Episode 7: Stolen Treasure

Speaker 1 (00:02):

Who set up the booby trap that Mary found? I truly believe that Karen Freshour, Paul's ex-wife and Ron's sister, is responsible for that.

Speaker 2 (00:11):

Paul went through a divorce in which he was basically awarded everything. Custody of the children, retirement funds, the house.

Speaker 3 (00:19):

Freshour framed Paul. Or was involved in his framing at the very least. She may have used the letters as an opportunity to ruin Paul [crosstalk 00:00:29].

Speaker 4 (00:29):

[crosstalk 00:00:29] percent sold on the theory of Karen being the letter writer.

Speaker 3 (00:31):

[crosstalk 00:00:31] I think it's clear that she knows something, at least.

Speaker 4 (00:31):

But she felt wronged by Paul in the courts, and now Mary was running around on her brother. Karen had the opportunity to get back at Paul while exposing Mary as the cheater she was. Two birds, one stone. Everything about Karen just fits.

Speaker 5 (00:45):

After Paul and Freshour divorced, Karen started erecting signs around town. And eventually the boobie trap to frame Paul-

Group (00:54):

[crosstalk 00:00:54] Frame Freshour, Frame Freshour-

Speaker 7 (00:54):

Karen.

Speaker 5 (00:54):

... Remember, Paul got the house-

Group (00:56):

[crosstalk 00:00:56] Frame Freshour, Frame Freshour-

Speaker 5 (00:56):

... and the kids in the divorce, so Karen was bitter.

Group (00:58):

Frame Freshour, Frame Freshour.

Speaker 7 (00:59):

Karen Freshour.

Marie Mayhew (01:00):

For every story that has a hero, so too must it have a villain. And our story about the town of Circleville is no exception. If our hero, Paul Freshour, a personable, honest and likable guy, by numerous accounts, was really wrongfully accused and incarcerated, then who was the villain that put him there? Sheriff Radcliff and the Pickaway Sheriff's Office were, according to our hero, corrupt, inept and only interested in protecting their own. But in Paul's mind law enforcement were merely henchmen, just tools to be used at will by the person that truly had a vendetta against him. Who hated Paul Freshour enough to plan in the shadow for years to send him away for good?

Marie Mayhew (01:43):

Who was close enough to Paul, to Mary, to Ron and their children, to use them all like so many pieces on a chess board? What kind of sick person hates someone that much, that they would destroy anything in their path to see Paul in prison? To a lot of people that's easy, that person was close to Paul, knew him since they were young, loved him, married him, had a kid and wanted to raise a family with him. That sick, evil villain, well it has to be his wife. Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew. On this episode, meet the number one suspected favored villain in the Circleville story. The figure that many a true crime fan believes to be the letter writer, Karen Sue Freshour. Wife to Paul, sister to Ron and friend to Mary.

Marie Mayhew (02:38):

We'll look at the transcripts of the Freshour's 1983 contentious divorce and try and understand the woman that so many have come to believe was the one that framed Paul Freshour. But is she really our villain? Or is she, like Paul Freshour claimed to be, just being set up to be wrongfully accused? "In my 22 years as a journalist and investigator, I don't think I have ever met an individual so consumed with such irrational hatred for another and a willingness to say anything, no matter how provably false, to defame him." In his 1993 letter to the parole board on behalf of Paul Freshour, journalist and private investigator Martin Yant is definitely not holding back any punches when he describes Karen Sorrick. Or as she was known when all of this was going on, Karen Sue Freshour.

Marie Mayhew (03:33):

She married Paul in October of 1962. She was his wife during the Ohio Pen Riots in 1968. And together they had three children, Mark, Dawn Michelle and Helen Sienna. In October of 1982, the Freshour's filed for divorce. This is the event that is the supposed motivation for Karen Sue Freshour's framing of her soon to be ex-husband for attempted murder. With Paul out of the way, Karen supposedly would have all of the financial assets and full custody of their kids. Completely free to pursue a relationship with another man, John Sorrick. We're to believe that she was someone so ruthless and cold that she would try and murder her best friend just to see her ex-husband punished so she could have easy, unfettered access to his money.

Marie Mayhew (04:22):

For every virtue bestowed on Paul Freshour, the opposite has been projected onto his ex-wife. For as honest and forthright Paul was to the truth, Karen was a liar, and manipulative. Paul was church-going, devoted to his family and friends. Karen broke up families, cheated on her husband, was cruel and dismissive to her own children, was an alcoholic. Paul held steady jobs making good money in a management position at Anheuser-Busch, while Karen's behavior made her unemployable. You get the idea, because, well it's not really subtle, is it? It's black and white. We have our hero and we have our villain. This picture is what's painted for us over and over again. But what do we really know about Karen Sue Freshour, who like so many others involved in the Circleville story, has remained silent on this topic for years?

Marie Mayhew (05:13):

It is through the Freshour's divorce proceedings, the state's case against Paul Freshour for attempted murder and other court events that we're able to give some voice to this story's alleged villain. In interviewing witnesses after Paul Freshour's arrest for attempted murder, Sheriff's Detective Philip Brown spoke to many people about Karen Sue. One being Raymond Trainor, the security officer for the USTA where Karen worked. Trainor came from a law enforcement background, had testified on organized crime in front of congress, and was previously employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In his interviews with Detective Brown and his congressional testimony, Trainor comes across as regimented, discipled. When asked by congress if he believes that there was enough financial regulation in horse racing, he said, "When you talk security to a security man, I don't think that any one security man would say that anything is adequate. There's always room for an improvement." Why is it important to point out these details about Trainor, is because he is a witness to Karen Sue.

Marie Mayhew (06:20):

He worked with her and was in charge of security for the company. Trainor had told Detective Brown that Karen Sue had talked to him about her concerns about her husband and marriage. In the trunk of his car, Trainor had amassed multiple signs that were found posted on the lawn or the parking lot of the USTA office. These signs were saying disparaging things, to say the least, about Karen Sue. To avoid having her have to see them, Trainor would collect them and put them into the trunk of his car daily. He even drove home with a plywood one that read, "Peggy H. and Karen F. are lovers, they have no time for anyone else." The most recent sign that he had found was found a month earlier, in January 1983, in the early morning hours at about 6:00 AM. He told Detective Brown that the person who had found it was Peggy W. Heiznauer, Karen Sue's co-worker. And it said that Sue and Peggy were lesbians.

Marie Mayhew (07:12):

Karen had also told Trainor about a recent auto accident, where she was led to believe that her car was shot at and said the incident was reported to the Columbus Police Department. This must have struck Trainor as a surprising and disturbing event. After Karen told Trainor about it, he actually received a call from her then husband, Paul Freshour. Paul said that he had hired a private investigator, a Mark Anthony Giovanni, with Triple A Bureau of Investigation, to look into the shooting and wanted to come to the USTA office to speak with him more. Trainor agreed, and the meeting took place on February 3rd, 1983, a short time before his arrest. After hearing this from Trainor, Detective Brown looked at Karen Freshour's car there at her job without her knowledge. Especially at the trunk, and at the top of the trunk lid, where it was supposedly shot.

Marie Mayhew (08:01):

There was a dent, an indentation that could have been made by a bullet. But there was no bullet hole, and definitely no slug within the trunk. Trainor also told Detective Brown that Karen had told him she had found sealed envelopes at her home addressed with the seemingly block style handwriting as the anonymous letter writer. When she had asked Paul about them, he claimed he received them in the mail, and he did not wanna bother her with them. Karen said she did not know what happened to the letters, as Paul said that he would take care of it. On February 17th, 1983, the sheriff's office interviewed Karen Sue Freshour herself, directly. She confirmed that she had been married to Paul for over 20 years and both had filed for divorce in common plea court in Franklin County. She had custody of their oldest boy Mark, age about 19. And their two girls age 13 and 15, were with Paul.

Marie Mayhew (08:54):

When the sheriffs asked her more about the divorce proceedings she said that Paul's attorney was with Senator Schwartz-Walters firm in Columbus. We'll talk more about Paul's attorney in a coming episode. But what bears noting now is that Karen at that time, believed that she was going into divorce court and her husband was being backed by a seemingly affluent and very prestigious lawyer. Karen then recounts that for the first few years that they were married, Paul had beaten her up a few times. But then she stood up to him, filing for divorce, only later to decide to drop it. For a long period of time, about 17 years, there were few problems. Then, in the early 80s they began to argue. He accused her of running around with someone else. She told him that she thought he was sick, refusing to get into a car with him.

Marie Mayhew (09:41):

The City Police Department was called, and an investigation was made at the time. The police got her out of the house, and she spoke with a night prosecutor at the city prosecutor's office, but nothing further was done. Karen went on. She said that they had been separated for about seven months, she had left him about a week before the Fourth of July of 1982. Karen said that Paul had beaten her up in October, broke a soda bottle and held it to her face, threatening to cut her up so bad that her own mother wouldn't recognize her. This description matches the divorce proceedings.

Marie Mayhew (10:14):

From the report of the referral officer, the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, "Upon consideration of matters before the court, the court referral officer makes the following finding of fact. Both parties were present with council on November 22, 1982. The parties have two children and the defendant alleges physical beating by her husband on October 5th, 1982 and showed pictures of a blackened eye with four stitches. The plaintiff has gone to counseling since the incident. The plaintiff went to counseling because he feels bad about what he did. The defendant claims the plaintiff has a violent temper and she left because of being struck."

Marie Mayhew (10:52):

Regarding the incident with her car, Karen told Detective Brown, Paul said he had hired a detective who reportedly found that the dent in her trunk was indeed a bullet hole. And that Paul was being set up, but for what we are not exactly sure. Especially since law enforcement knew that there was no slug in the trunk of Karen's car. When asked what she thought of her ex-husband, Paul Freshour, Karen said that he was smart. He could tell her things that could change her mind, to get her to think in a certain way. But she also thought that he was irrational, and that if you disagreed with him, he didn't like it. And he believed that he was always right. He would come across as very nice at first, but if anyone disagreed with him he would become very angry. In all of the court cases and documentation that I've found, Karen Sue is consistent about how she describes Paul Freshour.

Marie Mayhew (11:40):

He's smart, very intelligent. He can influence people to think a certain way or believe something without making you feel like you're being coerced. He comes across as very down to earth and very likable. Before they started having problems that lead to their divorce, Karen Sue did all of the finances and kept all of their records, bank statements, mortgages. When she split up she had to go back and show Paul what was going on and what to do. Paul never kept much money with him, only two to five dollars a day. Because of Karen's knowledge with finances, she found that not only was Paul not paying her the court settled and mandated monthly alimony payments of $300 a month, but he had also not disclosed or split stock from the company that he worked for, Anheuser-Busch, which was another ruling of the court.

Marie Mayhew (12:30):

Karen said Paul had thought a great deal of Ron and Mary Gillispie before Ron died. But after his death, Paul grew to hate Mary. Hated her over the Massie deal, and used to discuss it quite a bit. Saying things like, "Why don't they just go out of state?" Or calling her, "A goddamn slut who slept with Massie." But Karen Sue believed that before Ron died, Mary had nothing to do with Massie whatsoever. Mary told Karen that Mr. Massie impressed her, and she had told her husband that there was nothing going on between them. In fact, both Ron and Karen told Paul this, that there was nothing going on. There was no affair. If Karen and Ron, Mary's husband, believed this to be the truth, that there wasn't an affair, then why couldn't Paul Freshour? What could of possibly mattered to him so much that he would not only take the word of his ex-wife, but of Ron Gillispie, someone that Paul'd admired and viewed as a close friend?

Marie Mayhew (13:26):

When Detective Brown asked her about their children she said her son Mark, the oldest, was very afraid of Paul. And that was why he was living with her. Where this fear of his father comes from is only hinted at in the documents. Karen tells Detective Brown that Mark told her one time his father called him at home, saying that he was in possession of a shotgun that was used in a felony and that he had to get rid of it. Paul told Mark things like, "This was the night she was going to get her head blown off." Referring to Mary Gillispie. Karen said the girls and Mark had also been getting letters at home since she had left Paul, but her daughters were also getting calls at Paul's home on Chandler drive. All they would tell her was that it was sick stuff, and they refused to go into any details. Paul had been seeing a psychiatrist in family counseling with their two girls. Karen had gone once as well but was shocked to find out that the psychiatrist knew nothing of their son, Mark. Paul had never mentioned that he had a son.

Marie Mayhew (14:26):

When they started to talk about the anonymous letters, Karen told Detective Brown that about two summers ago while house cleaning, she had found a letter hidden between the mattress and the box spring of their bed. The letter was addressed to Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, Missouri and the writing had the same look as some of the other ones that had been sent to Mary. When she asked Paul about this, he told her that he had written the letter as a work reference for someone. When she checked the next day, the letter was gone. She had also found a letter in the toilet. Her son had gotten it out with a coat hanger after the toilet had stopped up. She told Detective Brown that it had been addressed to some church in a nearby town but didn't have a stamp on it. Karen had tried to piece it together when Paul was not at home.

Marie Mayhew (15:11):

She said she could make out the name Gillispie on the letter. She often found envelopes like this left in odd places in the Freshour home, where she could make out the name Gillispie written on the letter inside. Karen went on to say the night prior to his fatal accident, Ron Gillispie called Mary before she and Karen Sue had left for their trip for Florida. And told his wife he thought he had the matter "figured out". Karen said a short time after Ron had died she had found four letters in white envelopes in the trunk of her husband's car. They had not been mailed and Paul had told her that Ron wanted him to mail them, but strangely enough even though they had stamps on them, they had not been mailed. Karen ended the interview with Detective Brown by talking about what she told Mary Gillispie. She said that, yes, she did believe that Paul was behind the letters and she did tell Mary Gillispie that.

Marie Mayhew (16:08):

The Freshour's divorce that started in 1982 was contentious. Both parties claimed the other was guilty of gross neglect, and then filed restrained orders that prohibited the other from coming in contact, from taking any action with their physical property or with their bank accounts. Karen Sue even had accused Paul of being physically abusive. On May 9th of 1983, the judge in the case ruled the following, "This cause came for trial upon the plaintiff's complaint of divorce on May 9th, 1983. The court heard testimony offered by the plaintiff and his witness. And defense offered no testimony. Therefore, the court finds the defendant in default for failure to answer to give evidence to support an answer and thus finds the allegation of the plaintiff's complaint to be true. The court finds the defendant has been guilty of gross neglect of duty of which was supported by independent corroborative testimony. The plaintiff is therefore entitled to a divorce as put forth in his complaint."

Marie Mayhew (17:08):

Because Karen Sue did not refute these claims or provide an alternative, the court found the allegation of the plaintiff's complaint to be true and ruled against her. Paul Freshour won custody of their two daughters and was ordered to pay an alimony of $300 a month to Karen Sue. Their shared real estate was also to be sold and split. All of the stocks and bonds from the plaintiff, or Paul's, job at Anheuser-Busch were to be split equally. So why did Karen Sue, the defendant in this case, seemingly not defend herself? Have rebuttal for the plaintiff's witness? Or, if her master plan was to frame Paul Freshour as the anonymous letter writer, even if she suspected him to be so, why not use this as her defense?

Marie Mayhew (17:52):

Even before the court's ruling for the plaintiff, Paul Freshour was a suspect. He was charged on February 28th. He was released from the Pickaway County Jail on a $50,000 bond a month later on March 30th. At any point Karen Sue could have used any of this information. The articles in the newspaper, witnesses like Raymond Trainor, but she didn't do it, so why not? What in the world would stop her? During the divorce proceedings, Paul Freshour called a witness. There is no mention that I can locate specifically who it was, but because he was awarded custody, it is a reasonable assumption that the witness was one of their two daughters. Besides that witnesses testimony, their children possibly would have been present at trial. They very certainly would have heard about it in some regard. Just like they would have been very aware of all of the media attention around their father being arrested as the letter writer and trying to murder their aunt.

Marie Mayhew (18:48):

Maybe the reason Karen Sue Freshour didn't defend herself was because she made a decision that it was more important to try and defend her children. She recognized that there would be no winning, no gaining emotionally or financially from bringing the letters into their divorce. Karen Sue did not want for her children to hate their father. She saw what was coming, the stories in the newspaper, the attention, the gossip. And she didn't wanna put her children in front of that. Even if on the witness stand one of her daughters said something against her. Even if not hating him meant her daughter would end up hating her instead. What Karen Sue told others like Trainor and Detective Brown shows a more measured restraint in describing her ex-husband than what we've been led to believe. She says that he was abusive, and she believes that he is the letter writer, but she does not seem to take the opportunity to put the proverbial nail in his coffin. She could have. She could have gone to the press, called him a monster or told the judge presiding over her divorce proceedings that he was crazy and that he was dangerous. But she didn't.

Marie Mayhew (19:53):

How do we know this? Because if she had, there would have been a record of it entered into her divorce proceedings. She did not even appear to defend herself against Paul Freshour, who actually did take the opportunity to defame her character. From a September 6th, 1983 letter to the court referee who was involved in his divorce proceedings.

Paul Freshour (20:14):

Dear Court Referee, my name is Paul Freshour and I'm in Pickaway County Jail on an attempted murder charge. Still, I'm asking that my children's interest remains first. I was granted a divorce from my wife a year ago and was granted custody of my two children. Please take this into consideration. My wife walked out on me and these girls over a year ago. She has done this before. If they wanna be with their mother, I'm glad, but please set up where they are taken care of. I want for them what they want, before any investigation is completed, before my hearing be, please ask them the following. Ask both children if their mother hasn't threatened to phone them into a home of some type. Ask them about their mother carrying a gun like a lot of her friends. My ex-wife has tried to kill herself on four different occasions by cutting her wrists, trying to crash a car at 60 miles an hour, and trying to drown herself. Just ask them if their mother hasn't a loaded gun around the house.

Marie Mayhew (21:17):

Or in a letter to his attorney while he was being held in jail before his trial.

Paul Freshour (21:22):

March 3rd, 1983. Skip, did Millie ever tell you what started last summer? Sue left me because of the house being dirty and me not making the girls clean. She lived with Peg for a week and then with Carol. She even stayed some at the cabin, but I didn't run after her. Ask the girls, for they won't lie. The weekend she came home I had just received one of these letters myself, giving me orders. (laughs) I just laughed and threw it in the toilet. The drains got all plugged up, and it took Mark two hours to unplug it. Sue came home and took the letter from the toilet and tried to read it. Since I was in bed and didn't kiss her butt, she said that I wrote it. She told the girls and then she told all of her friends.

Paul Freshour (22:05):

Sandy told her to come back and talk to me about it, so she did. I lost my temper and told her, "Hell yes, if you think so." We argued and she left. I threw her clothes out when she finally came home, but I wouldn't stop watching football to even talk to her. She hasn't been right since. I get in trouble every time I try to help her. She told me about the sign at her job, so I hired a private investigator to find out who did it. That's when I went into the building and saw it. She got so mad because I hired him. I think that she told Mary, and Mary told the sheriff, who in turn has talked to Sue. He sounded just like her when he told me why he thought everyone was writing the letters. He made me sick, he sounded so much like her. It sounded like a recording coming right out of his mouth.

Marie Mayhew (22:52):

In these letters that Paul Freshour wrote to his lawyer, to the divorce court, and even one to the Columbia Dispatch, he does not appear to afford Karen Sue any of the same consideration. He writes to the court that she tried to commit suicide four times without even giving his wife of 20 years the chance to know that he made these claims or to defend herself. So what about when Paul does communicate directly with Karen Sue during this same time period? From a letter from the Pickaway County Jail, from Paul to Karen Sue.

Paul Freshour (23:24):

Sue, how you doing? Gary, a cell mate of mine, dropped the dime on you today. He said that he called you and that you thought he was a hit-man. Are you for real? He said that you told him that I was always taking large amounts of money from the bank or borrowing it. He said that you told him about someone shooting at you, and about Ronnie, and about everything. Please, think about this. We must watch who we talk to. Someone is already taking advantage of what they know about our problems. Who's trying to destroy our relationship? Don't ever think I want you hurt. Why do you think I'm fighting this so hard with everything I got? God knows that I loved Ronnie and that he loved me. And I had nothing to do with his death.

Paul Freshour (24:05):

Pray about it and God will enlighten you. You once said that I was the letter writer, but I'm very innocent. I can tell you things you told someone about your job and that you didn't tell me. I'm gonna prove it to you once and for all that I'm not the letter writer. I did some things I shouldn't, but it was for good reason.

Marie Mayhew (24:23):

So maybe some of you listening will hear this and discount it as overly sentimental and maybe even biased on my account. Okay, but I think it's reasonable to say that it is a very unusual event to have a stranger, who is incarcerated, call your ex-wife and have a positive motivation in mind. Never mind telling her you know who she's been talking to, and that you have nothing to with her brother's death, all while being in jail for attempted murder. And then to ask her who destroyed your friendship. Sure, he did some things he shouldn't, but it was all for a good reason. While there are some inconsistencies with Karen Sue, loving her kids does not appear to be one of them. In all of the written reports, testimony, and correspondences available to me during my research, Karen Sue Freshour is far from perfect. But she loves her kids.

Marie Mayhew (25:15):

In a correspondence with Martin Yant she said, "Believe me, I lost a lot. You know, I could have done a whole lot more. I could have really, really portrayed this man to be what he really was, and gotten a lot more, but I couldn't for the fact that I have kids. And believe me, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I love my kids a whole hell of a lot more than you'll ever know." In the stories we tell each other, we love to have heroes and villains. We crave being able to have that certainty, even if it comes at the expense of those who we cast into those roles. It's comforting knowing that while our hero has been wrongfully accused, he's a good guy. And that what's happened to him has been orchestrated by another, someone vengeful and cold.

Marie Mayhew (26:08):

For our story to resolve, the hero must be vindicated. And the villain defeated, relegated to only being remembered as such. But what happens to the story of the Circleville letter writer if our villain isn't as bad as we want her to be? What if she is just another person going through life? If Karen Sue Freshour is not as bad as we thought, then what does that say about our hero? The man wrongfully accused, telling us this story. Author William Congreve famously once wrote, "Hell hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman's scorn." Which if you believe Paul Freshour and his story of Circleville, does neatly sum up the character of Karen Sue.

Marie Mayhew (26:52):

I would ask you to instead consider a different quote by the same author. While it is not as well known or popular, it may closely more resemble the truth, "He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure." Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew (singing). Next time we look at what happens when Mary Gillispie, fed up from years of harassment to her and her family, finally tears down a sign from the anonymous letter writer. The awful words on the outside of the sign are all too familiar to her, but what she finds inside the sign, well, that's something she hadn't bargained for. The boobie trap is our next episode.

Marie Mayhew (27:44):

(singing)

Marie Mayhew (27:50):

Hey, wanna know what Whatever Remains is getting up to next? Follow us on Twitter @whateverremains or online at whateverremainspodcast.com (singing). Be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five star review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Your reviews to help others to find the show and we adore hearing from our listeners, so please reach out. Our intro music is by group Rhoda. The closing song for Circleville is performed by Ed Grabianowski, produced by Rich Root. The all seeing eye, or our logo, is by the super talented Desdemona. This has been a copyright Five Orange Pips production. All rights reserved.