The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Conneticut announced DNA analysis of the remains of two victims of the 1944 Hartford circus fire was unsuccessful.
"Due to the condition of the remains, there was a high bacterial content that interfered with testing. Samples will be retained in the event that future techniques are developed that would be successful," the office said in a statement.
The bodies were removed in October from two of five graves of unidentified circus fire victims at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor. A state judge approved the exhumations in hopes of determining whether one of them was Grace Fifield, a 47-year-old woman from Newport, Vermont, who was never seen again after attending the circus on the day of the fire.
While the first round of testing conducted in February 2020 failed to identifiy the unknown victims, anthropological examination and dental comparisons did excluded Fifield as being one of the two people whose remains were exhumed.
Fifield’s granddaughter provided DNA samples for experts to use in trying to identify the remains. Officials believe Fifield’s remains may have been misidentified at the site of the fire and released to the wrong family.
The initial testing showed one of the two bodies exhumed was that of a 25- to 45-year-old black woman who stood about 5-foot-7, while the other was that of a 20- to 50-year-old white woman who was about 5-foot-4.
The fire at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus on July 6, 1944, killed 168 people and injured 682 others. The cause of the fire in the big top tent was never officially determined, but some authorities suspected a cigarette was to blame.
In 1991, officials identified a young fire victim buried at the same Connecticut cemetery as 8-year-old Eleanor Emily Cook. Her body was exhumed and reburied in Southampton, Massachusetts, next to her 6-year-old brother, who also died in the fire.
By DAVE COLLINS