September 30, 2022 • 55 mins
The small town of Circleville, Ohio is, in most respects, a normal place. It has all the usual trappings of a small community: churches, grocery stores... and a few skeletons in the figurative closet. Back in the 1970s, it was terrorized by a series of strange, anonymous letters threatening to expose some of the town's most scandalous secrets. In today's episode, Ben and Matt dive into the mystery of the Circleville letters -- a mystery that remains, to some, unsolved in the modern day. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt. Our colleague Nol is not with
us today but will be returning shortly. They call me Ben.
We are joined as always with our guest super producer,
Max maximum Williams. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
(00:46):
to know. Folks, if you happen to be from a
small town where if you ever lived in a small town,
then you know secrets function differently. There are a lot
of open secret. It's I would say, in a small
town where everybody knows everybody else's business to some degree.
(01:08):
In today's episode, Matt, you and I are exploring a
strange case of secrecy, harassment, and honest to gosh, conspiracy
in a town might be similar to the towns in
which a lot of our fellow listeners reside. Our question today,
(01:29):
it's something that we both rabbit hold on pretty hard.
What on earth are the Circleville letters? They're confusing? There uh, confounding,
they are cavernous. It's it's a it's a lot. It's
it's an awesome story. So we can't wait to share
(01:49):
it with you. We're just still working through like everything.
It's a lot. I can't stress that enough. Yeah, and
a lot of the word on this case goes to
an amazing journalist, Martin Yant. Here are the facts Circleville, Ohio.
(02:12):
If you are not from Ohio, you may not have
heard of this place. If you've never watched Unsolved Mysteries,
you've never heard of this place. If you're not from
the US, you have certainly never heard of Circleville, Ohio. No,
if you're from a big city in Ohio, you probably
don't know about Circleville, Ohio. So, yeah, it's now, this
(02:37):
is not this is not US dunking on this town. Yeah,
it's it's the county seat of Pickaway County, Ohio, which
is uh south of Columbus. It's about twenty five miles
south and the population as of about two years ago
was just just a hair under four teen thousand. So
(03:01):
it's not a huge town. But you know it's not
it's not necessarily a tiny isolated hermitage either no. Uh, well,
well let's get into the history of Circleville. Some of
my favorite stuff in this episode is gonna come right
now here it comes. Just prepare yourselves. Yeah, I'll I'll
(03:25):
set you up here. Ben. So we gotta who who
is going to have to do it? Matt? All right, Okay, No,
it's it's it's um So that the town was founded,
uh way back when in the eighteen hundreds, and it
got its name in eighteen ten Circleville because guess what, guys,
(03:47):
it was formed as a circle. It began as a circle,
so it became Circleville sort of a vill of circles
for overthinking it. Yeah, this is a uh this circular
layout was building upon ancient native fortifications that are associated
with something called the Hopewell tradition, which is um It's
(04:11):
not a single community, it's an archaeological era that flourished
between let's see right now. The best estimates are one
hundred b C to five hundred C, so very very
very old, and the town when when Europeans arrived and
(04:33):
founded the town, they built upon these fortifications. Eventually the
town decides to go to um a more common grid pattern,
but you can still see photographs of the original layout
of Circleville, And just like you described, Matt, it's a
(04:54):
series of concentric circles, which I think is seems cool.
But you know we we weren't in the meeting. Yeah, yeah,
it seems really cool. It doesn't It's probably not great
for cars, right, For for traffic. When you've got cars
on the road, you need you need more of those
straight lines, which is why the grid is so dang popular.
(05:15):
It's also the straight lines are really great for running
you know, electricity and other utilities like water. M Yeah,
it's a good point. And uh, the name Circleville stuck
around right, and uh, there's a weird note here if
you if you go to Circleville. Uh, and we have
(05:38):
not personally visited, but if you go to Circleville, you
will see a weird thing that happens with a lot
of towns, a lot of cities, even like here in Atlanta.
One of the ongoing jokes is that there are a
ton of streets, or there are many streets that are
(06:00):
some iteration of peach tree all one word. You want
a peach Tree Avenue, we got it. You want Peachtree Street,
we got it. West Peach Tree got you back. Peach
We got northwest, northeast, south, and west southeast versions of
all of them, all of them, and so so Circleville, Ohio.
(06:20):
This has nothing to do with the story, But Circleville,
Ohio has their own equivalent of peach Tree, doesn't it.
It does. It's a different name. It's not you know,
it's not a tree, it's not a piece of flora
or even fauna. Uh. It's a it's a proper name.
It's a proper down uh Uh. If you look around Circleville,
(06:45):
plastered on streets and other things all over the place,
you will see the name Hitler everywhere. And they're not
big fan. It's not like, you know, the town is
just a big fan of this guy that lived back
in the day who did some really messed up stuff. No,
it's it's just a it's just a proper name. Hitler. Yeah,
Hubert Hitler Road, Hitler Pond, Hitler Park. Uh, there's a
(07:09):
Hitler Ludwig Cemetery. I think there are several other roads
that have some derivation of Hitler. And you know, Matt,
I love that you're pointing out these names were part
of the town well before World War two, well before
Adolf Hitler's rise to power and all the h evil,
(07:30):
unclean things that guy is responsible for. They are actually
named after a longstanding influential family and the old days
of the town, the Hitler family, and they're primarily named
in honor of a single patriarch, a dentist. Yes, Ben
(07:53):
Dr Gay Hitler, Yes, Matt Dr Gay Hitler, that's the name,
and other things we did not think we would say
on air, but we are straight. We have to reiterate
that is a real name that you have a website
(08:13):
you found. I'm going to make sure I'm going to
it right now to just re check Dr Gay Hitler
is a real thing. Okay, Yes, yep. You can learn
more about this at the Circleville. Harold Hitler's were County
pioneers by Darlene Weaver. Uh. This is this is a
true fact. Uh. We don't know if our superproducer Max
(08:39):
is uh is laughing. We don't know what Max is
doing here. But yes, well Dr Dr Hitler had a
great job. Oh there he goes. Max turned on his
camera briefly as were recorded and gave us like a consideration,
not just to just to check in and I see you. So, yeah,
(09:01):
Dr Gay Hitler, big deal in Circleville, Ohio. Nothing to
do with the story, but gosh, how weird is history? Uh? Nowadays,
Circleville is most famous for two things, neither of which
are Dr Gay Hitler. The first thing is famous for
(09:24):
is an annual pumpkin festival, which is a heck of
a time. It's early October, so as you're hearing this,
if you're in the area, why not swing by. Uh.
This pumpkin festival dates back to like three It's a
pretty cool thing. No word yet on whether or not
they've incorporated Chunkin into the pumpkin festival. Oh wow, that's
(09:47):
a deep cut. Think they've got a tribute shay ah.
Al Right, But there's another reason, right, Matt, that people
have heard of Circleville, Ohio, and it's much less wholesome
than our Gay Hitler jokes. Yeah, very much so. Uh.
(10:07):
The reason why we're making this episode is because there's
a thing called the quote Circleville Letters. It's a series
of letters in the nineties, seventies, and eighties. I think
I can't remember if it stretches in the nineties or not.
I know, seventies and eighties when most of the letters
were written. These are threatening letters. Uh, these are anonymous letters, handwritten,
(10:33):
and they were sent to a variety of people, many
many people. And it should also have a little like
addendum to the Circleville letters, and it should say and
also signs, because we're also going to talk about a
bunch of road signs are like put together quickly put
together cardboard signs. Yeah. The story starts really with a
(10:55):
local school bus driver named Mary Gillispie, and in Mary
begins receiving these anonymous letters. The only specific identification she
has is the postmark, which indicates these letters were sent
from Columbus, Ohio. These were not your average junk mail. Instead,
(11:20):
they seemed to know a lot about Mary's private life.
Private not as not just as in like, uh, you know,
my birthday or my social Security or number or something private,
as in secrets that you wouldn't want anyone else to know.
They accuse Mary of having an affair with a guy
(11:44):
named Gordon Massey, who is the local school superintendent. And Mary,
we'll get to her perspective in a second. Mary's freaked out, obviously,
and things only get worse because her husband, Ron starts
receiving letters as well, which appear to, if not being
(12:07):
from the same person, they appear to have the same
general thrust of conversation. Right, and that's where people start
asking what is happening in Circleville. We're gonna pause for
a word from our sponsors and we'll be back. Here's
(12:31):
where it gets crazy, Ben, before we jump in. The
crazy thing to me is thinking about this story from
Mary Gillespie's husband, Ron's perspective of Like, when we say
Mary started receiving letters, you have to imagine those are
letters just ending up in a mailbox that the family,
whoever in the family is gonna you know, take inside
(12:53):
and then somebody's gonna open. Right. So it's like it's like, um,
you imagine you imagine a ball being dropped on the
whole household of somebody saying, you know, accusing one of
the family members of having having an affair. That's a
crazy intense thing to do, right, to just drop it
on a family like that, um, and then for that person,
(13:16):
like you said, to then begin writing messages directly to
the husband. And we'll get into it. But they even
start referring to the daughter correct correct, yes, sir. So
it's just it's mayhem in that house when these letters
start showing up. At least psychologically you can imagine, oh yes, yeah,
divide and conquer, right. Uh. Harassment via the post is
(13:40):
nothing particularly new by the nineties seventies. As a matter
of fact, harassment via post postal services continues today. Please
do check out our our earlier stories and strange news
and listener mail segments about sending poop through the mail
(14:03):
and the laws about it are weird. People also send
glitter bombs through the mail, and do check out our
upcoming episode on on stuff they don't want you to
know about glitter. I can't believe we're doing it. It's
a real thing. Deliver. Yeah, we've gotta we've gotta come
with a fire on that one. So, uh, we know
(14:26):
that this kind of stuff happens. And unfortunately, if you're
listening today, you may have received um threatening anonymous messages
in real life. The Internet didn't create that. The Internet
just made it easier for people to do those sorts
of things. Right, So, whoever is targeting this family in Circleville,
(14:54):
they seem to have two things. They seem to have
some sort of inside knowledge. Nless, they're absolutely trolling, and
they seem to have a hell of a spiteful agenda,
like like to your point, Matt, that your your spouse
is getting these weird letters. After you get these letters,
your kids are getting involved. What do you do to
(15:16):
whom do you turn? Eventually, the Gillespie's share the letters
with Ron's sister Karen and her husband, a guy named Paul.
This is Karen and Paul freshore. Okay, So let's let's
get the family straight here, because this is kind of
hard to keep in your mind. You've got Mary and Ron.
(15:39):
Those are the Galespie's, and then you've got Karen and Paul.
And there there is two different families, and but they
are related because Ron and Karen are brother and sister. Yes. Sorry,
I did do that like three times in my head
while I was going through the research here, just to
make sure I understood. Yeah, Mary and Ron, Paul and Karen. Okay, Mary, Ron, Paul, Karen.
(16:08):
Uh So. Mary, at this point, when she's sharing these letters,
she apparently has a couple of hunches or suspicions about
the identity of the letter writer, and so she and
her husband Ron send letters of their own, and they're
(16:28):
they're essentially saying stop, like cease and desist without a lawyer,
that's what they're saying. And Mary believed it was this
person because it was another bus driver. Remember she's a
bus driver at the school where she's being accused of
having a fair with the superintendent. Um. She there was
a fellow bus driver that Mary said had made passes
(16:49):
on at her and she had refused, you know, like
kind of pushed him away. She thought, oh, well, maybe
this guy is upset. That's who they sent letters to
to try to get him to stop m And on August,
Ron doesn't get a letter, he gets a phone call.
We don't know the substance of that conversation. We do
(17:11):
know that he got this phone call while his spouse,
Mary was on a trip I believe, in Florida with
some friends. And whatever happened on that phone call, it
causes him to take his firearm with him, according to
the story, to tell the kids he's going to go
(17:34):
speak with someone directly. And he drives away and later
that evening his truck is found smashed into a tree.
He did not survive the car accident. UH An investigation
led by a character that we will introduce very shortly.
(17:54):
The investigation into the accident and his death concluded that
he had a blood alcohol level of point one six.
Point one six doesn't sound huge if you're talking regular percentages,
but that's very, very high. Here in the United States,
(18:15):
the legal limit for driving with alcohol in your system
is point z road too. So this guy, this, according
to the blood work, this guy is driving drunk. Right, Yeah,
and well, I guess case closed. Except for even if
he was drunk, he did have a firearm with him.
(18:37):
He did grab his own pistol on the way out
the door after receiving this phone call, and that firearm
uh was discharged one time. There was one bullet missing. Uh,
but that bullet was never recovered. So it's unknown what
he fired at. Or maybe maybe he had fired previously, right,
(19:01):
maybe the gun was already missing one bullet when he
got in the car. There's just no way to know,
no way to know. Oh, there's one other there's one
other thing I want to add there. According we we
talked about Paul already, right, Oh my god, I'm gonna
I'm gonna mess it up already, Mary and Ron, Paul
and Karen so Uh, the Paul of Paul and Karen
(19:26):
on his blog that He's Got. He states that it's
known that during that phone call when Ron picked it up,
he said he recognized the voice and he was going
to go talk to that person. That's right, Yes, yeah, no,
super important point. Yes, So like it says, though the
(19:46):
actual it seems as though possibly the actual culprit of
whoever was writing the letters called Ron. He knew who
that person was and was going to go put a
stop to it or something, because he did take his firearm,
but he it up getting killed or dying however it
went down. Yeah, I think we have to say dying.
Now there's something interesting here. This is not ruled an
(20:11):
accidental death in the In the ensuing invest investigation, local
law enforcement, headed by Pickaway County Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe, rules
Ron's death a suicide. Yes, let's repeat that name, Dwight Radcliffe,
and he ruled it a suicide. Dwight Radcliffe also uh
(20:33):
goes on to be the longest serving sheriff in the
United States. In his time, he serves twelve consecutive terms
as sheriff of this place, Pickaway County. That equals out
to about forty eight years. And you know, Matt, full
(20:54):
disclosure for everybody. You and I work on some fiction
shows together that that you head up with Alex Williams
and Aaron Manky and Nick Takowski and I Blood Hells Television. Yes,
and I am. I am immensely fortunate to be able
to be a hired gun for some of these stories.
(21:17):
There's fortunate to have you. Oh God, all right, okay,
so so here. So there's this thing that's been stuck
in my head about the dangers of people serving in
positions of power and being unaccountable. And one of the
only thing we could say about one of the stories
(21:38):
we have coming up is that it involves Jager Hoover
and just like the sheriff of Pickaway County, Jager Hoover
is in charge of his, you know, his roost for
forty eight years. It's strange to think of someone having
almost half a century in power and uh, you could
(22:01):
you know, there's a very solid argument that Hoover was
unaccountable and dangerous as he ascended to power. And maybe
that's making me biased. With Sheriff Radcliffe. Man, it just
seems like a lot of it seems like a long
time for someone to be that powerful. Yeah, when you
(22:25):
when you have that kind of power, it doesn't always happen.
Not everyone does this, but you can pull strings to
clean situations up for your benefit, especially if you're in
a powerful position that requires votes to either maintain that
power or you know, to get you more power. Um,
it is, it is weird. I don't wanna gosh, I
(22:48):
don't want to derail this conversation. Just bring bringing up
j Edgar. Yeah, for for that Zodiac show. I recently
interviewed an author and this author has a new a
new Zodia suspect. Okay, and this this suspect tells a
story to his daughter at one point because he was
(23:08):
he was telling everybody and is including his daughter and
his wife, that he was doing special operations during uh,
the Korean War, and he was like well liked and
went to parties sometimes. And he tells them this story
of one time he showed up at a party where
j Edgar was there, and j Edgar showed up wearing
(23:30):
a red sequined dress and gave him a kiss on
the lips. But it's just a story. But also like
the way you're characterizing this person, Uh, he was well
liked and he went to parties, so that this party
he may have also may have also been the Zodiac Killer.
But he may have also been the Zodiac Killer. Man,
(23:54):
I cannot wait uh, And I say this objectively. If
you are in tested in the Zodiac case, please do
check out Monster Zodiac. That is a Tenderfoot Matt Frederick
production and it's well worth your time. Yeah, dr he
(24:19):
would definitely approve of Jager's red sequin dress allegedly, allegedly allegedly. Okay, okay, yeah,
you're right back on track. So, okay, this Radcliffe guy
sheriff for almost half a century. We don't want to
be unfair to the guy, right, and he has passed away,
But we also can't be unfair to the facts. And
(24:43):
the fact of the matter is that when someone has
that much power for that long in a town of
this size. Again, this is the county seat of Pickaway County,
and this town has a little less than fourteen thousand residents.
So when you are in that cat bird seat for
that amount of time, you is completely plausible that, for instance,
(25:07):
you catch the mayor's son out raising hell right, doing
doing something sketchy, and you let them off because you
and you know, now you have some juice on the mayor,
that doesn't necessarily make you malevolent. You are just leveraging
power to get more power later. So it could be
(25:30):
leveraging power, but he could also just be I'm going
to protect with that person so that they know next
time I'm in some kind of compromising situation, they will,
you know, step up for me theoretically in a jam. Yeah. Yeah,
So so we're just we're very conscious of that tendency
(25:51):
and without specifically attributing some kind of cover up. At
this point, we have to admit small town power is
a real thing. So ordinarily this case, this tragic car accident,
would be another small town tragedy. You know, it's heartbreaking,
(26:12):
it's terrible for the family, but it's not necessarily conspiratorial.
Until that is, more locals begin receiving letters of their own.
Oh yeah, Now it becomes like a mailing list situation.
Everybody in town is on it, and there's there's one
(26:33):
anonymous center with one message. Actually they have multiple messages,
and they're all not good. Uh they are. The letters
at this point are basically doubling down on this message
that was just being sent to that family. Mary Gillispie
is having an affair with this other guy, Gordon Massey,
(26:55):
and it's that's where it starts. But then it ends
with the sheriff, the one keep talking about here, Radcliffe,
he is actually covering up all these aspects. And it's thought,
or I can't remember if they spell it out exactly
in this series of letters, but the concept is that
Radcliffe is covering up for the superintendent who was also
(27:18):
you know, a fellow powerful person within the town. That's
what people are thinking. And if we fast forward a bit,
this superintendent, Gordon Massey eventually does get divorced. He was
a married man when these letters became, when they started
going around Circleville. And Mary, we have to remember, at
(27:40):
this point, is widowed. Her her spouse has passed way.
So eventually the widowed Mary Gillespie and the now divorced
Gordon Massey do begin a romantic relationship. This is not
um a rumor, it's not conject Sure, they cop to it,
(28:02):
but their stance was always that they did not begin
this relationship until after Ron died. Somehow in that in
that auto accent, Yeah, if you go to Paul's website again,
that blog that Paul for sure created. He alleges that
(28:23):
that affair was definitely happening. I think he even alleges that,
remember that trip that Mary was supposed to be on
the night Ron died, right to Florida with friends. He
alleges that that that trip involved Gordon Massey as well.
It was with friends, but Gordon was there too, That's
what he says. So it's three now Mary begins receiving
(28:47):
more letters and the situation escalates past just mean messages
and envelopes. Let's go to three thirty pm. It's February seventh. Three.
Mary's driving the school bus route that she always drives,
and she sees a sign like you you were sitting
(29:09):
up earlier, matt attached to a fence post and the
lettering of this sign, the message is about her daughter.
So she stops the bus, pulls over and goes to
grab this inflammatory sign. Yeah, and she picks up the sign.
(29:31):
So it's imagine a post and then a cardboard box
of sorts on top of that post, and then there's
words written on it. She picks up the box and
the post, right. Yeah, And you know, the this might
sound weird when we're describing it. So, by way of comparison,
if you were ever driving in a neighborhood or walking
(29:54):
through someplace and you see for sale signs on homes,
then they'll off did have a little box attached to
the signpost where you know, there's like a pamphlet or
something with information about the house or the realtor or whatever.
And uh, this is kind of similar, but it's very
(30:14):
very bootleg. Obviously she's freaked out. She's been harassed for
years at this point. Uh, she pulls the sign up
and she puts it on her bus by the way,
Yeah yeah, and it's three pm. That's like I got
kids on the bus time. And she picks this sign up,
(30:37):
just puts it on the bus and goes about her business.
And because this is a small town, of course, we
must already know that the kids are going to mention
this when they get home. That's that's going to be
the talk of school for at least a day or so. So, um,
(30:58):
here's the thing. This is not a real tour side.
This is not a for sale side. This is meant
to be a trap. Yeah, a movie trap. Okay, So
let's I guess we can describe it this way. The
sign is just written on the front of that box, right,
(31:19):
and it was at least it appears as though the perpetrator,
the person who created it, believed that when Mary saw it,
she would just grab at the sign, the part that
said the bad things and just rip it up, like
just grab it off and take it. Because inside that
box there was a pistol pointed outwards, like if somebody
(31:45):
was reading the sign and they pulled it off, the
gun would have been pointed at them. My dogs are
really excited about this part. I'm sorry. I'm going to
calm them down in a second after I stopped talking.
But attached to that gun, to the trigger of that
gun was a piece of twine that went down so
that if you would have ripped that box off, Thank goodness,
(32:06):
she just ripped the whole thing. Yeah. The idea was
pulling the twine would pull, the trigger would fire, the
gun would shoot. The person who appears to be the
target appears to be Mary, the school bus driver, because
this is purposely posted on her route, you know what
(32:29):
I mean. So honestly the trap is amateur work. But
you start to ask questions again, why were the why
were there not fingerprints on the gun where's the serial number?
You know, the basic stuff. Mary turns this in Cities
contraption over to law enforcement. They look at the firearm
(32:49):
and they say someone has tried in a super not
great way to erase the serial number to file it off,
and the culprit is unsuccessful. Police are able to dig
in and make out that serial number. They find it,
(33:10):
which means they can trace the gun, and they match
it to another guy in town, Mary's former brother in law,
Paul fresh Shore. Oh we should say at this point, uh, Paul,
of Paul and Karen, they they have divorced. They're no
longer together, they split up. Uh. And it should be
(33:32):
noted that Paul states it's because he discovered his wife
was having an affair and he got that's why he
initiated the divorce. He hired a private investigator and then divorced. Uh.
Interesting right, interesting? Right? Yeah? And uh so Sheriff Radcliffe
does does the right thing what you should do in
(33:53):
that situation, goes to Paul and says, hey, is this
your gun? And Paul Paul says, WHOA, Hey, I do
have a gun, but I have it basically packed away
in my garage. I don't ever touch it. I haven't
checked on it in years. I didn't know it was
(34:14):
missing until you told me. Sheriff. That's a not unplausible explanation.
A lot of people have stuff that they forget in
their house and is that responsible firearm usage? Absolutely not.
You kind of want to be aware of items like
that in your home, especially when, like Paul, you have
you have children, right, yeah, even more so. Uh, And
(34:38):
Radcliffe is not convinced by the way. He says, Okay,
all right, take this handwriting test, because the police, by
this point, the Sheriff's department, they have photo copies. They
probably have they have the originals of these letters, and
you can go to you can go online and see
(34:58):
screenshots of these letters. So the main thing, the main
thing to take away from this is that those letters
are handwritten. So the sheriff asked Paul to copy as
close as he can the handwriting of some of these
anonymous letters targeting the Gillespie family, and in the Sheriff's opinion,
(35:22):
this is close enough to seal the deal. Looking at
Paul's handwriting and looking at the handwriting of the anonymous letters,
they like him for it. They think it's close enough
and the gun and the handwriting samples are the primary
pieces of evidence when Paul for As Shure goes to
(35:43):
court on charges of attempted murder. There's another thing about
his alibi that's like sort of a tertiary piece of evidence.
Someone who looks like him is seeing at a time
where you know, it doesn't hundred percent looked like he
is where he said he was. So that's sketchy because
(36:04):
he took off work the day that the box was found.
He took off work. I mean, if you need time
to set something up like that and then go plant
it somewhere, it would make sense. You can see why
law enforcement would like him. As you said, he looks
good for it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, regardless
(36:26):
of where you stand visa the cover up of some sort,
at this point, law enforcement is looking like they're taking
the right steps, at least the right investigative steps. The
jury agrees Paul for Sure has found guilty. Sheriff Radcliffe
tells the press that, yeah, this guy Paul confessed to
(36:49):
writing somewhere between forty two fifty threatening letters. There's only
one problem, there's no record of that confession, and Paul
himself says he never said anything like that. Uh. It
just gets curiouser and curiouser, and there are more complications
on the way, but we have to pause for a
(37:10):
word from our sponsor, and we've returned. So there are
complications with the case. Paul Freshwar's fingerprints are nowhere on
the gun, fingerprints are not on the booby trap, fingerprints
are not on the letters. They search his house because
(37:33):
of course that's, you know, the correct step to take,
and they find no additional corroborating evidence. There's no you know,
like you look in the garage, there's nothing to indicate
somebody built weird booby trap that doesn't work. Uh. And
(37:53):
you you also don't see ammunition. You don't see like
you know, uh uh, an obsessively filled out notebook with
revenge schemes and paranoid thoughts. None of that looks like
a normal house. It does, but you do have to imagine,
like this guy is really close to them. He would
(38:17):
know where they live, he would know what the you know,
what Ron's vehicle looks like. There's all these other pieces
of circumstantial evidence and considerations that are there, so you know,
you just it becomes so complicated. I think when you're
thinking about this, I've got no evidence that's matching to
this guy, but man, it feels right. Um, I'm just
(38:39):
trying to take the perspective of law enforcement if we're
going to imagine their objective observers. Right. So then let's
get into the court where Mary Gillespie is testifying specifically
about the divorce of Paul and Karen. Remember they got
a divorce the other affair thing. Uh. She states that
Karen confided in or in Mary that she believed Paul
(39:04):
might have been the author of those letters. Uh. Like
she she comes out and she says, I think it
might have been him, But you have to remember that
those two went through a contentious divorce. So then you
have to take you have to think, well, is Karen,
you know, is carrying putting spin on what she's saying,
(39:26):
or is you know Paul actually doing this? It's you
know what it is. There's no I feel like in
this story been there's no reliable narrator. There's no uh
person that I can trust what's happening, because even the
sheriff I don't trust. Yeah, maybe maybe I was a
little unfair to him, but forty eight years is a
(39:48):
long time. No, no, no, you're right, and well you
should see what Paul for sure has to say about
the show and his letters. He writes the FBI. Okay,
for sure is is um Or was for the rest
of his life adamant that he did not he was
(40:09):
not guilty of the crime of which it was convicted.
He was convicted. I guess we should make the historical
note there in the in the courtroom, when his ex
wife says, I think he might have been the author,
Paul's team says, uh, if this is true, why didn't
(40:30):
you bring it up during our acrimonious divorce. Good because
he got custody of the children, and the writer of
those letters probably wouldn't have gotten custody of the children's right. Yeah,
that would have been a pretty significant intervening variable. So
(40:51):
it's a valid point. Honestly, we can agree to that.
But still again, he is convicted. He is sentenced to
seven to twenty five years is behind bars for attempted murder,
insisting upon his innocence the entirety of the time he's
um He's sent up to Lima, Ohio. He's imprisoned, incarcerated
(41:14):
in Limo, Ohio, and these letters start coming out, but
they're not from Limo, Ohio. There's still the circle. There's
still like this mysterious Circleville letter writer troll. And they're
they're not just sending letters to Circleville now, they're sending
(41:34):
them all around. And the letters are still postmarked from Columbus,
and Columbus is ninety miles away from Lima, ninety miles
or so. As the crow flies, that's a feat right
in jail, and he can still send these letters from Yeah, exactly.
(41:56):
You think he'd be better at filing off a serial number. Huh.
So Sheriff Radcliffe is convinced. He's like, don't talk to
me about time and distance and how you know crows
fly and all that malarkey. This guy is somehow masterby
in an evil letter writing campaign from prison. Put him
(42:20):
in isolation, put him in solitary, and they do it,
and he's got he's constantly monitored, he's got no access
to any kind of writing materials, the works. There is
physically not a way that he could write and send
a letter himself, but the letters keep coming. That's one
(42:40):
of the weirdest parts. Yep uh. And it's it's funny
so for sure's in prison. He gets a parole hearing, right,
and one of the major reasonings behind denying him parole
was that, look, you're in here, but you're still sending
all these letters, Like what are you doing? Man, don't
(43:02):
you want parole? Stop sending the letters. It's it stinks.
It's a terrible situation. Uh. And after he gets denied parole,
he receives a letter that is essentially dancing on his
grave and mocking him. It's a real twist of the knife. Well,
(43:26):
it's how it even talks about how we we said,
we told you that we were going to set you
up or whatever. I mean, it's it's so strange, like
we talked, we told you we were going to set
you up. You'll never get out of prison. Who are
these people? Who is this person? Yeah? People? Person? Right?
Is it plural? Is it singular? We're gonna find out. Well,
(43:47):
we're we're gonna see some good guesses in May of
n Paul Fis shore Is And this is largely thanks
to an astonished journalist named Martin Yant. Uh. Martin Yant
brings the story to the public eye. The Circleville saga
(44:10):
is featured on an episode of a TV show called
Unsolved Mysteries, which many of us in the audience remember,
no and love, And then it gets weirder. Matt, they're
the the Unsolved Mysteries TV production team is working on
this episode and it's not the whole show. If you
(44:33):
remember Unsolved Mysteries, it's an anthology series, so episodes don't
necessarily connect. It's a new thing every Thursday at nine
or whatever. So they're working on this episode and then
they get a letter. They get a postcard that says, uh,
you want to do a sinister voice. I feel like
(44:55):
this needs a good sinister voice. Forget Circleville, Ohio, do
nothing to hurt Sheriff Radcliffe. If you come to Ohio,
you l sickos, will pay l sickos. Yeah spelled with
spelled it e l like and spel el sis. And
(45:16):
it's as signed the Circleville writer or I think Circleville writer.
Maybe yes, yeah, yeah, just so, And uh, now we've
got an even stranger situation. Look, whomever is opening the
mail for Unsolved Mysteries, that hapless production assistant. That's a
weird that's a weird day. Right, They've probably got a
(45:39):
lot of strange mail on unsolved mysteries. Anyway, this is
something we should point out too, And this is according
to Paul for Shure's website. According to him, many of
these letters contained arsenic within them, within the envelope, right, yes, yeah,
but I I haven't seen that written in a lot
of places, so I don't. I don't know the truth.
They're like, if that's real or not? All all I've
(46:01):
seen is the um claim on his own blog. Okay,
like I I haven't. I mean, that's not to say
there may not be corroborating sources there, but I haven't
seen like a police report that says it was. But
if there is, please send it to us folks. So well,
if there is, I'm just thinking about the team opening
(46:22):
the letters like could be dangerous. I guess that's yeah,
that's a really good point. Well, also, they're getting this
one is a postcard, so there's not an envelope to contain.
I guess they could have like rubbed our sneake on it.
I don't know. Don't send people are sneak in the mail,
you know? Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, that's that's good. That's really good.
(46:47):
Is that a hot take for us? No? I think
that's okay, okay, okay. Hopefully that's something we can all
agree on. Stop sending our sneak in the mail and
be careful about the poop anyway, Dr Gay Hitler. At
this point, Paul for sure reaches out to the FBI,
(47:07):
as you mentioned earlier, Matt, and he is asking the
FBI to investigate that death of Ron Gillespie all those
years ago, and he wants to clear his name. But
he's also again saying, look, I physically could not have
written these letters, right, not all of them. I provably
(47:31):
could not have been writing all of them. And he
is ultimately unsuccessful in that no other author of these
letters has been accused in a court of law even
now in And so Paul for sure Louis does die
(47:51):
a freeman. He dies, and he loses time that he
will never get back. He passes away into that in twelve,
telling the world that he is innocent. And so the
town gossip again small town rules. It's reaching a boiling point.
If it wasn't Paul sending these letters, asked the locals, then,
(48:16):
who could it be? And to this day that answer
remains officially unclear. But our journalist Martin yet I think
he makes a pretty persuasive argument for multiple letter writers. Yeah,
(48:38):
I mean I think so too. I think I think
it makes sense. Um, it's just tough because it's basically
accusing multiple people of being working together on this scheme. Right.
One of the people that really surprised me, But the
more I thought about it, the more I was like,
I guess that's plausible was Gordon Massey, the guy who
(49:02):
was allegedly having an affair with Mary. The person that
Yett is making it a case we're here is Gordon
Massey's son, who you know, if you if you play
it out in your mind, maybe the son found out
that his dad was having an affair and he wanted
to stop it, so he's writing letters to try and
stop it. Um that that logically makes sense, right, But
(49:27):
there's not much you can stack up as far as
evidence goes to try and prove that. Yeah, we have
to be careful not to treat it as though we're
writing a soap opera, you know what I mean? And
that that's he definitely does feel like what, Yes, it
very much does. Uh, it's all about relationships. So this
(49:48):
argument alleges claims that there are three different writers. Um,
it is definitely possible for groups of people to anonymously
conduct these kind of criminal conspiracies, right, like I always this.
(50:10):
This really makes me think of the earlier Japanese case,
the monster with twenty one faces. Remember that one never caught.
They're never going to be caught. They got away. So
so it is possible. And do check out Martin Yann's work.
He makes he makes uh compelling arguments, but again there
(50:33):
are no official conclusions to this day. The police and
law enforcement maintained that Paul Fisher was the Circleville writer. Uh,
like we said, he kept a blog until he passed.
You can read it online today. All of this together
(50:53):
means that yes, a conspiracy of some sort occurred. There
is stuff they don't want you to know. And it
is possible, not proven, but possible that the true architect
of the Circleville letters escape justice. It might be alive
today right now listening to this show. Don't write to us,
(51:17):
please don't please, don't right to us. No, thank you.
So I don't know. That's I mean, that's where we
leave it. And there there there's so much more to
this story. You know, there have been a lot of
a lot of Compelly Investigations forty eight hours did a
(51:39):
show or an episode on this? Um, the Unsolved Mysteries
episode is a good primer, but I think it skips
over some stuff. There's an FBI profiler, FBI profiler that
looked at the case, Mary Ellen O'Toole, She looked at them,
and I forget exactly what she was saying about it,
(52:00):
but um, she was just mentioning how difficult it would
be to actually to physically write and send letters while
in prison, if you are specifically in custody the way
that Paul was in custody, right, So like you, you
you have to assume I think that there is at
least one other person that was writing the letters, whether
(52:20):
or not Paul was at the heart of this or
involved in any way. Yeah, because again there's that timeline discrepancy, right.
There is a time wherein this man could physically not
have sent letters. He couldn't have written them in symp them.
There was something weird though, Ben uh oh god, do
we have so many sources? Just full disclosure, everybody, so
(52:42):
many sources for this episode. There's one piece of writing
in here that mentions Paul's handprints were or some kind
of hand or fingerprint of his was found on one
of the letters that was sent while he was in prison.
So there was or at least a one or two
examples where faer prints were found on the letter. Right, Yeah,
(53:05):
So like what does that mean? What did he touch
paper that then got sent out that was carefully handled
by somebody else, or did he actually write one or
two of the letters. It's just confounding because you can't
prove any of it. Well. Then also there's the theory
that he may have had someone even without his knowledge,
(53:27):
writing letters for him, as like a copycat crime, to
help him get out of incarceration. That's the thing, because
there's anonymity here. Um. Any number of explanations maybe plausible.
But again, um, people just aren't happy with the official conclusion,
(53:52):
and we want to hear your thoughts. Folks, let us
know what do you think the truth is? Do you
think one man wrote these letters and was rightly convicted.
Do you think that there were more people at play,
and if so, do you think they are alive and
(54:13):
free today? We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Try
to be easy to find online, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all
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(54:36):
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(54:57):
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(55:32):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
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listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt. Our colleague Nol is not with
us today but will be returning shortly. They call me Ben.
We are joined as always with our guest super producer,
Max maximum Williams. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
(00:46):
to know. Folks, if you happen to be from a
small town where if you ever lived in a small town,
then you know secrets function differently. There are a lot
of open secret. It's I would say, in a small
town where everybody knows everybody else's business to some degree.
(01:08):
In today's episode, Matt, you and I are exploring a
strange case of secrecy, harassment, and honest to gosh, conspiracy
in a town might be similar to the towns in
which a lot of our fellow listeners reside. Our question today,
(01:29):
it's something that we both rabbit hold on pretty hard.
What on earth are the Circleville letters? They're confusing? There uh, confounding,
they are cavernous. It's it's a it's a lot. It's
it's an awesome story. So we can't wait to share
(01:49):
it with you. We're just still working through like everything.
It's a lot. I can't stress that enough. Yeah, and
a lot of the word on this case goes to
an amazing journalist, Martin Yant. Here are the facts Circleville, Ohio.
(02:12):
If you are not from Ohio, you may not have
heard of this place. If you've never watched Unsolved Mysteries,
you've never heard of this place. If you're not from
the US, you have certainly never heard of Circleville, Ohio. No,
if you're from a big city in Ohio, you probably
don't know about Circleville, Ohio. So, yeah, it's now, this
(02:37):
is not this is not US dunking on this town. Yeah,
it's it's the county seat of Pickaway County, Ohio, which
is uh south of Columbus. It's about twenty five miles
south and the population as of about two years ago
was just just a hair under four teen thousand. So
(03:01):
it's not a huge town. But you know it's not
it's not necessarily a tiny isolated hermitage either no. Uh, well,
well let's get into the history of Circleville. Some of
my favorite stuff in this episode is gonna come right
now here it comes. Just prepare yourselves. Yeah, I'll I'll
(03:25):
set you up here. Ben. So we gotta who who
is going to have to do it? Matt? All right, Okay, No,
it's it's it's um So that the town was founded,
uh way back when in the eighteen hundreds, and it
got its name in eighteen ten Circleville because guess what, guys,
(03:47):
it was formed as a circle. It began as a circle,
so it became Circleville sort of a vill of circles
for overthinking it. Yeah, this is a uh this circular
layout was building upon ancient native fortifications that are associated
with something called the Hopewell tradition, which is um It's
(04:11):
not a single community, it's an archaeological era that flourished
between let's see right now. The best estimates are one
hundred b C to five hundred C, so very very
very old, and the town when when Europeans arrived and
(04:33):
founded the town, they built upon these fortifications. Eventually the
town decides to go to um a more common grid pattern,
but you can still see photographs of the original layout
of Circleville, And just like you described, Matt, it's a
(04:54):
series of concentric circles, which I think is seems cool.
But you know we we weren't in the meeting. Yeah, yeah,
it seems really cool. It doesn't It's probably not great
for cars, right, For for traffic. When you've got cars
on the road, you need you need more of those
straight lines, which is why the grid is so dang popular.
(05:15):
It's also the straight lines are really great for running
you know, electricity and other utilities like water. M Yeah,
it's a good point. And uh, the name Circleville stuck
around right, and uh, there's a weird note here if
you if you go to Circleville. Uh, and we have
(05:38):
not personally visited, but if you go to Circleville, you
will see a weird thing that happens with a lot
of towns, a lot of cities, even like here in Atlanta.
One of the ongoing jokes is that there are a
ton of streets, or there are many streets that are
(06:00):
some iteration of peach tree all one word. You want
a peach Tree Avenue, we got it. You want Peachtree Street,
we got it. West Peach Tree got you back. Peach
We got northwest, northeast, south, and west southeast versions of
all of them, all of them, and so so Circleville, Ohio.
(06:20):
This has nothing to do with the story, But Circleville,
Ohio has their own equivalent of peach Tree, doesn't it.
It does. It's a different name. It's not you know,
it's not a tree, it's not a piece of flora
or even fauna. Uh. It's a it's a proper name.
It's a proper down uh Uh. If you look around Circleville,
(06:45):
plastered on streets and other things all over the place,
you will see the name Hitler everywhere. And they're not
big fan. It's not like, you know, the town is
just a big fan of this guy that lived back
in the day who did some really messed up stuff. No,
it's it's just a it's just a proper name. Hitler. Yeah,
Hubert Hitler Road, Hitler Pond, Hitler Park. Uh, there's a
(07:09):
Hitler Ludwig Cemetery. I think there are several other roads
that have some derivation of Hitler. And you know, Matt,
I love that you're pointing out these names were part
of the town well before World War two, well before
Adolf Hitler's rise to power and all the h evil,
(07:30):
unclean things that guy is responsible for. They are actually
named after a longstanding influential family and the old days
of the town, the Hitler family, and they're primarily named
in honor of a single patriarch, a dentist. Yes, Ben
(07:53):
Dr Gay Hitler, Yes, Matt Dr Gay Hitler, that's the name,
and other things we did not think we would say
on air, but we are straight. We have to reiterate
that is a real name that you have a website
(08:13):
you found. I'm going to make sure I'm going to
it right now to just re check Dr Gay Hitler
is a real thing. Okay, Yes, yep. You can learn
more about this at the Circleville. Harold Hitler's were County
pioneers by Darlene Weaver. Uh. This is this is a
true fact. Uh. We don't know if our superproducer Max
(08:39):
is uh is laughing. We don't know what Max is
doing here. But yes, well Dr Dr Hitler had a
great job. Oh there he goes. Max turned on his
camera briefly as were recorded and gave us like a consideration,
not just to just to check in and I see you. So, yeah,
(09:01):
Dr Gay Hitler, big deal in Circleville, Ohio. Nothing to
do with the story, but gosh, how weird is history? Uh? Nowadays,
Circleville is most famous for two things, neither of which
are Dr Gay Hitler. The first thing is famous for
(09:24):
is an annual pumpkin festival, which is a heck of
a time. It's early October, so as you're hearing this,
if you're in the area, why not swing by. Uh.
This pumpkin festival dates back to like three It's a
pretty cool thing. No word yet on whether or not
they've incorporated Chunkin into the pumpkin festival. Oh wow, that's
(09:47):
a deep cut. Think they've got a tribute shay ah.
Al Right, But there's another reason, right, Matt, that people
have heard of Circleville, Ohio, and it's much less wholesome
than our Gay Hitler jokes. Yeah, very much so. Uh.
(10:07):
The reason why we're making this episode is because there's
a thing called the quote Circleville Letters. It's a series
of letters in the nineties, seventies, and eighties. I think
I can't remember if it stretches in the nineties or not.
I know, seventies and eighties when most of the letters
were written. These are threatening letters. Uh, these are anonymous letters, handwritten,
(10:33):
and they were sent to a variety of people, many
many people. And it should also have a little like
addendum to the Circleville letters, and it should say and
also signs, because we're also going to talk about a
bunch of road signs are like put together quickly put
together cardboard signs. Yeah. The story starts really with a
(10:55):
local school bus driver named Mary Gillispie, and in Mary
begins receiving these anonymous letters. The only specific identification she
has is the postmark, which indicates these letters were sent
from Columbus, Ohio. These were not your average junk mail. Instead,
(11:20):
they seemed to know a lot about Mary's private life.
Private not as not just as in like, uh, you know,
my birthday or my social Security or number or something private,
as in secrets that you wouldn't want anyone else to know.
They accuse Mary of having an affair with a guy
(11:44):
named Gordon Massey, who is the local school superintendent. And Mary,
we'll get to her perspective in a second. Mary's freaked out, obviously,
and things only get worse because her husband, Ron starts
receiving letters as well, which appear to, if not being
(12:07):
from the same person, they appear to have the same
general thrust of conversation. Right, and that's where people start
asking what is happening in Circleville. We're gonna pause for
a word from our sponsors and we'll be back. Here's
(12:31):
where it gets crazy, Ben, before we jump in. The
crazy thing to me is thinking about this story from
Mary Gillespie's husband, Ron's perspective of Like, when we say
Mary started receiving letters, you have to imagine those are
letters just ending up in a mailbox that the family,
whoever in the family is gonna you know, take inside
(12:53):
and then somebody's gonna open. Right. So it's like it's like, um,
you imagine you imagine a ball being dropped on the
whole household of somebody saying, you know, accusing one of
the family members of having having an affair. That's a
crazy intense thing to do, right, to just drop it
on a family like that, um, and then for that person,
(13:16):
like you said, to then begin writing messages directly to
the husband. And we'll get into it. But they even
start referring to the daughter correct correct, yes, sir. So
it's just it's mayhem in that house when these letters
start showing up. At least psychologically you can imagine, oh yes, yeah,
divide and conquer, right. Uh. Harassment via the post is
(13:40):
nothing particularly new by the nineties seventies. As a matter
of fact, harassment via post postal services continues today. Please
do check out our our earlier stories and strange news
and listener mail segments about sending poop through the mail
(14:03):
and the laws about it are weird. People also send
glitter bombs through the mail, and do check out our
upcoming episode on on stuff they don't want you to
know about glitter. I can't believe we're doing it. It's
a real thing. Deliver. Yeah, we've gotta we've gotta come
with a fire on that one. So, uh, we know
(14:26):
that this kind of stuff happens. And unfortunately, if you're
listening today, you may have received um threatening anonymous messages
in real life. The Internet didn't create that. The Internet
just made it easier for people to do those sorts
of things. Right, So, whoever is targeting this family in Circleville,
(14:54):
they seem to have two things. They seem to have
some sort of inside knowledge. Nless, they're absolutely trolling, and
they seem to have a hell of a spiteful agenda,
like like to your point, Matt, that your your spouse
is getting these weird letters. After you get these letters,
your kids are getting involved. What do you do to
(15:16):
whom do you turn? Eventually, the Gillespie's share the letters
with Ron's sister Karen and her husband, a guy named Paul.
This is Karen and Paul freshore. Okay, So let's let's
get the family straight here, because this is kind of
hard to keep in your mind. You've got Mary and Ron.
(15:39):
Those are the Galespie's, and then you've got Karen and Paul.
And there there is two different families, and but they
are related because Ron and Karen are brother and sister. Yes. Sorry,
I did do that like three times in my head
while I was going through the research here, just to
make sure I understood. Yeah, Mary and Ron, Paul and Karen. Okay, Mary, Ron, Paul, Karen.
(16:08):
Uh So. Mary, at this point, when she's sharing these letters,
she apparently has a couple of hunches or suspicions about
the identity of the letter writer, and so she and
her husband Ron send letters of their own, and they're
(16:28):
they're essentially saying stop, like cease and desist without a lawyer,
that's what they're saying. And Mary believed it was this
person because it was another bus driver. Remember she's a
bus driver at the school where she's being accused of
having a fair with the superintendent. Um. She there was
a fellow bus driver that Mary said had made passes
(16:49):
on at her and she had refused, you know, like
kind of pushed him away. She thought, oh, well, maybe
this guy is upset. That's who they sent letters to
to try to get him to stop m And on August,
Ron doesn't get a letter, he gets a phone call.
We don't know the substance of that conversation. We do
(17:11):
know that he got this phone call while his spouse,
Mary was on a trip I believe, in Florida with
some friends. And whatever happened on that phone call, it
causes him to take his firearm with him, according to
the story, to tell the kids he's going to go
(17:34):
speak with someone directly. And he drives away and later
that evening his truck is found smashed into a tree.
He did not survive the car accident. UH An investigation
led by a character that we will introduce very shortly.
(17:54):
The investigation into the accident and his death concluded that
he had a blood alcohol level of point one six.
Point one six doesn't sound huge if you're talking regular percentages,
but that's very, very high. Here in the United States,
(18:15):
the legal limit for driving with alcohol in your system
is point z road too. So this guy, this, according
to the blood work, this guy is driving drunk. Right, Yeah,
and well, I guess case closed. Except for even if
he was drunk, he did have a firearm with him.
(18:37):
He did grab his own pistol on the way out
the door after receiving this phone call, and that firearm
uh was discharged one time. There was one bullet missing. Uh,
but that bullet was never recovered. So it's unknown what
he fired at. Or maybe maybe he had fired previously, right,
(19:01):
maybe the gun was already missing one bullet when he
got in the car. There's just no way to know,
no way to know. Oh, there's one other there's one
other thing I want to add there. According we we
talked about Paul already, right, Oh my god, I'm gonna
I'm gonna mess it up already, Mary and Ron, Paul
and Karen so Uh, the Paul of Paul and Karen
(19:26):
on his blog that He's Got. He states that it's
known that during that phone call when Ron picked it up,
he said he recognized the voice and he was going
to go talk to that person. That's right, Yes, yeah, no,
super important point. Yes, So like it says, though the
(19:46):
actual it seems as though possibly the actual culprit of
whoever was writing the letters called Ron. He knew who
that person was and was going to go put a
stop to it or something, because he did take his firearm,
but he it up getting killed or dying however it
went down. Yeah, I think we have to say dying.
Now there's something interesting here. This is not ruled an
(20:11):
accidental death in the In the ensuing invest investigation, local
law enforcement, headed by Pickaway County Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe, rules
Ron's death a suicide. Yes, let's repeat that name, Dwight Radcliffe,
and he ruled it a suicide. Dwight Radcliffe also uh
(20:33):
goes on to be the longest serving sheriff in the
United States. In his time, he serves twelve consecutive terms
as sheriff of this place, Pickaway County. That equals out
to about forty eight years. And you know, Matt, full
(20:54):
disclosure for everybody. You and I work on some fiction
shows together that that you head up with Alex Williams
and Aaron Manky and Nick Takowski and I Blood Hells Television. Yes,
and I am. I am immensely fortunate to be able
to be a hired gun for some of these stories.
(21:17):
There's fortunate to have you. Oh God, all right, okay,
so so here. So there's this thing that's been stuck
in my head about the dangers of people serving in
positions of power and being unaccountable. And one of the
only thing we could say about one of the stories
(21:38):
we have coming up is that it involves Jager Hoover
and just like the sheriff of Pickaway County, Jager Hoover
is in charge of his, you know, his roost for
forty eight years. It's strange to think of someone having
almost half a century in power and uh, you could
(22:01):
you know, there's a very solid argument that Hoover was
unaccountable and dangerous as he ascended to power. And maybe
that's making me biased. With Sheriff Radcliffe. Man, it just
seems like a lot of it seems like a long
time for someone to be that powerful. Yeah, when you
(22:25):
when you have that kind of power, it doesn't always happen.
Not everyone does this, but you can pull strings to
clean situations up for your benefit, especially if you're in
a powerful position that requires votes to either maintain that
power or you know, to get you more power. Um,
it is, it is weird. I don't wanna gosh, I
(22:48):
don't want to derail this conversation. Just bring bringing up
j Edgar. Yeah, for for that Zodiac show. I recently
interviewed an author and this author has a new a
new Zodia suspect. Okay, and this this suspect tells a
story to his daughter at one point because he was
(23:08):
he was telling everybody and is including his daughter and
his wife, that he was doing special operations during uh,
the Korean War, and he was like well liked and
went to parties sometimes. And he tells them this story
of one time he showed up at a party where
j Edgar was there, and j Edgar showed up wearing
(23:30):
a red sequined dress and gave him a kiss on
the lips. But it's just a story. But also like
the way you're characterizing this person, Uh, he was well
liked and he went to parties, so that this party
he may have also may have also been the Zodiac Killer.
But he may have also been the Zodiac Killer. Man,
(23:54):
I cannot wait uh, And I say this objectively. If
you are in tested in the Zodiac case, please do
check out Monster Zodiac. That is a Tenderfoot Matt Frederick
production and it's well worth your time. Yeah, dr he
(24:19):
would definitely approve of Jager's red sequin dress allegedly, allegedly allegedly. Okay, okay, yeah,
you're right back on track. So, okay, this Radcliffe guy
sheriff for almost half a century. We don't want to
be unfair to the guy, right, and he has passed away,
But we also can't be unfair to the facts. And
(24:43):
the fact of the matter is that when someone has
that much power for that long in a town of
this size. Again, this is the county seat of Pickaway County,
and this town has a little less than fourteen thousand residents.
So when you are in that cat bird seat for
that amount of time, you is completely plausible that, for instance,
(25:07):
you catch the mayor's son out raising hell right, doing
doing something sketchy, and you let them off because you
and you know, now you have some juice on the mayor,
that doesn't necessarily make you malevolent. You are just leveraging
power to get more power later. So it could be
(25:30):
leveraging power, but he could also just be I'm going
to protect with that person so that they know next
time I'm in some kind of compromising situation, they will,
you know, step up for me theoretically in a jam. Yeah. Yeah,
So so we're just we're very conscious of that tendency
(25:51):
and without specifically attributing some kind of cover up. At
this point, we have to admit small town power is
a real thing. So ordinarily this case, this tragic car accident,
would be another small town tragedy. You know, it's heartbreaking,
(26:12):
it's terrible for the family, but it's not necessarily conspiratorial.
Until that is, more locals begin receiving letters of their own.
Oh yeah, Now it becomes like a mailing list situation.
Everybody in town is on it, and there's there's one
(26:33):
anonymous center with one message. Actually they have multiple messages,
and they're all not good. Uh they are. The letters
at this point are basically doubling down on this message
that was just being sent to that family. Mary Gillispie
is having an affair with this other guy, Gordon Massey,
(26:55):
and it's that's where it starts. But then it ends
with the sheriff, the one keep talking about here, Radcliffe,
he is actually covering up all these aspects. And it's thought,
or I can't remember if they spell it out exactly
in this series of letters, but the concept is that
Radcliffe is covering up for the superintendent who was also
(27:18):
you know, a fellow powerful person within the town. That's
what people are thinking. And if we fast forward a bit,
this superintendent, Gordon Massey eventually does get divorced. He was
a married man when these letters became, when they started
going around Circleville. And Mary, we have to remember, at
(27:40):
this point, is widowed. Her her spouse has passed way.
So eventually the widowed Mary Gillespie and the now divorced
Gordon Massey do begin a romantic relationship. This is not
um a rumor, it's not conject Sure, they cop to it,
(28:02):
but their stance was always that they did not begin
this relationship until after Ron died. Somehow in that in
that auto accent, Yeah, if you go to Paul's website again,
that blog that Paul for sure created. He alleges that
(28:23):
that affair was definitely happening. I think he even alleges that,
remember that trip that Mary was supposed to be on
the night Ron died, right to Florida with friends. He
alleges that that that trip involved Gordon Massey as well.
It was with friends, but Gordon was there too, That's
what he says. So it's three now Mary begins receiving
(28:47):
more letters and the situation escalates past just mean messages
and envelopes. Let's go to three thirty pm. It's February seventh. Three.
Mary's driving the school bus route that she always drives,
and she sees a sign like you you were sitting
(29:09):
up earlier, matt attached to a fence post and the
lettering of this sign, the message is about her daughter.
So she stops the bus, pulls over and goes to
grab this inflammatory sign. Yeah, and she picks up the sign.
(29:31):
So it's imagine a post and then a cardboard box
of sorts on top of that post, and then there's
words written on it. She picks up the box and
the post, right. Yeah, And you know, the this might
sound weird when we're describing it. So, by way of comparison,
if you were ever driving in a neighborhood or walking
(29:54):
through someplace and you see for sale signs on homes,
then they'll off did have a little box attached to
the signpost where you know, there's like a pamphlet or
something with information about the house or the realtor or whatever.
And uh, this is kind of similar, but it's very
(30:14):
very bootleg. Obviously she's freaked out. She's been harassed for
years at this point. Uh, she pulls the sign up
and she puts it on her bus by the way,
Yeah yeah, and it's three pm. That's like I got
kids on the bus time. And she picks this sign up,
(30:37):
just puts it on the bus and goes about her business.
And because this is a small town, of course, we
must already know that the kids are going to mention
this when they get home. That's that's going to be
the talk of school for at least a day or so. So, um,
(30:58):
here's the thing. This is not a real tour side.
This is not a for sale side. This is meant
to be a trap. Yeah, a movie trap. Okay, So
let's I guess we can describe it this way. The
sign is just written on the front of that box, right,
(31:19):
and it was at least it appears as though the perpetrator,
the person who created it, believed that when Mary saw it,
she would just grab at the sign, the part that
said the bad things and just rip it up, like
just grab it off and take it. Because inside that
box there was a pistol pointed outwards, like if somebody
(31:45):
was reading the sign and they pulled it off, the
gun would have been pointed at them. My dogs are
really excited about this part. I'm sorry. I'm going to
calm them down in a second after I stopped talking.
But attached to that gun, to the trigger of that
gun was a piece of twine that went down so
that if you would have ripped that box off, Thank goodness,
(32:06):
she just ripped the whole thing. Yeah. The idea was
pulling the twine would pull, the trigger would fire, the
gun would shoot. The person who appears to be the
target appears to be Mary, the school bus driver, because
this is purposely posted on her route, you know what
(32:29):
I mean. So honestly the trap is amateur work. But
you start to ask questions again, why were the why
were there not fingerprints on the gun where's the serial number?
You know, the basic stuff. Mary turns this in Cities
contraption over to law enforcement. They look at the firearm
(32:49):
and they say someone has tried in a super not
great way to erase the serial number to file it off,
and the culprit is unsuccessful. Police are able to dig
in and make out that serial number. They find it,
(33:10):
which means they can trace the gun, and they match
it to another guy in town, Mary's former brother in law,
Paul fresh Shore. Oh we should say at this point, uh, Paul,
of Paul and Karen, they they have divorced. They're no
longer together, they split up. Uh. And it should be
(33:32):
noted that Paul states it's because he discovered his wife
was having an affair and he got that's why he
initiated the divorce. He hired a private investigator and then divorced. Uh.
Interesting right, interesting? Right? Yeah? And uh so Sheriff Radcliffe
does does the right thing what you should do in
(33:53):
that situation, goes to Paul and says, hey, is this
your gun? And Paul Paul says, WHOA, Hey, I do
have a gun, but I have it basically packed away
in my garage. I don't ever touch it. I haven't
checked on it in years. I didn't know it was
(34:14):
missing until you told me. Sheriff. That's a not unplausible explanation.
A lot of people have stuff that they forget in
their house and is that responsible firearm usage? Absolutely not.
You kind of want to be aware of items like
that in your home, especially when, like Paul, you have
you have children, right, yeah, even more so. Uh, And
(34:38):
Radcliffe is not convinced by the way. He says, Okay,
all right, take this handwriting test, because the police, by
this point, the Sheriff's department, they have photo copies. They
probably have they have the originals of these letters, and
you can go to you can go online and see
(34:58):
screenshots of these letters. So the main thing, the main
thing to take away from this is that those letters
are handwritten. So the sheriff asked Paul to copy as
close as he can the handwriting of some of these
anonymous letters targeting the Gillespie family, and in the Sheriff's opinion,
(35:22):
this is close enough to seal the deal. Looking at
Paul's handwriting and looking at the handwriting of the anonymous letters,
they like him for it. They think it's close enough
and the gun and the handwriting samples are the primary
pieces of evidence when Paul for As Shure goes to
(35:43):
court on charges of attempted murder. There's another thing about
his alibi that's like sort of a tertiary piece of evidence.
Someone who looks like him is seeing at a time
where you know, it doesn't hundred percent looked like he
is where he said he was. So that's sketchy because
(36:04):
he took off work the day that the box was found.
He took off work. I mean, if you need time
to set something up like that and then go plant
it somewhere, it would make sense. You can see why
law enforcement would like him. As you said, he looks
good for it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, regardless
(36:26):
of where you stand visa the cover up of some sort,
at this point, law enforcement is looking like they're taking
the right steps, at least the right investigative steps. The
jury agrees Paul for Sure has found guilty. Sheriff Radcliffe
tells the press that, yeah, this guy Paul confessed to
(36:49):
writing somewhere between forty two fifty threatening letters. There's only
one problem, there's no record of that confession, and Paul
himself says he never said anything like that. Uh. It
just gets curiouser and curiouser, and there are more complications
on the way, but we have to pause for a
(37:10):
word from our sponsor, and we've returned. So there are
complications with the case. Paul Freshwar's fingerprints are nowhere on
the gun, fingerprints are not on the booby trap, fingerprints
are not on the letters. They search his house because
(37:33):
of course that's, you know, the correct step to take,
and they find no additional corroborating evidence. There's no you know,
like you look in the garage, there's nothing to indicate
somebody built weird booby trap that doesn't work. Uh. And
(37:53):
you you also don't see ammunition. You don't see like
you know, uh uh, an obsessively filled out notebook with
revenge schemes and paranoid thoughts. None of that looks like
a normal house. It does, but you do have to imagine,
like this guy is really close to them. He would
(38:17):
know where they live, he would know what the you know,
what Ron's vehicle looks like. There's all these other pieces
of circumstantial evidence and considerations that are there, so you know,
you just it becomes so complicated. I think when you're
thinking about this, I've got no evidence that's matching to
this guy, but man, it feels right. Um, I'm just
(38:39):
trying to take the perspective of law enforcement if we're
going to imagine their objective observers. Right. So then let's
get into the court where Mary Gillespie is testifying specifically
about the divorce of Paul and Karen. Remember they got
a divorce the other affair thing. Uh. She states that
Karen confided in or in Mary that she believed Paul
(39:04):
might have been the author of those letters. Uh. Like
she she comes out and she says, I think it
might have been him, But you have to remember that
those two went through a contentious divorce. So then you
have to take you have to think, well, is Karen,
you know, is carrying putting spin on what she's saying,
(39:26):
or is you know Paul actually doing this? It's you
know what it is. There's no I feel like in
this story been there's no reliable narrator. There's no uh
person that I can trust what's happening, because even the
sheriff I don't trust. Yeah, maybe maybe I was a
little unfair to him, but forty eight years is a
(39:48):
long time. No, no, no, you're right, and well you
should see what Paul for sure has to say about
the show and his letters. He writes the FBI. Okay,
for sure is is um Or was for the rest
of his life adamant that he did not he was
(40:09):
not guilty of the crime of which it was convicted.
He was convicted. I guess we should make the historical
note there in the in the courtroom, when his ex
wife says, I think he might have been the author,
Paul's team says, uh, if this is true, why didn't
(40:30):
you bring it up during our acrimonious divorce. Good because
he got custody of the children, and the writer of
those letters probably wouldn't have gotten custody of the children's right. Yeah,
that would have been a pretty significant intervening variable. So
(40:51):
it's a valid point. Honestly, we can agree to that.
But still again, he is convicted. He is sentenced to
seven to twenty five years is behind bars for attempted murder,
insisting upon his innocence the entirety of the time he's
um He's sent up to Lima, Ohio. He's imprisoned, incarcerated
(41:14):
in Limo, Ohio, and these letters start coming out, but
they're not from Limo, Ohio. There's still the circle. There's
still like this mysterious Circleville letter writer troll. And they're
they're not just sending letters to Circleville now, they're sending
(41:34):
them all around. And the letters are still postmarked from Columbus,
and Columbus is ninety miles away from Lima, ninety miles
or so. As the crow flies, that's a feat right
in jail, and he can still send these letters from Yeah, exactly.
(41:56):
You think he'd be better at filing off a serial number. Huh.
So Sheriff Radcliffe is convinced. He's like, don't talk to
me about time and distance and how you know crows
fly and all that malarkey. This guy is somehow masterby
in an evil letter writing campaign from prison. Put him
(42:20):
in isolation, put him in solitary, and they do it,
and he's got he's constantly monitored, he's got no access
to any kind of writing materials, the works. There is
physically not a way that he could write and send
a letter himself, but the letters keep coming. That's one
(42:40):
of the weirdest parts. Yep uh. And it's it's funny
so for sure's in prison. He gets a parole hearing, right,
and one of the major reasonings behind denying him parole
was that, look, you're in here, but you're still sending
all these letters, Like what are you doing? Man, don't
(43:02):
you want parole? Stop sending the letters. It's it stinks.
It's a terrible situation. Uh. And after he gets denied parole,
he receives a letter that is essentially dancing on his
grave and mocking him. It's a real twist of the knife. Well,
(43:26):
it's how it even talks about how we we said,
we told you that we were going to set you
up or whatever. I mean, it's it's so strange, like
we talked, we told you we were going to set
you up. You'll never get out of prison. Who are
these people? Who is this person? Yeah? People? Person? Right?
Is it plural? Is it singular? We're gonna find out. Well,
(43:47):
we're we're gonna see some good guesses in May of
n Paul Fis shore Is And this is largely thanks
to an astonished journalist named Martin Yant. Uh. Martin Yant
brings the story to the public eye. The Circleville saga
(44:10):
is featured on an episode of a TV show called
Unsolved Mysteries, which many of us in the audience remember,
no and love, And then it gets weirder. Matt, they're
the the Unsolved Mysteries TV production team is working on
this episode and it's not the whole show. If you
(44:33):
remember Unsolved Mysteries, it's an anthology series, so episodes don't
necessarily connect. It's a new thing every Thursday at nine
or whatever. So they're working on this episode and then
they get a letter. They get a postcard that says, uh,
you want to do a sinister voice. I feel like
(44:55):
this needs a good sinister voice. Forget Circleville, Ohio, do
nothing to hurt Sheriff Radcliffe. If you come to Ohio,
you l sickos, will pay l sickos. Yeah spelled with
spelled it e l like and spel el sis. And
(45:16):
it's as signed the Circleville writer or I think Circleville writer.
Maybe yes, yeah, yeah, just so, And uh, now we've
got an even stranger situation. Look, whomever is opening the
mail for Unsolved Mysteries, that hapless production assistant. That's a
weird that's a weird day. Right, They've probably got a
(45:39):
lot of strange mail on unsolved mysteries. Anyway, this is
something we should point out too, And this is according
to Paul for Shure's website. According to him, many of
these letters contained arsenic within them, within the envelope, right, yes, yeah,
but I I haven't seen that written in a lot
of places, so I don't. I don't know the truth.
They're like, if that's real or not? All all I've
(46:01):
seen is the um claim on his own blog. Okay,
like I I haven't. I mean, that's not to say
there may not be corroborating sources there, but I haven't
seen like a police report that says it was. But
if there is, please send it to us folks. So well,
if there is, I'm just thinking about the team opening
(46:22):
the letters like could be dangerous. I guess that's yeah,
that's a really good point. Well, also, they're getting this
one is a postcard, so there's not an envelope to contain.
I guess they could have like rubbed our sneake on it.
I don't know. Don't send people are sneak in the mail,
you know? Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, that's that's good. That's really good.
(46:47):
Is that a hot take for us? No? I think
that's okay, okay, okay. Hopefully that's something we can all
agree on. Stop sending our sneak in the mail and
be careful about the poop anyway, Dr Gay Hitler. At
this point, Paul for sure reaches out to the FBI,
(47:07):
as you mentioned earlier, Matt, and he is asking the
FBI to investigate that death of Ron Gillespie all those
years ago, and he wants to clear his name. But
he's also again saying, look, I physically could not have
written these letters, right, not all of them. I provably
(47:31):
could not have been writing all of them. And he
is ultimately unsuccessful in that no other author of these
letters has been accused in a court of law even
now in And so Paul for sure Louis does die
(47:51):
a freeman. He dies, and he loses time that he
will never get back. He passes away into that in twelve,
telling the world that he is innocent. And so the
town gossip again small town rules. It's reaching a boiling point.
If it wasn't Paul sending these letters, asked the locals, then,
(48:16):
who could it be? And to this day that answer
remains officially unclear. But our journalist Martin yet I think
he makes a pretty persuasive argument for multiple letter writers. Yeah,
(48:38):
I mean I think so too. I think I think
it makes sense. Um, it's just tough because it's basically
accusing multiple people of being working together on this scheme. Right.
One of the people that really surprised me, But the
more I thought about it, the more I was like,
I guess that's plausible was Gordon Massey, the guy who
(49:02):
was allegedly having an affair with Mary. The person that
Yett is making it a case we're here is Gordon
Massey's son, who you know, if you if you play
it out in your mind, maybe the son found out
that his dad was having an affair and he wanted
to stop it, so he's writing letters to try and
stop it. Um that that logically makes sense, right, But
(49:27):
there's not much you can stack up as far as
evidence goes to try and prove that. Yeah, we have
to be careful not to treat it as though we're
writing a soap opera, you know what I mean? And
that that's he definitely does feel like what, Yes, it
very much does. Uh, it's all about relationships. So this
(49:48):
argument alleges claims that there are three different writers. Um,
it is definitely possible for groups of people to anonymously
conduct these kind of criminal conspiracies, right, like I always this.
(50:10):
This really makes me think of the earlier Japanese case,
the monster with twenty one faces. Remember that one never caught.
They're never going to be caught. They got away. So
so it is possible. And do check out Martin Yann's work.
He makes he makes uh compelling arguments, but again there
(50:33):
are no official conclusions to this day. The police and
law enforcement maintained that Paul Fisher was the Circleville writer. Uh,
like we said, he kept a blog until he passed.
You can read it online today. All of this together
(50:53):
means that yes, a conspiracy of some sort occurred. There
is stuff they don't want you to know. And it
is possible, not proven, but possible that the true architect
of the Circleville letters escape justice. It might be alive
today right now listening to this show. Don't write to us,
(51:17):
please don't please, don't right to us. No, thank you.
So I don't know. That's I mean, that's where we
leave it. And there there there's so much more to
this story. You know, there have been a lot of
a lot of Compelly Investigations forty eight hours did a
(51:39):
show or an episode on this? Um, the Unsolved Mysteries
episode is a good primer, but I think it skips
over some stuff. There's an FBI profiler, FBI profiler that
looked at the case, Mary Ellen O'Toole, She looked at them,
and I forget exactly what she was saying about it,
(52:00):
but um, she was just mentioning how difficult it would
be to actually to physically write and send letters while
in prison, if you are specifically in custody the way
that Paul was in custody, right, So like you, you
you have to assume I think that there is at
least one other person that was writing the letters, whether
(52:20):
or not Paul was at the heart of this or
involved in any way. Yeah, because again there's that timeline discrepancy, right.
There is a time wherein this man could physically not
have sent letters. He couldn't have written them in symp them.
There was something weird though, Ben uh oh god, do
we have so many sources? Just full disclosure, everybody, so
(52:42):
many sources for this episode. There's one piece of writing
in here that mentions Paul's handprints were or some kind
of hand or fingerprint of his was found on one
of the letters that was sent while he was in prison.
So there was or at least a one or two
examples where faer prints were found on the letter. Right, Yeah,
(53:05):
So like what does that mean? What did he touch
paper that then got sent out that was carefully handled
by somebody else, or did he actually write one or
two of the letters. It's just confounding because you can't
prove any of it. Well. Then also there's the theory
that he may have had someone even without his knowledge,
(53:27):
writing letters for him, as like a copycat crime, to
help him get out of incarceration. That's the thing, because
there's anonymity here. Um. Any number of explanations maybe plausible.
But again, um, people just aren't happy with the official conclusion,
(53:52):
and we want to hear your thoughts. Folks, let us
know what do you think the truth is? Do you
think one man wrote these letters and was rightly convicted.
Do you think that there were more people at play,
and if so, do you think they are alive and
(54:13):
free today? We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Try
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(54:36):
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three minutes say whatever you'd like. Please do include whether
(54:57):
or not you give us permission to use your name
and in our episodes. If you've got more to say
they can fit in that three minute voicemail, then why
not send us instead a good old fashioned email. We
are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(55:32):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
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listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.