Suspected black magic
Workmen are seen here clearing away the remains of the chair in which a suspected spontaneous human combustion victim died.
Mrs Mary Reeser, a widow of 67, of St Petersburg, Florida, died on a pillar of fire, during the night of i July 1951. Damage to the surroundings was minimal. The overstuffed chair was burned down to its springs, there was a patch of soot on the ceiling above and a small circle of carpet was charred around the chair, but a pile of papers nearby was unscorched.
Dr Wilton Krogman, a forensic scientist who specialised in fire deaths, was visiting in the area and joined the investigation.
He said:”I cannot conceive of such complete cremation without more burning of the apartment itself. In fact the apartment and everything in it should have been consumed. Never have I seen a human skull shrunk by intense heat.
The opposite has always been true; the skulls have been either abnormally swollen or have virtually exploded into hundreds of pieces … I regard it as the most amazing thing I have ever seen. As I review it, the short hairs on my neck bristle with vague fear. Were I living in the Middle Ages, I’d mutter something about black magic.”
Police considered every likely theory, and a few unasked-for ideas from cranky members of the public: suicide by petrol, ignition of methane gas in her body, murder by flame-thrower, ‘atomic pill’ (whatever that meant), magnesium, phosphorus and napalm substances . . . and even a ‘ball of fire’ which one anonymous letter-writer claimed to see.
In the end the coroner accepted the FBI theory, that she had fallen asleep while smoking and set her clothes alight.
Dr Krogman himself proffered the idea that Mrs Reeser had been burned elsewhere by someone with access to crematorium-type equipment or materials, then was carried back to the apartment, where the mystery assailant had added the finishing touches, like heat-buckled plastic objects, and a doorknob that was still hot in the morning.
A year later, the police confessed the case was still open.
A newspaper stand during the American civil war or War Between the States
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