CONSUMED BY FIRE
Could the baffling death by fire of a London man be a case of spontaneous human combustion?
Shortly 1pm on Sunday, 17 September 2017, John Nolan, 70, was found on fire outside the William House flats in Orchard Place, not far from his flat in Tottenham, north London. Police, ambulance and fire crews were called and the blaze was quickly extinguished. Nolan was airlifted to a specialist burns unit in Colchester hospital, but died the next day when his life-support machine was switched off. His sister, Mary Caffery, 72, described him as being “completely unrecognisable” when she visited him in hospital due to the severity of his injuries. Relatives later said he suffered burns to his internal organs. Fire investigators determined no accelerant was found but were unable to identify the cause of the blaze. We wonder: could it possibly be a case of SHC (spontaneous human combustion)?
Nolan was originally from County Mayo in Ireland, but was living in Tendered Road, N17. He was a retired construction worker and was unmarried. His family believe he went out for his daily walk sometime after 11am on the morning of his death. His brother Jimmy, 68, who was the dead man’s carer, told the Hackney Gazette: “I took the dog out for a walk and I came back. John was up and dressed. He had a clean pair of jeans on and a clean top on. He was having his Weetabix. At about 11am I went out to catch the train to Stoke Newington and I said ‘I’ll see you later on.’ I came back at about two o’clock and the police were outside the door.”
A post-mortem examination on 27 September gave the cause of death as severe burns. An inquest will open at Barnet Coroner’s Court on 13 March 2018. The investigating officer, PC Damien Ait-Amery, said: “We have spoken with a number of witnesses who saw Mr Nolan ablaze, but we have yet to establish how the fire started. Mr Nolan was a wellliked member of the community and none of our enquiries so far have indicated that he had been involved in a dispute of any sort, nor does any account given by witnesses suggest that he had been in contact with another person at the time of the fire.” Hackney Gazette, 25 Sept; Huffington Post, Metro, Hampstead & Highgate Express, 15 Dec; D.Telegraph, 16 Dec 2017.
In September 2011, a coroner in West Galway, Ireland, declared that the death of Michael Faherty, 76, was a case of SHC, supposedly the first time a coroner had admitted to such a possibility [ FT281:14
15]. Faherty had died on 22 December 2010; nine days later, there was another possible SHC in Ireland. A burnt stump of a leg was pretty much all that remained of Elisabeth McLaughlin, 50, in her Co. Donegal sitting room [ FT283:9]. Readers unfamiliar with the arguments pro and con SHC should refer back to our reports in these two back issues.
A woman in her mid-40s was left fighting for her life after suddenly bursting into flames on a park bench in Flensberg, north Germany, in November 2015. Witnesses said she didn’t make a sound as the flames engulfed her [ FT336:22]. In 2013 and 2015, two children of an Indian Dalit (‘untouchable’) kept bursting into flames [ FT307:18,
324:4]; there was a similar case in China in 1990 [ FT55:25]. In 2013, the thoroughly burned body of Danny Vanzandt, 65, was found in his undamaged kitchen in Oklahoma. There was no sign of any accelerant [ FT300:5].
A video posted on Liveleak shows a Dane being set on fire after a light-hearted tradition went pear-shaped. The unmarried man believed to be 25, can be seen engulfed in flames after friends threw cinnamon on him in the bizarre coming-of-age ritual. The tradition sees unmarried men (and women) in Denmark covered in spices when they reach the milestone age. It stems from the 16th century, where Danish spice salesmen were so caught up with work they “didn’t have time to date”. In the video, the unsuspecting man can be seen with a dust mask on and hands tied behind his back. He is splashed with water before the spices. Just seconds later he is engulfed in flames, before falling to the floor in agony. “Because he had a dust mask on and his friends poured water on him first, he was mostly unharmed; he only suffered from minor burns on his legs. Normally you just cover the victim in cinnamon, it’s not part of the tradition to accidentally light your friend on fire,” the poster on Liveleak said. It is thought the dust cloud around the victim ignited. D.Mail, 24 July 2017.