Trials can be challenging, for both parties involved. It can be hard to prove one side over the other, especially when the evidence is not there. Murder cases are probably one of the most intense crimes to prove or defend.
Witnesses can attest to either side, which can complicate things or it can guarantee a win. But what if you had a witness that you couldn’t see and couldn’t hear?
In the case of the Greenbrier Ghost, court proceedings were anything but normal.
The Crime
In the autumn of 1896, in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a young lady by the name of Elva Zona Heaster met a man names Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue (Wow, that’s a long name) and not long after meeting, joined together in marriage. Unfortunately, the union only lasted a few months, the end of it signaled by the death of Zona on January the following year.
Her death had been quickly ruled as “childbirth”, death by natural causes and she was buried the next day in their local cemetery (now called Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery).
However, her mother, Mary Jane Heaster, had a harrowing experience in bed that changed this conclusion. She alleged that the spirit of her daughter visited her at her bedside to state that it was her own husband, Erasmus that murdered her.
Exhumation and Autopsy
Following this frightening revelation, she later spent hours with the local prosecutor, John Alfred Preston, trying to convince him to reopen the case of Zona’s death. It’s not known for sure if he believed her ghostly story but either way John himself had his own doubts about her manner of death. He would dispatch law enforcement to interview those who were considered people of interest at the time, Dr. Knapp being one of them.
The doctor spoke with John himself and confessed that a complete examination of Zona had not been done after death. This was cause enough to then exhume her body for a proper autopsy to be preformed.
The autopsy was done almost a month after Zona’s death in February of 1897 which lasted approximately three hours. They found that her neck had actually been broken and the windpipe was ‘mashed’ and there was a dislocation of the first and second vertebrae in the neck. Zona’s throat still had finger marks, indicating strangulation.
Something was very wrong here.
Arrest and Trial
These gruesome discoveries would lead to the arrest of Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue. While awaiting his trial in the jail in Lewisburg, light was being shed upon his past. Married twice before, one marriage ended in divorce due to cruelty on his part, the other marriage ending in a mysterious death less than a year after they wed. (Sounds familiar, right?)
He also didn’t hide his desire to marry more women, something he freely talked about, also telling reporters that he’d be free soon, due to lack of evidence.
A few months later in June of 1897, the trial would begin. John Alfred Preston would hold the side of prosecution, Zona’s mother being his main witness. John would question her and known facts in regards to the case, avoiding the account of her daughter’s ghostly visit. However, the defense would bring this up and despite intense scrutiny, Mary’s conviction would not waver and she held strong in her account of the beside visit.
Because the defense brought it up and it had been obvious that many people within their community believed Mary, the judge could not tell the jury to disregard this odd testimony.
Conviction
On July 11th of 1897, Erasmus was found guilty of Zona’s murder and sentence to spend the rest of his remaining life behind bars. Though this sentence would be cut short by his own death in 1900 due to an unknown epidemic at the time and he would then be buried in an unmarked grave.
Today in Greenbrier County, you may stumble upon the historic marker of the Greenbrier Ghost event.
While it is said that Mary’s story was not the reason behind Erasmus’s conviction, the case of the Greenbrier Ghost is one that has continued to fascinate a lot of people in the paranormal world. Regardless of the reasons for conviction, it is still a genuine court case where the words of a ghost had been involved.
It’s definitely interesting and was a fun rabbit hole to go down. And I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing about it!
As always, I appreciate you stopping by Paranormal Addict and Happy October!
Paranormal Addict 