Sorry for your loss. I have never heard of this happening. It is possible that the positive and negative bus inside the receiver were shorted out. The battery was certainly completely shorted in order for it to get that hot. If you have a multi-meter (volt/ohm/amp), set it to "Ohms" (resistance) and test the resistance across the plus (red) and minus (black) pins on the receiver (use the pins where the battery was plugged in if they are still intact). There should be some resistance. Zero would indicate a short.