Unsolved Mystery: Mary Reeser
Brenda Rodriguez
Published on 12/3/18 - Unsolved Mysteries
July 2, 1951 in Saint Petersburg, Florida, Mary Reeser told her son who had come to visit her, that she had taken two seconal tablets usually common to use when patients needed to be calm before surgery. She told her son who was a doctor that she would probably take two more before going to bed. According to testimony the son said that she had been smoking a cigarette on her upholstered chair.
Around five a.m the landlord reported smelling smoke but it wasn’t until 8 a.m in which the landlady went up and noticed that it came from Mary Reeser apartment. They discovered Mary Reesers cremated body most of her skull and probably one of the most disturbing things, her left foot cut and unburnt.
According to a cremation experts, for Mary’s body to be cremated the body would have had to burn at 3,000 degrees fahrenheit for three to four hours. Her apartment was also in an undamaged state and no one around her was able to smell the fire. Dr. Wilton Krogman a professor of physical anthropology stated he was “amazed and baffled.”
Samples of the chair, rug, debris and smoke where sent to an FBI laboratory but there was no trace of combustibles except for melted fat in the rug. A witness came out and said that they saw her smoking a cigarette and the police concluded that the fire was caused because she might have fallen asleep with the cigarette lit. It could have fallen and caused her to catch on fire. This seems like the most obvious explanation considering her medication.
Another ridiculous theory comes from an eyewitness that claimed they saw a ball of fire come through the window and hit her, causing her to burn alive. The letter was sent to the detective chief Cass Burgess.
The last theory suggested that the fire was lit purposely but, according to the coroner, there would have been a distinct smell of kerosene or any materials that might have been used. This kind of case has only appeared three times before and none of the victims tried to escape their death. Reeser's case is in the same vein, which makes this theory unlikely.