48 Hours The Circleville Letters

48 Hours The Circleville Letters – Focuses on a famous writer who wrote anonymous poison pen letters to the residents of Circleville in the late 70s. Titled

An anonymous letter writer threatens to reveal the city’s rumored secrets. Is anyone safe? 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.”

48 Hours The Circleville Letters

The letters contained disturbing secrets about the private lives of the residents, and the writer threatened to expose them. Without further ado, read on to learn more about Circleville letters

The Creepy Letters That Exposed A Town’s Juiciest Secrets — And Ended In Murder

In March 1977, many residents of Circleville, a small town in Ohio, were shocked to receive several anonymous letters containing the secrets of their personal lives.

One of the main targets was Marie Gillespie, a school bus driver who was accused by the writer of having an extramarital affair with the school’s principal, Gordon Massey. According to CBS News, one of the letters Gillespie received said:

This is your last chance to tell her: I know you’re a pig and I’m going to prove it and shame you out of Ohio: a pig sneaks around and meets other women’s husbands and families and homes and marriages suffer.

Marie’s husband, Ronald Gillespie, also received a letter in which the writer talked about his wife’s affair with the school principal. The letter states (via CBS News):

Infamous: Circleville Letters

In a shocking turn of events, in August 1977, Roland received an anonymous phone call, after which he was killed when his truck crashed into a tree. As a result of further investigations, it was found that there was a gun that had been fired once under his body. Although his death has been ruled an accident, many continue to believe he was murdered.

Almost six years after receiving the first letter, Mary Gillespie was driving when she found a crude sign about her teenage daughter on a fence and tried to pull it off. However, the sign was tied to a box, which he later discovered contained a loaded gun. He reported the incident to the police, who then launched an investigation.

Authorities traced the gun to Mary’s brother-in-law, Paul Freshour, who maintained his innocence and told officers his gun had been stolen several weeks earlier. In a shocking incident, Freshour’s estranged wife, Karen Sue, told police she suspected Paul was the man behind the poison pen letters.

At the next trial, Paul was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to a maximum of 7-25 years in prison. While in prison, Paul himself received an anonymous letter that read:

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”Freshour: When do you believe you won’t get out of there now: I aged you two years ago when we set them up: they’ll stay put.”

Paul was released from prison ten years later, and around the same time, the people of Circleville stopped receiving anonymous letters. Many believe he is the man behind the letters, while others think the wrong person has been convicted. In June 2012, Paul died of a heart attack. In an upcoming episode on Saturday. The episode explores the contents of the letters and the police investigation that led to the man’s conviction. The official synopsis for the episode from CBS News reads:

“An anonymous letter writer threatens to reveal the city’s rumored secrets. Is anyone safe?” 48 Hours’ Erin Moriarty reports.

A man named Paul Freshour was believed to be behind the anonymous letters. However, many believe that he is innocent. Without further ado, read on for more job details.

Hours Exposes The Circleville Letter Writer Secret

Hey folks!!@WhateverRemains is featured for our season at Circleville Letters at @48hours! We are very excited and happy! We’ll keep you updated on when it goes live – in the meantime, subscribe and stay tuned! #CirclevilleLetters

Hey folks!!@WhateverRemains is featured for our season at Circleville Letters at @48hours! We are very excited and happy! We’ll keep you updated on when it goes live – in the meantime, subscribe and stay tuned! #CirclevilleLetters https://t.co/UWC2thI2Cs

Paul Freshour was the fiancé of a woman named Mary Gillespie. In early 1977, residents of Circleville, Ohio began receiving anonymous letters threatening to reveal their secrets. The most prominent target among them was Mary Gillespie.

Gillespie received letters threatening to expose her relationship with school principal Gordon Massey. Her husband, Ronald, also received a letter telling the writer about his alleged affair with Mary. In August 1977, Ronald died mysteriously in a car accident. That day, he left home when he received a phone call from an unknown writer.

The Circleville Democrat And Watchman. (circleville, Ohio), 1877 11 02

Subsequent investigations ruled Ronald’s death an accident, but many, including Paul Freshour, believed he had been murdered. In fact, Freshour actively encouraged authorities to look deeper into the case, CBS News reported.

However, things took an ominous turn when Gillespie was driving to pick up his children from school when he found a crude sign about his teenage daughter on a fence. He examined the label on the box. He then took the box home and was shocked to find a loaded gun inside. The entire sign and box is made to kill him.

The 1983 Ohio case of attempted murder against Paul Freshour. All 750 pages of it. Welcome to Circleville. #CirclevilleLetters

The 1983 Ohio case of attempted murder against Paul Freshour. All 750 pages of it. Welcome to Circleville. #CirclevilleLetters https://t.co/JSWNk1GGRC

Grapes Of Wrath

Police began investigating the incident and determined that the gun belonged to Freshour, Gillespie’s brother-in-law. According to CBS News, he has pleaded not guilty and said his gun was stolen a few weeks ago. However, police became convinced of Freshour’s guilt after his estranged wife, Karen Sue, said she suspected him of being the anonymous writer.

The trial began in late 1983, and Freshour was eventually charged with attempted murder. He was sentenced to a maximum of 7 to 25 years in prison. However, the letters continued to arrive even while Freshour was locked up without pen and paper.

In fact, one of them was sent to Freshour himself, who was released from prison in 1994. The letters stopped then. Freshour maintained his innocence until his death from a heart attack in 2012.

According to CBS News, a former FBI profiler named Mary Ellen O’Toole examined the emails received after Freshour went to prison. He believes the poison pen letters were written by someone with a “severe personality disorder” who “likes to hurt others”. He doesn’t believe Freshour is guilty.

Mystery Of Circleville Letter Writer Who Terrorized Ohio Town For Decades & Was Tied To Strange Death Of Crash Victim

During the investigation, court document expert Beverly East analyzed and found that Paul’s handwriting was similar to some anonymous Circleville letters. However, the big question of whether Paul was guilty continues to divide people to this day. Threatening letters began arriving in Circleville in 1976 or 1977. Then signs appeared around the city. This mystery has intrigued real criminals for decades. Can there be new answers now?

The first threatening letter arrived in the Circleville mailbox of a school bus driver in 1976 or 1977, with clear block handwriting, frequent misspellings, and nasty and horrible words.

According to the writer, they found out that the bus driver was having an affair with the superintendent of his school district. But it didn’t end there.

In that message, and in hundreds of subsequent messages, the writer made his intent clear. They wrote that the work had to end, that they were watching the bus driver’s house, that they knew he had children. They argued that it was time for the daughter to pay for her mother’s sins.

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Over the course of nearly two decades, mail carriers delivered threatening letters and postmarked postcards not only to bus driver Mary Gillispie and her family, but to government officials, newspapers (including The ), various townspeople, and even Columbus. A few people in some southern Ohio counties like Gallia and Jackson.

Most of the posts were about that alleged case, but some were about other personal actions and violations known to the letter writer. For a while, people brought letters to the county sheriff’s office every day. Eventually, the mystery turned into graphic and disturbing signs hanging around town.

No one was ever charged to write the letters, which some say numbered in the hundreds and others over 1,000. But on Wednesday night’s local episode of CBS’s “48 Hours” on WBNS-TV (Channel 10). , Columbus-raised reporter Erin Moriarty and podcaster Marie Mayhew analyzed the case. According to Moriarty, Beverly East, a forensic document and handwriting expert, thinks she has finally figured out who wrote the letters.

And it turns out that after much speculation about who wrote them, a handwriting expert concluded that it was Paul Freshour, who investigators had suspected earlier.

Top 10 Strange Facts About The Circleville Writer

Moriarty, who earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Ohio State University and has been with CBS since 1986 and a correspondent for “48 Hours” since 1990, was still in Columbus when it started in the 70s.

But he had never heard of it