Episode 6: Half Gallon of Gasoline & 40 Ounces of Lighter Fluid

Marie (00:01):

Well hi there dear listeners. It's your host, Marie Mayhew. Just wanted to pop in and say long time no podcast. Yes, I know, it's been a while since we've had a new episode. But I think like so many of you listening, this pandemic thing has taken a lot out of me. Um, I hope that every single one of you listening is doing well and keeping mentally sane, and keeping a sense of humor during this time. Uh, I wanted to especially thank every one of you who's reached out on Twitter, uh, and said something encouraging, and I would like to share those encouraging words back to you.

Marie (00:45):

I know that this is extremely difficult being locked in, in quarantine, with, with uh, fires and murder hornets and COVID-19. But I am confident that something good, at least being able to go outside, is right around the corner.

Marie (01:09):

I wanna especially thank [00:01:12 @YesteryearRains] on Twitter for sending some very encouraging words. Thank you.

Marie (01:20):

Hopefully, now, in late August, I'm getting some research creative juices back and we'll get back on a more regular schedule. Uh, until then, I hope everyone is well. Take care of each other, and all my love.

Marie (01:35):

And now, your new episode. (silence)

Marie (01:58):

On August 19th, 1977, Ron Gillespie receives a telephone call. It is late at night and Ron is home alone. He has been drinking, and in his impaired judgment he makes a rash and fatal decision. Grabbing his keys, Ron leaves his home and drives off, presumably to confront the person who has been making his family's life miserable for over a year.

Marie (02:19):

Ten minutes into his trip, on a dark, rural highway, Ron misses a curve in the road and his pickup slams head first into a tree, killing him instantly. For a brief period of time after Ron Gillespie's fatal accident in 1977, the anonymous letters stop arriving in the mailboxes of Circleville, Ohio. One seemingly possible answer was that after Ron Gillespie's life ended that night on Five Points Pike, the Circleville letter writer believed that their work was complete. Their cruel letters had inflicted as much harm as possible on Mary Gillespie and her family. But what if it was very much the opposite, and the Circleville letter writer did not mean to be the reason the Gillespies' pickup truck collided. They never wanted to see Ron Gillespie harmed, and certainly not be the cause of his death.

Marie (03:05):

Maybe after learning of Ron's death that night on Five Points Pike, the letter writer was flooded with loathing and guilt. They did not realize the sickening extent of power their words had on the Gillespie family, at least not until that very moment. This unforeseen event that left behind Ron's wife, children, his sister and his brother in law shocked the seemingly omnipresent letter writer to such an extent that they simply set down their pen in disbelief.

Marie (03:34):

That kind of stark realization would for many people mark a turning point. The actions of the Cirlceville letter writer, it had gone too far. Someone, possibly someone the letter writer themselves cared about, was now dead. But the letter writer did not reach this conclusion. Instead, Gillespie's death channeled their loathing and guilt into a rage and indignation with one man becoming their newest focus. Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe.

Marie (04:00):

In later 1977, letter after letter accused Sheriff Radcliffe of ignoring or even covering up the supposed murder of Ron Gillespie. Of cronyism, corruption. The letter writer was determined to prove that just like the superintendent, Gordon [Massey 00:04:15], before him, Sheriff Ron Gillespie was a tyrant, a predator, and a threat to the town of Circleville.

Marie (04:22):

The same night as the accident on Five Points Pike, it was Sheriff Radcliffe himself who identified Gillespie's body for the coroner, and then took the responsibility on notifying his family of the tragedy. A sheriff for decades, Radcliffe himself seemingly made a point on knowing the people of the town he served and protected. He once told the Columbus dispatch ...

Sheriff Radcliffe (04:44):

I know people. If you don't lie to them, they'll take care of you. Treat people how you'd like to be treated yourself.

Marie (04:50):

In the small, seemingly close knit town of Cirlceville, Ohio, how could Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe even have imagined the extremes that this one individual would go to, to prove him dead wrong.

Marie (05:08):

Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains Podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew. On this episode, the aftermath of Ron Gillespie's death set the Circleville letter writer on their own collision course with law enforcement, and in particular with Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe. We also look at a strange coincidence from a decade earlier that shows us a different side of Paul Freshour , the man who Radcliffe would later accuse of being the letter writer.

Marie (05:38):

Late on the night of August 19th, 1977, after Ron Gillespie was pronounced dead on arrival at Berger Hospital, and after identifying his body, Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe drove to the home of Ron Gillespie's mother and father to break the news to them of their son's death. This night would also mark the first time that Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe would meet Paul Freshour , the man he would six years later arrest for the attempted murder of Ron Gillespie's wife, Mary. The Sheriff recalls that meeting in the trial transcript.

Sheriff Radcliffe (06:09):

Paul Freshour tells me, and I won't disagree with him, that he talked to me the night, or early morning, of August 19th, 1977, when I was at the Gillespie home. I believe David Gillespie's home, the father and mother of Ron Gillespie, who lived in Mullenberg Township, Pickaway County, Ohio, for the purpose of to indicate that Mr. Ron Gillespie had been killed in an automobile accident. He indicated to me that I either talked with him over the telephone or he came to the residence while I was still there, I made, when I made notification the family of the death of Ron Gillespie.

Marie (06:44):

In later writings, however, Paul Freshour remembers his initial meeting with the Sheriff in a very different light.

Paul Freshour (06:52):

The Sheriff called me at work at the time of Ron's death. I was working the 3:00 to 11:00 shift, and another supervisor relieved me from my work. I went straight to Sheriff Radcliffe's office. The Sheriff told me that Ron was drunk and speeding, but like me, Ron was not a drinker. I didn't buy it. I let the Sheriff know that he might have been able to prevent Ron's death if he had worked harder on solving the letter investigation. I felt that he coulda done more on that particular case. Everybody felt this way when Ron died. The Sheriff has had a strong dislike to me ever since. I guess he thought I was challenging his authority or pressuring him too hard to solve the case, but I was upset about Ron's death and I wanted him to look into some possibilities other than drunk driving. I wasn't the only one making these assumptions at the time about Ron's death. Keep in mind, Ron's death was foretold in the letters.

Marie (07:43):

Their first meeting in August 1977 would mark the beginning of a prolonged and bitter quarrel Freshour would have with the Sheriff and with law enforcement in Ohio in general. He would later recount to journalists that he blamed Radcliffe for the death of his brother in law, and his accusations quickly escalated into gross neglect and corruption.

Marie (08:03):

Paul Freshour 's mistrust and even sometimes open contempt of Ohio law enforcement plays a significant role in the overall story of the Cirlceville letter writer. Repeatedly in interviews and testimony, Freshour blames the Sheriff for not capturing the letter writer, for ignoring his and Gillespie's pleas for help, and for Ron's death. Underneath this litany of accusations one thing that appears to really bother Freshour is that he felt excluded from the investigation of his brother in law's accident. Constantly he reiterates the same line of logic. He knew more about Ron than the sheriff, or anyone for that matter. He was smarter and better connected than law enforcement, but they wouldn't listen to him, and they treated him like an outsider when all he really wanted to do was help.

Marie (08:47):

Freshour seemingly falls into this strange cycle over and over. He doesn't trust the sheriff but at the same time he tries to convince him that Ron's death was a murder. He dismisses the sheriff's findings and thinks he's corrupt, but still wants him to listen. Freshour 's attitude regarding the authority of the Circleville Sheriff's Office is worth looking at, since less than a decade earlier Paul himself worked in law enforcement as a prison guard at the now infamous Ohio State Penitentiary.

Marie (09:24):

Ohio Pen is historically referenced as a particularly brutal institution. A dreadful, almost medieval place. It had been constructed on Spring Street, on the edge of downtown, in 1834, and the same structure was still in operation more than a 130 years later. The penitentiary had gone through a massive upheaval in the late summer of 1968. A series of fires and prisoner riots in June brought Ohio Pen under intense media scrutiny and public criticism. Damages to the facility kept prisoners in their cells for 24 hours a day. Ohio Pen was notoriously understaffed, as prison guard jobs were low paying and dangerous.

Marie (10:03):

The warden at this time, Ernest Maxwell, called the prison a monstrosity, saying the 2750 men were jammed into a facility that was only intended to accommodate 1800. Maxwell, the warden through the early June riots said, "You're bound to have an explosion when you are sitting on a powder keg." Soon after the early June riots, Maxwell himself was hospitalized with extreme exhaustion, and Ohio Pen needed a new warden.

Marie (10:32):

In 1968, Ohio and America itself was going through a time of great unrest. Anti war and civil rights activism was challenging the American identity. Both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. The shooting of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio was only six months in the future. The idea of prison reform was not a frequent discussion point, or a national priority, but the Ohio state government recognized that these smaller outcroppings of riots could lead to bigger problems as the summer wore on.

Marie (11:08):

In early July, state government personnel openly acknowledged that there had not been enough applicants for prison guards, and they aggressively began to look for men to work at Ohio Pen. With more than 50 openings for correction officers alone, the prison was operating at well below its authorized strength. By August, the prison guard force was finally up to its authorized level of 313 guards. The state compensatory board authorized a monthly hazard duty pay raise. The other notable change was a new warden was appointed. As Maxwell was recuperating from his severe exhaustion in the local Riverside Hospital, [00:11:45 Marion Koloski], who had been serving as a superintendent of a local reformatory, took over for him.

Marie (11:50):

The new warden was a trained psychologist who had worked in corrections before. He also seemingly viewed the incarcerated very differently than his predecessor. He said while at other correctional institutions he observed that, "Many inmates have as much goodness in them as they do bad qualities. They need help. My philosophy is to distinguish between the inmates who want to help themselves and those who just want to wallow in their own self pity."

Marie (12:14):

At some point during the time of transition, Paul Freshour was hired as a prison guard at Ohio Pen. It would've been after the initial riots and fires on June 24th, but prior to the new warden starting his role on August 1st. Freshour was an army veteran and a graduate of Franklin University. He had the physical training and education to be considered a strong candidate for this position. Also with Freshour , three new guards were hired in the same time period.

Marie (12:44):

As we mentioned, there was a stark difference between the old warden, Ernest Maxwell, and his new replacement, [00:12:50 Marion Koloski], that in many ways reflected the changing social attitudes of the late 1960s. Warden Maxwell's penitentiary was punitive. Prisoners largely did not have any or many civil rights and were kept isolated from the outside world. With Warden Koloski, you can begin to see a shift towards prison rehabilitation. The prisons have some responsibility to be humane to the men and women that are serving time there.

Marie (13:23):

On August 20th, only six weeks after Warden Koloski started at Ohio Pen, there was a major prison riot. Inmates in two cell blocks took 11 guards prisoner and held them hostage for over 30 hours. Three of the nine prison guards taken hostage were new, hired after the June 24th riots, and one of these three guards was Paul Freshour . The story of the 1968 Ohio Pen riot is fascinating and deserves its own episode, but for the sake of the Circleville story, we'll focus on the key highlights. The inmates quickly delivered a list of demands to their new warden. These demands called for certain guards to be fired for abuses of power, amnesty for the rioters, and a chance for the prisoners to represent their case to the media.

Marie (14:09):

In a seemingly rare move for the time, Warden Koloski allowed the prisoners to speak with media members, but he quickly ended the news conference when violence erupted amongst the rioters. The Ohio Highway Patrol National Guardsman, and the Columbus Police, planned a rescue attempt for August 20th if the prison was not finally brought back under control. Unfortunately, before law enforcement could finalize a plan, one inmate stabbed another inmate, and this escalation prompted law enforcement to act immediately.

Marie (14:38):

There's a firsthand account of this in an article with retired Captain Jay Duval from March 2008. He recalls the violent outbreak.

Captain Jay Duval (14:48):

We had three or four days that they held the hostages. Finally we came in one morning and Colonel [Kieromonte 00:14:55] told Warden Koloski, "I'm taking over. We've been putting up with your stuff long enough."

Captain Jay Duval (15:02):

It was true. The warden didn't know what to do. He'd sit behind his desk and wring his hands, and he wouldn't make any decisions. General Del Corso, commander of the National Guard, was there, and I decided on blowing a hole in the roof and in the wall at the same time. About a half a dozen of us were standing in there when they set off the charges, and those old pictures that you see where, especially in cartoons, in an explosion, where the building raises up and settles back down? That's just what it reminded me of.

Captain Jay Duval (15:36):

Officers decided to move in. The approach consisted of two simultaneous explosions. One on the roof near the top floor, where the hostages were, and one in a side wall. Both blasts stunned rioters and allowed access to the inside. When the smoke cleared, five inmates were dead and another nine injured.

Marie (15:59):

This account shows a clear difference of how law enforcement wanted to react to this event. It's also a relatively unflattering portrait of Warden Koloski, that he was paralyzed by indecision and failed to act. At the time, when reporters asked for his thoughts about being criticized on not acting more quickly to crack down on the inmates when the August riot broke out, Koloski told him unequivocally, "The reason we spend so much time talking to prisoners is because human lives are at stake."

Marie (16:29):

After the riot ended and the smoke cleared, troubling accounts began to surface about the cause of the riot itself. A month later, the Dayton Daily News ran a series of articles about the riots. This series of articles opened by making the claim that the guards themselves had started the riot. It continued with, "Certain prison guards provided weapons, narcotics, and helped incite the deadly August Ohio Penitentiary Riot." Four guards had been identified by name to the newspaper, and others may be involved.

Marie (17:02):

According to witnesses, the reason for the guards' complicity was a dramatic attempt to get rid of Warden Koloski, who had not been well liked by the guards. One guard, whose name was one of the four who allegedly helped incite the riots, said, "One of the things wrong with Koloski was this. He wanted to bargain with the inmates. Under him, morale hit rock bottom. We guards felt like we were supposed to just be servants to the inmates rather than to the public. He was just very determined to have his own way, and that is that."

Marie (17:32):

Warden Koloski did resign shortly after the August riots. A deeply unenviable position that he never wanted to begin with. He told the Dayton Daily News that he had learned that he was appointed to the role while driving in his car listening to the radio.

Warden Koloski (17:48):

I felt peaceful and happy, driving back to my office in Columbus, when I switched on the car radio and heard my name on the news. They were announcing that I was named acting warden at Ohio Penitentiary by Governor James Rhodes. I was moving into a hot bed and I didn't have a choice. If they'd given me one I'd have turned them down.

Marie (18:09):

It's also true that in his very short employment of only 48 days as warden of Ohio Pen, he cleaned house. 60 guards resigned and 17 were fired, for a grand total of 1/4 of the entire guard workforce. It is also well documented that the warden was not well liked by the prison guards, namely because he had the perception that he favored the inmates. What's more probable is that Warden Koloski cracked down on possible abuse and corruption within the prison administration itself. He caught and fired guards that were dealing drugs or abusing inmates. This house cleaning was probably necessary, but would ultimately leave him with less prison guards than when he was appointed to the position, an already dangerously low number. But was it possible that an already limited group of guards not only incited the inmates to riot but also gave them weapons and drugs to get rid of a warden that had only been there for little under a month?

Marie (19:03):

At the time, Harold [Smothe 00:19:04], a corrections office and spokesman for the guards, said, "The guards were very anti Koloski. There is no doubt about it. As to the charge that some of them might've furnished weapons or narcotics, or helped incite that riot, I don't know about that. The charge comes as a shock to me, but then I don't know every single guard and what he is thinking or doing."

Marie (19:23):

What was Paul Freshour 's recollection of this event? He was one of the nine guards that was held hostage during the riot. And how does it compare with his fellow captives? By piecing together some firsthand accounts, we're able to get a better picture of what happened with Paul Freshour and the other guards during that time.

Marie (19:41):

Ohio Pen guard Paul Davis began work on August 12th in the AM shift and was speaking to Steve Huffman, one of the newer guards just hired. Davis told Huffman that his mother had just been released from the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Steve Huffman in turn volunteered that his young son had heart trouble and was soon to undergo an operation. "It was just a normal day," said Huffman, "No tension was in the air."

Marie (20:05):

"I could hear a prisoner whistling," said Davis. "Everything was routine until two minutes after 10:00."

Marie (20:11):

Paul Freshour himself explained, "I looked down the cell block area about the 14th range on the B block. I saw two inmates beating a guard named Miller. I just thought it was two or three inmates getting out of hand. I didn't dream it was the inmates taking over."

Marie (20:26):

After Steve Huffman was done talking with Paul Davis, he began to check on a range of cells when he heard a noise. He looked down the hallway and saw that an inmate with keys was unlocking cells. Another inmate was holding a sharpened utensil at the stomach of Don [Dilly 00:20:42], another guard, to get him to surrender his keys for additional cells. "When I saw this, I ran to help the guards. But an inmate grabbed me from behind and told me to stay where I was. Right about then, a large group of men, about 10 or so, started to come down into the cell block area. I knew it was useless to resist by now, that I was going to be taken hostage."

Marie (21:04):

"They came over the wall," said Paul Davis, "and put a knife to my side and said, 'Keep walking.' So I did. One grabbed my keys and began to unlock the cells. It was all mass confusion by now and nobody knew what was going on, or what anyone was really doing. I was dead sick and frightened, and I thought to myself, this is it. I'm going to die."

Marie (21:22):

Huffman was able to alert the rest of the prison. "There was a little door where we put mail through," he explains. "I knew it was dangerous to try anything, but I bent over and called through the hole to tell a guard I saw on the other side that prisoners were taking over. I took the chance. But I told them that they had the control over C and D."

Marie (21:40):

The inmate who Huffman saw confronting the other guard, Don [Dilly 00:21:44], was John Howard [Conde 00:21:46], who would later be identified as one of the ringmasters of the riot. He told Don Dilly to play it cool, and when another inmate threatened Dilly because the guard wasn't cooperative, Conde calmed him down by saying, "We don't want any violence." In fact, Don Dilly later told Ohio Highway Patrol investigators that Conde, "kept us all from getting killed," even fighting off other inmates who threatened to harm the seven guards taken hostage during the nearly 30 hour ordeal. Conde himself knew that the guards as hostages were their only leverage. For most every count of this grim event it seems like his goal was only to air grievances about the conditions of the prison to the public.

Marie (22:28):

After the negotiations started, the hostage guards were separated. Seven of them were taken to the top tier, to cell 6B. Huffman recalls, "They put Hickman and me in one cell at the very end, and there was a vacant cell with lighter fluid and a jar of gasoline in the middle. The ringleader of the inmates came to the cell and threatened us. He took some lighter fluid and poured a patch in front of the cell on the floor. He set fire to it and said, 'This is what's going to happen if you don't cooperate with us and we don't get what we want.'"

Marie (22:57):

Davis recalled, "They kept me isolated. They pretty much ignored me. But they did bring me some cigarettes and a cup of tea. At about noon I got a couple sandwiches. One minute someone would whisper it was all a big bluff and not to worry, and then just a few minutes later someone else would come by and scream that we were all going to die." This played out over the 30 hours the guards were held captive. They were threatened to be decapitated or burned alive one minute, and then treated kindly the next. Interestingly, the strangest story from this time of their captivity comes from Paul Freshour himself.

Paul Freshour (23:32):

This guy with a guitar came up to the L level and sat and talked to us about the time the sun went down. He was really friendly and he said that he would see to it to the end that no harm came to us. He said that many of the prisoners on the block didn't want any part in what was going on. He sang a little song that he made up, a song about prison life. It was sad. There were some tears in some of those guys' eyes.

Marie (23:57):

Freshour continues his account after law enforcement charged the prisons to rescue the hostages and in the process killed five inmates.

Paul Freshour (24:04):

I felt sorry for some of the prisoners. Here they are, some of them really big guys. You know, tough guys. Big and mean, acting so big and brave. Here they were begging for their lives.

Marie (24:17):

But what about the accusations that guards themselves were accountable for the riot? The warden appointed after the riots, Harold [Carewell 00:24:26], called the allegations preposterous, said that the guards were way too loyal to the institution to be instigators. But still, the news report said that some guards did supply the inmates with weapons and narcotics all in very dramatic attempt to get rid of Koloski.

Marie (24:42):

The original story comes from a series of articles written by two journalists for the Dayton Daily News, Dale Huffman and John [McMillan 00:24:50]. The days following the riot, the Daily ran front page exposes for over a week. The first article provided a firsthand account of the riot, interviewed witnesses, law enforcement, but also cast a more critical eye on the events. Questions were raised about the living conditions for the inmates and the excessive force used to bring the riot to the end.

Marie (25:12):

A 31 year old African American man named Edward [Spaulding 00:25:16] was serving time in the Ohio Penitentiary for his role in an armed robbery in 1962. During the riot, Spaulding stood at a broken window and yelled out to his mother and brother, who were standing in the crowd of people outside of the jail. Spaulding was heard yelling to his mom. "They say that we'll kill those guards if the authorities rush in. I'm not on that."

Marie (25:38):

After law enforcement blasted their way into the prison, another inmate stabbed him in the neck with a homemade knife. Spaulding lay on a cell floor unattended near death for over an hour before he received any medical attention. When he was finally admitted to the hospital, he managed to pass a note to reporters. In it he wrote that he guards at Ohio Penitentiary were responsible for providing weapons and narcotics to the inmates and inciting the riot. The note in part read, "Guards started the August riot. They didn't want Koloski as warden. He didn't allow for their mistreatment. There were nine guards being held. If the cons killed them, we all were going to die. They know I was cut because I didn't want those guards killed after they blew the wall. They can't say this, for it would get me killed if I am sent back to the pen, and they don't want to give me this type of credit."

Marie (26:34):

Making this type of serious allegation would not win Spaulding any support with Ohio Penitentiary, with either the inmates or the guards. So much so that he feared for his life, a concern that was shared by the pen's new warden, who would eventually transfer him to another prison saying, "We had fears for his life. I mean, if they tried to kill him once, there's every chance they'll try and do it again."

Marie (26:56):

If telling the public that guards were behind the riot would only ensure that a bigger target would be put on his back, why would Spaulding make these claims? His lawyer at the time told the Dayton Daily, "Spaulding took his life in his hands to reveal this. We have no way of proving these charges, but other prisoners have confirmed it to me also. And if the guards responsible or those who know about this will talk, it would help settle a lot of problems at that place."

Marie (27:24):

After Spaulding cooperated with law enforcement and was transferred to another prison, the new Ohio Pen warden even spoke about granting him executive clemency. Paul [David 00:27:34], one of the captive guards during the riot said of Spaulding that he was not a trouble maker or a ringleader. "When he had his throat slashed, I thought it was because he was refusing to go along with the rioting inmates' orders."

Marie (27:47):

The accusations about the guards and the riots go dead quiet after September of that same year, just a little over a month after the riots occurred. Instead of Clemency, in 1969 Edward Spaulding was convicted of two of five counts of inciting the riot himself and was sentenced to five to 30 years for each count. Two years later, the court refused to hear his appeal.

Marie (28:13):

After 1971, Edward Spaulding goes missing from any other newspaper articles. The possible causes of the 1968 riots go quiet, with the exception of one article. The article states, "The prison officials could not determine how inmates could have possibly obtained the half gallon of gasoline and the 30 ounces of lighter fluid that they said that they would use to burn their guard hostages."

Marie (28:39):

Ten years after this dark event in Ohio history, the guards that were held hostage recall their time. Paul Davis, one of the first guards to be taken hostage, likens the experience to being a living corpse, and that a decade later the memory of those 30 hours stays with him most of the time. He had to testify at the trial of the inmates charged with inciting the riot and had his life threatened repeatedly because of it. He described what would now be probably diagnosed as PTSD.

Marie (29:26):

Paul Freshour was also interviewed in the same article. He says ...

Paul Freshour (29:31):

I still have nightmares every once in a while, but considering it all I feel I'm lucky that I'm as well adjusted as I am, considering how close I came to death.

Marie (29:41):

Freshour says that he himself has no lasting effects from the event, but ...

Paul Freshour (29:46):

Every time I see someone that I haven't seen for some time, they always ask me if I've become an alcoholic or go to a therapist or have any effects.

Marie (29:56):

He continues ...

Paul Freshour (29:58):

I think the public should be aware of the things that go on inside those prisons. The dope, the rapes, they just won't believe it. The worst memory of the 30 hours was when the inmates started to get high on drugs, like it was a big hazy party. A bunch of them started love nesting, having sex right in front of the cell where we were like they were putting on a little show for us. It was sick. It was horrible.

Marie (30:23):

Freshour continues by saying that he had lost touch with the other former guards who were all held hostage during the same time.

Paul Freshour (30:31):

At one time we were all planning to get together every August, but it fell through. I guess we really didn't wanna get together and commemorate a nightmare. Who wants to remember hell?

Marie (30:44):

Of all of the guards held hostage during the 1969 Ohio Pen riots who spoke to the press, most of their stories, at least the printed versions available to the public, are relatively consistent. They were terrified, confused, under extreme stress, but somehow on some level recognized the humanity of their captors, the inmates. A decade after that event some felt that the event marked a dark turn that their life had yet to resolve.

Marie (31:09):

Paul Freshour 's account is more curious than that of his fellow captives, starting with the account of the singing inmate, the one playing the guitar that brought others, some hardened men, to tears during the melee of the riot itself, all the way to a decade later, the story suddenly becoming that the inmates were actually involved in a drug fueled orgy. It's very difficult to reconcile these two events to each other, but then also it's difficult to reconcile them to the accounts from the other guards.

Marie (31:40):

Yes, there were reports of drugs being used by inmates during the riot. There's multiple reports of inmates threatening the guards for their lives if the demands are not met, and after law enforcement used explosives to rescue the captives, there was definitely widespread chaos.

Marie (31:58):

While it's difficult to reconcile Paul Freshour 's recollection of the riot, the frequency on how often he gave interviews to the press is clear. In contrast to the other guards, Paul Freshour was interviewed, quoted, and even photographed more than his other nine captive guards with the exception of one, Paul Davis. Immediately after the riot, he is quoted in multiple syndicated newspapers, sometimes with Paul Davis and Steve Huffman, but also on his own. Freshour 's photo appears in Ohio newspapers more than all of the other guards as well, again with the exception of Paul Davis. Notably, for the follow up story a decade later, Freshour is prominently featured. In a strange turn of circumstance, this follow up article from July 20th of 1978 was one year and a day from the fatal accident that killed Ron Gillespie.

Marie (32:50):

Paul Freshour 's relationship to law enforcement, especially Circleville's sheriff, had already begun to sour. At the same time, Sheriff Radcliffe and his office were still the target of the rage and indignation of the Circleville letter writer. Letter after letter accused Radcliffe of covering up murders, of cronyism, of corruption. Much like how Ohio Pen's Warden Koloski was maligned as not being supportive of his guards or portrayed as weak, the letter writer was determined to show Circleville that the man they elected to office as sheriff was unfit to wear his badge. It was a shadow campaign that ended Koloski's time as warden at Ohio Pen. What if what Edward Spaulding risked his life to tell reporters was actually true? Guards with gripes about Koloski used inmates to force a conflict that would result in his dismissal. If guards were behind the riot, they planned a very public conflict that garnered a lot of attention from the media. Inciting a riot would get the maximum desired result while keeping them removed from accountability, and also without showing any regard for the cost of human life.

Marie (34:01):

Does the 1968 Ohio Pen riots maybe show us a man who early on could persuade others to take his side, and then retreat into the shadow? Their identity and motivation hidden, this guard exerted power over not just his inmates, his fellow guards, law enforcement, the media, but ultimately over his true target, the authority of Warden Koloski himself. Is it possible that a decade after Paul Freshour was a captive guard at Ohio Pen he would go on to become the Circleville letter writer? Or was there someone else, someone who used Freshour , who set him up so well that less than six years later he'd be sentenced to prison for attempted murder? Someone who was with Paul Freshour even when he was a prison guard, someone who knew his routine, his habits. Someone close to him. Someone like family.

Background music (34:57):

Ghost of a steam train echoes down my track.

Marie (35:03):

Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains Podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew. On our next episode, we look at those people close enough to Paul Freshour who, behind the closed doors of Circleville, could've picked up a pen and put him away.

Background music (35:22):

... and I probably will, but I shoulda put some joy back in this town called malice, Hey. Oooh, this town called malice. Oooh.

Marie (35:46):

Hey, wanna know what Whatever Remains is getting up to next? Follow us on Twitter @WhateverRemains or online at WhateverRemainsPodcast.com. Be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five star review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Your reviews do help others to find the show and we adore hearing from our listeners, so please reach out.

Marie (36:09):

Our intro music is by Group Rhoda. The closing song for Circleville is performed by Ed Grabinowski, produced by Rich Root. The all seeing eye, or our logo, is by the super talented DezdiMona. This has been a copyright Five Orange Pips production, all rights reserved.