Circleville Letters -- My Theory and Observations - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Thiussat · 03-09-2007, 03:00 AM

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?

kadrmas15 · 03-09-2007, 07:55 PM

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.

mozartpc27 · 03-10-2007, 03:03 PM

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

Thiussat · 03-10-2007, 07:50 PM

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.

LooksLikeCRicci · 03-12-2007, 04:35 AM

*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.

kadrmas15 · 03-14-2007, 08:39 PM

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.

asmitty · 03-15-2007, 01:07 AM

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.

kadrmas15 · 03-15-2007, 01:39 AM

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.

asmitty · 03-15-2007, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kadrmas15

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

Thiussat · 03-15-2007, 04:03 AM

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.

kadrmas15 · 03-15-2007, 05:53 AM

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.

Thiussat · 03-15-2007, 07:27 AM

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.

asmitty · 03-15-2007, 12:33 PM

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.

valutime20 · 03-18-2007, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thiussat

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.

Thiussat · 03-18-2007, 11:49 AM

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

03-09-2007, 03:00 AM	#1
Thiussat Member Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 601	Circleville Letters -- My Theory and Observations 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?
	Last edited by Thiussat; 04-25-2007 at 02:28 AM.

03-09-2007, 07:55 PM	#2
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	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.

03-10-2007, 03:03 PM	#3
mozartpc27 Vigilante Logician Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2006 Location: Philadelphia Posts: 924	Could someone post a summary of the Circleville Letters case? I don't believe I've ever seen it.

03-10-2007, 07:50 PM	#4
Thiussat Member Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 601	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.

03-12-2007, 04:35 AM	#5
LooksLikeCRicci Likes to live in a clean house Moderator Forum 4000 Club Member Join Date: Nov 27, 2005 Posts: 4,050	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.

03-14-2007, 08:39 PM	#6
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	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.

03-15-2007, 01:07 AM	#7
asmitty Member Forum Regular Join Date: Feb 01, 2007 Location: South Dakota Posts: 523	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.

03-15-2007, 01:39 AM	#8
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	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.

03-15-2007, 04:03 AM	#10
Thiussat Member Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 601	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.

03-15-2007, 05:53 AM	#11
kadrmas15 Retired from Board 03/03/11 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 11, 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,910	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.

03-15-2007, 07:27 AM	#12
Thiussat Member Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 601	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.

03-15-2007, 12:33 PM	#13
asmitty Member Forum Regular Join Date: Feb 01, 2007 Location: South Dakota Posts: 523	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.

03-18-2007, 11:49 AM	#15
Thiussat Member Forum Regular Join Date: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 601	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