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[Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening i'm your host nick and with me as always is a man that would like to point out
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that your neighbors are not the folks that they appear to be here is the captain it's good to be seen
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and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music]
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this week we are more than excited to be featuring don't worry my mom said it's cool by our friends at
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hoof hearted brewing in morango ohio this is a bourbon barrel aged imperial birthday cake stout brewed with
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astronaut ice cream abv 12 percent that's right my mom said it's cool cool enough to earn
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four and a half bottle caps out of five and you know who else is cool our friends right here first up a cheers
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to jessica on long island and a big shout out to krista in huntington beach california
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next up we have a shout out to carolyn in toronto and a big we like your trip to kell in
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zuccaine pennsylvania next up here we go with the cheers to veronica in minneapolis minnesota and
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last but certainly not least we have a cheers and a big ron swanson please and thank
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you that goes out to jennifer in atlanta georgia everyone we just mentioned they helped us fill up the fridge for
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this week's case here in the garage yeah double r u n beer run go to our website
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truecrabgarage.com sign up on our mailing list if you want discounts on the store page also if you need more
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really goes a long way to support the show and that's enough of the business that's right captain sign up on that
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mailing list if you want us to love you right back all right kiddos gather round
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grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
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i want everyone to stop for a second think about the life you have worked so hard to build
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and the relationships you have created and maintained think about your job sure some days it's
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a real drag but most of the time you don't know what you or more importantly your family
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would do without that job and career what if that paycheck stopped coming in how quickly would those bills start
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piling up how quickly would you be at risk of losing it all everything what would you do
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would your family turn their backs on you and say you did this to yourself or would they
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stand by you and support but even if they did would you be able to face them now i want all of our male listeners
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to stop and think about their situation and this will hit even harder for the husbands and fathers in that group
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picture this you are at work and you receive the following letter it is addressed to you by name at your
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workplace the letter has no return address but you can tell from the postmark it
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was mailed from a nearby city it reads dear sir according to my girlfriend you have asked her to go out many times
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and have asked the other female co-workers too due to your position in their jobs you
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should not do this this must stop at once for the good of all involved if this does not stop
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i will be forced to write to the board members and i'd hate to do that to prey on another man's girl is
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untouchable especially when they are out trying to make a living there's also talk of you dating a
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married woman and taking advantage of them do you need time and names again please think i suggest you find yourself
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a pimple-faced [ __ ] and start up with her and leave my girls alone now to all the ladies listening who
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share all of the same concerns as the men picture this you are at home after a long day at work
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you walk out to your mailbox to retrieve the daily mail you pull the short stack from the box
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and see the usual catalog advertisement the electric bill and then what is this on the bottom of
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the stack it's a letter addressed to you with no return address but you can tell from the postmark it
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was mailed from the busy city not too far up the highway from your town you opened the envelope
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it is a handwritten letter that reads stay away from your boss don't lie when asked about knowing him i
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know where you live i have been observing your house and i know that you have children this
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is no joke please take it serious everyone concerned has been notified and everything will be
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over soon now regardless of which camp you fall into receiving such an ominous letter and
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from an anonymous source no doubt would be of concern to any of us even the most honest and innocent of us
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would want to know why they received the letter and why the threatening pen pal refused to sign a name
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or leave a return address even if you could just brush it off what do you do when you receive another
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letter and then one after that and regardless if the implied or otherwise allegations
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are true or false most of us have a secret some more than one or two would you want to be outed at work would
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you want your secrets brought into the light and again even if the allegations are
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false you will wonder why me why did i receive these letters why did i receive this threat and how
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can i stop something that is not happening and then it occurs to you maybe i'm not
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the only person who's received such letters and if i'm not the only one who else what do the other letters say
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and is it about me and more importantly why does the writer know where i work in
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my job title why does the writer know where i live and why is the writer watching me and my
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children this is true crime garage [Music] would it be an understatement captain to
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say that unsolved mysteries is one of most true crime buffs favorite shows of all time
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yeah and if you don't know you better ask somebody ask somebody just some random person you
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better call tyrone in season 7 episode 6 of unsolved mysteries this is back in the robert stack days the
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good old days as they say unsolved mysteries ran a segment titled poison pen which nowadays most people refer to that
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case that they were talking about under several different names and these would be the circleville
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writer or the circleville letters or the letter writer it has many names when you start to
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dive into this case and i have seen online many people saying that this is one of the masses
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favorite unsolved mysteries episodes of all time which makes sense it's a very intriguing
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mystery right here in our own home state of ohio and i remember seeing this episode when
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i was a kid and who doesn't like a mystery where there's letters involved that's correct everybody likes a mystery
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with letters involved now because this is such a complicated case in my humble kernel opinion it has a lot of
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moving parts and pieces i would like to go through unsolved mysteries original overview of the case and then we can
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dive into it in further detail starts off circleville ohio is a small town south
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of columbus it's a place that rarely attracts outside attention but in the 70s frightening letters
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started to arrive the first letter was received by mary gillespie a school bus driver telling her that the
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letter writer was aware that she was having an affair with the superintendent of schools and
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that it had better stop in addition to allegations of an affair the letter carried an ominous threat
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it read in part i know where you live i've been observing your house and i know you have children
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this is no joke please take it serious the envelope was postmarked columbus ohio
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there was no return address no signature inside no way to tell who sent it now a week later mary received another
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letter with a similar tone mary kept the letters to herself though until her husband ron
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also received one according to journalist martin yant quote this letter addressed to ron
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gillespie told him that if he didn't do something to stop this affair that his life was undoubtedly in danger
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end quote the alleged affair became the talk of circleville the mysterious writer
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understood the power of gossip the next letter was even more threatening it read in part quote gillespie
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you have had two weeks and done nothing make her admit the truth and inform the school board
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if not i will broadcast it on cbs posters signs and billboards until the truth comes out
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so this one sounds to me captain like it would be a letter again addressed to ron gillespie
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he is the husband of the woman accused of having the affair with the superintendent
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in this letter the writer is threatening hey i told you about this affair you've
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had two weeks to tell the school board or to yeah to inform the school board and
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you've not done that if you don't do something soon i'm gonna broadcast this on cbs which
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back in the day more people had seabees than they have today not just in their vehicles but some
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people kept them in their homes or their garages and would turn them on listen to them and
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even talk on there people even had big musical hits like cw mccall with convoy they would discuss
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these cb radios and the lingo and how to conduct yourself while on the cb radio and such
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but this is also a threat right this is hey if you don't do this i'm writing you to tell you about this
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affair you've been made aware you haven't done what i've asked you i'm going to announce this on cb radios
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i'm going to put up these posters and signs everybody's going to know the truth will
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come out well and here's what's kind of confusing to me you would think that the writer would be mad at the
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superintendent or the wife for having an affair but it seems like he's targeting
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the guy that's a victim in all this yes it's weird it's like i've wrote to your wife threatened her
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she didn't do anything so now i'm writing to you and i'm giving you task right to
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complete now according to unsolved mysteries mary and ron evidently told three people
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about the letters that they were receiving this would be ron's sister linda freshower
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her husband paul freshhour and paul's sister mary had an idea about who was sending
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the letters and she had a plan according to paul freshhour mary and ron gillespie's brother-in-law
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quote we thought we'd scare the guy we sent him four or five letters there was no violence in them or anything
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just that we knew who he was and what he was doing and we sent him the letters and quote
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for a while they say the plan worked the threatening letters stopped but then on august 19 1977
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ron received a phone call the call seemed to confirm ron's suspicions about the identity
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of the letter writer according to journalist martin yant quote he told his children he was going
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out to confront the letter writer he took his weapon he did not seem to be drunk said goodbye
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to his children and went out now angry and upset ron hurried to the family's red and white pickup truck
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even though at one time the letter writer had said he was watching that vehicle according to martin yam we should point
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out who martin yan is since we keep referencing him from unsolved mysteries he worked in the greater columbus area
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for decades he's a very good journalist and reporter and has done lots of great work over the years
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here in our area so he's interviewed at length on unsolved mysteries and this is
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another quote from him within a short distance this is in regards to ron leaving that night within a short
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distance at an intersection that ron knew very well he lost control of the vehicle
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hit a tree and was killed somewhere between leaving the house and hitting that tree
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his gun had fired one shot and there was never any explanation for when or how or at
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whom that gun could have been fired the police ruled ron gillespie's death an accident
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but several circleville residents soon received anonymous letters accusing the sheriff of a cover-up ron
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gillespie's brother-in-law paul freshauer said the sheriff had changed his story
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saying that the sheriff agreed with him with paul that there was foul play and then when paul contacted the sheriff
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again the sheriff changed his attitude completely then he was telling paul that it wasn't foul play and that a
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suspect had passed a polygraph test well wouldn't they know if he fired a gun that day or not
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would there be evidence of that there would be if you test for that there also could be other ways of
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finding that that evidence so we don't know if they tested for that or if they did test for that they're not
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thomas from what i found captain they didn't test for that i don't know if if uh gsr or gunpowder residue or
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whatever you want to call it if that was available it was i talked to the source saying
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that would have been available and my because my argument is if he fired the gun at somebody
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and then he ran off the road and hit this tree and died to me that that leans towards foul play
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if the gun was never shot and it was just found within the car and he hit a tree okay you know possibly
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just an accident exactly you're exactly right there so everyone at the time wanted to know
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and still to this day was ron gillespie's death an accident or was it foul play and of course why had one bullet been
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fired from his handgun after ron's death the letters kept coming his wife mary and the super
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his wife mary and the superintendent of schools eventually admitted to a relationship
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but said it began after the letters were sent mary kept her job driving a school bus
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but beginning in 1983 the letter writer began putting signs along her bus route so
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let's point out here though captain that the truck accident involving the death of
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ron gillespie was 1977. now on the unsolved mysteries overview of this case we are at 1983 on the timeline
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the letters have continued for all of this time and at this point in 83 the letter
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writer began putting signs along mary gillespie's bus route mary's daughter was being targeted
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with some of the slander and nasty things that were being put on these signs again according to martin yant mary
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finally took action she ripped down a sign much to her surprise behind the sign was
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a box and string and also another post that was attached to a fence post she took it into the bus and she opened
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it up and there was a small pistol when she looked closer mary realized that it was a crude booby trap
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designed to fire the gun at her or whoever remove the sign investigators discovered that
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someone had tried to rub the serial number off of the gun but when lab tests were able to read it
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accurately the case took an incredible turn the gun belonged to mary's brother-in-law
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paul freshhour of course paul denied any involvement according to paul i admitted the gun was mine but i hadn't
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seen it for a long time i had no reason to check up on it or anything and i don't know
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when it had come up missing i really don't know what happened to it and i told them that and that's the
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truth and that's how it was end quote do you know if other people saw these signs on the road if there was
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eyewitnesses to this or if it was just she had a car full of signs and and this booby
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trap um it sounds like there may have been there's also an eyewitness to say that there was
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no trap setup or no sign that they saw 20 minutes to 30 minutes before it was supposedly found
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the other thing that's also not clear is if she was the only one on her bus at the time that it was found
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but what ends up being the result captain is on february 25th 1983 sheriff dwight radcliffe asked paul
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freshhour to take a handwriting test paul agreed to this and says quote he would give me an
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actual letter and ask me maybe to do the envelope part just as near as i could to the envelope and then on
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some he would take the actual letter out and have me to do them as near as i could on
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the letters and i did them because i knew i wasn't responsible for the letters end quote martin yant
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said that this is not the correct way to conduct handwriting analysis of course that's not the correct way to
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conduct handwriting analysis martin yan goes on to say that is not the proper way to test to see if someone
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has a certain writing style because if they're copying from a letter they're going to try to
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emulate the style so they didn't really say that these letters were written by paul freshhauer
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they said that they could have been written by paul freshhour the sheriff also searched paul's garage
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paul freshhour was charged with attempted murder and paul goes on to say he meaning the sheriff called the
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prosecutor and told the prosecutor that it was my riding on the booby trap and i was under
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arrest for attempted murder later that year in october of 1983 paul fresh hour went on trial for the
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attempted murder of his sister-in-law mary gillespie paul freshauer never took the stand
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in his own defense it was a decision he would come to regret paul was found guilty of attempted
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murder he said the verdict was completely unexpected paul freshauer was given the maximum
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sentence for attempted murder 7 to 25 years everyone assumed that he had written the
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circleville letters and everyone figured that they would stop once paul was in prison
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everyone was wrong journalist martin yan quote they were being received all over
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a large area of central ohio so a lot of people couldn't understand how paul freishauer could be mailing
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all these letters from prison following repeated complaints from sheriff radcliffe the warden of the
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prison had paul placed in solitary confinement but the letters still continued all of them were
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postmarked from columbus even though paul was imprisoned across the state in lima martin yant said the warden
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became convinced that paul was not writing the letters saying that a full-scale investigation
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was conducted twice possibly three times during which paul fresh hour was put into isolation
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and the warden of the prison then wrote a letter saying that as far as he was concerned it was impossible for
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paul to be writing these letters and sending them from prison for seven years paul was a
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model prisoner but when he became eligible for parole the parole board rejected his request based on the
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letter still being sent a few days after his hearing paul himself received a sadistic
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letter from the phantom writer it read in part now when are you going to believe you
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aren't going to get out of there i told you two years ago when we set them up they stay set up
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don't you listen at all in may of 1994 paul fresh hour was finally granted parole after serving 10 years
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to this day he maintains his innocence he's sure that the real criminal is still at large
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the circleville letters finally stopped but many questions remain who actually wrote the letters
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was ron gillespie's death an accident or was he murdered and who made the booby trap found by
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mary gillespie [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] all right we're back cheers mates he's
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back i'm back we're all back cheers to my friend jerry reeves he partied more than most of them but he
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was always the life of the party cheers to you my friend you will be sadly missed we will pour a little out for you
00:24:45
that was the rundown captain from unsolved mysteries when they covered this case titled it the poison pen
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and it's one of people's favorites favorite segments of the show and it had so many great segments to choose from
00:24:58
over the years now i didn't lay it out there as well as uh robert stack would have or the
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wonderful people over at the program would have back in the day but that was their general overview at
00:25:10
unsolved mysteries back then if you've only watched the current ones you're unaware of this but
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back then they did segments you would tune in it was an hour-long show they would cover often cover a couple
00:25:22
different cases and a lot of times the cases had nothing to do with one another that's why the
00:25:27
show was so great and so interesting if one case didn't catch your interest the next one would and sometimes they're
00:25:34
not just talking about true crime they're talking about ghosts or aliens or bigfoot
00:25:41
and one quote or i'm sorry one post that i saw online that i thought was absolutely brilliant a guy that nailed
00:25:48
it he said you know i used to watch this show when i was a kid and the worst thing in the world
00:25:54
was after you would watch unsolved mysteries i think it aired at eight or nine o'clock at night so it's not
00:26:00
getting over till nine or ten depending on where you lived but he said the worst thing in the world was to
00:26:05
watch unsolved mysteries and at the end of the program being told by your parents that you had
00:26:09
to take the trash out to the street he said he was terrified every time that that would happen
00:26:15
well to be honest with the audience you would have done a better job of the breakdown if our
00:26:21
show paid you more yes i've been asking for more for more pay one of the best things and i think you
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probably can agree with me by watching the old unsolved mysteries was towards the end of it
00:26:33
episode you might be watching about a case that you're so wrapped up into and fascinated and all of a sudden
00:26:39
change of music sounded alarms update and it would be an update on the case that they were just talking about
00:26:47
because sometimes they had re sometimes they had recorded and filmed that segment months in advance and the case
00:26:55
had moved along since their production of that case which was always really exciting
00:27:01
in this case because there's such a mystery of who was writing these letters was it
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one individual was it a group of people but they cover the story almost 10 years later and then they
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receive a letter themselves yes so they are covering the story after paul fresh hour is released
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from prison so many years after the fact and they're covering it because not only is there this mystery writer
00:27:30
that's out there but now we have the story of okay well this guy that everybody thought that did
00:27:36
it that tried to kill this woman that was writing all these letters he was locked
00:27:40
up and he couldn't have possibly been writing these letters while he was locked up for practically
00:27:46
10 years so in december of 1993 unsolved mysteries received a postcard at their offices and the postcard was
00:27:58
they called a postcard but i'll describe it here in a minute it was as they say a
00:28:02
threat designed to keep them from telling the story of the circleville writer and what i'm a little curious about here
00:28:10
captain is the way that they word that is that they must have done some of the production if not
00:28:18
all of the production for this segment and then received this threat via mail snail mail
00:28:27
before actually airing it because it would be a little weird if they hadn't even done any of
00:28:33
the production yet how would this writer or whoever sent this postcard as they call it
00:28:38
even know that they were going to cover the story yeah my suspicion is that they had a crew go to
00:28:44
circleville and be in such a small town word would get out quickly oh by the way i mean and
00:28:51
unsolved mysteries was a huge hugely popular show unsolved mysteries down in our
00:28:57
little town what are they talking about all they're asking about the circleville letters
00:29:02
and at the very least they would have been in the greater columbus area because we know that they
00:29:07
recorded interviews with martin yant and with paul fresh hour as well so what they called a postcard i don't
00:29:15
know that that's the best description at least not the one that i would give it what it
00:29:19
looks to me is like somebody took almost like a three by five card and kind of cut the corners on it so it
00:29:25
almost appears to look like like a tag at a tag sale an old school tag sale yeah and somebody wrote in small block
00:29:33
letters all capitalized forget circleville ohio do nothing to hurt sheriff radcliffe if you come to ohio
00:29:41
you elsico's will pay signed the circleville writer dan all the letters that we do have i will try to post those
00:29:52
on our instagram facebook or twitter and there's some people that might not be familiar with this case
00:29:59
captain and they're going what do you mean all the letters that you quote do have well they're depending on the
00:30:06
sources it's listed as high as 1 000 letters that were sent throughout the years
00:30:13
and the thing is as great of coverage as unsolved mysteries did on the case we need to open it up because their
00:30:23
little segment sounds very centralized makes the case very compact that we have these few
00:30:30
people that were involved in this case that this writer was writing letters to mary gillespie her
00:30:36
husband and we also have the involvement of their brother-in-law and ron's sister we have the mention of
00:30:45
the superintendent of the schools where mary worked for and it's all very centralized in
00:30:52
pickaway county but this case expands years the letters expand for years and the
00:31:00
letters were being sent to not just people in businesses in pickaway county this involves franklin county madison
00:31:08
county ross county and several cities throughout and i think we should dive into that and the cities that you're
00:31:18
going to hear the most will be columbus which is the capital city here grove city and circleville now
00:31:26
circleville ohio is 25 miles south of columbus the capital of ohio and in the mid 1970s to 1980
00:31:35
the population in circleville is just under 11 700 people within that general area
00:31:42
captain we have westfall school district which operates one elementary school one middle school
00:31:48
and west fall high school the way that unsolved mysteries tells the story is that mary gillespie starts receiving
00:31:55
these letters when in fact there were earlier letters mary gillespie was not the first target
00:32:03
for the letters if you will yeah so some of these people were receiving letters and they would be like little unknown
00:32:10
facts about them but it'd be normally bad stuff like i know you're doing this or i know
00:32:16
you're doing that and so it's really you know like you said maybe there's a thousand letters
00:32:22
out there but some of these people that received letters never came forward because they didn't want to share maybe
00:32:29
this dark secret with everybody right if the letter writer is warning you about a secret that you're keeping
00:32:37
you don't want to present that to everybody and say hey look i received this letter
00:32:42
so the first letters you know it's very quickly in the series that mary gillespie
00:32:47
is sent a letter but however the first letter is sent to gordon massey so who is gordon massey
00:32:55
gordon massey is mary gillespie's boss she drives a school bus for west fall and he is the superintendent of westfall
00:33:05
school district he's the first one to receive a letter this letter was addressed to westfall
00:33:12
high school attention superintendent massey no return address and it says dear sir according to my
00:33:20
girlfriend you have asked her to go out many times and have asked the other female bus drivers too due to
00:33:27
your position and their jobs with you you should not do this this must stop at once for the
00:33:32
good of the school and families if they are not stopped i will be forced to write to the school
00:33:39
board i'd hate to do that to prey on another man's girl is untouchable especially when they're
00:33:45
out there trying to make a living there's also talk of you dating a married woman
00:33:50
and taking advantage of them do you need time and names again please think i suggest you find yourself
00:33:57
a pimple-faced [ __ ] and start up with her and leave my girls alone so that's the real version of the letter
00:34:04
we mentioned that in the trailer earlier but kind of generalized it so we could tell this story
00:34:10
later superintendent massey receives this again it's not addressed to to anybody other
00:34:16
than him and at the westfall high school there is no return address however we know that it's
00:34:23
postmarked from columbus ohio 25 miles up the road and it came from the postal hub
00:34:31
430 which at the time in 1977 was the only postal hub in the city of columbus meaning you could mail that letter from
00:34:41
anywhere in the big city of columbus and it's going to have to go through that hub
00:34:47
so all we can say is we know that that letter was mailed somewhere in the city of
00:34:53
columbus right but it could have been south side north side east side west side we have no clue
00:34:58
correct now think about what the threat is and what's stated in this letter to gordon
00:35:04
massey it says hey you're hitting on these female bus drivers you're taking advantage of them these
00:35:10
are people that are out trying to work for a living you're taking advantage of your position
00:35:15
it also mentions that there is even talk of you having a relationship with a married woman
00:35:22
it doesn't necessarily name anybody there but we can assume by later letters maybe
00:35:28
they are referring to mary gillespie and it also says this is one thing that i think is weird it it
00:35:35
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
00:35:41
this to an end if you don't stop what you're doing i will be forced to write to the school
00:35:46
board and i'd hate to do that it's like it's right it's like the writer is giving him a warning hey
00:35:53
i know you're up to no good but if you stop what you're doing nobody has to know about it we'll we'll
00:35:58
just let it be but then he ends the letter i say he we don't know if it's a she or
00:36:03
he that wrote this letter but the person ends the letter with leave my girls alone almost like
00:36:12
they're referring to the female bus drivers as their girls i was popular with the
00:36:17
school bus driver the tricky thing here captain is the second letter goes to the school board
00:36:24
it's addressed to the school board remember the writer threatened to tell the board of education down there what
00:36:30
was going on however this letter is received two days later meaning the writer threw out the threat
00:36:38
and told massey to stop doing whatever the writer thought he was doing mm-hmm but did not give him time to
00:36:46
really stop or address the situation oh the writers if you if you don't stop i'm gonna tell on you
00:36:51
but boom two days later a letter arrives that is in fact telling on him to the school board
00:36:58
it's not until after both massey and the school board have been contacted several
00:37:03
times via these letters that mary gillespie starts to receive the letters and then when she's keeping them to
00:37:10
herself eventually ron gillespie starts to receive them the weird thing too here that we see
00:37:18
early on in these letters is this is where it is centralized it's centralized around westfall high school
00:37:26
gordon massey the superintendent and the female bus drivers that's the world that this writer is
00:37:34
writing about and the person whoever is writing this or persons seems to have some good
00:37:41
working knowledge of the behind the scenes stuff for the bus drivers in the school system
00:37:48
right and we know this because in the fifth letter that is written and this one is
00:37:54
addressed to the school board it's telling the school board hey you need to talk to gord
00:38:01
massey tell him to stop doing what he's doing and if you want to verify what i'm
00:38:06
saying is true talk to the drivers talk to the female bus drivers ask driver number this is very
00:38:14
interesting this one's received march 18 1977. it says ask driver number 62917 my favorite driver well driver number
00:38:24
62917 is mary gillespie right i don't think that john q public walking down the street
00:38:33
somewhere in circleville will know that mary gillespie is driver number 62917 that seems like a very behind-the-scenes
00:38:43
piece of information yeah it's tough one here because we don't know exactly who he wrote to
00:38:52
before but like he said it becomes mary gillespie almost becomes his singular focus
00:38:58
for a time period yeah with gord massey being the original receiver of the letters and
00:39:04
then the board members and you're right i technically we don't know for certain only the writer themselves would know
00:39:11
when they actually started but the general consensus seems to be the superintendent gordon massey was the
00:39:17
first to receive a letter right or at least publicly acknowledged that this was the first letter to be
00:39:24
sent well look if i was sent a letter in the mail like this a threatening love letter anyone's gonna sit back and go
00:39:33
who is doing this who's doing this who would i know that is capable of writing a letter or
00:39:40
or who maybe am i pissing off by being involved in this situation and that's the other tricky thing too
00:39:48
being involved in the situation implies that you are doing what the writer thinks you are doing
00:39:54
and what the writer is saying is basically i mean without putting the exact words on paper it's a
00:40:01
threat of oh i'm going to go to your boss and anyone would think that hey this inappropriate relationship if in fact it
00:40:07
is going on would warrant firing the superintendent firing the bus driver for their
00:40:15
misdealings for their flicky flicky the other thing that gets tricky too is it's a threat in the sense that even
00:40:22
if nothing is going on don't you still worry as an employee go well i ca it's hard for me to prove
00:40:30
something is not going on they may fire me anyway yeah or what are the repercussions of her husband finding
00:40:38
out is is he considered a hot head and he is he gonna you know take matters into his own hands
00:40:47
kill the superintendent kill his wife we've seen people do worse for less and as we said the writer
00:40:56
eventually addresses ron gillespie saying hey you've got to end this affair because i've already told massey
00:41:02
about it i've already told your wife about it they're not going to stop you need to be
00:41:06
the one to stop it and threatens which you pointed out earlier captain is bizarre to threaten
00:41:12
ron gillespie who if in fact this stuff is happening he is a victim as well yeah
00:41:20
and you would think that the writer feels slighted by this situation if in fact it's going on
00:41:26
it appears that the writer believes it to be going on whether it is or not that is up for debate but what we are
00:41:33
later told is that the gillespies tell the people that are closest to them about these letters hey we're receiving
00:41:41
these weird letters and they tell ron's sister karen and her husband paul fresh hour
00:41:50
they're incredibly close with these two paul says that him and ron are best friends
00:41:56
and they devised this plan of well you know what we think we know who's doing this
00:42:02
again very centralized right captain it's all behind the scenes involving the school
00:42:07
the school system and the bus drivers yeah mary gillespie's going to tell that group i think that this guy
00:42:14
david longberry could be the author of these letters that was my nickname in high school
00:42:20
so they devised this plan of you know what we're going to write these letters back to david longberry
00:42:25
and essentially they're sending him the letters similar type letters that they are
00:42:30
receiving this says hey we know who you are we know what you're doing you better
00:42:34
stop it or you will be thrashed what was the circleville writer saying i know what you're doing you better stop
00:42:40
it who is david longberry he's a bus driver he's a co-worker of mary gillespie's
00:42:46
he's also an employee of gord massey this is an individual that may know that should know if he's good at his job
00:42:54
the inner workings and the behind the scenes stuff over there so they say that they sent him a few
00:43:01
letters and the letters they're getting stop briefly but then they start back up again like
00:43:07
we stated before circleville is a very small community so just by the gillespies telling a couple
00:43:14
people a small fire can spread rapidly but there's other letters that are being sent to
00:43:21
other individuals and businesses and what's interesting here captain is it starts to become
00:43:27
somewhat general information within circleville that these letters are being sent and received
00:43:34
and i think part of that is because either what the writer is accusing these people of
00:43:40
is false or the people receiving them don't really care in the long run that the
00:43:47
information gets out so it kind of becomes general information that they're receiving these strange
00:43:53
letters and remember the threats of hey ron if you don't do something about this
00:43:58
i'm going to start broadcasting this business on cb radio and putting up posters everywhere and signs
00:44:04
telling the general public airing our grievances and your dirty laundry along the way
00:44:10
about what is going on what's truly going on it's like questioning his manhood because
00:44:16
if it's true that his wife is cheating on him that questions his manhood but that now
00:44:22
you have this letter writer saying hey i'm questioning your manhood that you're that you won't even come out and do
00:44:29
something about this you won't even stop it that shows you how little of a man you
00:44:34
are yeah i guess if the if the writer is the the end-all be-all of what is right and wrong at the end of
00:44:41
the day then they've decided what is wrong and right and drawn the line in the sand and ron's
00:44:49
on the wrong side according to the writer so what goes on at this point captain now we
00:44:55
are about midway through 1977. someone is in fact putting up these signs or at least has threatened ron
00:45:04
and mary to the point that they believe that they would put up these signs so ron is getting up every day a little
00:45:11
bit earlier than he needs to and on his way to work he's driving around town for about an hour
00:45:18
looking for any signs that may be put up sometimes there's signs most of the time
00:45:24
there's not but when he finds them he takes them and he collects them well especially in the 70s
00:45:30
because i used to teach in circleville but obviously not in the 70s but back then to get around the whole
00:45:38
town maybe 20 minutes and you can go through pretty much every major street in circleville yes and this
00:45:47
to to paint a picture for anybody that's going to look this up on a map to paint a better picture is the
00:45:54
case is often referred to as the circleville writer again notice that we said that this is
00:45:59
going to expand in other into other counties not just pickaway county but we're also talking about the
00:46:07
majority of the activity that seems to be surrounded this case is circleville all the way out
00:46:13
to darbyville which is to the west of circleville but some sources will say that there
00:46:20
were some letters that were very similar to the circleville letters that were sent to other states
00:46:26
so i don't know i couldn't find any confirmation of that but i saw several sources that would
00:46:33
state oh well there was letters that were addressed to people in other states so by august of 77 we have a situation
00:46:42
that's escalated and ron gillespie is busy looking for signs the gillespies are trying to figure out
00:46:48
who the letter writer could be well now we have mary gillespie who goes to florida
00:46:56
and this would be in august of 1977 and she's down there on the night of august 19th
00:47:04
her husband ron gillespie is at home he's at their home where they've received these letters
00:47:10
the way that the legend goes the local legend the story is that he is there that night
00:47:16
and late that night after the sun goes down he receives a phone call it's believed that the phone call is
00:47:23
from the letter writer and ron is able to determine or at least his suspicions that he already had
00:47:30
are confirmed by the phone call of who the letter writer is he decides that he's going to go out
00:47:37
and confront the writer he goes upstairs grabs his gun tells his children goodbye
00:47:45
hops in the truck and drives off in a mad tear looking for this letter writer the local legend is one of several
00:47:56
different stories but a couple of them are either ron was chasing someone at a high
00:48:02
rate of speed or he was being run off the road or he was being shot at and he was
00:48:09
shooting at the at someone else the result is him crashing his truck into a tree
00:48:18
and he's dead at the scene well for people who haven't maybe seen the old unsolved
00:48:24
mysteries this reminds me of the ray rivera case where in the newer seasons of unsolved
00:48:31
mysteries where he receives this mysterious phone call and leaves right away in a rage
00:48:39
and again circleville is a small area so if the guy told him well meet me over at this park
00:48:46
or meet me over you know you know behind this bar or what wherever you could get there within 15-20 minutes
00:48:54
no problem and we don't know who the phone call was from we don't know what was said on the phone
00:49:00
call we don't know 100 percent in my opinion if the phone call even took place right but let's say that it did stuff
00:49:08
the caller doesn't even have to say hey meet me here according to the legend ron is able to
00:49:14
determine who the writer is based off of that phone call maybe he recognized the voice
00:49:19
or as you pointed out captain maybe a meetup is set up or maybe there's something in the words
00:49:25
that were spoken that confirmed his earlier suspicions liam neeson and he's going to go out and
00:49:31
confront this writer i will find you and then i will kill well he crashes his truck into
00:49:36
a tree and unfortunately ron gillespie died that night and it is determined by the sheriff's
00:49:44
department pickaway county sheriff's department that this was a vehicular accident
00:49:51
resulting in the death of ron gillespie at the scene inside his truck they find ron gillespie's gun
00:49:59
a revolver which goes along with the story that we've been told per local legend by the children that he
00:50:05
grabbed his gun and ran off and there has been one shot that was fired you heard
00:50:10
the unsolved mysteries description of the shot fired the other local legend and rumor was
00:50:18
that his wife was conveniently out of town may have been having this affair leading
00:50:24
up to this event frisky in florida and that she is somehow responsible for what was an
00:50:29
actual murder or somebody that kind of set up this accident ran him off the road was firing at his
00:50:37
truck we know with his revolver that there was a spent shell casing in eight live rounds found in the revolver
00:50:46
meaning that at some point that gun was fired and it shot that bullet right this is what everybody at the time
00:50:54
would point out to say well he fired at somebody that means that there was foul play
00:51:01
later the letter writer then accuses the pickaway county sheriff's office of covering it up
00:51:09
claiming it was an accident when in fact that it was an all it was all set up it was set up for ron to die that night
00:51:17
or something bad to happen to ron that night why would the police or the sheriff
00:51:24
want anything bad to happen to this guy not that they would want something bad to happen to him but
00:51:29
some of the rumor was that they were covering it up for either mary gillespie or for gordon
00:51:35
massey or for both or maybe somebody that's not named doesn't really make sense let's dive
00:51:42
into that a little bit because there's a lot to chew through in this situation because the way that
00:51:49
that picture has been painted for many years is in fact that it was either covered up
00:51:54
or they just the sheriff's department got it wrong and ron was killed or harm was meant to be done to him that
00:52:01
night you know like i said before if he fires a shot i lean more towards foul play but
00:52:06
now that we're talking about it just seems very suspicious anyways and if he had a really bad traffic history
00:52:15
maybe that people would brought that up as a proof that that that this was just an
00:52:21
accident the whole thing just seemed so fishy either way everything about it seems
00:52:26
fishy from all angles in my opinion the whole circleville rider thing is fishy at all
00:52:34
angles as well so let's look at this one from all angles first off they run a tox ecology report on
00:52:43
the deceased on ron gillespie they find that he has a 0.16 percent alcohol level currently in the state of
00:52:53
ohio the ohio legal blood alcohol content level is below 0.08 so anyone over the age of 21 or anyone
00:53:03
of any age with a bac of 0.08 or higher can be charged with operating a vehicle impaired or ovi
00:53:13
so by the state law he's drunk driving right this is general information this comes out to the public at the time
00:53:23
well friends and family of ron gillespie say well he wasn't a big drinker i don't know that that answers the
00:53:30
question of whether he was drinking that night or not right like you said the report
00:53:35
proves that he was drunk the other thing that doesn't make any sense is the story that we get all these years
00:53:42
later and i want to be clear here i'm not accusing his children of making up a story or misremembering or
00:53:49
anything we are hearing this story second third fourth fifth hand who knows how many hands we're out at
00:53:55
this point i wish i said wash them but at at this point captain the story that we are left with is he receives
00:54:01
this mysterious phone call he tells his children i know who the letter writer is
00:54:05
runs upstairs grabs his gun runs out to his truck and speeds off into the night now when ron
00:54:11
gillespie was found crashed into that tree it was 10 28 p.m today is 2021 if i have my year correct
00:54:22
to this day the area where he crashed his truck is not well lit there's hardly any
00:54:29
lights if any in the very in that very specific area a lot of people say hey this is not an
00:54:36
area that this is an area that he knew well that he would have traveled many times he wouldn't have
00:54:41
crashed his truck that night but you're saying that people are saying he didn't drink often
00:54:46
and so maybe he wouldn't be able to handle his liquor as well as or handle the alcohol level as well as somebody
00:54:53
else that was a daily drinker or weekly drinker so to address the elephant in the room
00:54:58
first off you have a situation where stole my penis ron gillespie may or may not believe the letters he's receiving
00:55:05
that his wife is having an affair and his wife is down in florida out of town out of state that night okay
00:55:12
so let's assume he doesn't believe the letters his wife should be free to go and do
00:55:17
whatever she wants she should be free to go and do whatever she wants anyway but couldn't you see a situation if he
00:55:22
does believe the letters that he says i don't feel comfortable with you going out of state right i don't feel
00:55:27
comfortable with you going out of town now let's take it a step further by this point
00:55:32
he and his wife have been told in several letters that the letter writer is watching their vehicles their house
00:55:38
their property they have a fairly big property by the way and their children some of the threats
00:55:44
have even been directed to their daughter who depending on what source you read at this point in our
00:55:51
story that night that ron died would have been seven or eight years old i cannot fathom a situation where
00:55:59
i would be the father of a small child and be receiving threats to my family where i decide one night i know who's
00:56:11
making those threats i'm going to go off and get them and leave you two kids here
00:56:16
that's why i questioned the phone call and what ron's actual actions and intent was that
00:56:23
evening right well it could have been somebody calling saying hey you know how your wife said she was in florida i
00:56:30
think i just saw her in a car with some guy or i think i just saw her walk into some bar with a guy
00:56:36
it could have been anything you know i mean and then it was like oh well i'm going to catch her now the
00:56:42
other situation then becomes the spent round we've kind of been circling around that
00:56:47
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
00:56:54
retold it's told to say that between the time he left his home and crashed his truck
00:56:59
into that tree he fired that gun well it's a revolver that spent casing stays in there until
00:57:06
you physically remove it he could have fired that shot between leaving his house and crashing into the
00:57:12
tree he could have fired it the day before a week before a year before we do not know when
00:57:19
that gun was fired to leave behind that spent casing what we do know is inside the revolver
00:57:26
they find a spent casing in eight live rounds what they also find in the truck now
00:57:32
the tricky thing is the gun is found as described in the police report from the accident mind you this is a
00:57:39
lengthy police report probably about 10 pages roughly it says that the that the gun was found underneath of him
00:57:48
this crash was horrible his truck what happened captain is the road turned and for whatever
00:57:57
reason his truck did not follow that turn in the road it started to go off the road
00:58:02
and it traveled 36 feet from the road crashed into the tree and continued another seven feet but it wasn't just
00:58:12
the gun that they found inside the vehicle mind you it almost threw ron completely from the
00:58:19
truck out the window he's halfway out the window when they find him yeah he had no seatbelt on so to say
00:58:26
that the gun was found under him really is a loosey-goosey description of where the gun was
00:58:32
actually found in my opinion considering he's halfway out the truck but also found in the
00:58:38
in the truck captain is a full box of 22-caliber winchester western wildcat ammo
00:58:44
right which is not included in the local legend not included in the story from the
00:58:50
children that we've heard second third fiftieth hand all these years later they say he ran upstairs and grabbed his
00:58:57
gun no mention of grabbing a box of ammunition my other question then becomes if he did
00:59:04
grab both why how many times did he intend to shoot this person he has nine bullets in his gun i wonder
00:59:12
if he kept the gun in the truck and it was found at the scene of his death at the scene of this vehicle
00:59:20
accident because that's where it should have been found because that's where he kept it
00:59:24
one of the bullets could've been kept in the truck as well exactly think of this it's 1977
00:59:30
in the glove box underneath your seat and also this is you know this is a city yes but it's
00:59:37
it's a rural community this it's 1977. you own a pickup truck yeah doesn't it seem a little a pick-em-up truck
00:59:47
i would love to go back in time and interview guys that lived in the area especially guys that are around ron's
00:59:53
age and ask them hey do you keep a gun in your truck i'm guessing that the percentage would
00:59:59
be higher than most people would think i'd say is that a gun in your truck are you just happy to see me
01:00:05
both yeah um i'm happy that i brought my gun in that i saw you yeah that brings up another
01:00:11
thought could he have lost control see this is all that it means it doesn't mean that he
01:00:16
crashed into this truck tree or somebody ran him into this tree he very quickly could have lost control
01:00:23
of this truck as soon as he went off the road if he's drunk if he's traveling at a high rate
01:00:29
of speed in a an area that's not well lit it's very conceivable that he lost control of the vehicle
01:00:39
and this is just sadly an accident a fatal accident then people point out well the truck was towed immediately and
01:00:49
destroyed shortly afterwards and that is more point of a cover-up that there were bullet holes in his
01:00:55
truck and nobody wanted that to be seen well maybe they just didn't want this scene to be seen by the public
01:01:01
in general well it's signed off by his wife mary gillespie it's her property at this point you know the other thing
01:01:12
too is the truck was totaled there's no use for the truck at this point and your loved one just
01:01:18
died in the vehicle doesn't seem like something you would really want to keep a hold of or have much use for right
01:01:27
so here's the other problem with it being a cover-up if sheriff radcliffe got it wrong or
01:01:34
the pickaway county sheriff's department decided to cover it up first off there were multiple agencies involved in
01:01:44
this situation and analyzing and determining what they believed happened that night first of all you
01:01:51
have the coroner who has to sign off on the fatal injuries the coroner decided not to do an autopsy
01:01:59
it was not necessary unfortunately the deceased arrived at burger hospital and he had already
01:02:06
passed by this point well also at this point um some of the sources say that this guy
01:02:12
wouldn't have done the autopsy anyways they normally took murder cases and things of that nature and actually
01:02:19
send them to columbus where they had more experience well and we have a situation
01:02:24
too where this is not just sheriff radcliffe showing up and determining that it's an accident
01:02:31
we have detective phil brown who arrives on the scene he's actually the lead uh at this accident scene so now we have
01:02:40
to have two people covered up and of course phil brown works for radcliffe so that's not too hard to believe but where
01:02:46
did pickaway county sheriff's department get the call from they got the call from mount sterling
01:02:52
police department okay so now mount sterling has to be in on it oh and by the way they were curious
01:02:58
about the gun and they were curious about the spent casing as well so they sent the gun in the ammo
01:03:06
off the bci bureau of criminal identification and investigation here in ohio in london ohio a much bigger more capable
01:03:16
agency than the pickaway sheriff's department at that time still to this day so bci has to be involved in the cover-up
01:03:25
usually when people decide to cover things up captain i'm not one that covers things
01:03:30
up myself so i don't know this from experience but i'm guessing that when you choose to cover something
01:03:35
up you like to keep most of that stuff in-house you don't send it off to this big fancy
01:03:41
agency who can figure out what's going on they sent it off for all the right reasons
01:03:46
they sent it off because they wanted to ask bci can you tell us anything about this gun
01:03:52
did it belong to the deceased that we found and is there any reason that we should think
01:03:59
that this that this spent casing was involved in any other incident they look for information this goes on
01:04:06
for months and determine very quickly that no this this spent casing is not related to any other
01:04:14
incident that we can find so i like local legend as much as the next guy i like the folklore as much as anybody
01:04:21
else but the evidence here stacks up that this is in fact an accident sometimes a cigar is
01:04:29
just a smoke sometimes things are what they appear to be what are your thoughts so far we want to
01:04:44
hear them go to truechromegarage.com and leave your comments on the blog we will see you back in the garage
01:04:51
tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't [Music] you