It’s unlikely that the circumstances of Mary Reeser’s death will ever be understood; the St. Petersburg Police Department’s most famous mystery languishes in the files, case closed but technically unsolved. There are no suspects, no fingerprints, no DNA, nothing of a forensic nature that might definitively say what reduced the 67-year-old widow to a smoldering pile of ashes on July 2, 1951.
Was it spontaneous human combustion, as believers in such things have postulated for decades? Probe-crazy aliens, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster spawn theories, but none as morbid – or eerie – as those surrounding the death of Mary Reeser.
Despite the FBI’s declaration that Reeser had most likely fallen asleep in her reading chair, and her nightdress ignited by her dangling cigarette, skeptics point to the inconsistencies. Reeser’s tiny apartment remained virtually undamaged as the fire consumed her, her chair and the adjacent table and lamp. All that remained of the woman’s body was part of her left foot, still tucked inside its slipper.
Details have changed over the decades, as the story has been told and re-told. And long the way, Mary Reeser became the poster child for spontaneous human combustion…