Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept 9

'GAS GHOST' RUNS ITS VICTIMS TO 31
Prowling Chemist K. O.'s Six Women and Boy

Mattoon, Ill. Sept. 9 [UP] -- Mattoon's crack chemist increased his list of victims to 31 tonight, as police still scurried in vain after the elusive figure, who prowls the night in a skull cap, armed with vials of a weird concoction to which he apparently is immune.
Thirteen more citizens of this central Illinois town whiffed the nauseating odor of the mad anesthetist's brew, and the victim list of 31 was convinced that this character had overstepped the bounds of a practical joker. Six of the newest victims were not identified by police.
The mystery vapor leaves victims ill and temporarily paralyzed.
Authorities, on the "scent" of the prowler, were as far as ever from solution. They received a setback today when an analysis of a salt sack, a whiff of which overcame Mrs. Carl Cordes early this week, failed to reveal any trace of a chemical.

Burned About Face

Mrs. Cordes suffered burns about the face and throat after sniffing the sack, which she found on her front porch. She keeled over, ill and partially paralyzed, like most of the other victims who have contacted the "ghost gas."
Richard T. Piper, superintendent of the state bureau of criminal identification and investigation, could find nothing lingering on the bag except--salt.
"This makes the plot thicken," Piper said. Piper said he was convinced that "the Thin Man" is the real McCoy and not a fictitious Gremlin out of 18th century witchcraft--a theory that has been advanced by scoffers who believed the character was a product of mass hysteria. None of the scoffers ever smelled the gardenia-like odor.
No motive could be pinned upon the crimes. Never has the prowler inflicted harm upon a victim after slipping them them his own brand of Mickey Finn. This caused police to theorize that "it" may be some high school student who is making "practical" experiments in chemistry, and they sought to trace a box of chemicals reported missing from the high school laboratory.
Increased police vigilance has failed to turn up the spirit-like marauder, as citizens pressed demands for a mass meeting to formulate plans for trapping this unique menace.
The latest victims included six women and an 8-year-old boy. Two of them, Miss Frances Smith, a grade school principal, and her sister, Maxine, said that the gas had been sprayed into their bedrooms on four different occasions.
"We'd rather chase a Dillinger than a ghost" one patrolman said. -- Sunday, September 10, page 2