CT CT - Connie Smith, 10, Salisbury, 16 July 1952

[milk]

About ten years prior to Connie's disappearance, there was a little boy who died at Camp Sloane. In an article from July 25th, 1940, the camp plead not guilty for having a camp doctor working without a medical license in the state of Connecticut. The camp director was Ernest P. Roberts, who would be the same director 12 years later when Connie would go missing. On July 17th, 1940, there was an outbreak of food poisoning, that ended up being investigated by the state health department. Case records signed by Dr. Fry indicated he was practicing, despite the camp director saying the New York doctor had been engaged merely to render first aid, and maintain a general check on the health of campers. Two state police men went with the state health official to the camp. An 11 year old boy named George H. Winterich, son of New York newspaper man John T. Winterich, died in a hospital on July 15th, 1940, at a hospital in Sharon, Connecticut, after he’d been stricken ill at the camp. Dr. J.S. Chaffee, the Sharon, CT medical
examiner, attributed the 11 year old’s death to a streptococcus infection.

 

[milk]

The state health department determined it was not connected with the food poisoning. The food poisoning, technically a separate event on its own but happening at the same time, launched the Connecticut authorities to launch an inquiry on July 17th, 1940 after 57 people eating a Saturday night meal at the camp became sick with food poisoning. There were 300 boys and girls at the camp that summer. There was no exact cause of the food poisoning, which sent 2 campers to the infirmary. Milk, water, and food was tested yet yielded no results. Roberts and Dr. Fry actually plead nolo contendere in superior court and each were fined 100 dollars. The execution of the fines was suspended indefinitely. In other words, they didn’t even have to pay for that crime.

Adjust for inflation, that fine is still laughably small, only around 2 grand in 2023.

Eventually he was sued by George’s parents, though I do not know the end result of the
case. I could find no more information on the doctor at that camp, they seemed to have
vanished

A year later, in 1941, Ernest P Roberts proposed a fitness award to campers who showed how healthy they were. Seriously.

 

[milk]

Ernest P. Roberts is someone that I looked really close at, because he seemed especially suspicious to me. He spent decades in the local news. (My opinion) But it seemed like he tried really hard to portray himself as a great guy. He seemed to have spent time around Brooklyn, before getting the job at Camp Sloane.

 

[spartanx]

I have some questions... Were any of the girls you had the fight with interviewed?
Was it public knowledge that her family had money?
we will probably never know: information lost to time.
It sounds simple enough: he got in the wrong car with the wrong person. very sad.
either way
rest in peace

 

[OddOneOut]

I wonder if this could be Connie. This is an hour or less drive from Camp Sloane.

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