Speaker 1: One morning in January eighteen ninety nine, a tragic but
Speaker 1: curious story appeared in the Halifax Evening Career. The article
Speaker 1: concerned a young family who lived in Sowerby Bridge in
Speaker 1: West Yorkshire in the north of England. Sarah Mitchell and
Speaker 1: her ex husband John Kirby shared two daughters between them.
Speaker 1: Five year old Alice lived with her father and grandmother
Speaker 1: on Wakefield Road, while Alice's four year old sister Amy
Speaker 1: lived with her mother just over a mile away on
Speaker 1: Hargreave's Terrace. At roughly ten thirty am on Thursday, the
Speaker 1: fifth of January, Alice's grandmother left Alice at home, sleeping
Speaker 1: in her bed, to visit her daughter, who lived up
Speaker 1: the road. It was about forty five minutes later when
Speaker 1: a neighbor, missus Ramsden, noticed the flickering of flames coming
Speaker 1: from inside the house. When all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: front door burst open to reveal the horrifying sight of
Speaker 1: the young Alice, screaming in agony as flames leaped up
Speaker 1: from all over her body. In a panic, Ramsden rushed
Speaker 1: home and grabbed a rug, then threw it over the
Speaker 1: child in an effort to douse the flames. A doctor
Speaker 1: was promptly called and soon after arrived on horse and
Speaker 1: cart to find the girl barely clinging on to life.
Speaker 1: Her entire body was burned from head to toe, so
Speaker 1: badly in parts that it had blackened and charred. After
Speaker 1: Alice was rushed to hospital, a neighbor was sent off
Speaker 1: to inform her mother, Sarah, of the terrible news, But
Speaker 1: just as the neighbor was nearing Sarah's home, they saw
Speaker 1: a traumatized looking Sarah coming towards them from the other direction.
Speaker 1: Assuming Sarah had already heard the news, the neighbor was
Speaker 1: completely bemused when Sarah tried to explain between sobs that
Speaker 1: she was running to her ex husband's home to tell
Speaker 1: him about what had just happened to their daughter Amy.
Speaker 1: Only minutes before, Sarah had gone outside to pull some
Speaker 1: water from the community well when she heard the sound
Speaker 1: of screaming coming from inside her house. Racing back, she
Speaker 1: found four year old Amy standing in the middle of
Speaker 1: the kitchen with foot high flames shooting up from her head. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: both Alice and Amy appeared to have caught fire at
Speaker 1: almost exactly the same time, despite living in separate homes
Speaker 1: a mile away from each other Tragically. Alice didn't survive
Speaker 1: the night, while Amy succumbed to her injuries the following morning.
Speaker 1: No explanation for how exactly they caught fire was ever found.
Speaker 1: Some nine years before the mysterious case, in Sowerby Bridge,
Speaker 1: just over three thousand miles away on the outskirts of
Speaker 1: air Massachusetts, in the United States, a doctor picks his
Speaker 1: way through the woods, beckoned forward by a distraught young woman.
Speaker 1: As he moves deeper into the trees, he becomes aware
Speaker 1: of the faint smell of burnt flesh in the air.
Speaker 1: The further he goes, the stronger the smell becomes, until
Speaker 1: he's forced to cup a handkerchief to his nose to
Speaker 1: block it out. There, says the woman, finally pointing towards
Speaker 1: something on fire in a small clearing. The doctor stood
Speaker 1: startled for a moment as he tried to comprehend the
Speaker 1: peculiar and shocking scene. It was a body covered in
Speaker 1: fifteen inch flames, pitched forward on one knee, with its face,
Speaker 1: arms and chest lying flat against the ground while its
Speaker 1: right leg remained rigidly stuck up straight. The body hissed
Speaker 1: and crackled as it burned. Then a pop was heard.
Speaker 1: Was the right tibia snapped off completely, leaving the foot
Speaker 1: hanging from a string of quickly blackening tendons. Well put
Speaker 1: her out, for God's sake, shouted the doctor. Moments later,
Speaker 1: as others arrived to help, a spading fork was used
Speaker 1: to shovel earth over the corpse until the flames died out,
Speaker 1: and then they all just stood watching the blackened figure,
Speaker 1: its clothes all but burned off, quietly smoking in the woods.
Speaker 1: Shortly before she caught fire. The victim, the mother of
Speaker 1: the woman who'd called for the doctor in the first place,
Speaker 1: had been clearing stumps and roots from an area close
Speaker 1: to her home. Some suggested she must have accidentally set
Speaker 1: fire to herself. However, not only was the body found
Speaker 1: a good ten meters from the fire, but there was
Speaker 1: also no damage to the forest floor around it, with
Speaker 1: only a slight charring of the leaves underneath. Even the
Speaker 1: straw hat the woman was wearing at the time she
Speaker 1: caught fire lay several feet away with only minor scorchings.
Speaker 1: The doctor who attended the scene, a doctor Heartwell, gave
Speaker 1: his account of this peculiar story in the February eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two edition of the Boston Medical Journal. It is
Speaker 1: thought to be the first officially recorded case of a
Speaker 1: medical professional finding a human body combusting in which the
Speaker 1: material of the body itself was feeding the fire. Heartwell's
Speaker 1: own conclusion was that the woman, despite being well known
Speaker 1: as a diligent and sober individual, had likely been caught
Speaker 1: out by a sudden burst of flame from the fire
Speaker 1: she'd made, which had then latched onto her clothes and
Speaker 1: quickly overcome her. But could it have been something a
Speaker 1: little stranger you're listening to unexplained? And I'm Richard McClane Smith.
Speaker 1: Mary wasn't her usual self ever since she'd moved out
Speaker 1: to Florida. Her son Richard couldn't help but notice how
Speaker 1: unhappy she'd become. It had all seemed like such a
Speaker 1: good idea at first. Only three years before the sixty
Speaker 1: seven year old Mary's beloved husband and Richard's father, Richard Riesa,
Speaker 1: had died. Mary and Richard Sor had lived together in Columbia, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: where they enjoyed a lively social life, often hosting their
Speaker 1: many friends that their beautifully turned out home that was
Speaker 1: full of antique furniture and art. When Richard died, however,
Speaker 1: everything changed. The home where her son had also grown
Speaker 1: up so grand and full of wonderful memories, was now
Speaker 1: just a painful daily reminder of her husband's absence. Though
Speaker 1: she tried to carry on like before, it was clear
Speaker 1: to her son that his father's death had taken a
Speaker 1: heavy toll and she needed help. After graduating from Cornell
Speaker 1: Medical School, like his dad, Richard was sent to Florida
Speaker 1: to look after US troops stationed there as part of
Speaker 1: their training to being sent overseas to fight in the
Speaker 1: Second World War. Richard liked it so much that he
Speaker 1: and his wife, Ernestine, along with their three daughters, decided
Speaker 1: to stay there and moved into a large family home
Speaker 1: in Saint Petersburg. The obvious solution, therefore, was to have
Speaker 1: his mother moved down to be closer to them, and
Speaker 1: so in late May of nineteen fifty one she did,
Speaker 1: taking an apartment on Cherry Street in the east of
Speaker 1: the city, just by the coast. By July first, however,
Speaker 1: only five weeks later, Mary was struggling. It was the
Speaker 1: heat and humidity more than anything else, being such a
Speaker 1: marked contrast to what she'd been used to in Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: She missed her friends too, and her apartment was also
Speaker 1: beginning to depress her. With only one bedroom and three
Speaker 1: rooms in total, it was a far cry from the
Speaker 1: much prettier house she'd shared with her husband, and once
Speaker 1: again something had to break. In the end, Mary decided
Speaker 1: to keep the place in Florida, but moved back to
Speaker 1: Columbia in Pennsylvania for the remainder of the summer and
Speaker 1: asked her friends to help her find somewhere to stay. Sadly, however,
Speaker 1: finding a place proved an almost impossible task. Undeterred, Mary
Speaker 1: succeeded in convincing a friend to drive her back to
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania so she could organize something herself, only for her
Speaker 1: friend to then break her leg, and so Mary had
Speaker 1: no choice but to stick it out in Saint Petersburg indefinitely.
Speaker 1: In the early afternoon of July first, clearly withdrawn, Mary
Speaker 1: arrived at her son's house to look after her youngest
Speaker 1: granddaughter while the rest of the family went out to
Speaker 1: the beach. According to Richard's account given to the police
Speaker 1: the following day, while he was at the beach, he
Speaker 1: couldn't stop thinking about how down his mother seemed, and
Speaker 1: decided to head home early. Once back, Mary insisted to
Speaker 1: him that everything was fine and asked to simply be
Speaker 1: driven back to her apartment, which Richard agreed to do
Speaker 1: after he'd taken a shower. By the time he came
Speaker 1: back down, his mother had left, having decided just to
Speaker 1: walk home. Not being fully dressed. Richard asked his wife, Ernestine,
Speaker 1: to chase after her in the hope of picking her
Speaker 1: up on the way, but Mary was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: When Ernestine eventually arrived at Mary's apartment, she wasn't there either.
Speaker 1: Ernestine waited unsuccessfully until five pm before deciding to drive
Speaker 1: back home, having heard nothing from his mother by eight pm.
Speaker 1: Richard then claimed to have driven back to her apartment
Speaker 1: with one of his daughters, where he found the door
Speaker 1: open and his mother sitting silently in her easy chair,
Speaker 1: smoking a cigarette and listening to the radio. Richard later
Speaker 1: said that she seemed oddly relaxed given the circumstances, perhaps
Speaker 1: helped by the two sleeping pills she'd just taken. He
Speaker 1: said that Mary insisted she was fine, again, saying that
Speaker 1: she planned to go to bed as soon as her
Speaker 1: program was finished. Satisfied that his mother was at least
Speaker 1: home safely. Richard said he simply gave her a kiss
Speaker 1: good night, then promised to call in on her in
Speaker 1: the morning before he and his daughter drove back home.
Speaker 1: Alamander Apartments, where Mary was home to a hotel and
Speaker 1: five apartments in total. However, Mary was the only person
Speaker 1: living there at the time, along with her landlady Pansy Carpenter.
Speaker 1: Pansy said she saw Mary a short time before Richard's
Speaker 1: arrival and again after he left. Having noticed her tenant's
Speaker 1: downbeat mood, Pansy had chatted to Mary briefly about her
Speaker 1: disappointment and not being able to get back to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and had then gone off to buy her some ice
Speaker 1: cream to try and cheer her up. When she returned
Speaker 1: to the apartment, however, the lights were off. Assuming that
Speaker 1: Mary had gone to bed, Pansy decided not to disturb
Speaker 1: her and soon after went to sleep herself. It was
Speaker 1: five am the following morning when Pansy was woken by
Speaker 1: the thud of what she assumed was a door slamming
Speaker 1: somewhere on her property. Stepping out into the warm morning darkness,
Speaker 1: her flip flops clacking against the concrete path. Pansy's relief
Speaker 1: at finding the place deserted was soon tempered by the
Speaker 1: whiff of something burning. Thinking it was the water pump overheating,
Speaker 1: she headed into the garage to inspect it. With the
Speaker 1: smell of burning having by then dissipated, she decided to
Speaker 1: air on the side of caution and switched it off
Speaker 1: before returning back to bed. Pansy was up again at
Speaker 1: sixty five and stepped outside to collect the morning paper
Speaker 1: when she noticed Mary's apartment was still dark, which was
Speaker 1: unusual since Mary was such an early riser. Just over
Speaker 1: an hour later, a telegram messenger arrived with a telegram
Speaker 1: for Mary. Since she didn't appear to be up yet,
Speaker 1: agreed to deliver it herself. She felt a sudden pang
Speaker 1: of nerves as she set off toward Mary's apartment, which
Speaker 1: was located beyond a screen door and down a corridor
Speaker 1: to the left. Pansy grabbed the screen door, then pulled
Speaker 1: back her hand in shock. It was searingly hot. It
Speaker 1: was also unlocked, which was never the case. Taking care
Speaker 1: not to burn her hand, Pansy poured the screen door
Speaker 1: open again and stepped through into the corridor. Beyond. A
Speaker 1: disturbing warmth hung in the air. As Pansy made her
Speaker 1: way down to Mary's apartment, where she found the door
Speaker 1: slightly ajar and knew immediately that something was terribly wrong.
Speaker 1: Pansy ran outside and called out to the telegram messenger
Speaker 1: for help, along with two decorators who were busy working
Speaker 1: on a house across the street. The men told Pansy
Speaker 1: to wait outside as one of the decorators, Albert Downet,
Speaker 1: headed inside toward Mary's apartment. A thick plume of black
Speaker 1: smoke escaped as Albert pushed open the door, batting it away.
Speaker 1: He stepped inside, where a thick smell of grease clung
Speaker 1: to the air. Through the smoky darkness, he could just
Speaker 1: make out some flames licking up through the springs of
Speaker 1: an easy chair that had clearly been destroyed by a fire,
Speaker 1: and at the base of what remained at the chair
Speaker 1: was a bizarre, gelatinous, red, smoldering mass. Albert ran straight
Speaker 1: out and yelled for Pansy to call the fire brigade.
Speaker 1: Assistant fire Chief Stephen Griffith was one of the first
Speaker 1: to arrive on the scene. He noticed first that a
Speaker 1: plastic face plate for a switch in the hall had
Speaker 1: morphed completely out of shape, suggesting a significant heat had
Speaker 1: been generated from within the apartment beyond. Then, pushing open
Speaker 1: the door, he entered inside as he called out Mary's name,
Speaker 1: Barely able to see more than a few meters in
Speaker 1: front of him through the smoke, he headed straight for
Speaker 1: a window and opened it up. Turning back, he saw
Speaker 1: then that one of the joists in the living room
Speaker 1: and the remains of the easy chair, was still on fire.
Speaker 1: Using a hand held water pump, Griffith quickly extinguished the flames. Then,
Speaker 1: with the smoke now steadily clearing, he looked down to
Speaker 1: the floor and saw next to the remains of the
Speaker 1: chair a large pile of ash, surrounded by a dark
Speaker 1: globular mass, and sticking out of it was an almost
Speaker 1: perfectly preserved leg, burned off from just below the shin,
Speaker 1: with an unburned black satin slipper on its foot. The
Speaker 1: pile of ash and sticky mass, it seemed, along with
Speaker 1: the leg, was all that was left of Mary. Griffith
Speaker 1: stood bemused by the whole thing, looking about at the
Speaker 1: rest of the apartment that appeared almost completely undamaged by
Speaker 1: the apparent blaze, Though there were undeniable signs that a
Speaker 1: fire had taken place, such as the ceiling having been
Speaker 1: blackened by the smoke, an internal screen window clogged with soot,
Speaker 1: and a degree of burning between the partition separating the
Speaker 1: kitchen and living areas. Very little of the apartment appeared
Speaker 1: to have actually caught fire, aside from the chair where
Speaker 1: Mary must have been sitting when it happened, a small
Speaker 1: table next to it and a wooden lamp on top
Speaker 1: of that were all that was burned, and even then
Speaker 1: only partially. Not one of her two day beds or
Speaker 1: the sheets on them, nor the dining table and four chairs,
Speaker 1: all located close to the apparent source of the fire,
Speaker 1: were affected, while nothing in her dressing room or bathroom
Speaker 1: was damaged either. Once the room was cleared of smoke
Speaker 1: and cool enough to investigate. Alongside Mary's lower leg, forensics
Speaker 1: also found some teeth, a charred piece of liver attached
Speaker 1: to some spine, as well as a hip bone and
Speaker 1: a piece of Mary's skull buried within the ashes. Though
Speaker 1: there was little doubting the identity of the body for
Speaker 1: sixty seven year old Mary Reesa was ultimately identified by
Speaker 1: the black slipper on her foot, which her son recognized
Speaker 1: as hers. So unusual was the incident that the Saint
Speaker 1: Petersburg Police were forced to enlist the help of the
Speaker 1: FBI to try and untangle it. Attention soon focused on
Speaker 1: Mary's son, Richard, whom her landlady Pansy Carpenter, reported seeing
Speaker 1: arriving at the apartment the night before she died. As
Speaker 1: she explained to the police, although that wasn't unusual, it
Speaker 1: was strange that she found Mary's door had been left
Speaker 1: open and the screen door unlocked when she went to
Speaker 1: call on her the following morning. That Mary's bed also
Speaker 1: appeared to have been slept in, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: she clearly died while sitting in her easy chair, was
Speaker 1: also a little suspicious. In the end, however, Richard was
Speaker 1: never seriously considered a suspect. Two electricians were tasked with
Speaker 1: examining all the electrical items in the flower to determine
Speaker 1: if an electrical fire was the cause, but no faults
Speaker 1: were found. The apartment also had an electric fire, which
Speaker 1: wasn't far from where Mary's remains were found. However, according
Speaker 1: to those who first arrived at the apartment, this was
Speaker 1: switched off when they got there. For someone so disgruntled
Speaker 1: with the Florida heat, it also seems highly unlikely that
Speaker 1: Mary would have had reason to turn this on. After
Speaker 1: three weeks spent analyzing smoke samples, pieces of rug, and
Speaker 1: segments of the easy chair, among other things, the FBI
Speaker 1: concluded that no oxidizing chemicals, petroleum hydrocarbons or other volatile fluids,
Speaker 1: or any other chemical substances used to initiate or accelerate
Speaker 1: combustion were found at the scene. As investigators struggled to
Speaker 1: explain it all, a raft of amateur detectives contacted the
Speaker 1: local fire department to offer their own theories. Everything from
Speaker 1: lightning to an accident with napalm was suggested, with one
Speaker 1: individual even claiming that they'd watched a ball of fire
Speaker 1: come through the open window and hit Mary. With all
Speaker 1: the various theories about what had happened floating around, Mary's
Speaker 1: daughter in law, Ernestine, had one of her own. Speaking
Speaker 1: to the Saint Petersburg Times in nineteen ninety one, she
Speaker 1: said that Mary was a heavy smoker who most likely
Speaker 1: fell asleep in her chair while smoking and set herself
Speaker 1: on fire. With Mary having taken sleeping pills that night
Speaker 1: while wearing a night dress made of rayon acetate, a
Speaker 1: highly flammable material. It is certainly plausible that this is
Speaker 1: what happened. It was also true that the floor under
Speaker 1: the carpet was concrete, which may have helped to contain
Speaker 1: the spread of any resultant fire. And yet such deaths
Speaker 1: are by no means unheard of, but rarely, if ever,
Speaker 1: do they result in the complete cremation of the victim,
Speaker 1: something that would likely require well over a thousand degrees
Speaker 1: celsius to occur. By comparison, the heat generated from a
Speaker 1: burning chair would be more akin to six hundred degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: One theory put forward was that the reason the apartment
Speaker 1: hadn't burned down was because Mary hadn't been set on fire,
Speaker 1: but had instead burned from the inside, with her body
Speaker 1: fat sustaining the burn like a candle while simultaneously keeping
Speaker 1: the resultant fire localized around her body. Famed anthropologist de
Speaker 1: Wilton Krogeman of the University of Pennsylvania was also brought
Speaker 1: in to consult on the mystery. Considered an expert on
Speaker 1: the effects of fire on the human body, Krogeman made
Speaker 1: the intriguing point that had the fire been a common one,
Speaker 1: Mary's skull should have exploded rather than shrunk, as it
Speaker 1: was found to have done. Krogeman, who regarded the case
Speaker 1: as the most amazing thing he'd ever seen, and who
Speaker 1: felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck
Speaker 1: whenever he thought about it, stated that he couldn't conceive
Speaker 1: of such a complete cremation without more material having been
Speaker 1: burned in the apartment where I living in the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: he said, I'd mutter something about black magic. To this day,
Speaker 1: the bizarre death of Mary Esa remains unexplained. A few
Speaker 1: days to Mary's remains were discovered, Pansy Carpenter, her landlady,
Speaker 1: remembered that she still had Mary's undelivered telegram in her office,
Speaker 1: handing it over to Mary's son, Richard. He read it
Speaker 1: and wept. It was a message from Mary's friends in Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: They'd managed to find her an apartment after all, and
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to see her again. If you enjoy Unexplained
Speaker 1: and would like to help support us, you can now
Speaker 1: do so via Patroon. To receive access to ad three episodes,
Speaker 1: just go to patron dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Pod
Speaker 1: to sign up. Unexplained, The book and audiobook, featuring ten
Speaker 1: stories that have never before been covered on the show,
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements
Speaker 1: of unexpl Blamed, including the show's music, are produced by
Speaker 1: me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach
Speaker 1: us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at
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