Chariot:Unsolved

AILEEN HA, managing editor

The world poses many questions in our society. Mysteries within government affairs, mysteries in science and mysteries about the simple inner workings of our day-to-day life plague minds with unresolved questions. This is the case for police departments and families around the world, as criminal cases are left unsolved with a trail that’s been cold for decades after the catalyzing event.

One bewildering case occurred 30 miles out of Columbus, Ohio and afflicted the entire small town of Circleville. In March of 1977, Mary Gillispie, a local school bus driver, walked out to her mailbox and retrieved a letter. While its sender was anonymous, it made clear that the writer had been watching Mary for some time. The unknown writer accused Mary of an affair with the school’s superintendent, Gordon Massie. According to CBS News, the contents of the letter not only accused Mrs. Gillispie of an extramarital affair, but they forced her to end it and threatened her daughters’ lives. The threats didn’t stop there; the writer sent letters to newspapers, fellow residents and town officials and began to target Mary’s husband, Ron Gillispie. The sender coaxed Ron to end the affair and kill both Mary and Gordon, eventually threatening his life if he did not follow the demands. One night in August of 1977, Ron received a suspicious phone call from who others believe to be the writer that resulted in him taking a gun and leaving the house in pursuit of the writer. Later that night, Ron

Gillispie died in a suspicious car accident, eliciting more questions regarding the situation. After Ron’s death, Mary came home to find a booby trap with a rigged gun; surprisingly, the gun belonged to Paul Freshour, Ron’s brother-in-law who, according to his estranged wife, was apparently deeply angered about Mary’s alleged affair. The town thought that they had finally found peace when Paul Freshour was arrested and in - carcerated when he admitted to owning the gun and failed his polygraph. Unfortunately, the writer again bewildered the town when hundreds of letters mysteriously started to appear again. It wasn’t possible for Freshour to have sent them, as he was constantly monitored, searched and isolated. After anoth - er decade, when Freshour was released from prison, the letters coincidentally stopped. Despite all efforts, the true writer of the letters has never been revealed. Some theorize that Freshour isn’t innocent and that he is the writer, while others believe that it could have been his angry ex-wife who set him up or that Mary was the culprit all along and planted the letters as a cover-up of murdering her husband. Although the letters stopped, it’s clear that many questions and mysteries still float in the minds of the townspeople of Circleville. An incident at Dyatlov pass that occurred in 1959 is yet another case that left many baffled. While this accident encapsulates the classic “hiking trip gone awry,” the circumstances surrounding the incident and deaths of the hikers are perplexing. As nine friends made their way through the Ural Mountains in search of Mt. Ortorten, they never knew that all their lives would soon end in drastic ways. Their bodies were found less than ten miles out of their destination, with two bodies discovered with fractured skulls, another two with chest injuries and one with her tongue missing. At the time, Soviet officials quickly confirmed the cause was a powerful act of natural forces as six bodies died of hypothermia, but with further inspection, there are too many questions surrounding the case for it to be that simple. The bodies weren’t found collectively, as two were found under a tree near the fire at their campsite, three were found at increasing distances from that tree, while the other four were discovered in a ravine. It was later discovered that their tent had been cut open from the inside, which begs the question: if they were exposed to such cold temperatures, why did they not wear extra clothes that they had access to? After the bodies in the ravine were analyzed further, the bodies were found with multiple injuries that indicated that the impact of their injuries couldn’t have been caused by a human, and no other party was found near them. Strangely enough, the missing tongue became a topic of question, as investigators were never able to find it, and most of the skiers’s clothing had extremely high levels of radiation. Currently, people wonder what the true cause of these mysterious deaths was; was it just a simple case of hikers who died due to the elements, was it some kind of supernatural incident or was the Soviet’s impulsive closing of the case a nod to them as the real culprits? It seems as if this case is as cold as the Dyatlov pass. Some things are plain and clear, but at the same time, some things aren’t as simple as they seem. It’s no secret that the world holds many mysteries, and with the current state of society, we have the means that can either bring us steps closer to unraveling the truth behind many cold cases or bring about more questions and tangle the web of mysteries even further.

The first publicly available photographic process, Daguerreotype cameras were used commonly in the mid19th century. They worked by coating a copper plate with silver and developing it over hot mercury. Daguerreotype images are extremely delicate, and even a light brush can permanently scuff the image. By 1860, Daguerreotype cameras were already outdated with less expensive and more convenient technologies.

Invented in 1871, dry plate cameras became obscenely popular by 1879. By using gelatin as a base, numerous advancements were made. Perhaps the most important innovation in photography, dry plates could be bought off the shelf. In addition, it allowed cameras to be handheld. Upon further experimentation with the gelatin dry plate design, new plates were made with very short exposure times, leading to the invention of snapshot photography.

Very late in the 19th century, film was developed, which was a stark alternative to the hard, glass plates that had been the backbone of photography up until this point. The first film roll was made in 1881, which made cameras smaller and lighter and made photography cheaper. George Eastman popularized film with the invention of a box camera which he called Kodak. Film dominated photography for almost the entirety of the 20th century, and Kodak’s extremely early adoption made them a powerhouse.

Daguerreotype: Dry Plate: Film: 35mm

35 Millimeter film rolls quickly became the most popular form of film, and companies began producing them en masse very early in the 20th century. To no one’s surprise, Kodak became the world’s leading producer of 35mm film at that time. These rolls could be bought off the shelf and inserted into the consumer’s camera. Soon, the vast majority of all cameras used 35mm.

Point and Shoot: SLR & DSLR:

Consumer favorites, point and shoot cameras make photography incredibly simple. The instructions are in the name. While they don’t allow for the best quality, they became very popular for their ease of use. Today, there are both digital and film versions, with most film versions using 35mm. Surprised?

Standing for Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) and Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR), these cameras have become the epitome of both professional and hobbyist photography. SLR cameras were popular before digital cameras were invented, while DSLRs are popular now. These cameras allow for incredible quality, while still being handheld and convenient. Fun fact: Many of the images featured in The Chariot are taken on a DSLR.