She boarded the train like any other night… but what happened next will haunt Chicago forever. 😱

26-year-old Bethany MaGee thought her commute home would be ordinary—scrolling her phone, earbuds in, just another Blue Line ride after a long day. She never imagined the nightmare lurking in the shadows: a man with 72 prior arrests, a walking time bomb the system let roam free, dousing her in gasoline and igniting the flames that turned her world to ash. She fought through the fire, collapsing on the platform as strangers screamed and sirens wailed… but survived—barely.

Now, as she battles unimaginable pain in a burn unit, one burning question echoes: How did Chicago’s “soft-on-crime” judges let this monster out on an ankle monitor… the very day he struck? Is your daily commute next? The full story of betrayal, survival, and a city on fire will leave you furious. 👇 Read it now before another innocent pays the price

In the dim, rattling confines of a northbound CTA Blue Line train, 26-year-old Bethany MaGee’s routine evening commute erupted into a scene straight out of a horror film. Doused in gasoline and set ablaze by a stranger with a rap sheet longer than most prison sentences, MaGee’s desperate struggle to extinguish the flames – captured in grainy surveillance footage – has ignited a firestorm of outrage across the nation. The attack, which unfolded just before 9:30 p.m. on November 17 near the bustling Clark/Lake station in the Loop, didn’t just scar one young woman physically and emotionally. It exposed glaring vulnerabilities in Chicago’s public transit safety and its revolving-door criminal justice policies, leaving riders questioning if the “L” – the city’s iconic elevated train system – has become a tinderbox for violence.

MaGee, a bright-eyed business research analyst at Caterpillar Inc. originally hailing from Upland, Indiana, had carved out a promising life in the Windy City. With a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute under her belt, she balanced a demanding career with simple joys: volunteering at her church, doting on rescue animals, and sharing laughs with her close-knit family – parents Emily and Dr. Gregory MaGee, and brothers Mark and John. Friends described her as the quintessential all-American girl next door: kind-hearted, ambitious, and unassuming. “Bethany’s the type who lights up a room without trying,” one longtime pal told reporters outside Stroger Hospital’s burn unit, where MaGee has been fighting for her life since the assault. “She didn’t deserve this. No one does.”

But on that fateful Monday night, MaGee’s light was nearly snuffed out in an instant of pure, premeditated terror. According to a federal criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, the suspect – 50-year-old Lawrence E. Reed – boarded the train at the Kedzie-Homan station around 9 p.m., clutching a plastic bottle filled with gasoline he’d purchased just 20 minutes earlier at a nearby Shell station. Surveillance video from the gas station shows Reed, dressed in a dark hoodie and jeans, methodically filling the container and paying the cashier, his movements calm and deliberate – chilling evidence of planning that prosecutors later hailed as “barbaric and premeditated.”

Inside the train car, MaGee sat midway down, her back to Reed, engrossed in her phone – oblivious to the danger creeping closer. Reed, seated at the rear, allegedly rose without provocation, unscrewed the bottle’s cap, and poured the accelerant over her head and upper body in a swift, drenching motion. As the liquid soaked through her clothes, he flicked a lighter, igniting the fumes into a roaring inferno. “Burn, b*tch,” witnesses later reported hearing him mutter, his face twisted in what one passenger called “cold, empty rage.”

The car erupted in chaos. MaGee, engulfed in flames reaching up to five feet high, screamed and thrashed, rolling on the grimy floor in a frantic bid to smother the fire. Video footage, released by authorities and viewed millions of times online, shows fellow passengers scrambling for exits or frozen in shock – a few shouting for help, but none intervening directly as the young woman burned. “It was like watching a movie, but real,” recounted one bystander, a 34-year-old office worker who fled to the next car. “The smell… the screams… it’ll haunt me forever.”

When the train screeched to a halt at Clark/Lake, MaGee – her clothes charred and skin blistering – staggered onto the platform, collapsing in a smoldering heap. Two good Samaritans, quick-thinking commuters named only as “John” and “Maria” in police reports, rushed forward with jackets and water bottles, patting out the lingering flames until Chicago Fire Department paramedics arrived. Rushed to Stroger Hospital’s specialized burn unit, MaGee was diagnosed with second- and third-degree burns covering approximately 60% of her body, with the worst damage concentrated on her face, left arm, hand, and torso. As of November 25, she remains in critical but stable condition, sedated and undergoing multiple skin grafts. Her family, camped out in the ICU waiting room, has issued a heartfelt plea for prayers: “Bethany’s a fighter, but this road is long. She’s got the scars outside now, but the inside? That’s what breaks us.”

Reed, meanwhile, sauntered off the platform as if nothing had happened, blending into the evening crowd. But his freedom was short-lived. ATF agents, tipped off by the viral video circulating on social media, tracked him down the next morning – November 18 – in the 100 block of West Washington Street. He was arrested at 11:30 a.m., still clad in the singed hoodie and jeans from the night before, with fresh burns on his right hand betraying his role in the blaze. “He didn’t run, didn’t fight – just stared like he knew it was over,” a federal source close to the investigation told reporters.

What should have been a swift path to justice instead peeled back layers of a criminal history as extensive as it is alarming. Reed, a South Side native with a documented history of untreated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, has racked up at least 72 arrests since turning 18 in 1993 – spanning everything from petty theft and disorderly conduct to aggravated battery, arson, and public indecency. Court records paint a portrait of a man who’s spent more than three decades cycling through Cook County’s justice system like a broken merry-go-round: arrested, convicted on misdemeanors, released on probation, violated terms, repeat.

Key incidents include a 2019 guilty plea for smashing windows on a CTA Blue Line train at O’Hare Airport – eerily prescient – and a 2023 conviction for lighting a small fire outside City Hall, which he dismissed in court as “just a spark.” But the most damning chapter unfolded just months before the MaGee attack. In August 2025, Reed was charged with aggravated battery after allegedly slapping a psychiatric nurse unconscious in the locked ward of Mount Sinai Hospital in Berwyn. The victim, a 42-year-old social worker, suffered a concussion, chipped tooth, and optic nerve damage – injuries that left her sidelined for weeks.

Prosecutors from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office begged Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez to detain Reed pretrial, citing his “clear and present danger” and laundry list of priors. “This defendant is a ticking bomb,” Assistant State’s Attorney Elena Vasquez argued in a heated August 15 hearing, according to transcripts. “Electronic monitoring won’t cut it – he’s violated it before, and he’ll do it again.” But Molina-Gonzalez, appointed under Illinois’ controversial Safe-T Act – the 2021 cashless bail law aimed at reducing pretrial incarceration for nonviolent offenses – overruled the plea. “I can’t keep everyone in jail just because the state’s attorney says so,” the judge remarked, opting instead for ankle monitor release with strict curfew and movement restrictions.

It was a decision that would unravel catastrophically. Electronic monitoring logs, unsealed this week, reveal Reed violated his terms at least six times in the lead-up to November 17 – including curfew breaches and unauthorized trips into the Loop. On the day of the attack, his monitor pinged a violation at 8:45 p.m., just as he was en route to the gas station. Yet no alerts were acted upon swiftly enough to prevent the horror. “This was foreseeable – 100%,” fumed Vasquez in a post-hearing statement. “The system is designed to catch these red flags, but politics got in the way.”

The fallout has been swift and scorching. On November 23, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy – a Trump administration holdover known for his blunt takedowns of urban crime policies – publicly identified MaGee (over the objections of Chicago PD, which typically shields victims’ names) in a blistering X post that racked up over 2 million views. “It is devastating that a career criminal with 72 PRIOR ARRESTS is now accused of attacking 26-year-old Bethany MaGee on Chicago’s L train and setting her on fire,” Duffy wrote, attaching a pre-attack photo of the smiling victim cradling a kitten. “This would never have happened if this thug had been behind bars. Yet Chicago lets repeat offenders roam the streets. Chicago’s carelessness is putting the American people at risk. No one should ever have to fear for their lives on the subway.”

Duffy’s words struck a nerve, amplifying a chorus of conservative voices from Fox News’ Sean Hannity to podcaster Benny Johnson, who decried the incident as “the ugly face of Democrat-run chaos.” Even within Illinois, bipartisan grumbles grew louder. Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat facing reelection pressures, called the attack “horrifying” during a Skokie presser on November 21, hinting at Safe-T Act tweaks. “Everybody’s open to listening to what changes might be made,” he said, a rare concession from the law’s architect. Republican lawmakers, led by State Sen. Terri Bryant, demanded an emergency legislative panel to overhaul pretrial release protocols, arguing the act – intended to combat racial disparities in incarceration – has morphed into a “get-out-of-jail-free card for the violent.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s progressive chief executive, struck a more measured tone in a City Hall briefing on November 19. Vowing to tap state funds for enhanced CTA security – including 50 new cameras at high-risk stations and expanded mental health patrols – Johnson emphasized community investment over finger-pointing. “This tragedy shakes us all, but it also calls us to build safer systems, not tear them down,” he said, announcing a $10 million infusion for rider safety initiatives. Critics, however, dismissed it as too little, too late, pointing to the CTA’s chronic understaffing: Only 20% of Blue Line trains have full security presence during peak evening hours, per a 2024 city audit.

Reed’s legal saga adds another layer of grim drama. Arraigned federally on November 19 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert, the suspect wasted no time owning his actions – or at least performing them. Bursting into the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, Reed shouted “I plead guilty!” repeatedly, drowning out the judge with off-key singing of gospel hymns. Declining counsel, he demanded an immediate mental evaluation, which Gilbert granted, delaying formal proceedings. If convicted on the terrorism charge – Willful Act of Violence Against a Mass Transportation System – Reed faces life in prison; should MaGee succumb to her injuries, prosecutors have signaled death penalty eligibility.

Experts weigh in on the mental health angle with cautious nuance. Dr. Elena Ramirez, a forensic psychiatrist at Rush University Medical Center, notes Reed’s decades-long untreated illness likely fueled the unprovoked rage. “Schizophrenia untreated can manifest in delusions of persecution, leading to impulsive violence,” she explains. “But history shows monitoring alone fails without robust intervention – therapy, meds, housing.” Chicago’s mental health infrastructure, strained by budget cuts since the 2012 shuttering of eight public hospitals, leaves gaps that critics say enable such breakdowns. The city spends just 1.2% of its $16 billion budget on behavioral health, far below national averages, fueling a cycle where the ill end up in ERs or – worse – on the streets.

This isn’t an isolated inferno. MaGee’s ordeal echoes a rash of transit horrors gripping major U.S. cities, from New York subways plagued by slashings (over 200 in 2025 alone) to San Francisco BART platforms turned deadly by fentanyl-fueled assaults. Most eerily, it mirrors the August 2025 stabbing death of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail – another “random” attack by a suspect with priors, caught on camera as bystanders watched. “These aren’t anomalies; they’re symptoms,” says transit safety advocate Ashlee Alleyne of Riders Alliance. “Underfunded systems breed fear, and fear empties the trains – ridership down 15% citywide since 2023.”

For MaGee’s inner circle, statistics offer cold comfort. Her mother, Emily, 52, a retired schoolteacher, has barely left the hospital, poring over family albums between tearful calls to donors via a GoFundMe that’s raised $450,000 for medical bills and rehab. “She wanted to make a difference – analyzing data to help build better machines at Caterpillar,” Emily shared in an exclusive interview. “Now she’s rebuilding herself, one painful surgery at a time. Why her? Why like this?” Her father, Dr. Gregory, a family physician, grapples with the irony: “I heal people for a living, but I couldn’t protect my own daughter from a system that’s supposed to protect us all.”

As winter grips Chicago, the Blue Line hums on – commuters clutching purses tighter, eyes darting to shadows. Petitions for Judge Molina-Gonzalez’s recusal have garnered 50,000 signatures, while CTA ridership dips further amid boycott calls. President Donald Trump, touring the Midwest this week, name-dropped the case in a Milwaukee rally: “Chicago’s a mess – soft judges, open borders, crime everywhere. We’re fixing it, folks. Believe me.”

For Bethany MaGee, the flames may have dimmed, but the embers of recovery – and reform – burn brighter. Her latest update from the hospital: a faint thumbs-up emoji to friends, a symbol of resilience amid ruin. As investigations probe deeper – including potential links to Reed’s prior arsons – one truth lingers like smoke: In a city of 2.7 million, safety shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be a right.