THE CIRCLEVILLE LETTERS

THE CLAIM

That an anonymous writer sent thousands of letters over roughly twenty years accusing a school bus driver of an affair, threatening her family, and eventually rigging a booby-trapped firearm, and that the man convicted of it could not have written the letters that arrived while he was in prison.

THE THEORY, AS ITS PROPONENTS TELL IT

The theory is not about who was convicted. It is about the fact that the letters kept arriving afterwards.

The sequence: from 1976 an anonymous writer sent thousands of block-capital letters postmarked Columbus, accusing school bus driver Mary Gillispie of an affair with the school superintendent, and eventually writing to much of the town. On 19 August 1977 her husband Ron received a phone call, took his gun, said he knew who the writer was, and died when his truck left the road; his weapon had been fired once and the death was ruled accidental. In 1983 Mary found a roadside sign disparaging her daughter rigged with a .22 pistol set to fire when the sign was moved. The gun traced to her former brother-in-law, Paul Freshour, who said it had been stolen from his home.

Freshour was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to seven to twenty-five years. The handwriting evidence against him was obtained by having him copy the letters' distinctive script for comparison, a method that tends to produce the match it is looking for, and has been criticised since.

While he was in prison, for a period in solitary confinement with his outgoing mail controlled, letters in the same hand continued to arrive in Circleville. One was sent to Freshour himself. Prison officials confirmed he could not have posted them; his parole was nonetheless denied on the grounds that the letters were continuing. When Unsolved Mysteries covered the case in 1994, the writer sent a letter to the producers. Freshour was paroled that year and died in 2012. Nobody has ever been identified as the writer.

WHAT IS KNOWN

In 1976 Mary Gillispie, a school bus driver in Circleville, Ohio, began receiving anonymous letters in block capitals, postmarked Columbus, accusing her of an affair with the school superintendent, Gordon Massie. Her husband Ron received letters too. So, eventually, did much of the town, neighbours, officials, and strangers, in a volume ultimately estimated in the thousands.

On 19 August 1977 Ron Gillispie received a phone call, took his gun, and left the house saying he knew who the writer was. His truck left the road and struck a tree; he died. His firearm had been discharged once. His blood alcohol was found to be elevated, and the death was ruled an accident, but the circumstances were never comfortably explained.

The letters continued and escalated. In 1983 Mary encountered a roadside sign disparaging her daughter, and found the box holding it rigged with a .22 pistol arranged to fire when the sign was moved. The mechanism malfunctioned. The weapon was traced to Paul Freshour, Mary's former brother-in-law, who said it had been taken from his home.

Freshour was convicted of attempted murder in 1983 and sentenced to seven to twenty-five years. He maintained his innocence throughout. The handwriting evidence against him was contested at the time and has been criticised since; he was reportedly required to copy the letters' distinctive block script for comparison, a method that invites the result it finds.

While Freshour was imprisoned (for a period in solitary confinement, with his outgoing mail controlled) letters in the same hand continued to arrive in Circleville. One was sent to Freshour himself. Prison officials confirmed he could not have posted them. His parole was nonetheless denied more than once on the basis that the letters were continuing.

When Unsolved Mysteries covered the case in 1994, the writer sent a letter to the programme's producers. Freshour was paroled that year and died in 2012. The letters had largely stopped by then.

EVIDENCE FOR

• Letters in the same distinctive hand demonstrably arrived while the convicted man was in custody with his mail monitored, the single strongest fact in the file.
• The handwriting comparison methodology used against Freshour was compromised by having him copy the exemplar text.
• The writer's knowledge of intimate local detail across two decades indicates someone embedded in the community, and the campaign's duration and volume imply obsessive personal motive.
• Ron Gillispie's death immediately after saying he knew the writer's identity has never been satisfactorily explained.

EVIDENCE AGAINST

• Freshour was convicted on the booby trap, not on the letters, and the firearm was traced to him; the attempted murder case had physical evidence independent of handwriting.
• An accomplice or a copycat could account for letters continuing during imprisonment without exonerating him of the trap.
• Ron Gillispie's elevated blood alcohol supports the accident finding, and no evidence of a second vehicle or person was ever recovered.
• The letters stopped around the time of Freshour's later years and death, which is at least consistent with his involvement.

ASSESSMENT

OPEN. This office's concern here is narrower than the popular framing: whether or not Paul Freshour rigged that box, the letter-writer was never identified, and the correspondence continuing during his solitary confinement is a fact the conviction never accounted for. Note the pattern the file shares with Amerithrax (OSA-072), an investigation that closed on an available suspect and then treated the closure as an answer, leaving the actual question untouched. A conviction is not an identification. Circleville got one and never got the other.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE GRADE

• To CLOSED: a handwriting or DNA match on the letters themselves. Paul Freshour was convicted in 1983 over a booby-trapped sign, and letters kept arriving while he was in prison and in isolation, which is the fact his conviction never survived.
• Freshour maintained his innocence until his death in 2012, and was denied parole partly on the basis of letters he demonstrably could not have sent.
• The letters stopped in the mid 1990s and Ohio authorities have not reopened the case. It is this archive's clearest instance of a conviction contradicted by evidence that continued to arrive after it was handed down.

FURTHER READING

• Circleville letters · Wikipedia
• Unsolved Mysteries, 1994 episode, the broadcast the writer responded to
• Pickaway County court records, State v. Freshour, 1983