Chicago Herald-American, Sept 11

Gas Terror Grows

[Photo caption]
ROGER REEDY, 2, cries in fright over becoming one of the "Mattoon Madman's" victims. With him is Carol Kearney, a neighbor's child visiting Roger, who escaped gas attack.
BY GLADYS ERICKSON
Chicago Herald-American Staff Correspondent
MATTOON, Ill. Sept. 11 -- Confronted with a city-wide wave of hysteria, spurred by six more attacks attributed to Mattoon's "mad anesthetist," Police Commissioner Thomas V. Wright called for outside help today, and five squads of state highway police were ordered into the city.
The five squads, under Capt. Harry Curtis, director of the Champaign-Urbana district, were instructed to meet their director in Mattoon this afternoon, to take over policing of the downtown and adjacent areas.
They also will keep squad cars available to rush out on attack calls. Meanwhile, Commissioner Wright's city police will be posted in the outskirts.
The order for the state highway police squads to take over was given after a conference in Springfield between Chief Harry Yde and Capt. Curtis.
Pleading with the townspeople to remain calm, Commissioner Wright pointed out that Dr. C. Raymond Coles said two of the... -- Continued on Page 4, Column 7.

State Police Join Gas Maniac Hunt

-- Continued from First Page. ..."victims" were suffering only from excitement.
Asked if he thought bringing an eminent psychiatrist to Mattoon would aid in quelling the mass fear, he replied:
"No. The human mind is capable of some very strange fixations. These people should be given the assurance they do not need to become excited. The police are doing all they can, and the citizens are being protected."

STRICKEN IN THEATER

One of the women, Mrs. Virginia Ealy, became nauseated and rigid in the crowded Mattoon theater. Hysteria has reached such proportions, Commissioner Wright said, that others in the audience believed Mrs. Ealy had been attacked in their midst. Dr. Coles also said Mrs. George Hampton, whom police brought to the Mattoon Hospital, was a victim of overwrought nerves. Her husband, however, said he felt the same choking and gasping symptoms his wife reported. The first case reported last night was at the home of the Stewart Scotts, four miles south of this city. Sheriff Leroy Boggs said:
"I found the house empty when I got there. The Scotts and their guest, James Tanner, had all run wildly out the front door and down the dark, country roads the minute they felt symptoms similar to those reported in other gas blowing cases. Their nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away. I found them there."
The report from Sheriff Boggs gave authorities hope that police measures had driven the gas prowler from the city itself.

GASSED PLAYING CARDS

This was soon shattered when an alarm was sounded from the Kenneth Fitzpatrick home. Their child, Sandra Jo, was asleep in a front room and the parents were playing cards in the kitchen. Mrs. Fitzpatrick suddenly screamed:
"The gas hit me!" Lifting her child into her arms, she ran crying to her mother's home across the street. Through swollen lips, Mrs. Fitzpatrick later said the odor she smelled resembled "sour perfume." Fitzpatrick said the fumes must have come up from the basement air vents.
Some of the neighbors who came out insisted they had seen a man running from the back yard of the Fitzpatrick's home.
Another call came from the home of the Marion Graftons where their daughter, Mrs. Richard Daniels, was caring for her two sisters, Joan, 12, and Evon, 8, and her own baby son, Michael, one year old.
Joan screamed:
"I smell ether."
As she and Evon ran from the house, Mrs. Daniels attempted to carry her baby out, but fell to the floor. She was assisted from the house by neighbors.
Commissioner Wright pointed out that a can of model airplane glue, which contains ether, was on a couch in the house. He said the fumes may have came from it.
The sheriff's office said aid of 50 farmers, members of the Anti-Thief Association, formerly the Anti-Horse Thief Association, had been pledged, if needed. State's Attorney W.K. Kidwell was checking state mental hospitals for any released inmate with the apparent characteristics of the gas prowler. -- Monday, September 11, page 1, 4

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Blames Hysteria for Gas Terror

BY THOMAS V. WRIGHT, Police Commissioner
As Told to Gladys Erickson
Chicago Herald-American Staff Correspondent
MATTOON, Ill. Sept. 11 -- This town is sick with hysteria.
It is not the gas, it is mass hysteria which is shattering Mattoon's morale. Fear of the "gas man" is completely out of proportion to the relatively harmless gas he is spraying.
During the last few days the poison sprayer apparently has been holed up. The reported cases of attack obviously are the result of hysterical fright. Unless the citizens here get hold of themselves, irreparable damage will be done.
I am convinced that drastic action will have to be taken after the incredible things that happened last night, when six new gas calls were reported. The scare went out of home confines last night, spreading into a theater and out into the country.
Two people were hospitalized. In no case was there evidence of bona fide poisoning. Last night was filled with peril as hundreds of persons on foot, on bicycle and in automobiles, raced recklessly through the streets, blocking efforts of police squads responding to panic calls.
The one bright spot of the evening was the fact that nobody was killed or hurt.
If necessary, orders will be given to pick up every loiterer in the streets and to arrest every motorist who attempts to follow police cars on emergency calls.
The spectators even blocked the doors of homes where gas was reported sprayed, inciting the hysterical victims to the point where doors were slammed in the faces of the police.
Because 40 to 50 cars tried to follow every police car called out, the Mattoon force was rendered almost helpless. For that reason, it was decided the only thing to do was call in the help of the state highway police. -- Monday, September 11, page 4