TOP TWENTY INVENTORS KILLED BY THEIR INVENTIONS

There’s something ingrained in humans that cause us to take dangerous risks and try things that might change the world. Over the course of civilization, thousands upon thousands of inventions succeeded beyond their creator’s wildest dream. But some were epic fails. Here’s a look at the top twenty inventors who were killed by their own inventions.

20. Thomas Andrews was the chief naval architect for the R.M.S. Titanic and it was his honor to accompany the ship on its maiden voyage. Andrews was aware of the Titanic’s vulnerability in ice-laden waters and originally called for the Titanic to be double-hulled and equipped with forty-six lifeboats, instead of the twenty it actually carried. He was overruled due to cost constraints. When the Titanic struck the iceberg on April 15, 1912, Andrews heroically helped many people into the lifeboats. He was last seen in the first-class smoking lounge, weeping. His body was never recovered.

19. William Bullock invented the first modern printing press. While installing a machine for the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Bullock tried to kick a belt onto a pulley and got his leg crushed in the moving mechanism. He quickly developed gangrene and his leg needed amputating. During his surgery on April 12, 1867, Bullock died of complications.

18. Francis Edgar Stanley invented the photographic dry plate which he sold to George Eastman of Eastman-Kodak fame. With the profits, he founded the Stanley Motor Carriage Company and developed a line of steam-powered automobiles called Stanley Steemers. On July 13, 1918, Francis Stanley was testing one of his Steemers and swerved to miss some farm animals. He plowed into a wood pile and died.

17. Jean-Francoise Pilatre de Rozier was a French chemistry and physics teacher as well as being the true father of aviation. He made the first hot air balloon flight in 1783. He was also the first to experiment with hydrogen as a propellant, testing it by taking a mouthful and blowing it across an open flame. After losing his hair and eyebrows, he dismissed hydrogen as being too volatile—something the makers of the Hindenburg would later confirm. On July 15, 1785, de Rozier attempted to cross the English Channel in his balloon. It crashed, killing de Rozier and his passenger.

16. Louis Slotin was an American nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhatten Project. After the war, Slotin continued to experiment with plutonium and accidently set off a fission reaction which released a hard burst of radiation. Realizing what he’d done, Slotin heroically covered the material with his body while the others made a run for the hills. He died on May 30, 1946, two weeks after the exposure.

15. Karel Soucek was a Czechoslovakian daredevil and inventor. He built a specially-designed, shock-proof barrel and repeatedly flowed over Niagara Falls. To top this feat, Soucek invented a new capsule which was dropped from the roof of the Houston Astrodome on January 20, 1985. It missed its target, which was a small water container, and Soucek was killed on impact. World-renown stuntman, Evel Knievel, tried to talk Soucek out of it, saying “It was the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.”

14. Sylvester H. Roper invented the world’s first motorcycle. He called it a velocipede and it was actually a converted bicycle powered by a steam engine. On June 01, 1896, Roper was testing the machine on a bicycle racing track and was lapping the pedal-powered two-wheelers at over forty mph. Suddenly, he wiped out and died. The autopsy showed the cause of death to be a heart attack, but it’s not known if the attack caused the crash or if the crash caused the attack. He was seventy-two.

13. Horace Lawson Hunley invented the submarine. His first prototype trapped seven sailors underwater and killed them all. Hunley went back to the drawing board and came up with a new and improved sub, aptly named the H.L. Hunley, which he skippered himself. On October 15, 1863, Hunley was testing the Hunley off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, when it failed to surface and again killed the crew—including Hunley himself.

12. Aurel Viaicu was a Romanian inventor and test pilot of his own line of aircraft, called the Vlaicu WR I, II, and III. He achieved many notable firsts such as the highest, longest, and fastest flights. On Friday, September 13, 1913, Vlaicu’s luck ran out when he attempted the highest altitude flight ever—crossing the peaks of the Carpathian Mountains. The cause of the crash was never determined.

11. Valerian Abakovsky invented the Aerocar, also known as the Aerowagon, which was a steam-powered, propeller-driven rail car intended to whisk railway executives quickly across the vast lands of Siberia. On July 24, 1921, the twenty-five-year-old Abakovsky was whirling a group of twenty-two big-shots from Tula to Moscow when he approached a curve at over one hundred mph. His Aerocar went airborne and killed six, including the inventor.

10. Marie Curie was a Polish chemist/physicist who pioneered research into radioactivity and won the Nobel Prize—twice. Besides proposing the theory of radiation and discovering two elements, she is credited with inventing radiography or X-rays. Curie died on July 14, 1934, in a French sanatorium from aplastic anemia due to long-term exposure to radiation, probably from her habit of carrying test-tubes of plutonium in her pockets.

9. James Fuller “Jim” Fixx didn’t exactly invent running but he popularized it through his mega-bestselling book Complete Book Of Running. Fixx took up the sport after a lifetime of stress and bad habits. He became a world celebrity on fitness and healthy living. On the morning of July 20, 1984, he was out for his daily running fix and fell dead in his tracks on Route 15 in Hardwick, Vermont. His official cause of death was a fulminant heart attack. The autopsy showed his heart arteries were 70% blocked in the right anterior descending, 80% blocked in the left anterior descending, and 95% blocked in the circumflex. Runner Jim Fixx was fifty-two.

8. Max Valier was an Austrian rocket scientist who invented solid and liquid fueled missiles. Given his success with flight, Valier thought it’d be cool to make a rocket-propelled car. It worked, too, and he got it up to 250 mph. Trying to get even better, Valier experimented with alcohol as a combustible. That got away on him and blew up on his workbench, killing Valier and burning his workshop down.

7. Alexander Bogdanov was a Russian physician, writer, politician, and inventor of sorts. He was a major player in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and ended up in jail. He talked his way out of death row and back into medicine where he became obsessed with blood. Bogdanov founded the Institute For Haematology and was convinced that blood transfusion was the ticket to the fountain of youth. To back up his beliefs, he used himself as a crash-test dummy and transfused blood from a patient suffering malaria and tuberculosis into his own system. He died two days later on April 07, 1928, but the patient slowly got better. It seems that the blood types were incompatible—something little known in the day.

6. Otto Lilienthal was known as The Glider King. A German pioneer in aviation, Lilienthal made over 2,000 glider flights and is credited with perfecting the gull-wing design and set the long-held record of soaring to 1820 feet. On August 10, 1896, Lilienthal experimented with “shifting weight” in a glider at fifty feet. It lost lift, stalled, and he augered into the ground, breaking his neck.

5. Li Si died in 208 BC at age seventy-two of The Five Pains. That was a form of torture or “punishments” involving tattooing the face, cutting off the nose, cutting off the feet, castration, and finally death by exposure. Li Si was Prime Minister during China’s Qin Dynasty and fell out of favor with the Emperor. It should be noted Li Si invented The Five Pains.

4. Henry Smolinski held a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Northrup Institute Of Technology. Old Hank got the idea that a flying car was necessary so he bastardized the boxed-wing rear section of a Cessna 337 Skymaster and welded it onto the top of a ’71 Ford Pinto. He actually got the thing to fly. On September 11, 1973, Hank took his buddy, Harold Blake, up for a soar in the Pinto. At around three hundred feet, one of the wings snapped and the pony-car bucked them off to a fiery death. The Transportation Safety Board investigated and said there was nothing wrong with Hank’s design, just that his welding was the shits.

3. Abu Nasr Ismail ibn Hammad a-Jawhari died around 1008 AD at Nishapur which is in today’s Iraq. He was a Muslim cleric, scholar, and a bit of an inventor. He was fascinated with flight so he built a pair of feather-covered, wooden wings and strapped them to his back and arms. To impress the Iman, Mr. a-Jawhari jumped off the roof of the mosque hoping they’d work. They didn’t, but to commemorate the first known attempt at human flight, they built a mural on the wall of the mosque. It’s actually quite pretty.

2. Wan-Hu may or may not have been real. Some say he was apocryphal, or doubtful, but one thing’s for sure—he’s a legend. Wan-Hu was reported to be a 16^th-century Chinese official who tried to shoot himself to the moon by attaching forty-seven rockets to a chair and lighting them all at once. They say there was this huge bang and, when the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his chair were nowhere to be found. Today, there’s a crater on the moon named after Wan-Hu… and I’m not making this up.

1. Franz Reichelt was real—a real stupid sonofabitch if there ever was one. He was known as The Flying Tailor and is credited with inventing the coat parachute. To prove it worked, he conned the keepers of the Eifel Tower to let him demonstrate. On February 04, 1912, Franz held a major press venue so they could witness his inaugural jump. He leaped from the first deck and gravity took over. It was captured on film and today you can watch this moron splat himself on YouTube.

Here’s the link.

HOW TO GET PUBLISHED ON THE HUFFINGTON POST

Serious bloggers know the Huffington Post is the world’s largest blog site. Getting published on the Huff Post is a significant badge of achievement — it’s the gold standard of blogging — social approval by a major media corporation that your work meets its mark of excellence. You just can’t buy this kind of exposure.

As a writer, you have something to say and you should want to hear what others say back. If you have quality content — and that’s the key — you’ll want to say it on the Huffington Post.

“But how in the world do I ever get noticed?” you ask.

Well, it might not be easy, but it can be done. And now that I’m a regular contributor to the Huff, I’ll give you Ten Top Tips on how to improve your chances for getting published on the Huffington Post.

* * *

Tip #10 — Know How the HuffPost Works

There are four levels of content providers for the Huffington Post:

Salaried Employees — Such as reporters, journalists, and editors who are full-time — generally based in main centers like New York, Toronto, and London.

Assignment Writers — Who are freelancers and paid a fixed rate to work on specifically commissioned projects.

Contributing Bloggers — Who are unpaid, but are a screened and proven commodity. They may submit posts whenever they choose through the Huff’s exclusive internet portal called Backstage.

Occasional Guest Bloggers — Who submit posts on an unpaid, unsolicited basis. This is the Huff’s slush pile and, for the most part, is a longshot at getting accepted.The good news for unknown bloggers is that the Huff editors are constantly looking for new contributors — especially unique, talented contributors with interesting voices. The challenge is in getting yourself noticed.

The good news for unknown bloggers is that the Huff editors are constantly looking for new contributors — especially unique, talented contributors with interesting voices. The challenge is in getting yourself noticed.

Read this article by Huffington Post senior editor, Jason Linkins: How The Huffington Post Works (In Case You Were Wondering).

**Tip #9 — Be “The Right Fit”**

The Huffington Post truly looks for the “right fit” in their contributors. This is hard to describe as submission style and content varies drastically in categories as diverse as politics to entertainment to minorities’ issues. Here’s a quote from the Huff editor’s cold-call invitation for me to write my first assignment piece:

Hi Garry ~ I wanted to see how interested / available you are over the coming days to tackle a paid writing opportunity for us, for which I think you would be an excellent fit, based on your experience in forensics and the quality of content I see in your blog at www.DyingWords.net.

After getting over the shock of this invite, I thoroughly researched the subject matter (which was on crime scene cleaning) and what the HuffPost expected in format. My first submission raised the editorial staff’s confidence that I’d be a long-term “right fit” and that led to the next invite — becoming a regular Contributing Blogger with direct access to the Backstage — now with over two dozen articles published on the Huff.

What makes the “right fit”?

The combination of everything you do as a blogger.

It’s in the quality of content you write, the uniqueness of your voice, your professional presence, and your commitment to the craft. It’s in your platform, your brand, and your profile. But — most importantly — it’s in the value you offer to them.

Tip #8 — Add Value

A core value at the Huffington Post is “Idea Is King — every move should be predicated on the integrity of valuable ideas and their value in the marketplace.”

Bear in mind that publishing is an industry that creates products just like any other business. Those products must have a consumer demand in order to be saleable. They must be valuable to a volume of readers, whether for education, entertainment, or enlightenment.

Arianna Huffington has often been quoted saying she likes stories about how you make life work — how you balance work, family, self, and everything else. When planning to submit a blog post to the Huff, take a good look and ask, “How does it add value to someone else? Not just to please or benefit me, but what it will do for the reader and the Huffington Post Corporation? What bottle of wine do I bring to the party?”

Tip #7 — Know Why You Want to be Read on the Huff

We all have reasons for wanting to belong to a club, especially one as exclusive as the Huffington Post Blogging Team. But that doesn’t mean there’s a fee to pay, a small child to sacrifice, or a secret handshake to learn.

Pure and simple, the Huff Post wants intelligent voices with something unique to offer the Huff community through submission of solid content that has the ability to be shared and commented on. A lot of the voice really depends on the motivation that vocalizes it.

Are you doing this for money? Remember as a contributing blogger you’re not going to be paid by cash. You’ll be paid in social currency and that’s worth a fortune if you parley it.

Are you doing this to promote yourself and/or your product or affiliation? Take that into account when designing your content.

Do you have a hidden agenda? Be careful. The gatekeepers at the Huff are very astute.

Looking back, here’s what my motivation was:

To be recognized as a credible resource by a large audience.
The potential to profit elsewhere — both in money and self-esteem.
Networking opportunities.
Prestige on my platform.
To build my mailing list through the amplified exposure.
I had stories and information to share.
I enjoy helping others.
To learn from the experience.

The opportunity to blog for the Huffington Post fulfills all this — more than I ever imagined.

Tip #6 — Learn How to Blog Professionally

Here’s the reason that disqualifies more Huff submissions than all others combined — your post is not written to acceptable, commercially-viable blogging standards, let alone to a Huff Post standard.

Blogging is an entirely different style of writing from novels, non-fiction, essays, Facebook messages, Tweets, recipes, how-tos, and letters to your grandma. It takes a learning curve — the length depends entirely on your experience and your willingness to learn.

I strongly recommend investing in yourself by taking credible, online training courses in blogging. Not just writing courses. Blogging courses.

You can read all the online tips you want and follow all kinds of more advanced bloggers, but nothing’s going to pay better returns that learning in a structured format from people who are truly experts.

I’ve taken these two courses and attest to their exceptional value:

Tribe Writers — with Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.com.

Blogging Certification Program — with Jon Morrow at BoostBlogTraffic.com.

I promise that no matter your level of skill, these courses will make a definite difference and increase your odds of getting noticed by Huff Post editors.

Tip #5 — Develop Your Voice

What makes a great writing voice?

Here’s a definition I put together in a guide I wrote about blogging for the Huffington Post:

Your writing voice is the one thing that’s unique to you. It’s your most valuable asset — so valuable that you should buy some insurance on it. And it’s the one thing you have to get right. Right from the start. It’d be a bitch to go back and self-edit voice — if it can even be done.

But what is “Voice”?

It’s your relationship with language — how you use language. Voice comes from the people you’ve met, the books you’ve read, the education you have, and the worlds you’ve inhabited — not just in your body — but in your mind. It’s your personality. It’s your attitude to your writing. It’s how you say things.Voice is your distinctive way of choosing and stringing words together — your writing accent, your views, culture, biases, and formal training. It’s using some goddam profanity every now and then. It’s imagery. Being serious, stuffy, snarky, and sarcastic. Being funny, silly, foolish, goofy, and stupid. It’s your level of confidence speaking through.

Voice is your distinctive way of choosing and stringing words together — your writing accent, your views, culture, biases, and formal training. It’s using some goddam profanity every now and then. It’s imagery. Being serious, stuffy, snarky, and sarcastic. Being funny, silly, foolish, goofy, and stupid. It’s your level of confidence speaking through.

It’s your rhythm. Your cadence. Your tone. And your mood.

It’s your emotional guts spilling out. It’s relating gut to gut — not brain to brain. No editing in the world can take an intellectual exercise and make it emotional. Remember — blogs, like novels, aim to evoke emotion in your reader. Get emotional when you write and then again when you revise. “No tears in the writer — no tears in the reader. No emotion in the reader — no interest in the story.”

I like this definition by the Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty, who gave me permission to quote her:

Voice is the distinct personality, the style, or the point of view of a piece of writing or any other creative work. Voice is what Simon Cowell is talking about when he tells American Idol contestants to make a song their own and not just do a note-for-note karaoke version. Many musicians have played The Star-Spangled Banner, for instance, but there’s a world of difference between the Boston Pops’ performance and Jimi Hendrix’s, even though the basic melody is the same.

In writing, the New York Times and the New York Post may cover the same story, but their headlines are likely to be quite different. For example, when Ike Turner died, the New York Times had a straightforward headline “Ike Turner, Musician and Songwriter in Duo With Tina Turner, Dies at 76“ whereas the New York Post went for a bad pun: “Ike Beats Tina to Death”.

Is there an ideal voice?

Nope. But my advice is to lighten up. Personally, I’m not big on sarcasm or stuffiness. Ever go to a party with lawyers and politicians? I have. They’re boring as shit because they’re bound by the restraints of graduate degrees and academic correctness. Ever hang with cops & coroners? I have. They’re a blast. They’re like honey badgers and don’t give a fuck what they say.

I like hearing a natural, open, appealing, and charismatic tone and style that draws me in and binds me with storytelling. Ever read foul-mouthed Chuck Wendig? Hilarious crime writer Meg Gardiner? Listen to quadriplegic blog-king Jon Morrow? Or follow opinionated Johnny B. Truant? Now those folks have voice.

Voice is the way you put things down. The way you say it. It’s your personality coming out on the page. It’s not the paint on the wall. It is the wall.

For your blog posts to be successful, your reader has to hear your voice telling the story. Nothing else matters if they can’t relate to your voice. They want you to sound confident, intelligent, personal, authentic, trustworthy, and even vulnerable. They want to be your friend and follow you around.

So be natural. Don’t overthink. And be careful not to cut your own voice’s throat by being too careful.

Tip #4 — Know the Huff’s Blogging Structure

The Huff’s blog structure is no secret. It’s much the same as print journalism where there’s an old news reporter saying “Don’t bury the lede.” The what? The “lede”. Not the “lead”.

Conventional articles are written in a six-part structure:

Headline
Lede
Body
Solution
Call to action
Byline

Same with the Huff. This is critically important stuff to know and implement if you want to blog for the Huff Post.

Tip #3 — Make Your Posts Look Like Huff Posts

Study the style and format of other Huff Post Bloggers, especially the prolific writers in the same sections you’re targeting. Notice how they use titles and subtitles, where they embed block quotes, where they hyperlink and how often, as well as how they proportion the six-part structure.

Notice which font the Huffington Post uses. It’s “Georgia” in 11.5 point in the older posts and “Helvetica” in 13 point in the new look. Additionally, the Huffington Post logo and collateral material are in the “Adobe Garamond” font.

Notice even the tiniest things—like how they use two en-dashes — instead of an em-dash, which is their uniform break style. Seriously, the editors will send your piece back to you for errors like this and tell you to correct it — then re-submit. (And then WordPress overrules HuffPost and converts them back to em-dashes 🙂

I think it’s critical that when you submit a piece to the Huff — when you’re an unknown and pitching to get one post published (let alone trying to get on as a Signature Contributor) — that you present it in as publishable a format as possible. That means you have to make it look like a Huff post. Just sayin’…

Tip #2 — Brand and Profile

Your brand is a summary of your values. Branding is the story other people tell themselves about you.

Your profile is how you present yourself in words and in images. The more closely these align, the better your audience will understand what you do and what you stand for.

My brand is crime writing — both fiction and non-fiction. It’s been built by my years of experience as a homicide detective and forensic coroner, now bestselling crime writer. You’ll see this in my Byline on my Huffington Post blog pieces. My audience knows I’ll provoke thoughts on life, death, and writing and I value a no-bullshit approach.

My profile comes through visibility on my website, social media presence, personal and video appearances, and in my books. I promote myself by exposing my experience and make no apologies for self-promotion. You must do the same if you want to be recognized by a Huffington Post editor.

Here’s a great article by the Huffington Post Writers Relief Staff titled Why Every Writer Needs an Author Brand.

Tip #1 — Pitch to the Right Place

Make sure your submission goes to the right Huffington Post section. Editors specialize in certain departments and will bypass a submission that’s not suitable for them, but might be an appropriate submission for another department. Be aware of how busy these editors are and that they don’t normally have the time to pass a submission on to another editor in a different department.

Take the time to learn all the Huffington Post sections. Go to their homepage and scroll through the top bar and drop down menu.

Also, make sure you’re pitching the right country. The biggest site and where most editors are is the U.S. but if your article is country specific, you might want to contact that arm directly.

Bonus Tip — Believe in Karma

What goes around, comes around is an absolutely true statement. If you consistently strive to produce unique, quality content eventually you’re going to get noticed and will catch the attention of a Huffington Post editor.

There’s an extension of karma called providence and it’s well captured in this quote by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back — always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth — the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of unforeseen events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

Who? When? Where?

I can’t answer this. But I do know it was my goal to build my blog into a publication worthy of catching the Huff’s attention. Karma worked for me and it’ll work for you. Just be aware of how big a thing you’re wishing for and treasure it when it arrives.

Then feed it like a hungry beast.

* * *

You can get “How To Blog For The Huffington Post — 21 Proven Tips for Getting Published on the Huff” FREE in pdf by using the sidebar or go to the Amazon page where it’s under a FREE promotion as a Mobi eBook. Click Here

Or get the full-length guide “How To Blog For The Huffington Post — 101 Proven Tips for Getting Published on the Huff” by going to the Amazon page. Click Here If you do read either of these guides, I’d sure appreciate you taking the time to write a short review! Also, please check out my Huff Blogger Profile and “Fan” it. Click Here

* * *

Footnote: As of this morning, 20 February 2016, “How To Blog For The Huffington Post — 21 Proven Tips for Getting Published on the Huff” is the #1 BestSeller on Amazon in the “Writing Reference Guides — Journalism” category and #5 overall in “Books & Publishing“.

HOW A GHOST’S EVIDENCE CONVICTED A MURDERER

In 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.

At 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”.

A 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.

It 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.

Mary 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.

Zona 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.

Trout 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.

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?

A – No, 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:

“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.”

The 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.