Countess of Goerlitz's Fiery Death
The Legend:
In June, 1847, the Countess of Goerlitz was discovered burnt to death.
Theories
Joe Nickell, in his book Secrets of the Supernatural, gives an account of this event he compiles from George Henry Lewes' article "Spontaneous Combustion" (from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine #89 [April, 1861]) and Thomas Stevenson's The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence (1883), both of which I will attempt to find copies. As Nickell gives the account, some furniture and a portion of the floor around the Countess' body was blazing, and had to be extinguised, although the Countess herself was no longer aflame. Her body was badly burned, but by no means cremated; though her head was "a nearly shapeless black mass," a slipper was undamaged. Some "dark greasy matter" was observed. On investigation of the matter, a servant named Stauff, after being caught with the Countess' jewels, confessed to strangling the Countess and setting her body on fire to conceal the crime.
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