This may be the most mysterious death in the history of Florida. Here is what we know

St. Petersburg, Fla. – It was July 1, 1951, and Mary Hardy Reeser, according to the Tampa Bay Times, set up in front of the bed in her apartment in St. Petersburg.

The 67-year-old widow was alone in a “voluminous” nightgown-after her son had come to visit.

She had been upset beforehand because she was unable to go to the north, even though she had now retired to her house and made two sleeping pills to pop two more.

An investigation shows that Reeser smoked a cigarette and sat in her simple chair before she went to bed. That was the last day on which Reeser was seen alive.

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The next morning, Reeser's landlord tried to deliver a telegram, but the door handle in Reeser's apartment was too hot to touch her.

Firefighters were called to the scene and they pressed into the apartment that was filled with soot and smoke. The woman's chair was burned, only the feathers stood out of the remains.

Reeser himself was found as a bunch of ash. Everything that was left of her was a left foot (still in a slide ulcer), a piece of backbone and a skull that was supposedly “shrunk to the size of a cup”.

Melted human fat was also discovered in the carpet.

The investigators found many evidence that extreme heat had taken place in the apartment.

The ceiling was damaged by smoke, the top of the curtains was blackened (although not burned), and a window screen in the dining room was “clogged with soot”.

A ceiling beam had to be deleted when the firefighters arrived. Apart from the destroyed easy chair, Reesers was also a crispy combustion.

In addition, there was a large part of the damage in the partition between the kitchen and the living room.

However, there was a problem.

Some of the light switches had melted, although switches that were closer to the ground remained intact.

In fact, a large part of the apartment was undamaged, and none of the furniture remaining in the unit seemed to have been burned. Her bed linen seemed to be clean, and investigative photos show that the wall was still white down below.

Your stove, your heating and your refrigerator worked well. And the newspapers that were left on the hot water were also intact.

Without soot and smoke on the upper parts of the walls and the ashes of Reesers, there would be no signs of a fire in the unit.

So: How was it possible that Reeser burned down without the rest of her apartment to burn down?

Theories ranged from suicide after the death of her husband to spontaneous combustion to a lightning strike. The police authority received over 100 letters with such assumptions to the case of armchair detectives.

But the electrical systems in the house were not a damage-a burned-out fuse in the water-ready and there were no reports on petrol or other fuels on site.

Strange but the FBI discovered three information that further add to the secret.

1. The landlord or Reeser's neighbors was not reported to a fire or burning meat.

2. No time of death was found, so it was impossible to find out whether the fire burned or swiveled quickly overnight.

3. According to neighbors or others in the area, no smoke was discovered.

Over a month later, the police found that Reeser's cause was probably the cigarette that she smoked, which had lit her nightgown after sanding.

“At that time she was dressed in a Rayon acetate nightgown and a house relationship. The nightgown, which was very inflammatory, could have been lit by a burning cigarette, which caused an immediate death if (reeser) were in a half-conscious state.

When their clothes caught fire, they naturally also set the chair on fire and generated an intensive heat that completely destroyed the chair and a nearby end table. As soon as the body has been lit, the burning of its own fat tissue appeared almost complete destruction. In the past, the body begins to burn, there is enough fat and inflammatory substances to enable different amounts of destruction.

Sometimes this destruction causes a certain degree due to combustion, which leads to an almost complete burning of the body, as in this case.

Although such cases are not common, there are numerous cases of bodies that burn with almost complete destruction. However, there is no evidence from one of the cases that prove that the burning of this kind occurs, except when the body is ignited with some external means.

The unusual aspects of such combustion cases were reinforced by the fact that in many cases there is little damage caused by combustion in the room or in the area that surrounded the victim directly. “

St. Petersburg Police Department – official explanation of the death of Mary Reesers

However, experts said that the temperatures of around 3,000 degrees were required for several hours to dissolve Reeser's bones. A typical fire only reaches about 2,000 degrees.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that experts claimed that Reeser's skull should have exploded instead of shrinking if this was the case.

In addition, some asked why – if Reeser and her stool had caught fire – the room had not increased together with her.

In 1987 Joe Nickell (a former stage magician and private detective) and John Fischer (a previous forensic analyst at the Sheriff's ORANGE COUNTY) published a report in the skeptical Inquirer magazine to answer these questions about the “Mystery of Cinder Woman Mystery”.

At the beginning, the duo could have given more than enough time to burn the fire in such a way that Reeser's bones had crazy.

“In the Reeser case, it was likely that the filling of the chair was slowly burning, driven by the melted boy fat and supported by partially open windows,” the report said. “From the time when the widow was last sitting on the chair until her remains were discovered, almost 12 hours passed.”

Nickell and Fischer also explained that the room had concrete floors, which could have prevented the fire.

How for the shrinking skull? The report says that it is mainly a myth.

“One of the strangest and most frequently registered elements of the Falls da alleged shrinking of the skull is probably never.

As a forensic anthropologist who was theorized on our request, Mrs. Reeser's skull probably burst in the fire and was destroyed, and the “round object” could only have been a spherical lump that could result from the muscles of the neck, where it is on the base of the skull. “

“Incredible cremations: Investigation of spontaneous combustion deaths” – The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 11

The report even turns out why Reeser's foot would have stayed behind – she had a stiff leg that she had stretched out while sitting. As a result, it would have been outside the fire area.

Regardless of this, a large part of the investigations in connection with the death of Reesers is still only guessing, so that the case remains a mystery to the investigators.

However, the Tampa Bay Times said that their family said to News Outlets that they could feel their presence in the apartment, “until they remove their furniture”.

“This is grandma again,” said they reportedly when a breeze came through. “Don't worry. She's nice.”

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