A routine Monday morning commute on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line turned into a scene of unimaginable horror when a 26-year-old woman was deliberately set on fire by a stranger who screamed, “Burn alive, you bitch!” as he ignited the gasoline he had just poured over her.

Bethany MaGee, a business-research analyst from Crown Point, Indiana, was standing near the doors of a northbound train approaching the Forest Park terminal around 6:20 a.m. when 50-year-old Lawrence Reed approached her without warning. Surveillance footage released by the Chicago Police Department shows Reed calmly removing a red plastic gasoline container from a black backpack, unscrewing the cap, and dousing MaGee from behind. As the accelerant splashed across her hair, face, neck, and upper body, Reed leaned in close to her ear and delivered the chilling words that dozens of passengers would later repeat to detectives: “Burn alive, you bitch.”

A split second later, he flicked a disposable lighter. Flames erupted instantly, engulfing MaGee in a roaring fireball. The train car filled with the acrid stench of burning hair and flesh as passengers screamed and stumbled backward. MaGee, her clothes and skin already ablaze, let out a guttural, animal-like howl of pain before instinct took over. She dropped to the floor and began rolling, trying desperately to smother the flames while clawing at the emergency intercom.

Reed, meanwhile, stood motionless for several seconds, watching his victim burn. Witnesses later told investigators that he appeared almost transfixed, a faint smirk visible through the flickering light of the fire he had created. Only when other riders began shouting and rushing toward him did he snap out of his trance. He stepped back, raised both hands in mock surrender, and reportedly said, “I did it. She deserved it. Burn alive, bitch—just like I told her.”

By the time the train screeched into the Forest Park station less than ninety seconds later, MaGee had managed to extinguish most of the flames by rolling on the floor and with the help of two passengers who used their jackets to beat out the fire. She staggered onto the platform, her skin blackened and peeling, her hair singed to the scalp, and collapsed near a bench. A Good Samaritan later identified only as “Marcus” cradled her head and told her, “Stay with me, sweetheart, help is coming.” Cell-phone video captured MaGee whispering through blistered lips, “He said… he said burn alive… why?”

Firefighters and paramedics arrived within four minutes. MaGee was conscious but in agonizing pain, suffering third-degree burns over approximately 60 percent of her body—primarily her face, neck, left arm, and torso. She was rushed to Loyola University Medical Center’s burn unit in Maywood, where surgeons immediately began skin-grafting procedures. Doctors have told her family that she faces a minimum of three months in the hospital, followed by years of painful rehabilitation and reconstructive surgery.

Lawrence Reed never attempted to flee. When Forest Park police officers boarded the train, they found him sitting calmly in the same seat, the empty gasoline can at his feet and his own pants still smoldering from blow-back flames. His first words to the arresting officers were, “I already told her what was gonna happen. I said, ‘Burn alive, you bitch,’ and that’s exactly what she did.” Body-camera footage records Reed repeating the phrase at least seven more times while being handcuffed, almost chanting it under his breath as if it were a mantra.

Reed’s criminal history is as lengthy as it is violent. Court records show seventy-two prior arrests spanning four decades, including convictions for aggravated battery, armed robbery, domestic violence, and arson. Most shockingly, Reed had been released from Stateville Correctional Center only eleven days earlier—on November 6, 2025—after serving just eighteen months of a five-year sentence for setting fire to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment in 2022. Prosecutors had fought that early release, citing a pre-sentence psychological evaluation that labeled Reed “an extreme danger to the public with sadistic tendencies and a fixation on fire as punishment.” The Illinois Prisoner Review Board overruled those objections, citing prison overcrowding and Reed’s completion of an anger-management course.

In the hours following the attack, Reed reportedly provided detectives with a rambling, twenty-minute monologue in which he justified his actions almost entirely by repeating variations of the same sentence. According to a transcript leaked to local media, Reed told investigators:

“I looked at her standing there with her little Starbucks cup and her AirPods and her perfect little life, and I knew she needed to feel what real pain is. So I told her straight up—‘Burn alive, you bitch.’ And then I made it happen. That’s honesty. That’s justice. People walk around thinking nothing bad can touch them. I touched her. I made her burn alive, just like I said I would.”

When asked if he felt any remorse, Reed allegedly laughed and replied, “Remorse? She got exactly what I promised her. I’m a man of my word.”

Federal authorities moved swiftly. On November 20, U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual announced that Reed would face federal terrorism charges in addition to state charges of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and arson. The terrorism designation stems from prosecutors’ assertion that Reed’s attack was intended to intimidate and coerce the civilian population through an act of extreme violence on public transportation. If convicted on the federal count alone, Reed faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

In the week since the attack, the phrase “Burn alive, you bitch” has become a grim refrain in Chicago’s public consciousness. It is spray-painted on walls near the Forest Park station. It trends on social media under hashtags like #BurnAliveBitch and #BlueLineHorror. Talk-radio hosts replay the surveillance audio of Reed screaming the words, while victims’ rights advocates condemn the media for giving a sadist the notoriety he clearly craves.

Bethany MaGee remains in critical but stable condition. Her family released a statement through the hospital on November 25: “Bethany is a fighter. She is surrounded by love and prayer. We ask that the public respect our privacy and refrain from repeating the monstrous words used by her attacker. Those words do not define her—they define him.”

Yet for many Chicagoans who ride the Blue Line every day, those words are impossible to forget. Commuters now scan each car warily, clutching pepper spray or keeping one finger on the emergency call button of their phones. The CTA has increased police patrols and installed additional cameras, but riders say the damage is done. One woman interviewed anonymously by a local TV station summed up the lingering trauma: “Every time the doors open now, I hear it in my head: ‘Burn alive, you bitch.’ I don’t know if that voice will ever go away.”

Lawrence Reed, meanwhile, sits in the Metropolitan Correctional Center awaiting trial, reportedly telling guards that he has no regrets. According to a source inside the jail, he still mouths the same six words whenever a female staff member passes his cell: “Burn alive, you bitch.”

For Bethany MaGee, the physical scars will eventually heal into something she can hide beneath clothing and makeup. The psychological scars—and the citywide echo of a madman’s promise—may never fade.