 spontaneous human combustion is an actual form of death that's been around since the 17th century. But what exactly is it? We know that it happens. But how or why it happens is a complete mystery. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Special shout out to all of our patrons. If you too would like to help support the channel, there is a link to our patron page down below. Again, thank you so much to Tiffany Monroe, our awesome producer. Tiffany is a Reiki master here in Atlanta, Georgia. If you would like more information on Tiffany's services, her email address is also in the description box below. Welcome to Esso Terrick Atlanta. My name is Bryce and today on Mystery Monday, we're going to be talking about the Christmas spontaneous combustion of Matilda Rumi. This mystery dates back to Christmas Eve of 1885. Matilda and her husband, Patrick, lived in the small farming town of Seneca, Illinois. Now, Matilda and her husband, Patrick, were an elderly couple in 1885 and rumor has it that they liked their whiskey. I don't really blame them. If you live on a small farm in a small farming village and you're elderly and your children are long gone out of the house, why not enjoy your whiskey? And because they were elderly, they had to rely on the help of farm hands to keep their farm running. Again, if you're elderly and you're wealthy enough to employ farm hands to keep your farm going, why not partake in whiskey? Now, on the night of Christmas Eve of 1885, Matilda and her husband, Patrick, were having some Christmas drinks with their farm hand, John Larson, who also lived with them in the house, as well as their son, who also had the name John. Now, their son, John, was, again, he was grown. He did not live on the farm. He lived off the farm and around eight o'clock that evening, John Larson, their farm hand, decided to go to bed and their son, John, made his way back to his home. Well, John Larson, the farm hand, woke on Christmas morning and there was a strange smell, a strange odor in the house. He went down into the kitchen to find ashes of Matilda right there where he had left her. In fact, the only thing that appeared to be remaining of Matilda were her feet still in her shoes. A fun further investigation, Patrick, her husband, was in his bedroom suffocated because of the smoke of Matilda's body. Well, of course, horrified by what he has seen, John Larson ran out of the house to a neighbor's house to call for help. When help arrived, they were to able to find some remains left of Matilda, including her skull and some vertebra, a part of her right femur, and of course, her feet, again, still in her shoes. Now, from the get-go, they suspected that the death of Matilda and her husband, Patrick, was possibly murder. And their only two suspects was that of John Larson, the farm hand and of their son, John. It seems that their son, John, would have inherited a lot of wealth upon his parents' death. And I guess the only motive for John Larson to make him a suspect was the fact that he was the only other person in the house when this crazy incident happened. Maybe the son, John, put John Larson up to it. I don't know. I wasn't there. But John Larson was quickly taken off as a suspect when they found the outline of his body from his bed, confirming that John Larson had not gotten up at all during the night. Now, I kind of find this kind of funny. Maybe our beds are different now in 2020, but I don't think there's ever an outline on my bed when I get up in the morning. And not only that, two weeks after Matilda and Patrick passed away, John Larson also passed away from a lung condition. The same thing that had killed Patrick, all that soot and ash he had breathed in in the house took him out two weeks later. And then apparently their son, John had an alibi that checked out. He was at his home. He was seen at his home. He did not murder his parents. So the coroner rolled that Matilda had died of spontaneous human combustion while her husband and John Larson had technically died of the same thing, breathing in the smoke. And I think most people can accept that this was just something that happened. Matilda spontaneously combusted. The only thing is we're not quite sure how that happens. We know that most people who spontaneously combust are typically overweight and are alcoholics and are mostly female. Now at the time of Matilda's death, she was about 160 pounds. I don't know how tall she was, but 160 pounds, if she's an average size woman, it would be slightly overweight. And we do know that Matilda and her husband again were fond of whiskey. Now again, like I said, for a long time, scientists just assumed that alcohol had a lot to do with spontaneous combustion, except now in our modern times, we know that a human being cannot drink enough alcohol needed to ignite a fire. So that theory has gone out the window, unless of course someone's drunk drunk enough to set themselves on fire with a cigarette or a candle or whatever. The only problem with that theory, however, is that when someone spontaneously combust, it's just their body that combust. Nothing around them catches fire. You would think that if somebody burnt themselves on a cigarette or a candle or a match that the fire would spread all over the house or the property, but it doesn't. It just like combust their body into ashes. In fact, 160 pound Matilda turned into 12 pounds of ash. So what causes someone to spontaneously combust? Is there something inside of their body that creates enough friction to cause an explosion of their organs? Why is it that it's just the body that contains this combustion or fire and it doesn't spread anywhere else? Obviously there's smoke because Patrick died of smoke inhalation. And of course, two weeks later, John Larson died of the same thing. But why doesn't anything else become affected by this phenomenon? This, my friends, is the mystery. Unfortunately, it's very sad that this happened on Christmas. And hopefully all of you will have a wonderful Christmas at the end of the week. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you heard of somebody spontaneously combusting? What do you know about this? Because oh my gosh, what a way to go, right? Leave your comments in the comments section below. I hope you guys have a wonderful Monday. Happy Winter Solstice. I hope you all get to go out and see this star of Bethlehem that we're supposed to get today. Thank you again to Josh McKay for doing our music. If you would like to purchase our opening song, there's a link to it down below. And as always, thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me put this video on the computer for all of you to see. I hope you guys have a wonderful day and I will talk to you later. Bye.