Life Update: I wrote this post earlier this week (instead of how I normally write them on Fridays) as today we're moving into our new home, so that means picking up the keys, going in to turn the power on, taking photos so that we have evidence if we ever need to prove anything regarding bond, and giving the place a good Ashy spring clean before we put stuff in there. I've made the mistake of not giving new rentals an Ashy spring clean before moving stuff in and I've regretted it every time. I also want to get more storage so we may do an impromptu kmart trip. I just didn't wanna put any pressure on myself for having to write something so I thought I'd do it early - especially because last week's Freaky Friday Files was replaced with the cults posts. You can check those out "here" and "here" if you haven't read them yet. They are super fascinating. But I am someone who is true to her word, and as promised, here is today's Freaky Friday post. Also, on Wednesday night the bus stop near our current house got smashed and we have no idea how we didn't hear it - but it got fixed relatively quickly. Probably a good thing that we're moving this week.
The Circleville Letters
Are you like me and really enjoyed the mystery dramas Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Riverdale? These shows all have massive plot holes and honestly, the end of PLL and Riverdale were both a mess - Gossip Girl - on the other hand - was kinda obvious when you thought about it hard enough. I also don't really wanna give away any spoilers about these shows, but when you get to the end, just wut? But that's not what today's Freaky Friday Files post is about - I'm here to discuss the horrors that occurred in regard to The Circleville letters.
Now this may be a mystery that some of you haven't heard of before - and yes I did ask a few of my friends what they'd like me to cover in this week's Freaky Friday Files - so I've got a mental note of those things for further down the track, but as I was doing my research, I was really intrigued by this case. Letters that terrorised a town into m*rder? Count me in! Well not into m*rder - I would never do that - but I do wanna learn about it. And being a big fan of Gossip Girl since covid times (because that is what I binge-watched back in NZ during all the lockdowns that were really intense), this felt like something I should cover. If you don't know the premise of the show Gossip Girl, it's about an unknown blogger who went by "Gossip Girl" - it was an adaptation of a book (also called Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar) which a blogger created blog posts about what was going on for a group of privileged upper-class teenagers in New York - and I know, when you put it like that, it does sound awful, but I promise you, the first episode will get you HOOKED.
Hey Ash, what about The Circleville Letters? Oh yes, I'm getting to that, don't you worry about your pretty little face. Let's set the scene.
It's the 1970s, we're in Circleville, Ohio, USA - a small town that had an eerie atmosphere lingering about. It's a town of quiet isolation and secrets hidden behind the picket fences in suburbia. At night, quaint houses appear frozen in time, with a peculiar stillness that carries its way down the streets. There are dimly lit street lamps casting shadows that seemingly dance in the moonlight and with that, comes the unsettling ambiance of what was to come next. Residents speak in hushed tones about strange occurrences and they all share a sense of quiet unease.
Now that we've taken ourselves into the scene itself, let's take a deeper look into this bizarre unsolved mystery - arguably, one of the most bizarre unsolved mysteries ever.
In 1976, residents of Circleville began receiving mysterious letters in the mail. An analog version of Gossip Girl started terrorising this small town by writing letters exposing the residents of Circleville's deepest darkest secrets. The letters first went to the residents themselves and in those letters was mainly information about their own private s*x lives. The letters were marked from Columbus, Ohio. But to this day, we don't know who or what was behind these letters.
Mary Gillispie
The first letter was received by a woman called Mary Gillispie - a bus driver - who was accused of having a love affair with a school superintendent Gordon Massie. Mary disregarded these claims, saying that the affair never took place at all. But the writer behind these letters was "watching". In one of his letters to Mary, he told her to stop the affair - he even went so far as to write a letter to Mary's husband - Ron - in which he revealed that Mary was in danger if Ron didn't stop her affair with Gordon. Then, in another letter, the writer threatened Ron's life if he didn't confess his wife's sins to the school board with threats saying that the writer was going to broadcast the affair until the truth came out (and broadcast wherever he could).
Mary had a sneaky suspicion that fellow bus driver David Longberry was to blame for these sinister letters as Mary had rejected his romantic gestures and would often act resentfully towards her.
Ron asked his sister and her husband for help (Karen and Paul Freshour). Apparently, Karen was informed of the letters that Mary and Ron had been receiving but no one else knew. They decided that they would all write back to these letters - and in thinking it was David Longberry, the letters came from Paul's perspective, saying that he knew about the threats.
The letters stopped.
At least for a few weeks, anyway.
The Phone Call That Changed It All
It was August 19th, 1977 and Ron received a phone call. He became angry. He grabbed his gun and told his children he was going to go talk to the man who had been writing the scandalous letters. Only a few hours later, Ron had crashed his truck into a tree and he did not survive. Ron had fired his gun before his time of death and police (specifically Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe) ruled his death a result of a drunk driving accident even though his friends and family said he barely drank and never saw him drink anything on August 19th. You can see the picture of his truck at the crime scene "here".
Following Ron's death, more letters circulated Circleville, with the main statement being that Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe was involved in a cover-up of Ron's death. However, the sheriff did suspect foul play, to begin with - and there was allegedly one other person involved (we don't know anything about this person) and they took a polygraph (lie detector test) and passed with flying colours. Furthermore, Ron's autopsy showed blood alcohol levels in his system to be .16, so the sheriff ruled it a drunk-driving incident with the evidence presented to him (as he was 1.5 x over the legal drinking limit at the time).
The Truth Comes Out
Somehow, it was in fact true that Mary was having a love affair with Gordon but she does say it started after the letters, not before. I believe after this occurred, threats to her life became more and more extreme. Allegedly, they were brought together by the trauma of it all and the affair started after the letters but prior to Ron's passing - but this seems kinda convenient.
In February 1983, whoever was behind the letter writing went to extreme lengths to expose Mary's affair - putting obnoxious signs along her bus route. What was on these signs was absolutely awful - an accusation that Gordan s*xually a*use Mary's 12-year-old daughter. One day Mary stopped the bus to tear down the sign - out of anger, disgust, frustration I suppose - but this was bad luck for Mary as she was nearly k*lled as the signs were booby-trapped for whoever tried to take them down. Police found that the gun in the booby-trap of the sign was registered to Paul Freshour - Ron's sister's husband (Karen).
Paul told the cops that the gun had been stolen (convenient huh?) but there was no evidence that Paul had reported his gun missing. He was then asked to perform some handwriting tasks so that his handwriting could be compared with the handwriting of the Circleville's letters. However, the test he was given wasn't considered a standard procedure - Paul was given one of the letters to recreate with his own handwriting (a weird way to do it if you ask me - you wouldn't want the suspect to see the actual handwriting). They should have just given him the words rather than the actual copy of the letter. Somehow, this proved that Paul was guilty of being The Circleville Letter writer. A handwriting expert testified that he was guilty and the trial did lead to the divorce of Karen and Paul and Karen as Karen believed he did it.
Paul was also found guilty of attempted m*rder from the booby-trap and many believed him to be guilty of being the writer as well. I'm not entirely sure how these two things correlate here. Like it could have been two different people?
But It wasn't all that it seemed.
More Letters
While Paul was in prison, the letters continued, and they only got crueler as time went on. Did they have the wrong guy? What on earth was going on here? Paul even received his own letters in prison, one of them saying "Now when are you going to believe you aren't going to get out of there? I told you two years ago. When we set em' up, they stay set up? Don't you listen at all?" And to me, I mean I'm no expert on criminal profiling, but it sounds like either Paul may have found out who the writer was and became threatened by him so had to work with him to terrorise Mary or Paul did want to work with the writer himself - maybe the writer had more dirt on Paul than we realised. Anyway, Paul was in solitary one day in prison so he was unable to read his mail and one letter even accused Paul's prosecutor of m*rdering a pregnant woman.
I believe that the prison put Paul into solitary as a way to see if the letters would continue - because if you're not in solitary, you can write letters still. But when you're in solitary, it's not possible to send out letters.
Paul's Release
Paul got out of prison in 1994, with parole I might add (he served 10 years in jail). To this day, Paul maintains his innocence of both the letter writing and attempted m*rder. This mystery was even featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and what's even creepier, is that BEFORE the episode aired, the show received its own letter from The Circleville writer that said: "Forget Circleville Ohio: Do Nothing to Hurt Sheriff Radcliff: If You Come to Ohio You El Sickos Will Pay: The Circleville Writer." However, the production team was undeterred by this and broadcast anyway, even interviewing Paul for a segment.
Now that is creepy. Was it the actual letter writer? Or just someone trying to mess with them after learning about the case or that they were doing an episode on this case? After 1994, no more letters were sent.
Interesting Tidbits
Here I'm going to tell you about some things following this mystery that I find interesting:
The rumour that Paul's prosecutor m*rdered a pregnant woman was half true - Roger Kline (the prosecutor) had been having an affair with the now deceased woman and he happened to be the father of her unborn baby (before her passing). However, he did not harm her in any way. And the only confirmation of this was from a couple who came forward on TV. I don't actually know if this affair was even true or if she's a real person.
The person who did Ron's autopsy Dr. Ray Carroll was outed as a p*dophile by the writer and was convicted of 12 counts of gross immorality and more in 1993.
Paul ran a website until his passing in 2012 (at 70 years old) maintaining his innocence. However, many internet sleuths think that Paul's writing and the way he wrote about the case shows that he was the one who did it. I definitely think he was involved somehow but I don't think he was the main perpetrator.
David Longberry (the school bus driver who was into Mary) and originally suspected of writing the letters was accused and convicted of s*xually a*using a little 12-year-old girl in 1999. He became a fugitive but eventually died by s*icde. David's only motive was that he was into Mary and she rejected him so he had a grudge.
During Paul's sentence, another bus driver came forward saying they saw someone in front of the booby-trapped sign 20 minutes before Mary was nearly k*lled. The person was described as a "large man, with sandy hair in a yellow El Camino", however; when the bus driver passed, he turned his head, so that they could not see his face. Paul had dark hair so he was ruled out. But Karen was dating someone who matched this description at the time, so it could have been him. And apparently, Karen's brother drove an El Camino - but cops didn't bother looking into this any further - imagine if it ran that deep - I really feel like this lead is something they should have looked into - even before they closed the case.
Hundreds of people received letters - all over Ohio while Paul was in prison, not just a select few.
Potential Theories
So if it wasn't Paul specifically, who are the suspects? Let's go over some theories
People still say Paul did it - I'm not really convinced though - the only way that I think he would be in on it, is if they were working together somehow or he had been threatened in some way (and the evidence is circumstantial at best), even if he did set up the booby trap, does it mean he wrote the letters too? Correlation not causation! And yes I did say above that it was likely he was involved but we just don;t know.
Mary Gillispie - some people believe that Mary herself was in it on - why? Because she knew when to tear the sign down? And that she was able to do it without getting boobytrapped. And that the affair was true and her husband had been k*lled. However, people don't think it's likely considering what was written on the signs about her daughter. I don't really buy into this theory either - I feel like she would have been a lot happier if she had written the letters to control the narrative and why would she choose to write letters to herself? If there was something more going on, then maybe, but I just don't buy it.
David Longberry - who Mary originally suspected - and how he committed an awful crime and then went on the run.
Karen Freshour (Paul's ex-wife + Ron's sister) - as her divorce with Paul was really messy, she had access to Paul's guns and would have easily been able to frame him - but something tells me she wasn't the messed up person in this case (although the links to an El Camino that were never followed up are interesting).
William Massie - the son of Gordon Massie - now that's an interesting suspect for sure. The first letters were sent to Mary and were about her affair with Gordon. Some of these letters were signed off with a "W" leading many people to speculate that the letter-writer was William Massie himself (William passed away in 2023 at 66 years old I believe). W could have just been used to mess with people (Like A in PLL).
El Camino Man - the guy a bus driver saw 20 minutes before Mary tore down the awful sign (and like why would you not follow up?)
Gordon Massie - there's a plethora of information available on all the other suspects, but not much about Gordon himself.
Someone else altogether - a lot of the evidence is circumstantial so it's really hard to who did it in this case. I honestly don't know. But I do feel like it was more than one person - or a few people were working together to pull this off at least. However, if it was more than one person writing them, it is weird that they eventually stopped in 1993.
One More Thing
In August of 2021, the show 48 Hours showed an episode where they allegedly claimed they had identified the writer of these letters in Circleville with fancy forensic examination. The network CBS hired two document examiners. They compared the letters written by The Circleville Writer to those of Paul Freshour's known handwriting. There were links found between the different sets of writings. One expert said that there were some patterns that didn't match, but over 100 quirks that did match, and the other expert wasn't convinced that they matched. Many other experts disagreed with this information, especially because there were letters sent while Paul was in prison in solitary, where he had no access to pens, paper, or his own mail and the mail that sent out would have been stamped differently. Therefore, they did not in fact identify the letter-writer. The case has remained closed ever since.
Some articles about the case:
The Creepy Letters That Exposed A Town's Juciest Secrets - And Ended In Murder - by Chrissy Stockton (2021)
Has the anonymous author of the infamous Circleville letters been unmasked? - by CBS News (2022)
The Poison Pen: Who Wrote the Circleville Letters? - by The True Crime Times (2020)
Some sociological theories about the case:
Community Dynamics: The Circleville Letters case shows how a tight-knit community in a small town can be impacted by fear and suspicion, which in turn, can lead to paranoia and divisions between residents.
Power Dynamics: Because the letter writer was anonymous, there was a lot of power given to this person/persons, which illustrates how individuals can influence and instill fear in others with their actions.
Media Influence: As this case was so heavily covered by the media (mainly newspapers and radio during the 1970s/1980s), it would have amplified fear in the community as well as intrigue and interest from the community. This wouldn't surprise me if it meant that copycats started.
Social Control + Deviance: The reaction of the community from this case was very interesting. The community residents themselves trying to uncover the identity of this anonymous letter writer reflect broad societal norms regarding what's acceptable and the consequences for people who deviate from those norms (e.g., having an affair).
Here's a YT video I made about this bizarre mystery - and let me know if you'd like me to add in more sociological theories into the videos specifically, rather than just the blog posts.
Who do you think did it? Let me know in the comments below!
Much love,
Ash xx
P.S: stay safe!
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