Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Halloween Week: The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

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Halloween Week: The Mad Gasser of Mattoon · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Are we already on the third day of Halloween Week.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Time really flies when you're having fun, doesn't it. My
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: name is Jacko and I have been your MC these
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: past couple of days, and I will continue to do
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: so through the remaining five more days. Well, thus far
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: we have covered a mysterious murder and a world renowned
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: haunted building that dates back thousand years. But today your
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: hosts are taking you down a rabbit hole, one of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: an infamous mystery, one of an individual who terrorized a
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: small town, poisoning them in their homes as they slept
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: silently at night. I am talking, of course, about the
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Mad Gasser of Matune. But for all the details, let
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: me turn you to your hosts. Ladies, gentlemen, theyse and damns.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Here are your hosts of Wicked den Grim's Halloween Week,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Ben and Nicole.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Cures.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Cheers to day three.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Day three of Halloween Week.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Exactly, and thank you once again, Jack who you always
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: kill it. I have to say this case today, the
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Mad Gasser of Matune is one that has bugged me
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: for a long.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Time, has it? Well, it sounds like something pretty intense.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Here, It's pretty intense. Have you heard of it at
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: all before. Now, no, no, you've never heard of the
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Mad Gasser of matun No?
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean the title doesn't ring a bell. The
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: description that Jacko gave doesn't super ring a bell.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Well, if you've heard of the case, you probably the
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: title would.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Sound familiar, because yeah, I don't think I have.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: It's a pretty familiar title, Mad Gasser of matun Like
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: that stands out like it does, like, yeah, sore of thumb.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm excited to cover this one. But I'm
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: curious on what your stance is on Halloween week so far.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: You know, Jacko kind of said it right that time
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: lies when you're having fun. The fact that this is
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: already day three, I agree wholeheartedly. How it doesn't seem right,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: does it? No, it doesn't, but it's going good. I've
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: been enjoying everything so far.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: I agree. But with it being day three, that means
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: the next episode day four, because it's an odd number
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: seven in a week, Day four is officially over halfway
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: through the week. So when you are listening tomorrow and
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: you start the episode that you're officially halfway through, well
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: I guess halfway through, wow, halfway through the episode.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Halfway so sad.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Well, hey, it's going to come back next year, and
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: you're gonna have several more days after that as well,
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: So I mean indulge, right.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: And I mean, I don't know if anyone's like me.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: My memory is just shit, like it's a shit.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: So I could probably go back and listen to all
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the other years, like the three other years, and they
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: be pretty you know, oh.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: Man like new Yeah, listen to them again, for sure.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: There you go. That's a lot of days.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I'm actually curious on what we sound like in year
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: one of Halloween Week. Should we should go back and
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: listen to it just for our own kicks and giggles
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: and see and giggles, Yeah, shits and giggles. But I
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: was ped correct and not swearing.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I heard it like that before.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Usually I fucking swear all the time and don't give
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: a shit. But for some reason, I censored myself on
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: that one. I don't know why, but I did. But yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: it would just be cool to back and listen to us, say,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I think cool.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I kind of feel as though we would sound exactly
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: the same, but we probably wouldn't something. I'm sure something
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: would be different yet for sure.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Probably for sure. Bod Oh yeah, bud for sure.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Ah okay, Well you're ready to do this, You're ready
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: for it?
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: Hey, okay. So, as I mentioned and as Jacko mentioned,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: this is the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, and it starts
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: in early September of nineteen forty four, when a strange
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: series of events occurred in a small central Illinois town,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: the town of Mattoon, USA. Now, the town boasts an
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: approximate population of twelve thousand people during the forties, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: as today, it's not much larger, sitting in around sixteen thousand,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: which means it's a quiet place where no one would
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: ever imagine such strange events occurring like the ones that
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: we're going to be discussing today. The first in of
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: this mad Gasser would take place on August thirty first,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: nineteen forty four, and it in itself is one of
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: the most famous and well documented cases of the mad Gasser. So,
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: a woman by the name of Aileen Kearney was at
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: home with her young daughter. Now the evening's rolling around
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: and they're sitting at home and her husband, Bert was
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: working the late shift as a taxi driver. So, according
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: to reports, at around eleven PM, that night, Aileen was
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: in her bedroom laying in bed, but when she began
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: to all of a sudden notice a strange, sweet odor
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: filling the room. The smell quickly went from a soft,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: scent lingering in the air to becoming an overwhelming stench,
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: and shortly after inhaling it, she began to feel instantly nauseous.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Man Aileen also began to feel a burning sensation in
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: her throat and her lips as she tried to breathe in,
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: and it was followed by intense weakness, especially in her
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: extremity of her legs and arms. She found it extremely
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: difficult to move her legs and described a tingling feeling
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: which left her temporarily immobilized. Aileen managed to call out
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: for help, and her sister, who lived nearby, rushed over
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: to check on her and Aileen's alien's husband, Bert, had
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: also just returned from work at the same time, and
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: when he walked through the front door, he saw his
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: wife on the floor, weak and unable to move her legs.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: He was immediately afraid. Then the smell in the air
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: hit him. The thought of a gas leak in the
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: house popped into his head, and he rushed everyone outside
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: of the house to get some fresh air, and when
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: Bert went around the house to do a perimeter check,
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: you know, make sure everything's okay, right, he saw something strange.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: He saw a figure lurking near one of the windows
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: of his home, but before he could get a good look,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: the figure quickly turned around and fled. Bert continued his
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: perimeter check at the house, looking for gas leaks, but
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: he found nothing. Concerned, they all decided to contact police.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: The authorities arrived but could not locate the source of
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: the strange odor in the home. They also couldn't find
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: any physical evidence of the figure that Bert had seen.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: The police initially dismissed the incident, suggesting that it might
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: have just been caused by fumes from a nearby industrial plant,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: and the smell in the house gradually faded as it
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: was aired out, and life for the couple just simply
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: returned to normal.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Holy shit, that doesn't seem right though, just to be like, oh, yeah,
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: it's just fumes from a neighboring plant or whatever you
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: describe it as, Like what.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Well, there's no evidence of anything occurring, it's just strictly
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: one person's account.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: So still, this had affected her so much, right.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: No, you're right, you're right, don't get me wrong, You're right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: But what do police have to go on. I guess
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: there's a sweet smell that caused some side effects to her.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: And I'm pretty sure I saw someone outside. Are you
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: sure it was a someone? Maybe it was a dog
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: that you saw running by, And maybe there's just odors
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: and stuff flowing through your house from I don't know,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: a nearby industrial plant that caused this because everyone else
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: seems fine.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but still so alarming to have to like move
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: forward with your life in that.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Home, right, Oh, one hundred percent, it would.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Be pretty alarmed and cautious.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: I would definitely be alarmed. Don't get me wrong. I'm
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: with you here. It's the police probably should have done
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: more or whatever, But it's advocates.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I wasn't necessarily blaming the police there. It's just like,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know it affected her so much. I just
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: it's funny. I don't know. We just do that so often, you.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: Know, oh, rush downs off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well this
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: incident was strange for the small town of Atun, and
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: though police did kind of brush it off a little bit,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: it was soon widely reported on by local media, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: it fueled a wave of fear across the town, fear
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: that would soon row very rapidly. By the morning of
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: September fifth, the Matun police station had received four more
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: accounts a peculiar incidents that were increasingly being labeled as
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: quote gas attacks.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Four more now there's been like five correct.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: The striking similarities between each report was absolutely unsettling, as
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: none of the witnesses had the ability or time to
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: coordinate their stories or speak with one another as well. Now,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: despite this, the details were nearly identical in each reports.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Residents complained of a sweet, heavy sense slowly sleep seeping
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: into their homes at night. Breathing in the older left
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: them feeling very ill, experiencing a burning sensation, and temporary
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: paralysis that could last up to half an hour or
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: an hour. It appeared that the mysterious figure Burt had
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: glimpsed at a few nights earlier might actually be on
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: the prowl under the cover of darkness, attempting to gas
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: people or do something so not.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: Out of all these people, no one had been like
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: severely injured or anything.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: No, No, everyone recovered after I mean the initial like
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: burning sensation and stuff like that. I'm sure there might
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: have been like some sort of lingering effects, like maybe coughs.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I don't like things like that, but everyone definitely recovered
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: for sure. Yes, Okay, Now, this figure was reported to
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: be dressed in black and is believed by both the
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: police and the terrified public that this, of course, is
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: the individual responsible for this. So on the evening of
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: September fifth, the very first tangible piece of evidence would
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: actually be found, and it would be the thing that
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: really had people hanging on to this mad Gasser kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: of scenario. So Carl and Bella Cords returned home late
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: to discover a very peculiar white cloth laying on their
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: front porch one evening. It wasn't theirs, and it wasn't
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: there when they had left their home either. When Bella
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: curiously picked it up, she noticed a bit of a
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: smell coming from it, so she brought it up to
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: her face a little bit closer to take a sniff,
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: and in that moment, she was immediately overwhelmed by a
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: strong and nauseating odor. She soon felt light headed and
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: nearly fainted as a result. Oh whoa, yeah, her husband
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: needed to assist her to get inside the home. Within minutes,
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: her face and lips began to swell, and her mouth
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: even started to bleed.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, just from smelling this cloth.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Just from smelling this cloth. Her symptoms lingered for nearly
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: two hours before the eventually subsided.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's some pretty potent stuff, whatever's on that cloth.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, because for that to be to have a
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: reaction like that, you think you would have, like, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: don't know, really put it up to your face, like
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: rubbed it all over your face or something. But just
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: from like a little sniff, like holy.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Mola, well mean chemical burns. I mean that's some serious shit.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Now, as a result, the police were of course called
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: to the scene, and they took the cloth into evidence.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: During their search of the property, they also discovered a
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: key and an empty lipstick tube. These items led investigators
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: to believe that the intruder might have been attempting to
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: break into the house, but was startled by the arrival
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: of the couple coming back home, and then in their escape.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: When they were fleeing the scene, they dropped these items
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: on the porch. Later that evening, yet another call reached authorities,
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: signaling another attack from the elusive gasser. As the nights passed,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: more residents of Mattune again reported brief sightings of the figure,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: and always described as a tall, slender man dressed in
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: dark clothing and wearing a tight black cap. Despite the
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: growing reports, the police were left with no new evidence
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: after each investigation. The situation escalated to the point where
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: the where two FBI agents from Springfield were even called
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: in to assist. Their involvement did nothing to stem the
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: flow of strange occurrences. They just continued. The town was
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: gripped by widespread panic, and theories about the gasser's identity
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: grew increasingly more and more bizarre. Some speculated that the
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: assailant was an escaped mental patient on the loose, while
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: others feared that it might be a German spy testing
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: chemical weapons on them in the night.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, this, whoever this person is, is just on
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: a frickin' rampage.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So, with fear taking hold of the community, frustrated
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: citizens began to arm themselves and organized neighbor patrols and
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: watch parties in an effort to catch the attacker themselves.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: But despite these vigilant efforts, though the attacks still persisted.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: They never subsided what soever, and more reports just continued
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: to pour in. Though hard evidence remained elusive. Footprints and
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: cut window screens seemed to appear at many of the
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: crime scenes, showing that the Gasser attacks were very real
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: and not the result of Paranoid's civilian in imaginations, which
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: is a very key piece of information, as we'll talk
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: about later. Now, at one point, a local group of
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: vigilantes detained a suspect, but after passing a lie detective task,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: the man was released without charge. I could not really
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: find much information on this suspect, but apparently has just like, ah,
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: we got him. Oh shit, no we don't. That's basically
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: the scenario.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Now, on September tenth, the mounting fear and frustration boiled
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: over into a mass protest, with residents demanding that the
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: overwhelmed police force take more decisive actions against what was happening.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: The Gasser had now become more than just a public menace.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: He was also a political disaster, tarnishing Matoon's image and
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: making the town seem unsafe. And of course, as we
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: all know, if there's one thing that political figures hate
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: more than unsafe, situations. It's public image, right.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: So you don't say sorry.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I had to make that joke. I even wrote it
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: down in here. I thought it was funny when I.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Wrote it, So you're like, I can't forget to say that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Yep. Now, despite the vigilante efforts and like all these
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: armed citizens and everything, despite the news reports too, and
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: the increasing frustration by the police force, the mad Gaesser
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: continued to terrorize. Mittune never held up the slightest, was
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: never slowed down by any of these things. The mad
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Gasser remained elusive, striking whenever they pleased. One particular alarming
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: incident occurred at the home of Miss Violet Driscoll and
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: her daughter Ramona. The two awoke late at night to
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: an unsettling sound of something being tampered with or someone
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: tampering with the storm sash outside the window. As panic
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: set in, the attempted to flee, but the mysterious fumes
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: had already begun to permeate throughout their home, and Ramona
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: was quickly overcome, suffering a violent bout of vomiting there
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: on the floor.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it's like getting worse the reactions here.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, this one's all a child as well.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Right, Oh okay, yeah, yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Missed Riscol. While trying to comfort her daughter, reportedly saw
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: a figure fleeing from the property. Shortly after that, the
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: gasser struck once again, targeting another home, where residents woke
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: up choking, experiencing partial paralysis in their limbs. These victims
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: were called the air filling with a thin blue vapor
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: and heard a distinct buzzing sound, which they believed was
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: the gasser's device releasing gas their home.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Man, Okay, this just doesn't even make any sense, Like,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: what the hell is the point of all of this?
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Who knows that's the thing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Well, it just seems like I don't know's it's one
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: of those incidents. I've said this before on cases where
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: it's like, geez, I wish I had that much time
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: on my hands, because like that would take so much
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: effort and like resources and probably money too, and shit,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: right for this this whatever they're.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Releasing, Yeah, most certainly.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: For what for what? Just to like fuck up with some.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: People's days much. Maybe it's too like it's it's a
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: I don't like a power trip, you know how, like
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: serial killers and stuff like like to toy with the
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: police and like like to read their articles and have
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: that power trip over not being caught to those things.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: It could be that or they even sometimes play with
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: the police a bit and you know, phone or like
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: send in evidence or little things, right exactly, So just
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: seeing how far this guy can go.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So the town's panic had reached its boiling point
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: by now. The FBI agents involved were still attempting to
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: identify the type of gas being used, while local authorities
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: struggled to manage both the ongoing search for the gasser
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: and the large number of armed citizens patrolling the streets.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Not despite their efforts, six attacks occurred this night.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: And this is still September.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Tenth, just so you know, and this isn't even very
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: big town. So no, it's not the fact that that
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: he's not getting caught.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: You have FBI, you have police, and you have vigilante
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: groups of civilians all patrolling the streets, and this individual
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: is not being deterred whatsoever. And is still six attacks
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: in one night.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, you almost wonder if it's more than one
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: person or maybe not. But that just seems so weird
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: to be able to get away with all this.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Well, there is something here at the end that we
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: might touch on and it might make a little bit
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: of sense on how this individual got away with it
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: for how they did. But while I digress now. On
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: September eleventh, several more attacks were reported once again, but
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: authorities began to view them as increasingly or sorry with
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: increasing skepticism. The shift in tone was reflected in local
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: media coverage as well as newspapers began casting doubt on
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: the entire affair of the mag Gasser itself. Police dismissed
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: the new reports with hysteria, and the idea mag Gaser
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: might have never even existed at all started to take hold,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: as it seemed easier than admitting that they had been
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: able to apprehend the culprit. Now, this is why I said,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: it's very important that that evidence earlier, the slash screens
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: for example, right, things like that, the footprint's being left behind.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: There's tangible evidence saying someone is doing something. Yeah, but
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: now police are saying, you know what, we don't even
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: fucking exist because we can't find them.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: So it's just people making up the story.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: That's essentially what they're saying at this point.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that doesn't seem okay, No, I.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: Can't imagine a lot of the citizens would have been
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: happy with them.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: No, I feel like I would just be pissed.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Can you imagine like being gassed out, Like feeling this
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: burning sensation bleeding from your mouth, like your legs clapsing,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: miild puking right, your legs collapsing out from underneath you
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: as you try and run, and you see this figure
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: fleeing your home, and the police are like, yeah, bullshit, Yeah.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: No, we don't think it actually happened.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: You're you're just crazy.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: You're just dreaming. All you guys are having the weird, weird,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: same bury.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: H Now, the hysteria in Betune escalated. New narratives began
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: circling in the press, suggesting that the mad Gasser might
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: be a product of the town's collective imagination. Highlighting collective imagination.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: You were all fucking crazy, is what they're saying now.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Some psychologists even speculated that the women of the Women
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: of Matune, feeling isolated with their husbands away at war
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: at the time, had subconsciously created this figure as a
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: way to express their distress, basically saying that the women
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: are acting out for attention and created this hmm. Oh no,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I got sick and I need attention. That's what the
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: fucking psychologists are saying.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: This explanation, however, ignored the fact that men were also
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: being well yeah, fact, that's.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: What I was just thinking, like that some of the
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: stories that you have shared it involved men. Yeah, So
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: that is some bullshit right there.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's literally the authorities trying to downplay this
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: so they don't look bad for not catching the individual.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Well maybe they should just buckle down and try to
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: catch the individual like making up shit. I agree, that
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: is wild, Okay.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Now, in September twelfth, the Mattoon police chief made a
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: statement that was intended to close the case once and
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: for all. He theorized that the fumes from the carbon
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: tetrachloride gas used at the local Atlas diesel engine company
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: that was nearby drifted through town, causing the illness and
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: the paralysis as well to the residents. So he's basically saying,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: there is this factory over here, they used this specific chemical.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: That chemical was released into the air, blew into the
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: town a couple times, and it has caused this and.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Just randomly went into some people's houses but not others.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Correct Okay that makes sense. Yeah, oh man, it's done. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: that's solved for sure.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: But that completely ignores things like the cloth that was found,
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: the cut screens, the footprints, the individual scene, the figure. Yeah. Yeah,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: he just basically dismissed the existence of this assailant at all,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: calling the entire situation a mistake from beginning to end.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's how I'm going to go about solving my
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: problems tomorrow, because that sounds kind of nice. Actually, yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: just like you know, carrying on with your mosey way,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: like it actually didn't happen.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Yeap. Just nope, no, sorry, no, oh man, you're crazy.
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: No, no, no now.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: In response, representatives from the Atlas Diesel plant also made
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: a public statement, and they quickly denied responsibility, pointing out
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: that the gases used in their facility are primarily in
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: fire extinguishers and they wouldn't have produced this effect that's
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: described with these victims. They also questioned if these fumes
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: were too blame, these incidents had not occurred previously, so
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: why now?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you think it would be affecting you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: like a certain area and have homes and like all
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: of them would be affected. Yeah, And wayed to throw
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: that company or business or factory or whatever under the bus, right,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I never thought about that, but yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Fucking with these people's business for no reason. Now, this
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: official dismissal did little to address the numerous eyewitness reports.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: As I already mentioned of the individual flaing the scene.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: It just I don't know, it was what's the word
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: I'm looking for. It was like salt in the wound
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: to see. It was like kicking someone when they're down.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: You know. It was not a cool thing.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: The last ever reported attack happened on the night of
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: September thirteenth, marking the end of the gaser spree in Matune,
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: and there was a detail in this that may allude
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: as to why this was the end. On this occasion,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Bertha Birch claimed to have seen the attacker very clearly,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: but a description differed from the others. Instead of seeing
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: a tall, slender man, she reported seeing a woman disguised
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: as a man near her home. After the citing, the
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: attacker abrupt stopped and no further incidents were ever reported.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Oh so, like, it's almost sounding like the witness actually
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: got a real good look and so that scared this person.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: Maybe well, this entire time, everyone's looking for a man.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: I think all these watch parties, police FBI out at
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: night looking for a man in black. And here there's
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: a woman walking around who's gassing people. And it's like, oh,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: good evening, officer. Oh you be careful, young lady, because
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: there's a gas thru on the loose. Oh I will,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: And then she turns around and laughs and gases another
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: fucking house.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Holy shit. And now that she was actually witness, it's
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: kind of like, well, I guess I got to stop this.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Also, if you remember what was found with that
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: cloth lipstick lipstick.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: If it is a woman, that would explain the lipstick
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: much easier than if it's a male.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, not saying that a man can't care lipsick, but
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: it's generally, especially in the forties, would be much more
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: likely for a woman to be carrying and drop it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: So in the aftermath, authorities continued to downplay the threat,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: attributing many of the reports to mass hysteria. But despite this,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the mystery surrounding the mad Gasser was never fully solved solved,
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: and to this day, the true identity of the culprit
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: remains unknown. And that is the tale of the mad
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Gasser of Matoon.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So and it's just unknown why the hell, he, she,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: whatever was doing this?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Then Hey, did we know nothing?
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: That doesn't make any sense.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: We don't know who, we don't know why, we don't
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: know how, we don't even know the gas that was
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: fucking used.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Huh. And a lot of people, by the sounds of it,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: were affected. There wasn't just a.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Few people, Oh yeah, I know, this was dozens of households.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, huh. I mean that one point where you said
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: it was like a spy, a spy.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Or something, German spies testing equipment.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that kind of makes sense.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: But why this town? Yea, why fucking Matoon out of
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: any fucking location.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: And I wonder if this is all how so that
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: pissed her off?
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: I mean maybe I just don't see why a German
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: spy would have fucking made their way to Illinois, to
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: this town of twelve thousand people and tested the gas
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: on them. Wouldn't the fucking Germans just test it on
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: like war prisoners? Yeah, isn't that the sort of shit
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: they did? Aren't they gonna like they're just testing a gas,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: not even a deadly gas. Just like a mild dose
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: of this irritant. Why couldn't they just test that on
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: war criminals, I mean, what they view as war criminals anyways,
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: they're prisoners.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so I guess I am also a little
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: bit confused of this like handkerchief thing that was found
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: and why it was like soaked with the smell. You know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: Well, it's hard to say, excuse me. It could be
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: simply like maybe there's some sort of apparatus that that's
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: being used, hence the buzzing, like to pump the gas
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: in the house, right, Yeah, what if this cloth is
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: used to like cover then puzzle and like stop the
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: spraying while the pump is like turning off and then
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: it gets saturated that way?
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Huh, Because what I was thinking when you we learned
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: about this is that it was gonna progress or something
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: and the cloth was going to be held like people's
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: mouth mouth.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: I mean maybe maybe that would have been an idea, yeah,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: but it never came to fruition that way. Anyways.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Well, that's interesting.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: I think that cloth would have been used to like
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: clean up the chemicals or plug something on the machine
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: or who knows what it was, Yeah, something along those lines.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: It was for maintenance of the pump for the game.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Well, and uh, you know, the lesson here is don't
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: pick up random white cloths and smell them.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I guess I heard you say, don't pick up random
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: white claws and smell them.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: White cloths, handkerchiefs there you go and sniff them.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, who's who's white claws? At parties and
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: ship that's just a like that's kind of weird. Well,
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: you sniff wine your wine. It's weird if you're going
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: to just pick up random glasses of wine at a
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: party and start sniffing people's.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: Drinks, not as weird as this case was. Just be like, oh,
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: you're drinking them below this evening, sir selectable. Then you
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: move on to someone else's like penal green.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: I've had many pregnant friends though, like say, if we're
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: out for dinner or something and you're like having a
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: wine or a beverage there, I was like, oh, can
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: I smell it? Which I guess makes.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Sense, But pregancy is a bit weird, a different of.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Sniffing drinks and it's okay, I guess.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But they're also asking and if you ask more
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: than like one person. I think it would start to
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: get weird unless it's like those two people are together,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: you know, yeah, can I sniff your drink?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Can I sniff yours?
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Too?
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: But if it's you're just going around a party asking
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: people to sniff their drink, that's an awkward situation. Yeah,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: so don't go around sniffing white claws. That's the moral
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: of this story.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I guess why just just progressed to something really odd.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it moved into something weird. But anyways, this is
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: a story that's uh bothered me for a long time.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, that makes sense that it was a
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: woman and very easily could have gone away with it then,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: So that does make sense.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: And that's what I think it was, is that this
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: individual was a woman and was able to hide in
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: plain sight because of that, and when someone finally realized, hey,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: this isn't a man, this is a woman, they stopped
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: because they knew.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Oh shit, I caught way way easier.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they know I'm going to get caught here. I
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: need to stop. So yeah, okay, well I have something
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I want to tell you right now, do you Yes?
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: That is?
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: That next episode is Three Urban Legends ding dang. So
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: prepare yourselves, get ready to do some investigation and some guessing,
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: because two of which are going to be false and
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: one of which is going to be true, and you
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: have to figure out out which is which. I'll of
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: course reveal it at the end, which is one true? Yeah,
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I'll reveal which is which at the end, but I'll
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: let you do some guessing before I reveal it.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, I want to go back. That's actually one thing.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: We should go back and listen to those other Halloween
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: ones like this, because I'm curious what my record has been,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: you know, am I in the positives? Am I in
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: the negatives?
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: We should go back and listen and see. We should
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: be keeping track. We should have a fucking spreadsheet as we.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Have stickers and shit, just gold stars. Oh yeah, I
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: think so.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: We could do that. You should have a shirt with
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: every year on it and you just get like a
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: new star added with the year for each one you
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: get right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: And wrong, Like, yeah, I love that, I love that
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: we're doing that. I want this shirt. And then people
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: be like, what's with your shirt? And I'll be like,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: well let me tell you, and they still probably won't
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: get it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: Probably not okay, Well, we will see you in the
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: next episode and we're gonna get Jacko to bring us
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: out right now. So thank you for being here and
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: until next time, Jacko, stay you wicked