This Paranormal Life - The Circleville Letters Mystery - Ghost or Serial Killer?

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Who doesn’t love receiving mail? — a letter from a loved one, a cool eBay purchase, or illicit substances from the dark web — it can be such a fun treat to receive a piece of mail. But what if next time you opened up your mailbox you were staring down the barrel of a loaded gun? That’s the uncomfortable reality that the residents of Circleville, Ohio had to become accustomed to after mysterious letters started turning up in their town. The letters revealed impossible-to-know secrets and details of sordid infidelities. But who authored the letters? And were they even among the living? Time for Rory and Kit to investigate. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get access to weekly bonus episodes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Research by Ewen Friers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1977, residents of a small town in Ohio called Circleville began receiving mysterious letters from an unknown source identified only as writer. I know where you live. I've been observing your house and know you have children. This is no joke. Please take it serious. Everyone concerned has been notified. It will be over soon. They were etched in bizarre handwriting. Just imagine a letter posted through your letterbox containing these disturbing words and then imagine receiving hundreds of them over the course of several years. The letters contain threats of violence and supposed blackmail, often as a means of coercing the receiver to comply with the writer's will. But who

or what was sending them? What did they want? And what's scarier? A haunted amusement park, or amusement park prices themselves? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This paranormal life. Hello, welcome back to the show to This Paranormal Life. Rory, what the damn hell is going on here. I have no idea. Someone called the writer sending threatening letters to individuals. That's terrifying.

In this circumstance of us trying to bust this case, I'm treating you right now as the detective at the start of the movie. I'm like, we got some evidence right here for you, Chief. This is the letters we're looking at. Jesus Christ, we're moving this fast. We're just going. All right, you can call me Detective Lugo as we kick off this investigation. Kit has handed me the letter that I believe is the one that was sent to these individuals,

whoever they are. It's marked to Mrs. Ron Gillespie. Is that right? Yep. Mrs. Ron Gillespie? Well, I guess actually, yeah, that is a thing that people used to do, isn't it? People would be like, you know, like in a movie in the 1950s, if someone was flirting with Rory Pars, they would say, is there a Mrs. Rory Pars? Oh, I see.

I feel like that might be what they're saying. A little flirting. Okay. Well, I'm not saying the flirting. I'm just like, you might have, I don't know, maybe if you didn't know Ron's wife's name, you might be like, just Mrs. Ron Gillespie. That's a stretch. I'm trying to make it make sense. Yeah, this is already really messy.

What's happening? What's going on? Don't focus on the address. Focus on the blackmail letter. Do you want me to read this? Well, no, I just read it. But I'm just showing you the nature of the letter. You're the worst detective in the business.

You really are Detective Lugo. I don't know what's happening right now. Welcome to the show. What are we got on our hands today, guys? A mystery. And yes, Rory's named what? What is it? I feel like I should have been shown that,

like 30 minutes into the podcast. So weird to just hand me evidence. Because I just read the letter to you. There it is. Stay away. No, no, that's actually a different letter. better. Oh, yeah, I've been observing your house and know you have children. This isn't a joke. Please take it serious. Asking someone to take it serious. Doesn't seem like a good way to get them to take it serious though. But anyway, yeah, we have a mystery on our hands, guys. And Rory said the elephant in the room here, which is this reminds us very much already, long-time listeners, of a case called The Watcher. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to do the voice. If anyone's listened to this paranormal life, they'll know that the Watcher are two-part series, a great series in this paranormal life history. concerning some mysterious letters, and this is already bearing quite a resemblance.

It is. This is not a two-parter. I will say that. No, it's just a shorter story. It's just a shorter story. So, but I bet it's just as mental. Any more input, Detective Lugo? Are you good?

I'm ready to go. Okay, you're good to go. Conclusions? No. Okay. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo Time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void. And it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada. Reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us. Because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. Listen, the phenomena that we've just described was widespread in the community, but much of the

harassment was especially centered around a school bus driver called Mary Gillespie. I assume this is Mrs. Ron Gillespie. Hmm, Gillespie started to receive letters in mid-1977. The writer claimed to be aware of an extramarital affair she was supposedly having with a colleague and threatened to expose the scandal to the community. At first, she hid the letters. Uh-uh. Sounds guilty. Yeah.

Hoping they would cease. But when her husband, Ron, began getting them, she opened up about the harassment. Mary assured Ron there was no affair and that the letters must simply be some kind of sick manipulation. The couple told Ron's sister and her husband about the harassment, but otherwise kept it quiet until they could figure out a way to stop it. But in August that year, things escalated and quickly. Okay. Just because we're moving really fast, I want to make sure the audience is keeping up with me. Mary was a school bus driver and one day she started receiving letters from this individual saying things like I know about the affair.

She tried to get rid of the letters to hide this from her husband, but it got so bad that then she had to tell her husband. I think the writer just started addressing the letters to him. Oh, right. He was just like, this chick isn't forward in the letters. All right, I'm just going to start putting a different name on the address. Right. Okay. Okay, I'm up to speech.

Yeah. As I said, sounds guilty, but like, you know, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I feel like if you know you're innocent and you think it's bullshit and you think it's harassment, unfortunately, it doesn't make you look good. Yeah. You know, if you live in a town and a guy. You're walking down the street one day and a crazy guy, doesn't matter how crazy he is, if he points at you and goes, Pito, it's not a good look. It's not a good look. Right. Even if you've never seen this person before. And if they said it and no one was around, you're going to start telling people.

Yeah, you'd be like, hey, keep it down, dude. Yeah, you'd be like, are you really going to, you know, hey, sweetie, how was your day? You're bringing up that someone accused you being a Pito. It's like, I know I'm not. I know I'm not. So, I don't know if this analogy is working for. you. I think it's working just fine. You shouldn't have stopped me. I should have kept going with the story. I'm not a, no. Okay. No one ever said that to me. And anyway, uh, great. Pito. No, hey, hey, don't clip that out. Come on.

Just dot, don't, dot, dot. Pito. Mary was out of town. I bet she was. Cheating ass. Okay, so she is cheating. No, no, she was on a time. Why would she be on a time? She works at bus driver.

Keep reading for the love of God. And Ron was at home with their two young children. Where's mommy? I'll get it, kids. Don't eat all the popcorn now. Hello? Hello? Who the hell is this?

What did you just say? Damn it, are you the son of a bitch who's been harassing me and my wife? Oh, I got you now, you asshole. You're toast! Ron appeared to know something. something. He slammed the phone down and rushed to the closet. Coming back with a rifle, he turned to his children from the front door. Kids, lock the doors. Look after each other, okay? Daddy will be right back. Damn. Less than an hour later Ron was dead. Whoa! His truck was found just outside Circleville smashed into a tree. Holy shit. The wreck was still smoking when the local sheriff,

Dwight Radcliffe, arrived on the scene and was greeted by his junior officer. Evening, sir. Tragic, ain't it? It's something, all right. Ron Gillespie, I'm told. That's right, sir. D-U-I.

This man was twice over the limit. Drunk? Ron Gillespie? That ain't right. Despite tests showing a massive blood-alcohol level, Ron wasn't a big drinker. His kids would later testify that he hadn't been drinking

on the night in question. Don't what are you laughing? It just sounds like he just found out who Ron Gillespie is. He's like, Someone told me his name is Ron Gillespie. Yeah, and he was drunk, too. Huh, that doesn't sound like the Ron Gillespie I know.

Like, you just found out about him. If I know Ron, which I do from the last five seconds, it didn't sound like a drinker to me. What was his star sign? Capricorn. No, there's no way this guy was drunk. Capricorns are very focused behind the wheel. He hadn't been drinking on the night in question.

Remember that. What about the firearm? What's the theory there? Well, nothing, I guess. Well, I mean, it does look like he just fired around from the chamber, but we can't find any shell casings. Well, find them, damn it. Gillespie wasn't the type to be driving around at night with a rifle. How do you know him so well?

He knows him. It's a small community. It's a small community, Circleville. Do we look up the population? I bet it's tiny as hell. Gillespie? Driving around at night with a rifle? No.

That's not added enough to me. Phil. My best bud? Please look up the population of Circleville, Ohio. The Circle stands for zero. No one lives there. Circleville's population is around 14,000 to 14,400. So many people.

Quite small. Very small. Enormous. It's rather similar to our hometown. Is that right? Yeah. It's like, well, it's our population. Yeah, at the time of last census.

This is not good podcasting, guys. I'm trying to prove a point that the chief of police, sorry, the sheriff might have known a guy who lived in the. town. Okay. Potts Stewart is 7,850 people. Not in summer, it's not. In summer it's more than that. It's like 11,000, I think. That's 7,000. That's crazy. Fake news. Yes, sir, said junior officer. Sheriff, you don't think. All right, I don't like the attitude. Where's the attitude coming from? What was that like sarcasm? Yes, sir. No, I was just trying to keep us on the rails here. We got out of our systems, let's do a real one.

Come on. Yes, sir. Sheriff. That wasn't even an accent. Come on. Give me something to work with, for Christ's sake. I mean, he's a genius, but like he needs some material. Yes, sir.

Sheriff, you don't think. That was better. Foul play? You bet your... I said the line wrong. But at least it did the accent. Okay? Wow, flubbed to the line.

Foul play. I bet your ass I do. Don't you mean you bet your ass I do? That's what I said. I bet your ass. No, why would you bet my ass? A man is dead, officer. Right, you are, Sheriff. Many in the community agreed with Radcliffe.

Surely there was some sort of conspiracy at play, because I guess they all knew wrong. The whole dramatic event must have been related to these ominous letters, now being received by multiple people across the town. But how? The plot thickened further, when at some stage during the investigation, the sheriff did a complete U-turn and ruled Ron's death an accident, claiming he had lost control and crashed while driving drunk. Wow. What had prompted his sudden change of mind?

With the spent bullet never found and the authorities abruptly shutting the case down, the whole affair raised more questions than answers. I will say the, I really like the single bullet missing from the chamber. Now, that's cool. Very cool. That's some movie shit. Now, do they know if it was fired or did he just not load the gun fully, you know? Well, I think the wording there was the, I don't understand guns. It's been discharged.

Please, no one comment about how little we know about guns. We obviously don't know anything about guns. But they said, like, it seemed as if it had just fired. So maybe some residue, some gunpowder in the barrel. But they were like, but we haven't found a shell casing were their words. Okay, okay. That's good to know that there wasn't just a missing bullet. This is a mad case to be investigating this week because earlier this week I just watched for the first time the movie Fatal Attraction. I don't think I've seen that one. Very famous movie starring some incredible old-timey famous actors. Straight up one of the scariest movies I've ever seen in my life. Really? Which is a guy who while his wife is away, he has an affair with a woman over the weekend. assuming that after that weekend it's done, they cut ties and he goes back to his wife. But the woman won't give it up.

And she keeps calling the house, writing letters, harassing the family. And it spirals into this big horrible, horrible conflict between him trying to lie to keep the affair a secret but warn his family about this, you know, this woman. It sounds a lot like today's case. That's cool, actually. Okay. Genuinely very cool. So that's pretty interesting. I mean, it's also interesting that we, unlike the Watcher, yeah, there is, there is an accusation of an affair here.

And what you're bringing to the table with your Hollywood know-ha is, is it possible the writer is the person that is having the affair? Could be. Yeah. Is the, what's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, but like a jilted lover. Yeah. Are these letters that are being burnt actually being burnt because their confessions addressed to the husband about the affair? Yeah.

You never know. Why was she out of town? Is her bus route require her to be out of town? Yeah, you shouldn't be picking up kids in other states if you're a bus driver. Yeah. Little Timmy has to go cross state. Yeah. Yeah, not sure.

Needless to say, the letters continued to plague and mystify the Circleville community for years following Ron's death. As well as manipulation and blackmail, they often revealed a shocking knowledge of the recipient's sexual relations, financial situations, petty crimes, business deals, and a whole variety of family secrets. Hmm. It was like they had their own little personal daily mail, you know, just for the time. It's like, this just in. Jack Smith, who lives on Circle Lane, was masturbating in plain view of his living room

window last night. Here's the photos. Oh, shit. But these are only going to one person, right? they're not being sent to everyone it's just being sent to this woman no no they are going to multiple people but I don't but I don't yeah that's what I just said

because I said at the beginning was they did go to lots of different people in the beginning it was mostly aimed at Mrs. Gillespie Oh yeah oh damn okay because as I said shocking knowledge of recipients plural financial situations

business deals etc I've never seen the popular TV show Gossip Girl but I assume this is essentially the plot Yeah. There's a gossip girl. Carbon copy. In the town and that's it. They're just disclosing secrets about people. More of a gossip witch, really, if you watch the show, yeah.

Is it really? Yeah. It's a lot like this. Yeah, they can kind of, they know everything, can see everything using spells. There you go. Another dramatic turn in the story happened in 1983 and involved none other than you guessed it, Mary Gillespie. By now, the Circleville letter writer had expanded their harassment methods. A series of makeshift signs had started appearing at the roadside around Circleville. These signs revealed secrets. Here you go.

Yeah, they're not just sending it to one person now. They're just saying like, Mary's a diddler and just putting up a sign in the town. Right. These signs revealed secrets criticize and provoked different members of the community. When Mary spotted one such sign on her bus route, a sign that personally attacked her and her teenage daughter, She pulled over. Enraged, she marched over to the sign, and just as she was about to rip it from the pole, spotted something odd. Positioned directly behind the panel was a wooden box. She peered inside and was shocked by what she found. A handgun had been positioned inside the box, rigged to a crudely engineered booby-trap device that was attached to the sign with string.

So if someone removed the sign, the gun would have shot Mary at point-blank rain. Jesus Christ! The police were contacted and the case was designated an attempted murder. Here is, I'm not f***ing with you. This is... Line up every resident of this town and find the one that commutes to work on a little tricycle with squirrels on his cheeks because his jigsaw lives in this town. Yeah.

Their jigsaw is a resident of Circleville. Want to play a game? Yeah. How is this real? Are you joking me? They really, like I said, this is not a two-parter. This is not as long of a story as The Watcher. But the Watcher didn't pull a gun in anybody, I seem to remember. Am I wrong?

This is like a Looney Tunes-ass contraption. This person's killed one person already. This is like how Elmer Fudd tries to kill Bugs Bunny. By putting like a carrot on a string and a handgun on the other side. That is wild. That's unbelievable. Yeah, the kid's literally showing me pictures here of the box with the handgun and the string on it, on the trigger. It's crazy.

There's something quite funny about this that like, it's as if they designed this contraption. And they were like, if I don't pull the trigger, it's not a crime. It's like, no, that's still murder. Like, if we find out who did it, you murdered them. Yeah. It's like placing a mine directly outside your neighbor's front door. They step on the mine. It's like, oh, I didn't do it. Well, you put it there. Why'd they step on it? Yeah. Why she pushed the button in the killing machine? That's crazy, man. Despite signs of a clumsy attempt to rub the serial number off the gun, the investigation revealed that it belonged to one Paul Freshore. It's Paul. Arrest Paul. I don't know why to pronounce that particularly.

Paul was Ron's... Stay with me here. Ron's sister's ex-husband. If you remember, that is one of the few people that Mary and Ron confided in when the harassment started all the way back in 77. I don't really know what to make of that situation. No, just that it's a person of interest.

I think that's what they say in the biz. Yeah. Well, Paul pleaded not guilty, saying the gun had been stolen and he was being framed. Despite this, he was found guilty, sentenced to between seven and 24 years. Wow. Quite a range.

I don't know how many years he actually ended up serving. I assume when they arrested him, he was like, listen, that gun was stolen from me, and I probably should have reported it. But what did you say the person built a box where it was going to go off with a string, damn? I mean, it's obviously dark, but that's, we can all agree. It's pretty impressive.

It's quite brilliant. That's a really genius idea, actually, because then I guess if Mary opened the box, then technically she shot herself, right? So whoever built the box, whoever it is, I don't know who it is, but they would be kind of not just not guilty, but like a genius. Is him in his jail cell talking to himself? He's like, whenever you come up with the perfect comeback in an argument, two weeks after the argument's over, he's like, oh, I should have said that. Damn. Yeah. Yeah, him on the dock.

He's like, um, just one, I'm totally innocent. But one quick question, Judge, um, isn't there like a thing where like if you admit to being guilty, your sentence gets reduced? Just hypothetically, because obviously I am innocent. But, but yeah, would you reduce that you wouldn't? No, I am, I am innocent. Totally, totally innocent. I deny all charges.

And before you decide whether I'm guilty or innocent, Judge, could you hand me my briefcase over there on the desk? It's springloaded. An AK pops out and starts shooting everyone. A piano above the judge. Just one more question. Judge, could you just step a little bit to the left? A little bit more. This is highly unorthodox.

I don't know why I'm sure. Just before the sentence in, could you pass me my gun box, box, regular box, briefcase? Rory, any early indications of what you think might be going on in this time? No. No, no. It sounds like someone's going on. there's a maniac in the town.

Yeah. It sounds like. They watched Christopher Nolan's Dark Knights too many times and thinks that they're the Joker. Because it is this kind of loaded thing where if they're putting up signs to expose people's sins,

could that be a way that an individual feels like they are in the right? Hmm. You know, that does seem like plausible motivation for a villain. Yeah. You're all sinners, but you hide.

pretending to be righteous. I'm bringing your evil deeds to the light. Yeah. You know, sort of thing. That's a really good point. I feel like that has been a plot point in like a thriller or a horror movie before or something. Yeah, you all have dark pasts. I'm just showing them to you. Yes. You know, so like that's how we purify the world. We make everything public. And then like it obviously has all kinds of disastrous social consequences. I mean, people just, you know where the murderers live. Yeah. start vigilantes go door to door. It's bad though when he puts up a sign that's like, last week, Karen parked in a disabled spot outside of Tesco.

And she's like, yeah, well, I don't feel good about it, but fine. She lifts up the sign and is shot in the head. It's like, well, that's not the right punishment for that crime. I don't know what's hard to tailor. I actually think it is. I actually think it is because as someone who, you might not know this if you don't have kids, But supermarkets, at least in the UK, have got, there's the disabled spots, which are closest to where a shop might be.

But then next to that is the family parking spots. And they'll be like a buggy or whatever. I didn't even know they had those. Yeah. And then the logic being they've got a little bit of space either side. It's just a wider bay, a bit of space either side because the idea is like, oh, if you've got to get kids in and out of the car, it's a little bit more dangerous. You've got to sort out their childhood. You've got to lift them out.

they might get the kid might you know be I don't know hitting the milly rock or whatever in the middle of the car park they might get hit by car and but regularly I don't know I've never I'm yet to park in one of these spaces with my daughter because they're always taken by sorry I almost pulled to Drake always taken by like old men in sports cars or something like a seven year old man 60 year old man in a in a Porsche pulls pulls in sideways into the family car park and swan in. No kids to be seen. No grandkids. That guy deserves to be Looney Tunes blasted in the face with a shotgun. That's... Kitt looks like he's going to start putting up signs in the town. That's like in Looney Tunes. My faces, if you're not seeing the video, it's completely red. Steam is coming out of my ears. But I think you know what I mean. Sometimes there's like a social faux pa which isn't illegal that somehow angers you more than an actually illegal thing. Right. Right. Right. Right. If I saw someone shoplifting, I'd be like, I don't really care. Yeah.

But you take the family car park space straight to jail. Straight to jail. Straight to open the box. Straight to Guantanamo, really. Wow, okay. Did you have anyone, you feel like that about any not illegal crime? I don't know. I can't think of any right now at the top of my head.

Yeah. That's a tough question. Because I got like 25 more. To be clear, I don't think anyone deserves to be shot in the head for petty crimes. No, absolutely not. Unless you go to the bathroom and don't wash your hands. afterwards, you should have to live on an island with everyone else that doesn't do that. See, now we're getting him going. Now we're getting him going.

That's arguably... Vaping indoors. Death, straight to jail, vaping in the pub, I'll kill you with my bare hands. I'll kill you. All right, don't clip that out. Sorry, I cut us off in the story in quite a important juncture, actually. If you remember, Mr. Paul was found guilty of attempted murder. they felt there had enough evidence on it and they sent him to jail.

Interesting to point out, he was never actually convicted of anything to do with the letters. He was specifically doing time for the murder attempt of the gun. Yeah. But Mary and the community all believed it must have been Paul. This was finally the end of the Circleville letters scandal. Why do I feel like this isn't the end of the Circle? The Letterville Circle scandal? While Paul was behind bars,

in solitary confinement, no less, the letters started to appear yet again. Wow, shocker. Also, thank you for not making fun of me for saying Letterville Circle scandal. I really appreciate that. And I'm sure that if you'd actually notice that I said it, you would have ripped into me holding nothing back,

but yeah, I appreciate that a lot. That's not a shooting offense as far as I'm concerned, getting your words in a muddle. I did vape indoors earlier before you got here, though, just to let you know. I've never even tried it. If you... What?

Yes, I did. What's that, Phil? He said I didn't wash his hands in the toilet, really? Yeah, he didn't wash his hands. That's crazy. Liars get shot. How about that, Phil?

I think I've said it on the podcast before, but my daughter is such a little troll. This is the story I said of someone on the street going, Pido. This is what she does to me. No, it doesn't say Pito. Thank God. But she goes, she did it recently where we were out somewhere

and like, she went to the toilet and I was like, no, I'm going to go to the toilet, and then afterwards we left together or whatever. Maybe she was waiting for me so it's out of the door or something. And then we're like in a public space. And she was like, Daddy, did you wash your hands? Super loud.

And I'm like also super loud. I'm like, yes, I absolutely did wash my hands. And she's just walking along. She goes, I didn't hear anything. That's great. God, I got my ass. I mean, she didn't. But it's a good way of trolling someone.

Yeah, this is classic, classic thriller, by the way. I mean, this is silence of the lamb. type shit, the Joker, you know, because the next scene in the movie is the detective has to go to now Paul's solitary confinement cell. It's a stormy night outside. And they're like, I need to see Paul. They're like, he's under Maxim Security. I need to see him, damn it. Yeah, they're like, he got the chair last night. What? What? Shit. But they go in, you know. Yeah, crazy bastard was calling himself innocent right to the very very very.

very last moment. Oh, shit. Yeah, because the writer actually had it himself. Yeah, and they got to go see Paul, and he's there in a straight jacket. Yeah, and he's like... Well, it sounds like he should be in prison anyway. Got it made mail lately, Sheriff? Even if he didn't do it, sounds like he definitely should be there.

Laughing isn't illegal. Laughing ain't a crime. All right, maybe he saw a funny Instagram reel. The Joker famous. said laughing isn't a crime. Trying to kill someone is though. With Amex Platinum, almost every purchase made with your card can be covered with points, including new tastes, new fits, and virtually everything in between.

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life insurance company. Now streaming on Paramount Plus, it began on the shores of New Jersey. The calls of Jim, tan, laundry, reverberated north to Canada, where a new type of party animal resides. They move as a herd migrating to their favorite watering holes, asserting dominance by flexing, grinding, and twerking.

Coupling is quick, steamy, and sometimes in hot tubs. When morning arrives, they do it all over again. Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount Plus. That's right, the letters started appearing again. The last known message from the Circleville writer was sent to a TV company who were considering investigating the story in 1994. So anyone could get the smoke, clearly. Just by looking into the story,

I mean, we might get a fucking letter after this. On a postcard, scrawled in the iconic Circleville writer font, read the disturbing words, quote, Forget Circleville, Ohio. If you come to Ohio, you El Sickos will pay. I don't know why I find that really funny. Calling them El Sickos. Really trying to throw people off the scent there.

He could be Mexican. We don't know. He's swapping up the language. Jesus Christ, it's Jason Bourne. He speaks multiple languages. Rory, to be totally clear, the story of the Circleville letters is a story that remains completely unsolved to this day.

Wow. We do not have the identity of the writer. I think that's the same as the Watcher, right? I think the watcher wasn't. I think there was like definitely, as you say, persons of interest. People maybe even arrested and get highly suspected, but never proven. Yeah. Well, the watcher at least stopped. When did these letters stop being sent? Interestingly, I read, I don't have a hear, but I read it somewhere that they stopped around after Paul was released from prison. I think they went on for a number of years more.

Yeah. Then it was like paradoxically, like once he was out, it seemed like it stopped. Oh. So, I mean, it's a really difficult one to get to the bottom of. For the most part, over the years, as you can very much tell, I understand this is this paranormal life. This case has not necessarily been filed under a supernatural story. This is largely kind of true crime.

Whether or not it was Paul or someone else, it's generally accepted as a little more than a kind of unsolved mystery orchestrated by a sick individual. I mean, we can talk later about trying to get down to the business of was it Paul or not? Because the Paul thing is, that's what I was trying to figure out earlier. The poll thing is really tricky because, I mean, it was his gun. He said it was stolen. That's the oldest excuse in the book. I think it almost certainly was him for some reason.

So it makes sense he was sent down for that. But it's weird because he is supposed to have found out about the letters from the Gillespie's themselves. They were like, hey, look at this crazy letter. Yeah. And he was told first hand. I mean, if you have a gun that gets stolen and you don't report it to the police and then it turns up in a case where it almost killed someone, you should go to jail. Yeah. That's your fault.

That's kind of the whole part of responsibility with gun ownership. Yeah. So either way, he probably deserves some time behind bars. Yes. I bet he also parked in a disabled spot at least once, old Polly boy. And as I say, yet, yet, yet, yet, it is unsolved. And the very fact that it remains unsolved to this day has fueled alternative theories, let's say. Paranormal theories.

And that's exactly what we're going to look at next. Okay. The first paranormal idea to come out of this tale is from the geography of the town itself. You see, Circleville was built directly on top of pre-existing earthworks. But while the kind of modern town was born out of a settler town built in 1810, it is actually an ancient indigenous site consisting of multiple circular earth mounds long before the arrival of the Europeans. It was believed to be built by a group known as the Hopewell culture around 2,000 years ago. And its circular nature is where the town gets its name of Circleville. Very cool. What's the next one?

This has led what to some paranormal investigators to suggest that the town might have picked up a curse by its interference with sacred land. Don't move me on. There is a, you can move me on a second. That's what the town is supposed to look like back in the day. Okay, yeah, very cool prehistoric site. You see like kind of mounds and patterns and hills and circles in the... Hey, we've all heard the theory of the Native American burial ground. Okay, that's essentially the words that I'm not using here.

Yeah. Now, usually you would discuss that in a case that involves kind of ghosts or spirits rather than people writing letters to other people in town. Jerry rigging firearms, yeah. It's great that, you know, to show me this picture, Kit just handed me the next page of his script. Hey, yeah, yeah, chill, chill, chill, whoa, whoa, hey, go on. I can actually just read that he, he, before hosting this, he typed out the word. underneath this photograph, okay, I didn't really expect Rory

to go for that one. What was I wrong? What was I wrong, though? But you still showed it to me. You already knew I was going to hate it. Because, look, one person over there, he doesn't give a f***. He's playing flappy bird or something.

Phil over there. This guy, don't give a shit. Fair play. Behind the... Fair play, he actually gave it a fair shot. But behind the cameras are tens of thousands of thirsty, paranormal investigators who care about the stakes here.

Some of them probably live in Ohio. Even though it's a tiny, tiny time where almost no one lives there. I've only, what do you say, 7,000 people? 44,000. No, 14,000, 14,000. What's the next theory? What's the next one? They care.

They care. Drop a heart in the comments if you care. Don't do that. Drop a heart in the comments if you think that's a good theory. Drop a gun in a box if you think this is real. Yeah, just drop an iHeart Circleville in the comments for your chance to win a Nintendo OLED. All right. It's argued that the letters that sowed so much chaos were physical manifestations of the dark energy.

Shout out researcher, Ewan. That is some good bullshit. That's a stretch. You should be like a yoga instructor. Stretches like that. Is it hot in here? Hot yoga? Go on Bikram mode. One other potential paranormal possibility is to do with, don't laugh, automatic writing.

You ever heard that one? You like that alliteration, paranormal possibility? Just the speed in which you're trying to like fire off bits. Is it hot in here? Hot yoga. Bigroom mode. Anyway, I'm clutching out. All right.

I'm sorry. Keep going. What was? I did not. That's probably for the best. Let's face it. It's a second theory. Automatic writing. Automatic writing.

Now this is more interesting. Okay, okay. I'm here for it because this is something we've looked at on TPL in the past. This is the practice of channeling an unconscious energy in order to write. The writer enters into a totally meditative state and allows the subconscious or spirit world to guide their hand. because of the nature of Circleville writer's letters, they do have a very distinctive handwriting style to them. Some say the culprit may have been practicing automatic writing.

Some experts say that the Circleville writer's particular type of phrasing, choice of words, moralistic and obsessive tone are reminiscent of automatic writing. Is it possible that the writer embodied this eerie writing style because they were possessed? Okay, okay, I like that. Again, I feel like that would be. be a cool conclusion or explanation, I should say, if the letters were about, not even more ambiguous, but more kind of haunting information. Yeah.

If the letters were like, you shouldn't be here. Or, you know, it's like, we're coming for you. Yeah. But if it's like, Mary had an affair. Mary had an affair, everyone. Yeah. That just becomes a little bit more like, like schoolyard gossip, you know? Yeah.

It's a little, it's just not as romantic as like threats from spirits thousands of years old. Yeah, because I will say, nothing makes you feel like a ghost didn't do this more than looking at the, and I'm trying to find it, looking at the letter itself. So many sheets left. There's no way we have that much left in the story. No, that we have one paragraph left. It's looking at the actual front of the letter with the address. Yeah. It kind of just like, it makes you realize.

that someone had to put the letter in an envelope buy a stamp and send it through the United States Postal Service? Again, just to clarify, earlier when I made the comment, this is when I should have been handed the letter for the first time. No! It made no sense to me when it was handed to me 45 seconds into the podcast.

Yeah, listen, because now that I know about these theories and about the letters and the context around it, it is, they are written weird. They're, every word, it's all capital letters for the most part. And it's written in a way where, you know, when you have like lined paper? And in theory, the letters on a small scale should fit just in one of the lines. That's how we're taught to write in school. These are obviously, because they're capital, all capital letters, stretched to two lines.

So they're all, it's very long words. Yeah. It's almost italicized. Yeah. A kind of leaning to our pieceer. Which, you know, that could be for a lot of reasons. Another one could be that this person is trying to mask their own handwriting. Yeah, glad you said that, yeah, because that's a thing.

You don't want to be, I don't remember what the name of that job is, but there's people who can study, people employed by the police who can study handwriting. Yeah. So, you know, people will, like, write with their other, their non-dominant hand or do something like this, do capital letters and stretch them out. But it is weird. It does look very strange when you see it. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, like, one of these letters would be quite at home on the evidence wall behind Rory. Mm-hmm.

You must have me f*** up if you think I'm out of paranormal theories, though. Right, last one, wildcard theory. Are the letters from the future? Gonna need a little bit more of an explanation for that one. Some say that the threatening letters occasionally contain surprisingly accurate information about future events. The writer appeared to know about things maybe even before. they happened and would exploit this kind of omnipotence. They certainly, you would say at the very least, they certainly seem to know an awful

lot about a lot of different people. You know, we would understand that if Paul really is the writer, it makes sense that as Ron's sister's ex-husband, then Paul would know something about Ron and Marie. Yeah. Or Mary, sorry. But other people in the town, like really is going to know all their infidelities, all or petty crimes, it seems interesting. So some, let's face it, absolute maniacs on the fringes, think that maybe there's a time slip theory that sure someone's sending them, but maybe they're

coming from some other kind of temporal space, maybe slightly from the future. What a diabolical misuse of time travel to be able to write messages back to the past and you just use them to rat on your neighbors? Yeah. That's bad. That feels like a grumpy old person move. Yeah. To just have those capabilities and they're like, finally, I'm going to, I'm going to like ruin the lives of all of my friends. Unfortunately, you know, as someone who lives in a small town, this, I can't say this

type of shit is going down on the regular where I live. But like, small towns do, because you have to live in such close proximity with people, and very often people who live in small towns, it's not exactly a transient community. People will, if you f*** hate your neighbor, you might have 50 years next to the mother f***. Yeah. When I was growing up, someone stole our dog. You know, someone stole our dog.

That's right. I remember this. And locked it in a like abandoned garage somewhere. And we, through pure luck, found it and freed it several days later. Days of no food and water. And we thankfully got our dog back. But it's like some psychopath, you know, just like had it in for us for some reason. God knows why.

And we're just like, fuck those people. I'm going to kill their dog. it's like, what the hell's that about, man? I don't know. It's not quite a letter, but it's, you know. Yeah, that's wild. I did not know the full context of that story. Yeah, it's really weird.

I need to ask my pet, because I was one of those things, you know when something happens when you're 11 and you're like, this is fine? And then I need to ask my parents about it. It'll be like, yeah, it was really traumatic and weird. Yeah, yeah. Your dad left that night with a rifle and a bottle of whiskey, locked the doors and said, kids look after each other.

Yeah. And I was like playing banjoo kizui. I wasn't really. I was like, oh, the dog's back. Nope. Look, Rory, I understand that paranormal evidence is very thin on the ground in today's case. But as I say, by sheer virtue of the Circleville letters case being technically unsolved, that's why the paranormal speculation comes in.

Was it something inexplicable, maybe supernatural, or was it just some pre-internet real-life trolling? I wish there was a stronger paranormal explanation for this one, unfortunately. You don't like time travel? Ancient burial ground? What was the other one? I can't remember. It's not a good start. What was that other piece of bullshit I said?

Um, automatic writing, the best one. That actually probably was the strongest one of all of them. Yeah. In my mind. I just think even the watcher one, the watcher was delivering letters and saying things, in a way that it felt like only a ghost could, only a phantom that could phase through walls was capable of doing.

Definitely spoke in a more, yeah, creepy tone. Yeah, I think he even spoke a little bit about like hauntings and stuff. I don't remember, but... And he was really directly threatened the kids and stuff. It was quite creepy. Pretty dark.

He never called any... He never said, L. Sickos. He said, you L. Sickos are gonna get it. I forgot about that bit. I forgot about that bit. I don't think we need to really... Belabor it. Look, at the end of every episode of this paranormal life,

we do have to decide whether we think our given case is paranormal or not. I can take the lead. I love this type of story. I think this is really cool. It's a cool basis for a movie, although don't try because he'll write to you. All right. Old Polly boy. That's right.

He did it. No. But it's a really fun mystery and kind of piece of true crime that really did happen. And unfortunately, for Ron, someone did get it in the neck. Yeah, so there and there's it is cool that it's unsolved, but I don't think there's enough to say that that's paranormal It's an L no from me this week. El sick no yeah Double no double no Damn it, okay

Thanks for your support though guys. I really felt like you had my back to that one That's awesome That was a challenging case to try and loop around into The challenge of the paranormal To stay out loud and not have you guys staring daggers at me, yeah. It was actually. Yep.

Everyone would say thanks to Kit for a great episode, great episode this week. Yeah, no, clap quieter. Yeah, that's great. No, clap quieter than that. Yeah, awesome. I'm sure the guys at home, though, enjoyed it.

Thank you so much for tuning in. If you can't get enough. And you somehow haven't listened to the two-part series on The Watcher. I would recommend that. It was somewhat early days of this paranormal life, but not so early that the podcast sucked. I think the podcast

was quite good at that point. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, yeah. These are my quality, some good improv. Yeah. We didn't have Phil yet. So you'll have to imagine what Phil would have done in that scenario. Killed it, probably. What do you think? Yeah, I'd like to think so.

You would have, you would have insist. Are we done? You would have insisted that I didn't do the voice, that's for sure. You would have, you would have been like, no, we got it. I bet, I'll give you, If anyone hasn't heard it, I basically, I don't even remember what I did. It was like a voice. It's like, like this.

And it was so bad, I started to lose my voice, like 10 minutes into the case. But then we had a whole second episode because of the two-parters. You were doing it for like two hours. I used to get nuts with voices. Bring back voices. Hashtag bring back weird little voices.

But once you're done with that, presumably you'll need lots more paranormal entertainment. Patreon.com is the place to go to get hundreds of paywold episodes of this paranormal life. We have full-length bonus investigations into some of the dopest stories we've recovered. We've got weekly behind the scenes

in something we call the After Party. I mean, Roy, just shoot the shit, sometimes crack a beer and just talk about the behind the scenes of this paranormal life. That's every damn Friday. There's hundreds of them. The After Party is a mysterious box

that you can open up for $10. And I won't tell you what's inside. You just got to find out. But just make sure your face is right up in there. There's, Jesus Christ, there's other tiers too, but I'll give a rare shout out to the free tier. If you don't feel like the financial commitment today, maybe, you know, it's the start of the year,

we're all feeling the pinch. Sign up to that free tier. It means you get all the updates, all the posts. You know what's available. Patreon might hit you up with a little discount every now and again, cheeky discount code or something. So hit up that free tier if you're not on there already. It's a good place to know about all the TPL.

news, Patreon.com. It's in the links in the description and on all our socials. And I'm going to plug the money once because they actually, we get money for that. That's how we make the show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it. It's fun to talk about the free. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, you know, there's, we don't, you're not going to really get many episodes on the free tier or anything. There might be the odd thing on there. You want to, you want to pay the five bucks. But just so you know, you don't have to sign up for money right away. At the end of every episode, we do like to give a quick shout out to those who support us on Patreon too. What do you say? Yeah, let's do it. Special thank you to Ellie Vledder.

Ellie Vledder's been writing letters. That's right. I think we found our author of the Circleville mystery. What you think? Yeah. Oh yeah. Check, because sometimes they have to like sign on Patreon to join. Check the handwriting. That's what I thought. Case closed. Detective Lugo does it again. You know what's crazy is you realize that once you put two and two together that Elie V letter was writing the letters in the voice of Eddie Vedder.

So it was like... Here we go. River Flow. Watch your fucking back tonight, yeah. Thanks, Elvie. Thanks also. To Jamie Roth. Don't get on the wrong side of Jamie

lest you feel their Roth. Whoa. All right. There's a couple boxes kicking about their yard. Okay. Oh, right. Okay. You go up.

You want to just call in, be friendly neighbor. Say, hey, knock the door. Pshott in the head. Through the front door? Yeah. Okay. Like Quentin Tarantino style. Like, what was that, Kill Bill?

Yeah. Through the door. I'm going to warn you right now, you ain't getting out of prison with that one. You are going to go to jail. If you shoot someone in the head through your own front door, I'm just warning you in case there's still time to take that trap down. Don't feel Jamie's Roth.

That's my advice. Last one today. Last but not least, thank you to Alicia. Alicia is the biggest whistleblower in the This Paranormal Life commune. So much so that we nicknamed them Relicia. There's any classified documents that we give them, they releaseia. Yeah. Which is really, really hard because there's not that many people that Kit and I

to trust these days in the paranormal commune. We used to have a classified vault filled with papers, documents, eggs, but that is full. So now we need to start kind of hiding the information in other corners. And unfortunately, we trusted Relicia with some of that information. Yeah. Sometimes you got a judge a book by his cover. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. So if you're wondering where they're gone, don't. That's all I'll say. Alicia has been removed. Anyone want her stuff? No, because we've got her stuff. Thanks so much to Alicia. Thanks to everyone who supported us on Patreon this month.

Who supported us over the last eight damn years? That is crazy. Thank you for tuning in and supporting us. Head over to Patreon on Friday for the after party. And of course, we'll be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale. Bye-bye. I'm like, what do you think, Phil? He's like, oh, wait.

Stop. I don't know. I don't know. Phil would have done. Killed it. I don't know. What are you doing, Phil? It's like, what?

It's so funny. Phil's like, yeah, probably. I don't know. It's the realization of Phil would be like, he's like, I haven't heard it. Like, I don't. I actually don't know what you're talking about. Brother, wrap up.