands of people showed up and just waited patiently in their seats for 2 p .m. when the show would finally begin.
Oh, man, that sounds horrible.
Now, the show began as it always did, with Merle Evans' Big Show Band performing the opening number, which was the Star Spangled Banner.
Let's go. And that says Ringmaster Fred Bradna led a parade of horses, elephants, and other performers into the ring to welcome all the guests.
Cool, I guess. It's everything you think of for a circus.
You know, the ringmaster coming in with all the animals.
Yeah. And once everyone was seated, the opening act started with dozens of showgirls dressed in flashy military costumes performing a lion taming act.
The opening act led into other animal shows including big cats great danes and even polar bears the fuck polar bears in 90 degree heat oh those poor babies that's fucked up that's forced it is and also fucking polar bears polar bears will fuck you you think a lion is scary a polar bear is gonna fuck your shit up just for fun aren't they just for shits and giggles they're also fucking massive aren't they massive Impressive.
Yeah, they are huge.
I don't need to see a polar bear in person.
I don't need to. I don't want to.
I don't request to.
Nay. So as the animals and their trainers slowly exited the ring through a very special tunnel that they used to get the animals inside and out, you guys might recognize, people listening might recognize this name, the Flying Walendas.
Maybe. You might just recognize it because they're a very well -known act.
their family okay who's been doing it for decades and decades and decades like they're just they're the act um they started getting into position they were up next they were one of the circus's most popular acts and remained that way forever uh they were an acrobatic family they were known very much for their high wire act that performed without a net oh so the flying walendas were like like, a huge draw for the Ringling Circus.
Apparently. So a little past 2 .30 p .m., just as the Walendas were about to begin their act, usher Ken Gwinell noticed a small fire on one of the tent wall panels on the southern side.
Oh, no. Again, this was common, and they could put out small fires.
The reason that fires happen so often were also because men would go in there and smoke cigars and cigarettes.
Oh. And women would smoke cigarettes too, but mostly at that time, it was men smoking cigars.
Sure. And they would toss them.
So if it was dry, then they're going up.
Yeah. It's a canvas tent.
Like this is essentially kindling on the ground.
So this was just behind a row of audience members seated in the bleachers.
And from what he could tell, the fire was about five feet up on the panel and hadn't reached the ground yet.
Yep. So, Gwinell ran to get the other ushers, and the three of them grabbed the water buckets, like, special water buckets for fires.
Uh -huh. And started to douse the flames.
But that didn't work.
Oh, shit. And so, usher Mike Diadrio attempted to pull the panel down, because that was part of the protocol.
You pull that panel down and you step on it.
You stomp it up. And in the seconds it took the men to reach the wall, the fire had doubled in size and was now climbing up the panel.
Oh, my God. They realized that the fire buckets were not going to work.
So when they tried to pull the panel off, it was secured too tightly to the roof panels and they couldn't pull it away.
Normally they could, but they had done it too quickly.
And so they realized that the fire buckets weren't going to be enough to stop this.
And they began the process of escorting people out of the tent.
Okay. For most of its existence, Ringling Brothers' safety protocol for fire was pretty simple.
Like I was just explaining, ushers were tasked with monitoring the Big Top for any signs of smoke or fire, you know, which would be like a dropped cigarette or a dropped cigar.
And when one was spotted, one or more of the ushers would grab the red and silver fire safety buckets from under the front row of seats and extinguish the flames.
In the event that they couldn't do that with just the water in the buckets, the panel or panels would be pulled down or cut down and then they would be smothered on the ground.
which you know if if that thing was able to as we see if it's able to spread to the top of the tent that's when catastrophe strikes you have to get it before it goes there that's a that's leaving a lot to chance yes because also fire moves so rapidly so unpredictably wait until you hear what this big tent was covered in oh no for weatherproofing oh no so in the event that the fire couldn't be brought under control through either of those two things either with the the buckets of water or by cutting the panel down yeah two ushers um or excuse me any of the ushers that they could find would evacuate
the tent and the local fire department would be called emergency responders and they would take care of it now as the largest circus show in the country ringling's big top tent was fucking huge uh it was a hundred thousand square feet in size the size of a large warehouse holy shit it was huge yeah the massive size was intended to house multiple shows at one on time.
So it was by design that individuals on one side of the tent wouldn't or couldn't easily see or hear what was happening on the other side of the tent.
At first, audience members slowly started to become aware of the fire, starting with those in the upper bleachers of the southwest side of the tent.
But some people who had noticed the fire started moving towards the exit on their own, while others needed to kind of be like prompted by ushers like, we gotta go.
Yeah. But they didn't want to start panic either.
They thought they could contain this.
But others thought the fire was part of the act.
And so they remained seated and they assumed the fire would just be extinguished and it would just keep going.
I mean, you can understand why people thought that.
Like, it's unpredictable.
while the ushers worked quietly to evacuate the audience on the southwest side one of the men notified the band leader merle evans and he was instructed to play stars and stripes forever which is the circus's so -called disaster march oh now the disaster march was something that signaled all circus staff and performers that there was a catastrophic emergency happening Oh, fantastic.
In the circus and other parts of the theater industry, this is very normal.
That song was a universally recognized signal of an emergency that could be used without starting a panic among the audience in a tight space.
And so confusion, desperation, panic is not good to have. No, because everybody's running amok.
And you want everyone to be signaled very subtly.
Like everybody that works there.
Getting everyone upset, everyone that works there, so that they can all jump into action without getting everybody freaked out.
I'm going to need to play you a quick little piece of this because imagining this playing as what happened, like the tent is literally burning down around you or starting to or, you know, is really horrifying.
So this is what the disaster march was.
no yeah and the walls are just burning down around you as like fire is starting to consume and people are like running out of the tent and this is having to be played to like not panic everybody i'm like i'm panicked i'm panicked but also you can understand why people thought that but it was part of the performance because they're still playing the fucking circus music.
And it feels very circusy, very like entertainer, very like, you know, everything's happy, everything's fine.
Which again is the intent.
Right. And when you have the situation under some semblance of control.
Yeah. It makes sense.
It makes perfect sense to have a disaster march where you alert the people who need to be alerted without making everyone else panic.
But fuck. But when you look at it in hindsight, how terrifying that, because as we know, like I always say it, that kind of music, music playing during some kind of horrific event that's not at all like dark or scary feels so much scarier to me.
Like upbeat music. Like something like that is just so much scarier.
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But either way, they started playing this.
and at this point the fire was still contained to the west side and the rest of the audience hadn't become aware of it yet.
So there was still the possibility for an orderly evacuation, which is why they started playing that.
But as the band began playing the song and the emergency call began to register with the performers inside the tent, it was already too late.
Years later, members of the Walenda family recalled hearing the song being played and scanning the tent from their position because they were high above the crowd, waiting to do their act oh god and they said that's when their eyes landed on the fire on the west side and that was just as it had reached the decorative fringe on the outer edge of the canvas roof um and this was an all -weather performance space rain or shine so the canvas roof and other parts of the big top were waterproofed using a mix of gasoline and paraffin wax i'm sorry sorry what I thought you said was gasoline yep you heard that right
and paraffin wax two highly flammable substances I don't have words yeah also a paraffin wax I'm pretty sure that's like what they put on your heels during a pedicure to like rip your dead ass skin off so like it's weatherproofing apparently.
That's some crazy shit.
It weatherproofed big tops.
What? Yep. Gasoline and wax?
Yep. Why? Just get a waterproof tent.
It gets so much worse too with that wax because I don't know if anybody's anticipating what's going to happen with that.
I sure am. But when the fire reached the fringe on the roof it ignited in a literal flash like the The Wallendas said they literally saw it explode, like it just poof.
And they said it filled the tent with toxic smoke, sent the audience into a panic, and then everyone went crazy.
Bunkers for the exits.
Now, while the most obvious danger in situations like this is the fire, there are additional factors that pose a nearly equal threat here.
Trampling? Not the least of which are the live animals that are typically present in the tent.
in a fire uh a frightened lion or tiger can make this a lot worse yeah uh fortunately when this fire broke out the one fortunate thing may kovar who had just finished her lion act had seen the fire early and managed to get the cats and all the other animals out of the tent early through that tunnel underneath the audience that housed the animals so she was able to like like corral them all out that's good the people on the other hand were much less fortunate not long after the roof caught fire this this will give you chills not long after the roof caught fire the generator blew so it cut the power
and plunged the entire tent into darkness what the fuck so the generator cut out and they went into complete darkness in that tent with chaos and just flames fucking flames everywhere the only thing that's going to light the way as flames oh my god now ringmaster fred bradna tried desperately to calm the crowd and try to get them orderly out of the tent and was encouraging them please move towards the exit in a quick and orderly fashion so we don't hurt people but the power went out so you can't see anything he couldn't be heard over the screams of the crowd because the power's out so he's trying
to scream it to everyone but everyone's screaming oh my god to make matters worse and this is the part that i I was like, holy shit.
As the paraffin wax on the ceiling canvas heated.
It's burning people.
As the increasingly desperate crowd of mostly women and children are rushing around towards the exits, large droplets of lethal molten paraffin wax started falling on the fucking audience below.
Oh my god. So they are now being pelted with lethal, molten, like, literal lava wax is falling on them.
It caused catastrophic burns and only increased the panic because now they're being rained on by essentially lava.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Yeah. In the dark. Those who were familiar with the interior of the Big Top quickly made their way to the performer exits because the performers knew where those were.
Yeah. And managed to get out of the tent.
But the audience knew only of the main exit and entrance, which quickly became completely clogged up.
And people just kept pushing.
People were getting stampeded.
Like, it was awful.
And among the last performers to exit the tent were the Walendas who climbed the ropes down to the ground and headed towards the animal exit that Mae Kovar had ushered the cats through moments earlier.
And Herman Walenda told a reporter, but people were so crowded in there that we saw we didn't have a chance.
We climbed over the cage that lines the exit.
That was easy for us.
We're performers, but the public couldn't get out that way.
Because they just jumped up on it.
Like, they're used to flipping around everywhere.
Like, they can climb on things.
shootings it's in fact when the fire was finally extinguished and firefighters were able to access the site many of the dead were discovered piled up near inaccessible exits like the ones that the Wanda's tried to go through oh my god just to think of people and like you said mostly women and children and elderly people yep just piled on top of one another covered in fucking paraffin wax Yeah.
Now, those who were higher up on the bleachers managed to honestly fare a little better than those closer to the ground who got caught in the stampede of people.
Dorothy Carvey, who was in attendance with her young son, said, I was up as high as the fire and it was coming in my direction.
I got down to around the fourth row and I fell and everyone stepped on us.
Oh, my God. She said, a circus attendant kept yelling, watch out for the kid, watch out for the kid.
He finally pushed all, and I'm like, this circus attendant was amazing.
He finally pushed all the adults off.
Then he grabbed my son and I held on to his waistband.
Now, Carvey was among the lucky audience members on the opposite side of the tent from where the animal shoot was located.
Because that ultimately just ended up acting like a large steel barrier in front of several of the exits.
oh now maureen creaky i think it's creakian was 11 years old at the time and was attending the circus by herself for the first time an 11 year old oh my god that just made myself in this situation i'm not kidding you that just made my stomach flip she said i remember somebody yelling and seeing a big ball of fire near the top of the tent and this ball of fire just got bigger and bigger and bigger and like many of those who made it out relatively unharmed she jumped down from and was able to get out over most of the obstructions.
And in the confusion, she was able to make her way to an exit.
And she said, Wow. Yeah.
So there are like heroes in attendance this day.
Oh, there's many heroes in here.
Now some workers and performers heard Stars and Stripes Forever and came running, while others only smelled the smoke and followed it back to its origin.
Yeah. Regardless of what made them come running, when they finally reached the tent, and this was like people outside of the, because that was the other thing, that stars and stripes forever is for the entire carnival that's going on around.
All those people could hear it and were like, fuck, and went running towards there.
Yeah. But when they finally reached the tent, none of them were prepared for what they saw.
A clown, a well -known clown named Felix Adler said, I thought the Menagerie fire in Cleveland was the worst thing I could ever see.
But no one in the circus business had ever seen anything like this.
Now, outside the tent, the crew and bystanders watched in absolute horror as audience members crawled out from under the tent walls, attempted to break through the canvas, and toxic smoke is just pouring out of every crack in this tent.
And you're just hearing people fucking screaming.
Oh, and it even gets, it's even worse.
Now, according to John Davis, who was a writer for the Hartford Courant, he said circus men were forced to restrain parents from dashing back into the fire to search for missing children.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
That's fucking terrible.
Because they were just trying to save whoever they could.
Now, meanwhile, other circus workers and performers gathered around the edges of the flaming tent to try to usher, and in some cases pull people out of the tent, until they were eventually forced back because of the heat and the smoke.
They just couldn't stand it anymore.
Now, within a few minutes of the roof catching, the fire had burned through much of the wax and the gasoline -soaked canvas and had made its way to the ropes that held the support beams. Stop it.
Once the ropes caught, it was only a matter of seconds before the entire Big Top collapsed on top of those remaining inside.
And as one reporter put it, quote, Quote, the shrieks of the dying and injured were muffled.
That's so dark and chilling.
It is haunting. Haunting.
Now, it's unknown how many people exactly were there that day, but most agree the number was nearly 7 ,000 people.
Holy shit. By 2 .50 p .m., the fire had consumed the entire tent and burned itself out and left a pile of smoldering rubble behind.
And this had started at 2, right?
Yeah, and the show started at 2.
That's what I mean.
It took less than 10 minutes to burn the entire thing to the ground.
Oh my god. That's how fast this happened.
Oh my god. So the initial count of the dead at this point was estimated at 136 people.
people. But the total was expected to rise as hospitals all over Connecticut were just flooded with people injured by this fire.
And by most accounts, those who managed to escape the fire relatively unharmed had been in the upper tier of the bleachers and were able to jump or climb over the metal cages and, you know, other obstacles that blocked a lot of the exits.
So you were in better shape if you were up there.
Which is crazy because you wouldn't think so.
And like I said, the piles of the dead were found really huddled around those blocked exits.
or had been crushed by stampeding crowds rushing the exits.
According to the press, quote, many escaped through the heroism of circus performers and refreshment vendors.
We either led them to the nearest of 10 exits or through lifted sidewalls.
And others did their part to mitigate the disaster by leading the animals away from the fire to avoid further tragedy.
Because again, you can't have a lion running in the middle of this crowd.
Like that's, thank goodness, that could have been even worse.
That's the thing. i think that's one of the only things that is good yeah because by so by midnight 51 victims had been identified wow but at least 85 remained unidentified at the time um because there was extensive burns that left a lot of people completely unrecognizable and imagine knowing like your loved one or your your kid went to the circus that day and now you have to go see if you can recognize them and unable to accommodate that many bodies the coroner was like we can't house this many people like i don't have this so they had to establish a temporary morgue at the state armory in downtown
hartford just steps away from the capitol wow um inside the bodies were all arranged on tables along the wall children on one side adults on the other oh my god that must have been to have to have to i can't even imagine to have to clean up that scene and like collect all all those bodies and and go through children like like so many children attending the circus they came to the circus like that's what that's i'm like for a kid that's like the most innocent and it's so exciting and they were so excited i'm sure it's the it's the greatest show on earth like not so excited and a lot of these are like
kids whose dads are away at war too and it's like and the mom is just trying to take them out for a day to like for a distraction distract and it's like Like now these who knows how many fathers heard that their kid died in the circus fire or their wife or their oh my God, their mom or their dad.
Yeah. So inside, like I said, it was children on one side, adults on the other.
And then the days that followed this, a steady stream of people would be admitted a few at a time.
People just hoping or not hoping to see their loved ones.
And you're just looking across a sea of bodies.
And trying to identify your loved one.
How do you ever recover?
Like, I can't. The PTSD people must have suffered.
Oh, it must have been unbelievable.
Yeah. Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, local police were overwhelmed by reports of missing children and adults who were supposed to be in attendance that day.
And by late that evening, at least 113 mothers and children had been reported missing.
And police had found at least 20 unaccompanied children wandering the circus grounds in search of their parents.
Oh, my God. At the same time, a surprising number of adults arrived at local police precincts through the evening to report that they had found frightened, unaccompanied children on the grounds and taken them home to get them away from the chaos.
But they were bringing them now to be like, I didn't kidnap this child.
I just couldn't leave them in this chaos.
I needed to help this baby.
Oh my God. But by the evening time, they had still not figured out how to find these parents.
Tragedy isn't even the word. No, it's really not.
While countless state workers and volunteers tried to deal with identifying the dead, state and local authorities started investigating what the fuck caused this fire to begin with.
In a statement to the press, Ringling Brothers publicity agent Roland Butler told reporters he believed the fire was caused by defective wiring, resulting in a short circuit in the men's room near the main entrance.
Butler added that in addition to the human cost, the human loss of life, the fire also resulted in more than $100 ,000 in property damage, and the circus would be canceling the remainder of the season and returning to their headquarters in Florida.
I mean, I can't imagine anybody wanting to go to the circus after that.
The show mustn't go on at that point.
Now, despite Butler's claim about faulty wiring, There were other theories about the origin of the fire.
According to Ken Gwinell, the usher, who first attempted to put out the fire, he said the blaze originated from a cigarette thrown against the sidewall of the tent by a man using the men's toilet.
Now, three Hartford detectives, who were also in attendance at the circus that day, and they had tried to help douse the flames, they agreed that the fire appeared to have been caused by a dropped cigarette in the men's room.
I wonder if they just didn't want people, like, hunting down this guy.
Yeah, truly. And that's why they were, like, faulty wiring.
Faulty wiring. Now, as police officials continued to investigate what caused the fire, D .A .S.
Burr -Leekind issued a warrants for arrest of four circus officials, and Hartford police arrested J .A.
Haley, who was the vice president, John Bryce, who was the circus chief of police.
That's a real thing.
Wait, what? The circus chief of police.
I think they have their own thing to keep order.
I couldn't find exactly what it was, but he was literally listed as the circus chief of police.
But did the police see them as the police?
No, I don't think it's the same.
I don't think it's the same thing.
I shouldn't say no, but I think it's like its own thing.
Okay, interesting. Yeah.
George Smith, who was the general manager, and Leonard Aylesworth, who was the boss canvas man, quote unquote.
I would not want to be the boss canvas man that day.
All four men were charged with manslaughter and held on $15 ,000 bail, with Likind announcing that he expected other arrests to be forthcoming.
Now, within a few hours, eyewitness accounts started circulating and the public started to learn the extent of the horror and tragedy that occurred on those fairgrounds.
Army Private Bob Ensworth wrote, The most amazing sight as I stood in the backyard was the fact that 17 tons of big top canvas went up in smoke like a piece of cellophane in less than 10 minutes, Just standing in your backyard. 17 tons.
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Now, according to Ensworth, he said many of the circus performers were burned considerably about the hands and arms as they rushed patrons to safety.
Children were tossed from top row bleachers down 15 feet to workmen outside the blazing tent.
Like, God. They're catching children being thrown to them as their hands and arms are burning.
He said it was early evening before stage workers stopped to have their burns and wounds treated.
And at that point, they're probably not even, like, when it was all happening, they probably don't even realize that their hands are burning because of adrenaline.
But they're just trying to save kids.
Yeah. Like, just trying to get people out.
Bob Ensworth comments about the courageous circus performers.
notwithstanding many residents did turn their anger towards towards the circus i'm sure they blamed wringling brothers for the tragedy which like how can you not one performer asked a reporter why is the town saying that the circus is to blame for what happened don't they know how we feel about this don't they know how awful it was to see those children knocked down and trampled on by men yes men which that's also the same kind of like you know it was a tragedy all around yeah many Then he pointed to the heroic acts of well -known clown Emmett Kelly who led dozens of children to safety from the tent.
He said, I got all the kids out that tried to run towards the exit where the blaze was.
When the arena was clear, I saw that the fire had reached the point where the gasoline engines were close to the flames.
So I grabbed my buckets again and did what I could to soak the canvas.
I did what I could.
It wasn't much. No, it was a lot.
You rescued a bunch of kids.
They were rescued by clowns.
Like that's like, what a fucking, like I can't, these kids, the memories and like, just like the things that are going to stay with them, the visuals and the feelings and the like flashbacks.
And hearing us, like imagine hearing that song.
Oh my God, I can't, that must trigger something just dark inside of you.
Probably send you right back to that moment.
So viewing of the bodies resumed at the armory the following day.
And by midnight, all but 15 bodies had been identified and claimed.
Wow. The unidentified that still remained were moved to a facility with better refrigeration, and by the end of the weekend, all but six had been identified.
That's incredible. Among those still remaining was a little girl that the press dubbed Little Miss Number 1565.
Oh, God. Which was a reference to her identification number assigned by the coroner.
That's horrific. Terrific.
Of all the victims, this Little Miss number 1565 really stood out and really stood out to a particular detective.
Detective Edward Lowe said, I remember when the little girl was brought into the state armory at about three in the morning after the fire.
She was practically unmarked, a beautiful little girl with honey -colored hair.
She was put with those we believed would be most readily identified.
And day after day, night after night, people passed her by.
and given that so many victims had been burned beyond recognition investigators assumed that this girl would be quickly identified by her family but she wasn't is it possible that her family died in the fire it's possible and there's there is a a little bit of a theory conclusion with that so don't worry eventually detectives came to believe that the girl's family had actually mistakenly claimed another child as their own.
And Little Miss Number 1565 was eventually buried in Windsor Cemetery and the moniker that everyone had used for her was what she was buried under and ultimately six victims did remain unidentified.
Now, the day after the fire, an investigation into the tragedy was opened by the state and led by State Police Commissioner Edward Hickey, who had been in the tent that day to see the show with his nieces and nephews stop it in his statement to the press state's attorney james kennedy told reporters he has evidence that the circus failed to provide adequate firefighting equipment or sufficient personnel to operate it and that the 520 foot canvas tent itself was a dangerous fire hazard having been treated with paraffin diluted with gasoline can you fuck which is like undeniable deal was that yeah
like i'm I'm sorry, but like you knew that that like, sure, that's that's waterproofing it.
Yeah. But it's literally making it the perfect the perfect spark for a fire.
Yeah, exactly. So Hickey's investigation focused mostly on the six ushers who first noticed the fire and tried to extinguish the flames.
After hearing their version of events and visiting the site again with them, Hickey determined that they were telling the truth.
but he remained unable to determine whether the fire had in fact been caused by a cigarette there were also two stories that concerned hickey the first was from a food vendor who claimed that the fire could have been prevented if the fire extinguished extinguishers had actually worked and the second was regarding quote a drunken circus employee seen by a concessionaire leaving the men's toilet as the fire started oh no so now they're saying like it could have been this drunk circus employee that flicked a cigarette.
Yikes. These stories were collected by Hartford detectives who had been actually sent.
This is how they heard these.
This is very interesting.
They had been sent to local taverns in the days after the fire to listen in on conversations between circus employees.
I love it. To try to get additional evidence.
I fucking love it. I don't know why I love that.
Because it's spying.
And spying is fun. It's so down and dirty detective 1940s kind of detective work, you know what I mean?
You see it in your head as like a movie.
And you see the hats they're wearing and everything listening to these conversations while drinking like a little, you know, stout, some whiskey.
Yeah. You know? Alcohol.
Alcohol. Now by the end of the year, the fire commission had completed its investigation as had the coroner's office and both determined that several Ringling Brothers staff were, quote, So guilty of such wanton or reckless conduct, either of commission or of omission, where there is a duty to act, which makes them criminally liable for the deaths.
Based on those findings, investigators arrested James Haley, the vice president and director of the circus, George Smith, the general manager, Leonard Aylesworth, boss canvas man, Edward Versteeg, the chief electrician, David Blanchfield, a superintendent of Rolling Stock, William Cayley, who was an usher, and Samuel Clark, who was another usher.
According to the coroner's report, Cayley and Clark, the ushers, quote, left their places under the bleachers when it was their duty to remain there and watch for fires that might occur.
The fuck? Where were you?
Ultimately, all but Samuel Clark were found guilty and went on to serve between six months and seven years in prison.
Wow. Now, nearly five years went by and the residents of Hartford had started to move on with their lives when the circus fire case was revived because there was a new arrest. In March 1950, police in Columbus, Ohio, received a tip about a young man who claimed to have set the fire in Hartford. Set it?
Yep. And they arrested 21 -year -old East St. Louis resident Robert Segi.
Uh -huh. According to Ohio State Fire Marshal Harry Callen, Sege was, quote, being questioned about a series of fires in three states, including the circus fire in Hartford. And also, not only did Sege have a history of setting arson fires, but he also worked for the Ringling Brothers and was traveling with the show when the fire occurred.
Stop it. Now, during his initial interview, he told investigators that he had been working as a rust about, which is like a casual laborer.
Okay. With Ringling Brothers in 1944, 1944 he claimed that on the day of the fire and this is his quote this is what he said it's offensive he said the red indian awakened him and ordered him to set a fire what after that he claimed his mind went blank and when he came to again the big top was already in flames and he was burned in the fire it quickly became clear to investigators that he was mentally ill oh uh but he had nonetheless confessed to a very serious crime so he was held for further questioning But Chief Charles LaMonda told reporters, we're gone as far as we can with him.
Psychiatrists will have to work him out now.
And I think we'll get the Hartford case cleared up.
Now, Robert Segi continued talking to investigators.
And by July, he'd confessed to four murders and also said that he had set more than 80 arson fires.
Holy shit. Including the Hartford Circus fire.
According to Segi, his quote, career of crime started at the age of nine.
with the murder of a nine -year -old girl in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
But the Portsmouth police official told reporters that his confession to the murder of nine -year -old Barbara Driscoll, he said, looks fishy to me.
Also, at the time of the murder, police had a strong suspect, but that suspect was later acquitted.
And the same official admitted that Segi was living near the victim at the time, and it was possible he did commit that crime.
nine -year -old cover -up murder for that long it's an awful crime i looked it up it's awful she was a nine -year -old she was um assaulted and murdered and she was killed with a rock at a railroad track and was found with a clump of her attacker's hair in her hand what the fuck and it's like did he go home with a clump of hair missing that's what i'm i'm like i wish we could could have figured that out oh and her name was barbara derskull it's really sad barbara now while ohio law enforcement officials had already begun claiming credit for capturing a serial killer and the person responsible for the hartford
fire because he's a serial killer at this point he's three he's saying he murdered four people yeah and then also set these fires that killed other people hundreds and hundreds uh many like the portsmouth portsmouth that's really hard to say portsmouth is hard to portsmouth police officials remain skeptical article of his claims. I feel the same right now.
Yeah. When he was questioned about Seggie's employment at the time of the murder of the fire, a Ringling Brothers spokes spokesperson told reporters, though they didn't have employment records going back to that time, he doubted very much that the circus would have hired a teenage boy for the job.
I don't know. I don't know about that.
In fact, after Seggie claimed he was interviewed by police following the fire, Edward Hickey reviewed the list of Ringling Brothers employees questioned at the time, and his name was not among them.
Okay. That doesn't mean he was an employee.
Yeah, he also could have just hopped on another fucking train.
Yeah. That just means he wasn't officially questioned.
And or on record. Yeah.
Despite their doubts, at least 10 of the arson fires that Segi claimed to have started were substantiated by the police.
Oh. Giving his story at least a little bit of credibility.
Yeah. Also, in investigative reports from the time and interviews with his parents, they claim he ran away to join the Ringling Brothers Circus in 1944.
Stop. So all these claims that he couldn't have been his parents agree that he he ran away to the circus.
Now, in July 1950, Robert Seggie prepared and signed a written confession in which he took a full responsibility for the Hartford fire.
According to the statement, he regularly hallucinated the spirit of a Native American man who encouraged him to set fires and commit acts of violence, including the murder of Barbara Durskill in Portsmouth.
He also said that this included the murder of a 12 -year -old boy in Portland, Maine, and the murder of a boy in Japan while Segi was in the military.
What the fuck? A few months later, after evaluating him, psychiatrist Dr. Roy Beauchamp of Lima Hospital said that although he was, quote, essentially neurotic and capable of committing serious crimes, he was not insane in the legal sense of the term.
Okay. I think he was just lying about hallucinating things.
So he's also racist. Cool.
Exactly. So Robert Saget's dubious confession notwithstanding, because it's still a little like, that's a lot.
The fact that he was deemed sane meant that investigators had no choice but to accept that confession to the Hartford fire and the other murders.
Yeah. So on November 3rd, 1950, he appeared before a judge in Ohio and he pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes ranging from arson to murder.
Yeah. And he said, I've never been in trouble before and I would like to ask the court to grant me leniency.
see i don't think so buddy so after accepting seggy's plea judge william radcliffe sentenced him to two consecutive terms of two to 20 years in prison which was the maximum allowed under ohio law at the time when asked why he committed the crimes he responded when you got a bunch of brothers who call you dopey all your life you'd understand a little bit actually i never had a happy day in my life so now he's now he's saying people were mean to me people call me dumb all the fucking time people call me dumb left right center you're not gonna go do that and i'm not trying to set fires no fuck that excuse
people called me dumb okay and it's not even people my brothers my siblings how many people in your life have called you dumb before already it's like that scene in mean girls raise your hand if you felt personally victimized by the people that called you done your siblings fuck you i'm outraged by that excuse as you should be Now years later, Robert Seggy actually recanted his confession And insisted he had not worked for Ringling Brothers and had nothing to do with the fire I feel like it was just convenient though Because at first I wasn't convinced, but then when his parents said he ran away
Yeah He had never technically been charged with the Hartford Fire He had been charged for the other things So there were no consequences for his confession of that crime So though he remained in prison on the Ohio arson charges for which he had been convicted until he was paroled in 1959 he maintained his innocence about it until he died in 1997 bitch i was born yeah and also he served nine years yep that's it for those arsons because that's what he was committed um convicted for wow but he got two to 20 and he only served nine yeah he was paroled the fuck you paroled that man yeah like what's what's
going on? Oh, hi, oh, hi, oh.
So the eagerness with which some investigators accepted Robert Segi's confession isn't really difficult to understand, like we were saying.
I'm sure they wanted somebody to.
In the wake of this kind of tragedy, you want someone to blame.
And if someone's willing to take the blame, you want to believe it.
And if somebody who's willing to take the blame has also committed multiple other arsons and killed people, like, I'm going to believe them.
And he offered a very convenient explanation that could potentially happen.
But the fact is, whoever or whatever caused the hartford circus fire has never and honestly i want to believe it can be fixed but they have never been identified i believe there's always hope in these situations yeah in 1991 hartford fire lieutenant rick davy told reporters he had strong reason to believe the fire had been deliberately set in the men's room and was not an accident uh so following his announcement the state fire marshal reopened the case and spent two years investigating the claim name but eventually concluded there wasn't enough evidence to support that assertion but there wasn't
enough evidence to not support it either damn so we're literally in a place of limbo of like it could have been uh -huh and the fire marshal said we reviewed tons of old documents talked to survivors and spent four hours in ohio interviewing robert seggy but we gleaned no new information as to how the fire might have started now while the cause of the fire was one more mystery that was remaining unsolved for the time being, Rick Davies' investigation did unearth some new information that likely solved at least one of the Hartford Fires mysteries.
Is it our girl? Like many investigators at the time, Rick Davies formed a kind of attachment with Little Miss 1565 and became determined to identify her, which I was really hoping someone would, because I was like, I'm going to be determined now.
Yeah. Yeah. So he actually told a reporter in 1991, she became family to me.
She is, in effect, a surrogate daughter.
I spent more time looking for her than when she was alive, probably.
What a sweetheart. And according to Davey, during his research, he found a photograph among the evidence that appeared to depict a girl that bore a striking resemblance to Little Miss 1565.
And after tracking down the origin of the photo, he learned that the girl's name was Eleanor Cook.
Eleanor Cook. And the photo had been obtained by the girl's aunt, Emily Gill, who brought it with her to Hartford when she was searching for her niece after the fire.
Now, Eleanor Cook had attended the circus that day with her mother, Mildred, and her younger brothers, Edward and Donald.
When the fire broke out, the family became separated in the chaos.
And unfortunately, Edward died in the fire, and their mother was burned over more than 90 % of her body and was hospitalized for months and months.
So that's why nobody came.
Nobody came Davy believes Emily Gill came to Hartford From her home in Southampton, Massachusetts To search for her sister And her nieces and nephews But left after a few days Because she had never seen the body of Little Miss 1565 And it took considerable time But eventually Davy tracked down Donald Cook Who was her brother Who agreed the girl was certainly his sister And the two men were able to get The Connecticut State Medical Examiner To legally declare body number 15 1965 to be eleanor cook and in 1991 donald and mildred cook mother was able to bury eleanor in a nearby cemetery in southampton with a marked
grave yeah so now she's finally buried with her name all that tragedy even though that's still so tragic at least she was able to be like actual rest because i'm sure they just thought she's just gone yeah like i don't know where she She is.
And in the wake of the fire, most people in Hartford honestly did their best to put the tragedy behind them and kind of move forward. But these things are very not easy to move forward from.
No, of course not. The memory remained.
It was like an open wound.
Yeah. Finally, in 2004, victims and family members received some closure because the city unveiled a memorial to the victims on the 60th anniversary of the fire.
It took 60 years? A lot of time.
The memorial, which shows a basic design of the layout of the Big Top, lists the names of all those lost in the tragedy and provides a brief description of the event, ensuring neither the fire nor the 167 in the end lives that were lost will not be forgotten any time soon.
But that is the story of the Hartford Circus Fire, and it was one of the most haunting things I've ever read.
I believe it. I mean, it's one of the most haunting things I've ever heard. Dave was saying that too.
too, he was like, this one is like chilling.
Because it's just layer upon layer of traumatic tragedy.
It's fascinating at times because it's like things like the paraffin wax and gasoline to weatherproof are things that you don't see now.
So there are things that are fascinating to like hear that they did, you know, like that's why these like older cases are so fascinating to me because these things that you're just like, what did they do?
You know, like what the fuck?
that's just mind -boggling and then you hear the like you know the good updates like when you know people are able to identify little miss 1565 like eleanor cook it's like at least those things come out of it like decades later and just from like people who are so determined yeah like just like angels yeah and hearing like the clowns that help children get out of there and oh it just like breaks my heart yeah because it also was really sad like the people who ran that circus obviously a lot of them were convicted and did need to face consequences for being lax but some of those workers that weren't
owning the place you know what i mean like the clowns the performers the people who like helped yeah they all lost their jobs too they all lost their livelihoods they all lost what you know you're obviously passionate about that if that's what you're doing for your work but then it's like also do you lose that passion afterwards like did they they lose any of the the love that they had for that i have to assume like a portion of them were able to perform again because i feel like being especially clowns like when you really look into what it takes to become a professional clown it's not like you
just like throw you know paint paint on your face and go about it yeah it's a legit thing you have to like really learn about it and you have to like you're working with kids and you can't scare them yeah it's like and that's inherently a scary thing and there's like a whole psychology behind like yeah so to know that these these people probably dedicated so much of their lives to this kind of thing, and then this happens.
Yeah. And to, like, have to deal with that later.
What a case, Alayna.
Yeah. Alayner. I know.
It's an early one. Well, we hope you keep listening.
We hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you cover anything flammable in more flammable things.
Yeah, don't do that.
Bye. Bye. Let's pray.
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