The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: America’s Strangest Phantom Attacker
— April 20, 2026In the late summer of 1944, the quiet town of Mattoon, Illinois, became the…
Some serial killers manage to commit more murders after they have been captured compared to the number of victims they claimed before their arrest. Maudsley was only convicted of one murder in a British court and sentenced to life in prison after killing a man he had picked up for sex in 1973. Maudsley reportedly reacted violently when the man showed him photos of children he had sexually abused. Apparently, Maudsley was not the kind of guy that could be deterred by a minor complication like prison. He went on to claim the lives of three fellow inmates, two of them reported to be child molesters. Rumors circulated that he had eaten part of the brain of one of his prison victims, but officials dismissed those rumors based on autopsy reports. Later deemed to be too dangerous to be allowed among the general prison population, he was placed in a special cell with walls made of bullet-proof glass, much like the one featured in the movie Silence of the Lambs. Maudsley remains in Wakefield Prison.