Fur & Loathing

Episode by episode

Trailer. Introducing Fur & Loathing. Nicky Woolf sets out the case and why it has stayed with him.

Bonus. The Investigation Begins. Bradley Hope talks to Nicky Woolf about how the investigation started and what the team found.

1. Broken Glass. The night of the attack, told by people who were there: the smell, the evacuation, the ambulances. Nicky and Patch O'Furr go through what the first responders found, including the broken glass and red duct tape, and the testing failure that hobbled the case. Patch dismisses the idea that the gas was an accident.

2. The Stairwell. Nicky goes to Midwest FurFest 2023 and stands in the ninth-floor stairwell where the device went off. The episode explains furry culture through people at the convention, and looks at Rosemont, a village run for decades by one family, and its public safety department. Nicky traces the path the gas took from the stairwell into the hotel's atrium and argues that its scale and placement point to a deliberate attack.

3. Pawstikas. The FOIA documents arrive. They show a tip naming Robert Sojkowski on the afternoon after the attack, and the rise of a far-right "alt-furry" fringe at the time. They also reveal a second suspect the FBI kept returning to as late as 2019. The team identifies him from clues in the records and makes contact.

4. The Furry With The Gas. The team travels to Westville, Oklahoma, to meet Caleb Kinkade, the man the files call the Oklahoma suspect. He denies involvement and describes being questioned by the FBI. The team tests his account against the documents.

Bonus. Furry Takeover. Patch O'Furr of Dogpatch Press interviews Nicky Woolf about the series so far, with listener questions.

5. Magnus. The story of Robert Sojkowski, known in the fandom as Magnus Diridian, including his December 2017 arrest at the same hotel after a run-in with convention security and the police interview that followed. The episode separates what is documented from what anonymous sources allege. It ends at his front door.

6. Chimera. Nicky interviews Sojkowski, who denies setting off the device. The team then lays out what it found wrong with the investigation, with comment from Chris Combs, a retired head of an FBI weapons of mass destruction unit. The authorities answered the team's written questions with "no comment".

The people

• Nicky Woolf. Host and lead reporter. British journalist who covers internet subcultures.
• Patch O'Furr. Furry writer and editor of Dogpatch Press, who had followed the case for years and works with Nicky throughout.
• Robert Sojkowski (Magnus Diridian). A well-known and divisive figure in the fandom, named in the FBI records as a suspect. He denies involvement and has never been charged. He talks to Nicky in Episode 6.
• Caleb Kinkade. The man the FBI files call the Oklahoma suspect, questioned in 2014 and 2019. He denies involvement and has never been charged. In Episode 6, the team finds records showing officers confirmed his alibi in 2014.
• Chris Combs. Retired FBI official who led a weapons of mass destruction unit. He reviews the handling of the case in Episode 6.
• Scott Decker. Retired FBI hazardous materials specialist who explains, in Episode 1, why the testing failure mattered.
• Molly Dorsey. Historian who explains furry culture and its history.
• Shaun Rose and Angelo DeFeo. The Rosemont police officer and FBI special agent who questioned Sojkowski in 2017, heard on the interview tape in Episode 5.
• Max Johnston and Ian Enright. Goat Rodeo producers who travel and report with Nicky, heard on air.
• Lucy Woods and Arnav Binaykia. Brazen researchers who work through the FOIA files on air.

Timeline

Dates in this timeline come from the show unless a source link is given.

• 5–7 December 2014. Midwest FurFest at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Rosemont, Illinois.
• 7 December 2014, around 12:45 a.m. Reports of a strong smell on the ninth floor. The hotel is evacuated at about 1:10 a.m.; more than 40 people are treated and 19 hospitalised (Wikipedia summary of contemporary reports; CNN).
• 7 December 2014, afternoon. Police receive a tip naming Robert Sojkowski.
• December 2014. Investigators interview Sojkowski in Wisconsin and the man later identified as Caleb Kinkade in Oklahoma.
• 2015. The FBI interviews Sojkowski again.
• 2016. The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit writes a profile of the likely offender.
• December 2017. Sojkowski is arrested at the Hyatt after a dispute with convention security and questioned about the attack.
• 2019. The FBI interviews Kinkade again, around the time the statute of limitations runs out. Rosemont police destroy the 2017 interview tape in April.
• December 2023. Nicky Woolf attends Midwest FurFest.
• 29 April – 17 June 2024. Fur & Loathing is released.

What has happened since

Nothing in this section is covered by the podcast's episodes. Each item is dated and linked to its source.

• 10 July 2024: the fandom's verdict. Patch O'Furr published a wrap-up of the series at Dogpatch Press, writing that he did not expect "real justice about the attack" (Dogpatch Press).
• 4 December 2024: ten years on. Days before the tenth anniversary, with still no arrest, Bloomberg Businessweek included the series in its 2024 Jealousy List, according to Wikipedia's article on the attack. The Bloomberg list itself was not checked for this page.
• 10 January 2025: FBI file released. The FBI published a 101-page FOIA release on the case, "Midwest FurFest Convention Part 01", in its online reading room (FBI Vault; Wikimedia Commons copy). The January date is the one Wikipedia gives for the document; the FBI page does not state it.
• February–March 2025: Ambies nomination. Nicky Woolf was nominated for Best Reporting at the 2025 Ambies, whose nominees were announced in February (The Ambies; The Hollywood Reporter). Hysterical won the category on 31 March 2025 (The Ambies).
• December 2025: the convention keeps growing. Midwest FurFest drew 16,925 attendees in 2025, its largest ever (Wikipedia).
• As of November 2026: still unsolved. Nobody has been charged and the perpetrator has not been identified (Wikipedia). Searches made for this page on 12 November 2026 found no report of an arrest, charge or reopened investigation.

Questions

What happened at Midwest FurFest in 2014?

Just after midnight on 7 December 2014, someone set off a chlorine gas device in a ninth-floor stairwell of the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois, during the last night of Midwest FurFest. The hotel was evacuated and 19 people were taken to hospital.

How many people were hurt?

Nineteen people were hospitalised. More than 40 were treated or evaluated by paramedics, according to contemporary reports summarised on Wikipedia. Nobody died.

Was it an accident?

No. Police said within hours that the evidence suggested an intentional act. In the show, first responders' records describe powdered chlorine, an acid, broken glass and red duct tape found in the stairwell.

Has anyone been arrested or charged?

No. Nobody has been charged with the attack, and the person who set off the device has never been identified.

Who were the suspects?

FBI records obtained by the show point to two men investigators looked at. Robert Sojkowski, known in the fandom as Magnus Diridian, denies involvement and has never been charged. The second, called the Oklahoma suspect in the files, also denies involvement, and the show found records showing officers had confirmed his alibi in 2014. The show interviews both men.

Why was the case never solved?

The show finds a series of problems. The chemical testing on the night used a badly calibrated instrument, a police interview tape was destroyed, one man was investigated for years after officers had confirmed his alibi, and a reported acid purchase was not followed up. The FBI did not respond to the show's questions.

Why is the attack so little known?

Because the target was a furry convention, some reporters chuckled on air when they covered it, as TIME noted in its review of the series. The show asks whether the case would have been solved if the victims had not been furries. Chris Combs, a retired FBI weapons of mass destruction official, tells the show it was "a real use of a WMD".

Who hosts Fur & Loathing?

Nicky Woolf, a British journalist who reports on internet subcultures and previously hosted Finding Q, about QAnon. He reports the series with the furry writer Patch O'Furr and a team from Brazen and Goat Rodeo.

What are furries?

Furries are fans of anthropomorphic animal characters. Many create a "fursona", an animal character of their own, and some wear full costumes called fursuits. Midwest FurFest is one of the largest furry conventions in the world.

Is Midwest FurFest still held?

Yes. It still takes place in Rosemont each December. It had about 4,500 attendees in 2014 and 16,925 in 2025.

How many episodes are there, and where do I start?

There are six main episodes, released weekly from 6 May to 17 June 2024, plus a trailer and two bonus interviews. Start with Episode 1, Broken Glass. The story runs in order.

Was the podcast recognised?

Yes. Nicky Woolf was nominated for Best Reporting at the 2025 Ambies for Fur & Loathing.

About the show

Credits

Fur & Loathing is a production of Brazen, produced by Goat Rodeo. Reported and written by Nicky Woolf with Max Johnston, Ian Enright, Lucy Woods and Arnav Binaykia. For Goat Rodeo, lead producer Ian Enright; reporting, production and story editing by Max Johnston. For Project Brazen, executive producers Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, senior producer Nicholas Brennan, managing producer Lucy Woods, associate producer Arnav Binaykia. Original score by Breakmaster Cylinder, with additional music from Ian Enright, Max Johnston and Blue Dot Sessions. Series creative director Ryan Ho. Series cinematography by Emmett Brennan and Ryan DeFranco. (Credits as read at the end of Episode 6; spellings of some names are taken from the audio and need checking.)

Keep reading

• Fur & Loathing: The Unsolved Mystery of an Attack on Furries, Whale Hunting, 3 May 2024, by Charlie Barlow
• The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome, Brazen's investigation into the mysterious illness that struck U.S. diplomats and spies, starting in Cuba
• The Foundry, Brazen's magazine of reported stories about extraordinary characters and the worlds they inhabit

Last reviewed 12 November 2026.