A cheerleader woke up with uncontrollable tics. This was just the beginning of a small-town mystery.

Katie Krautwurst was a cheerleader in high school in the small town of Le Roy in New York. One day in 2011, she awoke from a nap and knew something was wrong. 

Her face started to contract into spasms as her chin jutted forward uncontrollably. 

A few weeks later, her best friend awoke to the same thing. 

Cheer captain Thera Sanchez woke up to her head jerking, her arms flailing, and she was stuttering and twitching. 

Eventually, 17 different high schoolers would become afflicted by the mysterious twitches — that's 17 in a school of just 600 students, in a small town of 7,500 people. 

The panic that confounded this tiny town — and the possible causes of the mystery illness — is the subject of a new Wondery podcast Hysterical. The podcast investigates the intriguing case of symptoms that resembled Tourette's syndrome spreading among a group of high school girls in Le Roy.

Hosted by Dan Taberski, the podcast delves deep into the Le Roy case, featuring interviews with affected individuals, their families, along with medical experts and investigators. 

The podcast is worth a listen, but before you dive in, here's everything we know about this baffling case. 

The mysterious tic epidemic in high school girls gripped the small town of Le Roy. 

Picture this: You're a typical high school girl in a quiet American town. One day, you wake up from a nap and suddenly can't control your body. Twitches, spasms, and verbal outbursts take over. 

Then, your friends start experiencing the same thing. 

This isn't the plot of a '90s sci-fi movie. It's exactly what happened in Le Roy, New York, back in 2011. 

It all kicked off with Katie Krautwurst, a cheerleader who woke up one October day with uncontrollable facial tics. 

Later, a 16-year-old YouTuber, Lori Brownell, passed out at a concert before losing consciousness again at her school’s homecoming dance. She developed more symptoms, including involuntary twitching and clapping which she documented on her YouTube channel. 

On Christmas Eve, she was diagnosed by doctors with Tourette’s Syndrome.

Within months, the mysterious condition had spread like wildfire.

By early 2012, 18 people were affected — mostly teenage girls, but also one boy and a 36-year-old woman.

Some even reported numbness in their legs, fainting spells or more serious symptoms. 

"I hate when it happens because my body is sore. Sometimes it gets me to the point where I want to cry from twitching so much," Chelsey Dumars told CBS News.

Of course, it didn't take long for the story to blow up. News crews descended on Le Roy, and the girls were plastered all over national TV — on full display for the world to see.

Teen girls were suddenly fronting morning and evening news programs. Image: MSNBC.

Enter Erin Brockovich (yes, the one Julia Roberts played in the movie). Her team rocked up to town, convinced there must be some environmental factor at play. 

Brockovich told USA Today that she suspected the mystery illness was a side effect from a train derailment that dumped cyanide and an industrial solvent in Le Roy back in 1970.

For a hot minute, it seemed like we had a real-life Erin Brockovich sequel on our hands.

Along with environmental contamination, proponents of vaccines came out of the woodwork to lay the blame there.

But here's where it gets interesting. After all the tests and investigations, none of the theories or claims about chemical spills could be substantiated. Instead, doctors came to the conclusion that it was a conversion disorder and mass psychogenic illness. In other words, mass hysteria.

This doesn't mean it was 'all in their heads' or the symptoms weren't real. The brain is a powerful thing and it can actually manifest physical symptoms when under extreme stress or anxiety. However, as the podcast points out, the girls suffering from the tics didn't flag any particularly stressful periods at the time when their illness was triggered. 

But here's a kicker: the girls who weren't in the media spotlight seemed to recover faster. 

The story was the subject of extensive media interviews with the affected teen girls popping up all over news programs in the US and gaining international attention. In the UK, the story became the subject of Channel 4 documentary, The Town That Caught Tourettes.

The media coverage largely negatively impacted the girls experiencing tics and other symptoms. According to Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, who treated many of the affected girls, the media attention appeared to worsen their condition. 

"The kids who were not in the media were getting better; the kids who were in the media were still symptomatic," the doctor told Reuters. 

"One thing we've learnt is how social media and mainstream media can worsen the symptoms in these cases."

The media frenzy complicated treatment efforts with Dr. Mechtler emphasising that treating the girls in isolation from each other and from media attention was an important part of their recovery process. 

There have been several cases of mass psychogenic illness or mass hysteria around the world that have drawn parallels with the Le Roy incident. In October 1965, several teens at a girls' school in Blackburn, England, complained of dizziness and fainting. The incident eventually affected 85 girls who passed out within two hours. 

At the Ketereh National Secondary School in Kelantan, Malaysia, schoolgirls started screaming, with some claiming to have seen "a face of pure evil." This was attributed to mass psychogenic illness, possibly influenced by the religiously conservative environment. 

And in 2023 in Musoli in Kenya, over 100 students from St. Theresa's Eregi Girls' High School were hospitalised due to rapid and involuntary arm and leg movements, often accompanied by headaches and vertigo. 

This was attributed to stress due to upcoming exams. 

It's interesting to note that most cases like this have predominantly affected adolescent girls in school settings.

For Le Roy by the following summer, most of the teens had recovered and were back to their normal lives. But the case still has psychologists and neurologists scratching their heads.

Feature image: Getty.