WEBVTT - The Circleville Poison Pen Letters Mystery 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:12.920 Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.800 Josh Clark. There's Charles to Be, Chuck Bryant, and we 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.040 can hear Jerry Clear's a bell so she's here with us. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.160 And this, of course it's Stuff you should know. True crime. Yeah, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.640 let's mud say sort of, but it really is true crime. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:33.480 It's just it's not necessarily murder. E No, but it's 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.680 stocky and I hadn't really realized it until I saw 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.440 it spelled out a few times that this is a 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.400 huge stalk in case, one of the weirdest, creepiest, most 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.559 mysterious stalking cases of all time. Yeah, but I think 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.559 I know who did it, So hold it, wait, save it, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.120 because we'll definitely have that combo. Okay, Yeah, I think 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:54.680 this is one of those it's uh, what is it 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.360 OCAM's razors at the the most obvious thing. We did 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.600 an episode on that, remember, yeah, a zillion years ago. 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:03.360 But this, I think this is one of those where 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.880 it is a lot less mysterious when you kind of 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.800 just look at it at its face. So, in other words, 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.640 you think the cat did it. The cat did do it, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.039 So we're talking about this mystery UM usually calling it's 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.560 full title the Circleville, Ohio Poison Pen Letters, And it 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.880 is a weird unsolved mystery case. In fact, it came 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.800 into the widest um public awareness thanks to that TV 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:38.800 show Unsolved Mysteries back in the early nineties, and UM 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.520 a lot of their info was based on this journalist 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.400 and private investigator named Martin Yant, who had already been 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.760 investigating it by then. But it is a really weird, 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.000 odd true crime mystery. And yes it is true crime, 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.120 even though you're right, it doesn't have murder involved. There's 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.400 no serial killer or anything like that. But it is 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.760 bizarre and it is weird, and it is still unsolved 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:04.880 to this day. Yeah there's a death. Uh it's not 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:06.480 a murder though. Well I don't want to ruin it, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:08.880 so before we get too far into I want to 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:10.880 give some shout outs to some of the sources for 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.520 this one. Unsolved Mysteries their website, a couple of CBS websites, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.600 Mental Floss, Thought Catalog, Historic Mysteries List first had some 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:25.080 good stuff, and then True Crimes Times UM had some 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.080 good stuff. And then also there are a couple of 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.639 podcast sites UM that have already covered this that if 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.160 this floats your boat, go check out the Whatever Remains 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.919 podcast UM coverage of this. And there's also one called 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.079 Invisible Ships podcast that covered this too, and we UM 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.520 use some of their info from their sites too. Yeah, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.840 and this is one of those UM that's a little 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.320 frustrating to research because there's a lot of different conflicting 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.240 information and it's kind of hard to get to the 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.760 real facts. UM. But some of it's not the biggest 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.240 d ill It is just like, oh, well I saw 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.840 that this was this, and I mean right off the bat. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:10.280 For instance, in Circleville, Ohio, these mystery letters started coming 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:15.079 to Mary Gillespie Gillizpie. But then I saw sites that say, 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.280 oh no, the superintendent received letters before Mary Gillizpi even 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.839 is there, right, Yeah, so who knows. It doesn't really 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.280 damage the main storyline, like nothing contradicts it such to 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.200 where I was like, well, I don't even know what 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.600 I've just read then, right, I don't even know what's 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.000 true anymore. But all this just as a way of 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.640 setting up, like if there are things that are slightly off, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.160 is because it's just hard to get the real you know, 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:39.880 Like we didn't have the case file in front of us. 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.040 So most of the coverage of this mystery does start 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:50.119 with Mary Gillizpi receiving her first letter. And Mary Gillizpi 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.280 was a local bus driver in Circleville, Ohio. And Circleville, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.080 Ohio is a tiny little town about twenty miles south 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.560 of Columbus, Ohio, the capital of Io. A school bus driver, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.840 by the way, which is very key. Yes, thank you 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.600 for that. Um. And so this is a small town, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.960 and Mary Gillespie was a small town person who just 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.360 kind of typically minded her own business, was from what 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.440 I could tell, generally well thought of if she was 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.560 ever thought of it all by other people. Um. And 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.120 she got this first letter, and it was written in 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.039 this kind of weird blocky handwriting, and it was a 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.080 rather alarming letter UM for anybody to get, because it 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.320 basically said, I know that you're having an affair with 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.800 the superintendent of the West Fall School District, which you're 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.640 an employee of, and if you don't stop, bad things 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.039 are going to start happening to you. Right. His name 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.600 was Gordon Massey, said they were watching her, the superintendent 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.560 was Gordon Massey, that she was having an affair with 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:58.360 right yes to the letter writer, there would be no 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.200 mystery if we need to let it write. Hey, if 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.160 I were listening to this podcast, I would have been 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.400 confused just then. So I was looking out for that 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.200 version of me that's out there listening. Oh goodness, I 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.120 hope that person isn't listening. Uh. So they said that 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.520 they were watching it, and quote, this is no joke. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.880 So these letters start coming in. Uh, almost all of 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:23.800 them had that same blocky letter meaning basically capital letters. Uh. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.120 Some did not, though, and we'll get into that a 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.800 little bit more later. But the lion share of them 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.400 had this one kind of writing style that was very signature, 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.920 clearly kind of written by the same person. And so Mary, 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:36.800 you know, she hides these letters for a little while, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.240 obviously didn't even tell her husband at first, and then 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.400 eventually says Ron, and there are a bunch of just 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.120 norm core names in here, so it might get a 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.400 little confusing with like the Ron's and the Mary's and 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.040 the polls. But she told her husband Ron, she said, listen, 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.440 I've been getting these letters, and here's what they say. 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.160 And the letters are saying that I need to tell 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.800 the school board about this or they will out me 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.680 basically on you know, how would you would out someone 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.560 in the seventies, which is on the radio CB by 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.960 putting up billboards and signs. This would be your modern 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.680 like social media threat. I guess yeah. And so Ron 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.120 uh said well, I think Mary said listen, I think 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.800 I know these are coming from this other guy, uh David. 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.960 He's another uh school bus driver, David Longberry, and he 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.760 he tried to come onto me and I rebuffed him, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.680 and I think that's who's writing these. So and from 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.919 what I could tell, Mary kept the letters to herself 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.320 until Ron started getting letters himself that basically said your 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.560 wife was having an affair with Gordon Massey and you 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.200 better make him stop where else I'm gonna tell everybody. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.360 And so that's when she turned to to David was like, oh, yeah, 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.400 I forgot to tell you about these letters and that 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.920 I've been accused of having an affair. I'm totally not 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.360 having an affair, though, But what are we gonna do 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.560 about these letters? Huh? So they loop in as you 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.680 would do some family members. Ron's sister Karon, who will 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.640 become a key player, and her husband Paul uh fresh 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.240 Hour was their last name. Married last name. He would 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.360 become a key player. Uh. He was a prison guard 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.320 and not uh just a little side factoid about him 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:19.280 as the prison movie Brewbaker with Robert Redford. He was 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.120 in that movie. He was They filmed it nearby and 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.080 he was cast as an extra as a prison guard 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.120 because he was a real prison guard. He was a 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.880 real prison guard. And another fun fact about Paul fresh 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.360 Hour is in the late sixties at the prison he 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.880 was a guard at um it was overrun by an 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.680 eMate riot and he was held prisoner for like thirty 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.800 hours by the inmates. Well, he was a natural for Brewbaker. 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.400 Then he was so um. By the time these letters 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.720 started coming through, he was no longer a prison guard. 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.520 He was a quality inspector at the local Anheuser Busch 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.240 bottling plant. But I took from the fact that he 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.240 was a former prison guard that they they and to 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.760 get some muscle involved and they went to him to 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:04.960 ask him to write the letters. That was That was 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.120 how I took it. Yeah, and he worked and this 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.520 kind of becomes key later on. He worked about fifty 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.480 to sixty hours a week and had a pretty decent 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.720 commute to and from so the long and short of 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.920 that is is he was gone at work a lot 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.080 of the time. Right, So Paul said, okay, of course 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:24.960 I'll help you guys out. And he sent a letter 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.040 at least one to David Longberry, the other bus driver 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.200 that had made advances on Mary and who they suspected 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.600 was the writer of these letters, and said, hey, Buster, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.040 we know what you're doing. You better stop. Uh. If 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.000 you don't, bad things are gonna happen to you, so 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.719 cool off. Essentially, I'm paraphrasing here in the seventies kind 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.440 of way, and um, it seemed like it worked because 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.480 for a few weeks the letters that have been started 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.079 to come like hard and fast, just dry it up 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.000 at first, Yeah, because he said stop what you're doing 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.240 because I'm about to ruin go on what the image 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.480 in the style that you're used to and who wouldn't 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.360 stop writing letters with received with that threat, Yeah, because 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.320 they thought that they had this anonymous letter writer, you know, 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.480 dead to rights, and he was going to going to 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.120 be scared off now because ultimately, if it was this 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:23.480 guy who from like Ron Gillispie's point of view, what 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:25.920 he was being told by his wife that she wasn't 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.920 having an affair. This guy was making this up because 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.920 she had resisted his advances. If you, if you tell somebody, 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:34.960 look stop, we know that you're doing this, of course 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:36.839 they're going to stop. The jig is up. So they 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.000 did think that had handled it, especially when those letters 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.120 dried up for a few weeks, but um, not too 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:48.000 long after that they were rather just made because um, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.800 rather than just letters. Now there were signs being posted 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.320 around town that we're saying essentially the same thing. Yeah, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.120 they were saying not only that, but they were saying 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:01.679 that Gordon Massey, superintendent not letter writer, was uh involved 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:06.000 romantically with the Glissapees twelve year old daughter Tracy. So 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.800 of course Dad sees this ron starts driving around tearing 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.200 these signs down, you know, before the break of dawn, 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.320 so no one would see these things. And this just 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:15.840 sort of went on for a while. There were these 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.080 letters that would come and go. I think about a 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.760 a little more than a year went by, uh, and 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.640 in August of seventy seven, Mary's like, I gotta get 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.040 out of here. I'm gonna go to Florida with UH, 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.080 with your with my sister in law, with your sister 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.640 Karen and a couple of other friends. Later on, people 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.160 said that was a cover up for maybe going down 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.079 to meet Gordon Massey in Florida. But I don't think 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.840 that's true. I think she went down with her friends. Yeah, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.600 do you think that's true. I think we might have 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.839 different uh people in mind on who did this, and 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.080 we'll get to that though. That'll be the exciting reveal 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.480 at the end. I can't wait. Man. So the letter 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:03.840 writer back at home on answers the phone. Uh, it 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.480 was a person claiming to be the letter writer on 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.640 the other end. He said that he recognized the voice. 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.559 He got mad, he got his gun and tells the kids, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:14.920 I'm going to take care of this problem once and 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.160 for all. And a few hours later Ron is dead, 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.320 dead D E A D. But he wasn't dead like 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.920 from a stab wound or no one had broken his 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.720 neck or anything like that. He was dead from a 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.760 car accident he had run into I believe a tree. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.120 He'd run off the road, driven about thirty ft at 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.559 a high speed and run into a tree. It was 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.439 the seventies, so he very well might not have even 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.360 had a seatbelt installed in his car. But at the 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:46.080 very least he didn't have it on. He was half 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.000 thrown from the cab, which is grizzly um and he 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.280 died at the site. Like he wasn't pronounced dead at 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.200 the hospital. Around the way of the hospital, they pronounced 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.400 him dead on the site. He was super dead of 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.880 massive internal injuries. And so there were a couple of 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.320 really fishy things about all this. Number one, the intersection 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.720 where he died at it was not far from his house, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.960 so he knew this intersection very well. The weather was fine, 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.599 it was nighttime, but it wasn't like raining out or 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.480 anything like that. And he his gun had was found 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.480 to have had one um round missing, and it had 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.960 been fired. It wasn't just missing like the gun had 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.720 been fired, and no shell casing was found. So in 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.000 between the time that he stormed out of his house 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.720 to apparently confront the letter writer and the time he 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.679 was found dead, he had discharged his gun and they 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:39.120 had no idea at whom, where it was discharged, under 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.400 what circumstances. They just knew that he had shot his 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.280 gun once. Oh, so it was not a revolver, not 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.160 that I know of, because they've seen multiple places that 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.439 they did not find a shell casing. So it sounds 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.160 like it was an automatic or semi automatic all right. 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.520 Uh so that some people might say is fishy. The 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.920 other thing that other people say is fishy. I don't 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.800 find any of this fishy. But way is that he 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:07.720 was they ruled a drunken driving accident. Other people friends 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.480 would say, like heron didn't even drink that much. We 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.199 didn't see him drinking that day. But you can't argue 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.440 with science. And he had twice the legal limit of 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.040 in his blood alcohol content. Um, I don't think he 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:21.960 in his Officially, I think he drank up some courage 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.160 to go confront someone and wrecked his car and died. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.480 I mean that's something that that gets left out of 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.120 this is like this was a really dark period in 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.880 ron Um Gillispie's wife life. Like he was driving around 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.800 for hours before work every day, finding these signs at 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.360 the very least looking for him. If like he couldn't 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.760 find him, Like he didn't sleep very well. It makes 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:48.560 a lot of sense that he would have taken up 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.760 drinking when he was otherwise a teetotler. He was being 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.600 told by this person that his wife was having an affair, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:56.840 even though she swore that she wasn't. It was a 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.800 bad time for him, so he he had like a 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.120 rough last year or so of his life, and then 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.559 he died badly as well too. It was not a 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.480 good end for Ron Gillispi. Um. And there was a 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.360 bit of a scandal after that because apparently Paul fresh 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.839 Hour said that he suspected it was foul play and 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.960 that the sheriff on the case, basically the local law 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.320 enforcement guy who would see this case through the entire 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.840 its entirety, was a guy named Dwight Radcliffe used the 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.120 sheriff and um. Paul fresh Hour claims that at first 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.320 Sheriff Radcliffe agreed with him that it seemed like there 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.840 was something fishing in that foul play might have been involved, 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.920 but then after that he suddenly changes his story. Sheriff 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.520 Radcliffe does, and like you said, it gets ruled an accident, 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.560 especially after the coroner comes back with a point one 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.560 six blood alcohol content for Ron Gillispi That's right, uh, 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.520 And Radcliffe said there was initially some kind of suspect 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.840 that and I know you did too, looked high and low. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.000 I don't think it's literally ever been released to Sheriff 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.600 Radcliffe initially had in for questioning, but apparently this person 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:03.760 even went so far as to take a polygraph test 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:06.560 and got away with it. I don't I don't know 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.800 if it was one of the who knows. I don't 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:11.400 know if it's any of the key suspects that we'll 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.680 talk about later or not. Uh, And I don't think 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.120 we'll ever know who that was. But uh, there was 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.720 a suspect and that was sort of dismiss out of 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.080 hand once the d Y alcohol reading came back and 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.000 the polygraph test was passed. Yeah, the the one person 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.680 I saw floated as potentially who it was was David Longberry, 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.400 that bus driver. That's why I figured. Yeah, um, but yeah, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.560 it's never been documented. I'm not even positive that it's 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.760 documented that Sheriff Francliffe actually did any of this, like 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.600 a polygraph and all that stuff only said he did. So. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.120 Ron is dead, Chuck, the Circleville letter writer has claimed 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.800 a life. A human life has been snuffed out that 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.280 otherwise probably wouldn't have been had the Circleville letter Writer 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.000 not started writing this terrible letter campaign. That's right, you 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.200 want to take a break and pick back up afterward, 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:25.400 Let's do it, Okay, Alright, so Ron's gone and it's 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.320 about the same time that, uh, you know, Karen and 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.280 Paul are having a rough go of it as well. Uh, 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.560 And I just the feeling I got was they didn't 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.160 have a great marriage. It wasn't because of the Circleville stuff, 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:43.960 but they began to divorce and Karen had cheated on him. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.040 Karen is uh, you know, she didn't get the house, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.680 she didn't get the kids, and ended up living on 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:55.400 a trailer on Mary's property after Ron was gone. And 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:00.840 this was like, m Karen was not She didn't take 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.119 any this well, right, Everything I saw was that Karen 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.760 was u lived in a constant state of upset and 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.800 anger at Paul because of this divorce, even though she 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.280 was the one that she did right. Um, so you 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.520 just just put that in your hat, like put a 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.960 pain in that and save it for later. Put in 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.960 your hat and smoke it. Right. So one of the 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.000 things that came out of this um this close contact, 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.719 where Karen was living on a trailer in Mary's property, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.520 is that supposedly during this time after Ron died, Mary 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.480 admitted that she actually was having an fair with Gordon Massey. 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.000 But but but don't judge her too harshly yet, because 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.320 it didn't start until after the letter writing campaign started. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:51.600 The letters were bs all along you know what. I 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.639 think she had had it an affair with him before 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.840 and stopped and then started back up. Okay, that's possible. 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.840 That's my feeling. I think she had an affair with him. 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:03.960 Maybe it was off and on, who knows, Maybe it 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.680 was pretty much constant. And then at some point, um, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.280 Gordon Massey left his wife or his wife left him. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.720 I got the impression his wife might have left him, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.359 and that Mary was not necessarily his only fling, his 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:24.879 only mistress, and that um, after that and after Ron died, 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:30.040 she felt comfortable saying that they were having an affair. Um, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.960 but it started after the letter writing campaign. That's my 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:38.359 take on it. Well, supposedly the superintendent had uh I 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.239 don't know if it was verified or not, but was 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.600 accused of having affairs with quite a few of the 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.280 female bus drivers. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.720 not just Mary, no, but I mean specifically bus drivers. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.159 I got you, Okay, Yeah, I think that the Circleville 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.560 letter writer basically intimated that or outright said it in 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.879 in some of the letters. Right, Yeah, okay, um so okay. 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.040 So Gordon just think it's interesting that he has the 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.080 thing for bus drivers, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.840 it is. It is a real thing, isn't it. So 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.920 those yellow busses he can't he can't turn them down? 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.280 Maybe so um so okay. So we've got Mary admitting 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.280 that she is having or has had an affair with 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:21.400 Gordon Massey, um Bron's dead, Paul and Karen are splitting up, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.440 and we start to reach into the nineteen eighties, and 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.119 not only were the signs continuing, the letters were continuing, 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.280 the postcards were continuing. People um who were had who 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.760 had nothing to do with like Mary or Karen or 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.879 Paul Um or Gordon had We're getting letters, Like the 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.200 businesses were getting letters. I saw one that was addressed 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.160 to a barbershop and it said dear public, and then 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.320 it went into this tirade about Gordon and Mary. So 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:51.960 a lot of people are getting letters in this town 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.040 about this stuff. Um. And then things kind of stepped 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:01.560 up tremendously in February of three. Yeah, and by the way, 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.760 I think all of these letters were still being postmarked 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.560 from Columbus, Ohio and that's Uh, that's kind of a 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.359 key detail that um that we can't overlook is that 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.199 they're all being mailed in Columbus's what like half hour 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.240 away or so. Okay, so like they weren't being mailed 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:23.200 from that town. Uh. So Mary is doing her job. 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.280 She's still a bus driver six years later, despite all 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.200 this stuff. She's still taking those kids to school, bless 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:33.399 her heart. And she sees a sign on her route that, uh, 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:35.600 I have seen And this is one of those dumb 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:37.360 details I've seen. It was on a post I've seen, 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.040 it was attached to offense, but either way, there was 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:45.359 a sign that had incriminating stuff about her. Once again, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.520 it threatened the life of her daughter, which was a 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.680 big one. So this is when she actually got out 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.639 to to take down and she she took down the 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.480 whole thing because it was kind of an odd looking 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.120 set up. And what she realized when she got home 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.680 was that it was a booby trapped sign that had 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.960 a gun, its twenty five caliber handgun and a little 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.760 container that allegedly was supposed to go off if someone 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.400 were to come by and kind of yank that sign 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.600 down without much care. Yeah, Like I think maybe some 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.000 string was connected to the back of the sign and 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:17.480 it went to the trigger maybe or something like that, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.600 but it was designed to elicit an angry response, and 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.359 apparently she didn't take it down in anger and it 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.840 saved her life. But there's a there's a gun now 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.280 there's so Ron died probably from his own you know, 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.480 um accidental driving. This is totally different. This is attempted 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:42.600 murder um. And it's like, this is like an entirely 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.720 new ball game. This isn't just like, you know, harassing 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.240 somebody or stalking somebody. This now is attempted murder. There's 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:51.880 a loaded gun that was set up to go off 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.359 on on Mary. So of course the police get ahold 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.160 of this gun, and they see pretty quickly that somebody's 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.040 attempted to to file the serial number off of it, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.720 but they haven't done a very good job of it, 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.200 and they handed over to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.280 the state investigators, and they say, oh, yeah, this is easy. 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.359 Watch this, and they get a piece of blank paper 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.359 and a nice cranon and they rub it over it 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.040 and sure enough, there is the serial number that wasn't 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:24.880 properly filed down and they can now trace the gun, 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:27.280 that's right, And they traced it back to a guy 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:31.000 who worked at a higher antizer bush and he said, 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.439