ST. LOUIS – Police responded to a gruesome scene overnight in north St. Louis after a woman was found on fire along a street. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene after crews extinguished the fire.

Hours after the call, investigators with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department say the death appears accidental and that no foul play was suspected.

According to an SLMPD incident report, investigators reviewed surveillance footage which revealed the victim was alone, set a fire and fell into that fire at the time of the incident. Authorities also recovered alcohol and drug paraphernalia from the scene.

First responders received a call early Friday morning about a person on fire in the 4500 block of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. Firefighters arrived on the scene at around 3:30 a.m. to find a woman fully engulfed in flames. They were able to quickly put out the fire.

When they put out the fire, she was dead. The body of the woman was found on the sidewalk. Investigators did not find any obvious wounds on her body besides the burns. Homicide and arson investigators are on the scene, and initially considered this a suspicious death.

Law enforcement officers called the scene early Friday morning disturbing. Lieutenant Terrell Robinson with the St. Louis Police Department tells us that two passerbys called authorities to report a person down and on fire. Crews extinguished the flames, but the woman was already dead.

“Over my past 34 and a half years, I’ve seen a lot. And it’s pretty disturbing to see someone pass away that way,” said Robinson. “The body will be taken down to the Medical Examiner’s office and the doctors there will perform their investigation and they’ll determine whether this was an accident or whether this was foul play.”

Cynthia Brown lives down the street and considers this occurrence to be shocking. She said her neighborhood is the type of place where grandkids play and everyone knows each other

“If it is something happening over there on Martin Luther King, we don’t know nothing about it,” said Brown. “We may hear the police and the ambulance but it don’t come over here.

Investigators are still piecing together the events and trying to figure out more information about the victim. They have not yet disclosed her identity. Robinson says her body was apparently burned beyond recognition.

Robinson says multiple investigators were called in, including city homicide detectives, the fire department’s investigation unit and St. Louis regional bomb and arson investigators.