Bethany MaGee was supposed to be home by 10 p.m. on November 17, 2025. That was the plan. Finish work downtown, hop the Blue Line at Clark/Lake, scroll TikTok for twenty minutes, walk the three blocks to her apartment, feed the cat, maybe stream a quick co-op game with friends before bed. Normal Tuesday stuff for a 26-year-old who loved animals, board games, and the quiet rhythm of Chicago nights.

Instead, at 9:24 p.m., a man named Lawrence Reed walked up behind her on a crowded train car, poured gasoline over her head, and lit a match.

The flames were instant and merciless. Surveillance footage shows Bethany leaping from her seat, a living column of fire, screaming as she beat at her own face and hair. Passengers scattered in panic. By the time the train screeched into the next station, she stumbled onto the platform and collapsed, her hoodie melted into her skin, her scalp a blistering ruin. Strangers used coats and bare hands to smother the fire while others called 911 and sobbed.

Sixty percent of her body is burned. Second- and third-degree. Face, neck, chest, arms, hands. Doctors at Stroger Hospital say the first 72 hours were touch-and-go; infection, shock, and airway damage nearly killed her. She is stable now, but only just. Sedated, intubated, wrapped like a mummy in gauze and silver dressings, she has already undergone three skin-graft surgeries and faces dozens more. Her family says the Bethany who loved cozy game nights and cuddling every dog she met may never come back the same.

And the man who did this to her? He had been arrested seventy-two times before that night.

Seventy-two. The number is so obscene it sounds made up, but Cook County records confirm it. Assault. Battery. Robbery. Theft. Criminal trespass. Domestic violence. Violation after violation after violation. At the time of the attack he was free on bond for yet another felony case, wearing an electronic ankle monitor that was supposed to enforce a 6 p.m. curfew.

The monitor screamed violations for hours. Nobody came.

Lawrence Reed, 50, boarded the Blue Line at 9:15 p.m. with a homemade Molotov cocktail hidden in his jacket. Nine minutes later he turned a random young woman into a human torch and walked away like he’d just bought a cup of coffee. Police arrested him 36 hours later, still wearing the same clothes, still smelling of gasoline, still utterly remorseless.

On November 25, Bethany’s family finally released her name and a photo to the world. Not the burned and bandaged version the public had seen in blurry platform videos, but the real Bethany: smiling in a sunlit park, arms wrapped around a golden retriever, eyes bright with the kind of gentle joy that made strangers want to be her friend.

The photo broke the internet.

Within hours the GoFundMe titled “Help Bethany Heal” exploded past $600,000. Messages poured in by the thousands:

“I take the Blue Line every day and I can’t stop crying.” “She looks like my little sister.” “I’ve never donated before but I watched the video and I had to do something.”

Her parents, Greg and Emily MaGee, wrote a statement that has been shared half a million times:

“Bethany is the sweetest soul you could ever meet. She loves animals more than people sometimes, and people loved her right back. She was just riding the train home. She didn’t deserve this. No one does.”

They asked for privacy, then changed their minds. “We decided to release her name because the world needs to know who she is, not just what happened to her. She is not a statistic. She is our daughter.”

Chicago is reeling. Riders are scared to board the Blue Line. Women post videos of themselves carrying pepper spray, fire extinguishers, even small blankets “in case it happens again.” The CTA has increased police patrols and promised better lighting, but trust is shattered. Every hoodie, every backpack, every strange smell now triggers panic.

Politicians are pointing fingers. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is under fire for the “revolving door” that kept releasing Reed. The private company that monitored his ankle bracelet is facing lawsuits. Federal prosecutors, who hit Reed with domestic-terrorism charges, used the platform to warn that “career predators who should never see daylight” are walking free because of broken systems.

Reed’s seventy-two prior arrests have become the rallying cry. Billboards are going up around the city: “72 TIMES. THEN HE BURNED BETHANY ALIVE.” Activists are demanding the list be made public so Chicagoans can see exactly how many second, third, and seventy-second chances one man was given before he decided to play God with gasoline.

In the burn unit, Bethany can’t speak yet. Doctors say when the swelling goes down enough to remove the breathing tube, her first words will likely be about the pain. Her family sits vigil in shifts, holding the one hand that wasn’t severely burned, whispering board-game jokes and promising the cat is being spoiled rotten.

Outside her room, the city that failed her argues about bail reform and recidivism statistics.

Inside, a 26-year-old woman who was just riding the train home fights to remember what her own face felt like before it became a battlefield.

And somewhere in a federal holding cell, a man with seventy-two arrests waits for a trial that can never give Bethany back the life he stole in nine seconds of flame.

She was just riding the train home.

Now the whole country is praying she makes it back to any kind of home at all.