The Circleville Writer: Less Bizarre Than it Appears

[Latka Gravas]

Creepy case. The idea of someone being harassed by letters sent by an unknown stalker is extremely unnerving; the "pistol booby trap" is also very disturbing.

I definitely agree that Paul was set up by someone (possibly his wife). Sad. I don't see why anyone would think Paul was the one sending letters, since they continued after he had been incarcerated & it would have obviously been impossible for him to send them while in jail - ridiculous.

Ron's death is suspect; he may have just crashed while driving drunk - but, he may also have been killed & it was made to look like an accident.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Latka Gravas

he may also have been killed & it was made to look like an accident.

Murdering someone and making it look like an accident is something out of movies. It very rarely happens in real life, especially with an auto accident. Ron's BAC was extremely high on the night of his death. His killer would have gotten really lucky to murder him on the night where he decided to get blitzed.

The more believable scenario is that Ron was going to confront David Longberry and was drinking for liquid courage. He drank too much and unfortunately crashed his car.

[JM]

Looks like CBS' 48 Hours will be covering this case.

Sneak peek: The Circleville Letters

[thekingof8]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Murdering someone and making it look like an accident is something out of movies. It very rarely happens in real life, especially with an auto accident. Ron's BAC was extremely high on the night of his death. His killer would have gotten really lucky to murder him on the night where he decided to get blitzed.

The more believable scenario is that Ron was going to confront David Longberry and was drinking for liquid courage. He drank too much and unfortunately crashed his car.

Perhaps the reason the gun was discharged was because he tried to shoot at him while chasing him in the car and lost control and crashed?

[bell83]

Something that came to me, recently, regarding the supposed shot that was fired. I wonder if they actually did a GSR test or anything to make sure a shot actually WAS fired. If the pistol was a revolver, and he kept it loaded, a lot of people from that time frame (and earlier, and even today) would leave the hammer on either an empty chamber or empty casing (because older pistols were not safe to carry with a loaded chamber under the hammer). If they just saw an empty casing in the chamber and assumed that he'd fired a shot without actually testing, this might've been a red herring that's been chased all these years that made the case far more sinister than it actually was.

[mphs95]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I guess I should have also noted that it's possible that the coworker was deliberately writing two different styles of writing in an effort to conceal his identity, and that by signing the letters "W", he may have tried to make them think it was William Massie. Unless UM was vague, and they sent letters to multiple people who they thought was responsible (maybe they sent them to the coworker and Massie), Massie very well may have had nothing to do with them.

Martin Yant simply stated that Paul's ex-wife was the one who came up with the idea and used Paul and "others to smoke out the original writer".

ETA: I found this case (https://casetext.com/case/gallucci-v-freshour#!) appeal from the 90's which involves a dispute between Freshour and his ex-wife over property that they had owned together. Since this is dated 1994, I could see now why, according to Yant, his ex-wife was still spreading negative stories about him into the 90's. And in one of Yant's articles, he mentions (not by name but it's implied) that the ex-wife and her husband threatened his life after he wrote an article leaning heavily on the side of Paul's innocence.

I listened to Going West's episode on the Circleville letters and they included a bit where Paul Freshour allegedly beat his now ex-wife once before the divorce. According to the hosts, the ex-wife was pretty much looking for revenge because he got the kids and the house in spite of beating her up.

However, I've never seen this bit of PF being a wife beater in any of the research I've done on this case on and off over the years. I'm not sure what to believe.

[mphs95]

Originally Posted by jets4life

Nope.

What bugs me, is the fact that Paul was denied parole, as the letter kept being sent. One would think it would be fairly easy to rule him out, considering his mail would be vetted, as the main reason he was convicted, was that the jury believed he was responsible for sending threatening letters.

This case is full of holes, and I honestly believe the Ron suspected his wife was having an affair, and knew exactly who the other man was. I do not believe the family is telling the truth. To have a BAC of 0.16, it would take a 180 pound man to drink a considerable amount in a short period of time....maybe 12 drinks in 2 hours, to be that intoxicated. That's blackout drunk.

Going West's coverage of this case seemed slanted. When the point about the warden stating there was no way PF was mailing those letters was made, the hosts scoffed at this point, saying "How would he know?"

I think the OP theory is a good and solid theory. It fits all of the pieces together. It just sucks that PF spent time in prison for something he didn't do.

[JannTosh]

Originally Posted by JM

Looks like CBS' 48 Hours will be covering this case.

Sneak peek: The Circleville Letters

Holy crap! Finally another show is covering this case!

[Killarney Rose]

Did anyone watch 48 Hours last night? I’m interested in your thoughts.

[schmave]

I thought it was excellent. Obviously viewers were going to learn a lot more last night in an hour than Unsolved Mysteries presented in 20 minutes or so, but nonetheless it was fascinating. I think it was more a balanced portrayal than that of UM, where the segment seemed somewhat slanted toward Freshour.
I don't buy the one analyst's "100 percent" conviction that he was the writer. I still don't think it was him. I'm more convinced than ever that the vengeful ex-wife was behind the letters in their later stages anyway. And the son ... how terrible to treat your own parent like that. The guilt doubtless did him in much later.

[Killarney Rose]

That 100% conviction surprised me. Ive always believed PF was innocent. But those handwriting comparisons sure were close. Of course, anyone close to PF that wanted to frame him with the handwriting could have.

[Corky Kneivel]

It feels like this is getting a lot of attention from different sources recently. Does anyone else feel like when that happens we're going to hear about a break in the case?

I will say I HIGHLY doubt there can be any breaks in this case, but when something starts popping up across different podcasts and TV shows I always wonder if there's something behind the scenes about to come out.

[JM]

I first saw this case in my teens when it originally aired on UM. Years later I would work and become friendly with someone with the same last name as Paul only to realize it was a nephew, small world.

The more you zoom out from the pile of letters and just look at motives... the OP is spot on.

Found it interesting that Martin Yant came out of retirement to be interviewed. He has turned down a number of them for various podcasts on this topic. I guess when CBS comes calling... you answer.

[Columbogirl]

Is PF’s son a new piece of information?

Paul’s niece placed emphasis on that bit of the show but I’ve never heard anything about his potential involvement or his suicide.

[TheCars1986]

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):

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.

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:

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:

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.