Circleville Letter Writer

Beginning in 1976, residents of Circleville, a small city of about 11,000 people southeast of Columbus, Ohio, began receiving anonymous threatening letters. The letters, written in distinctive block lettering, contained intimate knowledge of the recipients' personal lives, including affairs, secrets, and embarrassing information. The primary target was Mary Gillispie, a school bus driver, who received letters accusing her of having an affair with the school superintendent Gordon Massie.

The letters also targeted Mary's husband Ron Gillispie, threatening him with exposure and violence if he did not stop Mary's alleged affair. On August 19, 1977, Ron received a phone call that apparently upset him greatly. He grabbed his gun and drove off. He was found dead shortly afterward, his pickup truck having crashed into a tree. His gun had been fired once. While officially ruled an accident, many suspected foul play—Ron's blood alcohol level was not elevated enough to explain the crash.

Despite Ron's death, the letters continued, escalating in frequency and menace. In 1983, Mary discovered a booby-trapped sign posted along her bus route containing a box rigged with a small-caliber pistol designed to fire when the sign was removed. The trap was traced to Paul Freshour, Mary's former brother-in-law, who was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to prison. He maintained his innocence.

The most disturbing aspect of the case is that the Circleville letters continued to arrive even after Freshour was imprisoned, and even after he was placed in solitary confinement with restricted access to mail. Someone outside the prison was writing the letters, raising questions about whether Freshour was guilty at all or whether he had an accomplice. The letters eventually stopped in the mid-1990s. The true identity of the Circleville Letter Writer has never been conclusively determined.