Chicago Tribune, Sept 6

INTENSIFY HUNT FOR PARALYSIS GAS PROWLER
Mattoon Orders Police on 24 Hour Watch

Mattoon, Ill. Sept. 6 [Special] -- Police Chief E.C. Cole ordered his police force on 24 hour duty today to provide night patrols thruout residential districts in an effort to capture the anesthetic prowler who has been terrorizing the city for the past week.
A cloth soaked with an unidentified liquid which was found last night on the front porch of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Cordes, and which severely burned Mrs. Cordes when she sniffed it, was to be given scientific scrutiny tomorrow by the state department of public safety. Answering an appeal from Thomas V. Wright, city commissioner of public health, T.P. Sullivan, director of the department of public safety, said he would send investigators to Mattoon tonight.

Smells Cloth, Becomes Ill

The leaving of the cloth at the Cordes home is the sixth instance of the activities of the mysterious prowler reported to police since Saturday. In all of the others, the prowler was said to have sprayed some kind of gas thru the screens of open bedroom windows, causing his victims to suffer nausea and temporary partial paralysis. Cordes reported to police that he and his wife returned to their home last night about 10 o'clock, and entered the house by the back door. Mrs. Cordes opened the front door and noticed a large white cloth lying on the porch.
She smelled of the cloth, and at once became violently ill, Cordes said. Her lips and face became swollen and inflamed and she was unable to speak. This condition persisted for two hours.

Believes Prowler Fled

A search of the porch revealed a skeleton key and an empty lip stick tube on the floor near where the cloth was found. Police theorized that the prowler may have been seeking to enter the house when the family returned and that he dropped these articles in flight. -- Thursday, September 7, page 15