Hey, it’s Colleen. Hi, it’s Kait.
And it’s Megan.
And we’re the 3SchemeQueens. Join us each week as we take turns presenting a brand new conspiracy theory or mystery.
From shadowy cover-ups and unexplained events to viral rabbit holes, we bring the tea, its piping, the facts, and the tin foil crowns.
Join the conversation, laugh along with us, and question everything.
When it’s all over, we’ll tell you what we think, and we’ll try to prove it to you. So grab your drink, hit the follow, and tune in every Tuesday. Is this thing on?
Hey, guys.
Hey, guys.
It’s the 2SchemeQueens today.
Yes, welcome. Where is Colleen?
Colleen is out doing her own search.
She’s out doing her own hunt for the scientists?
Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if you heard this, Megan, but there’s a ninth one now.
No, there’s a tenth one.
We covered nine, because I frantically was researching the ninth one, the day of, and then in the time between when we recorded and when it released, a tenth missing person who walked out of his home and disappeared, got added, so we have ten now.
Oh my gosh, we’re at ten. And now the president’s on the case. That was the breaking news today.
There was other breaking news today.
Our old lieutenant governor, Virginia, killed his wife and then killed himself with his kids in the house, teenagers.
It was awful.
Right down the road.
Yeah. Anything on a more positive note we can get started with?
Well, on a positive note, yesterday, I was out in my garden, and I did so much gardening, and now my back hurts because I was doing all this shoveling, but I planted two trees, three bushes, and a couple flowers, and then I did my planters, and then
I did my hanging pots. Yeah, I was sweating.
Yeah, spring is here. Okay.
2:15
Circleville Letters Overview
Well, today, we’re talking about a mystery that you may have heard of on another podcast, but I felt like we’ve been really heavy into the current events, so we’re going to do a little break, and we’re going to take it back to the 1970s and talk
about The Circleville Letters. So before we get into it, is it time for our drink check?
Drink check.
In honor of our mystery, we’re talking about an anonymous letter writer here.
Okay.
There’s a theory about who it could be.
Yeah.
But for the most part, it’s a pretty unsolved case.
This is crazy. So I want to know what these letters are about.
Could this letter writer be a phantom?
What?
In honor, we’re drinking phantom chardonnay.
Phantom chardonnay tastes like butter and I like it.
I was going to say, what do you think, Kait? I like it.
I just said it.
It’s like a little jingle. I was going to say, if you like your chardonnay to taste as though it was freshly churned by a colonial woman, this is your wine.
We love fresh churned butter over here.
This is almost a little too buttery for me. It’s a little buttery. Yeah.
I do love some fresh churned butter though. But when I make my fresh churned butter, I use the KitchenAid.
Yeah. I couldn’t imagine just doing it by hand.
Carrie does it by hand. Not like Colonial Williamsburg, like in a jar, a mason jar. But still.
That’s a warm workout.
All right.
3:51
First Letters Sent
So let’s get into it.
In the late 1970s, the peaceful small town community of Circleville, Ohio, was shaken when individuals began receiving strange letters.
They all came in the mail without a clear sender, but were postmarked from Columbus, Ohio, 25 miles north of Circleville. The letters were handwritten in strange block letters and contained details about the recipients.
Over a thousand letters were sent accusing neighbors of affairs, exposing private lives and threatening violence and confessions weren’t made.
And whoever was behind them seemed to know everything, including intimate details no outsider should have known. Then things escalated. One victim died under suspicious circumstances while confronting the writer.
Another was set up with a booby trap that was supposed to kill her on contact. What started as anonymous harassment was now something far darker and far more deadly. But here’s where the mystery deepens.
A suspect was caught, a trial was held, a man was sent to prison. Oh, case closed, right? Well, not even close.
Because even after the conviction, the letters didn’t stop. So who was really behind the Circleville Letters? My gosh.
Today, we’re talking about a wild story involving secrets, paranoia, and the terrifying idea that someone out there might know you better than you know yourself.
That is so scary.
But also, it’s like a dark lady whistle down. It’s kind of even gossip girl, right?
Yeah.
Well, I think this is called like the Poison Pen or something, is like how people do this. And I do, and I watch more TV than you. Did you see the Netflix show, the Netflix mini-series?
That’s kind of the similar concept, The Watcher.
Oh, I know exactly.
Oh, wait. Which was based on a New York Times article. Well, yeah, it was based on a true story that happened in Jersey like in the early 1000s.
So like, this is not the only time this has happened.
Yeah.
Very creepy.
It is so creepy.
I couldn’t even, New York Times ran the article and I couldn’t even finish it.
I was like, I’m so scared. That’s why I didn’t watch the TV show.
It was scary.
Well, this one, again, this predates that story. And so unfortunately, it was hard to fact check a lot of things because it’s all from like the 70s, right? But let me tell you what we know.
Do they have fingerprints?
You’re probably going to have these at question.
As I mentioned in the introduction, Circleville is a small rural town. At the time of our story, it had a population of just over 11,000.
Okay.
This town was most famous for its annual Pumpkin Show, which drew in 400,000 people each year.
I kind of love that.
But it was really just like your typical small town America. In the 70s, citizens started receiving creepy anonymous letters, which as I mentioned, over a thousand of them were mailed over the next 20 years. Now, there were two primary targets.
Everyone’s getting letters, but there were two primary targets and they got their letters about the same time, but depending on the source, which one got their letters first is kind of unclear.
The first target who started receiving letters in early March 1977 was Gordon Massey, and he was the superintendent at Westfall High School. The first letter he received was addressed to Westfall High School Attention Superintendent Massey.
There was no return address. Most of these letters didn’t have return addresses. The ones that did, often traced to someone, but it was like not the actual letter writer.
Okay. So again, this had no return address. It was postmarked from Columbus, Ohio, and it read, Dear Sir, According to my girlfriend, you have asked her to go out many times and have asked the other female bus drivers too.
Due to your position and their jobs with you, you should not do this. This must stop at once for the good of the school and the families. If they are not stopped, I will be forced to write to the school board, and I’d hate to do that.
To prey on another man’s girl is untouchable, especially when they’re out trying to make a living. There’s also talk of you dating a married woman and taking advantage of them. Do you need time and names again?
Please think, I suggest you find yourself a pimple-faced whore and start up with her and leave my girls alone. Whoa. Two days later, a letter went to the Board of Education addressed to Westfall High School Attention Board of Education.
Again, no return address. Dear school board, this is to inform you of several dissatisfied female drivers due to their working relations with their boss. He dates a lot of the drivers.
One, because she’s afraid, two, because of her job and because of his position. He constantly asks several of them over and over. No one ever stops him.
He will not take no for an answer from a couple of them. It even bothers some that he has not asked. They would like the chance to tell him where to go.
What? Under these circumstances, they cannot be treated equally. He picks on the weaker ones constantly.
This is a terrible working condition and must be stopped for the sake of the schools and the families involved. Again, you should investigate. He has dated several of them.
Before long, we’ll start repeating the rounds all over again, causing some more hardships and others. A low morale problem. So he even considered a bargaining unit for job protection.
He’s a nice guy on the outside, but please talk to your drivers independently for the full facts of how he is to work for. Please talk to them and treat the problem. Some are nervous and shouldn’t be driving under additional pressure as this.
After me writing this letter, I sure hope he does not upset my girl for his sake. Then the same day of that letter, the writer mailed another letter to the superintendent of schools.
So this is March 4th, 1977, addressed to Westfall High School Attention Superintendent of Schools. Well, again, no return address.
Dear Superintendent, this is to inform you several of your bus drivers are working under pressure due to their bus constantly putting the moves on them. Some like it. The decent ones don’t.
Is he getting paid to run the woman or run the bus lines? Again, some move behind him because they need attention and are weak.
Should his business should be filled by someone capable of taking advantage of his job, school, and people that work for him? Is this a type of family man that we need in a position such as this?
Capable of using working women because of his advantages? One woman dates him because of her job. This is a terrible working relations and something must be done about it.
Most of the drivers know what is going on constantly. You should talk to them and also him before something drastic happens, for he cares not if they are married or single. Could he be allowed to hound them constantly?
I was informed at first by a close friend and refused to believe it, but she proved it through several other friends. I told them to take this matter to someone, but so far they have not. It’s only a few, but they still should count too.
I can prove this and will if her school insists on it. I feel that at first he should be talked to and the drivers also. I will find out through the grapevine if he has been put in line.
I know of his affairs now and can prove it and will do so if he continues harassing drivers for dates, especially when they keep saying no and constantly hounds them. I have met him and he seems like a sincere man.
So I’d like to see this matter made right and forgotten. I can’t stand the thought of him thinking about this. One of these drivers, especially my girl, which I’m sure makes no difference to him.
I am being informed of him daily and can point out the last drivers he has been with. I shall prove it to you. Again, he needs talking to and this matter can be forgotten.
Give the drivers a break, help them, find out for yourself, treat all equal.
Friends of concerned drivers that are in fear, I have always been against school tax dollars bonuses because of their purpose and won’t pay it unless correction and action has been taken. So those were the first letters. He took them to the police.
Okay.
What do you think of those?
Vigilantism.
Immediately, I’m like, is it somebody’s girl or is it the girl?
Is it a victim that’s working under these horrible circumstances? They don’t seem too aggressive. Yeah.
More like, hey, I’m trying to do what’s right here and get your guy.
Yeah.
Make sure he’s in line.
It’s so interesting you say that because first of all, as we get through the story and we talk about what the experts believe, there are some experts who have, like profilers who have said, this letter writer could have been a female.
Yeah.
So it’s interesting that you said that.
I agree because when I know what’s coming and it gets a lot more aggressive and violent, this kind of just sounds like someone who’s like, hey, just so you know, there’s a guy who’s sexually harassing his employees. Right. Period.
Done. Yeah, it kind of seems, I mean, there’s a couple of lines in there, but it doesn’t feel like very threatening. It’s sort of like, please just handle this.
Also, I love that the writer is like, I want my taxes going to schools. Right. So if you don’t fix this, I won’t pay them.
I wish we could just say that. Yeah, I know. Okay.
So that’s kind of the first round of letters. So around the same time, and these letters continued, becoming a little bit more aggressive and actually naming employee ID numbers and giving a lot of detail.
So whoever is writing those letters has some kind of access and is in the know about what’s happening. The first hacker, could you hack in the late 70s? You’d have to have access to a big server somewhere.
Or you’d have to just go into the office at school and do-do-do-do-do through the paper files. Okay, well, remember that also when we talk about potential. Okay, okay.
So one of the primary targets of letters was Mary Gillespie. Okay. She was a school bus driver.
And so again, around the same time, she starts receiving letters. And these ones are really targeted at her as opposed to, I mean, the other ones just, they didn’t really name her.
They were just kind of these like, you know, he’s sleeping with women. Right. She began receiving letters in 1976 or 1977, depending on the source.
And these letters accused the married mother of two of having an affair with school superintendent Gordon Massey. Okay. So the first letter read, Miss Gillespie, stay away from Massey.
Don’t lie when questioned about meeting him. I know where you live. I’ve been observing your house and know you have children.
This is no joke. Please take it serious. Oh my gosh.
Everyone concerned has been notified it will be over soon. So she said she received this letter. She’s like, this is a weird letter.
This is so scary. She’s like, but I’m not having an affair with Gordon Massey. So she just chose to ignore it, not tell anyone.
Oh my gosh.
No.
Immediately, I know where you live.
I know you have children.
That’s a threat and the police need to be notified.
A week later, she received a similar letter. Lady, this is your last chance to report him. I know you were a pig and will prove it and shame you out of Ohio.
A pig sneaks around and meets other women’s husbands, behind their backs only, causes families, homes, and marriages to suffer. You are such a pig and I will prove it. Why doesn’t he come to your rescue?
Or has he too much to lose? His wife, in which pigs like you take advantage of? His $28,500 a year job?
Or his kickbacks? How’s your little girl? Will she grow up to be like you?
Immediately, this superintendent only makes $28,000 a year. Well, it’s 1970.
But still, that’s embarrassing.
That’s embarrassing to be put on blast. Also, imagine how much the teachers made if the superintendents only made $28,000 a year. I know you hate to do this.
I know.
What was $28,000?
That’s what I’m looking at. You hate it. This is just so sad about the state of our.
$28,500 in the 70s is the equivalent of $240,000 in 2026. Shut up. So maybe she really was after his $28,500 a year job.
Shut up. She maintains at this point, nothing’s going on. So then her husband Ron started receiving letters.
Oh, so she has a husband. That’s the scandal. Yes, she’s married.
They have two children, a son and a daughter. Massey, the superintendent, he is married. He has a son.
So she and her husband were like high school sweethearts.
Love that for them.
Yeah. So Ron gets this letter. His read, Mr.
Gillespie, your wife is seeing Gordon Massey. You should catch them together and kill them both.
What?
He doesn’t deserve to live. So you’re telling me this lady got a letter. She didn’t even show her husband the first letter?
Not at first. I mean, maybe if she was having an affair, she wasn’t going to go give her husband this letter, right? Again, she denies the affair.
Yeah. But that might be motive. Or maybe she really was like, I roll again, I think once he’s like referencing your children.
Yeah. That’s a little scary. Yeah.
If I live by myself and someone writes me a letter and is like, I know where you live, which clearly because she wrote me a letter. Also, we could just like Google anybody’s name, find their address. Still scary.
Yeah. So then on April 14th, 1977, he got another letter. It said, Attention, Ron Gillespie.
You have had two weeks and done nothing. You are a pig defender. You are also a pig.
Make her admit the truth and inform the school board. If not, I will broadcast on CDs, like radio, poster, signs, and billboards until the truth comes out. Only pigs ride motorcycles.
Good hunting in your red and white truck on your way to work. Remember, she hung in his office constantly until she broke up his marriage and home. Contact people at school.
They are aware. They are starting to laugh at not only at her. Let her read this.
It is no lie. She knows I’m telling no lie. I followed him for weeks since last summer and have seen her meet him several times.
He knew if I caught, there would be trouble. He’s not as serious as people think. He isn’t concerned about your family, only himself.
He can’t have affairs with school employees and keep his job. He knows what I want. When he quits, I’ll go away.
All you have to do is talk and ask questions from the people that work there. You will see this is no joke. Okay.
So this is getting scarier.
Yeah.
Escalating a little.
Yeah.
Escalating. You’re a pig.
I just feel like this.
I don’t know.
It’s not funny, but it’s giving burn book from Mean Girls.
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, also like, yeah, I see you in your red and white car, which again, it’s still scary. I followed them for weeks.
Yeah.
So Ron takes these letters to the sheriff.
Okay.
As should have been done.
As yes.
Weeks ago.
Immediately. Yeah. So he reports to the sheriff and the sheriff is like, I have real work to do.
I cannot be bothered with your letters. Oh my gosh. How much real work you got to do?
In Circleville, Ohio. In population 11,000. Yeah.
Circleville, Ohio.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So the couple decide they’re taking upon themselves and solve this mystery.
Okay.
They said they only told three people about the letters.
Okay.
Ron’s sister, her husband, Paul, and Paul’s sister. So Mary believed that she knew who the writer was. She suspected it was fellow school bus driver, David Longberry, who had made passes at her before that she had declined.
So she was like, I think he’s just mad. Oh, yeah. And jealous.
I mean, whatever. And so he’s writing these letters.
So they decide they’re going to write about four or five letters to him that pretty much they said were just like in the pattern of the letters they were receiving that pretty much is like, we know what you’re doing, stop. Oh, okay. And this worked.
The letters stopped for five months. Whoa. After a five month break, Mary began receiving letters again.
And again, as I mentioned, these writers knew very specific details.
They would talk about the time that Mary left for her route, her bus route, including specific stops, where her children slept, where she parked her bus, no, when her husband worked late, when her children were home, unless you like to name a few.
So very creepy.
Okay. So I too kind of understand where she thought it was this guy who was like, but this is giving like stalking.
Yeah. Like at this point, he’s stalking her or whole family.
Yeah.
He’s mad he like was turned down. And so now he’s stalking the family. That’s weird.
It is weird.
Yeah.
This guy sounds like he needs some mood stabilize again. You know what I mean? We’re focusing on this, this drama with, with like Massey and Gillespie.
But again, hundreds of residents are also receiving letters with accusations, threats.
At the same time.
Yep.
Oh my gosh.
Then the letter writer got more aggressive and started putting up signs all over town in that same blocky writing. The signs would allege that Massey was having an affair with Gillespie and with her 12-year-old daughter.
And Ron would wake up every morning and drive around town taking down every sign before he went to work so that his wife and daughter wouldn’t have to see these. How did this go on without any witnesses? That’s it.
Yeah. Why didn’t someone just, yeah, someone was like, I saw someone putting a sign up.
Yeah.
Or like, they were like along her bus route. So I feel like couldn’t someone just like, couldn’t the sheriff have just pulled up and been like, we’re going to watch the-
What about a private investigator?
Yeah. I mean, a PI did get involved in this case, but not until much later.
Yeah.
I’d be like, listen, I go, I drive around every morning in the same route. If you guys just sit here, we’ll see who puts the sign up. I mean, now you would just, we probably have cameras too, right?
But it’s the 70s.
Right.
Lots of things were happening in the 70s, let’s be real.
Serial killers.
Oh, yeah.
That’s more West Coast.
Yeah, but 70s.
No, I know. I’m just saying the 70s, serial killers were all in like California, Washington state.
Yeah, but isn’t the theory that they start on the East Coast and they get to the West Coast? Isn’t that a theory?
They kill across America until they get to the West Coast? I don’t know about that. Hold on.
I feel like this is… I mean, no, and in fact Ted Bundy hit Florida after he went like West Coast, Colorado, Florida.
Oh, no, that’s a myth created by movies, TV and famous games.
I believe that… Fake news. Fake news.
21:21
Ron Gillespieʼs Death
So things are kind of escalating again. It’s August 1977, and Ron sent his wife on a trip with her sister in Florida and told her he would handle this while she’s gone.
And on August 19th, Ron received a phone call which was believed to be from the letter writer.
Was it just heavy breathing?
We don’t know what the conversation was on the phone. Oh my gosh. But he told his children he was going to confront the letter writer.
Oh, no, he died. They claim that he did not appear intoxicated, which is important for later.
Okay.
He took a weapon, he kissed his daughter goodbye, and he drove off in that red and white family pickup truck that the letter writer had been watching.
He had an accident.
It was a clear night and Ron was familiar with these roads.
Somebody tapered with his brakes.
At about 10:25 p.m., Ron drove straight and failed to follow the curve in a road that he was supposed to know quite well. And his pickup went off the left side of the roadway for about 37 feet and collided headfirst into a tree. Oh my gosh.
He was not wearing his seatbelt. He was partially ejected from the vehicle. So was this a tragic accident?
The letter writer had been threatening Ron, saying they were watching him in his truck. They had warned Ron that his life was in danger.
Under the body of Ron Gillespie, they found a 22-caliber revolver containing eight live rounds and one spent round, and a box of 22-caliber Winchester Western Wildcat ammo was found in the cab.
Now, there are reports, when you listen to the podcasts, you watch the video YouTubes, there have been reports that this indicated that he had shot his gun at some point that night. Right.
But the Whatever Remains podcast did a deep dive into this, and they point out that all it means is that at some point, this gun was shot.
22:57
Apple Podcasts
artwork representing URL
Yeah, it was not that it was that day.
Yeah.
There’s also reports that there were bullet holes in the side of the truck, but that has not been verified. And when I look at the pictures of the wreckage, I don’t see bullet holes.
Yeah.
So that might have just been a rumor. Guess who identified the body?
The crazy stalker guy.
The sheriff.
The sheriff?
Which just feels weird, because if we’re gonna talk about a public cover-up, why is the sheriff identifying the body? Unless they don’t want the loved ones to see the body, because there’s more to the story, you know?
Okay, yeah.
Yeah. So I think, yeah, there was a cover-up happening that’s a great way to prevent his loved ones from seeing anything suspicious.
Was it the sheriff that was stalking everybody?
Well, no, but I just feel like the sheriff blew this off, and he does come back, but it just seems like he wasn’t invested in. I mean, you could list him on your… My potential suspects.
The investigators looked into one anonymous suspect, who we assume is David Longberry, that’s the guy, the fellow bus driver, she thought was the one writing the letters.
So investigators claim that they looked into him, but he passed a polygraph and was cleared.
Whoa, listen, eight anti-social personalities could probably pass a polygraph. I’m just saying.
You just can’t be nervous. Well, they don’t feel anything. Exactly, so if you’re just, or I think if you’re delusional and you’re just like, I can beat this, you might be able to.
I’m going to sit down and my heart’s going to be racing and I’ll be sweating and no one’s even asked a question yet. Bourbon Boy has done a polygraph and everything was strapped down and he couldn’t move.
He was like, if you fidget, it’s a problem and I was like, I would fail immediately because all I do is fidget. Yeah, it’s like getting an MRI and then I was like, I can’t even like, I want to like wiggle my toes.
And I was like, you know, when my patients can’t stay still for an MRI, I’m like, get it together, ma’am. And then when I’m the one in the position, I’m like, this is really hard. You have to stay totally still.
Okay. So again, the investigators looked at this one suspect, clear him, and they said, you know what? Just sounds like for about maybe a day they were like, maybe there’s something to the story.
I’m like, just kidding. It was an accident. This is an accidental death.
But something didn’t sit right with the residents. For one thing, Ron had a BAC of 0.16. But his family said he was not a drinker.
He did not appear drunk when he left his family. I remember he gave his daughter a kiss. You would think that she would have smelled alcohol.
Especially if your blood alcohol level is 0.16, you are smelling alcohol. Yeah. Now, Ron, they do some shots of Everclear in the car like, let’s go.
Now, Paul, the brother-in-law and the sheriff had never met until he says the sheriff notified him of the death. And Paul told him that if he had worked harder to solve the letter investigation, maybe Ron would still be here.
And he pushed him to look at the possibility of foul play. He really wanted this investigated. Right.
Paul claimed the sheriff did not react well to those accusations. And that was the start of a divisive relationship between them. So now we have this death.
Could have been an accident where he drove off the road. Could be more to it. But regardless, the letters continue.
I’m sorry.
No one looked at the car?
So the car was pretty quickly disposed of. Oh no.
This is suspicious. I am suspicious of everybody involved. Does the sheriff have a son?
Does the sheriff have family ties? Does the sheriff have somebody working in school system? These are questions that I have, Megan.
You don’t have to answer them right now.
I think we’re going to get to these in the discussion now, and I like all the places your brain is going. Okay.
Local residents are receiving their own anonymous letters which revealed Mary Gillespie’s alleged affair with Gordon Massey, and accused Sheriff Radcliffe of orchestrating a cover-up.
The letter writer’s focus really turned to the sheriff with accusations of ignoring the crime, covering it up of being a tyrant, a predator, and corrupt. Whoa.
As you mentioned, as we mentioned, the family did pursue an investigation, but the vehicle had already been destroyed. In the meantime now, so Mary is a widow, Superintendent Massey ends up getting divorced from his wife.
Oh, that’s suspicious as well.
And then they claimed that in 1979, they started seeing each other. Oh, come on. This definitely did not start with the letters before Ron’s death or when the superintendent was still married.
Oh my gosh.
They just bonded.
They would get together to talk about the letters and then there was just a connection. Okay, I don’t agree with that. I don’t believe them.
That’s crazy. Come on. So letters continue.
Uh-huh.
Fast forward to 1983.
So people have been dealing with this now for seven years.
That’s so crazy.
Yeah. The letter writer began putting signs up along Mary’s bus route, as I mentioned, and they were making threats against her daughter.
At around 3:30 PM on February 7th, Mary alleges that fed up from seeing an obscene sign about her 13-year-old daughter, she pulled over and attempted to pull the sign down. Behind it, she discovered a box and a string. So it’s like a booby trap.
So if she had pulled the sign down differently, when she pulled the sign down, a string would have pulled, this gun would have shot and it would have shot right at her in the front if she was pulling it down.
Oh my gosh.
But she took the whole thing down. The booby trap did not go off. He has this box with this gun and this string, and she’s like, oh my gosh, this was a booby trap.
You said 1983?
1983.
When was the Goonies out?
Oh, 1985 was Goonies.
Maybe it was inspired. Wow. Someone had attempted to rub the serial number off the weapon, but lab tests were able to identify the number and tracked it to, who do you think?
The stalker, Paul, her brother-in-law.
Oh, what?
Who had just split with Ron’s sister. Oh my God. Denied being involved, he said that the weapon had been stolen and that he was being framed.
He said, I admitted the gun was mine, I hadn’t seen it for a long time, I had no reason to check up on it or anything, and I don’t know when it had come up missing. I really don’t know what happened to it.
I told them that and that’s the truth and that’s how it was.
29:34
Paul Freshourʼs Trial
So the sheriff called in Paul. Okay. He handed Paul one of these letters and he said, I want you to try to recreate the handwriting from this letter.
Handed to Paul. Yeah, but like that’s not how a handwriting assessment goes, a handwriting comparison. You don’t say, do your best to make the handwriting look exactly like this sentence.
So he did this. The sheriff, who I assume is not a handwriting expert himself, looked at it and goes, yep, that’s a match. And Paul was arrested.
No. But he was not arrested for the letter writing. He was arrested for the attempted murder of Mary Gillespie.
This seems wrong. So he went on trial in 1983. And again, despite not being charged with like writing these letters, some of the letters were entered as evidence.
A handwriting expert testified that it was Paul’s handwriting on the letters and the booby trap. And his boss testified that he had not been at work the day the booby trap was found. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven to 25 years.
But despite Paul’s incarceration, the letters didn’t stop. The sheriff is like, you guys obviously aren’t keeping a good enough eye on Paul if he’s in lockup and these letters are still going out.
Yeah.
But he’s also 200 miles away in lockup and the letters are still coming from Columbus.
Yeah.
He’s working with somebody. That’s a theory. Okay.
They actually put Paul in solitary confinement, restrict his access. They pat him down multiple times a day looking for paper and pencil. And despite that, the letters continue.
Okay.
So clearly, he’s not the one.
He’s either got somebody working with him.
And it’s not like, it’s not like email where you can like time things.
This is like post.
So you have to go and send these.
His parole was actually rejected because the amount of letters still being sent. Like he’s like, it couldn’t have been me.
These letters are still going out and they’re like, no, it was you and you have no remorse because the letters are still going out. So he served 10 years where he was paroled but he continued to maintain his innocence.
There was a 48 hours special on this a couple of years ago. And they brought in their own handwriting experts.
Pretty much my takeaway from all of this is that there’s probably at least a half a dozen experts that have looked at this, and everyone has a different assessment. And I just feel like handwriting is not fingerprints or DNA.
Like it’s very subjective. So I don’t even know what to make of this. Because again, we had people testifying that the handwriting was a match.
48 hours brought in their own handwriting experts. She reviewed 49 letters, and she was confident that he wrote every one of those letters.
I feel like that never happens.
The letters that were received during his incarceration had his fingerprints on them. So the theories were like, was he framed? Had he written these?
Had he, he was in a former life, before he worked for Anheuser-Busch, he was a, he was a prison guard before, so I don’t know, maybe, maybe it was like officer to officer and someone was helping him out, you know? Oh, hold on.
Or had he written them before his incarceration to have an alibi? DNA testing on a letter stamp showed a male profile that did not match.
Oh, okay.
And they also brought in a behavioral analysis, a profiler.
Okay.
And she seemed more sceptical that it was Paul. She thought that the profile didn’t match. She said it could have been a female, could have been a male.
Yeah. She said definitely, she thought it was someone who was probably not very well educated. Yeah.
I got that feeling too. And Paul, especially when they kept saying, pigs, you’re a pig. Paul had like a master’s degree.
Yeah. So she didn’t think that much up. And then she’s also like, why would somebody who had spent decades considering their identity be braised enough to go, like, plant a booby trap?
Was the booby trap even the same person as the writer?
Well, you know, some people do get kind of confident.
Yeah.
And it’s been a decade.
Yeah.
It’s like, I’ve gotten away with everything this far.
So some other things we’ll go through, some other things didn’t add up, and then I’m going to go through the theories, and you tell me what you think. There was one witness statement that was not shared at trial.
So I told you that this PI came in kind of after the fact, and he investigated. He is pretty adamant he did not believe Paul did it. He was the writer or booby trap person.
And he discovered that there was a witness statement that was not shared at trial.
Mary Gillespie told the sheriff one of the other bus drivers told her that she had been driving that same road about 20 minutes before Mary Gillespie found the booby trap at exactly that site.
And when she went by that very same intersection, there was a yellow El Camino parked there. A large man with sandy hair was standing there.
When he saw her come, he turned around and act like he was going to the bathroom or something, but seemed also to be avoiding any kind of identification. So the description of this individual does not fit Paul at all.
Paul had a very solid alibi for this time as well, and there was no attempt at all to follow up on that lead.
His boss had testified in court that Paul had not come to work that day, but Paul had housework being done, and he had multiple people who could vouch for his location. So he did have an alibi.
It’s also strange, because as I told you, after Ron’s death, Paul was very vocal about the fact that he didn’t believe it was accidental, and he wanted an investigation reopened. So why would he do that if he had something to hide?
If he’s writing letters, why is he yelling at the sheriff, you’re not looking into these letters? And I think that’s just drawing attention.
Yeah, you’re asking for the attention.
It’s more like you want to console your family, be like, you know what, the sheriff does have a lot of stuff on his plate.
If you want to like divert attention away from yourself, you’re gonna play it up. Or why wouldn’t you just embrace it and be like, yeah, what a tragic accident.
Yeah, so tragic.
Instead of like, you have the police saying this was an accident. And if you’re somehow involved, that’s like a perfect scenario for you. Going back to the things that didn’t line up for Paul.
And now there are people who really believe that Paul did this, okay? But I’m just being devil’s advocate and I’m giving you all the stuff that… I don’t believe it.
He’s an innocent man. Paul’s fingerprints were not found on the letters, gutter, booby trap, and no incriminating evidence was found when they searched his house.
But then the fingerprints were found on those letters that went out while he was in jail, which seems awfully suspicious. To me, I’m like, you took all this care.
If you really did this, why would you take all this care to make sure you didn’t have any evidence left behind? But then you had fingerprints all over these letters that were sent while you were in jail? That does sound suspicious.
Wait, were his fingerprints the only fingerprints on the letters? Yes, but there was some other male DNA on the stamps. There were shoe prints at the scene of the booby trap.
Did not match the size or shoe print belonging to Paul. He took three to four polygraphs, but there’s conflicting evidence on whether or not he passed or failed. Again, when he got out of jail, he posted all the stuff online.
He was very vocal that he was innocent. When you read through the hundreds of pages he posted, he says, the sheriff said I failed a polygraph, but he’s not provided proof of that to anyone. He maintains that he passed the polygraphs.
The sheriff claimed that Paul had confessed after failing these polygraphs that Paul then said, you know what, I wrote some of the letters. Paul said, that confession never happened.
No one has been able to provide a written confession, an audio confession, a video confession. All we have is the sheriff being like, oh yeah, he confessed to me.
What does the sheriff look like? Is it a big guy?
Some dirty blonde hair?
He’s got, so he’s involved. I don’t know how, but he’s involved.
And then as far as those letters, some people are like, the fact that he was in jail and these letters kept coming is proof he was innocent. Right. There are theories that maybe, as you mentioned, he was working with someone.
Yeah.
And wouldn’t that be a great way to be like, look how innocent I am if these letters continue to come while you’re in jail?
Yeah. But one of his daughters claims that when he was home on bail before his trial, she found him writing letters and he told her that they were to help him if he got convicted.
But she alleges that her older sister is the one who would have mailed them for him. So this one daughter claims that he was writing these letters in advance, and then her older sister mailed them while he was incarcerated to make him look innocent.
Wait, wait, wait.
The younger daughter is saying this? Yes. That she saw her dad writing letters?
Yes. Okay. I’m gonna talk to you in just a moment about his ex-wife and kind of their tumultuous relationship and the accusations and allegations.
But I don’t know if there’s also a degree of she’s mad. Them being warped by their mother. Right.
Why would you sit on that? There’s a lot of that, right? Like that’s like your wife, your wife is sitting on, oh apparently he had all these letters five years ago, but like you didn’t tell anyone, you just sat on that?
Yeah, I don’t like it. Also again, there was a male DNA, so the female daughter couldn’t be doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m with you.
In 1994, Paul was finally paroled. The letter stopped, with the exception of a postcard sent to Unsolved Mysteries while they were working on an episode. That is so creepy.
So Unsolved Mysteries, same year in 1994, they are filming an episode and they received a postcard that said, Forget Circleville, Ohio. If you come to Ohio, UL Sickos will pay. Signed the Circleville writer.
So scary. Again, Paul maintained his instance till his death in 2012. He even uploaded hundreds of documents.
And he alleges that Sheriff Radcliffe tried to cover up the letters and did not appropriately investigate. And that his whole motivation for doing that was to become the National Sheriff’s Association president.
He wrote, see the date of the letters and the date of his involvement with the National Sheriff’s Association. The crime rate in Pickaway County at that time would have eliminated him from this appointment.
There were allegations in the letters that the Sheriff had an affair with a school employee and that a prosecutor who went on to become a judge was accused of impregnating and murdering a school teacher.
There were also accusations of molestation against Dr. Carroll, who was the county coroner. So it sounds like there were a lot of people in law enforcement that had a lot of allegations against them.
And it does look like there’s probably a lot of corruption going on. And so, you know, maybe the Sheriff was like, if there’s no crime to investigate, then there’s no crime, right?
Like if we don’t report this, if we don’t believe it’s real, my crime rates are at an all-time low. Right.
40:14
Unraveling Suspects
All right.
Other potential theories.
So who are you thinking right now?
I had nothing. I’m going to be honest.
You’ve bumped, you’ve jumped around a lot. Well, I have jumped around a lot, but I feel like it’s pretty convoluted. I do, I feel like Paul’s innocent.
I just feel like there’s got to be like a tie with the Sheriff, a tie with this guy in the yellow Camino.
Again, why did no one have the forethought to be like, if we just had someone hanging out to watch what goes on in this bus stop, then this wouldn’t be a mystery?
Yeah. Like that’s really annoying.
Yeah.
I didn’t know when think about this. I agree, I agree.
The ex-wife, I want to know how they divorced.
Was it on bad terms?
It was on bad terms. This bitch got her brother killed? So Karen was Paul’s estranged wife.
They had a physical altercation that left Karen with a black eye and four stitches. And Paul admitted to it, and he put himself into counseling due to his guilt. And then they filed for divorce.
Okay. So this is not a good look for Paul, because I’m with you. I’ve kind of thought Paul’s probably innocent, but he does seem to have a temper issue here.
Right. During the divorce, she was living in a trailer on Mary’s property with her son, who was 19, and the two daughters were living with Paul.
She was the key witness that testified against Paul, as I mentioned, alleging that she had found letters, but she couldn’t produce these letters that she’d found when they were married. But she says they were there.
She claimed that he thought the world of Mary and wrong, but after Ron’s death, he blamed Mary for cheating. Though Karen supports her sister-in-law and says that I believe the affair didn’t start until 1970. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Do we think this was two separate people?
So again, if we think about like who had the most to gain from Paul going to jail, right?
The divorce agreement had given Paul everything, including the house and the kids. But if he’s in jail, then she gets everything.
Yep.
So there was that witness who said they saw a large man with sandy brown hair and an El Camino at the side of the booby trap.
Yeah.
And it does not match Paul’s description.
No.
It did match that of Karen’s boyfriend. Also, she had a brother who had a yellow El Camino.
What?
So was she involved?
Okay.
So Ron’s sister is now dating a guy who matches? Who matches the physical description of who this other bus driver saw at the spot of the booby trap to eight minutes prior.
Right.
And there was a yellow El Camino and her brother drives the yellow El Camino.
Whoa.
They set him up. Mary testified that Karen told her that she believed that Paul may have been responsible for the letters. But again, Paul’s like, we just had this awful divorce.
I’m going to tell you about. Like, if she really believed that, why didn’t she mention that in this divorce court?
Right.
Why didn’t she say like, he’s taking my kids, he’s taking the money, but do you know who this man is? He’s writing the letters. She just saved this and sat on it.
Right.
That feels weird.
Yeah.
Paul claimed that he suspected his teenage son of stealing his gun a few weeks before the booby trap, but he didn’t want to get his son in trouble.
So when they were like, who could have taken the gun? He was like, I don’t know.
Wait, Paul has a son? I thought he had two daughters.
He has a son and two daughters, but the son is 19. The son is living with the wife. The two daughters living with Paul.
So maybe she’s got the son under her thumb. Probably.
Mama’s boy.
The plot thickens because the son died, became severely depressed and took his own life. And many speculated that he couldn’t live with the guilt of helping to set up his dad. 100%.
I’m on board with that.
They definitely set him up.
She wanted the house, that bitch.
Well, and then I told you that there was that anonymous, that Unsolved Mysteries came to film, and there was that anonymous postcard that said, forget Circleville, Ohio.
Do nothing to hurt Sheriff Radcliffe. If you come to Ohio, you will sickos will pay.
Well, locals claimed she threatened anyone who did participate and that she actually like sat there and like took photos of everyone that she saw walking in and out of the building to participate.
They couldn’t do a stakeout to solve this mystery, but she’s doing a stakeout who’s participating in unsolved mysteries. So that is one of the theories, is that was she behind these letters and was her motive to destroy her ex-husband? Right.
I kind of like that theory. Okay. Let’s hear another.
Another theory is that this all started with Massey’s son, with the Superintendent Massey. His son’s name was William. He was 19 years old.
And the theory is that maybe he heard rumors about his dad having these affairs or whatever, and he kind of snapped. And some of the later letters were signed Bill. But again, like, why would this guy suddenly write his name?
Right. In 2023, William died.
And when you, again, I watched the YouTube video that said that in 2025, his widow went up into the attic and found all these drafts of the Circleville Letters in the attic, and she turned them over to the authorities and handwriting samples matched.
But I couldn’t actually verify that. Like, I couldn’t find any news article or police report that said that.
Also, everyone has a different opinion on the handwriting than us, and that’s, again, the handwriting is driving me crazy, because it’s like half of the experts are like, it’s a match, and half are like, it’s not.
It’s not a match.
Yeah. Other theory is that David Longberry, now he was the coworker who allegedly made the pass at Mary. He was your first suspect, right?
Yeah.
David, I call him David Stalker in my head.
Yeah.
David Longberry. This is we believe they suspected and who we think passed the lie detector test after the car accident. Do you want to know what happened to David?
You do want to know what happened. I do. Of course I want to know.
In 1999, he was staying with a couple who invited their 11-year-old granddaughter to stay with them.
She claimed that Longberry raped her in the living room while her grandparents were at home, and then they confronted him and he fled, and he was never seen again. He was on America’s Most Wanted, another show we watched a lot of growing up.
And they were trying to find him and trying to find him. And then in spring of 2009, he was discovered having died of suicide years earlier. Oh.
His death was announced in 2009, but they suspect he had been dead for years prior, which would kind of match with letters stopping in 2004, although if he’s not in Circleville, I don’t know how he would know what was going on.
In the 90s, a new suspect emerged. In 1983, a prison inmate named Thomas Lee Dillon sent a letter to the Columbus Dispatch claiming responsibility for the Circleville Letters. Thomas Lee Dillon had killed five men, murdered five men.
He had a history of violent behavior. He was already serving a life sentence for murder. This didn’t really match his MO.
Yeah.
There was no handwriting forensics or timeline evidence that linked him to the letters.
Yeah.
He wasn’t a Circleville local, so I don’t know how he would have known so much about the locals.
Yeah.
People kind of blew this off.
There was no proof. He was probably just looking for some attention. And then in 2006, James Renner, are you familiar with him?
He’s like a true crime author, but he’s pretty divisive because he, I think he does a lot of speculating without proof proof. Oh. He developed a new suspect.
He thought it was a former school superintendent named Dwight L. Bowman. Oh, Dwight.
Who had been fired from his position as superintendent and so perhaps had a grudge against several of the individuals who received the letters. Right. And that was his motive.
But Bowman died in 2009, authorities were never able to question him. And again, James Renner, the one who reposed the suspect, is not someone that I generally put a lot of faith in. So that’s one that’s out there.
Objection.
Speculation. Yeah.
But the most common believed theory is one that you touched on, that there were two, more, there’s more than one writer. Yeah. I like this theory.
I like the one is a, the one definitely sounds like a female. And then it sounds like somebody was like, hold on, this is a good idea.
I’m going to piggyback on this.
Well, also, let me just show you some of these letters, okay?
Okay.
You tell me if these look like the same person wrote all these letters.
Immediately no.
Immediately no. It’s like 10 feet away from her and she’s like, no. One is way too narrow, and the other is a little bit fatter and wider and a little bit more messy.
One looks like a female, one looks like a male, and I’m just saying it. Which one do you think is the female? This one?
Yes.
The more needed one.
These are the first ones.
Yes.
I’m telling you, female. Okay. I listen to that, female.
Okay. Who do you think the female was? If you think the letters to the Gillespie’s and to the superintendent started with his son, Will, that’s not Will, right?
No.
This is not David the Stalker.
Not David the Stalker.
Died, unalived himself.
I think she got away with it.
You think it was the ex? No. I think it’s someone we don’t know.
Okay. I think first female got away with it.
Someone in maybe the front office of the school, she knew what was going on, she saw it.
She’s like, Hey, let’s just cut this out.
This is unprofessional.
And I’m a female in the 70s, no one’s going to listen to me. But maybe if I write these letters.
I mean, maybe, and again, most of those first letters just said, like, hey, when someone asks you, tell the truth.
Right.
And literally, all they said, what they weren’t aggressive either. And then the second, the second bound of letters came. That’s when he starts talking about the following you.
I’m watching your daughter. See, that gets a little bit creepy. And then he gets into this like, your life is at risk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So to me, that’s when it takes a turn. Okay. So who do you, do you think the car accident was an accident?
No, I don’t think the car accident was an accident. I think it was planned.
It sounds like somebody cut his, isn’t there like a steering wheel?
The brake line or something? Yeah. He was coming around a corner and he was going at a fast speed and he just went straight off the road.
But also the steering wheel. I was thinking it was a brake issue and he can’t slow down on the curve, but you’re thinking he’s unable to turn his wheel. Right.
Because if you go straight, if you would have, at least he would have been able to turn, he would have skidded, but wouldn’t have changed the course of the way he went off.
He would have gone straight into a tree. He probably would have turned and flipped.
I also don’t know what to make of this blood alcohol level. Because, again,. 16 is-
I’m telling you, that sheriff is dirty. I think people are like, how could he have gotten drunk so quickly? I’m like, all I can think is if, I mean, one of the coroners had allegations against him.
The prosecutor had allegations and the sheriff had allegations. Dirty town, 11,000 people, they’re all in each other’s pockets. Unless, yeah, we think that the.16 was justified.
Yeah, they’re all in each other’s pockets, for sure.
And then who do you think did the booby trap?
The booby trap was the wife, 100.
Karen, ex-wife.
Yeah, Karen. Yeah. Of course her name is Karen.
Karen. You think Karen’s son took the gun.
Yep.
That had no fingerprints on it or anything.
Yep.
Had her boyfriend take her brother’s car.
Yeah, and do we think that the gun actually, like the booby trap was meant to work? Like maybe it really wasn’t meant to work at all.
It was just supposed to like scare her or what? Yeah.
Like, oh, let’s make this look like a booby trap.
It looks very basic. Also, I’m like, how did she avoid that? I don’t know.
The string just fell off.
Unless she just like pulled from the top.
However hard enough. Yeah, it was like the way she removed the sign of the thing from, which is very lucky.
Yeah.
Also, then she had like a gun on her school bus. But that’s not safe for children.
No.
Okay. And then how do you think the letters kept coming when he was in jail? What do you think happened there?
Well, I think they got the wrong guy. You think that Karen was still hiding letters? No, I don’t think Paul was in on it at all.
Okay.
I think Paul was set up by Karen.
I believe Paul was innocent.
Okay. I think somebody else was the writer. Okay.
I think there was number one, she got away with it.
Number two, he got away with it.
But Paul, perfect crime.
I think too, I mean, I kind of really painted a picture of Paul as this good guy and Karen is crazy. But to be again, he did admit that he had hit her. Well, yeah, I mean, that’s not good.
I know I just want to eat full disclosure. And he was, when he was a prison guard, yeah, he was involved in a host. He was taken hostage.
He was involved in like a prison, whatever.
Oh, PTSD.
And so, I mean, I’m sure he may have had some issues. Right. Karen, if we take what she said with the great assault, he was very into like what is right and what is wrong.
And it like would drive him crazy if people like weren’t doing what is right.
Yeah.
Which would kind of line up with someone who’s writing these letters. But I’m with you. I’m like, there’s been, there’s really no evidence.
Right. And he was so adamant about the shares in a sense, and wanting people to like open these even up till he died. He was like, you guys need to investigate this.
Again, no one was ever charged with the letter writing. He was only charged with the booby trap.
Right.
So it is not a closed case about like who wrote these letters.
No.
And he was very vocal about like you should. And if like if he was writing them, why would he be like, keep, keep investigating who’s writing them.
Right.
That you can catch me.
Right. Right.
Yeah. So I’m with you. I don’t know who started it.
I kind of like your theory that it was just like the 70s pre-Me Too when someone was just like, trying to kind of whistle blow.
Right. And then it got weird.
And then it got weird. And then- And not to say that some people, you know, serial killers start out as like, you know, the Golden Gate Golden State killer started off as a peeping tom.
Yeah.
Escalate.
And then it escalated. So it’s not to say he couldn’t, or whoever was writing these letters couldn’t have escalated.
But even the lettering is different. Unless you want to say like they got more unhinged, which is a possibility. Well, I think too, this whole deal with this theory that maybe the superintendent’s son started this.
I think the other reason that’s kind of an interesting theory is because it makes sense to me if like, so he graduated from high school and then his parents got divorced, and that was that.
But like, if he was suspecting his dad of having affairs, and he just wanted it to like stop, like he was like, just knock it off, right?
He’s in high school and he knows through his dad, he has access to his dad to records, he could be in the school flipping through finding employee identification numbers and that kind of thing.
That’s true.
But it doesn’t go with your theory that it was a female. So we’re thinking, no one who was guilty served anytime.
Yep.
We just have a bunch of victims. We have poor Mary who spent decades of her life dealing with this, her poor daughter. Yep.
Right. We’ve got a dead husband who wasn’t trying to do anything, but protect his family.
Yep.
We got Paul, he went to jail for a decade and then spent the next 15 years of his life, falsely accused. That’s what we think.
Yes. This is what I think.
Yeah. Okay. I’m definitely team two people, and I think they both went free and I think Paul’s innocent, and I think his wife knew how to get the house.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I also wish there was a way you could just get, I wish, and I’m sure that people didn’t report them all, and I’m sure, again, it was the 70s, but I wish there was just, you could just have all 1,000 letters uploaded, and I could just look through all
of them. I could only look through the famous ones, right? But I do wonder, it also would be interesting if like, if this starts happening, I mean, then you just, anyone that pisses you off, you have an excuse, right?
Like if you’re like, there’s a lady whistled down at the town, there’s a gossip girl at the town, and she’s telling everyone secrets, and now I’m pissed at my next door neighbor, I’m gonna just write them a letter, and no one’s gonna know that it’s
not part of this, whatever. So I’m curious if other people were just like-
Writing letters?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, that’s a good thought.
I’m pissed off at- I saw my neighbor sneaking in a guy while her husband was at work, and then you could just write a letter, and no one’s gonna know it’s you, because everyone would be like, oh, it’s that Circleville writer.
Yeah.
So I think for sure there could be multiples, but I really wish we could just see them all. Yeah. But I can’t.
I couldn’t find that, so. Guys, just a reminder, don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens. That’s the number 3 Scheme Queens, all one word.
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If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, and our contact page where you can engage with us and share any updates
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As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes. All right. Well, Kait, what should the people do?
Yeah.
First, what I want you to do is take out your phone.
And I want you to send us the three people who enjoy a good ransom note with the cutout letters from the magazines, because this is kind of what the block lettering is kind of giving that.
And then I want you to scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, leave us a comment, share us on your Instagram, interact with us on our social media platforms, send us an email if there’s something that you would like us to cover.
And yeah, Megan. Sounds good.
And I guess we will hopefully have all 3Scheme Queens together next week.
Yep. We’ll check back in. Colleen, again, doing some investigating for us.
Yeah.
We might have some updates. Hopefully she doesn’t just walk away. If there’s any one of us who could walk away, it’s going to be her.
She’s an air tag. Yes, she does. Okay.
We will see you next Tuesday.
See you next Tuesday.