I thought I had seen all the episodes of UM, but I had missed one and I happened to catch it on my TIVO the other day (I have UM season passed on LRW).

The case is the "Circleville Letters" and it is one of the most fascinating cases I have seen to date. It ranks in my top 5 favorite. Just a few thoughts and observations:

1) It doesn't take Sherlock or Watson to figure out that the bus driver and the superintendent were having an affair BEFORE the letters ever started. For them to even publicly admit the affair was quite strange, especially when they claimed it only happened after the fact. They must have taken the entire town for fools.

2) The car crash of the husband (I forget his name) was quite odd. The children said he did not leave the house drunk. Are the cops certain he actually fired a shot from his .22 revolver? Just because a shell is missing doesn't mean he fired it (he could have left with one chamber empty). If he had an innocent wreck, then the timing is weird and coincidental. If someone caused him to wreck, then the letter writer must have had no life and sat around waiting on him to leave the house. This, too, seems unlikely. I am at a loss of what to think about the wreck. I see no evidence of murder, but, at the same time, I do find the crash's timing quite convenient. For someone to suggest the letter writer killed him is illogical (because of the writer's motive). The writer seemed quite upset about the affair. If so, why would he/she want to kill the innocent husband? Unless this person was just a complete psychopath just looking for a ruse, then I can find no motive. Also, it is revealing that the husband knew where he was going when he went to confront the letter writer. He must have known this person well. I will speak more about this later.

3) The Sheriff stinks to high heaven. The handwriting test was obviously flawed. Either the Sheriff had personal interest in the case or he had a preconceived perp and simply wanted to prove his theory correct (Cops do tend to work backwards and unscientifically: that is, devise a theory and THEN try to prove it). Also, I find it very suspicious that the letter sent to UM said "Leave the Sheriff alone." Why would the letter writer care about the Sheriff? If the Sheriff was somehow involved in all of this, what was his motive? I can't find one anywhere. So, yeah, the Sheriff set off red flags, but I can find nothing, based on the segment, to suggest he would have any reason to write letters. So, the fact that the Sheriff botched the handwriting test, the fact that the letter to UM mentioned him, and the fact that he refused to come onto the UM segment are all suspicious. But, again, where is the motive? For anyone in the know: is there some personal history between the Sheriff and the victims? The segment didn't mention any.

4) Everyone seems to think Paul Freshour is innocent, but I am not so sure. The key piece of evidence? HIS GUN was used in the booby trap. I know everyone thinks "well, yeah, but it was stolen." However, chew on this. If an unknown assailant wanted to frame someone, WHY would you attempt to scratch the serial number off the gun? This is illogical. If Paul did not do it, then someone who he knows VERY well must have. Like a wife or a child or a brother or something. This would explain their attempt to cover up the serial number.

5) The person with the best motive to kill the husband is none other than the wife herself. She was having an affair and was lying about it. I am not suggesting she did it, but she is the only one with a motive that I can see (unless you want to talk about the superintendent). I find it odd that the wife, like the Sheriff, did not come on the segment.

6) I noticed one thing that many seem to overlook. It is what I like to call the "Zodiac phenomenon." When the Zodiac mailed his letters in the 60's, there were also many letters sent to police by copycats. Some of the copycat letters were very convincing. Who is to say that some (or many) of the Circleville letters were not sent by copycats or mischievous teenagers? I never saw anything on the segment about letter authentication (other than the Sheriff's flawed test). I also find it odd that when Freshour was in prison that the letters began being sent all over the state. Why would this be necessary? My bet is that most of those letters sent to far away areas were frauds.

7) The bus driver said one of her friends was on the same route and actually saw the man putting up the booby trap. He was in a yellow El Camino (hmmm, any relation to EL sickos? ha ha). Paul Freshour said that one of the suspects in the case had a brother with a yellow El Camino. He said the cops never looked into that lead. Does anyone know who this person is?

8) I paused my TIVO and looked at the letters carefully. There were quite a few misspellings and grammatical mistakes. This may or may not mean anything, but it seems to suggest someone that is not college educated (and the superintendent obviously had to be).

Here is my "theory." I have 2 theories, really. ;)

The letter writer obviously knew about the affair. This means that it must have been someone very close to the bus driver. Perhaps the superintendents wife? But if it was her, it would not explain the motive for murdering the husband (if he was even murdered).

The best idea I can come up with, based on facts, is that the bus driver or superintendent (or both) were in on it in order to knock off the husband. They had the perfect person to frame -- the unknown mystery letter writer (who was one of them). They would also know about Paul's gun and where to find it. Of course, this is assuming that the duo was that smart, which I am doubting. However, statistics show that when a married person is murdered that it is HIGHLY likely that the spouse is involved.

The other theory I have is that Paul himself was the person who did it, just like the cops postulated. This is the simplest explanation. It was his gun after all. Also, the bus driver testified at the trial that Paul's wife had said she thought Paul was doing it. Also, the segment never explained why Paul and his wife divorced (it seemed to happen right in the middle of all this). This doesn't look good for Paul. You also must take into account that the husband recognized the voice of the person who called. This also puts suspicion on Paul.

So, there you have it. It was either Paul himself (or someone in his household), or it was the bus driver. No one else makes sense. This is based on the segment alone. Perhaps others here know more about it than what was provided on UM. Like I said, I still want to know who this "suspect" is that actually had the El Camino and that the Sheriff overlooked. He was supposedly an initial suspect that the Sheriff discounted early in the investigation.

But, you want to know who REALLY did it? That Wacker couple in Ohio who had those "kooks" banging on the door and leaving notes on their porch. Same state, around the same time! Perhaps this kook had many irons in the fire at once. Does anyone know how far Circleville is from where this Wacker couple lived? ;)

I know you were kidding but the Wackers were in a part of the state different from Circleville. Circleville is closer to Columbus while the Wacker's lived in Stark County, Ohio which I think is in the north eastern part of the state and closer to the border with Pennsylvania.

I am not saying it for sure couldnt be Freshour but I think the odds are against him being the writer of the letters or connected to it in any way other than being Ron and Mary Gillispie's brother in law.

I personally think Gillispie might have been drinking before he left or whoever caused the crash of his truck forced Gillispie to drink a bunch of alcohol before he died to make it look like a drunk driving crash. I also agree that Mary Gillispie and the Superintendent were having an affair before the letters started, that is the whole reason why the letters started in the first place.

I also a gree that the Sheriff in this case stunk and had no business being anywhere near this case. I think someone was telling him not to investigate and he complied because he was part of the good ole boy network that exists in so many rural areas. The handwriting test was also flawed and it says a lot about the handwriting expert where he couldnt tell the d ifference between Freshour's writing and the letter writers. However as the journalist in the segment said having someone copy exactly how something else is written is not the proper way to see if the writing is a match.

Freshour I think would have not used his own gun if it was him setting up that booby trap. I just think he would be smarter than to use his own gun, try to scratch off the serial number in a rather childish attempt. The lead of the brother with the yellow el camino as far as I know was never investigated by the sheriff's department and I think they just dropped the ball on the whole investigation and an innocent man might very well have served 10 years in prison because of it.

Could someone post a summary of the Circleville Letters case? I don't believe I've ever seen it.

mozart,

I, too, thought I had seen them all, but this one came on LRW about 3 or 4 days ago. I still have it on my TIVO.

Basically, the year was 1976 in Circleville, Ohio. One day a woman, Mary Gillespie, checks her mailbox and finds an anonymous letter addressed to her. The author says he knows she and the school superintendent are having an affair and that it better stop. Well, she receives one more a few days later. Then, the author begins addressing them to her husband, so he finds out about it and questions her about the affair. She denies it. She is a school bus driver, btw.

Well the letters keep coming and they are also being sent to various people all over town. Eventually, phone calls start and the husband answers one of them one night, and then abruptly leaves the house because he thinks he knows who the letter writer is, based on the voice on the other end. He takes a pistol with him. Anyway, he ends up dead, found in his truck on the side of the road a few hours later. The Sheriff says it was a DUI accident and that Mr. Gillespie had been drunk. However, his kids swear he had not drank anything all night before he left. The Sheriff also says he had fired one shot from his revolver, but they can find no reason for him to have fired it.

Then, Mary Gillespie finds a booby trap on the side of the road that was intended to kill her. This was the first break in the case, because the gun used in the trap was identified.

It's a crazy case. Eventually a man goes to jail for all of this but he maintains his innocence to this day. He was released after 10 years in prison.

The weird thing about this case is it like playing the game "Clue." Who did it, in what room, at with what weapon? All the suspects are in the open, and it HAS to be one of them. The question is which one. I am sure the author himself was featured on the show (or at least mentioned). I don't think it was a total stranger.

It is a VERY bizarre case.

*sigh* It's sad when you can say that the most dependable man in your life is Steve-O... your TIVO. :)

As for the Circleville letters, I don't think it was Paul Freshour. As pointed out earlier, trying to make Paul imitate how the letters were written is NOT how one obtains a writing sample, a fact which has been confirmed by several police interrogators with the department in my town. That, to me, screams of the blatant scapegoating of Paul Freshour.

As for the attempt to take the serial number off of the gun, I think I might be sick and twisted... but if I were trying to frame someone, I most likely WOULD make an attempt to tamper with the gun, knowing full well that authorities can restore the numbers. That way, when authorities find the gun and SEE that the numbers have been messed with, the first person they'd look at would be the owner of the gun.

Yes CRicci, I agree. I dont think it was Freshour. I think he was set up and was the fall guy for someone ele and for the sheriff's department. Also one point that I think was overlooked was when Freshour was in prison he was in prison in a different part of the state from where the Circleville letters were being post marked from. The warden said he had viewed it as impossible that it was Freshour sending those letters from prison. Remember that is a big reason why he got turned down at his first parole hearing because of the letters and how the letter writer had the nerve to even write a letter to Freshour himself in prison and taunt him.

One thing I will note about the original post of this thread concerns point #2 in that thread. In a revolver like they show the husband's gun being the assumption that the gun was fired was not due to a missing shell. In a revolver the shell remains in the gun after the bullet is fired. They found an empty shell casing in the gun which indicates that that bullet had been fired. Now, either the husband keeps his gun loaded in the house or he loaded it before he left. Since he had children I'm guessing he loaded before leaving, but either way he wouldn't have loaded an empty shell casing in the gun. Which means it was fired once, not much to get around that.

I also don't believe that the other letters were from copycats. I believe that the letters came from the same place. Was it the superintendent or the wife? I can't say. I can say that there are plenty of cases where your crazy peoples who commit these crimes are offended by immoral acts like affairs and feel that those people need to be dealt with. As for the question of why kill the husband, well, he was told of the affair by the letters and did nothing. He stood by his wife's side and believed her. That would possibly make him just as much of an enemy as the wife. And, to assume that he recognized the voice on the phone is a bit illogical. No one knows what was said during that call, could very well have been that the person told him who it was.

One thing I find convenient is that the booby trap with Paul's gun didn't go off. Now, maybe that was just luck on the bus driver's part but maybe it wasn't supposed to go off on her cuz she and her lover put it there. Also, Robert Stack's exact words about the attempt made to remove the serial number is "amateurish" now if I was Paul and wanted to set this trap and I was good enough to send these letters anonomously for so long and what not, I would certainly make a better than "amateurish" attempt to remove those numbers. I'm gonna have to go with CRicci on this one cuz an "amateurish" attempt to remove them sounds more like a frame-up of Mr. Freshour than it sounds like he tried to do it himself.

Well as I posted in another thread, Dwight Radcliff is still sheriff there and is currently the longest serving active sheriff in Ohio. Radcliff was first elected sheriff in 1964. Radcliffs father was the sheriff before him and his son will be sheriff when he retires. It seems that family has a strangle hold on law enforcement in that county.

Well as I posted in another thread, Dwight Radcliff is still sheriff there and is currently the longest serving active sheriff in Ohio. Radcliff was first elected sheriff in 1964. Radcliffs father was the sheriff before him and his son will be sheriff when he retires. It seems that family has a strangle hold on law enforcement in that county.

Well, that's just super. Nothing like a little nepotism to keep the wheels of justice well-oiled and turning smoothly :rolleyes:

One quick note. Everyone makes a big deal out of the handwriting sample the Sheriff produced. Yeah, I think his methodology was flawed, however, he had Paul do two separate tests. One of them he had Paul copy verbatim a letter by sight (flawed), and the other one he had Paul transcribe by EAR. He would read aloud and Paul would write. I am no handwriting expert, but this second method seems rather sound to me.

Ok, now take that info and then watch the reenactment of the court trial. Keep in mind that UM had the actors use verbatim transcriptions of the real trial. You will notice that the attorney asks the Sheriff about the handwriting samples. The Sheriff says that the samples where he had Paul copy the letter verbatim WERE NOT used in the analysis by the handwriting expert. The expert only looked at the sample that Paul did by ear.

Also, keep in mind that unless Paul was a complete idiot, why would he fall for the Sheriff's trick of trying to make his handwriting look like the letter writer's? I know I would never do that and then I would demand my attorney.

asmitty evinces a rather good point about the booby trap. I never thought of it that way, but if the wife did plant it, then it makes sense it didn't go off.

I still put the wife/superintendent as my suspect #1. I put Paul behind them at #2. I can find no other suspects based on the info I have, though I am sure that people in the know may be able to provide a lot more interesting evidence that I am unaware of which may implicate someone I have never thought about. If it wasn't the wife or Paul, then I can find no other suspects outside of some nosey individual wanting to cause trouble. I find this unlikely.

Well which hand writing test was done first? If the verbatim test was done first it is still flawed because Paul would have remembered how to do it. I mean also that was in block print so many people have the similar writing style, it isnt extremely difficult to write a letter in block print. Freshour innocent that is for sure. Big time rail road. Explain to me how if it was the evil Freshour that was so premeditating and calculating writing these letters how he could succeed in sending a letter to himself in prison with a postmark from another part of the state? Also how could Freshour when he is a different part of the state send all these letters from prison with the exact same print that are postmarked from a different part of the state? Freshour is innocent, no question.

They could have been letters sent by pranksters. As far as I know, no one ever tried to authenticate the prison letters. Think about it, the UM segment said that letters were being received all over the entire STATE. And not just a few letters, but a barrage. Why would the letter writer send letters to areas outside of Circleville (besides the prison)? This makes no sense. Either this letter writer must have been VERY busy, or some of the letters were fakes. What is the most parsimonious answer?

I am not trying to say Paul did it. I do think that the wife is the most likely suspect, but Paul cannot be ruled out completely.

Really, I think it is likely there was more than one letter writer (I am not talking about the fake letters, but the real letters). I get the feeling that it started off as something somewhat innocent, but ended up a huge mess that not even the letter writer intended. Again, it is possible a couple of people were in on it. Paul may have been one of them.

When the by ear transcription of the letters was done Paul was told to emulate as closely as he could the writing he had just copied from the letters and envelopes. Also, according to the segment he was not told that he was a suspect at this point, rather he was told that he was doing this to help a family member or something like that. Now, you can say all you want that he should have known but anyone can say that in hindsight. In the moment, during such a tumultous time you have no idea whether you would put 2 and 2 together like that.

mozart,

The weird thing about this case is it like playing the game "Clue." Who did it, in what room, at with what weapon? All the suspects are in the open, and it HAS to be one of them. The question is which one. I am sure the author himself was featured on the show (or at least mentioned). I don't think it was a total stranger.

It is a VERY bizarre case.

My thought exactly.

One thing I noticed was that the letter unsolved mysteries got didn't look like the other letters. Also, the letter said some about not hurting Dwight Radcliff. What was the relationship between Radcliff and the superintendent? What were his reasons for not appearing on Unsolved Mysteries? What about the yellow car, which belonged to the brother of a suspect? There are so many flaws in the investigation.

With Paul, I find it odd that his gun was missing and he "thought nothing of it." Did somone close to Paul steal the gun? And what was his alibi on Monday, the day the booby trap was set?

Mary Gillespie admitted to having an affair with the superintendent after the letters started. That doesn't really make sense. If she was afraid the letter writer was going to go public when she first started getting the letters, why would she go public about it at all? Where was she the night of her husband's death? With the superintendent?

It's a very strange case indeed. Stranger than the Wackers.

The thing that stumps me is the fact that letters were being sent all over the entire STATE of Ohio. Why would this be necessary? Surely no one 100 miles away would care about such an affair. As I said, I think many of the letters were forgeries.

I wish there was a website that had photo copies of all of the relevant letters in this case, sort of like there are sites that host all of Zodiac's letters. If I could read the actual letters, I may be able to come to a better conclusion about what really happened. I got a strong feeling from watching the UM segment that UM was being careful not to give away too much info on Mary and other people of interest surrounding this case, probably for fear of lawsuits.

I googled and googled and cannot find any info on this case whatsoever. In fact, the only websites I found about strange goings on in Circleville, OH relate to a famous UFO sighting that occured there. heh

Well I dont know, how about instead of looking to bust Paul for it, it could be that someone else did it. Our justice system is far from perfect and they got it wrong yet again here. I dont think it was Mary Gillispie that sent letters to herself. I mean why would she do that? I just dont get it. I think that she wanted someone to blame for it and Freshour was a convinenent guy to blame and he sat in prison for 10 years for it. I think it was an unidentified 3rd party, could it have been the superintendent's wife if he was married? Could it have been a friend of the superintendents? It really could have been anyone. As for Freshour not thinking of anything of the gun being missing. Maybe he never used that gun? Maybe it was a junk pistol that he figured was worthless and that he didnt really care it was missing? I mean I think it is almost impossible for Paul Freshour to have been the guy that did this. Also the hoax theory is nearly as impossible as well because in order for that to be the case the person would have had to have known the writing styles of the letters which I believe had not been made public at the time that Freshour was in prison. They were shown on UM but Freshour had already been paroled at that time.

Don't think it was Paul. Maybe Mary or the sherriff. Yeah, sometimes it seems like Unsolved Mysteries isn't telling us everything. Funny that this sherrriff dude used inappropriate means of letter analysis and is still sherrifff.

The letter writer obviously knew about the affair. This means that it must have been someone very close to the bus driver. Perhaps the superintendents wife? But if it was her, it would not explain the motive for murdering the husband (if he was even murdered).

The best idea I can come up with, based on facts, is that the bus driver or superintendent (or both) were in on it in order to knock off the husband. They had the perfect person to frame -- the unknown mystery letter writer (who was one of them). They would also know about Paul's gun and where to find it. Of course, this is assuming that the duo was that smart, which I am doubting. However, statistics show that when a married person is murdered that it is HIGHLY likely that the spouse is involved.

If the superintendant and Mrs. Gillispie were the ones behind the letter writing AND the booby trap, as you imply here, then there motive was to 1) perhaps murder Mary Gillispie's husband, and then, AFTER that was accomplished, 2) frame Paul Freshauer for the attempted murder of Mary Gillispie? Why?

I also can't see what Paul Freshauer's motive would be for this whole campaign against Mary Gillispie, if he was the one responsible. He was the soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law of the deceased Mr. Gillispie at the time of the attempted murder of Mary Gillispie. Why would he care what affair she did or didn't have behind the back of her dead husband that he was only related to by a crumbling marriage?

The problem is the weird timing and conflicting events. On the one hand, Mr. Gillispie apparently had some idea of who was behind the harassment, and that person called his house the night of his death, which upset him enough that he drove off in a blind rage and ended up getting himself killed. Yet the only logical motive for the letter-writing harassment belongs to people who by all rights ought to have been on Mr. Gillispie's side in all of this, since they were evidently upset by the affair. Logic would seem to dictate that given the level of agitation that the letters express over the affair, that their author(s) have got to be either the ex Mrs. Freshauer (Mr. Gillispie's sister), one of their kids, or the superintendent's wife, or someone who was close to one of these parties. Perhaps the superintendent's wife and Mrs. Freshauer cooked the whole thing up together.

But if it was any of these people, why was Mr. Gillispie so ticked off at whoever was doing the harassing? Weren't they on his side? Evidently, he didn't think so. So this suggests an entirely different motive/person responsible for the entire thing. But who? Could be Paul Freshauer, but he seems to make the LEAST sense as a candidate --- except it wa shis gun used to make the booby trap!

Confusing, confusing case.

Sometimes, I love being agraduate student, with access to all kinds of fun databases. For those interested, further reading on this case:

LETTERS CONTINUE, RAISING DOUBT ABOUT CONVICT'S GUILT
Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - December 25, 1986
Author: Robin Yocum, Dispatch Staff Reporter

Shame how things work out

But better you than me:

The sheriff says: You did it:

But we know better dont we:

Excerpt of a letter received by Paul L. Freshour .

Paul Freshour knows that more than a few people think he's crazy. He denies that allegation as adamantly as he maintains his innocence.

"I'm not a criminal, and I'm not crazy," said Freshour , an inmate at the Lima Correctional Institution. "But I'm a convict now, and I don't have much credibility. People tend not to believe convicts."

FRESHOUR WAS sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1983 for attempted murder. He was found guilty of rigging a booby trap to kill his former sister-in-law, Mary Gillespie.

Freshour was arrested after authorities discovered a pistol registered to him in the booby trap.

During his trial, Freshour was linked to a seven-year letter-writing campaign that centered in Pickaway County and, in part, concerned Gillespie. Many of the more than 1,000 letters sent throughout the county spoke of a supposed affair between Gillespie, a school bus driver, and her employer, Gordon Massie, then superintendent of the Westfall School District.

When Freshour was imprisoned, authorities figured the letters would stop.

THEY HAVEN'T. Consider:

Even while Freshour has been in solitary confinement and his mail censored, hundreds of similar letters continue to circulate in central Ohio.

Freshour 's fingerprints were not found on the gun used in the booby trap, the trap itself or any of the letters.

A search of Freshour 's home revealed nothing connecting him to the letters. Also, no construction material used to make the booby trap was found.

A handwriting expert for the state, who linked the letters to Freshour , admitted in court that the samples of Freshour 's handwriting were not properly taken.

Freshour is softspoken and articulate. And he seems an unlikely suspect for an attempted murder charge.

At the time of his arrest he was receiving $52,000 a year as a quality control supervisor at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. He maintained a home in Grove City and a cabin in Hocking Hills. He had no criminal record.

HE HAS a bachelor's degree from Franklin University in industrial management and business administration and a master's degree in industrial management from Central Michigan University.

Freshour , 44, is broke, and his efforts to free himself are strictly low- budget. His defense revolves around a single issue: Why do the letters continue to circulate?

Since 1976, Gillespie has been the target of the scurrilous-letter campaign. Letters have been sent to various locations in central Ohio - newspapers, law enforcement authorities, judges, government officials, businesses and private citizens.

Pickaway County Sheriff Dwight Radcliff said the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification had "a whole storeroom full of letters" he had sent over to be analyzed.

Authorities were stumped. They had no suspects.

Freshour and his wife, Gillespie's sister, filed for divorce in late 1982. According to Freshour , it was not a friendly parting.

IN MARCH 1983, a few months before the divorce became final, Gillespie said she found a booby trap along her school bus route. She was alone at the time and no one else saw the trap.

The booby trap, a .25-caliber pistol rigged inside a cardboard box, was attached to an obscene sign that made reference to Gillespie's daughter. The pistol was reportedly rigged to go off when the sign was torn down.

The gun, which never fired, was Freshour 's. Immediately, he was linked to the letters.

At a hearing prior to Freshour 's trial, Radcliff testified that a handwriting expert had linked Freshour to 494 letters and postcards.

Columbus attorney Vincent DePascale, who represented Freshour , said the connection to the letters was almost solely responsible for Freshour 's conviction. DePascale said BCI Document Examiner Stephen Green testified that an examination of writing samples showed Freshour had written some of the letters. However, Green also testified that the handwriting samples were not taken properly.

DePASCALE SAID detectives gave Freshour a copy of a letter and asked him to copy it. Green said the correct method would have been to dictate questions to Freshour and have him write responses.

Green also testified that the number 8, found several times on the letters, was a distinctive blocky style. However, when handed a copy of Freshour 's employment application from Anheuser-Busch, which contained a number of 8s, Green said he could not find one that matched those on the letters.

"After Paul was arrested, they searched his garage and house, but they couldn't find anything to link him to the letters," DePascale said. "There's no doubt the letters were the reason he was convicted. It just overwhelmed the jury.

"They figured the letters would stop, but Paul Freshour has been in prison three years and they haven't stopped yet."

Since Freshour 's imprisonment, similar letters, most with Columbus postmarks, continue to arrive at various Pickaway County businesses, The Dispatch, Radcliff's office, and even at the Lima Correctional Institution.

Although the letters are similar to ones sent before Freshour 's arrest, Radcliff admits he can't determine the source. "We don't have any way to prove they're coming from him," Radcliff said. "There are letters coming out, though. There may be some people out there writing copycat letters."

The letters, some of which were sent on postcards, contained a distinctive block style printing. The O's and parts of other letters are square instead of round. A few of the letters were written in cursive script or typed.

Obscenity is prominent in many letters, as are references to Gillespie, Massie, and Radcliff. Errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation can be found throughout the letters.

"I THINK WE got the right man," Radcliff said. "I know what Freshour wants. He's trying to say, 'Look, I'm in prison, but the letters have never stopped.' All he wants is publicity."

Freshour concurs.

"Wouldn't you want publicity if you were in prison for something you didn't do?" he said.

"They claim my handwriting was on a bunch of the original letters. Well, if it was on any of the recent letters you don't think they'd file some kind of charges against me? The letters are the same, aren't they? Since they haven't filed charges I assume they don't have any evidence against me."

NO OTHER arrests have ever been made.

Radcliff says he has an idea where the letters are coming from, but he won't discuss his theory. Radcliff had said in earlier interviews that he thought Freshour was responsible for the continued letters.

Questioned recently, Radcliff said he had been ordered by Pickaway County Prosecutor William Harsha to answer, "No comment," to any further questions about the letters or the Freshour case. Radcliff said authorities continue to investigate the letters and it is still considered an open case.

Even if Freshour didn't send the letters, it was still his pistol found in the booby trap. Freshour says the weapon had been stolen in a burglary at his house prior to his arrest. The burglary occurred when Freshour was on vacation and he didn't report the gun stolen.

The gun was traced to Freshour through the serial number.

"I'm smart enough that if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it with your gun, not mine," Freshour said.

Radcliff said he had no doubt that Freshour continued to write letters after he was jailed and had them smuggled out. He would not elaborate.

Freshour said Radcliff won't elaborate because he didn't catch anyone trying to smuggle out letters.

"They were looking to connect me with the letters, so why didn't they charge me?" Freshour said. "I'll tell you why. It's because there were no letters. Sheriff Radcliff made that up."

FRESHOUR SAYS prison policies prevent smuggling or mailing any letters.

Tessa Unwin, a spokesman for the state prison system, said it would be nearly impossible for Freshour to sneak out the letters.

Unwin said all Freshour 's mail, incoming and outgoing, is inspected.

All prisoners are frisked before entering a visiting room. Unwin said Freshour is strip-searched before and after each visit because he has been suspected of writing the letters.

"They keep a real close eye on him and his visitors," Unwin said. "I don't see any way humanly possible for him to sneak out something."

FRESHOUR believes the letters sealed his guilt. If they hadn't been admitted into evidence, Freshour says he doubts he would have been convicted.

"For whatever reason, Sheriff Radcliff believes I'm still sending those letters," Freshour said. "When I'm dead and in my grave people are going to believe I'm sending those letters."

In this version of the story, note that Freshour claims that his gun was "stolen" but he never bothered to report it missing. I don't think that's the story he gave to UM, and it's a good thing, too, because it's lame.

Here's an article from earlier that year, when Freshour's conviction had been upheld:

CONVICTION UPHELD IN BOOBY-TRAP CASE
Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - March 21, 1986
Author: Don Baird, Dispatch Staff Reporter

The 4th District Court of Appeals has upheld the 1983 conviction of Paul L. Freshour , 43, for the attempted murder of a Pickaway County school bus driver.

Freshour , formerly of Grove City, appealed the conviction, saying the trial judge, Pickaway County Common Pleas Judge William Ammer, was prejudiced.

Ammer sentenced Freshour to seven to 25 years in prison, specifying that he serve at least three years. Freshour is in the Lima Correctional Facility.

Freshour was accused of booby-trapping a sign with an obscene message directed at Westfall School District bus driver Mary Gillespie, his former sister-in-law. The sign was rigged with wire and string to fire a .25-caliber automatic pistol concealed inside a cardboard box.

GILLESPIE SAW the sign Feb. 7, 1983, at an intersection on her afternoon bus route. She removed the box without opening it and turned it over to Pickaway County Sheriff Dwight Radcliff.

In his written opinion affirming Freshour 's conviction, Appeals Court Judge Earl Stephenson said, "There was evidence . . . that the gun was operable, that it had been in ( Freshour 's) possession, that he had taken a holiday (from work) the date of the offense, that similar cardboard boxes to the one at the intersection could be found at ( Freshour 's) place of employment, that the evidence tended to establish that ( Freshour 's) writing was that on the sign, the wood boards and the letters admitted into evidence.

"FURTHER, THE letters demonstrated animosity and ill will toward Mary Gillespie." Stephenson referred to 39 obscene letters mailed to Gillespie from March 1977 to December 1982.

Judge Homer Abele concurred in the decision, but Judge Lawrence Grey dissented. Grey said the prosecution should not have been allowed to present testimony damaging to Freshour from a handwriting expert who had been hired by Freshour 's defense attorney.

"Allowing the defendant's expert to be used by the prosecution has an undeniably chilling effect of the right to competent counsel," Grey said.

"Counsel's ability to independently investigate the case is hampered by the threat that what he finds will be used against his own client."

And here's one from later than the "conviction upheld" article but earlier than the first piece I posted:

BOOBY-TRAPPER IS DENIED NEW TRIAL
Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - October 15, 1986
Author: Don Baird, Dispatch Staff Reporter

Paul L. Freshour , convicted of attempted murder in a case involving a booby trap, was denied a new trial yesterday.

"I've listened very intently to what both sides have had to say," Judge Glenn Dettling said at the end of a two-hour hearing in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court. "It would be folly for this court to say that there was ineffective counsel, even though you ( Freshour ) in your heart may feel that."

Dettling, a retired Clark County Common Pleas judge, was assigned to hear Freshour 's request for a new trial.

Freshour 43, is serving 7 to 25 years in the Lima Correctional Facility. He was convicted of booby-trapping a sign bearing an obscene message to Westfall School District bus driver Mary Gillespie.

Evidence at his trial indicated Freshour rigged wire and string to a .25- caliber automatic pistol concealed in a cardboard box. Gillespie removed the sign without opening the box when she saw it along the route while driving her school bus on Feb. 7, 1983.

Freshour was represented in his trial by attorney Vincent DePascale of Columbus.

Freshour said DePascale erred in the trial by not having Freshour take the witness stand in his own defense, in changing his not guilty plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, and in failing to hire a private investigator to research the case.

Prosecutor William Harsha argued DePascale's defense of Freshour may have been imperfect but was legally effective.

In March, the 4th District Court of Appeals denied Freshour 's request for a new trial on the basis of judicial error and prejudice.

Notice the interesting details that come out of this:

1) The UM segment shows Mary Gillespie opening the box upon finding it. According to these articles, she did not do that, but turned it over to authorities unopened.

2) Paul Freshour ended up pleading guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, not simply "not guilty." He used an affirmative defense! The UM segment managed to leave out that little detail...

Also, the first of the articles I posted says that Freshour's wife was Mary's sister, not the sister of Mr. [Rick] Gillespie, which is what the UM segment says. I wonder which is right?

Finally, we get the name of the superintendant involved in the affair: Gordon Massie

There are some great points in those articles. It seems that there's so much that no one has ever really followed up on, then UM made some errors or omissions in their account of the events.

The people involved worked in a school district in a town so small that their annual pumpkin festival is the highlight of the year.

The first letter, from 1976? appears to be written on the type of penmanship paper given to kindergarten and first graders to practice their printing/hand writing. I wonder if they ever looked into the source of that paper. Back in the 70s, I remember this paper as being a very pale green color. I think b/w photocopies were shown on UM.

Not such a great link, but the best I could locate right now: http://www.startwrite.com/fonts.php The line across the top of the page is the style of lined paper I'm talking about. Click on the first link there "manuscript" to see a sample of the whole page.

I don't think any subsequent letters shown on UM used that kind of paper. The rest of the letters were on lined or unlined paper. So where did the writer get the unusual paper for the first letter? Was it an elementary school teacher? A parent of a kid who had that kind of paper for class? Just a school employee who had access to that paper? Totally unrelated or maybe used to remind the targets that they were school employees who should be thinking about the kids instead of themselves?

The way the letter "G" is written in very distinctive. It's almost a figure 8, like in the type font Times New Roman g. I have never seen anyone print a letter g like that.

Then the linguistics: The writer calls Mrs. Gillispie "a homebreaking pig". I think a more common term is "homewrecker". Is homebreaker a local term or specific to just a few people? The famous "el sickos". Who in little old circleville uses that phrase? Weird, imo.

Some unique characteristics are "hunting w your red and white" truck. I'm assuming the letter W is a shorthand for With? The writer makes extensive use of colon punctuation in sentences where it's not needed such as in this quote "when we set em up: they stay set up: don't you listen at all:". I even think the phrases here could be somewhat unique in identifying a possible writer.

The writer uses the term "pig" quite often, which I thought was interesting. That word was used more in the 60s and 70s as slang for a policeman. I think the writer was just using it mostly as a derogatory description of his/her targets. In the letter to Mr. Gillispie, the writer says that if he doesn't comply with the demands, "you are a pig too". "Defender: you are also a pig" and "only pigs ride motorcycles" are in the same letter. "those other bar pigs" (You get the idea. Lots of pig calling going on there. lol)

Misspellings and grammar errors which I think could help narrow down the suspect list include "loose" for "lose", "imform" for "inform", "take it serious" instead of "take it seriously", "strickly out for yer own" instead of "strictly out for your own", "elemenate" instead of "eliminate", "hole family" instead of "whole family", "straighen" instead of "straighten", etc. I wish I could find more copies of some of these letters, but they seem to be scarce.

For some reason the part about "please take it serious" (referring to the threats) makes me think the writer was a woman. From what I can recall about this kind of thing, women are more likely to use that kind of terminology than men. In fact, women tend to be wordier than men in general, which would help explain why there were so many of those crazy letters being mailed for years. But anyway, that "please" part... I don't really think a male writer would bother to soften the threats that way.

The note to UM tells them to not to anything to bother sheriff Radclife and the letter to Mr. Gillespie tells him that "Mrs. Massies worked hard" (the alleged adulterer's wife). The writer really seems to like those two folks. I don't know if it's to throw people off their trail or if it points to who the writer could be.

Bumping this thread up because there's some recent interest in the content of the letters.

Yes....how could letters keep coming after Freshour was on tight lockdown....and WHO IS THE person the entire family (mr/mrs Gillispies, Freshour & wife)wrote back to and the letters stopped for a while...also the same person had made calls? was this person ever identified? oh, there is no way the Gillispie / Super of Schools affair started before the letters.

This case is intriguing because it reminds me of a soap opera....I could just see the Jill Abbott of the 1980s being stalked by a mysterious letter-writer on The Young and The Restless...

(All the best UM cases are the ones that seem like a good novel or movie, in my opinion.)

I came across this link to court documents related to a Paul freshour acusing Dwight Radcliff of having a local paper print libelous statements. Including "throwing out a typewriter believed to have written several obscene letters".

http://openjurist.org/791/f2d/932/paul-freshour-v-dwight-radcliff-sheriff-pickaway-county

I came across this link to court documents related to a Paul freshour acusing Dwight Radcliff of having a local paper print libelous statements. Including "throwing out a typewriter believed to have written several obscene letters".

http://openjurist.org/791/f2d/932/paul-freshour-v-dwight-radcliff-sheriff-pickaway-county


Wow...thanks for sharing that info! I can't believe what a convoluted mess this case was. Mysterious letters, adultry, death, possible wrongful conviction, possible cover-up, and it goes on and on. Real life small town soap opera for sure.

Just curious, but has anyone from Circleville ever posted on here? Or anyone connected in any way to the case? It would be interesting to get their perspective.

I am from Circleville, OH and lived there during that time period. Gordon Massey was my HS Principle at Westfall HS.

I am from Circleville, OH and lived there during that time period. Gordon Massey was my HS Principle at Westfall HS.


Hi LesliMess :wave:

Welcome, and thanks for posting and sharing that info.

I will be driving thru Circleville on Tuesday. Hopefully I won't come across any booby traps!!

I always wondered, was he in jail during his trial.? He could have easily written letters while out on bail, then have his wife wait then mail them all while he was in prison. Maybe he hoped that would clear him or at least get him a new trial.

I always wondered, was he in jail during his trial.? He could have easily written letters while out on bail, then have his wife wait then mail them all while he was in prison. Maybe he hoped that would clear him or at least get him a new trial.

Freshour was in jail and the letters continued. They even moved him to solitary confinement and removed anything that could have been used to write letters, and the letters continued. He himself even received one in jail.

This may be a ridiculous thing to bump a thread for seven years later, but I just wanted to say what a fantastic post this was. Nice work, TracyLynnS.

Cheers,
Matt

There are some great points in those articles. It seems that there's so much that no one has ever really followed up on, then UM made some errors or omissions in their account of the events.

The people involved worked in a school district in a town so small that their annual pumpkin festival is the highlight of the year.

The first letter, from 1976? appears to be written on the type of penmanship paper given to kindergarten and first graders to practice their printing/hand writing. I wonder if they ever looked into the source of that paper. Back in the 70s, I remember this paper as being a very pale green color. I think b/w photocopies were shown on UM.

Not such a great link, but the best I could locate right now: http://www.startwrite.com/fonts.php The line across the top of the page is the style of lined paper I'm talking about. Click on the first link there "manuscript" to see a sample of the whole page.

I don't think any subsequent letters shown on UM used that kind of paper. The rest of the letters were on lined or unlined paper. So where did the writer get the unusual paper for the first letter? Was it an elementary school teacher? A parent of a kid who had that kind of paper for class? Just a school employee who had access to that paper? Totally unrelated or maybe used to remind the targets that they were school employees who should be thinking about the kids instead of themselves?

The way the letter "G" is written in very distinctive. It's almost a figure 8, like in the type font Times New Roman g. I have never seen anyone print a letter g like that.

Then the linguistics: The writer calls Mrs. Gillispie "a homebreaking pig". I think a more common term is "homewrecker". Is homebreaker a local term or specific to just a few people? The famous "el sickos". Who in little old circleville uses that phrase? Weird, imo.

Some unique characteristics are "hunting w your red and white" truck. I'm assuming the letter W is a shorthand for With? The writer makes extensive use of colon punctuation in sentences where it's not needed such as in this quote "when we set em up: they stay set up: don't you listen at all:". I even think the phrases here could be somewhat unique in identifying a possible writer.

The writer uses the term "pig" quite often, which I thought was interesting. That word was used more in the 60s and 70s as slang for a policeman. I think the writer was just using it mostly as a derogatory description of his/her targets. In the letter to Mr. Gillispie, the writer says that if he doesn't comply with the demands, "you are a pig too". "Defender: you are also a pig" and "only pigs ride motorcycles" are in the same letter. "those other bar pigs" (You get the idea. Lots of pig calling going on there. lol)

Misspellings and grammar errors which I think could help narrow down the suspect list include "loose" for "lose", "imform" for "inform", "take it serious" instead of "take it seriously", "strickly out for yer own" instead of "strictly out for your own", "elemenate" instead of "eliminate", "hole family" instead of "whole family", "straighen" instead of "straighten", etc. I wish I could find more copies of some of these letters, but they seem to be scarce.

For some reason the part about "please take it serious" (referring to the threats) makes me think the writer was a woman. From what I can recall about this kind of thing, women are more likely to use that kind of terminology than men. In fact, women tend to be wordier than men in general, which would help explain why there were so many of those crazy letters being mailed for years. But anyway, that "please" part... I don't really think a male writer would bother to soften the threats that way.

The note to UM tells them to not to anything to bother sheriff Radclife and the letter to Mr. Gillespie tells him that "Mrs. Massies worked hard" (the alleged adulterer's wife). The writer really seems to like those two folks. I don't know if it's to throw people off their trail or if it points to who the writer could be.

Freshour was in jail and the letters continued. They even moved him to solitary confinement and removed anything that could have been used to write letters, and the letters continued. He himself even received one in jail.
John Lordanjust did a YouTube video about circleville. He mentions this website and you specifically as a poster in this forum

John Lordanjust did a YouTube video about circleville. He mentions this website and you specifically as a poster in this forum

Flattered

I emailed Martin Yant a couple of years ago and asked for his thoughts on the case He was kind enough to respond:

Hi Thomas,

Our prime alternate suspect, a bus driver who had asked the female driver out several times and wasn't happy when he was rejected, turned out to be weirder than we knew. He molested a girl in 1999 and disappeared. He even appeared on America's Most Wanted, but that didn't help. It was later discovered that he had committed suicide shortly after he fled Ohio.

We were pursuing other evidence a few years ago, but when Paul died of a heart attack, our efforts stopped.