CHICAGO was left reeling in disgust last night after sickening CCTV footage emerged of a career criminal with SEVENTY-TWO previous arrests calmly pouring gasoline over a sleeping young woman on a packed commuter train, then flicking his lighter and watching her burn alive.

Bethany MaGee, a pretty 26-year-old graphic designer and single mom, was dozing on the CTA Blue Line when Lawrence Reed, 50, crept up behind her, drenched her in fuel, and turned her into a human fireball, allegedly snarling: “Burn alive, b*tch!”

Harrowing video shows the terrified victim leaping to her feet, her clothes already melting into her skin as she runs screaming down the carriage while flames shoot from her body. Passengers, frozen in terror, simply stared, some filming on their phones, as Bethany flailed in agony.

Two brave strangers eventually tackled her to the floor and beat out the flames with their jackets, but by then 60 per cent of her body was covered in second- and third-degree burns. She was airlifted to hospital where doctors say she faces years of skin grafts and may never look the same again.

And the most infuriating part? This monster should NEVER have been on the streets.

Reed, a violent pyromaniac with a rap sheet stretching back to the 1990s, had been arrested at least 72 times, including for arson, aggravated assault and knocking a female social worker unconscious just three months ago.

Yet in August, Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez freed him on an ankle monitor with the jaw-dropping remark: “I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to.”

Guess what? That ankle monitor was beeping like crazy when Reed bought the gasoline and boarded the train. No one came looking.

Yesterday a federal judge finally threw away the key, ruling Reed, now charged with terrorism, will stay locked up until trial. Too late for Bethany.

“She was on fire… literally on fire and nobody helped her at first,” sobbed her aunt Eileen O’Connor outside the hospital. “My niece is the sweetest girl. She has a four-year-old little boy who keeps asking when Mommy is coming home.”

Heartbreaking photos of Bethany before the attack show a smiling blonde with bright blue eyes, proudly holding her son Liam at a pumpkin patch just weeks ago. Friends say she always had a Black Lives Matter badge on her Instagram, ironic and heartbreaking given the racial firestorm now exploding online.

“She fought for them and this is how they repay her?” raged one viral post that has already been shared 180,000 times.

On X, the fury is off the charts:

“72 arrests and he’s still walking free? This is what Democrat ‘criminal justice reform’ looks like.” – 412k likes
“White girl with BLM in bio gets torched by career criminal. Media silent because it destroys the narrative.” – 298k likes
“Judge Molina-Gonzalez has blood on her hands. RESIGN.” – trending nationwide

Reed was caught the next day casually filling up another gas can at a BP station, his own hand blistered from the blowback. When cops asked why he did it, he shrugged and muttered: “I felt like it.”

Insiders say the deranged arsonist has a long history of hearing voices telling him to “burn demons”, but Chicago’s mental-health system, gutted by years of underfunding, simply spat him back onto the streets time and time again.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, already branded the worst mayor in Chicago history, called the attack “tragic” but refused to condemn the no-cash-bail policies that let Reed roam free, instead babbling about “systemic inequities”.

Angry Chicagoans are now demanding Judge Molina-Gonzalez be impeached and the infamous SAFE-T Act scrapped.

Last night hundreds gathered for a candle-lit vigil at Clark/Lake station, many openly weeping as they laid flowers and teddy bears at the exact spot where Bethany staggered off the train engulfed in flames.

One woman held a sign that read: “How many more have to burn before you lock them up?”

As Bethany fights for her life hooked up to machines, her little boy Liam has drawn a picture of “Mommy the superhero with fire wings”.

Doctors say if sheer willpower can keep someone alive, Bethany MaGee will make it.

But an entire city is asking one question tonight: How many times do you have to arrest a monster before you finally keep him caged?

Seventy-two, apparently, wasn’t enough.