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[Music] something pretty disturbing happened in circleville starting small and flourishing over
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decades residents began to receive letters that accused the citizens of being involved in some pretty terrible things
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embezzlement domestic violence affairs and even murder the circleville letter writer
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knew everything about everyone and knew everyone's secrets they were vicious and ugly
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somebody with some severe psychological problems i would hazard to guess the threatening anonymous letters kept
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coming hundreds of them most were postmarked from columbus ohio about 30 miles north which is where i
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grew up and where i was living in march of 1977. when small town circleville began to
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feel under siege when just a walk to the mailbox could trigger terror especially
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in the case of one woman who lived here a school bus driver by the name of mary gillespie
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mary gillespie goes out to her mailbox she receives a letter she opens it it's an anonymous letter distinct handwriting
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and it's telling her to end the affair with the superintendent of the school there
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gordon massey mrs gillespie stay away from massey i've been observing your house and i know you
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have children it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done i shall come out there and put a bullet
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in that little girl's head [Music] these letters were being sent to newspapers elected officials private
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citizens and they're all saying the same thing that basically gordon massey the superintendent he needs to be exposed he
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needs to be fired her husband ron begins to receive them as well mr gillespie your wife is seeing gordon
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massey you should catch them together and kill them both he doesn't deserve to live
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well he got letters saying that if he didn't do something about this affair his life would be in danger you know
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what kind of car you drive you know where your your kids go to school by august of 1977 everything changes
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when ron gillespie gets a call late one night enraged he picks up a gun gets in his
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truck and drives off and told the daughter that he was gonna confront the letter writer
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he was traveling at a high speed lost control of the truck went off the road hit a tree
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and was killed the letter writer had made threats to ron gillespie that he could end up dead
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then he ended up dead was ron gillespie's death an accident or was he murdered murdered
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this case has really left its mark yeah it's destroying a lot of people i think there was a big cover-up
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turned out to be quite a mystery do you think you know who wrote those anonymous letters yes i do
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[Music] you