Project Brazen, the Peabody-nominated global journalism studio founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters and bestselling authors Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, has launched a new podcast about the unsolved gas attack at the 2014 MidWest FurFest convention in Chicago.

The six-part “Fur & Loathing,” the first episode of which releases today, investigates what happened on the final night of the convention for furry fandom — a frequently misunderstood global internet subculture centred around anthropomorphic animal characters — when poisonous levels of chlorine gas swept through the corridors of the Hyatt Regency in Rosemont, Illinois. Nineteen people were hospitalized and hundreds were evacuated, many still wearing vividly-coloured animal costumes known as fursuits. Hazmat teams found the remains of a chlorine bomb on the ninth floor, a chemical similar to the ones used in WWI.

The FBI and local police department began a short-lived investigation in the months after the attack, tracking down attendees and initial suspects,...