Season 3 Episode 5: Five Points Pike

Marie Mayhew (00:15):

(silence). In the decade long story of the Circleville Letters, there are things that incited the anonymous letter writer's campaign of hate against this small town. The alleged affair between Gordon Massie and Mary Gillispie, the school district's perceived indifference to their demands, law enforcement's seemingly blind eye to the writer's accusations. The

Marie Mayhew (00:51):

Circleville letter writer could be written off, some lone crackpot, malicious, unwell, but for the most part not a grave threat. Hiding behind their pen and paper, the writer appeared content to wreak havoc on their targets' lives from a tidy distance. But then, on August 19th, 1977, one event changed the Circleville letter writer and grew their intent to harm others from just ink on paper to something altogether different and much more deadly.

Marie Mayhew (01:20):

What happened that night on a road called Five Points Pike put the Circleville letter writer on a path, a collision course to not only punish the Gillispies and the Massies, but the town of Circleville itself. And it would not end until someone paid with their life.

Marie Mayhew (01:37):

Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew. On this episode, the story of Ron Gillispie and Five Points Pike, the significant event that led the letter writer to put down their pen and pick up a gun.

Marie Mayhew (01:54):

On the night of August 19th, 1977, Ron Gillispie, Mary's husband, is at home with his two children. Over a year has passed since his wife, family, home, even his workplace, has been inundated with letters saying that his wife is sleeping with another man. When these vile letters weren't arriving in the Gillispie's mailbox, crude homemade signs were being posted on local roads like so many poisonous toadstools. While Mary denied any involvement with Gordon Massie, Ron Gillispie would have no doubt been under stress, with no real recourse to make the anonymous author stop.

Marie Mayhew (02:31):

On this night, his wife, Mary Gillispie, was on her way to Florida with Karen Sue Freshour, Sandy [Chifadoni 00:02:38], and Kate Pestel. In court testimony, Mary testifies that her and her friends traveled to Florida to relax. They did not meet anyone else there, including Gordon Massie. In fact, it was Paul Freshour, Mary's brother in law and Karen Sue's husband, that had made the arrangement for the stay there in Florida himself. His parents lived there.

Marie Mayhew (03:00):

At some point after 10:00 PM, Ron Gillispie reportedly receives a telephone call. There is no evidence who Ron was speaking to, or to the nature of their conversation.

Speaker 2 (03:11):

The call seemed to confirm Ron's suspicion about the identity of the letter writer. He told his daughter he was going out to confront the letter writer. He took his weapon, said goodbye to his little girl, and went out.

Marie Mayhew (03:22):

This scenario implies that Ron was speaking to the Circleville letter writer themselves, or someone who knew their identity. Something said on this call compelled Ron to immediately leave the house that night. It also implies that he knew where he was going. Ron was angered to such an extent that he grabbed his gun and stormed from the house, leaving behind two young children who beared witness to this arguably frightening event all alone. In many retellings of this account, the only child mentioned to be present that night is Traci, his youngest daughter. The act of taking a weapon from the house denotes that he had an intent to either protecting himself from harm or to threaten someone else.

Marie Mayhew (04:04):

After leaving the house, Ron is not heard from or seen again anywhere in Circleville. There are no records of him stopping or speaking to any other people. About 10 miles from the Gillispie's home on Brooks-Miller Road, Ron was traveling at excessive speeds, going northwest on Five Points Pike, a relatively well-traversed, paved, two-way road, about seven miles or 10 minutes from the Gillispie's home. There was no adverse weather. The two- way road would have been dry, but that portion of Five Points Pike was largely rural farmland. It would have been dark at night. There would have been no street lights.

Marie Mayhew (04:42):

At about 10:25 PM, about a tenth of a mile from McKenzie Road, just past the Greenlawn Community Church, Ron drove straight and failed to follow the curve in the road. Still traveling at a reportedly excessive speed, his red and white 1971 Ford pickup went off the left side of the roadway for about 37 feet and collided headfirst into a tree. Not wearing his seatbelt, Ron Gillispie was partially ejected from his vehicle from the left driver's side seat.

Marie Mayhew (05:11):

At 10:30 PM, dispatch receives a call reporting the accident. Five minutes later, officer Lee Gray, Unit 19, from the Pickaway Sheriff's Office arrives at the crash site. He's immediately followed by an ambulance. Ron Gillispie is taken to the Berger Hospital in Circleville, 18 miles or 26 minutes away. It is believed that he did not survive the initial impact, and is pronounced dead on arrival at Berger Hospital of massive trauma to the head and internal injuries. Much has been speculated about these events leading up to and including the crash at Five Points Pike.

Speaker 2 (05:50):

The letter writer warned Ron that his life was in danger. The letter writer had written saying that they were watching his home and truck, following Ron as he drove off. He was involved in a high speed chase. There were bullet holes found in the exterior of his pickup. Somewhere between leaving the house and hitting that tree, the gun he had took from the house had fired one shot. There was never any explanation for when, or how, at whom that gun could have been fired.

Marie Mayhew (06:22):

The known account of what occurred the night of the 19th in the Gillispie's home comes from Ron and Mary's children, the only eyewitnesses to their father's action. Traci was only eight at the time, and Eric was 15. And that's it, the children, namely Traci, provide the only account. It's safe to assume that the Gillispie children would have been questioned by law enforcement soon after the accident about what happened. Because both children were minors, they could have only been questioned under the supervision of an adult, most likely their mother, Mary.

Marie Mayhew (06:59):

Sometimes when law enforcement question young children about events that they have witness, they tend to provide very brief and vague details. Often the interviewer, including parents, must press them for more details, and lead children towards providing information that is more relevant to the investigation. Children are sometimes asked specific questions related to the possible behaviors about the person they witnessed.

Marie Mayhew (07:25):

This occurrence, or what is commonly referred to as the misinformation effect, is considered misleading because it distracts from the original memory, not because it is meant to be consciously deceitful. Misleading information is often given unintentionally, and can be as subtle as slight variations in the wording of a question. For example, two groups of participants were shown footage of a car accident. The first group was asked the question, "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" Versus the second group, who were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" And then both groups were asked, one, "How fast do you think the cars were traveling," and two, "Tell me something you remember from the picture of the crash."

Marie Mayhew (08:10):

Despite the fact that all participants both viewed the same footage, group one that heard the word smashed reported the cars were traveling at a speed up to 20% faster than group two, the group that heard the word hit. Even more, the group that heard the word smashed were more likely to elicit a false memory or remembering seeing broken glass at the site of the crash.

Marie Mayhew (08:35):

Misinformation can have an impact on how people receive and process information, and can help shape memory. The change in one word shows that we're vulnerable to a certain amount of suggestibility. Suggestibility measures how easily persuaded someone is to another influence, and the degree they'll change their own behavior to conform without critically challenging what they've been told.

Marie Mayhew (09:00):

Young children especially may have difficulty accurately answering suggestive questions because they may not have the cognitive or social skills to identify that they do not have an answer, and they may not understand the option that they don't even have to choose an answer. Children can fall into suggestibility because they want to appease an adult, like a teacher or a parent. They have a greater sense of trust that the adult is a credible source of information. What your parents or an adult tells you builds your reality as a young child. Children's understanding of their family dynamics may also lead them to provide an answer that they believe an adult like their parent would want to hear, rather than what they know or believe to be true.

Marie Mayhew (09:42):

Even highly emotionally charged events, commonly called flashbulb memories, or memories that are embedded in one's mind like a photographic imprint, are subject to being malleable. These memories were once considered to be highly accurate due to the intense overstimulation the subject experiences from the event, but more recent research supports the idea that memories from traumatic events, just like any others, are subject to misinformation and susceptibility.

Marie Mayhew (10:11):

There's a distinct possibility that Traci or Eric Gillispie's memory of what happened the night of August 19th, 1977, before their father left the house, was distorted by what they experienced in the aftermath of that event. What Traci or Eric remembered could have been altered after being exposed to misleading information related to the memory itself.

Marie Mayhew (10:33):

Ron and Mary were under extreme stress about the onslaught of anonymous letters arriving to their home and work. Their children would have been in tune with their anxiety and the effects it was having on their family. Even Paul Freshour recounts this stress felt by the Gillispies in his writing.

Speaker 2 (10:51):

Also, there were rather large signs being posted about Mary Gillispie's little daughter, who was only 12 years old at the time, referring to her also having sexual relations with Gordon Massie. This was terrible, and her father, Ronald Gillispie, got up early before going to work, drove around removing such signs so they couldn't be seen by his little daughter or the children on the bus.

Speaker 2 (11:15):

It had to be a pitiful life. Imagine living under these conditions. Also, what did the children see? Children were affected by all of this.

Marie Mayhew (11:25):

If the Gillispie children were questioned by an adult, a police officer or their mother, their account of Ron Gillispie's actions that night would have been compounded by this stress and the fact that they had just lost their father. Questions framed like, "Did your father seem mad after he got the call?" would be enough to mislead their information.

Marie Mayhew (11:45):

Given this context, it's difficult to say if Ron called someone, someone called him, or if there was even a telephone call at all. Ron could have just left the house for something as simple as running an errand. Because of the lateness of the hour, at around 10:00 PM, let's assume it was a telephone conversation that prompted Ron's action. Traci says that after the call, Ron, visibly upset, went upstairs and got his gun, a .22 caliber revolver, and left.

Marie Mayhew (12:13):

Here's where things get curious. Ron is furious. In his anger, he grabs the gun and leaves. The revolver is central to this story. It shows that Ron's serious, and it's the strangest piece of evidence at the crash site on Five Points Pike. By midnight, an hour and a half after the crash, after Ron's body has been taken by the ambulance, the Sheriff's investigators have cleared the accident site. Under the body of Ron Gillispie, they find an H&R .22 caliber revolver containing eight live rounds and one spent round. This means in the cylinder of the gun itself, there were eight unfired bullets and one fired casing. Also found in the cab of the pickup was one box of .22 caliber Winchester Western Wildcat ammo.

Marie Mayhew (13:02):

So in his fury, Ron Gillispie grabs the gun from his home on Brooks-Miller Road, but he did not have the foresight to also take his ammunition? The box of ammo is not mentioned in Traci's memory of the story. If he only took the gun, then where was the ammo, and why wouldn't these two things be kept together?

Marie Mayhew (13:20):

On September 1st, the Sheriff's Office submits both the .22 and the box of ammunition to their lab in London, Ohio, for the ballistics testing. These are their findings.

Speaker 3 (13:31):

Examination revealed the H&R revolver, Model 900, to be functional. Trigger pulls measured four and 10 and a half pounds, single and double action firing, respectively. There are traces of tan and red paint rubbed onto the left side of the top of the top strap. The eight cartridges and cartridge case removed from the revolver are of Winchester Wildcat, head stamped .22 caliber long rifle ammunition, similar to the 24 rounds of ammunition in the box labeled as Winchester Wildcat. The firing pin impression on the fired case was identified to this revolver. A search of our open case files against this revolver was negative.

Marie Mayhew (14:12):

Also, another detail that has not been included in the story, the paint traces on the left side of the top of the top strap. The top strap is the long piece of metal that lies on the top of the revolver's cylinder, roughly two to three inches long. Its flat surface is raised on the top of the gun.

Marie Mayhew (14:29):

On Ron Gillispie's revolver, into the left side of the top strap, the gun had traces of tan and red paint rubbed into it, as if wherever the revolver was kept, the left side of the top of the gun had been in contact with a painted surface. More than just in contact, it had been continuously rubbed against a painted surface for a long enough period of time that the red and tan paint wore itself onto the gun. For trace contact to occur, there must be motion, enough constant motion to rub the paint onto the top strap.

Marie Mayhew (15:02):

So where would this have happened in the Gillispie's home? Where would the revolver and ammo been kept that one side of the gun was resting against a red and tan painted surface, and that would also have enough friction to transfer paint from one to the other? The one logical place this could have happened is not in the Gillispie's home, but in the glove compartment of Ron's red and white Ford pickup. The .22 revolver with the box of ammo could have been kept in this small space, the top strap picking up paint transfer when the truck was driven.

Marie Mayhew (15:34):

As for the eight live rounds versus the one spent round in the revolver's cylinder, there's nothing present that shows when that bullet was fired. Whether it was that night, or days or months prior, all the spent round tells us is that at some point the gun was fired. If Ron had both the gun and the ammo in the house together, then why not change out that one spent round before taking his gun out for a possible confrontation with the letter writer, being sure he had a fully loaded weapon just in case? If he was in such a rush to get out of the house, then why not take the ammo?

Marie Mayhew (16:10):

The other significant evidence came in on August 29th, when the Pickaway coroner released their report on the investigation.

Speaker 4 (16:19):

Regarding the death of Ronald Gillispie, 35 years old, on August 19th, 1977. I was informed that the body of Ronald Gillispie, 7100 Brooks-Miller Road, Pickaway County, whose death occurred in a suspicious or an unusual manner, had been found within this county. Whereupon I went forthwith to the emergency room, Berger Hospital, the place where the body was, and proceeded to inquire how the deceased came to his death.

Speaker 4 (16:46):

After personal observation of the corpse as required by law, I am considering the surrounding circumstances, together with the statements of persons having adequate knowledge of the facts, I reached the conclusion that no autopsy and no inquest was necessary. I find that the cause of death was massive head and torso trauma. His pickup truck went out of control, ran into a tree on the Five Points Pike, Darby turnpike. Blood alcohol 0.16%, time of death approximated 10:25 PM.

Marie Mayhew (17:19):

These findings came not from the coroner himself but from the blood chemistry report from a pathologist at Brown Laboratories in Columbus. Ron Gillispie was 5'7" tall, and weighed about 155 pounds. To have a blood alcohol level of 0.16% meant that he would have had to have had more than four drinks the night of August 19th before 10:00 PM. He would have been legally intoxicated, so there would have been significant impairment to Ron's coordination, judgment, reaction time, and memory. He definitely would be dangerously impaired to drive his truck.

Marie Mayhew (17:55):

Much is made about whether or not Ron Gillispie was intoxicated. Again, Paul Freshour wrote, "While the Sheriff's investigation showed Ron was drunk and hit a tree, anyone who knew Ron believed this was untrue. Unsolved Mysteries makes a point of saying that many people believed that the Sheriff's Department attempted to cover up Ron's death by claiming he had high levels of alcohol in his system, thereby ruling the crash an accident, or that the Gillispie's friends and family said that he rarely drank.

Marie Mayhew (18:24):

A more probable story is that while staying at home on the night of August 19th, 1977, Ron Gillispie drank some beer. It was a Friday night, Mary was traveling with friends, and he had just worked a long week on top of worrying about driving around town to find crude signs posted about his wife and daughter. Ron Gillispie wasn't planning on going anywhere, so he just wanted to relax for just one night. Just relax and not have to worry about what was going to hit the fan next in his family's life.

Marie Mayhew (18:55):

Then, later that night, he has a telephone conversation that upsets him, remembering that it may not have taken much because by then his judgment is impaired. Maybe, like Mary said, he had an idea who was causing these problems and made the call himself, or maybe the letter writer called him. Ron decides he needs to go somewhere, possibly to confront the letter writer. His children are asleep. He's thinking whatever his task, it shouldn't take long so best not to wake them. He leaves the house empty handed and gets into his pickup truck.

Marie Mayhew (19:27):

This is his critical error. He's had too much to drink. He gets lost, missing turns. It's night and very dark out. Ron ends up on an unlit rural stretch of road about 15 or 20 minutes later. There's not a lot of residents on that portion of Five Points Pike in the late 1970s. If he was going to meet the letter writer, he's off course. Driving at an excessive speed and trying to get back on track to wherever he was headed, he misses a curve in the road. Not wearing a seatbelt, Ron loses control of his truck and is killed when his truck collides into a tree.

Marie Mayhew (20:04):

This collision does extensive damage to the left side of the pickup's cab. The driver's side seat is rammed through the front windshield. The roof is crumpled like a tin can. The driver's side door is on the ground next to the crash, a twisted piece of metal. There is nothing in the evidence that I've seen that supports any claim of foul play. No high-speed chase, no bullet holes. Ron's 1971 Ford pickup was towed and totaled not because of some coverup by his wife, but because the vehicle was both undriveable and a gruesome memento of his death.

Marie Mayhew (20:39):

It's equally hard to say that the man who grabbed his gun and kissed his daughter goodbye is the same man that every morning drove around the town tearing down obscene signs. Ron Gillispie wanted to protect his family from the letter writer, not make them complicit in this story. What happened that night at Five Points Pike was a tragic accident. Ron Gillispie made a human error to drive intoxicated. It does appear that he would not have left his home that night if something hadn't have prompted him, goaded him to do so.

Marie Mayhew (21:09):

While the crash was an accident, this sad event became nothing less than a call to arms for the Circleville letter writer, who would claim that Ron Gillispie was murdered, killed by his own wife and Gordon Massie, and that the Sheriff's Office not only ignored any foul play but even falsified evidence to protect Gordon Massie. The Circleville letter writer laid blame on one man, Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe. According to the Circleville letter writer, Radcliff turned a wilful blind eye and protected Gordon Massie, even covering up a murder for him. Corrupt, Sheriff Radcliff didn't know, or even care, about Ron Gillispie or anyone else. Radcliff was only looking out for his own interests.

Marie Mayhew (21:50):

We'll look at the Sheriff's Office and their investigation more on a later episode, but for now, let's end with the last occurrence from the accident at Five Points Pike. It is now very early the morning of August 20th. Law enforcement has cleared the scene, the wreckage has been examined and towed. The body at this point, while still at Berger Hospital, has been claimed by the coroner's office and has been moved to the morgue.

Marie Mayhew (22:14):

There's only one other event that needs to happen in this grim proceeding. Someone close to the deceased has to look at what's left of this person that they cared about and verify who they were in life, and so is the case here. From the special death report of Ronald L. Gillispie, body identified by Sheriff Dwight E. Radcliff. Relationship to the deceased reads only one word, friend.

Marie Mayhew (22:43):

Thank you for listening to the Whatever Remains podcast. I'm your host, Marie Mayhew. On our next episode we'll look at the five years following the death of Ron Gillispie, and the effects that it had on his friends, his family, and how the Circleville letter writer moved on from just anonymously filling people's mailbox with hate to making an open attempt on the life of Mary Gillispie.

Speaker 5 (23:07):

(singing).

Marie Mayhew (23:12):

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 podcast. Your reviews do 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.