Greetings,

I just watched this segment again yesterday. Something caught me about the booby-trap. I believe Paul Freshour is innocent and the person who wrote the letters stole Paul's gun to 'set him up' as the suspect said in his taunting letter to Paul in prison. 'Don't you ever learn, when we set 'em up, they stay set up......HA HA!' The suspect might've known Freshour kept a gun in his garage, and being a small town, probably knew Paul himself. Plus, they never looked into the yellow El Camino lead, which might've kept Paul Freshour out of prison altogether.

Just my thoughts or theory on what might've happened.......

Any suggestions?

I believe Paul Freshour is definetely innocent.

You el sickos will pay!

This is one of my favorite, if not my very favorite, episodes. I just am not convinced Freshour is totally innocent in this. I think it is possible a family member of his did it, either with or without his complicity.

I posted a long thread about it a while back, and there was a good discussion:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=195911&highlight=Circleville+letters

I've seen this case a few times the last month, and there are still so many questions about this case.

How bad was the divorce between Paul and Mary's sister? They really didn't talk about it much, but when Mary takes the stand against her former brother in law, you know it had to be really bad. Is there any way someone else in the family planted the booby trap? It was poorly made, and Mary had lost a lot of respect in the town. With a booby trap, Mary came off as a victim instead of someone who cheated on her husband with the superintendent.

Also, how much does the sheriff know? Why was he named in the letter sent to Unsolved Mysteries? If they felt the segment wasn't going to put him in a good light, he could have appeared on Unsolved Mysteries to give his side of the story.

Whoever was sending the letters, was having a good time with Paul.

val,

You raise a good point that I have often wondered about in relation to the divorce of Paul and his wife. From what I gathered from the segment, they made it sound like the divorce occured during all of this and prior to Paul going to jail. I don't know about you, but I don't think the divorce was completely unrelated to this case. Paul's ex-wife is the one who told Mary that she thought Paul was writing the letters. This could be a fact (hence the reason she divorced him) or it could be her doing it out of spite for a failed marriage. It could also be that Mary just flat out lied on the stand and claimed she was told something she was not.

I think one thing can be ascertained from all of that family tumult -- it gives someone in that family a good motive to start all of this letter writing business, thus trying to expose Mary's affair. Since Paul was just the brother-in-law, I think he would have a stronger motive for doing it as opposed to his wife, who was the sister of Mary. Blood is thicker than paper and marriage certificates.

I think the key to the case lies in what the letters said exactly. On the UM segment, if you run it in slow motion, you can see glimpses of some of the verbiage in the letters. For example, I remember seeing something like "She goes bar hopping" or something very close to that. Since there were so many letters, the amelioration of the case is contingent upon knowing what all of the letters contained. The more diatribes the author made, the more clues that can be ascertained about his/her identity. Since the letters are not in the public domain, us onlookers will probably never be able to do anything but speculate. I would even wager that a good majority of the letters have been destroyed by the Sheriff.

Paul Freshour was married to Ron Gillespie's sister not Mary's sister. I dont know, I guess I dont think the letters were hoaxes and Freshour couldnt have wrote them from prison. I dont know, I guess I do not know what Freshour's motives would be to do all of that. I think the guy was wrongfully convicted, just another guy to add to the long list of wrongfully convicted folks railroaded by corrupt cops and prosectuors. Freshour was a guy who should have never been convicted, there was no evidence against him. None.

I do think that whoever the letter writer is was close to both the Gillespie and Freshour families. However I do not believe the letter writer was Paul Freshour. Martin Yant actually investigated this case and he actually was the investigator that helped exonorate Clarence Elkins, another wrongfully convicted guy in Ohio.

Paul Freshour was married to Ron Gillespie's sister not Mary's sister. I dont know, I guess I dont think the letters were hoaxes and Freshour couldnt have wrote them from prison. I dont know, I guess I do not know what Freshour's motives would be to do all of that. I think the guy was wrongfully convicted, just another guy to add to the long list of wrongfully convicted folks railroaded by corrupt cops and prosectuors. Freshour was a guy who should have never been convicted, there was no evidence against him. None.

I stand corrected about the relationship of Mary to Paul's wife. At any rate, it is irrelevant. If anything, the fact it was Ron's sister fortifies my point even more. Why would Ron's sister make up a lie for Mary? If anything, Ron's sister would hold allegiance to Ron, not Mary. Ron's sister would have a good reason to write the letters in coordination with Paul. I am not sure this is what happened, of course, but it makes as much sense as anything else.

I also think you are incorrect when you say there was no evidence against Paul. It was his gun found in the booby trap. It was him that was pinpointed by his own wife as being the author, and his handwriting did match the letter samples. I know the handwriting thing is a hot potato, but I have read that it is difficult to purposely make your handwriting look like someone elses (even when copying directly by eye), at least when you are trying to fool an expert. For an example of this, look at the Vince Foster segment that UM ran. Several handwriting experts showed that his "suicide letter" was written by someone else who tried very hard to make their handwriting look like Vince's. The forging was a good job, but not enough to fool the experts. (Of course, the Foster forgery is contested by some experts, to be fair.)

I am not saying 100% that Paul did it, but I do think that someone he knew well did. It is also possible there was more than one letter writer. Again, UM never commented on comparative handwriting analysis of all the letters. Since there were so many written, I want to know if all of them have been compared for authenticity -- that is, I want to know if it has been shown by handwriting experts if they are all from the same author. This is important. Everyone here seems to assume that they were all written by the same person, and I see no reason to assume that.

Sure, I admit that there is the problem of the letters continuing after Paul's incarceration combined with the fact that they were taunting Paul. However, the UM segment did say that "letters were being sent to people all over the state." Why would the author send the letters to random people all over the entire state? Also, they were post marked in very different parts of the state. Was the author travelling around in order to fool authorities? This makes no sense, and implies to me, that some of the letters had to be fakes.

It is also possible (and I have heard no one put forth this idea), that the booby trap incident was done by someone who was not the author of the letters. For example, if Ron's sister was not the author, it is possible she suspected Paul and thought she would frame him by setting up the booby trap, even if she nor Paul had anything to do with the letters. This scenario is unlikely, but still a distinct possibility. I still think Paul or his wife (Ron's sister) set up the booby trap, even if they didn't write the letters. I see no way for anyone to know where Paul had that gun hidden unless they either lived in his house, or were frequent guests. This fact leads me to think it was Paul/his wife, or Mary herself.

It is impossible for me to forge any one theory with any high degree of certainty since the UM segment left out so much pertinent info. I would need to know how the relationship between Paul and Ron was. I would need to know the relationship of Mary and Paul and Mary and Ron's sister. I would need to know why Paul and his wife divorced. I would also need to know what information and clues the letters themselves contained.

As I said in previous posts, I think there are two likely scenarios:

1) Mary and the superintendent did it, which explains why Mary may have lied under oath and claimed that Ron's sister told her Paul did it. It is also possible she and Ron did not like Paul, since Paul was married to Ron's sister. Considering that Ron's death was connected to this, Mary is the best suspect since she was having an affair and was married to him.

2) Paul OR Ron's sister did it because they were angry about Mary having the affair. This scenario makes a little more sense since it is a fact that Paul's gun was used. Who better to have access to the gun than Paul or his own wife? Also, it is plausible that since Paul and his wife divorced during all of this that his wife did it and tried to frame Paul for it since the marriage was obviously falling apart for whatever reason.

Paul Freshour was married to Ron Gillespie's sister not Mary's sister. I dont know, I guess I dont think the letters were hoaxes and Freshour couldnt have wrote them from prison. I dont know, I guess I do not know what Freshour's motives would be to do all of that. I think the guy was wrongfully convicted, just another guy to add to the long list of wrongfully convicted folks railroaded by corrupt cops and prosectuors. Freshour was a guy who should have never been convicted, there was no evidence against him. None.

Also, not only was there no evidence against him, but I think it would've helped if he testified for himself. But, he didn't think or know at the time that they'd convict him, though. So it would've helped maybe, but I see his point in not testifying, thinking he'd get off because he was innocent anyway.

I just don't understand why everyone says there is "no evidence" against Paul. His gun was used in the booby trap.

I think it is very possible Paul is innocent, but you cannot blame the jury for convicting him. If I was on the jury, I would probably have done the same thing with the information presented -- His gun, eyewitness testimony against him, and the handwriting samples he authored matched the letters.

Thissuat, I guess I dont understand why you think Freshour's gun was the "smoking gun" against him, no pun intended. I mean you just act like that gun means for sure Freshour is guilty, no ifs, ands or buts. Yet if Freshour is this sleuthing creep looking to off his ex sister in law for no apperant reason why would he use his own gun and then make a rather childish attempt at scratching off the serial numbers? It just makes no sense. There was really nothing more than very circumstancial evidence against Paul Freshour.

I will even agree with Garrett here that if Paul had testified in his own defense his chances at acquittal would have been much better. It certainly wouldnt have hurt his chances.

Well the handwriting stuff is a bunch of hocus pocus. First off that was not the proper way to designate whether or not someone had written letters by having them copy to the best of their ability the letters they were looking at. I mean I know you want Freshour to be guilty thiussat but come on. Also hand writing experts have been wrong plenty of times and they certainly could have been wrong here. These letters were in block print and they wouldnt have been terribly difficult to copy. Also there was no eyewitness testimony against him so I dont know where you got that from. The writing and the gun were what got him convicted plus the fact he didnt testify in his own defense.

Hell I would believe it more likely that Paul's ex-wife was a scorned woman, who herself was probably writing the letters, she was mad about the divorce and she got Mary in on it and they set up Paul to be the fall guy. The whole thing is just so strange but I still believe Freshour was always innocent. If I were on the jury I would have probably voted to acquitt and cause a mis-trial because I dont know how people really could convict him considering there was not evidence, there never was enough evidence b ut that is just my opinion.

I am surprised thiussat hasnt tried connecting Dr. MacDonald to this in some way. Maybe him and Freshour were working together? Afterall MacDonald was still a free man while much of this was going on. (Joking).

I've said this in another thread, but why did Paul "think nothing" of his missing gun? I am not a gun owner, but if I were missing a gun, I think I'd be a little more concerned, because it could be traced back me. Did Paul own a lot of gun? I'm not saying he did it, but his reaction to the missing gun I found odd.

Still, if Paul was writing the letters in jail, and actually mailed one to himself, the guy has one weird sense of humor. Also writing a letter a to Unsolved Mysteries would be a very strange move from Paul.

I don't know all the facts about the case, but how could one affair cause all of this? How small is this town?

Thissuat, I guess I dont understand why you think Freshour's gun was the "smoking gun" against him, no pun intended. I mean you just act like that gun means for sure Freshour is guilty, no ifs, ands or buts. Yet if Freshour is this sleuthing creep looking to off his ex sister in law for no apperant reason why would he use his own gun and then make a rather childish attempt at scratching off the serial numbers? It just makes no sense. There was really nothing more than very circumstancial evidence against Paul Freshour.


As I said in my previous posts, no one on this board has any real knowledge of what the letters contained. Ergo, we don't know what the letter writer's motives were, nor do we have any clue as to the identity of the person solely based on the phrases used or on the details the letters contained. Mary, Ron, Paul, and others, got to read the letters first hand and had an immediate suspicion on who they thought the author was. Obviously, the letters contained information and/or a style of writing that gave away the author. We, on this board, do not have the luxury of reading the letters. I wish we did.

My point is that none of us can sit here and pretend that we know for a fact that Paul "had no motive." We simply do not know the goings on within that family at that time. The only thing we can do is infer a correlation with the fact Paul and his wife divorced in the middle of all of this controversy with the letters. I think it is unlikely their divorce was independent of the letters. this is an assumption on my part, but I think most would agree that it is a fair assumption.

As for the serial number, it makes perfect sense, kadrmass. If you commit a crime with a gun that you fear may be traced to you, then you attempt to remove the serial number. Since Paul did not appear to be an experienced criminal, it makes perfect sense that he would not know how to remove a serial number. I still say the fact that the serial number had been attempted to be removed makes Paul more of a suspect. If someone tried to frame him, why attempt to remove evidence that would help you frame your victim? Someone said in another thread that it is possible the person who tried to frame Paul scratched the serial number off in order to create the perect frame job. While possile, I find this scenario less likely than the scenario of Paul just not knowing what he was doing.


Also there was no eyewitness testimony against him so I dont know where you got that from.

Mary testified against Paul, saying that Paul's own wife had told her that Paul was writing the letters.

Again, Mary could have made that up, or Paul's wife made it up and lied to Mary. There is also the possibility that it was all true. I really have no idea which is the truth. However, the jury heard Mary say that, and with the gun evidence presented, probably thought it was more likely to be a true statement rather than a fabricated one.

Again, I do not "want Paul to be guilty," but am merely saying that people are far too quick to dismiss him just because a reporter on UM thinks he is innocent. I think it is likely Paul did not do all of this, but I DO think the chances are very good that someone in his immediate family (or perhaps a very close friend) did do it. I find the scenario of a nosey neighbor or a nosey member of the community extremely unlikely. Everything about this case smacks of a personal vendetta; a vendetta that is so personal it points toward a spouse or a close family member.

Hell I would believe it more likely that Paul's ex-wife was a scorned woman, who herself was probably writing the letters, she was mad about the divorce and she got Mary in on it and they set up Paul to be the fall guy.

Possible, but I doubt it. I say this because why would Paul's wife (who was RON's sister) be in cahoots with Mary who was having an affair behind Ron's back? Unless Ron and his sister hated each other, this scenario makes little sense.

I've said before that I think the chances are quite good Mary is involved. I would say she is guilty with about a 90% degree of confidence if it weren't for the little caveat of the gun belonging to Paul. How did she know about the gun, and how did she find it? Paul seemed to have had it hidden under a bunch of junk in his garage.

I am surprised thiussat hasnt tried connecting Dr. MacDonald to this in some way. Maybe him and Freshour were working together? Afterall MacDonald was still a free man while much of this was going on. (Joking).

I've actually said before I think the Wackers are involved in this. ;)

Still, if Paul was writing the letters in jail, and actually mailed one to himself, the guy has one weird sense of humor. Also writing a letter a to Unsolved Mysteries would be a very strange move from Paul.

I don't think Paul was writing the letters to himself in jail. This would be next to impossible since the post marks were made in far away cities. However, just because Paul received letters in jail does not mean the person sending them was the same person who had sent them to Mary and Ron. You have to remember, by the time Paul was incarcerated, the story had become widely publicized and it is very possible that copycat letters began being sent.

I have never heard anyone address the fact that letters were being sent "all over the state." According to Robert Stack, people were receiving them all over the state who had no connection to the case. I dunno about you, but this implies to me that some, if not all, of these letters were frauds.