A forensic scientist who has examined more than 5,500 deaths for New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner has revealed the one case so disturbing that she had to leave the room. Barbara Butcher is among America’s top authorities in the field, having worked on thousands of deaths, including 680 murders, for the department. In a recent interview, she revealed that one accidental death affected her profoundly.
Speaking to LADBible for their Stories YouTube series, she said the death involved a man who was recording himself through a mirror and subsequently died in a tragic incident.
Barbara described how the man, believed to be approximately 30 years old, had been trying to film himself in an intimate moment while on fire, something Barbara suspected may have been for his own viewing pleasure later.
She recalled: “The one that bothered me though was setting oneself on fire. So this guy, I think, he’s about 30 years old.
“He set up a mirror and a camera so that he could watch himself on fire whilst masturbating and film it. For what? I guess his later pleasure, looking at it after dinner one night.”
She added: “So he poured alcohol on himself and lit it. Now, alcohol burns off very quickly. It’s like a blue flame running across your arms.
“And he probably would have survived if he hadn’t added more alcohol when there was still flame around the back of his neck. It was in his hair and he caught on fire completely.”
However, this wasn’t the end of the man’s ordeal. Barbara revealed that, in his panicked state, he knocked the bottle onto the floor and was engulfed in the flames.
Barbara added: “And then he spilled the alcohol, so the rug, he was standing on a little shag rug, that caught on fire and he was burning. And this is all captured on film.
“I saw the beginning of that film and when the accident started, when he dropped that alcohol I ran out of the room, like ‘This is too awful’.”
Despite all Barbara has witnessed throughout her professional life examining deaths, she said it remained among the most distressing ones she’d witnessed.
She said: “It’s one of the awfulest deaths I’ve ever seen. He was beating at himself like, trying to… didn’t work.”
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