diff --git a/src/stream-tcp-reassemble.c b/src/stream-tcp-reassemble.c
index 21fc982127..4c9baaba52 100644
--- a/src/stream-tcp-reassemble.c
+++ b/src/stream-tcp-reassemble.c
@@ -174,19 +174,19 @@ int TcpSegmentPoolInit(void *data, void *payload_len)
     TcpSegment *seg = (TcpSegment *) data;
     uint16_t size = *((uint16_t *) payload_len);
 
+    /* do this before the can bail, so TcpSegmentPoolCleanup
+     * won't have uninitialized memory to consider. */
+    memset(seg, 0, sizeof (TcpSegment));
+
     if (StreamTcpReassembleCheckMemcap((uint32_t)size + (uint32_t)sizeof(TcpSegment)) == 0) {
-        SCFree(seg);
         return 0;
     }
 
-    memset(seg, 0, sizeof (TcpSegment));
-
     seg->pool_size = size;
     seg->payload_len = seg->pool_size;
 
     seg->payload = SCMalloc(seg->payload_len);
     if (seg->payload == NULL) {
-        SCFree(seg);
         return 0;
     }