Latest / Crime and Horror / She tried to hide it, but that made it WORSE The Circleville Letters
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: There is a town in central Ohio called Circleville. It's
- 0:04Speaker 1: a population of maybe ten thousand people. It's very modest,
- 0:08Speaker 1: blue collar, totally obscure. Unless you maybe have relatives from
- 0:13Speaker 1: Circleville or you are from the area, there's a good
- 0:16Speaker 1: chance you've never heard of Circleville. They're big claim to
- 0:18Speaker 1: fame is their Pumpkin Show that they've been hosting every
- 0:22Speaker 1: year since nineteen oh three. But if you're a fan
- 0:24Speaker 1: of unsolved mysteries, there's a pretty good chance you've heard
- 0:27Speaker 1: of Circleville because it played host to one of the
- 0:31Speaker 1: strangest mysteries that played out in American history, that started
- 0:35Speaker 1: all the way back in nineteen seventy six, and depending
- 0:38Speaker 1: on your viewpoint, still persists to this day. Before we
- 0:41Speaker 1: get into today's story. If you're a fan of the strange,
- 0:44Speaker 1: dark and mysterious, then you come to the right channel,
- 0:47Speaker 1: because that's the focus of my channel, and I upload
- 0:50Speaker 1: three to four times a week, and so if that's
- 0:53Speaker 1: something you're interested in, I would ask you to gently
- 0:56Speaker 1: bash the like button and then subscribe to this channel
- 0:59Speaker 1: and turn on all post notifications so you don't miss
- 1:01Speaker 1: any of my.
- 1:02Speaker 2: Weekly three to four uploads. All right, let's get into
- 1:05Speaker 2: the story.
- 1:14Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, Mary Gillespie lived in Circleville, Ohio
- 1:17Speaker 1: with her husband, Ron Gillespie, and Mary was a bus
- 1:21Speaker 1: driver for the local school and one day she came
- 1:24Speaker 1: home from work and she found a letter that was
- 1:27Speaker 1: addressed specifically to Mary. It had no return address, and
- 1:32Speaker 1: it was postmarked from Columbus, Ohio.
- 1:34Speaker 2: The letter effectively said.
- 1:36Speaker 3: We know you're having an affair with the superintendent of
- 1:40Speaker 3: the school. You must stop and come clean and tell
- 1:44Speaker 3: your husband. If you don't, bad things are going to
- 1:47Speaker 3: happen to you. We're watching your house. We know you
- 1:51Speaker 3: have children now.
- 1:52Speaker 1: Mary was obviously frightened. She was scared for her kids,
- 1:55Speaker 1: she was scared for herself.
- 1:57Speaker 3: You know.
- 1:57Speaker 1: She didn't really know how to react to this letter,
- 1:59Speaker 1: so she just ignored it and hoped that it was
- 2:02Speaker 1: a hoax and that it would just stop. But a
- 2:05Speaker 1: week goes by and she gets another letter. This letter
- 2:09Speaker 1: was even more threatening, saying that if you don't stop
- 2:12Speaker 1: this now, we are going to harm you. This is
- 2:15Speaker 1: not a joke. Mary decided to ignore that letter too,
- 2:19Speaker 1: but literally the next day, her husband, Ron woke up
- 2:22Speaker 1: one morning and got the mail and found the letter
- 2:24Speaker 1: addressed to him. The letter had no return address and
- 2:28Speaker 1: was postmarked from Columbus, Ohio. Just like the first two
- 2:31Speaker 1: letters sent to Mary. The letter to Ron said that
- 2:33Speaker 1: his wife was having an affair with the superintendent of
- 2:36Speaker 1: the school and that if he didn't confront her and
- 2:39Speaker 1: get her to admit the truth and get it to stop,
- 2:43Speaker 1: that Ron's.
- 2:43Speaker 2: Life would be in grave danger.
- 2:47Speaker 1: Ron is horrified to read this letter. He hadn't suspected
- 2:50Speaker 1: anything of his wife. This was very uncharacteristic, and so
- 2:53Speaker 1: he went to Mary and he said, hey, I got
- 2:55Speaker 1: this letter.
- 2:56Speaker 3: What is this.
- 2:57Speaker 2: I've gotten two of these letters. I've just been ignoring it.
- 2:59Speaker 2: I didn't know it to do.
- 3:00Speaker 1: And she aggressively denied any accusation that she was having
- 3:04Speaker 1: an affair. She said, I'm not doing any of that.
- 3:06Speaker 1: And so Ron believes his wife and says, you know what,
- 3:11Speaker 1: I don't know what this is, but I believe you.
- 3:13Speaker 2: Let's ignore this. This will go away. I don't know
- 3:15Speaker 2: what this is, but it'll go away.
- 3:16Speaker 1: A week later, Ron receives another letter addressed to him,
- 3:21Speaker 1: no return address, postmark from Columbus, Ohio.
- 3:24Speaker 3: This letter said, Ron, it's been a week and you
- 3:27Speaker 3: haven't done anything. You have to get her to admit
- 3:30Speaker 3: the truth. Otherwise, not only are we going to put
- 3:33Speaker 3: your life in danger, we're also going to broadcast what
- 3:36Speaker 3: she's doing all over town on billboards, on radio, and
- 3:41Speaker 3: on TV.
- 3:42Speaker 1: So at this point Ron and Mary are scared. Ron
- 3:46Speaker 1: is still standing behind his wife. He believes his wife
- 3:49Speaker 1: that she has not had an affair, that this is
- 3:51Speaker 1: just some horrible hoax. But they're scared, but they don't
- 3:55Speaker 1: really want to go to police yet. They kind of
- 3:57Speaker 1: want this to just go away. So their first step is,
- 3:59Speaker 1: let's tell some people in our inner circle, just to
- 4:02Speaker 1: kind of put this out there and see what other
- 4:04Speaker 1: people think. And so the three people that were closest
- 4:07Speaker 1: to Ron and Mary were Ron's sister, Ron's sister's husband
- 4:13Speaker 1: named Paul fresh Hour, and Paul's sister. So it's a
- 4:18Speaker 1: little confusing, but those are the players here in So,
- 4:20Speaker 1: while Mary and Ron are telling their inner circle about
- 4:24Speaker 1: this anonymous set of letters they've gotten and all the
- 4:26Speaker 1: threats involved, Mary starts to think that she might know
- 4:31Speaker 1: who's been sending the letters. She has an idea of
- 4:34Speaker 1: who it is. Now we unfortunately don't know who this
- 4:37Speaker 1: person is. It's been left out of anything I can
- 4:39Speaker 1: find online. But she decides that it's in their best
- 4:42Speaker 1: interest to proactively send this person a letter and basically
- 4:46Speaker 1: say you've got to stop or we're going to pursue
- 4:48Speaker 1: legal action. And initially, when they started sending the letters,
- 4:52Speaker 1: while it's unclear if they got any sort of response
- 4:54Speaker 1: from this person, the letters, the anonymous letters did stop,
- 4:59Speaker 1: but that that would all change in August of nineteen
- 5:02Speaker 1: seventy seven, when Ron was home one night with the kids,
- 5:05Speaker 1: Mary was out and Ron.
- 5:07Speaker 2: Receives a phone call.
- 5:08Speaker 1: He picks up the phone call, and his kids would
- 5:10Speaker 1: say that his entire demeanor changed. He went from calm
- 5:15Speaker 1: and collected to angry, furious. He's talking to someone, and
- 5:22Speaker 1: it's unclear.
- 5:22Speaker 2: What was said.
- 5:23Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what was said or who he
- 5:25Speaker 1: was talking to. But when he hung up, he tells
- 5:27Speaker 1: his kids that I'm going to go confront to the
- 5:29Speaker 1: person who's been writing these letters. And so Ron grabs
- 5:33Speaker 1: his pistol, gets in his pickup truck and blazes off
- 5:36Speaker 1: down the road.
- 5:37Speaker 2: It's like he knew exactly where he needed to go.
- 5:39Speaker 1: But literally minutes later, it was discovered that Ron had died.
- 5:46Speaker 1: He crashed into a tree and he died on impact. Now,
- 5:49Speaker 1: nobody else was found at the scene, I mean the
- 5:51Speaker 1: sheriff and the police unit that went in to investigate.
- 5:54Speaker 1: It was just Ron in a ditch against a tree.
- 5:57Speaker 1: But they found that he had fired one shot out
- 6:01Speaker 1: of his pistol. They don't know who he was shooting
- 6:04Speaker 1: at or what he was shooting at, but he fired
- 6:06Speaker 1: a shot before he crashed. The sheriff initially suspected foul play,
- 6:12Speaker 1: but the sheriff changes his mind. He says, you know what,
- 6:15Speaker 1: Ron was drunk. Ron was one and a half times
- 6:19Speaker 1: over the legal limit, so he was drunk driving and
- 6:22Speaker 1: he crashed. But that didn't make any sense because Ron's
- 6:25Speaker 1: family said Ron does not drink, and his kids said
- 6:30Speaker 1: he hadn't had anything to drink that day. So at
- 6:32Speaker 1: this point the story starts getting very bizarre. After Ron's death,
- 6:37Speaker 1: hundreds of other letters, anonymous letters no return address postmark
- 6:42Speaker 1: from Columbus, Ohio are sent to residents all over central Ohio,
- 6:47Speaker 1: not just Circleville, but all over central Ohio, and the
- 6:50Speaker 1: letters took a turn. Instead of being accusatory of Mary,
- 6:55Speaker 1: although there was still some of that, it was the
- 6:58Speaker 1: sheriff in Circleville is cover bring something up. It was
- 7:01Speaker 1: around this time the people started to speculate that perhaps
- 7:05Speaker 1: the writer's agenda is not as clear.
- 7:07Speaker 2: Initially it seemed like they were targeting, you know, Mary
- 7:11Speaker 2: and Ron, and then when Ron.
- 7:13Speaker 1: Is taken down, they're defending Ron. So following Ron's death,
- 7:17Speaker 1: I mean, Mary is scared for her life. She just
- 7:21Speaker 1: watched her husband die as a result of this horrible situation,
- 7:24Speaker 1: and all these letters are pouring in all over central
- 7:28Speaker 1: Ohio with the same kind of nasty language about her
- 7:31Speaker 1: and her supposed affair with the superintendent of the school.
- 7:34Speaker 1: You know, the letters are insinuating that the sheriff is
- 7:37Speaker 1: covering something up with her husband's death. I mean, her
- 7:40Speaker 1: kind of dirty laundry is being aired out by this
- 7:42Speaker 1: anonymous writer all over central Ohio. And this goes on
- 7:47Speaker 1: for years, and so finally, in nineteen eighty three, Mary
- 7:51Speaker 1: is at a breaking point and she finally admits that
- 7:54Speaker 1: she was having an affair with the.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Superintendent of the school.
- 7:58Speaker 1: Now, she claims that it happened or it started after
- 8:01Speaker 1: the first letters arrived, that it was just a crazy coincidence.
- 8:04Speaker 1: But whether or not that's true, it's kind of secondary,
- 8:07Speaker 1: and she thought that that would stop the letters, that
- 8:11Speaker 1: the first thing that this person wanted was for her
- 8:14Speaker 1: to admit this and stop this affair. So she comes
- 8:17Speaker 1: out and she admits it, and she puts an end
- 8:18Speaker 1: to it, thinking that's going to do it, but that
- 8:21Speaker 1: didn't do anything.
- 8:22Speaker 2: It actually made it worse.
- 8:23Speaker 1: So in nineteen eighty three, after she admits what was
- 8:26Speaker 1: going on with her and the superintendent, she's on her
- 8:30Speaker 1: bus route driving the kids to school, and she starts
- 8:33Speaker 1: noticing these billboards and signs all over her route condemning
- 8:36Speaker 1: her for her actions and saying she's this horrible person.
- 8:39Speaker 2: And so she got mad.
- 8:40Speaker 1: She went from being kind of a victim and scared
- 8:43Speaker 1: to being mad. And so one day in nineteen eighty three,
- 8:47Speaker 1: she pulls over when she sees one of these signs,
- 8:49Speaker 1: and she gets out, she rips it out, and then
- 8:52Speaker 1: when she puts it down, she notices there's a box
- 8:54Speaker 1: that's a part of this kind of billboard contraption, and
- 8:57Speaker 1: she kind of looks inside and there is a loaded
- 9:00Speaker 1: gun that has a wire wrapped around the trigger and
- 9:04Speaker 1: the slack's been pulled out of it, like it's literally
- 9:06Speaker 1: ready to fire, and had she been standing at a
- 9:09Speaker 1: slightly different angle when she pulled down the sign, it
- 9:12Speaker 1: would have fired the gun and it would have shot her.
- 9:14Speaker 2: So she calls police.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Police show up, They do an investigation and they look
- 9:19Speaker 1: at the weapon and they can tell that someone very
- 9:22Speaker 1: poorly tried to etch off the serial numbers on the
- 9:25Speaker 1: weapon so that it couldn't be traceable. But they were
- 9:28Speaker 1: able to lift the serial number and they were able
- 9:31Speaker 1: to trace it back to its original owner, who was
- 9:33Speaker 1: none other.
- 9:34Speaker 2: Than Paul fresh Hour and said. The police go to
- 9:36Speaker 2: Paul and they're like, is this your pistol?
- 9:39Speaker 1: And Paul was totally cooperative when he was approached. He's like, yes,
- 9:45Speaker 1: I didn't report it, but that gun was stolen from me,
- 9:48Speaker 1: didn't I didn't set up that booby trap. The sheriff,
- 9:50Speaker 1: who was the same one who investigated Ron's death, he
- 9:54Speaker 1: didn't buy it, and so they made him submit to
- 9:56Speaker 1: a handwriting test. It apparently totally the jury. They were like,
- 10:01Speaker 1: you know what, Paul's the guy. And he was found
- 10:04Speaker 1: guilty and sentenced to seven to twenty four years in jail.
- 10:08Speaker 1: And so Paul goes to jail and while he's in
- 10:11Speaker 1: solitary confinement. More letters are sent out all over central
- 10:16Speaker 1: Ohio and they're all being postmarked out of Columbus, Ohio,
- 10:20Speaker 1: even though he is in solitary confinement in Lima, Ohio.
- 10:26Speaker 2: But no one wanted to listen to that.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Everybody believed that Paul was the guy, even though he's like,
- 10:31Speaker 1: how could I have been writing these letters? And so
- 10:34Speaker 1: for seven years, these letters are sent all over central Ohio,
- 10:39Speaker 1: you know, accusing the sheriff of this cover up and
- 10:42Speaker 1: condemning Mary for what she did. And then when Paul
- 10:46Speaker 1: is up for parole after seven years, he stands before
- 10:50Speaker 1: the parole board and they deny him parole on the
- 10:53Speaker 1: grounds that he was sending these letters, even though he's like,
- 10:56Speaker 1: how could I have been I've been in solitary confinement
- 10:59Speaker 1: most the time. But they were like, too bad, you
- 11:01Speaker 1: wrote the letters, see it. And so he goes back
- 11:04Speaker 1: to jail. And it was at this point that Paul
- 11:07Speaker 1: actually he gets a letter. This letter was taunting Paul
- 11:10Speaker 1: because they apparently had known that he was denied parole
- 11:13Speaker 1: based on him being the writer. And instead of it
- 11:17Speaker 1: being written in the first person like I, it was
- 11:20Speaker 1: written we we are keeping you in jail for as
- 11:24Speaker 1: long as we can, basically saying ha haa, we know
- 11:27Speaker 1: you didn't do it, but we are going to keep
- 11:29Speaker 1: you in jail for as long as we can.
- 11:31Speaker 3: And they even said that booby trap is not the
- 11:34Speaker 3: only one. It's only a matter of time before somebody
- 11:37Speaker 3: else finds one, and then you're gonna get blamed for
- 11:40Speaker 3: that too.
- 11:41Speaker 1: But following that letter, the letter stop and so for
- 11:44Speaker 1: three years, Paul remains in jail until he's up for
- 11:47Speaker 1: parole again.
- 11:48Speaker 2: And since there.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Haven't been any more letters and no one found any
- 11:52Speaker 1: more booby traps, Paul's granted parole. Paul would maintain his
- 11:56Speaker 1: innocence all the way until twenty twelve when he passed away.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety three, which was the same year that Paul
- 12:02Speaker 1: was released from prison, the very popular TV show Unsolved
- 12:06Speaker 1: Mysteries decides to cover this story. As soon as they
- 12:10Speaker 1: are beginning to do research on it, they receive a
- 12:13Speaker 1: letter from an anonymous person with no return address postmark
- 12:18Speaker 1: from Columbus, Ohio. Written in the same style handwriting as
- 12:22Speaker 1: the Circleville writer. It said, if you come to Ohio
- 12:26Speaker 1: ul sickos will pay. And so the staff and crew
- 12:30Speaker 1: of the show had a decision to make you know,
- 12:32Speaker 1: is this a credible threat or not? Do we actually
- 12:34Speaker 1: pursue this or not? And they ultimately decided that they
- 12:37Speaker 1: had to do it now.
- 12:39Speaker 2: And so they go into.
- 12:40Speaker 1: Ohio and they do their own research and they start
- 12:42Speaker 1: questioning people that were involved in this case, and they
- 12:45Speaker 1: come across a crucial piece of evidence that more than
- 12:50Speaker 1: likely could have potentially kept Paul from going to jail.
- 12:54Speaker 1: They discovered that there was another witness that was never
- 12:57Speaker 1: brought forward, despite she made herself a favailable. She was
- 13:01Speaker 1: not used in the trial and was basically cast aside.
- 13:04Speaker 1: But she was also another She was a bus driver
- 13:06Speaker 1: and she was on the same route as Mary, and
- 13:09Speaker 1: before Mary went to that booby trap sign and ripped
- 13:13Speaker 1: it down and almost was shot, this bus driver was
- 13:16Speaker 1: ahead of Mary and when she passed by, she saw
- 13:20Speaker 1: there was a yellow, flashy El Camino sports car parked
- 13:23Speaker 1: near the sign, and standing outside of the car near
- 13:26Speaker 1: the sign was a man who did not match the
- 13:30Speaker 1: description of Paul fresh Hour at all.
- 13:33Speaker 2: And when she was interviewed by Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety.
- 13:36Speaker 1: Three, they were like, really, the sheriff like that nobody
- 13:40Speaker 1: wanted to talk to you about this, and she's like, yeah,
- 13:42Speaker 1: I told them that I'm available, and no one wanted
- 13:44Speaker 1: to talk to me about it. So unsolved mysteries. They
- 13:46Speaker 1: air the episode and nothing comes of it. They don't
- 13:49Speaker 1: get any more threats, there's nothing.
- 13:50Speaker 2: It just gets aired. It's very interesting, and that's that. Really.
- 13:54Speaker 1: At this point, you're left with a collection of people,
- 13:57Speaker 1: the police included, that fundamentally believe that there is no mystery.
- 14:00Speaker 2: It was Paul Freshauer.
- 14:01Speaker 1: He's the guy that wrote these letters that set up
- 14:04Speaker 1: the booby traps.
- 14:05Speaker 2: He went to jail for it, and that's that.
- 14:07Speaker 1: But there's another group of people that believe Paul didn't
- 14:10Speaker 1: do this, that he went to jail for something he
- 14:11Speaker 1: didn't do. And one of those people is a journalist
- 14:14Speaker 1: by the name of Martin Yant. And so Martin, along
- 14:17Speaker 1: with a large number of people, believe there are three
- 14:20Speaker 1: additional suspects that should have been looked into or should
- 14:23Speaker 1: be looked into now that could have been the writer.
- 14:25Speaker 2: The first one is.
- 14:26Speaker 1: The superintendent of the school, the one that Mary was
- 14:29Speaker 1: accused and then admitted to having an affair with. The
- 14:32Speaker 1: second was a co worker of Mary's that apparently was
- 14:35Speaker 1: infatuated with her. And then the third one was Paul
- 14:39Speaker 1: Freshauer's wife, so they were married when the Circleville writer
- 14:44Speaker 1: drama unfolded, but they ultimately divorced. She left him and
- 14:47Speaker 1: she ended up getting together with another guide. So she's
- 14:50Speaker 1: got a boyfriend, and the boyfriend matches the description of
- 14:54Speaker 1: the guy standing next to the El Camino at that
- 14:58Speaker 1: sign in nineteen eighty three, and one of this guy's
- 15:01Speaker 1: relatives owned a yellow El Camino, but nobody ever followed up.
- 15:08Speaker 1: The police aren't looking into it. Paul Freshower is the guy,
- 15:11Speaker 1: and they're not about to reopen this case. For me,
- 15:14Speaker 1: the letters that got sent out all over Central Ohio
- 15:17Speaker 1: while Paul is in you know, solitary confinement, to me,
- 15:21Speaker 1: that is like the number one thing that makes.
- 15:23Speaker 2: Me doubt that Paul was the guy.
- 15:26Speaker 1: Now, could he have been involved, Certainly, I think that
- 15:29Speaker 1: that's definitely possible, but I think that more than likely.
- 15:32Speaker 1: What we're looking at here is there was more than
- 15:34Speaker 1: one writer. There's a whole group of them, but it's
- 15:37Speaker 1: just unclear what their agenda was, and the whole thing
- 15:40Speaker 1: is just very confusing. There's lots of people involved, lots
- 15:43Speaker 1: of drama, it's like the most epic drama that's unfolded
- 15:46Speaker 1: in the most obscure place in the country. But it
- 15:49Speaker 1: is what it is, and it's certainly a fascinating mystery,
- 15:51Speaker 1: and I would love to.
- 15:52Speaker 2: Hear what your theories are.
- 15:55Speaker 1: Was it Paul fresh Hour, was it one of the
- 15:57Speaker 1: three suspects that I just listed off that Mark Yean
- 16:00Speaker 1: thinks it was, or was it something else? I'd love
- 16:03Speaker 1: to hear it in the comments. I'll do my best
- 16:04Speaker 1: to go through the comments and respond to as many
- 16:06Speaker 1: people as I can. If you enjoyed this story, please
- 16:09Speaker 1: gently bash the like button and then subscribe to my
- 16:12Speaker 1: channel and turn on all post notifications so you don't
- 16:15Speaker 1: miss any of my three to four weekly uploads that
- 16:18Speaker 1: look and sound an awful lot like today's story, The Dark, strange,
- 16:21Speaker 1: and mysterious. If you want to get in touch with me,
- 16:23Speaker 1: you can message me on Instagram. My handle is John
- 16:26Speaker 1: Balin four one six. I'm also very active on TikTok,
- 16:29Speaker 1: where my handle is mister Ballin, same as my YouTube channel,
- 16:32Speaker 1: and I go live over there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and
- 16:35Speaker 1: Friday at ten pm Eastern, So I hope to see.
- 16:38Speaker 2: You over on other channels or here on YouTube or
- 16:41Speaker 2: all of them.
- 16:42Speaker 1: But either way, I really appreciate your support and until
- 16:45Speaker 1: next time, see you guys.