True Crime Tuesday: The Circleville Letter Writer

This week on True Crime Tuesday, we’re heading to a small town in Ohio where something as simple as a letter turned into years of fear, accusations, and unanswered questions.

Starting in the 1970s, residents of Circleville began receiving anonymous letters exposing personal secrets, accusing people of affairs, and threatening to reveal even more.

What started as harassment quickly escalated into something much more serious… including a suspicious death and a booby-trapped sign meant to harm its target.

Someone was watching.

Someone knew the secrets.

And decades later, we still don’t know exactly who it was.

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Sources & References

• FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin  “The Circleville Letters”
• Pickaway County historical records & local news archives
• The Circleville Writer: The Unsolved Mystery of the Circleville Letters by Paul Freshour
• Associated Press archives on the Circleville case
• Ohio court records related to Paul Freshour’s trial
• Various true crime research compilations and case summaries

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hey, what's up? Welcome back to Don't Quote Me, It's Probably Nothing, the podcast where I get high and talk about weird stuff. I'm Kelly, and today is Tuesday, which means it's true crime Tuesday. Today I'm going to talk about just one case this time. Instead of like a whole bunch of other ones, you know? But I'm not really that high this episode. Because I think I was too high last time. So now I'm just like a tiny, tiny, tiny bit high. You know? Just like very little. To where like it probably doesn't even alter my brain. Today we are heading to a small town in Ohio to talk about a case that has been confusing people for decades. And it's called the Circleville. I almost developed a country accent with how little high I am. This is about the Circleville letter writer. And it's one of those stories that like starts with something that seems small and then it slowly spirals into something much bigger and stranger. So grab your snack that you have when you listen to this podcast if you have one. Or whatever else is keeping you alive today. And let's talk about murder. You guys remember Big Ange from Mob Wives when she's like she was talking to her son about how she was, I don't know, seeing some guy. And she was like, he just got out of prison for murder. Then she was like, he's getting me a puppy. She was the best. Also, as always, if you hear snoring, it's Claribelle. And when I go back to video, I'll make sure to put a camera on her the entire time. So you can see how cute she is. So let's start by talking about the town where all of this happened. Circleville, Ohio. So if you've never heard of Circleville before, you're not alone. Sorry to any Circleville people who will be listening to this. It's a relatively small town about 25 miles south of Columbus. And today it has around 14,000 people. But in the 70s, it felt like even smaller. It was the kind of place where people like know their neighbors and families live there for generations. And if something unusual happens, the whole entire town knows about it, like before dinner. But also, like in small places like that, people usually tend to keep an eye on each other. Like not in a bad way, more in like, you know, your kids are playing, and you know, if they do something bad, they're getting yelled at by somebody else. You know, you know what I'm trying to say? You know what I'm we know what I mean? So Circleville is actually famous for one thing, and that is the Circleville Pumpkin Show, which has been happening every year since 1903. And every fall, the town fills up with pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin everything. Basically, the entire place turns into a pumpkin festival that I need to go to because I love pumpkin everything. You know, for my birthday, instead of like a cake or something, I get pumpkin pie. It's delicious. Pumpkin is so good. So, so good. And actually talking about it is making me think of fall. And I know spring has really not even come yet, and summertime's not even here, but I am ready for fall. However, the good thing about that is that I get to decorate for Halloween soon. I'm decorated for Easter right now. And then I'll put like a little bit of summery stuff, but once June hits, it's Halloween in my house. Literally until October 31st, and then it's Christmas. But anyway, this was not like some huge chaotic city where people could easily disappear into a crowd. It was like a quiet, normal American town, which is exactly why what started happening there in the late 70s felt so disturbing to the people who lived there. Because one day, residents started receiving anonymous letters in their mailboxes. And at first people thought that maybe it was just like some kind of prank, but the letters didn't stop and they didn't stay harmless either. Whoever was writing them seemed to know very personal things about the people living in town. They knew about secrets, relationships, rumors, like, and private details that most people assumed that nobody else knew. Like, imagine Lady Whistledown, if you're a Bridgerton fan, but like creepy about it, you know? So anyway, once the letters started, they they weren't targeting just like one person. It was multiple people across the town. But like eventually one woman would become the center of this entire mystery. But first, I should probably tell you about the letters. So the letters came in envelopes, which were usually just like very plain. Most of them were addressed using black style handwriting, almost like someone was like deliberately trying to disguise their normal handwriting. And some were written in all capital letters, and others looked like someone had carefully printed each letter slowly, like because they didn't want their natural writing style to be recognized. And there was never a return address. And the postmarks usually came from Columbus, Ohio, which is about 25 miles north of Circleville. That detail became important later because it suggested that the person might have been driving to another town to mail the letters so that they couldn't be like traced locally. And inside the envelopes were short messages, usually written on like regular plain paper. But the tone of the letters was like very aggressive and threatening. And many of the letters accused people in town of very specific things, including affairs, domestic abuse, corruption, inappropriate relationships, and secrets that people believed were private. And the strange thing was that a lot of the information seemed so personal that like whoever was writing these letters appeared to like know details about people's lives that like weren't public knowledge. And the they were like the letters were angry and judgmental, sometimes almost moralistic. Like the writer believed they were exposing wrongdoing. And some letters demanded that the person receiving them confess to whatever they were being accused of. And others warned that if the behavior didn't stop, then they would start exposing the secrets to more people in town. So one example of the wording from one of the letters said something along the lines of like, I know what you're doing, everyone will know soon. I will not stop until the truth comes out. And another letter warned that if the recipient didn't change their behavior, signs would be posted publicly exposing them. Okay, can you Okay, this is gonna sound so fat. So, like, can you imagine like if you went through a drive-thru and you ordered like one meal and then a second meal with another drink because you didn't want them to know that you were fat and like wanted to eat a lot of food, and then someone found out about it and like made a billboard like this fat ass just ate two Big Macs. That's not something I ever did. Not with two Big Macs anyway. But I I I have like I would go up, like say I wanted like a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets, you know. I would like order a cheeseburger meal if I wanted French fries, but then because I didn't want to be like, oh, can I also get like chicken nuggets? I would order a chicken nugget meal with another drink and then not eat the fries or the drink. I don't do that anymore, but I did. Anyway, the letters weren't always long. Many of them were actually very short, just only like a few sentences, but they were written in a way that made it clear that the writer believed they had power over the person reading it. And I think that's what made them so unsettling. Because, like, if someone knows your secrets and they're willing to send threatening letters about them, like how do they know? So, as the letters continued appearing around Circleville, residents started to wonder if maybe the writer had been someone in town, like someone they knew, and someone who had access to personal information about like multiple families. And eventually, they would find that one person, a school bus driver named Mary Gillespie. So Mary was a school bus driver who lived in the Circleville area. By most accounts, she lived a pretty ordinary life. She was married to her husband Ron. His last name is also Gillespie, in case you were wondering. And like many people in small towns, their families were deeply connected to the local community. And Mary worked for the local school district, driving a bus route, which means she was a familiar face to lots of families in town. And parents knew her, kids knew her, and she worked closely with other school employees. And that's where the letters started to focus. So the anonymous writer began sending letters accusing Mary of having an affair with the superintendent of schools, a man named Gordon Massey. Now, whether or not that relationship actually existed has been debated for decades, and some reports have suggested that there may have been some kind of relationship between them, while others argued that the accusations were exaggerated or completely fabricated. But at the time, what mattered most was that the writer clearly believed something inappropriate was happening, or at least wanted everyone else in town to believe that. The letters that were directed to Mary were especially threatening. And they demanded that she stop the relationship immediately and some warned that if the alleged affair continued, the writer would begin exposing the situation to more people in town. And that's exactly what started happening. So letters weren't just sent to Mary, they were sent to her husband Ron, Gordon Massey's wife, co-workers in the school district, and even other residents in Circleville, which meant the accusations were not staying private anymore. Like the writer was deliberately trying to spread the information as widely as possible. Like they were trying to like shame or punish her publicly. So this started creating tension, not just for Mary, but for like everyone around her, and it definitely caught the attention of her husband. So Ron became furious about the letters. From his perspective, someone was like harassing his wife and spreading rumors about their family and trying to destroy their reputation in a small town where word travels fast. And so at one point, Ron even wrote back to the anonymous writer telling them to stop sending letters and threatening them if like the harassment continued. But interestingly, after that, the letters did stop for a short time. So whoever was writing them might have been watching the Gillespie family closely enough to know when their message had been received. But the quiet period wouldn't last, obviously, because not long after that, something happened. Okay, that would make the entire situation even more disturbing. So by 1977, the letters targeting Mary and her family had already created a lot of tension, like within the whole town. People were whispering, rumors were spreading, and Mary's husband, Ron, obviously, was extremely upset about the situation. So Ron worked for Anheuser Busch, and from everything people later said about him, he was known as a pretty protective husband. And he did not like the idea that someone in town was anonymously harassing his wife and spreading accusations about their family. So this one night in August of 1977, Ron receives a phone call at home. And no one knows exactly what was said during that call, but according to reports, it clearly upset him. So he immediately grabbed his gun. It was a 22 caliber handgun, in case you were wondering. And he got into his pickup truck and drove off into the night. And it appeared that Ron believed he knew who had been sending the letters and he was going to confront that person. So what happened after he left the house is a little wild. So later that night, Ron's truck crashed into a tree along a rural road outside of Circleville. And when police arrived at the scene, Ron was dead. So investigators initially believed that the crash had been caused by drunk driving because toxicology reports showed that Ron had been drinking. And the official explanation given by the authorities was that he had lost control of the vehicle. But several details about the crash immediately raised questions. First, Ron had taken his handgun with him when he left the house, and that gun was found at the scene. But even more interesting is that the gun had been fired once, and no one could like clearly explain why. So some people speculated that Ron may have fired the gun out the window during the drive, possibly in like anger or frustration. And others wondered if he might have encountered someone and fired the weapon during a confrontation. But investigators were never able to confirm exactly what happened. But another strange detail was the condition of the crash itself. So Ron's truck had struck a tree, but some people later argued that the crash didn't appear consistent with someone losing control at high speed. So over time, rumors began spreading around Circleville that Ron might have been like lured out that night because remember, he received a mysterious phone call just before leaving. And some residents believe that the person who called him may have been the same one writing the letters. Like someone who wanted Ron to come meet them somewhere. And in that theory, Ron may have been driving to confront the letter writer when something went wrong. But there was never any enough evidence to even like prove that idea. So authorities maintain that Ron's death was simply a tragic accident caused by alcohol and a crash. But still, people in Circleville could not shake the feeling about like this situation because it didn't quite make sense. Especially because like the letters had caused so much anger and tension already. And if the person writing those letters was willing to harass people anonymously, what else might they be capable of? But for a while after Ron's death, things did become quiet. The letters had stopped again, and life in Circleville slowly returned to normal for a few years. But in the early 1980s, like the whole mystery would like explode back into the public eye in a way that like nobody in town could ignore. Because this time the accusations weren't showing up in mailboxes anymore, they were showing up on the side of the road for everyone to see. Which, speaking of that, you know, that case that I was talking about before, where I like have a bunch of like interviews and stuff. I thought of harassing someone via billboard before. Someone who allegedly murdered their wife. And I say allegedly because I have to. But I'll talk about that at another time. So in 1983, residents driving through town began noticing like handmade signs posted in public places, along roadsides, near intersections, even near schools. And the messages on the signs were very specific. Many of them targeted Mary Gillespie and repeated the same accusations that had appeared in the letters years earlier. And one of the most widely reported messages said something along the lines of like, Gillespie, stop your affair with the superintendent. I don't know why that made me chuckle. But some signs were even more direct and insulting. And variations of the messages accused Mary of immoral behavior and suggested that the school district was covering it up. And remember, this was in 1983. Imagine driving to work, like in a small town that you live in, and seeing like a giant sign publicly accusing you of something deeply personal. Which I remember seeing this before, like s some guy had like cheated on his wife or something, so she made a huge sign. And it was like, I don't know the the guy's name, but it was like so-and-so is a lying, cheating son of a bitch. But anyway, but this was like long before social media, and gossip spread so fast, you know. It's wild. People love to gossip. So people in Circleville began wondering who was putting these signs up, and some residents believed that the same person who wrote the letters had returned, and others thought it might be someone in town with a personal grudge against Mary or the school district, but whoever it was clearly wanted the accusations to be very visible because the signs weren't hidden. Like they were placed where people driving by would absolutely see them. So Mary reportedly tried to ignore the signs at first, but eventually one sign in particular pushed things just a little too far. So it had been posted along a roadway that she traveled regularly, and the message again did reference the alleged affair, and Mary decided that she had enough. So one day she stopped her car and walked over to remove the sign herself. But when she began pulling the sign down, she noticed that there was something strange behind it. And there was a box attached to the back of the sign with a string connected to it. Inside the box was a loaded 25 caliber handgun, and the gun had been rigged with a simple mechanical trap. If the sign had been pulled a little harder or in a different direction, the string would have triggered the gun to fire. And the direction it was pointed was directly toward where Mary would have been standing. So someone like essentially turned the roadside sign into a booby trap designed to shoot the person removing it, which is freaking wild. But anyway, fortunately, Mary noticed it like before it fired and contacted the police immediately. And then that's when investigators quickly realized that this was not just harassment anymore. Like whoever set that trap up had potentially committed attempted murder. Okay, my little weirdos. Quick pause in the investigation, because it is true crime Tuesday. But that also means we are officially deep in the rabbit hole. And that requires fuel. This episode is sponsored by Dubby Energy. And honestly, if you've ever tried researching true crime cases, you know exactly why I need this. Because one minute you're reading about a case like this, and the next thing you know, it's 2.17 in the morning and you have 37 tabs open, and you're trying to figure out who mailed a letter in Ohio in 1976. W is a clean energy drink mix, no sugar, no crash, and none of that jittery my heart's about to like explode feeling, you know? It doesn't make me talk a lot more. Sometimes I have like energy drinks and I do not stop talking. And I already talk a lot. This don't do that. So if you want to stay awake while you dive into weird mysteries with me, go to www.dubby.gg and use my code stay weird at checkout for a discount. And if you grab some, you're not just getting energy, you're also helping support the show and keeping True Crime Tuesday alive, my brethren. Again, that's www.w.gg and use code stay weird. Alright, caffeine acquired. Let's get back to the investigation. So after Mary discovered the booby-trap gun behind the roadside sign, the situation in Circleville immediately escalated from harassment to something much more serious. Now police weren't just dealing with threatening letters and embarrassing accusations, they were dealing with attempted murder. So investigators arrived at the scene and carefully examined the device that had been hidden behind the sign. And the trap itself was actually pretty simple, but dangerous, obviously. So inside a small box, there was the 25 caliber handgun. And then there was the string from the sign to like the trigger mechanism thing. The trigger, you know. And the idea was that when someone pulled down the sign, the tension on the string would pull the trigger and fire the gun, like I, you know, said already. But anyway, so police removed the gun and examined it closely, and they traced it by using its serial number. Because the guy didn't scratch off the serial number. Just kidding, don't do that. That's illegal. I think it's illegal. But anyway, so the gun had originally been purchased by someone in Circleville. And when investigators followed the ownership history, they discovered that the gun belonged to a man named Paul Freshour. So Paul was not just some random resident. Okay, he was Mary's brother-in-law. Paul had been married to Mary's sister. Isn't that wild? So anyway, police began looking more closely at Paul and they questioned him about the gun and the letters, and Paul admitted that the gun was his, but he claimed that it had been stolen from him months earlier. And he denied having anything to do with the sign or the booby trap. But obviously, investigators were suspicious because not only did the gun belong to him, but some detectives believed that the handwriting in the letters looked similar to Paul's handwriting. And at the same time, there were reports that Paul and Mary had not always gotten along. So investigators began forming a theory that Paul might have been the person writing the letters for years, targeting Mary and others in the community. And if that theory was true, then obviously the booby trap sign might have been an attempt to silence or scare her. But there were also people in town who were not convinced because some residents thought that the situation seemed too convenient. Like if someone wanted to frame Paul, planning his gun at the scene would be a pretty effective way to do it. But still, police believe that they had enough evidence to move forward. And in 1983, Paul was arrested and charged in connection with the booby trap sign. Which every time I say that, it makes me think of um the Goonies when Data kept saying booty trap. That's why I said booty trap. I love that movie. But anyway, so after Paul was arrested in 1983, the uh Circleville letter writer case finally moved to a courtroom, which the way that they name these cases does sometimes like make me chuckle, you know? Because why are you giving it a name? You know what I mean? I don't know. Like they know the whole serial killer thing where they're like, oh, the Boston Strangler or The BTK killer, you know? They're always like, I don't know. Do you think, do you think that by the media giving them a name like that, it sensationalizes it and like spreads fear among people? Do you think? Do you think that's why they do that? But anyway, so prosecutors believed that they had their suspect, and their argument was fairly straightforward. Paul had both the means and the motive. The biggest piece of evidence was the gun that was used because the investigators traced it back to Paul, even though he did claim it was stolen. But prosecutors argued that it was unlikely someone would steal his gun and then use it to build a trap targeting his own sister-in-law. But the gun wasn't the only evidence presented. So investigators had also compared Paul's handwriting to the handwriting in several of the anonymous letters. And at the time, handwriting analysis was commonly used in investigations, and some analysts believed that the writing styles were similar enough to suggest that Paul may have written the letters. And then the prosecution also suggested that Paul may have had personal reasons to target Mary. So there had reportedly been family tension between them in the past, though the exact details of those conflicts weren't always clear. In the prosecution's theory, Paul had been writing the letters for years, accusing Mary of having an affair and trying to expose her publicly. And the roadside signs were seen as an escalation of the same harassment, and the booby trap was portrayed as the final step in that pattern. But Paul completely denied all of the accusations. He maintained that someone had stolen his gun and used it to frame him. And according to Paul, he had nothing to do with the letters or the sign. His defense also pointed out that the case against him was largely circumstantial. So there were no witnesses who saw in place the sign, no fingerprints tying him directly to the trap. And handwriting analysis, while can be persuasive to some jurors, is like not considered an exact science. You know, there's many times like I literally copied my mom's signature when I was younger on a test that I forgot to have her sign, you know, and the teachers never noticed that it was me. Or they did and didn't care. A for effort, I guess. But anyway, still the trial generated a lot of attention in Circleville. And many residents had been living with the fear and rumors created by the letters for years, and they were eager for answers. After hearing the evidence, the jury ultimately sided with the prosecution, and Paul was found guilty of attempted murder. And he was sentenced to seven to 25 years in prison. And for many people in Circleville, like I guess that verdict felt like the end of the mystery because the police had arrested someone and like he was convicted and like punished, you know. But this story is not over, okay? Because while Paul sat in prison, the letters did not stop. And in fact, some ways they became even stranger. So several residents in Circleville reported receiving new anonymous letters very similar to the ones that had circulated years earlier, and they were still written in the same block style handwriting, still had no return address, and many were still postmarked from Columbus, Ohio, just like the earlier letters. But now some of the messages had a new target, and that was Paul Fresh Hour himself. So, according to reports from the time, Paul began receiving letters while he was in prison. Some of these letters taunted him and suggested that he had been blamed for something he didn't actually do. And one letter reportedly said something along the lines of like, Now, when are you going to believe you aren't going to get out of there? I told you two years ago when we set them up, they stay set up. Whatever the heck that means, because it sounds like a bunch of gibberish, but another message suggested that the writer had been watching the investigation all along and knew the details about the case. And the letters weren't only being sent to Paul. Other letters were reportedly mailed to local officials and residents in Circleville, including people connected to the original accusations involving Mary Gillespie and the school district. Some letters referenced the earlier allegations about Mary and the superintendent, and others talked about the trial and conviction almost as if the writer was like commenting on the outcome of the case. And that's one of the details that really confused investigators because if Paul was the one responsible for the letters and the roadside sign, like how could new letters still be appearing while he was sitting in prison? I mean, he can send letters from prison, but like they're gonna know. So there were a few theories. One possibility was that Paul had written a large number of letters before going to prison and somehow arranged for someone else to mail them later. And another theory was that someone else had been involved in the letter writing all along, possibly someone who knew the same secrets and rumors circulating in Circle Bill. And of course, there's the possibility that the real letter writer had never been caught at all. So for several years after Paul's conviction, the letters continued appearing occasionally. Then, sometime in the early 1990s, they suddenly just stopped. Like no new letters, no new clues, just silence. And to this day, the identity of the person or possibly people responsible for the Circleville letters has never been definitively proven. So at this point in the story, we are left with like a pretty strange situation. So Paul was convicted of setting the booby-trapped gun behind the sign, and he served time in prison and was eventually released in the mid-90s. But the biggest question in the case has never really gone away because was Paul actually the Circleville letter writer? Because while the court believed he was responsible for the trap, the letter writing itself had always been a lot harder to prove. And over the years, several different theories have developed about what might have really been happening in Circleville. So one theory is that Paul really was the writer, obviously. And supporters of this idea point to a few things. First, the gun used was traced back to him. That was one of the strongest pieces of physical evidence that the investigators had. And then second, some handwriting analysis believed that the lettering shared similarities, which is kind of what got him convicted. And third, Paul did have some personal connection to the people being targeted. Because like he was part of the same extended family as Mary, and there had reportedly been tension between them. So according to this theory, Paul may have been the one writing the letters all along. But obviously, like there are people out there who don't believe that he was because he was receiving them in prison. And then the letters were st were still going out while he was in prison. But the letters targeted several different people over the years, sometimes with slightly different writing styles and tones. So it's possible that the harassment may have started with one person and later been copied or continued by someone else. But like Paul never actually confessed. And because of that, like because nobody confessed to it and there wasn't like definitive evidence, like, what even is going on? But decades after all of this, like, you know, in today's world, the Circoville letter writer remains one of the strangest mysteries in American true crime. Because it was solved, but it wasn't solved at the same time, you know? Because like someone was convicted, but like, what if it wasn't him, you know? But anyway, Paul served about 10 years in prison before his release. And even after his release, he continued to insist that he had been wrongfully convicted and that he was not the person behind the letters. In fact, he even like wrote a book about the case called The Circoville Writer, The Unsolved Mystery of the Circoville Letters, where he described his side of the story and argued that someone else had framed him. I feel like there was there was a show on Netflix, I forget the name of it, but it was this particular house. And then they moved into this house and then they started receiving letters in their mailbox, and I think something was going on. Like people were getting into the house somehow through like a secret thing, and it like the neighbors were dead, like they pulled them out in body bags, and then they came back because it wasn't really the neighbors, it was someone else. It was so wild, it was so weird, but really good. It was really good. Uh, I forget the name of it though, but I think it was on Netflix. But yeah, that's kind of what this reminds me of a little bit. Maybe that's where they got the idea. Do you think? Do you think that's possible? But anyway, that's all I have for this true crime. Tuesday. I wanted to do something different. So I didn't do the docket of dumb. I'm gonna have to come up with something else. I don't know what it's gonna be yet, but it's gonna be something. Also, I'm working on a merch store, which I'm so excited about. You have no idea. I'm gonna have the cutest little hats and the cutest little shirts. But anyway, thank you for listening to today's episode. And I'm super grateful that you spend part of your day listening to me talk about weird stuff and true crime and whatever else it is that I talk about. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now, so that you never miss an episode. And if you have a second, leave a rating and review because it helps the show a ton and it helps other people find it too. Or you could just like, you know, when you get an Instacart order, you can message your Instacart delivery driver and be like, hey, check out my podcast, like I just did last night. And I actually did gain a new listener. He responded back and was like, Hey, yeah, that sounds like my vibe. I'll check it out. So hopefully he liked it. So hello, Instacart driver guy. Darren, that was your name. Anyway, was that illegal what I just did? Nah. I don't think so. But anyway, you can also share this episode with a friend who loves true crime, you know? Maybe you got a true crime lover out there, and you can be like, hey, you should check out this podcast. But anyway, the song of the week this week is called Hindsight by Goodfella, and I think you should go check it out and add it to your playlist and blast it in the car. Whatever it is that you gotta do, just play it very loudly because it is so good. Stay weird, stay curious, go be kind to someone for no reason, and go be amazing.