For nearly two decades, beginning around March 1977, the small, seemingly idyllic community of Circleville, Ohio, was gripped by a sustained campaign of psychological terror orchestrated by an anonymous letter writer. Circleville presented itself as an "all-American town" , known regionally for its annual Pumpkin Show. However, this façade of Midwestern tranquility was systematically dismantled by a mysterious figure who was "hell-bent to expose every ugly little secret" within the community, citing alleged embezzlement, domestic violence, illicit affairs, and even murder.
The campaign was remarkable not only for its longevity but also for the vicious tone of the letters, which suggested the author harbored severe psychological problems. The writer displayed an intimate knowledge of local affairs, knowing "everything about everyone... and knew everybody's secrets". This deep local intimacy was juxtaposed against the letters' operational methodology: most were handwritten and postmarked from Columbus, Ohio, approximately 30 miles north of Circleville. This calculated misdirection suggested a highly strategic actor, driven by a desire for control and domination, deliberately creating distance from the scene of the psychological crimes while leveraging internal community dynamics.
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| A pile of Mysterious Letters to Mary Gillispie from Anonymous Sender (Image source: Crime Junkie Podcast) |
The anonymous communication initially focused on two primary targets: Mary Gillispie, a local school bus driver, and Gordon Massie, the married school superintendent. The writer focused intensely on their alleged affair. The vitriol directed at Mary Gillispie was particularly severe. Early communications commanded her to "Stay away from Massie," warning her not to "lie when questioned about meeting him," and threatening to "shame you out of Ohio" if she failed to comply.
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| One of the Letter received by Mary Gillispie in March of 1977 (Image source: Crime Junkie Podcast) |
The letters were designed to be punitive and morally condemning, indicating that the initial writer was motivated by a drive to restore a perceived moral order or enact vengeance, possibly as a "woman scorned" or someone close to Massie. This initial focus quickly escalated beyond gossip. Threats moved from career destruction to physical harm against the Gillispie family, explicitly mentioning the couple's children. The letters to Mary's husband, Ronald Gillispie, became increasingly provocative, including one message that suggested, "You should catch them together and kill them both". When anonymous letters alone failed to achieve the desired effect, the writer supplemented the campaign with public, offensive signs posted along Mary’s school bus route, maximizing public humiliation and terror.
On the evening of August 19, while his wife Mary was away in Florida, Ronald Gillispie received a mysterious phone call. Ron was immediately enraged, telling his daughter that the call was from the letter writer. Determined to halt the harassment that had plagued his family for months, he retrieved a gun, picked up his truck, and drove off, explicitly stating he was going to confront the author.
Later that night, Ron’s pickup truck was discovered crashed into a tree. He died at the age of 35 from major internal injuries. This incident represented a critical escalation, confirming to the writer—and to the town—that the campaign carried lethal force. The question of whether Ron had successfully identified the mysterious writer before driving off became a defining, unresolved narrative of the mystery.
The Pickaway County coroner quickly ruled Ron Gillispie’s death an accident. However, multiple pieces of evidence raised immediate and enduring suspicions of foul play, leading many Circleville residents, including Ron's brother-in-law, Paul Freshour, to believe he had been murdered after uncovering the letter writer's identity.
The most suspicious finding was the discovery of a.22 caliber revolver under Ron’s body. Investigators confirmed that one round had been fired from the weapon between the time Ron left his house and the crash, yet no bullet was ever recovered, leaving the discharge entirely unexplained. Additionally, the autopsy revealed Ron had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.16 percent, 1.5 times the Ohio legal limit. While this evidence supported the official accident ruling—suggesting intoxication led to loss of control at high speed—friends and associates noted that Ron was not typically a heavy drinker. The high BAC provided a convenient official pathway to close the case as a simple vehicular accident, effectively sidestepping the far more complex and politically volatile prospect of investigating a homicide directly linked to the anonymous poison pen campaign. The failure to re-open Ron Gillispie’s death as a potential murder remains a significant procedural flaw that allowed the writer's violence to be dismissed as a consequence of personal behavior.
The implication of Ron’s death was profound: it provided the letter writer with confirmation of their power and established a violent benchmark for the rest of the campaign.
On February 7, 1983, Mary Gillispie, while driving her bus route, noticed an obscene sign targeting her daughter posted on a fence. When she stopped and tugged at the sign, she discovered it was attached to a string leading to a box. Inside the box was a small, loaded pistol that had been rigged as a booby trap designed to fire upon disturbance. Fortunately, the device failed to discharge, and Mary was unharmed.
The investigation quickly focused on the weapon. Although the serial number had been partially defaced, investigators managed to identify the firearm's owner: Paul Freshour, Mary Gillispie’s brother-in-law. Freshour, a manager at Anheuser-Busch with no prior criminal history, was shocked, insisting that the firearm had been stolen from his garage weeks earlier.
The connection between the gun and Paul Freshour alone was insufficient for a conviction, but the missing psychological component was provided by Freshour's estranged wife, Karen Sue. When investigators interviewed her in 1983, the couple was immersed in a highly contentious divorce, involving allegations of physical abuse and disputes over child custody.
Karen Sue informed authorities that Paul had come to "hate Mary" after Ron’s death, particularly concerning the "Massie deal" (the alleged affair), and she stated her belief that Paul was the actual Circleville letter writer. This testimony provided the prosecution with the crucial motive, connecting the physical evidence (the gun) to the wider terror campaign (the letters), thereby transforming Freshour from a victim of theft into the prime suspect for attempted murder. The intense personal conflict between the Freshours provided a powerful suggestion that Karen Sue may have possessed a retaliatory motive for framing him, especially given her access to the stolen weapon and the timing relative to their separation.
Paul Freshour was subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted of the attempted murder of Mary Gillispie. The conviction rested entirely on circumstantial evidence. Critically, Freshour was never charged with writing the anonymous letters, yet the judge allowed the prosecution to introduce 39 of the letters as evidence, effectively branding Freshour as the "Circleville letter writer" in the eyes of the jury. This evidence was characterized as "very, very damaging" to his defense.
The prosecution further relied on handwriting testimony. Analysts from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) testified that the handwriting on the booby trap note and the anonymous letters "could have been written by Paul Freshour." The defense’s case was severely compromised when their own expert witness reportedly concurred with the prosecution's findings, linking Freshour to the letters. The analysis demonstrates that Freshour’s trial violated fundamental principles of fair procedure by leveraging public hysteria and association with an uncharged, decades-long crime (the letters) to secure a conviction for the attempted murder. The weak physical evidence—a stolen gun—was bolstered by psychological profiling presented as forensic handwriting analysis, resulting in a verdict based more on perceived character than definitive proof.
Despite the widely held belief that the poison pen author was now behind bars, the letters continued unabated for another full decade. Investigative reporters confirmed that hundreds of letters were distributed during Freshour’s incarceration.
The continuation of the campaign while Freshour was locked up constitutes the strongest possible evidence of his innocence as the sole author, or at the very least, confirmation that the individual responsible for the psychological terror remained free. The situation became ludicrously contradictory: Freshour was held in isolation and explicitly denied access to pen or paper by prison authorities. His warden insisted that Freshour was incapable of sending the correspondence. Adding to the absurdity, the writer even managed to send a letter to Paul Freshour while he was incarcerated, taunting him after a parole hearing denial: "Freshour: Now when are you going to believe you arent getting out of there: I told you two years ago: When we set 'em up, they stay set up. Don't you listen at all?”. This action proved the writer was fully aware of Freshour's status and actively mocking his confinement, demonstrating both a continuing campaign and a separate identity.
Despite the irrefutable proof that letters continued, authorities, particularly the Pickaway County Sheriff, maintained that Freshour was responsible, clinging to the theory that he must have been working with an accomplice outside the prison walls. This stance required authorities to accept that Freshour had somehow managed to orchestrate a highly active, complex, and persistent criminal operation from maximum isolation, an argument contradicted by prison staff.
The campaign of terror finally ceased in 1994, coinciding almost perfectly with Paul Freshour’s release on parole after serving 10 years. The abrupt cessation of the letters directly upon his freedom presents a compelling structural analysis of the writer’s motivation. If Freshour was entirely framed, the real writer—the individual or system that sought to keep him incarcerated—stopped the campaign because the objective had ended, and the risk of being exposed by a newly free Freshour became too great. If, conversely, Freshour was a co-mastermind, his release would have meant the cessation of the need for the accomplice to send the letters. However, given the taunting letter sent to Freshour in prison, the evidence strongly favors the theory that the main writer’s goal was intrinsically linked to Freshour’s confinement and shame.
In 1993, Thomas Lee Dillon, a serial killer convicted of murdering five outdoorsmen randomly across southern Ohio between 1989 and 1992, sent a letter from prison to the Columbus Dispatch claiming responsibility for the Circleville letters.
Dillon was highly intelligent, reportedly possessing an IQ of 135. While he was a calculated killer who enjoyed dominance, his profile involved random, impersonal violence against strangers. The Circleville writer, by contrast, displayed detailed, intimate knowledge of specific local relationships and secrets spanning nearly two decades. Dillon’s confession, therefore, is most likely a false claim or refers only to a brief period of copycatting, seeking notoriety late in the campaign. His pattern of crime is inconsistent with the deeply personal, relational, and enduring psychological terror enacted by the Circleville author.
Based on the legal procedural errors, the contentious nature of the key witness testimony (Karen Sue Freshour), and the decisive fact of the post-incarceration letters, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that Paul Freshour was wrongfully convicted of the attempted murder of Mary Gillispie. The most probable scenario is that Freshour was deliberately framed by a party with access to his firearm and a powerful personal motive, likely his estranged wife, Karen Sue Freshour, utilizing the notoriety of the poison pen campaign to settle a personal grievance. The identity of the true Circleville Letter Writer remains unresolved, although the sudden cessation of the campaign upon Freshour's release strongly suggests the writer's motive was linked to Freshour's status as a prisoner.
References:
- Episode 31: The Circleville Letters - Apple Podcasts
- FOR TWO DECADES, AN ANONYMOUS LETTER WRITER TERRORIZED THE SMALL TOWN OF CIRCLEVILLE, OHIO, AND NOW A DOCUMENT FORENSICS EXPERT BELIEVES SHE'S UNMASKED THE AUTHOR - Paramount Press Express
- Has the anonymous author of the infamous Circleville letters been unmasked? - CBS News
- Anonymous letters threaten to expose an Ohio town's rumored secrets - CBS News
- INFAMOUS: Circleville Letters | Crime Junkie Podcast
- The Circleville letters: You've got hate mail - CBS News
- The Bizarre Saga of the Circleville Letters Case (New "Trail Went Cold" Episode) - Reddit
- Who was the Circleville Letter Writer? : r/UnresolvedMysteries - Reddit
- Southeast Ohio magazine Winter/Spring 2013 - Issuu
- Unknown Sender: The Mystery of the Circleville Letters - Mental Floss
- Truth Stranger Than Fiction: The Circleville Letters | by Becky J Hollen | Medium
- How The Circleville Letters Terrorized An Ohio Town For Decades - All That's Interesting
- Circleville Writer Theory: (At least) 2 writers? : r/UnresolvedMysteries - Reddit
- Mary Ellen O'Toole - Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center
- Updates about the Circleville Mystery Writer - Scioto Post
- Thomas Dillon - Wikipedia
- A Sniper's Mind - CBS News
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