Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-12-17
.BURYTHE WRONG GIRL
Jessie Burke, Supposed to Be
 Dead, Is Alive.
ERROR IN IDENTIFICATION.
Mother Recognizes Body of Another Young Woman as That of Her Daughter and Insurance Is Paid-A Strange TangIing of Name.

New York. Dec 17.-Stranger than fiction are the coincidences and TO- mances surrounding two girls, Jessie M. Burke of Rochester, who is now living in New. Orleans, and Ella May Burke, whose home was in Chicago and who was recently buried by Mrs. l Mary NJ. Burke of Rochester as her own daughter, Jessie, who had run away from home when she was four teen years old. Discovery by the Metropolitan Life Insurance company that the real Jessie M. Burke was alive and that the con- pany paid a policy of $250 to Mrs. Burke on Identification by her and other relatives of Ella May Burke as her daughter brought to light the strange story.
 Relatives of Dead Girl Sought.
 Careful investigation by Harry B. Peters of 2394 Seventh avenue, an in- spector for the Metropolitan, has con- vinced Mrs. Burke as well as the con- pany that it was not her daughter who was buried in Rochester on Oct. 2S, 1907. Mrs. Burke is now seeking some clew to the whereabouts of the rela- tives of the girl whose body she had inferred in her family plot after a fu- neral attended by many friends of the real Jessie Burke, who was with a musical comedy company in New Or leans at the time.
 Mrs. Burke is member of wealthy family and has aided the con- pany in it's investigation. She expects to return the insurance money paid to her under mistake of fact this week. Nineteen years ago on about the same date there was born in Rochester and Chicago two girls. One was the daughter of Mrs. Mary M. Burke and was named Jessie NJ. The other. whose parents name also was Burke, was called Ellen May. The former girl early in life evinced dislike for the name Jessie and generally called her self Ella May.
 When each was fourteen years old the two girls ran away from their homes. Prior to this the fathers of both had died. Both came to New York city and went on the stage where Jessie Burke called herself Ella May Burke. The real Ella May Burke played under the name of Mignon Worth, and her last engagement was as the maid in the Buster Brown" road company. The latter girl said her home was in Chicago and that Tom Burke. a prominent Princeton athlete of a few years ago, was her brother.
 Wrong Girl Buried.
 After closing an engagement with the Buster Brown company Ella May Burke went to live at the home of Mrs. A. Hall. 101 West Fifty-eighth street There on Oct. 25, 1907, she died of Bright's disease.
 A number of relatives came from Rochester and identified the body as that of Jessie. It was subsequently inferred in the family plot at Roches- ter.
 A few days ago the real Jessie NJ. Burke without knowledge of the fact that she was supposed to be dead and buried wrote a note to an aunt who lives with her mother in Rochester. The note simply said:
 ''I am in New Orleans. Would moth CT like to hear from me-"
 Investigation by the family and the insurance officials developed the fact that the wrong girl had been buried. A reconciliation between Mrs. Burke and her daughter is now expected.