The mystery of the ‘Mad Gasser’ of Mattoon

A decades-old mystery began on 1 September 1944 when a mother and her three-year-old daughter suddenly fell ill in the central Illinois town of Mattoon.

Aline Kearney was in bed alongside her daughter Dorothy when she smelled what she later described as a “sickening, sweet odour”. The mother-of-two told police and reporters that “the odour grew stronger and I began to feel a paralysis of my legs and lower body”.

Kearney’s cries for help alerted her sister, who had been keeping her company while “Kearney’s husband was out on his taxi route”, said The Washington Post. The sister “raced to the open bedroom window”, and “a neighbour called the police, but there were no signs of a prowler”, the paper continued. But when Kearney’s husband returned home later that night, he “spotted a suspicious figure standing at their window”, clad in dark clothing and “a tight-fitting cap”.

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The mother and daughter quickly recovered, but local media reports the following day described them as the “first victims” of an unidentified attacker. A local man, sheet-metal worker Urban Raef, then came forward claiming that he and his wife had become unwell during the night before the alleged attack, after “fumes poured in” through their open bedroom window.

Panic and street patrols

Within days, a string of similar cases had been reported. Around 35 people from the town’s then population of around 16,000 claimed to have become unwell after smelling an odd aroma, according to Historic Mysteries.

The affected people reported “symptoms of exposure to poison gas – nausea, vomiting, weakness leading to near paralysis, light headedness, even spitting up blood”, said the Illinois Times. And “all the victims reported a ‘sweet cheap perfume odour’ permeating their homes” before the symptoms began.

Hysteria soon set in. “Roving bands of townspeople armed with shotguns and pistols stalked the community at night” searching for the perpetrator of the alleged attacks, who was quickly dubbed the “Mad Gasser” of Mattoon, said The Washington Post. Women “carried bats and clubs” with them whenever they left their homes, and “residents began staying with friends rather than sleeping alone”.

But despite following up a string of leads, “the police were stumped”, said Historic Mysteries. Even the FBI “could not come to a concrete decision about what was happening in Mattoon”.

On 12 September, the town’s chief of police released a statement saying that the smell had been caused by gas accidentally released by a local diesel engine factory being wafted into people’s homes as a result of “wind shifts”, said Iliinois Library. Mattoon had simply fallen victim to mass hysteria, police insisted.

The State’s Attorney William Kidwell said the hysteria had been fuelled by a reporter “with a vivid imagination” from the local Journal Gazette newspaper.

‘Mad Gasser’ unmasked?

The events in Mattoon in 1944 have “long been cited in college psychology classes as a perfect example of mass hysteria”, said the Illinois Times.

With the supposed attacks taking place during the Second World War, “when so many men were off fighting and so many women left alone, the gassings have been explained away as a product of paranoia, panic and delirium”, the paper continued.

But not everyone is convinced by that explanation.

In a book published in 2003, local high-school science teacher Scott Maruna questioned the mass hysteria theory and gave “credence to many who came forward” with accounts of attacks, said the Illinois Times.

Maruna suggested that the alleged Mad Gasser might have been “town genius” Farley Llewellyn, a chemistry student and outcast who “drank too much” and who “kept a secret laboratory” and was known to have “experimented with various chemicals”, the paper reported.

Maruna wrote that “in a fit brought on by mental instability and years of pent-up rage against a town that would not and could not accept him, Farley tinkered and toyed with various organic solvents in an attempt to create a suitable weapon”.

But many sociologists and armchair detectives who have “pored over newspaper accounts and police records” are “still sceptical”, said Historic Mysteries. And with no new leads likely to emerge, there may never be a conclusive answer to the Mad Gasser mystery.

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