From the outside, you'd never know there had been an intense fire inside the Muldrow home, and that the nature of that fire, was, well...
"He used the adjective 'bizarre,'" said Spontaneous Human Combustion investigator Larry Arnold, recounting his conversation with the Sequoyah County Sheriff after the discovery of the body, and what was left of it, of 65 year-old Danny Vanzandt.
"A classic case of Spontaneous Human Combustion would resemble what the authorities found in the home of Danny Vanzandt," he said.
A topic Larry Arnold is more than familiar with, having investigated hundreds of cases around the world. He's careful not to say that's what definitively happened, because to do that...
"That would require an eye witness, there are no eye witnesses, but clearly in our research over four decades, Mr. Vanzandt's fire scene exhibits what would be defined as preternatural human combustibility," he said.
Scenes in which the body is mostly incinerated, while the surrounding area remains virtually untouched.
"Such a case is not supposed to happen, mainstream fire science doesn't like to deal with these cases, they are said to be impossible, superstition, or mythical, but they are real," he said.
That statement, that they're real, is pegged on eyewitness statements of people who have seen it happen to others, and to folks who say they've experienced it themselves, like the guy who lost part of his right arm.
"He slept through the burning itself, he felt no pain at the time," he said.
Spontaneous Human Combustion, a subject of both science and Sci-Fi. Something is happening, but what and how remains unknown.
"For those who say it doesn't happen, they need to look at the evidence, or they can choose to ignore the evidence, dismiss it and keep their closed, comfortable mindset," he said.
