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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that would like to point out that your neighbors are not
00:01:51
the folks that they appear to be here is the captain it's good to be seing and it's good to see you thanks for
00:01:57
listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week we are more than excited to be
00:02:06
featuring don't worry my mom said it's cool by our friends at hoof harded brewing in Morango Ohio this is a
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Bourbon Barrel aged Imperial birthday cake Stout brewed with astronaut ice cream ABV
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12% that's right my mom said it's cool cool enough to earn 4 and A2 bottle caps out of five and you know who else is
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School our friends right here first up a cheers to Jessica on Long Island and a big shout out to Christa in Huntington
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Beach California next up we have a shout out to Carolyn in Toronto and a big we like your trip to Kell in San
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Pennsylvania next up here we go with the cheers to Veronica in Minneapolis Minnesota and last but certainly not
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least we have a cheers and a big Ron Swanson please and thank you that goes out to Jennifer and Atlanta Georgia
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everyone we just mentioned they helped us fill up the fridge for this week's case here in the garage yeah BW r n Beer
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stars it really helps it really goes a long way to support the show and that's enough of the business that's right
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Captain sign up on that mailing list if you want us to love you right back all right kiddos gather around grab a chair
00:03:46
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] [Applause] crime [Music] I want everyone to stop for a second
00:04:20
think about the life you have worked so hard to build and the relationships you have created and
00:04:26
maintained think about your job sure some days it's a real drag but most of the time you don't know what you or more
00:04:35
importantly your family would do without that job and career what if that paycheck stopped coming
00:04:43
in how quickly would those bills start piling up how quickly would you be at risk of losing it all
00:04:53
everything what would you do would your family turn their backs on you and and say you did this to
00:05:01
yourself or would they stand by you and support but even if they did would you be able to face
00:05:10
them now I want all of our mail listeners to stop and think about their situation and this will hit even harder
00:05:20
for the husbands and fathers in that group picture this you are at work and you receive the
00:05:29
following letter it is addressed to you by name at your workplace the letter has no return
00:05:37
address but you can tell from the postmark it was mailed from a nearby City it reads Dear Sir according to my
00:05:47
girlfriend you have asked her to go out many times and have asked the other female co-workers
00:05:54
too due to your position and their jobs you should not do this this must stop at
00:06:00
once for the good of all involved if this does not stop I will be forced to write to the board members and I'd hate
00:06:08
to do that to pray on another man's girl is Untouchable especially when they are out
00:06:15
trying to make a living there's also talk of you dating a married woman and taking advantage of
00:06:21
them do you need time and names again please think I suggest you find yourself a pimp faed [ __ ] and start up
00:06:31
with her and leave my girls alone now to all the ladies listening who share all of the same concerns as
00:06:41
the men picture this you are at home after a long day at work you walk out to your mailbox to
00:06:51
retrieve the Daily Mail you pull the short stack from the box and see the usual catalog
00:06:59
advertisement the electric bill and then what is this on the bottom of the stack
00:07:07
it's a letter addressed to you with no return address but you can tell from the postmark it was mailed from The Busy
00:07:14
City not too far up the highway from your town you open the envelope it is a handwritten
00:07:23
letter that reads stay away from your boss don't lie when asked about knowing him I know
00:07:31
where you live I have been observing your house and I know that you have children this is no joke please take it
00:07:40
serious everyone concerned has been notified and everything will be over soon now regardless of which Camp you
00:07:49
fall into receiving such an ominous letter and from an anonymous source no doubt would be of concern to any of us
00:07:59
even the most honest and innocent of us would want to know why they received the letter and why the threatening penp
00:08:08
pal refused to sign a name or leave a return address even if you could just brush it
00:08:15
off what do you do when you receive another letter and then one after that and regardless if the implied or
00:08:23
otherwise allegations are true or false most of us have a secret some more than one or two would you want to be outed at
00:08:32
work would you want your secrets brought into the light and again even if the allegations
00:08:39
are false you will wonder why me why did I receive these letters why did I receive this threat and how can I stop
00:08:50
something that is not happening and then it occurs to you maybe I'm not the only person who's
00:08:57
received such letters and if I'm not the only one who else what do the other letters say and
00:09:05
is it about me and more importantly why does the writer know where I work in my job title why does the writer know where
00:09:14
I live and why is the writer watching me and my children this is true crime [Music]
00:09:28
garage [Music] would it be an understatement Captain to say that Unsolved Mysteries is one of
00:09:43
most True Crime Buffs favorite shows of all time yeah and if you don't know you better ask somebody ask somebody just
00:09:51
some random person you better call Tyrone in season 7 episode 6 of Unsolved Mysteries this is back in the Robert
00:09:59
stack days the good old days as they say Unsolved Mysteries ran a segment titled
00:10:05
poison pen which nowadays most people refer to that case that they were talking about under several different
00:10:11
names and these would be the Circleville writer or the Circleville letters or the
00:10:18
letter writer it has many names when you start to dive into this case and I have
00:10:23
seen online many people saying that this is one of the Mass's fa favorite Unsolved Mysteries episodes of all time
00:10:33
which makes sense it's a very intriguing mystery right here in our own home state
00:10:38
of Ohio and I remember seeing this episode when I was a kid and who doesn't like a mystery where there's letters
00:10:44
involved that's correct everybody likes a mystery with letters involved now because this is such a complicated case
00:10:51
in my humble Colonel opinion it has a lot of moving parts and pieces I would like to go through unsolved mystery
00:11:01
original overview of the case and then we can dive into it in further detail starts off Circleville Ohio is a small
00:11:10
town south of Columbus it's a place that rarely attracts outside attention but in
00:11:16
the 70s frightening letters started to arrive the first letter was received by Mary gespi a school bus driver telling
00:11:26
her that the letter writer was aware that she was having an affair with the superintendent of schools and that it
00:11:32
had better stop in addition to allegations of an affair the letter carried an ominous threat it read in
00:11:39
part I know where you live I've been observing your house and I know you have children this is no joke please take it
00:11:46
serious the envelope was postmarked Columbus Ohio there was no return address no signature inside no way to
00:11:55
tell who sent it now a week later Mary received another letter with a similar tone Mary kept the letters to herself
00:12:05
though until her husband Ron also received one according to journalist Martin yant quote this letter addressed
00:12:13
to Ron gaspie told him that if he didn't do something to stop this affair that his life was undoubtedly in danger end
00:12:23
quote the alleged Affair became the talk of Circleville the mysterious writer understood the power of Gossip the next
00:12:32
letter was even more threatening it read in part quote Gillespie you have had two
00:12:38
weeks and done nothing make her admit the truth and inform the school board if not I will broadcast it on CBS posters
00:12:46
signs and billboards until the truth comes out so this one sounds to me Captain like it would be a letter again
00:12:55
addressed to Ron Gillespie he is the husband of the woman accused of having the affair with the superintendent in
00:13:03
this letter the writer is threatening hey I told you about this affair you've had two weeks to tell the school board
00:13:12
or to uh yeah to inform the school board and you've not done that if you don't do
00:13:19
something soon I'm going to broadcast this on CBS which back in the day more people had CBS than they have today not
00:13:27
just in their vehicles but some people kept them in their homes or their garages and would turn them on listen to
00:13:32
them and even talk on there people even had big musical hits like CW Mcall with Convoy that would discuss these CB
00:13:41
radios and the lingo and how to conduct yourself while on the CB Radio and such but this is also a threat right this is
00:13:50
hey if you don't do this I'm writing you to tell you about this affair you've been made aware you haven't done what
00:13:56
I've asked you I'm going to announce this on CB radios I'm going to put up these posters and signs everybody's
00:14:03
going to know the truth will come out well and here's what's kind of confusing to me you would think that the writer
00:14:11
would be mad at the superintendent or the wife for having an affair but it seems like he's targeting the guy that's
00:14:19
a victim in all this yes it's weird it's like I've wrote to your wife threatened
00:14:24
her she didn't do anything so now I'm writing to you and I'm giving you task right to complete now according to
00:14:32
Unsolved Mysteries Mary and Ron evidently told three people about the letters that they were receiving this
00:14:38
would be Ron's sister Linda fresh hour her husband Paul fresh hour and Paul's Sister Mary had an idea about who was
00:14:47
sending the letters and she had a plan according to Paul fresh hour Mary and Ron Gillespie's brother-in-law quote we
00:14:55
thought we'd scare the guy we sent him four or five letters there was no violence in them or anything just that
00:15:03
we knew who he was and what he was doing and we sent him the letters end quote for a while they say the plan worked the
00:15:14
threatening letters stopped but then on August 19th 1977 Ron received a phone call the call
00:15:23
seemed to confirm Ron's suspicions about the identity of the letter writer according to journalist Martin yant
00:15:32
quote he told his children he was going out to confront the letter writer he took his weapon he did not seem to be
00:15:38
drunk said goodbye to his children and went out now angry and upset Ron hurried to the family's red and white pickup
00:15:47
truck even though at one time the letter writer had said he was watching that vehicle according to Martin yant I we
00:15:56
should point out who Martin yant is since we keep referencing him from Unsolved Mysteries he worked in the
00:16:02
Greater Columbus area for decades he's a very good journalist and reporter and has done lots of great work over the
00:16:09
years here in our area so he's interviewed at length on Unsolved Mysteries and this is another quote from
00:16:16
him within a short distance this is in regards to Ron leaving that night within a short distance at an intersection that
00:16:23
Ron knew very well he lost control of the vehicle hit a tree and was killed somewhere between leaving the house and
00:16:30
hitting that tree his gun had fired one shot and there was never any explanation
00:16:36
for when or how or at whom that gun could have been fired the police ruled Ron Gillespie's
00:16:44
death in accident but several Circleville residents soon received Anonymous letters accusing the sheriff
00:16:50
of a coverup Ron Gillespie's brother-in-law Paul fresh hour said the sheriff had changed his story saying
00:16:57
that the sheriff agre agreed with him with Paul that there was Foul Play and then when Paul contacted the sheriff
00:17:05
again the sheriff changed his attitude completely then he was telling Paul that it wasn't Foul Play and that a suspect
00:17:13
had passed a polygraph test well wouldn't they know if he fired a gun that day or not would there be evidence
00:17:21
of that there would be if you test for that there also could be other ways of finding that that evidence so we don't
00:17:28
know if they tested for that or if they did test for that they're not telling us
00:17:32
from what I found Captain they didn't test for that I don't know if if GSR or gunpowder residue or whatever you want
00:17:39
to call it if that was available it was I talked to the source saying that would
00:17:44
have been available and my cuz my argument is if he fired the gun at at somebody and then he ran off the road
00:17:51
and hit this tree and died to me that that leans towards Foul Play If the gun was never shot and it was just found
00:17:59
within the car and he hit a tree okay you know possibly just an accident exactly you're exactly right there so
00:18:08
everyone at the time wanted to know and still to this day was Ron Gillespie's death an accident or was it Foul Play
00:18:17
and of course why had one bullet been fired from his handgun after Ron's death the letters kept coming his wife Mary
00:18:24
and the super his wife Mary and the superintendent of schools eventually admitted to a relationship but said it
00:18:31
began after the letters were sent Mary kept her job driving a school bus but beginning in 1983 the letter writer
00:18:40
began putting signs along her bus route so let's point out here though captain that the truck accident involving the
00:18:48
death of Ron Gillespie was 1977 now on the Unsolved Mysteries overview of this case we are at 1980 83
00:18:59
on the timeline the letters have continued for all of this time and at this point in 83 the letter writer began
00:19:06
putting signs along Mary Gillespie's bus route Mary's daughter was being targeted with some of
00:19:15
the slander and nasty things that were being put on these signs again according to Martin yant
00:19:22
Mary finally took action she ripped down a sign much to her surprise behind the sign was a box and string and also
00:19:30
another post that was attached to a fence post she took it into the bus and she opened it up and there was a small
00:19:38
pistol when she looked closer Mary realized that it was a crude booby trap designed to fire the gun at her or
00:19:47
whoever remove the sign investigators discovered that someone had tried to rub the serial number off of the gun but
00:19:56
when lab tests were able to read it accurately the case took an incredible turn the gun belonged to Mary's
00:20:04
brother-in-law Paul fresh hour of course Paul denied any involvement according to Paul quote I
00:20:11
admitted the gun was mine but I hadn't seen it for a long time I had no reason to check up on it or anything and I
00:20:18
don't know when it had come up missing I really don't know what happened to it and I told them that and that's the
00:20:25
truth and that's how it was end quote do you know if other people saw these signs on the road if there was
00:20:32
eyewitnesses to this or if it was just she had a car full of signs and and this booby trap um it sounds like there may
00:20:43
have been there's also an eyewitness to say that there was no trap setup or no sign that they saw 20 minutes to 30
00:20:52
minutes before it was supposedly found the other thing that's also not clear is if she was the only one on her bus at
00:20:58
the time that it was found but what ends up being the result Captain is on February 25th 1983 Sheriff
00:21:07
Dwight Radcliffe asked Paul fresh hour to take a handwriting test Paul agreed to this and says quote he would give me
00:21:17
an actual letter and ask me maybe to do the envelope part just as near as I could to the envelope and then on some
00:21:26
he would take the actual letter out and have me to do them as near as I could on
00:21:30
the letters and I did them because I knew I wasn't responsible for the letters and
00:21:36
quote Martin yant said that this is not the correct way to conduct handwriting analysis of course that's not the
00:21:44
correct way to conduct handwriting analysis Martin yank goes on to say that is not the proper way to test to see if
00:21:51
someone has a certain writing style because if they're copying from a letter they're going to try to emulate the
00:21:57
style so they didn't really say that these letters were written by Paul freshh hour they said that they could
00:22:05
have been written by Paul fresh hour the sheriff also searched Paul's Garage Paul
00:22:10
fresh hour was charged with attempted murder and Paul goes on to say he meaning the sheriff called the
00:22:18
prosecutor and told the prosecutor that it was my writing on the booby trap and I was under arrest for attempted murder
00:22:25
later that year in October of 1983 Paul fresh hour went on trial for the attempted murder of his sister-in-law
00:22:32
Mary Gillespie Paul fresh hour never took the stand in his own defense it was a decision he would come to regret Paul
00:22:41
was found guilty of attempted murder he said the verdict was completely unexpected Paul fresh hour was given the
00:22:48
maximum sentence for attempted murder 7 to 25 years everyone assumed that he had
00:22:55
written the Circleville letters and everyone fig figured that they would stop once Paul was in prison everyone
00:23:01
was wrong journalist Martin Yan quote they were being received all over a large area of Central Ohio so a lot of
00:23:09
people couldn't understand how Paul freshh hour could be mailing all these letters from prison following repeated
00:23:16
complaints from Sheriff Radcliffe the warden of the prison had Paul placed in solitary confinement but the letters
00:23:24
still continued all of them were postmarked from from Columbus even though Paul was imprisoned across the
00:23:31
state in Lima Martin yance said the warden became convinced that Paul was not writing the letters saying that a
00:23:38
full-scale investigation was conducted twice possibly three times during which Paul fresh hour was put into isolation
00:23:45
and the warden of the prison then wrote a letter saying that as far as he was concerned it was impossible for Paul to
00:23:52
be writing these letters and sending them from prison for S years Paul was a model prisoner but when he became
00:24:00
eligible for parole the parole board rejected his request based on the letter still being sent a few days after his
00:24:08
hearing Paul himself received a sadistic letter from The Phantom writer it read in part now when are you going to
00:24:16
believe you aren't going to get out of there I told you two years ago when we set them up they stay set up don't you
00:24:24
listen at all in May of 1994 Paul fresh show was finally granted parole after serving 10 years to this day he
00:24:32
maintains his innocence he's sure that the real criminal is still at large the Circleville letters finally stopped but
00:24:41
many questions remain who actually wrote the letters was Ron Gillespie's death an
00:24:48
accident or was he murdered and who made the booby trap found by Mary [Music] Gillespie
00:25:00
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[Music] Freedom all right we're back cheers mates he's back I'm back we're all back
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cheers to my friend Jerry Reeves he partied more than most of them but he was always the life of the party cheers
00:27:37
to you my friend you will be sadly missed we will pour a little out for you that was the rundown captain from
00:27:45
Unsolved Mysteries when they covered this case titled it the poison pen and it's one of people's favorites favorite
00:27:52
segments of the show and it had so many great segments to choose from over the years years now I didn't lay it out
00:27:59
there as well as uh Robert Stack would have or the wonderful people over at the program would have back in the day but
00:28:06
that was their General Overview at Unsolved Mysteries back then if you've only watched the current ones you're
00:28:13
unaware of this but back then they did segments you would tune in it was an hourong show they would cover often
00:28:20
cover a couple different cases and a lot of times the cases had nothing to do with one another that's why the show was
00:28:25
so great and so interesting if one case didn't catch your interest the next one would and sometimes they're
00:28:32
not just talking about True Crime they're talking about ghost or aliens or Bigfoot and one quote or I'm sorry one
00:28:41
post that I saw online that I thought was absolutely brilliant a guy that nailed it he said you know I used to
00:28:48
watch this show when I was a kid and the worst thing in the world was after you would watch Unsolved Mysteries I think
00:28:55
it aired at 8 or 9:00 at night night so it's not getting over till 9:00 or 10: depending on where you lived but he said
00:29:01
the worst thing in the world was to watch Unsolved Mysteries and at the end of the program being told by your
00:29:06
parents that you had to take the trash out to the street he said he was terrified every time that that would
00:29:13
happen well and to be honest with the audience you would have done a better job of the breakdown if our show paid
00:29:20
you more yes I I've been asking for more for more pay one of the best things and
00:29:25
I think you probably can agree with me by watching the old Unsolved Mysteries was towards the end of a episode you
00:29:32
might be watching about a case that you're so wrapped up into and fascinated and all a sudden change of music sound
00:29:39
of the alarms update and it would be an update on the case that they were just talking about because sometimes they had
00:29:47
re they sometimes they had recorded and filmed that segment months in advance and the case had moved along since their
00:29:55
production of that case which was always really exciting in this case because there's such a mystery of who was
00:30:03
writing these letters was it one individual was it a group of people but they cover the story almost 10 years
00:30:11
later and then they receive a letter themselves yes so they are covering the story after Paul fresh hour is released
00:30:21
from prison so many years after the fact and they're covering it because not only
00:30:26
is there this mystery writer that's out there but now we have the story of okay well this guy that everybody thought
00:30:33
that did it that tried to kill this woman that was writing all these letters he was locked up and he couldn't have
00:30:39
possibly have been writing these letters while he was locked up for practically 10
00:30:44
years so in December of 1993 Unsolved Mysteries received a postcard at their offices and the postcard was they call
00:30:56
it a postcard card but I'll describe it here in a minute it was as they say a threat designed to keep them from
00:31:02
telling the story of the Circleville wrer and what I'm a little curious about here Captain is the way that they word
00:31:11
that is that they must have done some of the production if not all of the production for this segment and then
00:31:21
received this threat VIA mail snail mail before actually airing it because it would be a little weird if
00:31:30
they hadn't even done any of the production yet how would this writer or whoever sent this postcard as they call
00:31:36
it even know that they were going to cover the story yeah my suspicion is that they had a crew go to Circleville
00:31:42
and being such a small town word would get out quickly oh by the way I mean and Unsolved Mysteries was a huge hugely
00:31:52
popular show Unsolved Mysteries down in our little town what are they talking talking about all they're asking about
00:31:58
the Circleville letters and at the very least they would have been in the Greater Columbus area because we know
00:32:04
that they recorded interviews with Martin yant and with Paul fresh hour as well MH so what they called a postcard I
00:32:12
don't know that that's the best description at least not the one that I would give it what it looks to me is
00:32:17
like somebody took almost like a 3x5 card and kind of cut the corners on it so it almost appears to look like like a
00:32:26
tag at a t sale an old school tag sale yeah and somebody wrote in small block letters all capitalized forget
00:32:33
Circleville Ohio do nothing to hurt Sheriff Radcliffe if you come to Ohio you El sios will pay signed the
00:32:43
Circleville riter yeah and all the letters that we do have I will try to post those on our
00:32:51
Instagram Facebook or Twitter and there's some people that might not be familiar with this case captain and
00:32:57
they're going what do you mean all the letters that you quote do have well they're depending on the
00:33:04
sources it's listed as high as 1,000 letters that were sent throughout the years and the thing is as great of
00:33:14
coverage as Unsolved Mysteries did on the case we need to open it up because their little segment sounds very
00:33:23
centralized makes the case very compact that we have these few people that were involved in this case that this writer
00:33:31
was writing letters to Mary Gillespie her husband and we also have the involvement
00:33:38
of their brother-in-law and Ron's sister we have the mention of the superintendent of the
00:33:45
schools where Mary worked for and it's all very centralized in pway County but this case expands years the letters
00:33:56
expand for years years and the letters were being sent to not just people in businesses in pickway County this
00:34:04
involves Franklin County Madison County Ross County and several cities uh throughout and I think we should dive
00:34:15
into that and the cities that you're going to hear the most will be Columbus which is the capital city here Grove
00:34:21
City and Circleville now Circleville Ohio is 25 mil south of col the capital of Ohio and in the mid 1970s to 1980 the
00:34:33
population in circle Ville is just under 11,700 people within that general area Captain we have Westfall School District
00:34:43
which operates one Elementary School one middle school and West Fall High School
00:34:48
the way that Unsolved Mysteries tells the story is that Mary Gillespie starts receiving these letters when in fact
00:34:55
there were earlier letters Mary Gillespie was not the first Target for the letters if you will yeah so some
00:35:03
of these people were receiving letters and there would be like little unknown facts about them but it'd be
00:35:10
normally bad stuff like I know you're doing this or I know you're doing that and so it's really you know like you
00:35:17
said maybe there's a thousand letters out there but some of these people that received letters never came forward
00:35:25
because they didn't want to share maybe this dark secret with everybody right if the letter writer is
00:35:33
warning you about a secret that you're keeping you don't want to present that to everybody and say hey look I received
00:35:38
this letter so the first letters you know it's very quickly in the series that Mary Gillespie is sent a letter but
00:35:47
however the first letter is sent to Gordon Massie so who is Gordon Massie Gordon Massie is Mary Gillespie's boss
00:35:56
she drives a school bus for westall and he is the superintendent of Westfall School District he's the first one to
00:36:06
receive a letter this letter was addressed to Westfall High School attention superintendent Massi no return
00:36:14
address and it says Dear Sir according to my girlfriend you have asked her to go out many times and have asked the
00:36:22
other female bus drivers too due to your position and their job jobs with you you
00:36:27
should not do this this must stop at once for the good of the school and families if they are not stopped I will
00:36:35
be forced to write to the school board I'd hate to do that to pray on another man's girl is Untouchable especially
00:36:42
when they're out there trying to make a living there's also talk of you dating a
00:36:47
married woman and taking advantage of them do you need time and names again please think I suggest you find yourself
00:36:54
a pimple-faced [ __ ] and start up with her and leave my girls alone so that's the real version of the letter we
00:37:02
mentioned that in the trailer earlier but kind of generalized it so we could tell this story later superintendent
00:37:09
Massie receives this again it's not addressed to to anybody other than him and at the Westfall High School there is
00:37:18
no return address however we know that it's postmarked from Columbus Ohio 25 miles up the road and it came from the
00:37:28
postal Hub 430 which at the time in 1977 was the only postal Hub in the city of Columbus
00:37:37
meaning you could mail that letter from anywhere in the big city of Columbus and
00:37:42
it's going to have to go through that Hub so all we can say is we know that that letter was
00:37:49
mailed somewhere in the city of Columbus right but it could have been Southside North Side East Side West Side we have
00:37:55
no clue correct now think about what the threat is and what's stated in this letter to Gordon Massie it says hey
00:38:03
you're hitting on these female bus drivers you're taking advantage of them these are people that are out trying to
00:38:09
work for a living you're taking advantage of your position it also mentions that there is even talk of you
00:38:16
having a relationship with a married woman it doesn't necessarily name anybody there but we can assume by later
00:38:26
letters maybe they are referring to Mary Gillespie and it also says this is one thing that I think is weird it it it
00:38:33
says well there's two things that I think are very weird about this letter right one it says hey if you don't put
00:38:39
this to an end if you don't stop what you're doing I will be forced to write to the school board and I'd hate to do
00:38:47
that it's like it's right it's like the writer is giving him a warning hey I know you're up to no good but if you
00:38:53
stop what you're doing nobody has to know about it we'll we'll just let it be but then he ends the letter I say he we
00:39:00
don't know if it's a she or he that wrote this letter but the person ends the letter with leave my girls
00:39:08
alone almost like they're referring to the female bus drivers as their girls I was popular with the school bus driver
00:39:15
the tricky thing here Captain is the second letter goes to the school board it's addressed to the school board
00:39:24
remember the writer threatened to tell the Board of Education down there what was going on however this letter is
00:39:31
received two days later meaning the writer threw out the threat and told Massie to stop doing whatever the writer
00:39:40
thought he was doing MH but did not give him time to really stop or address the situation oh the writer's a dick if you
00:39:48
if you don't stop I'm going to tell on you but boom two days later a letter arrives that is in fact telling on him
00:39:53
to the school board and it's not until after both Massie and the school board have been
00:40:00
contacted several times via these letters that Mary gesy starts to receive the letters and then when she's keeping
00:40:07
them to herself eventually Ron Gillespie starts to receive them the weird thing too here that we
00:40:15
see early on in these letters is it this is where it is centralized it centralized around West Fall High
00:40:23
School Gordon Massie the superintendent and the female bus drivers that's the world that this
00:40:31
writer is writing about and the person whoever is writing this or persons seems to have some good working
00:40:39
knowledge of the behindth scenes stuff for the bus drivers in the school system right and we know this because in the
00:40:49
fifth letter that is written and this one is addressed to the school board it's telling the Schoolboard hey you
00:40:58
need to talk to Gordon Massie tell him to stop doing what he's doing and if you want to verify what I'm saying is true
00:41:05
talk to the drivers talk to the female bus drivers ask driver number this is very
00:41:12
interesting this one's received March 18th 1977 it says ask driver number 62917 my favorite driver well driver
00:41:21
number 62917 is Mary Gillespie right I don't think that John Q public walking down the
00:41:31
street somewhere in Circleville will know that Mary Gillespie is driver number 62917 that seems like a very behindth
00:41:40
scenes piece of information yeah it's tough one here because we don't know exactly who he
00:41:49
wrote to before but like you said it becomes Mary Gillespie almost becomes his singular Focus for a time period
00:41:58
yeah with gourd Massie being the original receiver of the letters and then the board members and you're right
00:42:05
I technically we don't know for certain only the writer themselves would know when they actually started but the
00:42:11
general consensus seems to be that superintendent Gordon Massie was the first to receive a letter right or at
00:42:17
least publicly acknowledged that this was the first letter to be sent well look if I was sent a letter in the mail
00:42:25
like this a threatening Love Letter anyone's going to sit back and go who is doing this who's doing this who would I
00:42:34
know that is capable of writing a letter or or who maybe am I pissing off by being involved in the
00:42:43
situation and that's the other tricky thing too being involved in the situation implies that you are doing
00:42:50
what the writer thinks you are doing and what the writer is saying is basically I
00:42:55
mean without putting the exact words on paper it's a threat of oh I'm going to go to your boss and anyone would think
00:43:02
that hey this inappropriate relationship if in fact it is going on would warrant firing the
00:43:09
superintendent firing the bus driver for their Mis dealings for their flicky flicky the other thing that gets
00:43:17
tricky too is it's a threat in the sense that even if nothing is going on don't you still worry as an employee go well I
00:43:26
it's hard for me to prove something is not going on they may fire me anyway yeah or what
00:43:34
are the repercussions of her husband finding out is is he considered a hot head and he is he going to you know take
00:43:42
matters into his own hands kill the superintendent kill his wife we've seen people do worse for less and as we said
00:43:52
the writer eventually addresses Ron Gillespie saying hey you've got to end this affair because I've already told
00:44:00
Massie about it I've already told your wife about it they're not going to stop you need to be the one to stop it and
00:44:06
threatens which you pointed out earlier Captain is bizarre to threaten Ron Gillespie who if in
00:44:13
fact this stuff is happening he is a victim as well yeah and you would think that the writer feels slided by this
00:44:21
situation if in fact it's going on it it appears that the writer believes it to be going on whether it is or not that is
00:44:28
Up For Debate but what we are later told is that the Gillespies tell the people that are closest to them about these
00:44:38
letters hey we're receiving these weird letters and they tell Ron's sister Karen
00:44:45
and her husband Paul fresh hour they're Incredibly Close with these two Paul says that him and Ron are best
00:44:53
friends and they they devised this plan of well you know what we think we know who's doing this again very centralized
00:45:02
right Captain it's all behind the scenes involving the school the school system and the bus drivers yeah Mary Gillespie
00:45:09
is going to tell that group I think that this guy David longberry could be the author of these letters that was my
00:45:16
nickname in high school so they devised this plan of you know what we're going to write these letters back to David
00:45:22
longberry and essentially they're sending him the letters similar type letters that they are receiving this
00:45:30
says hey we know who you are we know what you're doing you better stop it or you will be thrat right what was the
00:45:34
circle Ville writer saying I know what you're doing you better stop it who is David longberry he's a bus driver he's a
00:45:42
co-worker of Mary Gillespies he's also an employee of gour Massie this is an individual that may know that should
00:45:50
know if he's good at his job the inner workings and the behind the-scenes stuff over there
00:45:57
so they say that they sent him a few letters and the letters they're getting stop briefly but then they start back up
00:46:04
again like we stated before Circleville is a very small community so just by the
00:46:10
gpies telling a couple people a small fire can spread rapidly but there's other letters that are being sent to
00:46:19
other individuals and businesses and what's interesting here Captain is it starts to become somewhat general
00:46:27
information within Circleville that these letters are being sent and received and I think part of that is
00:46:34
because either what the writer is accusing these people of is false or the people receiving them don't really care
00:46:44
in the long run that the information gets out so it kind of becomes general information that they're receiving these
00:46:50
strange letters and remember the threats of Hey Ron if you don't do something about this I'm going to start
00:46:56
broadcasting this business on CB Radio and putting up posters everywhere and signs telling the general public airing
00:47:04
our Grievances and your dirty laundry along the way about what is going on what's truly going on it's like question
00:47:12
his manhood because if it's true that his wife is cheating on him that questions his manhood but that now you
00:47:20
have this letter writer saying hey I'm questioning your manhood that you're that you won't even come out and do
00:47:27
something about this you won't even stop it that shows you how little of a man you are yeah I guess if the if the
00:47:34
writer is the the end all be all of what is right and wrong at the end of the day
00:47:40
then they've decided what is wrong and right and drawn the Line in the Sand and Ron's on the wrong side according to the
00:47:49
writer so what goes on at this point captain now we are about Midway through 1977 someone is in fact putting up these
00:47:59
signs or at least has threatened Ron and Mary to the point that they believe that
00:48:04
they would put up these signs so Ron is getting up every day a little bit earlier than he needs to and
00:48:12
on his way to work he's driving around town for about an hour looking for any signs that may be put up MH sometimes
00:48:20
there's signs most of the time there's not but when he finds them he takes them and he collects yeah well especially in
00:48:27
the 70s cuz I used to teach in Circleville but obviously not in the 70s but back then to get around the
00:48:36
whole town maybe 20 minutes and you can go through pretty much every Major Street in Circleville yes and this to to
00:48:46
paint a picture for anybody that's going to look this up on a map to paint a better picture is the case is often
00:48:53
referred to as the Circleville writer again notice that we said that this is going to expand in other into other
00:48:59
counties not just Pickaway County but we're also talking about the majority of the activity that seems to be surrounded
00:49:08
this case is Circleville all the way out to darbyville which is to the west of Circleville but some sources will say
00:49:17
that there were some letters that were very similar to the circle Ville letters that were sent to other states so I
00:49:26
don't know I couldn't find any confirmation of that but I saw several sources that would State oh well there
00:49:32
was letters that were addressed to people in other states so by August of 77 we have a
00:49:39
situation that's escalated and Ron Gillespie is busy looking for signs the Gillespies are trying to figure out who
00:49:46
the letter writer could be well now we have Mary Gillespie who goes to Florida and this would be in in
00:49:55
August of 1977 and she's down there on the night of August 19th her husband Ron gpie is
00:50:04
at home he's at their home where they've received these letters the way that the
00:50:09
legend goes the local Legend the story is that he is there that night and late that night after the sun goes down he
00:50:17
receives a phone call it's believed that the phone call is from the letter writer
00:50:23
and Ron is able to Det Herman or at least his suspicions that he already had are confirmed by the phone call of who
00:50:31
the letter writer is he decides that he's going to go out and confront the writer he goes upstairs grabs his gun
00:50:42
tells his children goodbye hops in the truck and drives off in a mad tear looking for this letter writer the local
00:50:51
Legend is one of several different stories but a couple of them are either Ron was chasing someone at a high rate
00:51:00
of speed or he was being run off the road or he was being shot at and he was shooting at the at someone else the
00:51:11
result is him crashing his truck into a tree and he's dead at the scene well for
00:51:18
people who haven't maybe seen the old Unsolved Mysteries this reminds me of the ray r case where in the newer
00:51:28
seasons of Unsolved Mysteries where he receives this mysterious phone call and leaves right away in a
00:51:36
rage and again Circleville is a small area so if the guy told him well meet me over at this park or meet me over you
00:51:45
know you know behind this bar or what wherever you could get there within 15 20 minutes no problem and we don't know
00:51:54
who the phone call call was from we don't know what was said on the phone call we don't know 100% in my opinion if
00:52:01
the phone call even took place right but let's say that it did stuff of Legend the caller doesn't even have to say hey
00:52:08
meet me here according to the legend Ron is able to determine who the writer is based off of that phone call maybe he
00:52:16
recognized The Voice or as you pointed out Captain maybe a Meetup is set up or maybe there's something in the words
00:52:23
that were spoken that can confirmed his earlier suspicions Liam n and he's going
00:52:28
to go out and confront this writer I will find you and then I will kill you well he crashes his truck into a tree
00:52:35
and unfortunately Ron Gillespie died that night and it is determined by the sheriff's department Pickaway County
00:52:43
Sheriff's Department that this was a vehicular accident resulting in the death of Ron Gillespie at the scene
00:52:53
inside his truck they find Ron Gillespie's gun a revolver which goes along with the story that we've been
00:53:00
told per local legend by the children that he grabbed his gun and ran off and there has been one shot that was fired
00:53:07
you heard the Unsolved Mysteries description of the shot fired the other local Legend and rumor
00:53:16
was that his wife was conveniently out of town may have been having this affair leading up to this event frisky
00:53:23
in Florida and that she is somehow responsible for what was an actual murder or somebody that kind of set up
00:53:31
this accident ranom off the road was firing at his truck we know with his revolver that there was a spent shell
00:53:39
casing and eight live rounds found in the revolver meaning that at some point that
00:53:46
gun was fired and it shot that bullet right this is what everybody at the time would point out to say well he fired at
00:53:55
somebody that means that there was Foul Play later the letter writer then accuses the Pickaway County Sheriff's
00:54:04
Office of covering it up claiming it was an accident when in fact that it was an
00:54:10
all it was all set up it was set up for Ron to die that night or something bad to happen to Ron that night why would
00:54:18
the police or the sheriff want anything bad to happen to this guy not that they would want something bad to happen to
00:54:26
him but some of the rumor was that they were covering it up for either Mary Gillespie or for Gordon
00:54:33
Massie or for both or maybe somebody that's not named doesn't really make sense let's dive into that a little bit
00:54:41
because there's a lot to chew through in this situation because the way that that
00:54:47
picture has been painted for many years is in fact that it was either covered up
00:54:52
or they just the sheriff's department got it wrong and Ron was killed or harm was meant to
00:54:57
be done to him that night you know like I said before if he fires a shot I lean more towards Foul Play but now that
00:55:05
we're talking about it just seems very suspicious anyways and if he had a really bad traffic history maybe that
00:55:13
people would brought that up as a proof that that that this was just an accident
00:55:20
the whole thing just seems so fishy either way everything about it seems fishy from all angles in my opinion the whole
00:55:29
Circleville Rider thing is fishy at all angles as well so let's look at this one
00:55:35
from all angles first off they run a toxicology report on the deceased on Ron gaspie they find that he has a
00:55:48
.6% alcohol level currently in the state of Ohio the Ohio legal blood alcohol content level level is below
00:55:56
8 so anyone over the age of 21 or anyone of any age with a BAC of 0.08 or higher
00:56:06
can be charged with operating a vehicle impaired or OVI so by the state law he's drunk driving right this is
00:56:18
general information this comes out to the public at the time well friends and family of Ron Gillespie say well he
00:56:24
wasn't a big Drinker I don't know that that answers the question of whether he was drinking that night or not right
00:56:32
like you said the report proves that he was drunk the other thing that doesn't make any sense is the story that we get
00:56:39
all these years later and I want to be clear here I'm not accusing his children of making up a story or misremembering
00:56:47
or anything we are hearing this story second third fourth fifth hand who knows how many hands we're at out at this
00:56:53
point I wish they'd wash them but at at this point Captain the story that we are
00:56:58
left with is he receives this mysterious phone call he tells his children I know
00:57:01
who the letter writer is runs upstairs grabs his gun runs out to his truck and speeds off into the night now when Ron
00:57:09
Gillespie was found crashed into that tree it was 10:28 p.m. today is 2021 if I have my year
00:57:19
correct to this day the area where he crashed his truck is not well lit there's hardly any lights if any in the
00:57:29
very in that very specific area a lot of people say hey this is not an area that
00:57:35
this is an area that he knew well that he would have traveled many times he wouldn't have crashed his truck that
00:57:40
night but you're saying that people are saying he didn't drink often and so maybe he wouldn't be able to handle his
00:57:47
liquor as well as or handle the alcohol level as well as somebody else that was a daily Drinker or weekly drinker so to
00:57:54
to address the elephant in the room first off you have a situation where stole my penis Ron Gillespie may or may
00:58:01
not believe the letters he's receiving that his wife is having an affair and his wife is down in Florida out of town
00:58:07
out of state that night okay so let's assume he doesn't believe the letters his wife should be free to go and do
00:58:15
whatever she wants she should be free to go and do whatever she wants anyway but
00:58:18
couldn't you see a situation if he does believe the letters that he says I don't
00:58:22
feel comfortable with you going out of state I don't feel comfortable with you going out of town now let's take it a
00:58:28
step further by this point he and his wife have been told in several letters that the letter writer is watching their
00:58:35
vehicles their house their property they have a fairly big property by the way and their children some of the threats
00:58:42
have even been directed to their daughter who depending on what source you read at this point in our story that
00:58:49
night that Ron died would have been seven or eight years old I cannot not fathom a situation where I would be the
00:58:58
father of a small child and be receiving threats to my family where I decide one night I know
00:59:08
who's making those threats I'm going to go off and get them and leave you two kids here that's why I question the
00:59:15
phone call and what Ron's actual actions and intent was that evening right well it could have been somebody calling
00:59:23
saying hey hey you know how your wife said she was in Florida I think I just saw her in a car with some guy or I
00:59:31
think I just saw her walk into some bar with a guy it could have been anything you know what I mean and then it was
00:59:37
like oh well I'm going to catch her now the other situation then becomes the spent round we've kind of been circling
00:59:44
around that the police couldn't figure out if he shot the gun that night or not so a lot of the times when this story is
00:59:52
retold it's told to say that between the time he left his home and crashed his truck into that tree he fired that gun
01:00:00
well it's a revolver that spent casing stays in there until you physically remove it he could have fired that shot
01:00:08
between leaving his house and crashing into the tree he could have fired it the day before a week before a year before
01:00:15
we do not know when that gun was fired to leave behind that spent casing what we do know is inside the Revolver They a
01:00:24
spent casing in eight live rounds what they also find in the truck now the tricky thing is the gun is found as
01:00:33
described in the police report from the accident mind you this is a lengthy police report probably about 10 pages
01:00:41
roughly it says that the that the gun was found underneath of him this crash was horrible his truck what happened
01:00:51
Captain is the road turned and for for whatever reason his truck did not follow that turn in the road it started to go
01:00:59
off the road and it traveled 36 ft from the road crashed into the tree and continued another 7 ft but it wasn't
01:01:09
just the gun that they found inside the vehicle mind you it almost threw Ron completely from the truck out the window
01:01:19
he's halfway out the window when they find him yeah he had no seat belt on so to say that the gun was found under him
01:01:27
really is a Loosey Goosey description of where the gun was actually found in my opinion considering he's halfway out the
01:01:34
truck but also found in the in the truck Captain is a full box of 22 caliber Winchester Western Wildcat ammo right
01:01:43
which is not included in the local Legend not included in the story from the children that we've heard second
01:01:49
third 50th hand all these years later they say he ran upstairs and grabbed his gun no mention of grabbing a box of
01:01:57
ammunition my other question then becomes if he did grab both why how many times did he intend to shoot this person
01:02:06
he has nine bullets in his gun I wonder if he kept the gun in the truck and it was found at the scene of
01:02:16
his death at the scene of this vehicle accident because that's where it should have been found because that's where he
01:02:21
kept it one the bullets could have been kept in the truck as well exactly think of this it's 1977 in the glove box
01:02:29
underneath your seat and also this is you know this is a a city yes but it's it's a rural community this it's
01:02:39
1977 you own a pickup truck yeah doesn't it seem a little Pi a pick them up truck
01:02:45
I would love to go back in time and interview guys that lived in the area especially guys that are around Ron's
01:02:51
age and ask them hey do you keep a gun in your truck mhm I'm guessing that the percentage would be higher than most
01:02:58
people would think I'd say is that a gun in your truck are you just happy to see
01:03:02
me both yeah I'm happy that I brought my gun and that I saw you that brings up another
01:03:09
thought could he have lost control see this is all that it means it doesn't mean that he crashed into this truck
01:03:16
tree or somebody ran him into this tree he very quickly could have lost control of this truck as soon as he went off the
01:03:23
road if he's drunk if he's traveling at a high rate of speed in a an area that's not well lit
01:03:33
it's very conceivable that he lost control of the vehicle and this is just sadly an accident a fatal accident then
01:03:42
people point out well the truck was towed immediately and destroyed shortly afterwards and that is more point of a
01:03:50
cover up that there were bullet holes in his truck and nobody wanted want that to
01:03:54
be seen well maybe they just didn't want this scene to be seen by the public in general well it's signed off by his wife
01:04:04
Mary Gillespie it's her property at this point you know the other thing too is the truck
01:04:10
was total there's no use for the truck at this point and your loved one just died
01:04:16
in the vehicle doesn't seem like something you would really want to keep a hold of or have much use for right
01:04:25
so here's the other problem with it being a coverup if Sheriff Radcliffe got it wrong
01:04:31
or the Pickaway County Sheriff's Department decided to cover it up first off there were multiple
01:04:40
agencies involved in this situation and analyzing and determining what they believed happened that night first of
01:04:48
all you have the coroner who has to sign off on the Fatal injuries the coroner decided not to do
01:04:56
an autopsy it was not necessary unfortunately the deceased arrived at burer hospital and he had already passed
01:05:04
by this point well also at this point um some of the sources say that this guy wouldn't have done the autopsy anyways
01:05:12
they normally took murder cases and things of that nature and actually sent them to Columbus where they had more
01:05:20
experience well and we have a situation too where this is not just Sheriff Radcliffe showing up and determining
01:05:27
that it's an accident we have detective Phil Brown who arrives on the scene he's actually
01:05:34
the lead at this accident scene so now we have to have two people covered up and of course Phil Brown works for
01:05:40
Radcliffe so that's not too hard to believe but where did Pickaway County Sheriff's Department get the call from
01:05:48
they got the call from Mount Sterling Police Department okay so now Mount Sterling has to be in on it oh oh and by
01:05:54
the way they were curious about the gun and they were curious about the spent casing as
01:06:00
well so they sent the gun and the ammo off to BCI Bureau of Criminal Identification and investigation here in
01:06:09
Ohio in London Ohio a much bigger more capable agency than the Pickaway sheriff's department at that time still
01:06:17
to this day so BCI has to be involved in the coverup usually when people decide to
01:06:25
cover things up Captain I'm not one that covers things up myself so I don't know
01:06:29
this from experience but I'm guessing that when you choose to cover something up you like to keep most of that stuff
01:06:35
inh house you don't send it off to this big fancy agency who can figure out what's going on MH they sent it off for
01:06:43
all the right reasons they sent it off because they wanted to ask BCI can you tell us anything about this gun did it
01:06:50
belong to the deceased that we found and and is there any reason that we should think that this that this spent casing
01:07:00
was involved in any other incident they look for information this goes on for months and determine very quickly that
01:07:07
no this this spent casing is not related to any other incident that we can find so I like local Legend as much as the
01:07:15
next guy I like the folklore as much as anybody else but the evidence here Stacks up that this is is in fact an
01:07:25
accident sometimes a cigar is just a smoke sometimes things are what they appear to
01:07:34
[Music] be what are your thoughts so far we want to hear them go to True Crim garage.com and leave your comments on
01:07:46
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