Circleville

Coming up in this episode...

A man picks up a ghostly hitchhiker For years, the residents of Circleville, Ohio, were plagued by messages that revealed their darkest secrets.

Who was writing the letters, and how did they know about the skeletons in people's closets? If you drive through Hecker Pass in California, don't be surprised if you see a bloody girl in a frilly white dress waiting there for you.

In a wooded area just south of San Antonio lies a nondescript railroad crossing.

From that point on, I never saw her again.

I'm left wondering who she was and why she chose to ride with me out of New Orleans in the middle of the night.

In 1976, the citizens of Circleville, Ohio began receiving sinister handwritten letters.

The anonymous author knew many personal details about each resident and claimed to be watching them.

We kicked off spooky season.

Asante kicked it off by giving us the rundown on the Circleville letters, a small town family secrets and an unsolved mystery.

Don't you go to that mailbox.

Somebody in the comments was like, what if y'all start getting letters now? Because we talked about the case.

God.

This comment comes from Kit.

Kit's comment reads, in response to Circleville, Karen and Paul had divorced before she accused him of writing the letters.

She also lost custody of the children and the house and was living with Mary.

I was just in Grove City, like, talking to someone.

You know, Circleville's, like, near there.

And they were like, oh, my gosh, the traffic's going to get all the way back up to Grove City.

And I'm like, well, that's what happens.

It's the Circleville pumpkin show.

Yeah.

It's a big deal.

And they are already pretty much set up for it.

Sometimes we're traveling further in Ohio.

Recently, I was down in Circleville.

Not that you know where that is, but

it's about three hours from where I live.

It turns neighbor against neighbor until the whole place is choked on paranoia.

If you want a master class in how to tear a town apart without ever showing your face, listen to this true account of what happened in Circleville, Ohio.

Now, Circleville is a quiet, proud little farming community about thirty miles south of Columbus, famous mainly for hosting a giant pumpkin show every October.

But back in the spring of 1977, the town didn't harvest pumpkins.

It harvested fear.

It had been fired exactly once.

So what did Ron shoot at? The tree? A warning shot? Or did he meet the letter writer on that dark country road? Did he fire a shot before his truck was forced off the pavement? Now, the sheriff ruled his demise an accident, waving away the fired gun as a misfire during the crash.

But the town of Circleville knew better.

You wait'll I get to a mouthpiece, Miller.

You'll be walking a beat out in Circleville where the owl-

[hits]

Oh.

Yeah, Ohio.

Wonderful place called Circleville.

Circleville, people keep going around.

Apparently, that's why it got its name.

Uh, a serial shoplifter, allegedly, uh, who had received a ban from that Walmart in Circleville, was arrested after walking out of the store with 600 bucks worth of merchandise.

Uh, and he had a lot of M&Ms on him, stolen M&Ms.

Only to complain, this feller only complained, uh, he, he complained about chest pains, and officers caught up to him nearby.

He had the incident last week.