Former Charleston man write 'gasser' book
Monday, October 25, 2004
By Dawn Schabbing
Just more than 60 years ago newspaper headlines screamed that a prowler was in the city pumping a sweet-smelling, but paralyzing gas into homes.
It was during wartime and many women were home without their husbands and sons.
Were these bizarre incidents during the first half of September 1944 some form of local terrorism in those days, or nothing more than hysteria caused by the media?
While there are many sources available in libraries, on the Internet and in magazines about “The Mad Gasser”, in these reports one stark difference among the writers was to prove or disprove its validity.
About 11 p.m. on Sept. 1, 1944, a young housewife named Aline Kearney lay in bed reading a newspaper, with her 3-year-old daughter at her side.
She noticed an unusual, sweet smell coming from outside her bedroom window. Soon she suffered nausea, a dry throat, burning sensation to her mouth and lips and discovered her legs were losing sensation.
This was the first of about 25 reports to Mattoon police from different people in the city-mostly women. Newspaper headlines from the Daily Journal-Gazette then warned readers that an “Anesthetic Prowler On Loose.”
Eventually, other newspapers reported the “Mad Gasser” and the “Mad Anesthetist” was attacking parts of Mattoon.
In recent years, dozens of Websites, magazine articles, newspaper reports and books continue to argue the mystery of Mattoon’s Mad Gasser.
According to Bob Ladendorf who co-wrote an article in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, July-August 2002 issue, said the hysteria of those fall nights are linked to the media.
Ladendorf authored the article, “The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: How the press created an imaginary chemical weapons attack.”
“The Daily Journal-Gazette reported the (first) incident on page one the next evening with a six-column headline,” wrote Ladendorf. “The Mattoon (newspaper) practically created the entire mad gasser scare…” his article reports.
Scott Maruna, formerly of Charleston but now living in Jacksonville, authored a book that offers a complete look at the bizarre events of September 1944--and even names the Mad Gasser.
Maruna teaches high school chemistry and physics in Jacksonville and said he was captured by this phenomenon and spent two years studying the mystery before writing his book, The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: Dispelling the Hysteria.
_ “Many in academia have called the case the finest of mass hysteria in American history,” said Maruna. “But, I see it as the finest case of chemical terrorism in American history.”
Maruna in his nearly sell-out book pinpoints a young man from Mattoon named Farley Llewellyn as the gasser.
“Farley was at one point during the gassings the police’s one and only suspect,” said Maruna. “But half way through the gassings, when they placed him on 24-hour surveillance, the gassings still continued.”
He explains in his book that knowing the police surveillance was on Farley, he had one or both of his sisters, Florence and Katherine, continue the gassings. Women’s shoe prints were found moving away from the scene of one of the last gassings.
The book tells the story of Farley Llewellyn, the homosexual son of a respected grocer, who never really “fit” in Mattoon. Farley was considered a loner and an introvert who had studied chemistry at the University of Illinois. He also had his own lab and neighbors reported explosions at it from Farley’s experiments.
Ladendorf said two of the most famous “mass hysteria” happenings of the 20th Century were the 1938 invasion of Martians panic and the 1944 Mattoon mad gasser scare.
“The mass media are often influential in creating, spreading and ironically even eventually ending mass hysteria,” said Ladendorf. Reporting public reaction to the hysteria diagnosis does this, he said in the article.
Within a week other newspapers began reporting the story of the Mad Gasser as more reports filtered into police, which could not catch the culprit of varied descriptions. Ladendorf said almost daily a major or local newspaper reported incidents.
He said reports from Chicago Tribune, Chicago Herald-American, Champaign News Gazette and (Springfield) Illinois State Journal only heightened the mad gasser’s awareness nationwide.
“No prowler was ever identified or arrested, no physical evidence presented, and there was no medical substantiation of a gas being used,” wrote Ladendorf in his article.
“In fact, none of the victims ever reported having eye problems from the alleged gas, despite the fact that if it was a poisonous gas, the eyes would certainly be affected.”
Maruna said the chemical being used was Nitromethane. It isn’t a gas, but a chemical that could be vaporized easily with something as simple as a perfume bottle. It doesn’t cause eye irritation.
“This gas is very sweet smelling, causes nausea, weakness, swollen lips and burning mouth and is not an extreme eye irritant and its results wear off quickly.”
Through his interviews and research Maruna believes that Farley Llewellyn had no intention of merely anesthetizing or scaring people with his acts.
“No, Farley was initially trying to do a lot worse - he was trying to blow them up.”
____ One thing that both writers agree on is that mysteries such as the Mad Gassers are likely to occur again.
“It is essential to understand the overall context of what happened in Mattoon within the social and historical context…at that time. People lived under the specter of massive poison gas attacks on civilian targets,” wrote Ladendorf in his article.
Maruna said it wouldn’t be difficult to “copy cat” what happened in 1944. “Similar and identical gases are not all that hard to acquire and gas is seemingly the perfect weapon. It is a frightening, real possibility.”
Maruna is scheduled to be a panel speaker on the Mad Gasser mystery at the Illinois History Symposium in Springfield on Dec. 3-4. His book, which is expected to come out in its second edition in hardback, was named one of the top books on Illinois History from 2003.
