The Greenbrier Ghost: When Spirits Send You To Prison
The Man Who Wanted Seven WivesAn unverified photo of Zona Heaster and husband Trout Shue, widely circulated as the only extant photo of the pair.
It was the winter of 1897 and the devout Mary Jane Heaster of Greenbrier County, West Virginia had just lost her daughter. Her newlywed daughter Zona had died of heart failure according to the local doctor, but Mrs. Heaster couldn’t help but feel something more was amiss in her child’s sudden death.
Needless to say, for weeks Heaster couldn’t sleep. Then the visits began.
According to The Monroe Watchman, on the first night Zona’s apparition appeared, she disappeared just as suddenly when her mother reached for her. She became known as the so-called “Greenbrier Ghost,” and appeared again in her mother’s bedroom one night and begged to climb in.
Perhaps more disturbingly, Zona told her mother that she’d been murdered by her husband. Zona detailed how her husband had broken her neck out of anger over supper one night, and the apparition relayed such details of her home that Mrs. Heaster was totally convinced of the ghost’s presence and of the story it told.
The case of the Greenbrier Ghost also then set a historical precedent, namely, that it is the only documented case of a conviction made on the testimony of a ghost. While Mrs. Heaster’s encounter with the ghost of her daughter is naturally contested by many, a few things are clear:
Zona met 37-year-old blacksmith Edward “Trout” Shue in October 1896. She was 23 years old. The two got married only a few weeks later, to Mrs. Heaster’s chagrin, and moved into a home near the husband’s shop. Zona was dead three months later, found by a neighbor, at the foot of her stairs.
Wikimedia CommonsMary Jane Heaster claimed she was visited by the ghost of her daughter four nights in a row, during which the apparition detailed what happened to her during her brief marriage.
As Zona was dressed for her burial in a high-necked dress, rumors abounded and brought previously undisclosed facts to the surface.
Townsfolk gossiped that Zona had given birth to an illegitimate child, that Shue had been previously married twice, and that the latter had died mysteriously. Some said she was pregnant when she fell through the ice. Others said it was a brick to the head that did her in.
Mary Jane Heaster, meanwhile, was already convinced that Shue had killed her daughter.
Wikimedia CommonsThe trial of Edward Shue lasted eight days before he was sentenced to life in prison.
Mrs. Heaster promptly met with Prosecutor John Alfred Preston who agreed, after hours of convincing, to work the case. A chat with the doctor confirmed there were, indeed, heavy bruises on the girl’s neck. Shue only became more suspicious at the funeral when he prevented people from getting too close to the coffin.
He also placed a pillow on one side of Zona’s head.
Ultimately, Zona’s body was exhumed for a complete autopsy. Her neck had been broken, it was found, while her windpipe was crushed. She was strangled. Shue was consequently arrested and on the eighth day of his trial, a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Now, 122 years later, a marker on Route 60 reminds passersby that the Greenbrier Ghost helped convict the man who killed her. There has never been a case like it again.
