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The Circleville Poison Pen Letters Mystery · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles to Be, Chuck Bryant, and we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: can hear Jerry Clear's a bell so she's here with us.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And this, of course it's Stuff you should know. True crime. Yeah,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: let's mud say sort of, but it really is true crime.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It's just it's not necessarily murder. E No, but it's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: stocky and I hadn't really realized it until I saw
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it spelled out a few times that this is a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: huge stalk in case, one of the weirdest, creepiest, most
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: mysterious stalking cases of all time. Yeah, but I think
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I know who did it, So hold it, wait, save it,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: because we'll definitely have that combo. Okay, Yeah, I think
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: this is one of those it's uh, what is it
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: OCAM's razors at the the most obvious thing. We did
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: an episode on that, remember, yeah, a zillion years ago.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: But this, I think this is one of those where
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it is a lot less mysterious when you kind of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: just look at it at its face. So, in other words,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you think the cat did it. The cat did do it,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about this mystery UM usually calling it's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: full title the Circleville, Ohio Poison Pen Letters, And it
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: is a weird unsolved mystery case. In fact, it came
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: into the widest um public awareness thanks to that TV
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: show Unsolved Mysteries back in the early nineties, and UM
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of their info was based on this journalist
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and private investigator named Martin Yant, who had already been
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: investigating it by then. But it is a really weird,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: odd true crime mystery. And yes it is true crime,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: even though you're right, it doesn't have murder involved. There's
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: no serial killer or anything like that. But it is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: bizarre and it is weird, and it is still unsolved
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to this day. Yeah there's a death. Uh it's not
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a murder though. Well I don't want to ruin it,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so before we get too far into I want to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: give some shout outs to some of the sources for
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: this one. Unsolved Mysteries their website, a couple of CBS websites,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Mental Floss, Thought Catalog, Historic Mysteries List first had some
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: good stuff, and then True Crimes Times UM had some
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: good stuff. And then also there are a couple of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: podcast sites UM that have already covered this that if
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this floats your boat, go check out the Whatever Remains
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: podcast UM coverage of this. And there's also one called
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Invisible Ships podcast that covered this too, and we UM
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: use some of their info from their sites too. Yeah,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and this is one of those UM that's a little
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: frustrating to research because there's a lot of different conflicting
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: information and it's kind of hard to get to the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: real facts. UM. But some of it's not the biggest
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: d ill It is just like, oh, well I saw
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: that this was this, and I mean right off the bat.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: For instance, in Circleville, Ohio, these mystery letters started coming
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to Mary Gillespie Gillizpie. But then I saw sites that say,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: oh no, the superintendent received letters before Mary Gillizpi even
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is there, right, Yeah, so who knows. It doesn't really
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: damage the main storyline, like nothing contradicts it such to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: where I was like, well, I don't even know what
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I've just read then, right, I don't even know what's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: true anymore. But all this just as a way of
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: setting up, like if there are things that are slightly off,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is because it's just hard to get the real you know,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Like we didn't have the case file in front of us.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So most of the coverage of this mystery does start
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: with Mary Gillizpi receiving her first letter. And Mary Gillizpi
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: was a local bus driver in Circleville, Ohio. And Circleville,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Ohio is a tiny little town about twenty miles south
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of Columbus, Ohio, the capital of Io. A school bus driver,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: by the way, which is very key. Yes, thank you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: for that. Um. And so this is a small town,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and Mary Gillespie was a small town person who just
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: kind of typically minded her own business, was from what
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I could tell, generally well thought of if she was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: ever thought of it all by other people. Um. And
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: she got this first letter, and it was written in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: this kind of weird blocky handwriting, and it was a
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: rather alarming letter UM for anybody to get, because it
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: basically said, I know that you're having an affair with
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the superintendent of the West Fall School District, which you're
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: an employee of, and if you don't stop, bad things
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: are going to start happening to you. Right. His name
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: was Gordon Massey, said they were watching her, the superintendent
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was Gordon Massey, that she was having an affair with
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: right yes to the letter writer, there would be no
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: mystery if we need to let it write. Hey, if
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I were listening to this podcast, I would have been
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: confused just then. So I was looking out for that
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: version of me that's out there listening. Oh goodness, I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: hope that person isn't listening. Uh. So they said that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: they were watching it, and quote, this is no joke.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So these letters start coming in. Uh, almost all of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: them had that same blocky letter meaning basically capital letters. Uh.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Some did not, though, and we'll get into that a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: little bit more later. But the lion share of them
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: had this one kind of writing style that was very signature,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: clearly kind of written by the same person. And so Mary,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you know, she hides these letters for a little while,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: obviously didn't even tell her husband at first, and then
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: eventually says Ron, and there are a bunch of just
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: norm core names in here, so it might get a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: little confusing with like the Ron's and the Mary's and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the polls. But she told her husband Ron, she said, listen,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I've been getting these letters, and here's what they say.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: And the letters are saying that I need to tell
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the school board about this or they will out me
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: basically on you know, how would you would out someone
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: in the seventies, which is on the radio CB by
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: putting up billboards and signs. This would be your modern
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: like social media threat. I guess yeah. And so Ron
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: uh said well, I think Mary said listen, I think
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I know these are coming from this other guy, uh David.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: He's another uh school bus driver, David Longberry, and he
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he tried to come onto me and I rebuffed him,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and I think that's who's writing these. So and from
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: what I could tell, Mary kept the letters to herself
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: until Ron started getting letters himself that basically said your
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: wife was having an affair with Gordon Massey and you
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: better make him stop where else I'm gonna tell everybody.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And so that's when she turned to to David was like, oh, yeah,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I forgot to tell you about these letters and that
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I've been accused of having an affair. I'm totally not
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: having an affair, though, But what are we gonna do
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: about these letters? Huh? So they loop in as you
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: would do some family members. Ron's sister Karon, who will
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: become a key player, and her husband Paul uh fresh
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Hour was their last name. Married last name. He would
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: become a key player. Uh. He was a prison guard
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and not uh just a little side factoid about him
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: as the prison movie Brewbaker with Robert Redford. He was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in that movie. He was They filmed it nearby and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: he was cast as an extra as a prison guard
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: because he was a real prison guard. He was a
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: real prison guard. And another fun fact about Paul fresh
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Hour is in the late sixties at the prison he
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was a guard at um it was overrun by an
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: eMate riot and he was held prisoner for like thirty
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: hours by the inmates. Well, he was a natural for Brewbaker.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Then he was so um. By the time these letters
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: started coming through, he was no longer a prison guard.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: He was a quality inspector at the local Anheuser Busch
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: bottling plant. But I took from the fact that he
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: was a former prison guard that they they and to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: get some muscle involved and they went to him to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: ask him to write the letters. That was That was
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: how I took it. Yeah, and he worked and this
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: kind of becomes key later on. He worked about fifty
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to sixty hours a week and had a pretty decent
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: commute to and from so the long and short of
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: that is is he was gone at work a lot
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of the time. Right, So Paul said, okay, of course
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I'll help you guys out. And he sent a letter
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: at least one to David Longberry, the other bus driver
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that had made advances on Mary and who they suspected
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: was the writer of these letters, and said, hey, Buster,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: we know what you're doing. You better stop. Uh. If
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: you don't, bad things are gonna happen to you, so
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: cool off. Essentially, I'm paraphrasing here in the seventies kind
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of way, and um, it seemed like it worked because
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: for a few weeks the letters that have been started
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to come like hard and fast, just dry it up
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: at first, Yeah, because he said stop what you're doing
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: because I'm about to ruin go on what the image
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in the style that you're used to and who wouldn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: stop writing letters with received with that threat, Yeah, because
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: they thought that they had this anonymous letter writer, you know,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: dead to rights, and he was going to going to
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: be scared off now because ultimately, if it was this
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: guy who from like Ron Gillispie's point of view, what
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: he was being told by his wife that she wasn't
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: having an affair. This guy was making this up because
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: she had resisted his advances. If you, if you tell somebody,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: look stop, we know that you're doing this, of course
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: they're going to stop. The jig is up. So they
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: did think that had handled it, especially when those letters
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: dried up for a few weeks, but um, not too
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: long after that they were rather just made because um,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: rather than just letters. Now there were signs being posted
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: around town that we're saying essentially the same thing. Yeah,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: they were saying not only that, but they were saying
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that Gordon Massey, superintendent not letter writer, was uh involved
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: romantically with the Glissapees twelve year old daughter Tracy. So
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: of course Dad sees this ron starts driving around tearing
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: these signs down, you know, before the break of dawn,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: so no one would see these things. And this just
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: sort of went on for a while. There were these
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: letters that would come and go. I think about a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a little more than a year went by, uh, and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in August of seventy seven, Mary's like, I gotta get
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: out of here. I'm gonna go to Florida with UH,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: with your with my sister in law, with your sister
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Karen and a couple of other friends. Later on, people
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: said that was a cover up for maybe going down
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to meet Gordon Massey in Florida. But I don't think
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: that's true. I think she went down with her friends. Yeah,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: do you think that's true. I think we might have
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: different uh people in mind on who did this, and
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that though. That'll be the exciting reveal
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: at the end. I can't wait. Man. So the letter
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: writer back at home on answers the phone. Uh, it
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was a person claiming to be the letter writer on
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the other end. He said that he recognized the voice.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: He got mad, he got his gun and tells the kids,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take care of this problem once and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: for all. And a few hours later Ron is dead,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: dead D E A D. But he wasn't dead like
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: from a stab wound or no one had broken his
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: neck or anything like that. He was dead from a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: car accident he had run into I believe a tree.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: He'd run off the road, driven about thirty ft at
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a high speed and run into a tree. It was
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the seventies, so he very well might not have even
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: had a seatbelt installed in his car. But at the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: very least he didn't have it on. He was half
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: thrown from the cab, which is grizzly um and he
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: died at the site. Like he wasn't pronounced dead at
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the hospital. Around the way of the hospital, they pronounced
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: him dead on the site. He was super dead of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: massive internal injuries. And so there were a couple of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: really fishy things about all this. Number one, the intersection
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: where he died at it was not far from his house,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: so he knew this intersection very well. The weather was fine,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it was nighttime, but it wasn't like raining out or
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: anything like that. And he his gun had was found
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to have had one um round missing, and it had
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: been fired. It wasn't just missing like the gun had
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: been fired, and no shell casing was found. So in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: between the time that he stormed out of his house
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to apparently confront the letter writer and the time he
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was found dead, he had discharged his gun and they
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: had no idea at whom, where it was discharged, under
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: what circumstances. They just knew that he had shot his
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: gun once. Oh, so it was not a revolver, not
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that I know of, because they've seen multiple places that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: they did not find a shell casing. So it sounds
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: like it was an automatic or semi automatic all right.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Uh so that some people might say is fishy. The
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: other thing that other people say is fishy. I don't
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: find any of this fishy. But way is that he
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: was they ruled a drunken driving accident. Other people friends
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: would say, like heron didn't even drink that much. We
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: didn't see him drinking that day. But you can't argue
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: with science. And he had twice the legal limit of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in his blood alcohol content. Um, I don't think he
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in his Officially, I think he drank up some courage
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to go confront someone and wrecked his car and died. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I mean that's something that that gets left out of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: this is like this was a really dark period in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: ron Um Gillispie's wife life. Like he was driving around
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: for hours before work every day, finding these signs at
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the very least looking for him. If like he couldn't
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: find him, Like he didn't sleep very well. It makes
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense that he would have taken up
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: drinking when he was otherwise a teetotler. He was being
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: told by this person that his wife was having an affair,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: even though she swore that she wasn't. It was a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: bad time for him, so he he had like a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: rough last year or so of his life, and then
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: he died badly as well too. It was not a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: good end for Ron Gillispi. Um. And there was a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: bit of a scandal after that because apparently Paul fresh
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Hour said that he suspected it was foul play and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that the sheriff on the case, basically the local law
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: enforcement guy who would see this case through the entire
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: its entirety, was a guy named Dwight Radcliffe used the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: sheriff and um. Paul fresh Hour claims that at first
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Radcliffe agreed with him that it seemed like there
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was something fishing in that foul play might have been involved,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: but then after that he suddenly changes his story. Sheriff
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Radcliffe does, and like you said, it gets ruled an accident,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: especially after the coroner comes back with a point one
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: six blood alcohol content for Ron Gillispi That's right, uh,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And Radcliffe said there was initially some kind of suspect
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that and I know you did too, looked high and low.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's literally ever been released to Sheriff
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Radcliffe initially had in for questioning, but apparently this person
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: even went so far as to take a polygraph test
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and got away with it. I don't I don't know
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: if it was one of the who knows. I don't
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: know if it's any of the key suspects that we'll
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: talk about later or not. Uh, And I don't think
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we'll ever know who that was. But uh, there was
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a suspect and that was sort of dismiss out of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: hand once the d Y alcohol reading came back and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the polygraph test was passed. Yeah, the the one person
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I saw floated as potentially who it was was David Longberry,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that bus driver. That's why I figured. Yeah, um, but yeah,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: it's never been documented. I'm not even positive that it's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: documented that Sheriff Francliffe actually did any of this, like
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a polygraph and all that stuff only said he did. So.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Ron is dead, Chuck, the Circleville letter writer has claimed
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a life. A human life has been snuffed out that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: otherwise probably wouldn't have been had the Circleville letter Writer
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: not started writing this terrible letter campaign. That's right, you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: want to take a break and pick back up afterward,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Let's do it, Okay, Alright, so Ron's gone and it's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: about the same time that, uh, you know, Karen and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Paul are having a rough go of it as well. Uh,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And I just the feeling I got was they didn't
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: have a great marriage. It wasn't because of the Circleville stuff,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but they began to divorce and Karen had cheated on him.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Karen is uh, you know, she didn't get the house,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: she didn't get the kids, and ended up living on
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a trailer on Mary's property after Ron was gone. And
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this was like, m Karen was not She didn't take
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: any this well, right, Everything I saw was that Karen
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: was u lived in a constant state of upset and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: anger at Paul because of this divorce, even though she
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: was the one that she did right. Um, so you
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: just just put that in your hat, like put a
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: pain in that and save it for later. Put in
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: your hat and smoke it. Right. So one of the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: things that came out of this um this close contact,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: where Karen was living on a trailer in Mary's property,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: is that supposedly during this time after Ron died, Mary
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: admitted that she actually was having an fair with Gordon Massey.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: But but but don't judge her too harshly yet, because
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: it didn't start until after the letter writing campaign started.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: The letters were bs all along you know what. I
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: think she had had it an affair with him before
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and stopped and then started back up. Okay, that's possible.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: That's my feeling. I think she had an affair with him.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was off and on, who knows, Maybe it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: was pretty much constant. And then at some point, um,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Gordon Massey left his wife or his wife left him.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I got the impression his wife might have left him,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and that Mary was not necessarily his only fling, his
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: only mistress, and that um, after that and after Ron died,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: she felt comfortable saying that they were having an affair. Um,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: but it started after the letter writing campaign. That's my
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: take on it. Well, supposedly the superintendent had uh I
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was verified or not, but was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: accused of having affairs with quite a few of the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: female bus drivers. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: not just Mary, no, but I mean specifically bus drivers.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I got you, Okay, Yeah, I think that the Circleville
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: letter writer basically intimated that or outright said it in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in some of the letters. Right, Yeah, okay, um so okay.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So Gordon just think it's interesting that he has the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: thing for bus drivers, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: it is. It is a real thing, isn't it. So
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: those yellow busses he can't he can't turn them down?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe so um so okay. So we've got Mary admitting
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that she is having or has had an affair with
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Gordon Massey, um Bron's dead, Paul and Karen are splitting up,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and we start to reach into the nineteen eighties, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: not only were the signs continuing, the letters were continuing,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the postcards were continuing. People um who were had who
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with like Mary or Karen or
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Paul Um or Gordon had We're getting letters, Like the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: businesses were getting letters. I saw one that was addressed
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to a barbershop and it said dear public, and then
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it went into this tirade about Gordon and Mary. So
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are getting letters in this town
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: about this stuff. Um. And then things kind of stepped
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: up tremendously in February of three. Yeah, and by the way,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I think all of these letters were still being postmarked
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: from Columbus, Ohio and that's Uh, that's kind of a
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: key detail that um that we can't overlook is that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they're all being mailed in Columbus's what like half hour
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: away or so. Okay, so like they weren't being mailed
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: from that town. Uh. So Mary is doing her job.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: She's still a bus driver six years later, despite all
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: this stuff. She's still taking those kids to school, bless
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: her heart. And she sees a sign on her route that, uh,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I have seen And this is one of those dumb
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: details I've seen. It was on a post I've seen,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it was attached to offense, but either way, there was
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a sign that had incriminating stuff about her. Once again,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it threatened the life of her daughter, which was a
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: big one. So this is when she actually got out
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to to take down and she she took down the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: whole thing because it was kind of an odd looking
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: set up. And what she realized when she got home
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: was that it was a booby trapped sign that had
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a gun, its twenty five caliber handgun and a little
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: container that allegedly was supposed to go off if someone
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: were to come by and kind of yank that sign
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: down without much care. Yeah, Like I think maybe some
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: string was connected to the back of the sign and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it went to the trigger maybe or something like that,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: but it was designed to elicit an angry response, and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: apparently she didn't take it down in anger and it
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: saved her life. But there's a there's a gun now
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: there's so Ron died probably from his own you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: um accidental driving. This is totally different. This is attempted
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: murder um. And it's like, this is like an entirely
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: new ball game. This isn't just like, you know, harassing
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: somebody or stalking somebody. This now is attempted murder. There's
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: a loaded gun that was set up to go off
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: on on Mary. So of course the police get ahold
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of this gun, and they see pretty quickly that somebody's
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: attempted to to file the serial number off of it,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but they haven't done a very good job of it,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and they handed over to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the state investigators, and they say, oh, yeah, this is easy.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Watch this, and they get a piece of blank paper
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and a nice cranon and they rub it over it
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and sure enough, there is the serial number that wasn't
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: properly filed down and they can now trace the gun,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that's right, And they traced it back to a guy
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: who worked at a higher antizer bush and he said,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you know what, that was my gun, but I sold
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it for thirty five bucks to Paul fresh Hour. Yep,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: my co my co worker. UM, I guess we'll sort
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of reveal what we think as we go since we're
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: doing that. I don't think that sign was supposed to
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: go off and kill anyone. I think it was a
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a rigged booby trap, like a fake booby trap. I
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: know who you think it was, all right, I know
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: who you think, but depend on your hand. So, Paul
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: fresh Are, the guy who was Mary and Ron's brother
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: in law, Karen's ex husband. His gun has now been
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: found in a booby trapped sign from the Circleville letter writer.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: That is a big deal. And so the police start
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: asking Paul some questions like why why is your gun
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in a booby trap that was attached to a sign
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: from the Circleville letter writer. And Paul says, hey, man,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I have no idea anybody could have put that there.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: That gun was stolen a long time ago. And they say, well, Paul,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: did you report this to our local sheriff's department? And
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Paul says, now, I never got around to and they say, Paul,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you should probably come downtown with us. That's right, And
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: he went downtown with Sheriff Radcliff, and the sheriff said, hey,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I've seen a few got TV shows in my day.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I've seen McCloud. So let's let's uh, let's get a
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: handwriting test going. And he was like, well, okay, where's
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: your forensic expert and he has We don't have one. So,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like I said, I've seen TV. So I'm gonna make
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: up some of my own tests, and I'm gonna tell
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you to write some of this stuff. I'm gonna tell
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you to copy these letters. I'm gonna read some of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: them to you until and you you need to write
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: down what I'm saying. Uh, and that's gonna be the proof. Um.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And that's basically what happened. He was He basically said,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you know what, it looks like a match to me
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: at least pretty much. And and so I'm gonna arrest
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: you on charges of attempted murder. And he was released
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: on bond and interestingly checked himself into a mental health
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: center to get like proactively to get examined because I
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: think at first he thought about using a reason of
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: insanity plea and wanted to I guess support that lay
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: some groundwork. Yeah, but he he got out of that.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: He changed his mind later on. Yeah. So. UM. One
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: other thing that I think pushed Sheriff Radcliff into arresting
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Paul in addition to that Jannkee handwriting test was UM.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Karen fresh Hour, Paul's a strange wife, during an interview,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: told the sheriff, not only do I think that Paul
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is the Circleville letter writer, I actually found letters before
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: hidden in our house addressed to other people in that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: same weird handwriting. UM. And sheriff said, did you keep
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: these letters? Can I see him? And She's like, no,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't keep them. You know, I don't like clutter
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. But that definitely helped push the sheriff
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: into into arresting Paul. So before Paul knows it, he's
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: on trial in October of n for attempted murder because
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of that booby trapped gun. And at the trial, one
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of the things that really sunk him was that they
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: allowed the letters to be introduced, not in any kind
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of like criminal capacity, like he wasn't charged with harassment
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: or stalking or anything like that. They just basically used
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: it to paint him as a weirdo and a harassing
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: crack pot, and that the letters gave some sort of
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: roundabout motive or at least suggested that he was the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: person who, um, who booby trapped that sign, because the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: letters were connected to the sign, were connected to the gun,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: were connected to Paul fresh Hour, and without the letters,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it was just the gun and Paul fresh Hour. So
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: it was a huge coup for the prosecutors to be
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: able to introduce that, um that those letters, and then
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the handwriting analysts took over, right, Yeah, the handwriting analysts
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: confirmed two of them that they at least believed, and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you know we I think we did a full episode
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: on that, didn't we on handwriting analysis that he wrote those.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The other bad thing that he had going against him
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was that he had taken the day off of work, Uh,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the day that the booby trap sign was discovered. A
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: little bit fishy for someone who worked so much, or
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: at the very least if he was innocent, which I think, uh,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: very bad luck for him that he had happened to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: take that day off of work. Yeah, it's very incidental,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: don't you think. Well, sure, okay, you know, of course
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you can't say it's not a coincidence. Uh but he
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: either took the day off to do the booby trapp
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: or just that was just a bad coincidence. Wait, he
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just said, you can't say it's coincidence. I'll tell you.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I said you can. You can. You have
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to say it's coincidence unless he did it. Okay, I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: got you, I got you. I serious. I don't think
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: he did it, all right. I think there's a third
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: there's a third alternative that we'll talk about later. All'm
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: so excited, man. Uh So he said in court, like, hey, listen,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: this sheriff gave me this test. He told me to
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: copy the letters and and I just took that to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: me and to try and imitate the writing and and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: none of this was even above board. He's like, he's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: no letter writing expert. He shouldn't have been conducting this
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: junk science test. And here was some other interesting tidbit.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Mary said that, uh, hey listen. Another bus driver said
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that she went past that intersection where that sign was
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: booby trapped earlier that day, and there was a dude
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: there who did not look like uh, Paul at all,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and there was an el Camino there, yellow yellow el Camino,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and Paul doesn't drive that, and so like, I don't
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: think it's him because look, I mean, look, look, look
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: what's going on here. He's getting railroaded by the supposed
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: handwriting and the fact that it was his gun. And
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that's really just circumstantial evidence. So not only was it
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: fishy that there was a strange man spotted twenty minutes
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: before um Mary found this booby trap sign at the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: very spot the booby trap sign was put up, but also, Chuck,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it turns out that um, if you see, there's a
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: there was a suspect, a possible suspect who um whose
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: brother had a yellow el Camino, and that person turned
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: out to be Karen fresh Hour. Yeah, I see, I
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: saw other places. It was not a brother, oh, a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: boy friend I saw that. Well, No, it was another
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: relative who had the al camino, because the brother would
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: have been Roy's. I mean, I guess you could have
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: two brothers, right, yes, and a brother or a relative
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: could have been a boyfriend who we're talking about Central Ohio.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: What I think, and this is Furthering my case here
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit is because this guy, I don't think
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: we mentioned when he was when the school bus went by,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: he apparently like turned around real quick and acted like
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: he was peeing or something to to not be identified.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I think that that was Karen's boyfriend driving her relatives.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Uh oh, gotcha, Okay, okay, okay, I like, where are
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you going with that? Throw him off the case or whatever.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I got him off the case, that's right. So that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: was never introduced, right, No, not in court, I don't think, right. Yeah,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So the fact that that wasn't introduced the fact that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: they had Paul's gun. They introduced the letters. His coworker
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: at Anheuser Busch said, yeah, I saw him the g
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: on the personnel records that Anheuser Busch said he wasn't
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: there that day. That the jury took two and a
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: half hours and came back with a guilty plea and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Paul fresh Hour, who may not have ever written one
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of these letters or booby trap this this gun or
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: this side no motive. That's another one too, we'll just
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about in a second. He was He was
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: sentenced to seven to twenty five years in Ohio State
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Prison for attempted murder in in three he was convicted
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and sentenced, that's right, and he remained there for many years.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: He was denied. I mean, he's a great prisoner. When
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that seven years came up, he was eligible for parol
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: in ninete and these letters kept coming while he was
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: in jail, even though there's no way that he could
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: have written these and had them postmarked from Columbus from prison.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: He was even putting solitary for a while because they
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: said these letters are coming, and they clearly weren't coming
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: from him, but that was still the fact that they
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: were still coming. At his parole hearing, they said, no,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: these letters are still coming, so we're gonna keep you
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: in here. Imagine that. Imagine being like I'm innocent and
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: somebody else out there is proving that I'm innocent because
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: these letters are still coming. But you're taking is that
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: somehow I'm doing? You still got a letter in prison? Yeah,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: so you're gonna keep me in And then after he
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: was denied parole that first time he was up for it,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: after seven years in prison, he got a letter from
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the Circleville Um letter writers saying, now, what are you
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: gonna believe you aren't going to get out of there.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I told you two years ago when we set them up,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: they stay set up, don't you listen at all? So
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: we got a taunting letter after he was denied parole
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: because the letters were still going on. Yeah, I wonder
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: who wrote that. So he finally did get out in
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: after eleven years in prison, ten to eleven years in
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: prison for attempted murder. And he set up a website.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And this is like the mid nineties, so that was
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: like a big deal. He probably your Crystal links or something,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: but he set up a website that was dedicated to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: this case and you know, professing his innocence and everything. Um,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and you said something, uh that that I want to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: circle back to, and that was motive and that it
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: is just he didn't really have one. No, that is
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: something that everyone has struggled with, even like the prosecutors
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't quite say why he would have done this. That
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense that there's really nothing. He
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: didn't have anything to gain from Mary being found out
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: or whether she had an affair or not. He had
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: nothing to gain from her dying if he if he
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: set up that booby trap um and yeah, it just
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: didn't make any sense. And when you have like you
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: have motive, opportunity and means, and he had opportunity and
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: he had means, but he never had motive. And that
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: was a really big deal. And the fact is he
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: had a really good alibi despite all of that for
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: almost all of the day. Um. And yet he was
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: still convicted and spent more than ten years in prison
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: for it. Very sad. Uh. We should also mention that
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: there was a letter sent not only to Paul in prison,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: but while he was still in jail, there was a
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: letter sent to Unsolved Mysteries, the TV show, and they
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: were doing a segment about it. And uh, it said,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: forget Circleville, Ohio. Do nothing to hurt Sheriff Radcliffe. If
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: you come to Ohio, U L sickos will pay, signed
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the Circleville writer, I believe. I don't know if it's
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the first time it was signed as such. Uh, well,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get to it. Some of the letters
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: are signed w over the years, and those are the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: ones that weren't written quite in that blocky style. But
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: that'll that'll come back. That letter demonstrates something that's really um.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Characteristic of the Circleville letters, and that the almost the
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: only punctuation in them are colon's, not simmy collins, not periods,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: now even ellipses, you know, that annoying thing that people do.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: We're rather think commas or periods. They just use ellipses,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and sometimes like multiple ellipses at once. The people this
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: person used colons like that, So like in a in
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a single letter, there could be scores of colon's just
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: just littering the letter. And they did this in this
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: in this um, this letter to Unsolved Mysteries as well,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: which I just that's just you don't see people doing
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that with colon So I feel like that suggests that
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: every single letter that used colon's was definitely written by
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the same person. The only issue I will take with
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: any of that is that I like to use the ellipsus.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I've never seen you want to use ellipsus. I may
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: not have used them with you. Okay, Wow, that's it's
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: like you're a whole different person that I never knew before. Yeah,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: like ellipsus, I think it'd be very I think it
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: says a lot. It can be a very effective tool. Uh,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And I like it, Okay, do like eight dots in
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a row. I use like the standard three. Okay, No,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean. So you're using it as
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a device to basically say, just pause and think about
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: what I just said, or in your court or yeah,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: something like that. Okay, that's not at all what I'm
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: talking about. I'm talking about using an ellipse rather where
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a comma should be, where a period should be, where
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: even a hyphen should be. Using an ellipse for that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: is it's your bleedingly bad to read my mom, does it? Okay? Well,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to insult you or your family. No, no, no,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I no, you don't. It's it's it's it's definitely weird,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and it's a thing because it's not just one. My
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: mom will put like eight or nine dots in between
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: phrases and sentences and emails. I don't know. Maybe I'm
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: not sure what it is. And if you were while
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: she was typing it, each dot would be like um
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: um um, what am I gonna say next? Alright, let's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: take our final break here and we will talk a
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: little bit more about these darn letters right after this. Okay,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: So one thing about this mystery, Chuck, is it would
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: be like remarkable and noteworthy even if it were just
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: limited to Marry and her family receiving these threatening letters
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: and there being some signs hundreds. Yeah, that's not at
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: all what it was like. Yeah, as a matter of fact,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I saw more than a thousand letters in multiple places.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: More than a thousand letters, postcards, and signs were mailed
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: or put up around Circleville and even central Ohio in
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: general over the years. And um, the whole letter writing
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: campaign lasted for almost twenty years, more than eighteen years
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of these letters, and they were they alleged everything from
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: murder to affairs to um complaints about the Ohio, Ohio politics. Um,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: they just were all over the play. So it's a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: really weird case, even more so than like the core
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: case that we're talking about. It's even stranger and more
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: rambling than that. Yeah, and you know, they were, like
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you said, they expanded far beyond the Gillispie family. Some
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: accused the sheriff of being um involved in a cover
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: up about Ron's death. Some were about just other noteworthy
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: people in town or not noteworthy people who just uh,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you had an affair with this person and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: you're the local doctor or you're the local county coroner. Um,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: you've been abusing children. And the weird thing is a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: lot of this stuff was actually true, right, So it
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: was like, is someone just really attentive and exposing these things,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Like what's going on there? Yeah? And I think the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: town lived a bit in a bit of a state
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of fear that like they were going to get targeted
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: next and all of their war secrets were going to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: come out because, like you said, the Counting Corner, a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: guy named Dr Ray Carroll, he apparently had previously been
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a used of, um, inappropriate contact with children and in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: a letter right, no in general, okay, but most people
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: didn't know about this. It was like a secret from
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: his past. And this letter writer brought this up and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: years later, um, he actually I think he may have
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: lost his medical license. Um. The state medical board charged
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: him with eight counts of gross immorality, including stuff that
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: involved children. So this letter writer seemed to be correct
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: about that. There's another one that they were never proven
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: correct about. That was just maybe the most scandalous accusation
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: they ever made, and it was directed at the prosecutor
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: in Paul fresh Hour's case. A guy named Roger Klein. Yeah,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: they said that, Um, I know you killed that woman
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: who was pregnant. She's a school teacher, and I'm going
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to dig up their body and mail the bones to
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the cops unless you admit it. And I think this
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: was never sort of went anywhere, right. It was just
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: one of those accusations. Now, And Roger Klein ended up
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: continuing along the career path up to being an appeals
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: court judge when he retired a few years back. Um.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: But the accusation was that he was having an affair
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: with the school teacher, got her pregnant, and then killed
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: her and by proxy her their their unborn child. Um.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And the there was a school teacher named Vicky Cooke
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: who was murdered and whose murder was never solved. UM.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: And I I've seen in a couple of places that
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Roger Klein was proven to have had an affair with her,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: but I could not find that, like roundly um proven.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The upshot of all of this is this was exposed
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: in one of the letters. So the coroner in Ron
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Gillispie's death is exposed in a letter and targeted Roger Klein.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor in Paul fresh Our's case, gets a letter
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: of his own and he's targeted. So it wasn't just
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Mary and her affair with Gordon Massey that was the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: full subject of these letters. Other people were targeted as well.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: That's right. So there's a couple of more people we
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: should mention, I guess before we get to our final
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: verdicts um, and they were both children of key players.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: One was um William Massey. This is Superintendent Massey's son.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: He was I've mentioned some of those earlier letters were
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: written in a kind of different style of handwriting, and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: they were signed with a W. Some people say it
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: could have been William Massey writing these and actually signing them.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: He was a grade school I'm sorry, I think high
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: school student at the time. Teenager and uh so, just
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: throwing that out there. And then there is Mark fresh Hour,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: who was Karen and Sue's son, who um who went
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: with you know, he he the dad got custody. So
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what kind of say they had, but
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I know that Mark did not go see his dad
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: in prison one time and generally is sort of believed
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: to have been on mom's side through all this. Yeah,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: so I'm glad. Do you line those up? Because, like
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I get think Christie um book, we're just basically introducing
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: characters who are now suspects at the very end of
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. Yeah, and interestingly, Mark, in September two
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: thousand two was found dead from a self inflicted gunshot
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: wound floating in a river. So, uh, some people say
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that this was guilt because he was a part of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: this thing. His mom Karen said no, he had been
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: battling depression. Nothing to see here, So let's talk about
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the person that that brings up. Then, Um that that
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: has related Mark fresh Hour having to do with with
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the case against his father is Everyone says that he,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: if he did this, it was at the behest of
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: his mother, Karen mark Um, Paul's ex wife, and that
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: it was Karen who was actually the Circleville letter writer
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Um who was who basically used this whole campaign to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: set her ex husband Paul up. Right, Well, what do
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you think? Are you getting into what you think? I'm
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: just going over one of the us. What do you think? Well,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: here's what I think. If that's where we are, sure,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: all right? Well, I mean we have other suspects to
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: talk about. Well, it'll all come out in this and
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I think that the original letter was sent, in fact
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: by David Longberry, the bus driver who Mary Gillispy refuted,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: and I think he got jealous. I think he wrote
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: quite a few of those first letters, because they are
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: all about other bus drivers, and they are all about
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the school system, and it's a lot of inside baseball
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: knowledge he wrote the first one. Then I think Karen
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: used that uh skin to uh start writing letters of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: her own when she became obsessed with getting back at
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: her husband soon to be ex husband. And I think
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: she did enlist her son Mark. I think she enlisted
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: her ex boyfriend or I'm sorry, her boyfriend, uh who said,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you know, supposedly match the description of the guy in
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the El Camino. I think that it was all her,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: uh the that Martin Yant guy, the investigator said. In
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: my twenty two years as a journalist, I've never I
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: don't think I've ever met an individual so consumed with
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: so much irrational hatred for another and a willingness to
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: say anything, no matter how provably false, to defame him
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: about her ex husband. And I think it was all her.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: And then I think all these other weird letters, I
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: think people of of of Ohio just started writing these
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: as as ways to expose people. Okay, Okay, that's what
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I think. Like you said, that's Martin Yance take on it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: He knows probably more than anybody about this case, aside
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: from Paul fresh Hour, who, by the yeah, he thinks
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: that it started out as David Longberry and was followed
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: up by Karen fresh Hour to set up Yeah. Yeah,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that was Martin Yance theory. So you're in good company.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: They you're in good company. You and Martin Yann agree
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: on that. Um, And I mean there's a lot to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: base it on. Like Karen and or her son um
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: had access to Paul's gun. Um, she had them so
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that she had the means, the opportunity, and the motive.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: For sure, she definitely hated Paul fresh Hour. Happened to
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: throw away all those other letters that get found supposedly. Yeah,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I think even if she wasn't the letter writer, at
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the very least, she was doing what she could to
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: set Paul up or make sure Paul went to jail
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: for this, even if she hadn't gone to the trouble
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: of being been the letter writer. Okay, And my final
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: piece is she didn't come out with any of this
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: stuff until after that divorce was started. Yeah, like that
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: all all would have come out during the divorce proceedings
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: because it was bitter and acrimonious, so she would have
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: used anything she could have against him. So the fact
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that she didn't mention those those things during the divorce
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: proceedings is extra FICII Is that what you're saying? No,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: no, no no, she did mention him. I'm saying, none of
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: this was mentioned like this whole time these letters were
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: going on. None of it was mentioned until she started
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to get divorced. Okay, that's not what I saw. I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: saw she didn't mention it until Paul was starting to
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: be railroaded toward prison, and the fact that she didn't
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: talk about it during their divorce proceedings made it fishy.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: M So I saw. The other way is that she
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: conveniently didn't mention any of this stuff until the divorce
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: started to get ugly, and then all the not mentioned it.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: But that's when that's when she got involved. I think
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I got you, Okay, all right, so do you want
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to know who? I think here's a really good chance
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that what you just said is correct. I think it's
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: entirely possible. I want to hear your take. I think
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it's also just as possible that the Circleville letter writer
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: was Paul fresh Hour. Mm hmmm. And here's why he um,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I saw that a motive for him to write these
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: initial letters some someone's floated I don't remember who that
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: it was. He was loyal to his wife at the time,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and that his wife was this ster of Ron who
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: was being hurt by his wife Mary having an affair.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: So it's possible, whether it was his own idea or
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: with Karen Um, he would have written these letters as
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a weird, roundabout way to get her to stop having
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: this affair, Okay, So that it is possible he did
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: have motive, and then from that point on he possibly
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: had motive to keep it up um to to as
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: a as a way of grinding an axe. He accused
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Radcliffe of covering up Ron's death. The circle Villar
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: letter writer accused Um the sheriff, of covering up Ron's death.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: The the prosecutor in the case, got his own letter.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: The the guy who prosecuted Paul fresh Air got his
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: own super scandalous letter. The coroner who ruled it was
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: an accident. Ron Gilespie's death got a super scandalous letter.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: These people were people that Paul fresh Air would have
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: had a problem with, and no one else, none of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the other suspects would have had a problem with. So
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: it's also apparently there was a letter UM a handwriting
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: analyst who was on episode of forty eight Hours who
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: said this, these are written by one person, and that
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: person was Paul fresh Our based on his handwriting UM.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: And apparently the UM Whatever Remains podcast turned up apparently
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: somebody got fingerprints off of some of the letters that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: were sent while Paul was in prison, and they had
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Paul's fingerprints on them. So there's a lot of stuff
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: that incriminates Paul as well. It's entirely possible it was
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: him and the other The last thing is the moment
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he got out of prison. Um, the right right around
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the time he got out a prison, the letters just
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: stopped altogether. Yeah, I don't know that. I don't know
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: what that means. So yeah, I mean a lot of
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: it's up for subjective interpretation. I think it's either multiple
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: people mainly UM, David Longberry and Karen, or it was
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: all Paul. That's might take well, I mean, who else
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: could it have been? It could have in um, Gordon
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Massey obviously, right, the original guy. You got anything else?
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well, if you like this, there's
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of this case, so there's probably
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: a rabbit hole for you to jump down and go
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: search it on the internet. Uh and listen to those
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: other podcasts whatever Remains and Invisible Ships and see what
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: you think about there's two. And since I said that,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail or get on Reddit
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: man that sometimes I'm not on Reddit hardly at all,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: but sometimes stuff like this is a lot of fun
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: because you get to see all these different people's takes
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: and opinions. I saw this one guy who literally read
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the entire hundred and sixty something page thing that Paul
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: had put out in the early nineties, like, man, you've
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: got more time than I do. Yeah, it's really detailed.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I was looking through and it is. Yeah. I didn't
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: make it through the whole thing. But if you're if
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you're into that, go to um their Unresolved Mysteries subreddit
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that will be up your alley. All right, gonna call
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: this Flann and Aisles Wave explained this is Uh. This
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: is from Allison from Toronto, but I have to say
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that we got so many letters that said basically the
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: same thing almost immediately after that episode kid that I
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: think it's probably what happened, and it seems pretty possible
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: to be. Hey, guys, love the podcast. You're the best
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: with regard to planning aisles mystery. I'd like to share
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: how I envision it. How about this the box and
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: the cranes banging around. The two keepers down their weather
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: gear and set off to secure it. The other stays
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: behind from the elevated advantage point of the lighthouse. Maybe
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: while skinning the horizon with binoculars. Who knows, he spots
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: that rogue wave coming towards the island, and in an
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: attempt to warn and save his friends, bolts from the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: lighthouse without weather gear, maybe even knocks over that chair,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: only to be swept away with his friends in an
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: attempt to save them. One wave, all three gone. I
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: think he saw it coming and thought he had enough
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: time to save them. All that as from Allison from
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Toronto and many many other people who said basically the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: exact same thing. Uh, And it sounds pretty good to me,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: It really does. It's super plausible, and I it didn't.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: It didn't dawn on me at all. If that's a possibility,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: one wave or another, it's gonna get you. Sometimes when
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in front of the microphone, you don't have
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: time to ruminate like you people do at home. The
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: people want our defense. They want some more jokes, they
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: want some more pithy insights, you know. Yeah, they want
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: another piece of us. Yeah, but thank you. I mean,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: without the rest of everybody, we would be incomplete. So
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: everybody else completes us, right right, that's right. If you
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: want to send us a an email that completes us,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: we would appreciate that. You can send it to us
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: at stuff podcast. Wait hole on, Chuck, Who was that?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: They wrote in Allison from Toronto, Thank you Allison from
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Toronto and everybody else who wrote into You can send
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: your email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
• 50:59
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• 51:02
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• 51:07
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