Innocent woman, 26, set alight on Chicago subway ‘by serial criminal, 50’ freed on ankle monitor by soft touch judge in horrific echo of Iryna Zarutska murder

Bethany MaGee, 26, was doused in gasoline and set alight on the city’s Blue Line on Monday night, but managed to flee the train and survive.

MaGee, from Upland in Indiana, is an animal lover and churchgoer, who is close to her parents Emily and Gregory, and two brothers Mark and John, her social media profiles revealed.

Her father Dr Gregory MaGee is a professor of Biblical studies at Taylor University, a Christian college in Indiana.

The man police named as her attacker, 50-year-old Lawrence Reed, is a serial criminal with 72 prior arrests freed months earlier by a judge after he allegedly attacked a social worker.

Monday’s attack has drawn comparisons to the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August 22.

That prediction now appears to have been borne out, with MaGee now seriously-ill in hospital with her family by her side.

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