The Circleville Letters | Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] something pretty disturbing happened in Circleville starting small and flourishing over
[Music] decades residents began to receive letters that accused the citizens of being involved in some pretty terrible
things embezzlement domestic violence Affairs and even murder the Circleville letter writer
knew everything about everyone and knew everyone's Secrets they were vicious and ugly somebody with some
severe psychological problems I would Hazard to guess the threatening Anonymous letters
kept coming hundreds of them most were postmarked from Columbus Ohio about 30 30 m North which is where I grew up and
where I was living in March of 1977 when small town Circleville began to feel Under Siege when just a walk to
the mailbox could trigger Terror especially in the case of one woman who lived here a school bus driver by the
name of Mary Gillespie Mary Gillespie goes out to her mailbox she receives a letter she opens it it's an anonymous
letter distinct handwriting W in and it's telling her to end the affair with the superintendent of the
school there Gordon Massie Mrs glaspie stay away from Massie I've been observing your house and I
know you have children it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done I shall come out there and put a
bullet in that little girl's head these letters were being sent to newspapers elected officials private
citizens and they're all saying the same thing that basically Gordon Massie the superintendent he needs to be exposed he
needs to be fired her husband Ron begins to receive them as well Mr Gillespie your wife is seeing Gordon Massie you
should catch them together and kill them both he doesn't deserve to live well he got letters saying that if
he didn't do something about this aair his life would be in danger we know what kind of car you drive we know where your
your kids go to school by August of 1977 everything changes when Ron Gillespie gets a call
late one night enraged he picks up a gun gets in his truck and drives off and told the daughter that he was going to
confront the letter writer he was traveling at a high speed lost control of the truck
went off the road hit a tree and was killed the letter writer had made threats to Ron Gillespie that he could
end up dead then he ended up dead was Ron Gillespie's death an accident or was he murdered murdered this case has
really left its Mark yeah and it's destroyed a lot of people I think there was a big cover up turned out to be
quite a mystery do you think you know who wrote those Anonymous letters yes I do
[Music] [Music] Circleville Ohio has the look and feel of a quaint Midwestern town in many ways
it's sort of an All-American in town still has a pretty rural character to it and some families have been there for
decades its major attraction says journalist Martin yant is the annual Pumpkin Show let's give a big hand of
Applause guys well it was a good place to live fairly peaceful till all this stuff
started Janet Cassidy is talking about that barrage of anonymous poison pen letters that began arriving in mailboxes
all over Circleville in 1977 small towns have big secrets buried deep under those freshly mowed lawns it
caught the attention of Marie Mayu who researched the story for her podcast whatever remains this Anonymous author
was hellbent to expose every little ugly Secret in Circleville at first the writer seemed
fixated on the married school district superintendent Gordon Massie was a well thought of man in Circleville and his
rumored relationship with a school bus driver Mary Gillespie was a wife and a mother they were accusing her of
adultery you've got the superintendent possibly having an affair with a school bus driver wasn't that
kind of the talk of town yeah it was definitely Jim White head grew up in Pickaway County with her sister Janet
have you seen Mary's picture she was Miss Jackson she looks really attractive there yes she was Mary married her high
school sweetheart Ron GES and you wouldn't find a better person than Ronnie gpie the couple had two children
and settled in Circleville I mean this had to be very awkward for Mary Gillespie for her
children for for Gordon Massie for his wife for his son it must have been awful I mean it was just sort of this all
invasive poison there was nobody that was off limits to this letter writer and it wasn't just a campaign of letters
there were phone calls and offensive signs that began appearing along Mary's bus
route Ron would have to go out and he would have to find and pick up all the signage about his wife and kids around
Circleville determined to stop the riter the Gillespies brought their letters to
the Sheriff's office there was an ongoing investigation they were tapping phones they were watching houses they
tried to work with the USPS to check the mail but the letters continued and small
town Circleville was consumed with speculation was the writer male or female did the writer live in
town then in August 197 7 Mary left her husband and children at home and drove to Florida with her sister-in-law Ron
had told her he knew who the letter writer was and he was going to take care of this problem while they were in
Florida they were in rot when they learned that Ron had crashed his truck into a tree after getting that
mysterious phone call the coroner ruled his death an accident but Ron's brother-in-law Paul
fresh hour believed he had been murdered mured although a number of people told me that he was not a heavy drinker he
had almost twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood also suspicious under Ron's body police found a 22
caliber revolver the gun had been fired once so then the question was was he shooting at the letter writer the
sheriff didn't give that any Credence at all but Paul fres hour kept pushing the
Pickaway Sheriff to take a closer look Pam Stanton was close to the fresh hours he wanted a truth about Ron's
death he wanted to know who was writing the letters too the attacks on Mary Gillespie and
Gordon Massie didn't stop now letters were also being sent to local businesses government offices schools and people
who lived in the area this person was at that point pretty Unbound not afraid to
say anything and it scared a lot of people you know is he coming after me or she coming after
me Mary had always denied having an affair with Massie but after Ron's death she says they began seeing each other
and that's when the threats against her became even more vicious everyone knows what you have
done if you don't believe us just make them mad and find out for yourself Robin Yokum writes Mysteries
but back in the early 1980s he was a crime reporter for The Columbus Dispatch there were obscenities and and threats
to uh do harm to Mrs Gillespie's daughter it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've
done on February 7th 1983 Mary Gillespie was driving her empty School Bus heading
to pick up kids it's 3:30 p.m. she's about to turn left here on Five Points Pike when she
looks over there and sees a handmade sign on a fence it talks about her 13-year-old daughter and it's obscene so
she pulls the bus over here but when she goes over there to try to pull the sign
off the fence she realizes that it's rigged to T wine in a box she says she takes that box home she then opens it
and gets a shocking surprise it was a gun and it was ready to go off when Mary brought the box to
the Sheriff's Office investigators quickly realized it was a booby trap Yokum was in The Newsroom when word got
out and I remember the excitement from a newspaper perspective it's a great story
a woman who had been the target of all these letters finds a a booby trap with a 25 caliber handgun rigged to it all
reporters would want to cover that story especially if there was a dramatic twist
and when did Paul fresh hour become the suspect pretty quickly there's small town
Intrigue a seemingly omnipresent unknown villain extracting revenge on the people
of Circleville by uncovering their secrets a mysterious death an elaborate attempted
murder to this day there's a fierce debate about who that V is or was so we'll take you back through the evidence
and the theories and you can decide this sounds like something out of an Agatha Christie novel doesn't it it
does there's a cast of characters the letters would keep coming and then the inevitable attempted murder but it is
very much an agath Christi feel to it and just like one of christe's mysteries the gun found in the booby trap provided
the first clue f fire arm examiners at BCI Ohio's Bureau of criminal investigation were able to restore the
partially filed off serial number and when they traced the gun it came to a coworker of Paul's he said yeah I sold
that to Paul fresh hour on the surface says Martin yant it was shocking because Paul fresh hour and
his wife Karen Sue had been close to Mary Gillespie and her late husband Ron Karen Sue's brother it was kind of an
extended family that seemed to socialize together but by 1983 when Sheriff's investigators went to talk to Karen sue
the fresh hours were in the midst of a contentious divorce Karen Sue gave them quite an ear fool she told investigators
that Paul had become infuriated with Mary Karen said that Paul had thought the world of Ron and Mary before Ron
died but after his death Paul hated Mary hated her over the Massy deal and then Karen Sue told them that her estrange
husband was behind circleville's Anonymous letters she had found one letter torn up
in a commode and she had found a couple of other letters hidden in the house when
investigators went to see Paul fresh hour Marie Mayu says he was very Cooperative did he demand to have a
lawyer no he answered all of their questions and readily admitted the gun belonged to him well they asked him how
the gun ended up in the booby trap and he said I don't know fresh hour told investigators his gun had been stolen
weeks earlier and allowed them to search his house and his car he even gave them
samples of his handwriting it definitely does seem like he has absolutely nothing
to hide at that point he denied being the letter writer and said he had nothing to do with the booby trap but he
failed a polygraph so Paul fres hour was arrested for the attempted murder of Mary
Gillespie were you surprised when he was charged with attempted murder yes yeah I
was this was the man Pam Stanton called Uncle Paul and says their families were so close she thought of him as a second
father I mean was he worried his life was on the line his freedom yeah he was scared anybody would be fresh hour was
never charged with sending any of the threatening harassing letters but in Circleville there was an assumption that
the letter writer was finally behind bars on October 24th 1983 Paul went on trial at the Pickaway County Courthouse
in Circleville it was a big deal Robin Yokum didn't cover the trial but he followed all the news coverage you know
he was The Mastermind behind this alleged booby trap but almost everything focused on the letters first up was the
intended victim Mary Gillespie she testified about finding the booby trap and then over defense objections she was
asked about the anonymous letters she had received how damaging was that to Paul
fresh hour at his trial that was very very damaging the defense argued there was no direct
threat to Mary's life in the letters so they weren't relevant to the case but the judge allowed in 39 of them it was a
break for the prosecution who claimed the writing on the booby trap shared similarities to those letters
the letter and the writing that was on the 2x4 was the same block handwriting sort of the same Cadence and the same
message as the anonymous letter writer the state brought in the BCI handwriting analyst who compared the writing on the
booby trap to the letter sent to Mary and then to samples of Paul fresh hour's handwriting they had handwriting
analyses that indicated that the letters could have been written by Paul fres and
a second expert originally a defense witness agreed I mean that's pretty damaging isn't it when a witness hired
by the defense ends up testifying for the prosecution I can only imagine it was something you'd want to
avoid it was far more difficult for the prosecution to prove fresh hour made the
booby trap was Paul fresh hour's fingerprints found on the gun or the box that held the gun no and they didn't
have a whole lot of evidence about the booby trap other than he admitted it was his
gun there was circumstantial evidence fresh hour had taken the day off from work the same day the booby trap was
found and that box that held the gun an industrialized chalk box like this one was easily found at anheiser Bush where
Paul worked they had his gun in the booby trap and they had the chalk box so they thought they had plenty of
evidence but no one saw fresh hour near the booby trap he had a pretty good Alibi for most of the day Paul freshh
hour didn't take the stand but multiple defense Witnesses testified to seeing him at home he was having work done on
his house the reason he said he took the day off as the trial progressed I'm thinking a lot of this stuff just
doesn't add up you know where are the fingerprints where's the physical evidence but it was enough evidence for
the jurors they found Paul freshh hour guilty of attempted [Music] murder how did you hear the
verdict even after all this time it's still hard isn't it I got home and everybody was
just a basket case and they were crying everybody was upset he received the maximum sentence 7
to 25 years in prison when Paul fresh hour was convicted did everybody in town breathe
a sigh of relief the letter writer is caught is it's over I think that's that's a fair assessment they've linked
him to the letters they linked him to the booby trap we're going to get this guy out of our community get him in
prison everything will kind of go back to normal except it didn't because the letters never stopped
[Music] Paul was living a a pretty good life had never had any problems with the law
basically he lost everything lost his home lost his job went to prison it was inconceivable to Paul Fresa's family and
friends that the man they so admired could be convicted of attempted murder it's just Preposterous there's no way he
wasn't dumb enough put his own gun in a booby trap and anybody could have gotten that
gun and even today former investigative journalists Martin yant and Robin Yokum question whether fresh hour's verdict
was fair can I tell you I'm 100% sure that he didn't do it no I can't if I can tell you had I been sitting on that jury
I I would have never sent a guy to prison based on that flimsy evidence the more I got involved in the case the more
I saw there were just too many question marks at trial the prosecution had branded Paul fres hour the Circleville
letter writer but once he was locked up how did menacing Anonymous letters keep coming I'm not about one or two letters
there were hundreds of letters that went out after he was imprisoned the Pickaway County Sheriff
couldn't say how fresh hour was able to write and send those letters but he was certain Paul was resp responsible the
prison Warden disagreed his Warden insisted that would be impossible they kept him in isolation
they did not allow him to have pens or paper he was strip searched all his incoming and outgoing mail was inspected
there is absolutely positively no way Paul freshire was writing those letters and smuggling him out from prison no way
after Yokum and yant wrote articles about Paul fresh hour they also received letters and
inexplicably so did Paul fresh hour behind bars letter writer bragged about setting him up he said when we set him
up we set him up good and who did Paul think had set him up Karen sue his ex-wife his ex-wife Paul freshh hour's
lawyer raised that very possibility during his closing argument who hated Paul enough to try to get him into
trouble if you read the divorce decree who stands to profit finan eventually if Paul is convicted goes to
prison Pam Stanton says that during that divorce battle Karen Su lost her home custody of their daughters and was
living in a trailer on Mary Gillespie's property unle Paul's out of the picture she got it off and Karen Sue was one of
the first to link Paul to the anonymous letters remember she told investigators that she found some at their home
including that one in the commode Karen tried to piece it back together when Paul was not at home and said she could
make the name of glesby out on the letter could she show them these letters no she didn't keep the letters does that
make sense not to me why wouldn't she run off right away to the Sheriff's Office and say look this is from my
husband he's the letter writer she didn't do any of that until after the booby trap was found do you believe that
Paul fresh hour did set up the booby trap and tried to kill Mary Gillespie nope I don't I think somebody stole his
gun to set him up and it worked in the early 1990s when Martin yamp began investigating fresh hour's
case he discovered evidence and police reports of an alternate suspect there was another bus driver who
saw what I think is very significant was something that never came up at trial and it points in a whole different
direction investigators never followed up but yant did the female bus driver told him that
20 minutes before Mary found that booby trap she had driven by the same spot she
said she saw a man standing beside an El Camino that looked like this one but the
man turned away from her and acted like he was going to the bathroom so she didn't get a good look at him the
description didn't seem to match Paul fresh hour she said he was a large man with Sandy hair and Paul was not large
and he had very dark hair and wasn't Karen Sue at that point dating a man who was large with Sandy hair yes and what
about the elino there's no evidence that any inquiries were made about who might have
an El Camino didn't in fact Karen Sue's brother have an El Camino that's what I've been told but Marie Mayu believes
trying to connect the booby trap to Karen Sue is tenuous at best there's someone who looked like the man she was
dating driving a car that looked like it could have been her brothers none of that points back to Karen Sue I don't
believe that she framed her husband for this or was responsible for it 10 years after Paul fresh hour went to prison the
Intrigue surrounding the case caught the attention of the television series Unsolved Mysteries but in December
1993 before filming even began the show received a postcard with an ominous threat forget Circleville Ohio if you
come to Ohio you elos will pay the circle writer it didn't deter the show from going to Circleville even Paul
fresh hour who had just been released on parole agreed to talk I'd really like to
see someone really look at this case on the letters reopen the letter part of it
and get in find out who wrote the letters Pam Stanton says Karen Su was not happy that Unsolved Mysteries was in
town or that Pam agreed to be interviewed I got a phone call and her telling me it would be in my best
interest not to go Karen Sue didn't participate in the program but according to Pam she kept track of everyone who
did she sat in a car on the other side of the the intersection and took pictures of
everybody going in and out for the interviews if true Marie Mayu says that doesn't prove anything what's more Karen
Sue has never been considered a suspect by police I think she's a very convenient villain we reached out to her
but she did not respond to our requests for an interview there are so many twists and turns in this case all of a
sudden something will surface makes you rethink what you were thinking Martin yant is right and there's another twist
to come after Paul fresh hour went to prison how do you think the letters continued
it took nearly 20 years but in 1994 the Circleville letters abruptly stopped when Paul fresh hour was
released from prison did people when he got out still think he was the letter writer yeah there
yeah he was very hurt and he was hurt with it did to his family a very unil War had been raging for years between
Paul fres hour and his ex-wife Karen Sue even their two daughters were divided over their dad and caught in the middle
was their son Mark he was so loyal to his mom but he loved his dad too but with Sue you were going to be her son or
his son Pam Stanton says Mark chose his mom and never once visited his father in
prison he wouldn't tell me why he just said he couldn't it was Paul fresh hour's gun discovered in the booby
trap that helped land him behind bars he did tell some people that the gun had been stolen according to Martin yant
fresh hour strongly suspected that the thief was his own son and I did interview one man that
said he specifically told him that he thought it was Mark son and this was before there was any
talk of a booby trap before the booby trap fresh hour kept his suspicions about his son to himself says yant
family loyalty meant more to him even though his son had totally rejected him why didn't he say more why didn't he
point the finger at his son Paul get his son in trouble oh no Uncle Paul had never done that but he knew he would he
could go to prison I don't care Uncle Paul would have died before he'd have seen Mark go to job all this destroyed
Mark the divorce the letters it all destroyed him in a way that could never be fixed Just Before Sunrise on September
11 2002 in Portsmouth Ohio a man's body was found floating in the scota river it was 39-year-old Mark fresh hour he
had shot himself his mother Karen Sue later told police her son had suffered for years
from depression and I firmly believe when Mark took his life he could not deal with the guilt any
longer if Paul fres hour actually had nothing to do with the booby trap is it also possible he had had
nothing to do with the letters as he told me I didn't write the letters I didn't do
this even after he got out of prison he approached the FBI and asked them to investigate the case the FBI never
responded says yant but today nearly three decades later one of its former star profilers agreed to examine the
Circleville letters for 48 hours Mary eleno tul has explored some of the darkest Criminal Minds from the Green
River Killer sir the unber to the unibomber whoever the writer is they're flying under the radar screen coming
across as very normal and people would not suspect them who was the Circleville Rider or
were there multiple Riders OU believes one solitary author churned out every letter when you have one person person
and one person only who has that secret that person can take the secret to the grave number one do you think it's male
or female can you tell and I knew that would be one of your first questions when it comes to a letter writer gender
is very difficult to discern that's because the writer was clever consistently deceptive and manipulative
says otoul do you see the manipulation continued throughout these letters she went all the way back to the writer's
first letters in 19 1977 hunting for hints about gender and found some the letter writer kept
referring to I'm the boyfriend of a woman they wanted to make you believe I'm not a woman I'm a
man and seeing how they were trying to hide who they were makes me think there could be a good possibility it's a
female altogether ool inspect Ed 98 letters finding the word choices and the grammar
revealing how educated is this writer can you tell I would say this is not a highly educated
person because of the quality of the sentences and how they were put together significant says otol considering that
Paul freshh hour had a job as a manager at anheiser Bush and a master's degree she says there were other identi ifying
Clues from the anonymous writer and as you read these letters you can see the letter writer is really having a good
time what does that say about that person the letter writer is pretty callous and this person would have to
know I'm hurting people and that's okay with me a sign the writer might have been
suffering from a personality disorder says otoul meaning that he or she knew the difference between right and wrong
but simply chose wrong so that would suggest to me that in their regular everyday life they sought ways to be a
bully to be intimidating if that's the case Pam Stanton says that does not sound like
her Uncle Paul did he have a like a dark side to him or anything never Uncle Paul
was never bitter never angry do you think the letter writer was Paul fresh hour right now I have my doubts sitting
here today I'd say I can't rule them out but I'm looking at other reasons that tell me it it might in fact be somebody
different and OU does not believe the secretive writer would risk exposure by setting a booby trap in a public place
that suggests to me that may have been done by somebody else who took took advantage of the
situation the Mysteries seem to only deepen but one expert is convinced she does know the identity of the
Circleville Rider 100% [Music] sure could there have been copycat letter writers see the letters for
yourself on Facebook at 48 hours [Music] when the 1980 Robert bredford prison drama Brew Baker needed extras in the
Columbus area Paul fresh hour channeled his experience as a former prison guard to play one on the big
screen little did he know he'd eventually serve a decade for attempted murder and although never charged with
terrorizing Circleville with the letters he had to live with people believing he
was the wrer but not sisters Janet Cassidy and June Whitehead what is one thing that you really want to see
corrected I don't think Paul was guilty I think he served those 10 years in prison I don't think he was guilty of
the attempted murder and I don't really think he was the letter writer and with former FBI profiler
marelen UL believing the writer could be someone other than Paul fresh hour it calls into question the testimony of
those two handwriting experts at his trial linking him to the letters so 48 Hours turned a forensic
document expert Beverly East looking for her independent analysis I don't want to
hear the story cuz the documents tell me the story that story says e Begins by identifying distinct writing patterns in
Paul fresh hour's known writing in this case letters he wrote to a friend the G in Grimmer is a very unusual G looks
like a six a number six and that's unusual that's very unusual she then studied a selection of 49 of the
anonymous letters spanning from when they first started in 1977 through the 1990s and found that unusual G shaped
like a number six in several of the Circleville letters including one scent while Paul was in prison so Gillespie
Gillespie get in Gillespie and Gordon you've got that number six e says numbers can tell a story of their own
numbers don't lie numbers don't lie pointing to this ZIP codee written by Paul there's this ambiguous number three
that might also be be a two it's like he's not sure if it's 42112 or 43113 in the anonymous letters on the
ZIP code I found the same mistake while e admits that there are writing patterns in the anonymous
letters that don't look like Paul's after showing us almost 100 examples of his distinct works that she
was able to identify she's convinced one person was responsible I would go into court and
swear on the Bible on the evidence I found and when you say you'd swear in the Bible what would you say I would say
one person wrote all of these and the one person is this person Paul fresher Paul
fresher and if you saw that a document examiner today thought in fact he did write those letters would that change
your mind no and there is historical basis for skepticism you know that some document
examiners have been wrong in the past know I canot speak for others there are always going to be times where people
are inaccurate and it's not because the science is not accurate it's because that particular examiner has not done
due diligence to arrive at the opinion that they should do you can't be wrong you because
somebody's life and livelihood is at the end of your opinion so I am not wrong while studying the thousands of
pages in the case File Marie mayew made a discovery that supports e findings investigators have found Paul freshh
hour's fingerprints on about a dozen letters postmarked while he was incarcerated those fingerprints are
there and they're his do you think that Paul fresh hour is the Circleville letter writer yes I honestly do former
FBI profiler marelen ool says she cannot explain those letters but she also cannot ignore that during fresh hour's
decade in prison the Phantom writer mailed hundreds of letters if a crime continues on and you have someone in
custody for a long period of time you you have to say somebody else is sending these letters they're not happening by
Magic somebody else is writing the letters if in fact Paul fres was the letter writer is it possible that he
mass-produced letters went to prison and then had somebody else send them while he was
in anything is possible that would have to be investigated and rolled out Paul fresh hour died June 28th 2012
at at age 70 still fighting to prove his innocence instead What's Left Behind is
an unfinished portrait was Paul fresh hour the successful loving family man he appeared to be or a cruel even dangerous
criminal mastermind whatever your conclusion Paul fresh hour predicted when interviewed by
writer Robin Yokum 35 years ago that his is notoriety as the Circleville letter writer would long outlive him when I'm
dead and in my grave people are going to believe I'm sending those letters unfortunately Paul died and
we'll never know we'll never know [Music] a modern-day Indiana Jones hid a treasure chest and left Clues if you've
been brave I give you title to the goal but was the cost of the quest too high this treasure hunt did claim at least
five lives if he could have stopped this madness it wasn't worth it 48 Hours next
on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus [Music]

An anonymous letter writer threatens to expose a town’s rumored secrets. Is anyone safe? "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

For video licensing inquiries, contact: licensing@veritone.com

Brief Summary

The Circleville letters terrorized residents, leading to a murder attempt and ongoing mystery about the writer's identity.

Key points

Circleville's Dark Secret. Residents received disturbing letters accusing them of terrible acts, including murder.
The Threatening Letters. Mary Gillespie receives a letter threatening her daughter, escalating the tension in Circleville.
The Fatal Crash. Ron Gillespie's confrontation with the letter writer leads to a tragic accident.
The Booby Trap Discovery. Mary Gillespie finds a gun rigged to a box, leading to a shocking investigation.
The Trial of Paul Freshour. Paul Freshour is charged with attempted murder, but questions about the evidence arise.
The Circleville Letters Stop. In 1994, the Circleville letters abruptly stopped when Paul Freshour was released from prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This case has really left its mark.

3:17WatchDec 24, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from 48 Hours

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.