MYSTERY still surrounds the identity of an anonymous letter writer who terrorized an Ohio town for decades with threatening letters claiming to expose residents' dark secrets.
The Circleville letter writer began their reign of terror in the 70s and was believed to have been linked to a chilling call made to one of his victims hours before the man died in a car crash.
3
3
3
The terror first began in March of 1977 and by the time the final letter was sent in the 90s, it is believed that close to a thousand were received by locals.
Most of them were postmarked in Colombus, Ohio, 30 miles north of the sleepy town.
The first victim to receive a letter was bus driver Mary Gillispie, who received the bulk of the threatening mail over the first few years.
The first notes accused her of having an affair with the School Superintendent, Gordan Massie.
Read More On Crime
“Stay away from Massie: Don't lie when questioned about meeting him,” one horrifying letter read.
“I know where you live: I've been observing your house and know you have children. This no joke. Please take it serious. Everyone concerned has been notified. It will be over soon”
“Mr. Gillispie, your wife is seeing Gordon Massie. ... You should catch them together and kill them both. ... He doesn't deserve to live,” a letter to Gillispie’s husband Ron read.
“We know what kind of car you drive ... We know where your kids go to school.”
Most read in The US Sun
Mary and Ron were well respected in the community, having been high school sweethearts, and stayed in the area to raise their children.
“You wouldn't find a better person than Ronnie Gillispie” Janet Cassidy, a local resident told 48 Hours.
According to Marie Mayhew, a podcast host who focuses on the case, the letters eventually escalated to phone calls and offensive signs along the way of Mary’s bus route.
“Ron would have to go out and ... he would have to find and pick up all the signage about his wife and kids around Circleville,” Mayhew said.
The couple began going to the police who tapped phones, watched houses, and tried to work with the USPS to see where the mail was coming from.
CAR CRASH DEATH
By August 1977, when Mary was on vacation to Florida with her sister-in-law, Ron had had enough.
He got in his truck and drove off, telling his children he was going to confront the letter writer.
“Ron had told [Mary] he knew who the letter writer was and he was going to take care of this problem while they were in Florida,” Mayhew said.
It is also reported that Ron had received an anonymous call at home just before he rushed out bringing his gun with him.
The identity of the caller has never been found but is believed to have been the letter writer.
Ron was later found dead having reportedly crashed into a tree in a single vehicle accident.
A .22 caliber revolver that had been fired just once was found near his body.
He had almost twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, journalist Martin Yant said on 48 Hours.
“A number of people told me that he was not a heavy drinker," Yant said.
CONSPIRACY THEORY
The coroner ruled Ron’s death an accident.
However, some have claimed Ron was shooting at the letter writer and was murdered
“The letter writer had made threats to ... Ron Gillispie that .... he could end up dead. And then he ended up dead” Yant said on 48 Hours.
Among those who reportedly believed Ron was murdered, was his brother-in-law, Paul Freshour.
“He wanted the truth about Ron's death. He wanted to know who was writing the letters too,” said Pam Stanton, a long-time family friend.
After Ron’s death, Mary admitted she began to have a romantic relationship with Massie but claimed that it had only started after the letters began.
The harassment only grew.
"Everyone knows what you have done. If you don't believe us, just make them mad and find out for yourself,” one letter read.
"It's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done,” said another.
MURDER ATTEMPT
It escalated even further by 1983 when a murder attempt was made on Mary's life.
On February 7, 1983, Mary was driving her school bus when she saw an obscene sign about her daughter hanging on the fence.
Horrified, she pulled over and tried to pry the sign off the fence, only to discover the contraption was connected with twine and a mysterious box.
When she got home, she found a loaded gun in the box that police said was a booby trap.
Firearm examiners at BCI -- Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation discovered the serial number of the gun belonged to none other than Paul Freshour’s coworker, who admitted to police he sold Paul the gun, according to 48 Hours.
After questioning Paul's wife Karen - who was divorcing him - she told cops that he was responsible for the letters and was furious with Mary over her being involved with Massie.
“She had found one letter torn up in a commode and she had found a couple of other letters hidden in the house,” Yant said.
According to 48 Hours, Paul was cooperative with investigators.
He admitted that it was his gun but said it was stolen, and did not ask for a lawyer.
Paul even allowed them to search his house and car and gave them samples of his handwriting.
However, when he agreed to take a polygraph, he failed.
ON TRIAL
Paul was arrested for Mary's attempted murder but no charges were ever brought for the letters after they continued following his conviction.
At trial, Mary was allowed to testify about the letters and answer questions from the defense about them, which experts say was very damaging to Paul's case.
The judge allowed 39 letters to be brought up at trial, due to the fact the writing on the booby trap was similar to the block letters used in the handwritten letters.
“They had handwriting analyses that indicated that the letters could have been written by Paul Freshour and a second expert - originally a defense witness - agreed," Yant said.
Paul’s fingerprints were never found on the booby trap or the box with the gun.
He had, however, been off from work on the same day the booby trap was found, and the industrial size chalk box in which the gun was found was similar to those seen at Paul's workplace, Anheuser Busch.
Yet no one saw Paul near the booby trap.
“He had a pretty good alibi for most of the day,” Yant said.
“Paul Freshour didn't take the stand, but multiple defense witnesses testified to seeing him at home.
“He was having work done on his house. The reason, he said, he took that day off.”
DISBELIEF CONTINUES
Paul was sentenced to 7 to 25 years for attempted murder.
Yet some people in the community doubted his guilt, as they considered him a family man who was never in trouble with the law.
“It's just preposterous. ... there's no way,” Stanton said.
“He wasn't dumb enough to put his own gun in a booby trap,” Janet Cassidy, a neighbor, said.
“Anybody could have gotten that gun.”
The letters continue to come in droves even after Paul was in prison, despite being banned from using paper and pens.
The sheriff was convinced it was him, but couldn't answer how he was able to do it.
Paul’s warden said it was “impossible.”
Eventually, Paul himself received a letter boasting about how they had set him up
"When we set him up, we set him up good,” it read.
Paul believed his ex-wife Karen, who reportedly got the worse end of the divorce financially as well as losing custody of their daughters, was behind the alleged setup.
It was also argued that she did not keep the alleged letters she found and told cops about.
NEW WITNESSES
Yant also said he discovered evidence in police reports of an alternate suspect which another female bus driver spotted at the time of the incident
“She said ... she saw a man standing beside an ... El Camino ... but the man turned away from her and acted like he was going to the bathroom ... So, she didn't get a good look at him,” Yant explained.
“She said he was a large man with sandy hair. And Paul was not large, and he had very dark hair."
It was reported that Karen had a boyfriend with sandy hair and that her brother also had an El Camino.
She was never named a suspect by police.
Paul reportedly told a friend said he thought his son Mark with the one who stole his gun.
“Paul ... get his son in trouble? No, Uncle Paul would've never done that,” Stanton said.
“Uncle Paul would have died before he had seen Mark go to jail.”
Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI investigator said she believes the writer could be a female and was not educated due to many of the typos in the messages.
“Sitting here today, I'd say I can't rule him out,” she said of Paul, however.
“But I'm ... looking at other reasons that tell me ... it might in fact be somebody different.
Yet forensic document expert Beverley East compared Paul's letters to a friend with the horrifying threats.
“The G...is a very unusual G. Looks like a six, a number six,” she said.
She also noticed a pattern in the zip codes.
“It's like he's not sure if it's 4-2-1-1 2 or 4-3-1-1-3. ...In the anonymous letters on the zip code ...I found the same mistake.”
Read More on The US Sun
Read More on The US Sun
“I would go into court and swear on the Bible on the evidence that I found," she said of her belief Paul was behind the letters.
“I would say one person wrote all of these. And the one person is this person.”
