u/Comfortable_Bus_2423

In September 2025 Austin Police
matched crime scene DNA to Robert Eugene Brashers — a serial
killer who died in a police standoff in 1999, six years
before the first arrest in the case. He was never
investigated or charged. Two men who spent years in prison
for these murders

Circleville, Ohio. 1976.

A small, quiet Midwestern town — best known for its annual Pumpkin Show — began receiving anonymous letters. Handwritten. No return address. Postmarked Columbus. And deeply, disturbingly personal.

The writer knew things they shouldn't. Affairs. Financial crimes. Family secrets kept behind closed doors. The first target was Mary Gillispie, a school bus driver accused of an affair with the school superintendent. But the letters spread. Over 18 years, hundreds of Circleville residents received them.

In August 1977, Mary's husband Ron received a phone call. He left the house angry and armed. Fifty minutes later, his car was found wrapped around a tree. Ron was dead. His blood alcohol was .16. The death was ruled accidental. One bullet had been fired from his gun. No one ever found out who called him.

The letters didn't stop. In 1983, Mary spotted a threatening sign on her bus route and pulled over to tear it down. The sign was tied to a string. The string led to a box. Inside the box was a loaded gun — rigged to fire when she pulled.

It misfired.

Police traced the gun to Paul Freshour — Mary's own brother-in-law. His estranged wife said he was the writer. He had failed a polygraph. Two handwriting experts testified the letters matched his writing. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to seven to twenty-five years. The town believed the nightmare was over.

The letters kept coming.

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Paul Freshour was held in solitary confinement. He had no access to pens or paper. The prison warden confirmed on record that he could not have sent the letters during that period.

The writer even sent a letter to Freshour in prison. It read:

"Now when are you going to believe you aren't getting out of there — I told you two years ago when we set em up. They stay set up."

Paul Freshour was released on parole in May 1994.

The letters stopped that same year.

He maintained his innocence until his death in 2012. He had approached the FBI to reopen the investigation. The FBI never responded.

A former FBI profiler who reviewed the case concluded the psychological profile of the writer did not match Freshour. She believed the letters and the booby trap may have been the work of two different people — and that someone took advantage of the situation.

The handwriting test used at trial — in which Freshour was asked to copy one of the Circleville letters directly rather than provide independent samples — is not accepted forensic practice.
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The identity of the Circleville letter writer has never been confirmed.

The case has never been formally closed.

If you are experiencing harassment or threats and feel unsafe, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, or call your local authorities. You are not alone.

The full investigation — every theory, every suspect, the FBI profile, and the question of who really called Ron Gillispie that night — is coming to GraveFile TV.

Follow so you don't miss it.

A family moved to a mountain cabin for a fresh start. By morning, three were dead, and one 12-year-old girl was gone. The suspect wrote a confession in a letter. It was never submitted as evidence