[TheCars1986]

Marie Mayhew's podcast, Whatever Remains Podcast, can be accessed here. She was featured in the 48 Hours show about the case. On Episode 7, titled "Stolen Treasure", Marie goes over the relationship issues and divorce proceedings between Karen and Paul Freshour. Here are some key excerpts (some of which I had never known before):

-Multiple signs accusing Karen of being a lesbian with a fellow coworker began to pop up at her place of employment in the parking lot in early 1983.

-Karen had told a coworker (the head of security at her job) that her car had been shot at and that Paul had called this coworker to arrange for a meeting between the coworker and a private investigator that Paul had hired. Apparently, Paul hired the PI to find the person who shot Karen's car. Law enforcement were never able to substantiate the claim that her car was shot.

-Karen's coworker told the police that she told him about finding several letters around the home she was sharing with Paul at the time.

-When Karen was interviewed by police she told them about their relationship problems, abuse, and eventual divorce proceedings:

Karen then recounts that for the first few years that they were married, Paul had beaten her up a few times. But then she stood up to him, filing for divorce, only later to decide to drop it. For a long period of time, about 17 years, there were few problems. Then, in the early 80s they began to argue. He accused her of running around with someone else. She told him that she thought he was sick, refusing to get into a car with him.

The City Police Department was called, and an investigation was made at the time. The police got her out of the house, and she spoke with a night prosecutor at the city prosecutor's office, but nothing further was done. Karen went on. She said that they had been separated for about seven months, she had left him about a week before the Fourth of July of 1982. Karen said that Paul had beaten her up in October, broke a soda bottle and held it to her face, threatening to cut her up so bad that her own mother wouldn't recognize her. This description matches the divorce proceedings.

From the report of the referral officer, the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, "Upon consideration of matters before the court, the court referral officer makes the following finding of fact. Both parties were present with council on November 22, 1982. The parties have two children and the defendant alleges physical beating by her husband on October 5th, 1982 and showed pictures of a blackened eye with four stitches. The plaintiff has gone to counseling since the incident. The plaintiff went to counseling because he feels bad about what he did. The defendant claims the plaintiff has a violent temper and she left because of being struck."

-Karen also relayed to law enforcement about Paul's hatred for Mary Gillespie:

Karen said Paul had thought a great deal of Ron and Mary Gillispie before Ron died. But after his death, Paul grew to hate Mary. Hated her over the Massie deal, and used to discuss it quite a bit. Saying things like, "Why don't they just go out of state?" Or calling her, "A goddamn slut who slept with Massie." But Karen Sue believed that before Ron died, Mary had nothing to do with Massie whatsoever. Mary told Karen that Mr. Massie impressed her, and she had told her husband that there was nothing going on between them. In fact, both Ron and Karen told Paul this, that there was nothing going on. There was no affair. If Karen and Ron, Mary's husband, believed this to be the truth, that there wasn't an affair, then why couldn't Paul Freshour? What could of possibly mattered to him so much that he would not only take the word of his ex-wife, but of Ron Gillispie, someone that Paul had admired and viewed as a close friend?

When they started to talk about the anonymous letters, Karen told Detective Brown that about two summers ago while house cleaning, she had found a letter hidden between the mattress and the box spring of their bed. The letter was addressed to Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, Missouri and the writing had the same look as some of the other ones that had been sent to Mary. When she asked Paul about this, he told her that he had written the letter as a work reference for someone. When she checked the next day, the letter was gone. She had also found a letter in the toilet. Her son had gotten it out with a coat hanger after the toilet had stopped up. She told Detective Brown that it had been addressed to some church in a nearby town but didn't have a stamp on it. Karen had tried to piece it together when Paul was not at home.

She said she could make out the name Gillispie on the letter. She often found envelopes like this left in odd places in the Freshour home, where she could make out the name Gillispie written on the letter inside. Karen went on to say the night prior to his fatal accident, Ron Gillispie called Mary before she and Karen Sue had left for their trip for Florida. And told his wife he thought he had the matter "figured out". Karen said a short time after Ron had died she had found four letters in white envelopes in the trunk of her husband's car. They had not been mailed and Paul had told her that Ron wanted him to mail them, but strangely enough even though they had stamps on them, they had not been mailed. Karen ended the interview with Detective Brown by talking about what she told Mary Gillispie. She said that, yes, she did believe that Paul was behind the letters and she did tell Mary Gillispie that.

-Marie Mayhew brings up a solid point, in that the Freshour's divorce proceedings began in October of 1982. It wasn't until May if 1983 that the divorce was granted in favor of Paul Freshour because "defense offered no testimony". Paul Freshour was charged with attempted murder in February of 1983. If Karen indeed was the person setting him up, why did she not bother to mention any of this during their divorce proceedings? She brought up physical abuse, but absolutely nothing about the Circleville letters or the attempted murder charge.

Maybe the reason Karen Sue Freshour didn't defend herself was because she made a decision that it was more important to try and defend her children. She recognized that there would be no winning, no gaining emotionally or financially from bringing the letters into their divorce. Karen Sue did not want for her children to hate their father. She saw what was coming, the stories in the newspaper, the attention, the gossip. And she didn't wanna put her children in front of that. Even if on the witness stand one of her daughters said something against her. Even if not hating him meant her daughter would end up hating her instead. What Karen Sue told others like Trainor and Detective Brown shows a more measured restraint in describing her ex-husband than what we've been led to believe. She says that he was abusive, and she believes that he is the letter writer, but she does not seem to take the opportunity to put the proverbial nail in his coffin. She could have. She could have gone to the press, called him a monster or told the judge presiding over her divorce proceedings that he was crazy and that he was dangerous. But she didn't.

-The episode goes over several letters that Paul had written, to the judge in his divorce proceeding, to his attorney, and a local newspaper. In every one, he essentially buries his ex-wife's reputation, and discusses several suicide attempts in years prior.

-Here is how Marie Mayhew ends the episode:

For our story to resolve, the hero must be vindicated. And the villain defeated, relegated to only being remembered as such. But what happens to the story of the Circleville letter writer if our villain isn't as bad as we want her to be? What if she is just another person going through life? If Karen Sue Freshour is not as bad as we thought, then what does that say about our hero? The man wrongfully accused, telling us this story. Author William Congreve famously once wrote, "Hell hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman's scorn." Which if you believe Paul Freshour and his story of Circleville, does neatly sum up the character of Karen Sue.

I would ask you to instead consider a different quote by the same author. While it is not as well known or popular, it may closely more resemble the truth, "He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure."

Marie Mayhew had brought up several points I had never considered before. However, she also ignored the multiple people in and around Circleville, who knew Karen, who had described her as vindictive. She also seems to rely too heavily on giving the benefit of the doubt to Karen, and that her actions were done solely with the interest of protecting her children. She does not consider the possibility that the reason why Karen brought nothing up at the divorce proceedings involving the attempted murder charge was because she very well may have been involved with setting him up. The divorce was finalized in May of 1983, but Paul's trial did not start until October of 1983. And despite the contentious divorce, and the fact that Paul made some comments about Karen in various letters that were unfavorable about her, none of it matches the vitriol found in the letters written by the Circleville Writer to Mary Gillespie.

I recommend listening to the podcast to get a different perspective, because virtually everything about this case has been from a pro-Freshour slant.