By Grayson Donohoe

For a moment, imagine that you or someone you love was a recipient of anonymous, threatening letters that arrived at your door step what seems as every day for years on end. These letters accuse you of having an affair and threaten the lives of yourself, your husband, and your children, ultimately leading to an attempt to murder you in broad daylight. This was the reality for a woman named Mary Gillispie between the late 1970s and early 1980s. These horrific events haunted the Gillispie family and those in their community for years, but never made headlines in major news publications until their story was picked up for an episode of 48 Hours that aired on CBS and Paramount+ in spring of 2024. For such a horrific event, why is it that the case of the Circleville Letter Writer failed to get media attention until now?

To answer this question, it’s important to look deeper into the community and area that the case was taking place in in the context of the 1970s. Mary Gillispie is from a town called Circleville, Ohio where the most interesting thing that happens is the annual pumpkin show that happens each fall. The town is pretty rural, a kind of place where everyone knows everyone. With this kind of reputation, crimes that take place in rural areas tend to receive – when they receive it – media attention that dilutes the severity of the existence of crime taking place in these areas of the country. Newspapers tend to emphasize the fact that nothing bad ever happens in small towns, that these are obscure instances and a significant disruption from typical daily life. Painting this picture to sell to American audiences not only reinforces stereotypes about people in rural towns, but creates blinders that shield audiences’ eyes from very real and very significant issues that affect rural America. 

Many Americans moved to the cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s as factory work provided more job opportunities, leaving rural areas with less people, less industries to find work in, and as a result less money flowing in by the 1970s when the Circleville case was happening in full swing. This has created many social and economic disparities that negatively impact people in rural communities such as less access to quality education, job opportunities, and even lessens the amount of government funding and attention. This bigger picture crisis that goes beyond crime itself puts American rural communities on the back burner and with that comes lack of serious concern for rural communities when things, like what happened to Mary Gillispie, happen. We never find out who was actually sending the threatening letters to Mary Gillispie, but this instance of unsolved crime and its relationship with American media can show us a little bit more about ourselves and what we value in American society. People like Mary Gillispie deserve to have their stories told when they happen, not decades later, and with the care and concern they deserve, not just to entertain us sitting at home watching it unfold.

 

To hear more of Mary Gillispie’s story and the case of the Circleville Letter Writer, watch the full episode of 48 Hours here: 

Sources:

Beale, Calvin. “Demographic Trends of the U.S. Rural Population.” In The Development of Rural America, edited by GEORGE BRINKMAN, 33–50. University Press of Kansas, 1974. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1p2gjnt.7.

Best, Joel. Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims. Berkeley, California; University of California Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520921672.

Brinkman, George. “The Condition and Problems of Nonmetropolitan America.” In The Development of Rural America, edited by George Brinkman, 51–74. University Press of Kansas, 1974. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1p2gjnt.8.

Frank, Russell. “When Bad Things Happen in Good Places: Pastoralism in Big-City Newspaper Coverage of Small-Town Violence.” Rural Sociology 68, no. 2 (2003): 207–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2003.tb00135.x.

Moriarty, Erin. “The Circleville Letters: Anonymous Letters Threaten to Expose an Ohio Town’s Rumored Secrets,” CBS News, last updated May 26, 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/circleville-letters-ohio-rumors-secrets/.

Media:

CBS News. Another Day, Another Sign. May 25, 2024. CBSNews.com. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/circleville-letters-mail-gallery/

CBS News. “Circleville Letters.” December 24, 2024. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEDYK5veqwg&pp=ygUTY2lyY2xldmlsbGUgbGV0dGVyc9gGywI%3D.

CBS News. Circleville, Ohio. May 25, 2024. CBSNews.com. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/circleville-letters-mail-gallery/

CBS News. Circleville Poison Pen. May 25, 2024. CBSNews.com. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/circleville-letters-mail-gallery/