HOW A GHOST’S EVIDENCE CONVICTED A MURDERER

A1In July of 1897, Edward Stribbling (Trout) Shue was convicted of first-degree murder for strangling his wife and breaking her neck. Trout Shue’s trial, held in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, rested entirely upon circumstantial evidence that strangely proved Shue’s guilt—beyond a reasonable doubt—to jurors who were presented evidence from beyond the grave.

The “facts” included postmortem statements from Shue’s wife, Zona Heaster Shue, who was said to appear before her mother four weeks after death and reported what truly occurred in her murder. It was the first—and only—time testimony from a ghost was admitted as evidence in a United States Superior Court trial and it secured a conviction.

A10At 10:00 a.m. on January 23, 1897, twenty-three-year-old Zona Shue’s body was found by an errand boy. She was lying on the floor in their house, face down at the foot of the stairs, stretched with one arm tucked underneath her chest and the other extended. Her head was cocked to one side.

Trout Shue arrived home before the coroner, Dr. George Knapp, attended. Shue had already moved his wife’s body to their bed where he’d dressed her in a high-necked gown. As Dr. Knapp began examining Zona, Trout Shue exhibited overpowering emotions and cradled Zona’s head and her shoulders, sobbing and weeping. Dr. Knapp stopped his exam out of respect for the grieving spouse and signed-off the death to “everlasting faint”.

A14A traditional wake was held before Zona’s next-day burial and attendants noticed peculiar behavior from Trout Shue. When the casket was opened for viewing, he immediately placed a scarf over Zona’s neck as well as propping her head with a pillow and blanket. Shue then put on another spectacular show of grief and made it impossible for mourners to get a close look at her face.

Zona Shue was buried in the Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery in Greenbrier County. Initially, everyone who knew the Shules accepted Zona’s death as not suspicious—except for her mother, Mary Jane Heaster.

Heaster disliked Shue from the moment they met and suspected foul play at hand. “The work of the devil!” Heaster exclaimed. She prayed every night, for four weeks on end, that the Lord would reveal the truth.

Then, in the darkness of night, when Mary Jane Heaster was wide awake, Zona’s spirit allegedly appeared.

A9It was not in a dream, Heaster reported. It was in person. First the apparition manifested as light, then transformed to a human figure which brought a chill upon the room. For four consecutive nights, Heaster claimed her daughter’s ghost came to the foot of her bed and reported facts of the crime that extinguished her life.

Zona’s ghost was said to reveal a history of physical abuse from her husband. Her death resulted in a violent fight over a meal the night before she was found. Trout Shue was said to have strangled Zona, crushing her windpipe and snapping her neck “at the first joint. To prove dislocation, Zona’s figure turned its head one hundred and eighty degrees to the rear.

A4Mary Jane Heaster steadfastly maintained her daughter’s ghost was real and Zona’s reports of the cause of her death were accurate. Heaster was so compelling in her paranormal description that she convinced local prosecutor, John Preston, to re-open the case.

Preston’s investigation found Trout Shue had a history of violence. In another State, he’d served prison time for assaults and thefts. He’d been married twice before—one other wife dying under mysterious circumstances. By now the Greenbrier community was reporting more peculiar behavior from Shue. He’d been making comments to the effect that “no one would ever prove I killed Zona”.

Combined with Coroner Knapp’s admission that he failed to conduct a thorough exam, Preston established sufficient grounds to exhume Zona’s body and conduct a proper postmortem examination.

A17Zona was autopsied by three medical doctors on February 22, 1897 with the official cause of death being anoxia from manual strangulation compounded by a broken neck. Bruising consistent with fingermarks was noted on Zona’s neck, her esophagus was contused, and her first and second cervical vertebrae were fractured. Anatomically, they’re known as the C1 Atlas and the C2 Axis which combines to make the first joint at the base of the skull.

An inquest was held and Trout Shue was summoned to testify. Although he denied being present at the time of Zona’s death and bearing culpability, he was unable to establish an alibi and considered an unreliable, self-serving witness. It was ruled a homicide and Trout Shue was charged with her murder.

A12Trout Shue’s first-degree murder trial began in Greenbrier Circuit Court on June 22, 1897. A panel of twelve jurors was convened who heard evidence from a number of witnesses, including Shue himself.

John Preston was reluctant to subpoena Mary Jane Heaster as a witness, fearing her ghost story would damage credibility. However, Shue’s defense lawyer opened that can of worms and called Zona’s mother to the stand. Evidently, it backfired.

A16

This verbatim excerpt is from the transcript of Mary Jane Heaster’s testimony. It’s still on record in the West Virginia State Archives:

Defense Counsel Question I have heard that you had some dream or vision which led to this post mortem examination?
Witness Heaster Answer It was no dream – she came back and told me that he was mad that she didn’t have no meat cooked for supper. But she said she had plenty, and said that she had butter and apple-butter, apples and named over two or three kinds of jellies, pears and cherries and raspberry jelly, and she says I had plenty; and she says don’t you think that he was mad and just took down all my nice things and packed them away and just ruined them. And she told me where I could look down back of Aunt Martha Jones’, in the meadow, in a rocky place; that I could look in a cellar behind some loose plank and see. It was a square log house, and it was hewed up to the square, and she said for me to look right at the right-hand side of the door as you go in and at the right-hand corner as you go in. Well, I saw the place just exactly as she told me, and I saw blood right there where she told me; and she told me something about that meat every night she came, just as she did the first night. She cames [sic] four times, and four nights; but the second night she told me that her neck was squeezed off at the first joint and it was just as she told me.
Q Now, Mrs. Heaster, this sad affair was very particularly impressed upon your mind, and there was not a moment during your waking hours that you did not dwell upon it?
ANo, sir; and there is not yet, either.
Q And was this not a dream founded upon your distressed condition of mind?
A No, sir. It was no dream, for I was as wide awake as I ever was.
Q Then if not a dream or dreams, what do you call it?
A I prayed to the Lord that she might come back and tell me what had happened; and I prayed that she might come herself and tell on him.
Q Do you think that you actually saw her in flesh and blood?
A Yes, sir, I do. I told them the very dress that she was killed in, and when she went to leave me she turned her head completely around and looked at me like she wanted me to know all about it. And the very next time she came back to me she told me all about it. The first time she came, she seemed that she did not want to tell me as much about it as she did afterwards. The last night she was there she told me that she did everything she could do, and I am satisfied that she did do all that, too.
Q Now, Mrs. Heaster, don’t you know that these visions, as you term them or describe them, were nothing more or less than four dreams founded upon your distress?
A No, I don’t know it. The Lord sent her to me to tell it. I was the only friend that she knew she could tell and put any confidence it; I was the nearest one to her. He gave me a ring that he pretended she wanted me to have; but I don’t know what dead woman he might have taken it off of. I wanted her own ring and he would not let me have it.
Q Mrs. Heaster, are you positively sure that these are not four dreams?
A Yes, sir. It was not a dream. I don’t dream when I am wide awake, to be sure; and I know I saw her right there with me.
Q Are you not considerably superstitious?
A No, sir, I’m not. I was never that way before, and am not now.
Q Do you believe the scriptures?
A Yes, sir. I have no reason not to believe it.
Q And do you believe the scriptures contain the words of God and his Son?
A Yes, sir, I do. Don’t you believe it?
Q Now, I would like if I could, to get you to say that these were four dreams and not four visions or appearances of your daughter in flesh and blood?
A I am not going to say that; for I am not going to lie.
Q Then you insist that she actually appeared in flesh and blood to you upon four different occasions?
A Yes, sir.
Q Did she not have any other conversation with you other than upon the matter of her death?
A Yes, sir, some other little things. Some things I have forgotten – just a few words. I just wanted the particulars about her death, and I got them.
Q When she came did you touch her?
A Yes, sir. I got up on my elbows and reached out a little further, as I wanted to see if people came in their coffins, and I sat up and leaned on my elbow and there was light in the house. It was not a lamp light. I wanted to see if there was a coffin, but there was not. She was just like she was when she left this world. It was just after I went to bed, and I wanted her to come and talk to me, and she did. This was before the inquest and I told my neighbors. They said she was exactly as I told them she was.

Now, whether jury members accepted Mary Jane Heaster’s ghost story as being credible, or if it made any difference to their interpretation of the facts, will never be known. And it’s on record the trial judge cautioned jurors about the reliability of circumstantial evidence:

A5“There was no living witness to the crime charged against Defendant Shue and the State rests its case for conviction wholly upon circumstances connecting the accused with the murder charged. So the connection of the accused with the crime depends entirely upon the strength of the circumstantial evidence introduced by the State. There is no middle ground for you, the jury, to take. The verdict inevitably and logically must be for murder in the first degree or for an acquittal.”

A6The jury was out for an hour and ten minutes before returning to find Trout Shue guilty of murdering his wife, Zona, in the first degree. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died of an epidemic disease three years later.

I’d love to go back in time and be a fly on the wall during that deliberation. What they discussed in that sequestered room has long gone to the grave, but I find Mary Jane Heaster’s testimony about Zona’s fractured vertebrae to be downright spooky.

12 thoughts on “HOW A GHOST’S EVIDENCE CONVICTED A MURDERER

  1. Fred

    When I was 12 years old, my mother’s aunt appeared in a dream and told me she had died. The next morning the phone rang and confirmed that she had indeed died overnight. Just a random coincidence?

  2. Sherry McCall

    This is my great, great, great uncle! I went to see the play called the Greenbrier Ghost in 2013 with my Grandmom at the Lewisburg Theater! I have heard about this story my entire life! It used to embarrass my great grandmother but it’s always been so interesting to me and an awesome part of my family history!

    1. Garry Rodgers Post author

      Fascinating! Nice to meet you, Sherry. That’s quite the story in your family’s background. Thanks for sharing that with us 🙂

    1. Garry Rodgers Post author

      Hi Mae & thanks for stopping by! Back in my day as a homicide investigator, I was trained in statement analysis – what to look for in a person’s statement that indicates truth or deception. What I see in Mrs. Heaster’s evidence gives every indication that she truly believed what she was saying, however sometimes people imagine things and convince themselves it was true. What I can’t get over is the reference to Zona’s neck being broken at the “first joint’. That’s got to be more than a coincidence.

  3. Gippy

    Hi Garry,

    Very interesting story and I totally believe it. Before 2001, I would not have believed it, but my best friend of 42 years suddenly received a diagnosis of 4th stage lung cancer. I immediately began saying a few rosaries a day for her. Within a few weeks, the vision of a very old man appeared to me while saying the rosary. He was in the doorway of my bedroom late at night. Never saw him before and it was creepy. He didn’t speak, just stared. When I got up to go over to him, he disappeared. That week I was diagnosed with 3rd stage breast cancer that had traveled. He again appeared to me two more times before my friend died three days before 911. Devastated and in some heavy cancer treatment, I was full of grief for my friend and suffering myself physically. As a fine artist, I painted my memory of him. One day, a pack of holy cards came to my door about two weeks later. I have never received holy cards before. Right on the top was one of Padre Pio of Petricina, who has since been made a saint. He looked just like my painting. After looking him up, I learned he died of lung cancer in the 1960s, and was very devoted to the Blessed Mother and said daily rosaries throughout the day. My family went with me to Barto, Pa, his shrine, to a mass where you could put his gloves (in glass) on your body part with the illness. He had the stigmata for 50 years and wore those gloves. I did, and even with two autoimmune diseases all of my adult life, and a poor prognosis, I got through the treatment with flying colors. Even the doctors were amazed. So, I do believe! True story.

    1. Garry Rodgers Post author

      That is an amazing and inspiring story, Gippy! I firmly believe there is an untapped power available to all humans in our ability to contact a higher plane of intelligence, which is where I suspect these reported apparitions might originate. While I’m sorry to hear of your friend’s loss, I’m very happy you were able to beat a nasty disease and are still able to share it. Thank you so much for telling us this!

  4. Sue Coletta

    Wow. What a crazy but fascinating case study. Personally, I believe the mother’s testimony. And I’ll tell you why. Years ago when I was about five years old, my dad had a workshop in the basement of my deceased grandmother’s house, where we moved to after she passed. One night he said there was a blue-white light that emerged out of nowhere. When the spirit materialized it was my grandmother. She had a message: “Tell Marcia (my mom) that I love her with all my heart. And tell her she wasn’t the first. There was one before her. I’m sorry I didn’t tell her this before I died. Tell her that too.” Once my dad agreed, she disappeared. He shot up the stairs and told my mother what he saw. Dad never believed in ghosts or the paranormal up till that point. Months later, while cleaning out the attic, my mom and dad found a baby book dated five years before my mother’s birth. The book had a name on the front and date of death–a sibling my mother never knew existed till that day in the basement.

      1. Garry Rodgers Post author

        Wow Back! Now that’s spooky! I think most people have some sort of story to tell about unexplained events. I had a personal experience with an OBE (Out Of Body) event which I wrote a blog post about some time back. Here’s the link to “Altered States Of Consciousness” if anyone new to DyingWords wants to read it: http://dyingwords.net/altered-states-consciousness/#sthash.bkrasF0Q.dpbs These stories become much more compelling when corroborated by some material fact, like yours. Thanks for sharing this, Sue!

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