2 victims of 1944 circus fire exhumed in ID attempt

WINDSOR, Conn. — Authorities exhumed the bodies Monday of two victims of the 1944 Hartford circus fire in the hopes of determining whether one of them is a woman who is among five people still listed as missing after the tragedy.

The exhumations at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor, Conn., occurred about 2 miles from the site of the big top fire that killed 168 people and injured 682 others.

Forensic experts at the Connecticut chief medical examiner’s office will try to determine whether one of the two unidentified women was 47-year-old Grace Fifield, of Newport, Vt., who was never seen again after attending the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus on July 6, 1944.

Officials will compare DNA samples taken from the remains to samples provided by Fifield’s granddaughter, Sandra Sumrow. A message seeking comment was left for Sumrow on Monday.

Fifield is one of five people still listed as missing — and the same number of unidentified victims are buried at Northwood Cemetery. Testing is needed to conclusively identify them.

Only two of them could possibly be Fifield — women buried under markers as 2109 and 4512, the case numbers assigned by the Hartford County coroner.

“One of the key questions that medicolegal investigators want to answer in any death investigation is, who are you?” said Dr. James Gill, the chief medical examiner.

Patricia Congelosi, 82, who lives next to the cemetery, watched the work from her backyard. She said she was supposed to have gone to the circus the day of the fire, but her father said it was too hot, and the family went to the beach instead.

“If they can identify them and the family can find some closure, it’s good,” said Congelosi, who was 7 at the time of the fire. “I don’t know why it took so long.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2Mq7JFK