Oddities of American History

On this day in 1897, a woman was murdered, and the use of her ghost was the last (and only?) known instance of such evidence in an American court.

“The Greenbrier Ghost is the name popularly given to the alleged ghost of a young woman in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States, who was murdered in 1897. The events surrounding the haunting have led to it becoming a very late instance in American legal history in which the so-called ‘testimony of a ghost’ was accepted at a murder trial…

Elva Zona Heaster, the murder victim, was born in Greenbrier County sometime around 1873. Almost nothing is known of her early life…In October 1896, Zona met a drifter named Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue, also known as Edward…The two fell in love and soon married, despite objection to the match by Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, who had taken an instant dislike to Shue.

The couple lived peacefully for a short time, but on January 23, 1897, Zona’s body was discovered at her home by a young boy…the boy ran to tell his mother, who summoned the local doctor and coroner, George W. Knapp…By the time the doctor arrived, Shue had carried his wife’s body upstairs to the bedroom, and laid her out on the bed…Shue remained by the corpse while Dr. Knapp examined it, cradling his wife’s head and sobbing. Knapp, noting the husband’s grief, gave the body only a brief examination, noting some bruising on the neck. When he tried to look closer, Shue reacted so violently that Knappended the examination and left the house…

…Although Shue initially showed great devotion to the body, keeping constant vigil at the head of the open coffin while it was being moved, his behavior soon began to arouse suspicion. During the wake, his grief changed repeatedly from overwhelming sadness to incredible energy. He allowed no one to come close to the coffin, especially when he cradled Zona’s head with a pillow on one side and a roll of cloth on the other…Still, a strange looseness about the neck was noticed as the corpse was being moved to the cemetery…For her part, Mary Jane Heaster was convinced that her son-in-law had murdered his wife…

According to local legend, Zona appeared to her mother in a dream four weeks after the funeral. She said that Shue was a cruel man who abused her, and who had attacked her in a fit of rage when he believed that she had cooked no meat for dinner. He had broken her neck; to prove this, the ghost turned her head completely around until it was facing backwards. Supposedly, the ghost appeared first as a bright light, gradually taking form and filling the room with a chill. She is said to have visited Mrs. Heaster over the course of four nights.

Armed with the story told to her by the ghost, Mary Jane Heaster visited the local prosecutor, John Alfred Preston…

Preston himself went to speak to Dr. Knapp, who stated that he had not made a complete examination of the body. This was viewed as sufficient justification for an autopsy, and an exhumation was ordered and an inquest jury formed.

Zona’s body was examined on February 22, 1897 in the local one-room schoolhouse. Shue had ‘vigorously complained’ about this turn of events, but was required by law to be present at the autopsy. He responded that he knew he would be arrested, but that no one would be able to prove his guilt.

The autopsy lasted three hours, and found that Zona’s neck had indeed been broken. According to the report…’the discovery was made that the neck was broken and the windpipe mashed. On the throat were the marks of fingers indicating that she had been choked. The neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae. The ligaments were torn and ruptured. The windpipe had been crushed at a point in front of the neck.’ On the strength of this evidence, and his behavior at the inquest, Shue was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

Shue was held in the jail in Lewisburg while waiting for the trial to begin. During this time, more information about his past was coming to light. He had been married twice before; his first marriage had ended in divorce, with his wife accusing him of great cruelty, while his second wife had died under mysterious circumstances less than a year after they were married. Zona was his third wife, and Shue began to talk of wishing to wed seven women; he freely spoke of this ambition while in jail, and told reporters that he was sure he would be let free because there was so little evidence against him.

…Mary Jane Heaster was Preston’s star witness. He confined his questioning to the known facts of the case, skirting the issue of her ghostly sightings. Perhaps hoping to prove her unreliable, Shue’s lawyer questioned Mrs. Heaster extensively about her daughter’s visits on cross-examination. The tactic backfired when Mrs. Heaster would not waver in her account despite intense badgering. As the defense had introduced the issue, the judge found it difficult to instruct the jury to disregard the story of the ghost, and many people in the community seemed to believe it. Consequently, Shue was found guilty of murder on July 11 and sentenced to life in prison.”

Pictured: Zona Heaster, murder victim.