Mary Reeser - St. Pete's Local Legend
Almost 70 years ago, St. Pete experienced a startling serious of unfortunate events. While some remain skeptic about what occurred many are convinced there is only one possible outcome: spontaneous human combustion.
Mary Reeser resided in St. Pete with her husband, Dr. Richard Reeser. A seemingly normal couple, what happened that night on July 2nd still has some people scratching their heads searching for an explanation. Around 8 am, Mary Reeser's landlady, Pansy Carpenter, arrived at Reeser's door with a telegram. After knocking with no response, she tried the door and found the metal doorknob to be uncomfortably warm to the touch. Assuming this was due to a house fire, she ran home and called the police.
The police and fire department arrived shortly after to the Reeser residence to find the following:
“Reeser's remains, which were largely ashes, were found among the remains of a chair in which she had been sitting. Only part of her left foot (which was wearing a slipper) and her backbone remained, along with her skull. Plastic household objects at a distance from the seat of the fire were softened and had lost their shapes.” Wikipedia.
Perplexed by what they had witnessed at the crime scene, police chief J.R. Reichert, sent a box of evidence from the scene to FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover. Reichert included glass fragments found in the ashes, six "small objects thought to be teeth," a section of the carpet, and the surviving shoe with the hopes the FBI could offer some insight. What caused of the fire, and how it could have burned in such a small, localized place, without damaging the rest of the apartment? While the body of Reeser was completely cremated, aside from the skull, the rest of the apartment remained undisturbed save some smoke damage. In other words, the fire started and ended with Mary Reeser’s body.
““We request any information or theories that could explain how a human body could be so destroyed and the fire confined to such a small area and so little damage done to the structure of the building and the furniture in the room not even scorched or damaged by smoke.””
Unfortunately, no such answers were offered. The FBI eventually declared the accident to be caused by a wick effect. Mary was supposedly a known user of sleeping pills, so they hypothesized that she had fallen unconscious while smoking and set fire to her nightclothes. While this theory can certainly ring true in many cases, it still does not answer how the rest of the apartment was completely untouched, even the armchair in which she sat. It just doesn’t seem possible, does it?
“I find it hard to believe that a human body, once ignited, will literally consume itself — burn itself out, as does a candle wick, guttering in the last residual pool of melted wax [...] Just what did happen on the night of July 1, 1951, in St. Petersburg, Florida? We may never know, though this case still haunts me”
To this day, many of these questions have yet to be answered. While the FBI and local police closed the case on Mary Reeser, there are many still believe that this was the cause of spontaneous human combustion, the combustion of a living human body without an apparent external source of ignition. To date, more than 200 supposed cases of spontaneous human combustion have been reported worldwide. is Mary one of these cases? You be the judge.
