I had a really really long post typed up last Monday about some new developments (before the 48 Hours show aired) based off of a podcast interview Martin Yant did back in March of this year (unfortunately, the name of the podcast escapes me now), and my entire computer system crashed and I lost it. Anyway, from what I saw that was featured in the 48 Hours episode, they went over most of it (involving Paul's son potentially being the one who stole his gun to help his mother set him up), and Yant was pretty adamant that while he believed Freshour did not receive a fair trial, he was never 100% convinced of his innocence. He also said that the story about Ron Gillespie going out to confront the letter writer may have been embellished by the family to make his death seem more heroic. He also said that the police were never able to determine whether or not Ron fired his weapon on the night of his death, or if it had been fired in the days (or weeks) prior to the crash.
I do remember Freshour admitting to writing some of the original letters that they had sent out to the person they had suspected of writing the initial letters. I wonder if that was in the letter samples given to the handwriting expert. Also, they said that some of the letters sent out while Freshour was in prison had his fingerprints on them. One of them highlighted in the 48 Hours show said (partially):
Quote:
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DWITE IS A GOOD BOY AND YES WE WILL KEEP HIM: WE WERE A LITTLE PISSED BECAUSE WE WANTED GORDON REMOVED YEARS AGO BUT THINGS REALLY WORKED OUT BETTER: WE GOT THE GREAT PUBLICITY THAT WE NEEDED: WE FELT THAT THE WORLD MUST KNOW SO WE PUSHED IT THANKS TO [redacted] TO THE LIMITS.
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I have no idea as to whether or not this was one of the letters that contained Freshour's fingerprints, but they specifically went to this one when mentioning it at the end of the episode. There was also another letter shown, written to Martin Yant in 1994 shortly after he wrote one of his first articles about the case. It says:
Quote:
MARCH 1994
PLEASE KNOW:
LETTERS WERE BEFOR 1977: WRITER ALMOST HAD ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN PUT IN PRISON HA HA: DAVID LONGBERRY WOULD HAVE IF THE MAN IN PRISON NOW HAD NOT TRIED TO TRICK WRITER WITH WRITERS OWN WRITING FOR HOMEBREAKER GILLESPIE: SEE WHAT HE GOT HA HA: HE WILL NOT GET OUT OF PRISON OR RADCLIFF WILL TAKE HIS PLACE: THERE WAS FOUL PLAY:
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This was one of the first letters to publicly name Longberry. Now, IMO, one of three possibilities exist as to who wrote this letter:
-David Longberry
-Karen Sue Freshour
-Paul Freshour
IMO, the letters written in the early 90's around the timing of the filming of the UM episode were written differently than the original letters, and seemed more taunting and threatening that the original letters...and seemed to taunt Freshour specifically in many of them. I doubt David Longberry would have inserted himself into the letters publicly, and it would make no sense for Paul Freshour to do that (and mention specifically the part about how they tried to trick the writer with letters of their own, which was mentioned by Paul on UM) as well. I honestly believe these letters were written by Karen. I also believe that she helped set up the booby trap to frame Paul.
The original first few letters specifically went after Gordon Massie sexually harassing the female bus drivers, and mentions that the writer's girlfriend was one of the alleged victims of this harassment. They wanted Massie essentially fired, and never mentioned Mary Gillespie by name. Eventually, the letters shifted and started to blame both Massie and Mary, and ultimately switching to mostly Mary. I cannot fathom how Paul Freshour would have been able to know all of these details about what was going on in a town over 50 minutes away from where he lived and worked. How would he have even known about Gordon Massie, the bus drivers, his alleged harassment, and affairs? And why did he continually harass Mary Gillespie for
years via harassing letters, to then escalate to a very crude and seemingly inoperable booby trap? By that point, the Gillespie's were ex-in-laws.
Maybe he did write some of the letters while he was in prison. At Freshour's trial, the prosecution's handwriting expert said that the samples that he gave law enforcement were not properly obtained. There is no doubt in my mind that Paul Freshour had nothing to do with any aspect of this case (outside of the letters he admitted to sending Longberry initially) and perhaps some letters written while he was in prison.