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A Little Less Mess: The Circleville Letters [Ohio] · Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to Bless This Mess and the True
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  Speaker 1: Crime Podcast.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Cara, just Cara. This is A Little Less Mess,
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  Speaker 2: our Monday mini-sode where we step outside the South For
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: a case that is strange, unsettling, and just a little
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  Speaker 2: less messy than our full Thursday episodes. Now before we
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  Speaker 2: get started, here's a quick reminder of our weekly schedule.
• 0:40
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  Speaker 2: regular full-length Southern True Crime Cases. And if you want early,
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  Speaker 2: and subscribe wherever you are listening. All right, y'all, let's
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  Speaker 2: get into this week's case out of Ohio. For nearly
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  Speaker 2: two decades, someone in a small Ohio town sent anonymous
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  Speaker 2: letters that seemed to know everybody's business. The writer accused
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  Speaker 2: people of affairs, domestic violence, embezzlement, murder, and secrets that
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  Speaker 2: were supposed to be private. The letters had no return address,
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  Speaker 2: they were written in blocky handwriting, and they came with threats.
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  Speaker 2: This is the mystery of the Circleville letters. Circleville, Ohio
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  Speaker 2: is a small city south of Columbus. It is well
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  Speaker 2: known for its annual pumpkin show, and in the 1970s
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  Speaker 2: it was the kind of place where people knew their neighbors,
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  Speaker 2: watched local school events, and noticed when something out of
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  Speaker 2: the ordinary happened. Then, in March of 1977, people started
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  Speaker 2: finding anonymous letters in their mailboxes. The letters were not
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  Speaker 2: friendly notes or harmless pranks. They were personal, cruel, and threatening.
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  Speaker 2: They accused people of things that could damage marriages, jobs,
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  Speaker 2: and reputations. They made it clear that the writer believed
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  Speaker 2: they were watching the people they targeted. One letter read,
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  Speaker 2: You have been watched. Failure to comply and you shall suffer.
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  Speaker 2: No one can help. No one can protect you. Obey.
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  Speaker 2: The writer seemed to know exactly which button to push.
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  Speaker 2: For Mary Gillespie, the attacks focused on an alleged affair
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  Speaker 2: with Gordon Massey, the superintendent of the local school district.
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  Speaker 2: Mary was married to a man named Ronald Gillespie. Gordon
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  Speaker 2: was married too. Mary always denied that she was having
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  Speaker 2: an affair with Gordon at the time the earliest letters arrived.
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  Speaker 2: But the writer was relentless. The letters accused Mary of
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  Speaker 2: sneaking around with the other woman's husband. They accused her
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  Speaker 2: of causing pain to families and marriages. They did not
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  Speaker 2: only go to Mary. Ronald began receiving letters too. One
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  Speaker 2: letter urged him to catch Mary and Gordon together and
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  Speaker 2: kill them both. Imagine opening your mailbox and finding somebody
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  Speaker 2: trying to set a match to your marriage. Somebody who
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  Speaker 2: knows your names, knows your jobs, knows your town, and
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  Speaker 2: seems to be watching you. That is what the Gillespie
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  Speaker 2: family was living with. In August 1977, the story took
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  Speaker 2: an even darker turn. Mary was away on a trip
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  Speaker 2: to Florida when Ronald received a phone call. The caller
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  Speaker 2: was believed to be connected to the anonymous letters. Ronald
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  Speaker 2: left in his pickup truck. Not long afterward, he crashed
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  Speaker 2: into a tree and died. He was only 35 years old.
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  Speaker 2: Police found a gun underneath Ronald's body. The gun had
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  Speaker 2: been fired once. The official ruling was that Ronald's death
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  Speaker 2: was an accident. But because of the letters, the phone call,
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  Speaker 2: and the gun... people wondered whether something else had happened.
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  Speaker 2: Had Ronald been chasing somebody? Had he fired at someone?
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  Speaker 2: Had he been forced off the road? Or was it
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  Speaker 2: simply a terrible crash connected only by timing to the
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  Speaker 2: letter campaign that had already turned his family upside down?
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  Speaker 2: There was never a murder charge in Ronald's death. But
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  Speaker 2: for Mary, the terror did not end when he died.
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  Speaker 2: After Ronald's death, Mary and Gordon Massey did eventually begin
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  Speaker 2: a relationship, and according to reporting on the case, that
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  Speaker 2: was when the letters became even more threatening. The writer's
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  Speaker 2: obsession with Mary did not fade. It intensified. For years,
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  Speaker 2: Circleville residents continued to receive letters. They went to homes, businesses,
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  Speaker 2: and schools. They accused people of criminal behavior and private misconduct.
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  Speaker 2: the writer seemed to know rumors, grudges, old family drama,
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  Speaker 2: and details that people thought no one else knew. Some
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  Speaker 2: people ignored the letters. Others were terrified. And then, in
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  Speaker 2: February 1983, the threats against Mary became physical. Mary was
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  Speaker 2: driving her school bus route when she saw an obscene
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  Speaker 2: sign hanging on a fence. The sign referenced her 13-year-old daughter.
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  Speaker 2: Mary stopped and tried to pull the sign down. But
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  Speaker 2: it was not just a sign. It had been attached
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  Speaker 2: by a twine to a box. Mary took the box
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  Speaker 2: home and opened it. Inside was a handgun rigged as
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  Speaker 2: a booby trap. Investigators believed that if the device had
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  Speaker 2: been pulled or triggered the intended way, the gun could
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  Speaker 2: have fired. Mary took the box to the police, and
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  Speaker 2: investigators finally had a physical item they could trace. The
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  Speaker 2: gun had a serial number. Investigators traced it to Paul Fresher.
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  Speaker 2: Paul was not some stranger from out of town. He
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  Speaker 2: was connected directly to the Gillespie family. He was Ronald's brother-in-law.
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  Speaker 2: That immediately gave police a suspect with a personal relationship
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  Speaker 2: to the people at the center of the letter campaign.
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  Speaker 2: Paul's estranged wife, Karen, told police that she believed Paul
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  Speaker 2: was responsible for the letters. Paul denied it. He said
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  Speaker 2: he had nothing to do with the anonymous notes or
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  Speaker 2: the booby trap. He maintained that he had not planted
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  Speaker 2: the gun and did not know who had. But the
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  Speaker 2: gun was tied to him, and investigators believed similarities existed
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  Speaker 2: between his handwriting and the writing connected to the booby trap.
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  Speaker 2: Paul was arrested and charged with attempted murder. It is
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  Speaker 2: worth noting that Paul was not charged with writing all
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  Speaker 2: the Circleville letters, but at his attempted murder trial, the
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  Speaker 2: judge allowed 39 of those letters into evidence. The prosecution
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  Speaker 2: argued that the writing on the booby trap materials showed
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  Speaker 2: similarities to the anonymous letters. Paul was convicted of attempted murder.
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  Speaker 2: He was sentenced to prison and ultimately served about 10 years.
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  Speaker 2: For many people, that seemed like the end of the mystery.
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  Speaker 2: The man connected to the gun had been convicted. The
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  Speaker 2: letters had tormented the town for years. Surely the writer
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  Speaker 2: was now behind bars. But that was not what happened.
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  Speaker 2: The letters continued. That is the detail that has kept
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  Speaker 2: the Circleville story alive for decades. While Paul was incarcerated,
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  Speaker 2: more letters were sent. The writer even sent a letter
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  Speaker 2: to Paul himself. One letter read in part fresher. Now,
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  Speaker 2: when are you going to believe you aren't getting out
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  Speaker 2: of there? I told you two years ago when we
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  Speaker 2: set them up, they stay set up. Paul was in prison.
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  Speaker 2: Reports say he did not have access to pens or paper,
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  Speaker 2: and yet letters bearing the same threatening anonymous style continue
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  Speaker 2: to appear. So what does that mean? There are a
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  Speaker 2: few possibilities. Maybe Paul was innocent of the letter campaign,
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  Speaker 2: but guilty of the booby trap. Maybe Paul had help.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe somebody else wrote the letters all along, and that
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  Speaker 2: person who planted the booby trap used Paul's gun in
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  Speaker 2: order to point police towards him. Or maybe the letters
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  Speaker 2: sent after Paul went to prison were written by someone
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  Speaker 2: copying the original writer's style. The case has never produced
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  Speaker 2: a final, universally accepted answer. Over the years, the Circleville
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  Speaker 2: letters have been examined by journalists, document experts, former law
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  Speaker 2: enforcement officials, and true crime researchers. One former FBI profiler,
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  Speaker 2: Mary Ellen O'Toole, made a straightforward point. If the letters
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  Speaker 2: continued while someone was locked up for years, then somebody
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  Speaker 2: else had to be sending them. The letters were not
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  Speaker 2: writing themselves. A forensic document examiner named Beverly East reviewed
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  Speaker 2: examples of Paul's handwriting and some of the anonymous letters.
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  Speaker 2: She told 48 Hours that she believed she knew who
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  Speaker 2: wrote the letters. pointing to details in the formation of
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  Speaker 2: certain letters and numbers. But the public reporting around the
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  Speaker 2: case has not produced a charge or a final court
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  Speaker 2: resolution for the wider letter-writing campaign. And that is what
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  Speaker 2: makes it so unsettling. This was not one threatening letter
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  Speaker 2: sent in the heat of an argument. It was a
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  Speaker 2: long-running campaign that targeted multiple people, spread fear through a
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  Speaker 2: small town, and appeared to know details that made the
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  Speaker 2: recipients feel watched. The person behind it, or the people
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  Speaker 2: behind it, managed to remain a mystery. The Circleville letters
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  Speaker 2: case also gave us a good reminder about old cases
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  Speaker 2: that become legend. Over decades, stories can grow. The details
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  Speaker 2: can get retold, exaggerated, mixed up, or repeated online until
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  Speaker 2: it becomes hard to separate what was documented from what
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  Speaker 2: was rumored. Here's what we know. People in Circleville received
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  Speaker 2: threatening anonymous letters beginning in 1977. Mary and her family
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  Speaker 2: were among the main targets. Ronald died in a crash
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  Speaker 2: after receiving a phone call believed to be connected to
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  Speaker 2: the letters, but his death was ruled accidental. Mary found
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  Speaker 2: a booby-trapped sign in 1983. The gun was traced to Paul.
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  Speaker 2: Paul was convicted of attempted murder and served prison time,
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  Speaker 2: and letters continued after his conviction. What we do not
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  Speaker 2: know is who wrote every letter, whether one person was
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  Speaker 2: responsible for all of them, and whether Paul was truly
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  Speaker 2: responsible for the broader campaign. That uncertainty is the entire
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  Speaker 2: reason people are still talking about Circleville nearly 50 years later.
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  Speaker 2: Imagine living in a town where someone is sending letters
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  Speaker 2: saying they know who is cheating, who is stealing, who
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  Speaker 2: is hiding secrets, and where your children go to school.
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  Speaker 2: Then imagine finding out that even after a man is
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  Speaker 2: convicted in connection with the threats, the letters keep coming.
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  Speaker 2: So in the end, this is not just a mystery.
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  Speaker 2: It's a nightmare with postage. And that is the story
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  Speaker 2: of the Circleville letters. Thank you all for listening to
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  Speaker 2: this week's episode of A Little Less Mess. We will
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  Speaker 2: be back on Thursdays with the full Southern True Crime case.
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  Speaker 2: And until then, stay safe, lock your doors, and keep
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  Speaker 2: that porch light on. Bye, everyone.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you know it's bad luck to be superstitious But
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  Speaker 1: nothing else is working And my head is really hurting
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  Speaker 1: I'm sick of all this worrying about things I can't control.