The Greenbrier Ghost
The best ghost stories consist of just a little bit of fact, in my opinion. West Virginia is full of those but perhaps the most well known is the story of the Greenbrier ghost.
The story concerns the murder of Zona Heaster Shue in 1897. Her husband, Edward Shue, was accused. Initially, her death was judged as death by natural causes but then Zona's mother started having visions of her daughter speaking to her, she swore that these weren't dreams but visions she had while awake. Zona's mother was several miles away on the night her daughter died. Now some might argue that this was probably just a case of a mother-in-law getting even with her son-in-law, which would make sense because Zona's mother, Mary Jane Robinson Heaster, was said to not like Mr. Shue and opposed the marriage but you need to read on to form your own opinion.
Zona visited her mother four nights, and described her murder in detail to her mother. She said that her husband had attacked her in a fit of rage because she hadn't cooked any meat for dinner, he grabbed her head and broke her neck.
Mary Jane went to the prosecutor, John Alfred Preston, and demanded an investigation. Her story, plus the fact that Dr. Knapp, who determined the cause of death, admitted that he might have made an error, made him order for Zona's body to be exhumed. Of course, Mr. Shue opposed it, he publicly said that he knew he would be arrested but also stated "they will not be able to prove I did it!" Sounds guilty to me.
Zona's body was exhumed on February 22nd, 1897 and an autopsy revealed that she had a broken neck and crushed windpipe from strangulation. Shue still said they couldn't prove he did it but he was arrested and charged with first degree murder, he pleaded not guilty.
After the trial, the verdict came back guilty. Two of the jurors would not agree to the death penalty, so Shue got life in prison. He only served a few years because he died on March 13th, 1900 in the West Virginia state penitentiary in Moundsville. There are no records of what happened to his remains.
I doubt this would've even made it to trial nowadays because all the evidence was circumstantial. This was the only case in the US where the ghost of the victim helped to convict their murderer.
Sources:
The big book of West Virginia ghost stories, Rosemary Ellen Guiley,
The Greenbrier Ghost and other strange stories, Dennis Deitz
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