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E115: The Circleville Letters
1.7k Plays4 years ago
The letters began arriving making accusations about an illicit affair. Then signs showed up around town alleging even worse things. Ultimately, the Circleville Letters resulted in one mysterious accident and another narrowly-avoided murder. Who was behind it all … and why?
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcasting with Buzzsprout
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuthhounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own, whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are?
00:00:18
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends,
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and from where listeners hail. Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards.
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Speaker
Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today.
Buzzsprout Referral Incentive
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If you use our coffee and cases referral code 709-643 linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy.
00:01:17
Speaker
Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Now, it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
Nostalgia for Letter Writing
00:01:32
Speaker
When I was younger, I was obsessed with getting letters in the mail. I thought I was such an adult if my mom went to the mailbox and came back with some special treasure in it for me.
00:01:47
Speaker
It stirred up excitement in me that didn't happen with other forms of communication like phone calls. In fact, I would do whatever I could in order to receive more letters. I wrote to my favorite celebrity crushes in Teen Bop magazine, I wrote to their celebrity fan clubs, I wrote to relatives, and I wrote to pen pals.
00:02:12
Speaker
I think what held so much more power wasn't just that the act of writing letters had been done for centuries and that by writing my own letters, I was participating in something that, you know, so many had done before me, though now in my older age, that's intriguing to think about. What made the letter writing so special is that I knew, because the same was true when I wrote a letter, that every single word
00:02:41
Speaker
was carefully chosen to be the right word. When we speak on the phone, we throw out words quickly and haphazardly. It's filled with umms and awkward pauses, not so with letters. Letters show what you can do when you really take your time and whether you were willing to take the time at all. Letters often held as many questions
00:03:08
Speaker
as they did answers, and the time it took to write a response, mail it off, and then wait for a reply somehow seemed to make the answers mean more. The letters I received were a treasure to me. But in our case this week, the letters received were no treasure at all.
Introduction to the Circleville Letters Case
00:03:27
Speaker
They cultivated dread in their receivers rather than elation. These were not the kind of letters you wanted to receive.
00:03:39
Speaker
because these letters had a tone of wickedness to them. This is the case of the Circleville Letters.
00:04:11
Speaker
you
00:04:23
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the case will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:44
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, and to follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast. Because as these families know, conversation helps to keep their missing family member in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:05:11
Speaker
Before we get into the case this week, it is shout out time, Maggie. Shout out time, the best time. If we have any singers out there, you guys should totally create a tune. Yeah, we need a jingle, a shout out time jingle. So let's take a moment to share our love with our new patrons on Patreon.
00:05:39
Speaker
Okie dokie. So first we're going to give a shout out to Jackie who says quote as a former classmate of Allison's and still a friend. I'm so proud of her for this podcast. I enjoy it very much. Listen to every episode and and I'm so excited to support it as a patron. Congratulations Allison and Maggie.
00:06:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I have so many high school memories with Jackie. Like I'm telling you, we were our whole friend group. So Jackie, thank you so much for your support and obviously your friendship all this time. So our next shout out is to Nikki. Nikki says, y'all's podcast calms me before going into school to teach.
00:06:29
Speaker
Girl, we are right. Yes, right in the trenches with you all the way. So thank you so much, Nikki. And the final shout out of this week goes to Tiffany Wells. Tiffany, we really appreciate your support so much. Thank you for listening each week and for supporting us. We really do. Thank you for that. Yes.
Patreon Benefits and Offers
00:06:50
Speaker
If you would like to get immediate access to some bonus content, learn a little bit more about Maggie and me and hear your name read on our show, be sure to subscribe to our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash coffee and cases, all one word. And for a limited time, you can get what will become the $8 a month level for only $5 a month.
00:07:18
Speaker
And if you are already one of our Patreon members, but you have yet to fill in the shout out form, don't forget to do so because we want to announce your name and celebrate you. You inspire us each week to do the work that we do and you continue to push us to be better.
00:07:42
Speaker
And I guess if they didn't, maybe they didn't feel comfortable even having like their first name, they could just do an anonymous one. Oh, completely. Yeah. Come up with a pseudonym.
00:07:53
Speaker
That'll make it even better. And don't forget the other good news, Allison. We made the executive decision to go ahead and post our first full-length bonus episode on a solved case during January. So be on the lookout for that extra episode on Patreon within the next week to week and a half. But in the meantime, we hope you guys have been enjoying those many episodes.
00:08:19
Speaker
And since this week's episode is about letters, obviously the good kind, not the bad kind that this week's episode is covering, those patrons who signed up for the $12 or $15 level of Patreon should receive a card from us in the coming day. And how exciting is that? Everybody loves happy mail. I feel like all I get is junk mail and bills.
00:08:43
Speaker
I know. So this will be fun mail. Yeah, fun mail. Okay. Now, sadly, I do have to shift away from the good kind of letters and get into the bad kind, like I mentioned in the introduction.
Details of the Circleville Letters Case
00:08:56
Speaker
This intro gives me very much vibes of one house that was super creepy. Yep. The Watcher episode. That is what I was thinking about.
00:09:11
Speaker
while writing this entire episode. Yeah, so I'm kind of excited for this one. Yeah, because like this letter writing obsession must be a thing for me because the cases I've covered like that, the ones that really make my skin crawl, most of them have involved anonymous letters. Yeah, they have. The one, the Watcher episode, if you do not remember that, Slootowns, you have got to go back and listen to it because it gives me the creeps.
00:09:37
Speaker
every time. Yeah, I had that one. The magazine cut out letters in the Cindy James case. Oh, yeah, I forgot. That one was weird. That was crazy. That was another one. I think on that one, Maggie, you were like, um, can we pause so I can go upstairs close to me? Yeah. At least the letters in our case this week have a more
00:10:02
Speaker
human quality to them. Okay, so not supernatural. Yes, the haunting supernatural quality of the letters in the Watcher episode. But unlike the Watcher letters, which were super creepy, but they really did no physical damage, in the aftermath of the letters in this week's case, we have a man killed, potentially murdered,
00:10:31
Speaker
the attempted murder of someone else and many, many more lives threatened. And all of this in a town made up of only around 11,700 people. Wow. So the town at the center of our case this week is Circleville, Ohio in Pickaway County. And this town is about 28 miles south of Columbus, Ohio.
00:11:02
Speaker
obviously Columbus is a much larger city. So you may have heard of that one.
00:11:07
Speaker
This town is primarily known for three things, Maggie. The first is the pumpkin show every year. Yeah. Like I'm telling you, I think we need to start making a list of all of these towns that we need to visit. Yes. Yes. So Circleville, Ohio, this pumpkin show that it hosts every year is called the greatest free show on earth.
00:11:34
Speaker
A little play there to the circus. I know. It is held the third Wednesday through Saturday in October, and it actually brings in hundreds of thousands of visitors to this little bitty town. Sounds like hibbly days. I have already told Rodney that we need to go to this pumpkin show.
00:11:56
Speaker
because I was looking at pictures of it on the pumpkin show website and they have like huge carved pumpkins. They have like the big pumpkins that weigh like 1800 pounds. I want to go. Oh, I know. Yeah. And they have every kind of pumpkin flavored food that you can imagine. Like I think I read they sell like a hundred thousand pumpkin donuts.
00:12:25
Speaker
I want to see that 1800 pound pumpkin. And even the water tower in the town is painted like a pumpkin. So that is the first thing that Circleville, Ohio is known for. The second claim to fame for this quaint little town is a man by the name of Dwight Radcliffe.
00:12:49
Speaker
Well, you will know him after I tell you. So Radcliffe was the sheriff of Pickaway County until 2013. And you're like, okay, well, we've talked about lots of sheriffs before. But Sheriff Radcliffe was the longest serving sheriff in the United States. Wow. He was first elected as sheriff in 1964.
00:13:16
Speaker
So he served from 1965 to 2013, 48 years. Wow. Yeah. And his father was sheriff for about 30 years before him and his son was sheriff for about eight years after him. So they're a popular family in this country. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's almost a century of Sheriff Radcliffe's in Circleville, Ohio. But the final thing that Circleville is known for
00:13:46
Speaker
is not something to be celebrated. It is the blight on the town, the culture of dread that was cultivated by the legacy of the Circleville letters, a span of nearly two decades that made locals afraid to check their mailboxes out of fear of becoming the next victim. Well, I'm intrigued. Okay.
00:14:13
Speaker
Here we go. We're going to jump in. The summer of 1976 was when the first letter arrived. A local woman and school bus driver, Mary Gillespie, found an odd letter in her mailbox, one postmarked in Columbus, but with no return address. And once she opened it, she found that it was a letter with no signature.
00:14:43
Speaker
This letter took an angry tone, accusing Mary of having an affair with the local West Falls School District Superintendent, Gordon Massey. The letter warned her to stop the affair immediately. It read, quote, I know where you live. I've been observing your house and know you have children. This is no joke.
00:15:12
Speaker
please take it serious," end quote. So maybe Mr. Massey's wife?
00:15:19
Speaker
Well, and that it's possible. We'll keep going. So the letter was right. Like whoever wrote this did know something about Mary Gillespie's life. I mean, she was indeed married with children. She and her husband Ron had actually been high school sweethearts and they had decided to raise their two children in Circleville.
00:15:45
Speaker
and Superintendent Massey was also married with a son. But when Mary received this letter, she showed it to her husband, Ron, and she reassured him that the claims made in the letter were false. So she's saying, okay, well- So she's like, I've never had an affair with this man. Right. That's what she reassures her husband, Ron. She's like, there's no affair going on at all.
00:16:14
Speaker
And I'm sure that Mary and Ron were kind of hoping like this was a one and done kind of thing, right? Like this letter was just somebody playing a prank and you know that it was just something that was cruel but someone thought was funny and that would be the end of it. But lingering in the back of their minds had to be that comment made about their children.
00:16:39
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, that would make me terrified because the implication isn't that I'm being watched is that it's that my children are being watched by the author of this letter. Right. Because I feel like even in the watchers, some of the creepiest one letters were like when she's like painting and he person mentions that that's creepy on a different level. Yeah. Yep.
00:17:05
Speaker
And the next letter that Mary Gillespie received would have made them realize that they couldn't take the letters as a joke. And did you think these were like hand written letters? They are. Yeah. And I think part of what makes them creepy is like the writing, if you can imagine, it's almost like block shaped letters, like squared off in the corners and it's written in all capitals.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's really like all capital blockish letters. Yeah, they almost look like they're not handwritten. They're weird. And this is just something I noticed. The author doesn't use like periods. The author uses colons like between sentences. Which I found super bizarre. That is not easy to determine who wrote that.
00:18:05
Speaker
Right. Except that it's not. Of course. That's actually what we're going to talk about is who could be behind the Circleville letters. But the second letter that Mary received, like I said, scrawled in that same like blockish capital letter font stated, quote,
00:18:28
Speaker
It's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done. I shall come out there and put a bullet in that little girl's head. Okay. Yeah. Like this is not like we're, it's not like slowing into like, you know, anger rising. This goes like full force all the way to like terroristic threatening. Yeah.
00:18:56
Speaker
So Mary and Ron are like, all right, we can't just sit on this and sit idly by. We have got to get something done. So they take the letters to Sheriff Radcliffe. He was the sheriff, obviously. The longest standing sheriff. Yes, the longest standing US sheriff. He was sheriff all throughout the Circleville letters. And remember, that spanned decades.
00:19:19
Speaker
So they take these letters to Sheriff Radcliffe, but the problem is nobody has any idea who might be behind the letters because they were postmarked from a large town 30 minutes away. So it could have literally been anyone. Right. So it may not even necessarily be someone from that town. Right. It could just be somebody who knows these people somehow.
00:19:45
Speaker
But when Mary failed to admit or quote unquote end a relationship that she swore wasn't even going on, the writer of this letter then began to address letters also to Mary's husband, Ron.
Threatening Letters and Family Impact
00:20:04
Speaker
And so it's not just Mary receiving letters now. Her husband Ron is receiving letters from the Circleville writer also.
00:20:13
Speaker
Do we find out if the accusations of the affair are true? Does that play any part in this? I'm going to address that. Okay. But Maggie, Ron's letters were just as threatening. Here were some of the letters that Ron received.
00:20:34
Speaker
One said, quote, Mr. Gillespie, your wife is seeing Gordon Massey. You should catch them together and kill them both. He doesn't deserve to live. End quote. That was what one of the letters said. Wow. Yeah. So again, like.
00:20:57
Speaker
And props for Ron for like, you know, believing Mary because that had to have been hard. And I mean, obviously you want to trust your spouse, but that has to be hard in the face of like, you're constantly receiving letters that are swearing up and down that your spouse is having an affair with somebody else.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it would be easy to dismiss the first one. Like, somebody's just like playing a cruel joke. Somebody's mad at Mary, but then you keep receiving more and more, then I would kind of be like, okay, what's really going on? I know. And I mean, obviously this individual is deranged in some way because they're threatening their children
00:21:44
Speaker
and things like that. Another letter that Ron received said, quote, we know what kind of car you drive. We know where your kids go to school, end quote. I would not, my kids would not be allowed to leave the house. We'd be going nowhere. Yep. I know. We talk about like those kid leashes. This case too. Yep. And yeah, I'd start like homeschooling. I'd figure out how to teach math.
00:22:11
Speaker
You know, I mean, like, little sleuth town, you're just going to have to do the best you can. You'll have a college education in English, but you'll have a third grade education in math. That's right. We do the best with what we've got. Yeah. So, but I do think that letter is weird because it uses a pronoun we. Oh, I, which I find a little bizarre.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yeah, but sometimes like maybe I'm weird though, but like sometimes when I'm teaching like I'll say like We are doing which I guess I'm addressing them though, right? I'm including me and they're we so maybe I'm not weird. Maybe this is somebody who's obsessed with like, I don't know royalty and they're using the royal we
00:23:09
Speaker
You know how kings, like when I teach Hamlet, Claudius, he's like, think of us as a father and that you use like a royal, like plural. I don't know. Maybe they're just obsessed with history, but then you think they would write better and not use colons for periods, but whatever. Or as it makes us snake eyes. Snake eyes.
00:23:37
Speaker
It's always like, yeah, I put the snake eyes right there, right? And I'm like, it's a colon, Anthony. It's a colon. Get it correct. Oh, goodness. Yet another letter that Ron received said, quote, Gillespie, you have had two weeks and done nothing.
00:23:57
Speaker
make her admit the truth and inform the school board. If not, I will broadcast it on CBs, posters, signs, and billboards until the truth comes out." End quote. Well, maybe we need to let him, then maybe we'll know who this person is. Yeah, because now it's not just letters. They're threatening to put up signs and posters all over the place.
00:24:25
Speaker
Which in a little town could be very damaging to a reputation. Yes. Yes. Law enforcement did attempt to help the Gillespie's by doing everything that they could think of. Like they had officers watch outside of the Gillespie home to see if anyone was stalking them or even like driving by multiple times. Law enforcement tapped the phone lines in case anyone tried to call.
00:24:49
Speaker
They even attempted to get the US Postal Service to help them figure out like where the letters were being mailed from. But the letters never slowed down during all of that. And yet police were no closer to figuring out who was sending them. And the letters, always in that same handwriting, the block letters, all capital, kept coming and the tone
00:25:17
Speaker
was more urgent as they continued their threats. There was no DNA on these letters, no fingerprints, no saliva from looking. Okay. Nope. And just like in the watcher episode that we covered, this small family, as you can imagine, was in terror every day doing that normally mindless task of checking the mailbox.
00:25:43
Speaker
What's in there today? What new threat is it going to make? Further letters read, quote, you have been watched. Failure to comply and you shall suffer. No one can help. No one can protect you. Obey. Obey. End quote. These are like
00:26:09
Speaker
Like, yeah, like you said, they're different than the watcher letters. These are like, a little more threatening, like the watcher letter sounded more like supernatural. These are like, you're gonna die. Yeah, like in the watcher, at least it was like the house was doing something, you know, like, yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker
that the walls can hear you or whatever. This one is like if you don't do what I'm telling you to do, nobody can protect you and you all deserve to die. I mean, that is horrifying. Another letter came and I'll get to how many letters there were here in a second. Another letter came addressed to Mary.
00:26:51
Speaker
and it threatened, quote, lady, this is your last chance to report him. I know you are a pig and will prove it and shame you out of Ohio. A pig sneaks around and meets other women's husbands behind their backs, causes families and homes and marriages to suffer, end quote. I feel like that one's starting out. Listen, lady. Yeah.
00:27:21
Speaker
Like, that's what I heard in my mind. I know. I do think that even the way these are addressed are weird, like Gillespie to the to Ron or lady lady to Mary. And that when the way it talks about like the woman as the pig, like that makes it seem like whoever this is, it is like
00:27:44
Speaker
you suggested maybe the superintendent's wife. And that does to me sound a little bit like a scorned wife, but I don't know. We'll talk about her.
00:28:00
Speaker
But then the writer began sending letters as promised to newspapers and elected officials, Maggie, in Circleville, because wow, yeah, Mary, obviously, she's like, there's no affair going on. Like, how am I supposed to end something that's not even happening? And she keeps getting these letters like,
00:28:23
Speaker
basically threatening her and her children if she doesn't end it. So up until this point had like they'd like the public know there were letters or was it when the person began sending them to newspapers that it kind of comes out.
00:28:40
Speaker
I think it's, yeah, mostly when the letter writer starts sending it to these other places. Oh, and I can just see the headlines. Oh, yeah. The serious letter received accuses superintendent of scandalous affairs. Yeah. Yeah. So this, I mean, the writer, at least they, whoever the writer is kept their promise. They said, if you don't end it, we're going to send letters. We're going to broadcast on CB. We're going to like put up
00:29:08
Speaker
signs and all of that stuff. And they sent letters to the newspapers to elected officials in Circleville, all saying that Superintendent Massey was having an affair and needed to be fired. In total, Maggie, at this point, hundreds of letters had been made. Wow. So yeah, this was obviously someone with a deep seated anger and hatred.
00:29:34
Speaker
and somebody who obviously had a lot of time on his or her hands. And somebody who's making lots of trips to the post office. I feel like a postmaster should know if somebody's coming in and buying and mailing hundreds of stamps and hundreds of letters.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah. To be like, oh, oh yes. Um, Billy was in 10 times yesterday and five times the day before that. Yeah. You're right. Like good point, but I guess I can't go around to every post office and mailbox in Columbus to see where it's coming from.
00:30:10
Speaker
And the Gillespie's, and this was a good question that you asked about how many people knew, they had only told a couple of people about the content of the letters. And so the town, obviously, as the letters were sent to newspapers and places like that became aware of the letters, as well as the accusations that were being made. And of course, this is a small town, so rumors spread.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I want you to think about this, if this is a lie, and we'll talk about the affair here in just a second, whether I think it's true or not, but if this is a lie, if there is no affair going on, again, think about how awkward all of this is for Mary, for her husband, Ron, for their children, one of whom was 12, which is the age of my little sleuthound, who's like embarrassed by everything.
00:31:05
Speaker
for Superintendent Massey, for his wife, for his son? Well, I feel like either way, if it's true or if it's false, that's embarrassing and it's awkward that now everybody in your small town knows. But if it is a lie, I feel even more sorry for the families because especially that little kid, 12-year-olds can be mean. And you know that kids at school are saying mean stuff to that little kid.
00:31:31
Speaker
Oh, I guarantee it. Plus you got all the whispers behind your back. Yeah. Yup. Yup. And Ron and Mary at this point decided to ask some family members for advice. So they went to Ron's sister, Karen Sue, and her husband, Paul Freshour. So they went to family, right? Because well, Paul had actually, and this is, so this is Ron's brother-in-law, right?
00:31:59
Speaker
had served as a prison guard at the Ohio State Penitentiary, but he'd actually taken a job at the local Anheuser-Busch plant. He was a manager there after an incident in August of 1968 when inmates had taken over the Penitentiary and he was held hostage for over 30 hours.
00:32:20
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. I'd begin another job too. Yeah. Yeah, I would too. But like with his experience with like working in the criminal justice system, plus this is family, right? And so these are things that like you don't want to go out and just tell a random stranger what these accusations and letters are saying, you know? Right. Yeah. I think Ron and Mary were hoping for some or just any guidance in what to do.
00:32:47
Speaker
And in that conversation, Mary indicated that she thought she might know who could be capable of sending the letters. She told her sister-in-law Karen Sue and Karen's husband, Paul, about another bus driver, a male bus driver who had made a pass at Mary.
00:33:08
Speaker
And she had like rebuffed those advances, right? So like, could this male bus driver have felt rejected and then decided to terrorize Mary and her family? That's what she's thinking because she's like, this is the only person I can think of who might be angry with me. So the four, Mary and her husband, Ron,
00:33:31
Speaker
Ron's sister Karen Sue and Karen Sue's husband Paul, they decided that they needed to come up with a plan. And their plan was for Paul to write a letter to that bus driver that indicated that Ron and Mary knew it was him. They knew what he was up to sending the letters and demanded for the bus driver to stop writing letters.
00:33:56
Speaker
Why would they have to do it in a letter though? Why wouldn't they just go up to this guy and be like, we know what you. That I don't know, unless they were like, we want him to know what it feels like, you know, I have no idea why they decided to do a letter instead of like confronting him in person or calling him. But that was what they decided. And for a while, Maggie, the letters did stop. But then signs.
00:34:26
Speaker
started popping up around town. Signs as in like Crystal Rogers signs, those type of signs, like in people's yards? Yes. So according to a CBS News article by Erin Moriarty from August 25, 2021,
00:34:45
Speaker
In an interview with Mary Mayhew of the Whatever Remains podcast, Ron, Mary's husband, now also found himself, in addition to getting those horrifying letters, found himself having to drive around town nearly every morning
00:35:03
Speaker
picking up signs off of fence posts out of people's yards, off of like sides of buildings that had been posted with continued rumors, not only about his wife, but now also about his children. Wow. So he's like driving around town trying to take them down so that it like his kid, you know, isn't on a bus riding to school and looks over and sees a sign making horrible
00:35:32
Speaker
accusations about her or her mom. Wow. Mm hmm. There were even when I say horrifying accusations about her, there were even signs alleging that Superintendent Massey had also been romantically intimate with Ronna Mary's 12 year old daughter. Oh, my. All of these signs like talking about how this 12 year old little girl and the superintendent had
00:36:02
Speaker
had sex and all of this stuff. So now you know why this dad on is like, I have got to take down every single one of these signs. Wow. Mm hmm. Yep. Because he was like, I cannot have my daughter seeing these. So I think I would move. Yeah. And when I say like, whoever was doing this was deranged. I think you see why now because it's like adult or child. This letter writer has no sympathy at all.
00:36:33
Speaker
for any actual situation. I can't believe the signs about the 12-year-old. Like, I mean, all of it's disgusting, but the signs about the 12-year-old are crazy. Yep. Yep. And if you can believe it, in August 1977, things escalated again. Oh, okay.
Ron's Mysterious Death
00:36:54
Speaker
Mary and her sister-in-law were driving to Florida while Ron and the kids remained home in Circleville.
00:37:01
Speaker
and the home phone rang and Ron answered. And whoever was on the other end, we don't know who it was, prompted Ron into action.
00:37:12
Speaker
When he hung up the phone, he reportedly stated that whoever was on the other end, he had recognized the voice and he knew who was writing the letters and he was going to quote, take care of the problem. End quote. Did he call, like, did he call the police and say like, Hey, I know it's George, whatever. I'm on my way to his house. Okay. No, he never told anybody who he at in that moment knew that it was.
00:37:43
Speaker
Instead, he grabbed his gun, which was a .22 caliber revolver, and rushed out to his truck. So obviously, when he said, take care of the problem, he's taking a gun. He's on it. Yeah. Yeah. He's taking care of the problem. Right. But where he was headed, Maggie, we will never know because
00:38:04
Speaker
Ron had been traveling at a high speed, obviously going after whomever this was, lost control of his truck and crashed into a tree en route to his end destination. And he died in that accident.
00:38:24
Speaker
Wow. So potentially the truth could have died with him. Right. And this is the death that I said where someone was killed that could have been an accident, but it could be murder. Because when the accident was investigated, the sheriff originally originally ruled that his death was foul play because of the gun, which I'll get to in a second. However,
00:38:53
Speaker
Since the medical examiner stated that Ron's blood alcohol level was 0.16, which is twice the legal limit, the coroner ruled the death an accident and the sheriff later changed his initial ruling to accident. So yeah, he's traveling at a high rate of speed, right? Loses control of his truck, crashes into a tree. Like that could have happened, freak accident to anybody. Then you add to that.
00:39:23
Speaker
Go ahead. Oh, but then you add to that the blood alcohol level so high. And I think the sheriff kind of felt like he was forced to say this is an accident. Well, it made the sheriff initially say that it was foul play, though, because like you said, anybody traveling at high speed could lose track of like control their truck and crash into a tree. Exactly. So despite the determination of the crash as an accident, many people, like Ron's brother in law, Paul Freshour,
00:39:53
Speaker
refused to believe that his death was anything but murder. And here's why they believed that, okay? So first of all, the letters. Remember the letters said something like, if Ron didn't do anything to end the relationship, then he would die and now he's dead. Yeah, but they also said the little girl would die. True. In the scene of this car accident,
00:40:20
Speaker
did seem suspicious to those who knew Ron because everyone who knew Ron noted that he rarely if ever drank. And here he was said to have had that much alcohol in his system. I mean that would be like if somebody said that I died in a car accident and my blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. So like something that's not going to happen. Yeah. You'd be like, uh, I think you've got the wrong person. I don't think we're talking about the same person. That doesn't sound right. Secondly, under Ron's body was that 22 caliber revolver. And according to most every report I read, it said, and I'll get to a little bit of a problem with this here in a second, said that the gun had been fired once.
00:41:17
Speaker
but the question remains at what or at whom? But then... So like if this is just an accident, the gun wouldn't have been fired. Right. So then are we suggesting that like this is a staged accident or it's an accident as a result of him maybe firing out his window at someone?
00:41:43
Speaker
I think those who believe that there's foul play think it could be either way. How would you stage a high speed accident? Yeah, I don't know. And then not leave any trace behind. Right. Okay, maybe we'll get there. I will take a moment to say my problem with that 22 caliber revolver having been fired once, because
00:42:08
Speaker
One of the news reports that I read stated that even though a shot was fired, no shell casings were found, which obviously would seem fishy, right? Like as if somebody had picked it up. But that claim that a shot had been fired from the revolver, but no shell casings were found is actually an impossible claim because when you have a revolver, which is like where you can see
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah, like the round thing. When you have a revolver and that revolver is fired, the empty shell casing stay in the gun. So if somebody took the shell casing out, like if there were truly no shell casings found, then there would have been no indication that the gun had been fired.
00:42:57
Speaker
Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, because there could have just not been a bullet in that. Right. So since the oddity of the gun was mentioned in all these news articles that it had been fired once, I can only assume that the mistake was in that one article that said no shell casings were found. Because I'm just going to assume that if they knew the gun had been fired, then there was an empty shell casing in the gun.
00:43:23
Speaker
But it could have been fired at another time. Yes. And that is my problem with it because I don't think unless Ron had gun like gunpowder residue on his hand. Right. Then I don't think there's any way of us knowing when that shot was fired. And I didn't read anything indicating that he had gunpowder residue on his hands.
00:43:51
Speaker
Hmm, so I'm not sure a lot of people see the gun there and they're like, oh there was a you know a shot fired So obviously there's foul play, but it could have been fired at another time Right and this was just an accident. Yeah, exactly But it's what happened after Ron's death that shocked nearly everyone and
00:44:17
Speaker
And this is why I waited to respond to your question earlier, because despite having denied the rumors of an affair this whole time, Mary Gillespie and Gordon Massey began seeing one another after Ron's death, even though they both swore that they didn't even start their relationship until after Ron had passed and they continued to maintain that nothing had been going on before. Was Gordon married?
00:44:48
Speaker
He was. He's married, right? Yeah. And I never read anything about their divorce or anything. I mean, obviously, Mary is now a widow. Right. But I just... I just feel like that's just so weird, because, like, I think if somebody was accusing me of having an affair and, like, something happened to Anthony, like, I would not start dating that person. No! That'd be the last person that I would turn to. Yeah, literally the last person.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I just, that's why when you were asking, like, if I thought that there was really something going on, like, obviously I have no proof either way, but my gut is telling me that there was. Right, this is too coincidental. Yeah.
The Booby-Trapped Sign Discovery
00:45:33
Speaker
And when Mary and Massey actually did publicly begin this relationship, the physical threats turned from Mary to her daughter even more. Like those threats, like it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done. How old was Massey's kid?
00:45:54
Speaker
I didn't read that. The idea that the letters could have been from Massey's son, it is a theory because Massey's son, I did read his name, started with a W and there were like a couple of the letters that were signed with a W. So like there is that theory, but I just, I don't know.
00:46:25
Speaker
Okay, it could be though. It could be. So at this point, obviously Mary wasn't the only recipient other than Mary had just been in her family though. But after Ron's crash was ruled an accident,
00:46:43
Speaker
other residents of Circleville received letters, like other random people in the small town received letters, but Mary and Massey weren't the focus of these letters. Instead, these letters from the Circleville writer were arguing that Sheriff Radcliffe was involved in a cover-up.
00:47:05
Speaker
and that Mary and Massey were like somehow in cahoots with the sheriff responsible for Ron's death. So that's how we're saying that like the accident was covering up all that it was staged basically. Right. Yes. A lot of a lot of webs are being weaved to kind of justify this that death.
00:47:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm and wait till you hear this this next part So the danger rose another level Maggie on February 7th 1983 we are now six and a half years after Mary got that first letter out of the mailbox I Mean, I wonder if this point if she's just like me. It's another letter me see
00:47:59
Speaker
I know, or is it kind of like Cindy James, where you live in terror every day? It was 3.30pm and Mary was driving to pick up children, so her bus was empty. And she was just about to make the left-hand turn onto Five Points Pike when she saw a telltale sign on a nearby fence.
00:48:23
Speaker
This sign again about her family was making obscene claims about Superintendent Massey raping her then 13 year old daughter. So Mary pulls the bus over angrily so she can go take down this sign. Right.
00:48:42
Speaker
When she attempts to tear the sign off of the fence though, she noticed that something was attached to it. Oh no, it's going to be a bomb. It's going to be a bomb. Well, it's a booby trap. It's a bomb. It is a booby trap. She sees twine and she sees that the twine leads to a box.
00:49:03
Speaker
walk away. Yes. Well, instead of just walking away, she takes the whole contraption with her. Like she takes the sign and she takes it down carefully so she can also take the twine and the box with her. And when she has time to look into the box, Maggie, she is shocked because tied to the twine is a gun.
00:49:28
Speaker
This was a homemade booby trap and had it worked. It would have fired. Yes. So had it worked perfectly and properly when Mary was going to like angrily jerk the sign from the fence, it would have caused the gun to fire, killing her. But luckily for Mary, that didn't happen.
00:49:51
Speaker
Oh my God, okay, first of all, that's a lot of planning by this person and they have to be kind of smart to figure out a booby trap that involved. Secondly, they obviously are stalking her because they know her bus route. Yep, they sure do. Which means they're probably not from Columbus. Right. Yes. Unless they got a lot of time to drive back and forth. Yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
When Mary took the booby trap to police, they at least had a clue though, the gun and the trap. Because guns have serial numbers. Unless you buy them illegally. True. If you buy them legally, serial numbers are also registered to the owner's name.
00:50:38
Speaker
Now, this particular gun in the booby trap, someone had attempted to like file off the serial number off of the gun, but investigators were able to lift the number anyway. And they traced it back to one of Paul Freshour's coworkers. And remember, Paul- Her brother-in-law. Brother-in-law, yeah. Paul is married to Ron's sister, Karen Sue.
00:51:04
Speaker
So it's traced back to one of Paul's coworkers at Anheuser-Busch, but that coworker, when he was interviewed, stated that he had sold that gun to Paul Freshour. So Paul could potentially be writing all these letters?
00:51:22
Speaker
So yeah, that is the implication. Yeah. So this information was obviously shocking because Paul involved Mary and Ron, right? Like he's the one who wrote the letter to the other bus driver. He was pushing law enforcement to see Ron's crash as a murder rather than an accident. Like, why would you do that? You know, if you were behind all of this.
00:51:47
Speaker
And now they were hearing he could have been behind the whole thing. Like it just didn't make much sense to people who knew Paul. And Maggie, when Paul was questioned by law enforcement, he was extremely cooperative. Like he took part in every interview. He answered every question. He allowed them to conduct a polygraph test, which he failed. But I know. And he even allowed them to search his house.
00:52:16
Speaker
And when law enforcement showed him the gun from the booby trap, Paul readily admitted that it was indeed his gun. Like, he's not like, I've never seen that gun before. You know, like somebody took it. He did say that. Yes. And we'll get to a little bit more about that here in a second. But he did say,
00:52:38
Speaker
that he says yes that is my gun but I either lost it or somebody took it and I haven't seen it for the last few weeks. Which honestly like well I just said like the person that made this booby trap would have to be really smart but you'd have to be really stupid to put your own gun in a booby trap. That's what I'm saying like who would be dumb enough to be like
00:53:01
Speaker
I'm gonna take my own gun and put it in a booby trap. They'll never find me. Unless he thought he successfully filed the number off. I mean maybe. I just think that would be a pretty dumb thing. Yeah. To use a gun that's obviously gonna come straight back to you. Like you're already killing somebody. Just go ahead and spend the money to get another gun. Like an illegal one. Yeah. Yeah. Buy it off the black market. Yeah. I don't know how you do that but. I don't either. There you go. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
But there were two other elements, Maggie, that looked bad for Paul. When police spoke with Karen Sue, remember Karen Sue, Ron's sister, his wife, she and Paul were actually in the middle of a bitter divorce battle.
00:53:48
Speaker
also in this year. And so when police interviewed Karen Sue, Karen Sue told police that Paul used to love Mary, but especially after Ron passed away and Mary started seeing Gordon Massey, the superintendent, that Paul hated Mary.
00:54:07
Speaker
Okay, but like we said, that's kind of weird that she would start dating Gordon Massey. Right. I agree. But Karen Sue then told police that Paul had been the one behind the Circleville letters all along. She said that she knew this because she had found letters hidden throughout their home and had even seen one letter torn up and thrown in a toilet.
00:54:35
Speaker
Well, don't tell me I'm in a crime because I'm telling on you and had this been my husband, he'd have been told on. I would have called the police. So here's Karen Sue. So this gun is linked back to Paul. Now they're interviewing his soon to be ex wife and she's like, Oh yeah, he's behind all the Circleville letters too.
00:54:59
Speaker
And the second element that made Paul look guilty stemmed from that accusation by Karen Su, that he was behind those letters. So the sheriff's office calls Paul in to give a handwriting sample. And after that sample, after the gun being in his name, the accusations made by his ex-wife and the failed polygraph test,
00:55:26
Speaker
Paul Freshour was arrested for Mary's attempted murder. Have we seen his handwriting sample? I'll talk about it here in a second, but there are not any images that I've seen of it, but there's a problem with it that I'll get to.
00:55:47
Speaker
So the trial for Paul began on October 24th, 1983, and the jurors heard about the gun belonging to Paul. Like we said, they heard Mary's testimony about the letters and like the horror she felt every single day about the signs up around town. They heard about the booby trap, you know, like all of these things that basically made her life a living hell.
00:56:13
Speaker
They heard about the box that had held the gun, which was actually a box from Anheuser-Busch, which is where Paul worked. They heard Karen Sue's testimony about the letters that she supposedly found in their home. And they were told that Paul had taken off of work the day that the booby trap was found.
Trial of Paul Freshour and Evidence
00:56:38
Speaker
So none of that looks very good. But I just wonder, like,
00:56:43
Speaker
did they look into their bank statements because I feel like it would be expensive one to buy hundreds of stamps to to fund all of the signs that are put around town like did we look into any of that I wonder I see there we go with we like I wasn't a part of that but I refer to it as we oh that's true so maybe the we that maybe the we is perfectly normal or I'm just weird
00:57:10
Speaker
Or Maggie's just weird. With all of this testimony, the jury found Paul Freshour guilty and the judge sentenced him to seven to 25 years in prison. But here's the thing, Maggie, and it is that all of the quote unquote evidence against Paul was circumstantial.
00:57:33
Speaker
So it was his gun, right? He readily admitted that it was. But his fingerprints were nowhere on the gun, nowhere on the box, or the sign. And remember, he stated that the gun had either been lost or stolen. Right. So there's that. So there's no way to prove, even though that was his gun, that he did it. Maybe Karen Su is so mad at Paul.
00:58:02
Speaker
that she's trying to frame Paul. Well, that's another theory that we're going to talk about. Oh, so good job, Maggie. So Karen Sue said that Paul hated Mary. But again, there's no proof of that. Right? She alleged that Paul wrote the letters and that she had found some hidden and like others torn up. But did she keep those letters as evidence?
00:58:28
Speaker
even though they were in the middle of a contentious divorce, nope. And like, if you were in the middle of a divorce and you found these letters, you're gonna keep them to use as leverage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd be like, look what I found. Yeah. Yeah. You think you're taking the house? What about this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So again, that claim that he wrote them is just that. I mean, it's just hearsay.
00:58:58
Speaker
Right, there's no proof.
00:59:01
Speaker
that he wrote any of these letters. And even in the trial itself, Mary testified about finding the booby trap, and she also talked about her history with the letters. And Paul's defense lawyers actually argued, like, there's no connection between the booby trap and the letters, right? Like, we have no proof that the two were even linked, right? And so his lawyers were like, the letters shouldn't even be allowed as evidence, because what does that have to do with the booby trap, which is the gun that's linked to Paul?
00:59:31
Speaker
That's very true because they could be two completely separate things. But the judge overruled and allowed 39 of the letters into the courtroom as evidence. And it was that choice that ended up having disastrous consequences for Paul since his handwriting matched the letters. Even a handwriting expert for the defense, so for him, agreed that the samples matched.
01:00:00
Speaker
But maybe like I feel like really blocky style letters would be very easy to copy. Yes. And remember I said I was going to bring this up. There's a problem with the handwriting comparison. And here's what it is. When Paul was asked to provide a sample, it's not like they just gave him like a paragraph of typed text to write.
01:00:30
Speaker
Like they didn't just give him a set of sentences and say, okay, write this on a piece of paper and then compare what he wrote to the handwriting and the letters. Instead, he was given an actual letter from the Circleville writer and told to try to emulate the writing to the best of his ability.
01:00:51
Speaker
OK. So then is it even really like a true sample of his writing? No. That would be like if someone gave me something you wrote and said try to write it here. Try to write just like this. Then it wouldn't be my handwriting. It would be me trying to write like you. Exactly.
01:01:10
Speaker
And Paul actually told Unsolved Mysteries, because they did a segment on the crime years later, that Sheriff Radcliffe, quote, this is what Paul said, would give me an actual letter and asked me maybe to do the envelope part just as near as I could to the envelope. And then on some, he would take the actual letter out
01:01:31
Speaker
and have me to do them as near as I could to the letters. And I did them because I knew I wasn't responsible for the letters." So of course the writing was going to look like the mailed letters. Right, because you're told to make it look like that. And yet that was the writing sample used in his trial to prove that he did it. I don't think that I think Paul did it.
01:02:00
Speaker
I'm iffy on it. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I'm iffy on it. So here are some other things to consider. So Paul had taken off work the day the booby trap was found, but that was because he was having work done on his house and he had to be there for it. And you and I know what that is like. Like, if they're like, we will be there between 10 and two, you know, and you're like waiting and waiting.
01:02:27
Speaker
And then they roll up at 230. Yeah. Yeah. So again, that doesn't necessarily make him seem guilty to me. And you know, the same way you were like, how dumb would he, would he have been? Had he used his own gun for this booby trap? How dumb would he have been? Had he used a box from his own place of employment in addition to his own gun? Right. Like, yeah.
01:02:56
Speaker
again that that would be like if we used like a box of the box from the copier paper right or something even worse something that said like the name of our high school on it yeah like no so i'm just i'm not convinced but now that paul fresh hour was in jail everyone assumed that justice had been served the
Letters Continue and Conspiracy Theories
01:03:19
Speaker
culprit was caught
01:03:21
Speaker
Or so they thought, Maggie, until letters began arriving again. And not just a couple- So did we let Paul out? No. We'll get to that. Not just a couple of letters after Paul is in jail. Hundreds more.
01:03:42
Speaker
Sheriff Radcliffe was convinced that Paul Freshour was still the right culprit and that he had perhaps like maybe just had somebody else send the letters while he was in jail. Or that he had figured out a way to send them from prison.
01:04:00
Speaker
How's that possible? Don't they look through their mail? And that's what I was going to say. The prison warden, on the contrary, said that there was no way that it could have been Paul because he says most of the time Paul doesn't have access to pens and paper. And he was actually in solitary confinement during some of the times when letters were supposedly sent.
01:04:25
Speaker
So how did he do that? The letters are still being sent from Columbus, which is not where Paul is in prison. Paul had been strip searched when he came in. And even when he was allowed pen and paper to write, and so he did have access, all of the incoming and outgoing mail was inspected. So the warden says, Paul Freshour sending those letters while in prison was impossible. Yeah.
01:04:56
Speaker
And add to those facts the knowledge that Paul himself received his own anonymous letter. He wrote it and mailed it to himself. Yeah, exactly. That's what people who think it's him believe. But he received his own anonymous letter. And now that makes this mystery even more complex. So when Paul had just been denied early release,
01:05:24
Speaker
He received a letter that claimed, quote, now when are you going to believe you aren't getting out of there? I told you two years ago, when we set them up, they stay set up. Don't you listen at all? End quote. Ooh. Yeah. So basically, the we again. Yeah. And we set you up. Yeah.
01:05:54
Speaker
And the letter writer even targeted other people involved in the trial, Maggie. And here's where it gets kind of a little bit supernatural, because you're like, how could one person know all of these details about all of these people, right? So the letter writer kind of focused in on the Gillespie family, then made accusations about the sheriff. But during the trial, the letter writer actually targeted other people, like the prosecuting attorney.
01:06:24
Speaker
who the writer accused of killing a pregnant woman. And that, yeah, that accusation was, well, I say partly true because the prosecutor did have an affair with a woman who was later found dead. And he was the father of that woman's unborn child.
01:06:44
Speaker
OK, so they know very intimate details about several people's lives. Yeah. The letter writer wrote letters to the coroner accusing him of pedophilia. And in 1993, the coroner was charged with 12 counts of gross immorality, sex crimes, corruption of a minor and indecent exposure, among other charges. But yeah, you're like, how could one person
01:07:14
Speaker
have known all of this information. So maybe it is a we, maybe it's multiple people. Maybe. And even in December of 1993, when Unsolved Mysteries decided to come to Circleville to cover the story on their show, they hadn't even begun filming it yet. But even the Unsolved Mysteries show received an infamous Circleville letter. Wow. It said, quote,
01:07:42
Speaker
Forget Circleville, Ohio. If you come to Ohio, you else sicko will pay." End quote. And it was signed the Circleville writer. That's weird. Mm-hmm. They obviously did come to Circleville, Ohio.
01:07:59
Speaker
And the letters did finally stop in 1994 after Paul was released from prison. But he continued to argue that he had nothing to do with the letters or with any harm aimed at Mary. And he also continued to be cooperative, even showing willingness to be interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries.
01:08:27
Speaker
So if not Paul, and we will talk about him obviously as a theory, then who might have written the letters? So let's go through a few of those theories and then I want to get your thoughts Maggie. Okay. Are you ready? Ready. Okay. Theory one would be the original suspect, the school bus driver that Mary had rejected. Now there's not a whole lot we know about him.
01:08:55
Speaker
or that I can say, other than the fact that obviously Mary suspected him of being behind it despite having zero evidence to support that claim. But there's some part of her that was like, if it's somebody, it's this guy. This individual did rape an 11-year-old girl in 1999
01:09:21
Speaker
and committed suicide while on the run from police for that crime. Okay, so obviously of like violent criminal behavior. Mm hmm. That's really all we know. Yeah, that's all we know. It's hard to say anything about that one. And I feel like with that one, I feel like a lot of the anger would have been targeted toward Mary. And I feel like in the letters, just as much anger as targeting the superintendent.
01:09:52
Speaker
Right, yeah, I agree. Unless there's some jealousy there. Right, because then we would be saying that the affair was happening and he's jealous of the affair, which maybe he would know because if he's a school employee. Yeah, yeah. So that's theory one.
Theories on the Circleville Letter Writer
01:10:10
Speaker
Theory two would be Mary Gillespie herself. Okay, I thought this as well for a second. Okay.
01:10:17
Speaker
So with this theory, many people believe that Mary and Massey were having an affair all along. And I have to admit, my gut kind of agrees with that. Because it doesn't look good, at least, that the two got together right after Ron died, especially with the ongoing rumors and the questions surrounding Ron's death itself. But here's why some people believe it's Mary.
01:10:45
Speaker
Like, could she have staged the whole thing? Like, maybe to try to get Ron to leave her? Right? If she's having this affair? Right, because one...
01:11:01
Speaker
Then I feel like it would look better on her, that Ron left. Then she waits a little while. Then she starts dating the superintendent and it's not so scandalous. Two, if you're angrily pulling your bus over, you're not gonna notice the twine. I feel like that'd be such a small detail. I don't think you would notice it. Yeah, and that's one of the big reasons why some people wonder if it was Mary. And she would have had access to steal that gun from Paul.
01:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Cause that's her brother-in-law. Right. Cause yeah. So they're over there. So yeah, she wouldn't have likely discovered the booby trap without it actually harming her. Right. But then if we believe this is true, then we also have to be willing to believe that she would let someone else like Paul take the fall.
01:12:00
Speaker
which takes a pretty messed up person, I feel like. And she had to have been willing to post obscene things about her own daughter for other people to see around town when the signs were posted. That's true. I kind of forgot about the daughter thing, but I do feel like if it was her and she did let Paul take the fall for her, then she would probably also not care to write
01:12:27
Speaker
obscene things about her daughter. Right. I just feel like that. I don't know how many moms would be willing to do that. Right. I'll add in the theory about Massey's son since you brought it up. Obviously, like I said, there were some letters that were signed with a W and Massey's son's name started with a W. So there are some people who believe that he could have been behind it.
01:12:56
Speaker
And maybe the we know all of that stuff could have been referring to like him and his mom. And maybe that's why there's anger at Mary and calling her a pig for ruining marriages and things like that. But I don't get, again, like the setting up of Paul. Right. Yeah, true. Like that seems like a whole
01:13:25
Speaker
side for a little kid to do. Right. Theory three. Let me begin by asking a question. Who would have the most to gain from the accusations leveled at Paul that would get him out of the picture? I mean, Karen Sue and I brought that up. She sounds very likely to be behind this in my opinion. Yes. So I will make her a theory four.
01:13:55
Speaker
Yes, Karen Sue, because during the divorce, she had actually lost custody of their children and lost her home. That was Paul in prison. She would give back custody of the children because he wouldn't be able to have custody. Let me add a little detail for this theory that investigators never followed up on and that never came up during Paul Fresh Hour's trial.
01:14:25
Speaker
About 20 minutes before Mary drove through the area and found the booby-trapped sign, another bus driver had gone by that exact location, and that bus driver, she had seen a yellow El Camino car pulled over to the side of the road, like right by the fence post where the sign's gonna be posted, and she saw a large, sandy-haired man
01:14:54
Speaker
standing outside his car. But it looked like he was urinating, so she just kind of like saw him and then looked away, right, and didn't like continue to watch what he was doing. But Paul, fresh hour, was not a large man, and he had dark hair. Did they have a car like this? No.
01:15:17
Speaker
So nothing that could have come close to being described as like sandy colored hair, large man, yellow El Camino that this other bus driver saw. But the fact that she saw somebody different than Paul in that exact location was never brought up in trial. But I know from news articles that the man that Karen Sue began dating after she and Paul filed for divorce,
01:15:47
Speaker
was large with sandy colored hair. So Karen Sue's new boyfriend matches the description. I would die if he told me Karen Sue's boyfriend had a yellow El Camino. So her boyfriend didn't, but Karen Sue's other brother did.
01:16:11
Speaker
Oh, so reportedly, the one person also not happy about unsolved mysteries coming to Circleville to investigate. Well, obviously, it's going to be Karen Sue, because if she did it, she's not going to want them to come investigate it. Right. So could all of this have been a setup? But then here's our problem again. Even the connections with Karen Sue are hypothetical at best.
01:16:41
Speaker
Right, like just because her boyfriend has sandy colored hair and is large doesn't mean that the man was her boyfriend. Just because Karen Sue's other brother has a yellow El Camino doesn't mean that the boyfriend had borrowed the yellow El Camino to go there to set up the booby trap. And Karen Sue has never been considered a suspect by police. Okay.
01:17:09
Speaker
Theory five, I'm gonna give you six. So theory five is Paul and Karen Sue's son, Mark. While he was close to both of his parents growing up, Mark was fiercely loyal to his mother. According to one local woman, after the divorce, Karen Sue wanted loyalty from her son only to herself. So she's basically like, either you're my son or you're his son.
01:17:38
Speaker
And when Paul was convicted, Mark never came to visit his father in prison. Some investigators also found that once they started digging deep, Paul had told a few people that his gun had been stolen and told them that before it wound up part of this case in the booby trap.
01:18:01
Speaker
So like him saying like, yeah, I either lost it or somebody took it a few weeks ago. Like he had told them not necessarily a lie. Yeah, exactly. And investigators found that Paul had even told one person that he thought his son Mark had taken it. The family later said like, if that were true, even though Mark had seemingly rejected his father, that Paul would have never
01:18:32
Speaker
implicated his own son in the crime and would have taken the fall for Mark. And we can't follow up with Mark though, because on September 11th, 2002, 39-year-old Mark Freshour's body was found floating in the river in Portsmouth, Ohio. Mark had taken his own life. And his mom, Karen Sue, told police that Mark had been silently suffering depression for years.
01:19:01
Speaker
Okay, well, so far, this is the theory that I'm kind of leaning toward, because I feel like it still involves Karen Sue a little bit, right, but not just focused on her. Mm hmm. And it kind of makes sense because Paul would want to protect his kid. Right. And then our final theory is going to be Paul Freshour. Okay, obviously he is a suspect because of all the reasons that I already presented.
01:19:31
Speaker
Recently, 48 hours hired a forensic document expert by the name of Beverly East. Now remember, there were all kinds of problems with the handwriting, right? That they gave him an actual letter, they told him to try to emulate it, and that was what was used in the trial. But East actually compared the Circleville letters to ones that Paul had written to his friends.
01:19:57
Speaker
So like not the sample done by law enforcement, actual writing samples. And Beverly East noted that in both Paul's letters and in the Circleville letters, the letter G looks like a number six, which she said is not that common.
01:20:18
Speaker
And when writing zip codes, the numbers in the zip codes, the number three was drawn. It's almost like if you're unsure. I'll give an example. I always tell my students this. If you're unsure of like you put a comma and then quotation marks or quotation marks and then a comma and you write them like one above one another so that way whichever way is right you don't get counted wrong.
01:20:42
Speaker
you're not putting one first. It was almost like he's unsure if the zip code is a three or a two. So he draws the like the number three so that it could have been seen as the number two. Almost like he's unsure which one to use. And that mistake was found both in Paul's letters and in the Circleville letters.
01:21:05
Speaker
and Beverly East, this forensic document expert, said to Erin Moriarty, quote, numbers don't lie. Okay, here's my question. Okay. So did they do any rotting, like have police looked into the mark theory, the sun?
01:21:28
Speaker
Not that I'm aware of. Because I was going to say, have they looked at his handwriting because if you put, which I think this is like really weird because my dad is left handed and I'm right handed, but if you compare like my dad's handwriting to my handwriting, they're almost identical. Oh. So like, I wonder if Mark had similar handwriting to his dad.
01:21:55
Speaker
That is interesting, and I don't know.
01:22:01
Speaker
This handwriting expert though, Maggie, and this was just recently, she did acknowledge that some of the elements didn't match up, but she said that there was enough that she would feel comfortable swearing on a Bible in court, knowing that someone's life was at stake, that one person was responsible for the Circleville letters, and that the one person was Paul Freshour.
01:22:31
Speaker
but to play devil's advocate, because I did with all of the other theories. Moriarty also spoke with famed FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole, who does not believe that Paul Freshour wrote the letters. So O'Toole, instead of looking at the handwriting, is looking at what the handwriting says.
01:22:56
Speaker
You know what I mean? To think about profiling. And O'Toole noted that the letters had phrases like, quote, I'm the boyfriend of a woman. And she thinks that comments like that were added to the letters with the sole intent of being deceptive, like wanting the reader to believe that the writer is male, which made O'Toole believe that the writer is actually female.
01:23:25
Speaker
Wow. And due to the syntax and the letters, which remember we were talking about putting colons where period should be, O'Toole also does not believe that the writer is highly educated and Paul Freshour had a master's degree. Then we also have to keep in mind, Maggie, the possibility that whomever sent the letters
01:23:52
Speaker
And whoever set the booby trap might not be the same person. That's true. Like there could be one person who's sending the letters and a different person who does the booby trap or even multiple people behind each of the acts. Right. Because there's hundreds of letters. Right. And in fact, by the end, even more.
01:24:19
Speaker
So based on everything you've heard, are you sticking with Mark?
Concluding Reflections and Audience Engagement
01:24:26
Speaker
Well, I don't know that I, I don't know that I would like come out and say like Mark did this because obviously I don't, we don't know, but I would be interested to know about the handwriting thing because I kind of think he
01:24:44
Speaker
I feel like it almost has to be someone in that family. Paul, Mark, or Karen, Sue. It just makes the most sense. So I'll be interested to know about the handwriting. Yeah. I think it's definitely someone in that family. In total, over a thousand letters had been mailed under the guise of the anonymous Circleville writer.
01:25:10
Speaker
Those represent a thousand moments of horror and threats posed to the recipients. Whoever sent these letters was enjoying, causing others pain. Paul Freshour passed away on June 28, 2012, still maintaining his innocence. Sheriff Radcliffe had told Paul once that one person of interest had been questioned
01:25:40
Speaker
but passed a polygraph test, a person whom Radcliffe never named. Who was that person? And could that person have been behind the acts? Was Paul Freshour a victim himself of the Circleville letter writer? Or was he the mastermind behind it all? Anyone with information about the case
01:26:10
Speaker
should contact the Pickaway County Sheriff's Office at 740-474-2176.
01:26:20
Speaker
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01:26:42
Speaker
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