48 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
48 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
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At 8AM a telegram arrived for Mrs. Reeser. Mrs. Carpenter signed the receipt
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and went to her tenant's apartment to bring her the telegram. The doorknob,
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when she placed her hand on it, was hot. Alarmed, she stepped back and shouted
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for help. Two painters working across the street ran over. One of them opened
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the door; as he entered, he felt a blast of hot air. Thinking of rescuing Mrs.
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Reeser, he frantically looked around but saw no signs of her. The bed was
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empty. There was some smoke, but the only fire was a small flame on a wooden
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beam, over a partition separating the living room and kitchenette.
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The firemen arrived, put out the small flame with a hand pump. and tore away
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part of the partition. When Assistant Fire Chief S. O. Griffith began his
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inspection of the premises, he could not believe his eyes. In the middle of the
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floor there was a charred area roughly four feet in diameter, inside of which
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he found a number of blackened chair springs and the ghastly remains of a human
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body, consisting of a charred liver attached to a piece of the spine, a
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shrunken skull, one foot still wearing a black satin slipper, and a small pile
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of ashes.
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Coroner Edward T. Silk arrived to examine the body and survey the apartment.
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Although deeply puzzled, he decided the death was accidental and authorized the
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removal of the remains. The scooped-up ashes, the tiny shrunken head, and the
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slipper-encased foot were taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
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The ensuing investigation included police and fire officials as well as arson
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experts. The facts that confronted them seemed inexplicable considering the
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great heat necessary to account for Mrs. Reeser's incinerated body. Little of
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the furniture, other than the chair and the end table next to it, was badly
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damaged, but the apartment had suffered some peculiar effects. The ceiling,
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draperies and walls, from a point exactly four feet above the floor, were
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coated with a smelly, oily soot. Below this four foot mark there was none. The
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wall paint adjacent to the chair was faintly browned, but the carpet where the
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chair had rested was not even burned through. A wall mirror 10 feet away had
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cracked, probably from heat. On a dressing table 12 feet away, two pink wax
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candles had puddled, but their wicks lay undamaged in their holders. Plastic
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wall outlets above the four foot mark were melted, but the fuses were not blown
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and the current was on. The baseboard electrical outlets were undamaged. An
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electric clock plugged into one of the outlets had stopped at precisely 4:20,
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but the same clock ran perfectly when plugged into one of the baseboard
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outlets.
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Newspapers nearby on a table and draperies and linens on the daybed close at
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hand - all flammable - were not damaged. And though the painters and Mrs.
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Carpenter had felt a wave of heat when they opened the door, no one had noted
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smoke or burning odor and there were no embers or flames in the ashes.
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[CONTINUED IN SHC3.TXT]
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