Youth Confesses Setting Fatal Hartford Circus Fire
A 20-year-old Ohio youth, Robert Dale Segee, confessed to touching offthe Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus fire that killed 168 persons in Hartford, six years ago. According to Ohio State Fire Marshal Harry J. Callan, Dale also confessed four slayings and setting more than a score of major fires in Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio. He said the record speaks for itself in deciding whether the husky Ohioan is a pyromaniac, a person who gets a sexual thrill from setting fires.
Segee’s signed statement, withheld from the public, is reported to contain a wierd story of a man driven to apply the torch by visions of a flaming red horseman, and of an Indian who comes to Segee at night and orders the youth to set fires. Ironically, some investigators related the flaming red horseman to the illustration used in advertising by the National Board of Fire Underwriters. Segee remained undetected, according to Guy B. Cline, Pickaway County, O. prosecutor because he left the scene of the fires instead of staying nearby as an ordinary pyro’ usually does.
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