Most ghost stories are just that – stories. However, when an
account of ghostly visitation is used as evidence in court to convict a
murderer, something very strange is happening. Read on!
The Greenbriar ghost
Zona Heaster was born in 1873 near Greenbriar, Virginia. In
1896 she met a blacksmith, who was new to the area, and fell in love with him.
This was Edward (or Erasmus) Shue. Zona’s widowed mother, Mary Heaster, took an instant dislike to him but could not
prevent the pair from marrying, which they did on 26th October.
On 23rd January 1897 Edward Shue was at work when
he asked an 11-year-old boy, Andy Jones, to go to the Shue house to see if Zona
needed any help. When Andy opened the door he found Zona lying dead on the
floor. Andy rushed back to summon Edward.
When the local doctor, George Knapp, arrived, he found that
Edward Shue had dressed Zona in her Sunday best and was cradling her in his
arms in a state of utter distress. Dr Knapp therefore found it impossible to
examine the body. He assumed that Zona had died in childbirth.
However, Mary Heaster, Zona’s mother, was far from satisfied
with this explanation. She was particularly suspicious of the fact that Edward
Shue insisted that Zona’s body could not be seen without her favourite red
scarf round her neck.
Mary then came up with the story that Zona’s ghost visited
her one night and told her that she had had her neck broken by Edward who had
flown into a violent rage because Zona had not cooked his supper properly. The
ghost then spun her head round in a complete circle.
Mary insisted that the local prosecutor must order the body
to be exhumed, and this was done on 22nd February. An autopsy
revealed that Zona’s neck had indeed been broken, just as Mary claimed the
ghost had told her. Edward Shue was arrested and tried for murder.
Despite all the evidence against him being circumstantial,
Shue was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in 1900.
Was justice served?
It seems quite likely that Shue did kill Zona, but there
were other possibilities. One suggestion has been that Mary had found her daughter
dead and broke her neck in order to frame Edward.
At all events the jury at Edward Shue’s trial did seem to
find convincing Mary Heaster’s evidence of being visited by Zona’s ghost,
especially when Mary was able to state that the ghost had said that her neck
had been “squeezed off at the first vertebra”. However, this does seem to betray
remarkably detailed anatomical knowledge on the part of a simple countrywoman,
and should lead us to wonder if the “ghost story” was an invention on Mary’s
part, whatever role Edward might have played in Zona’s death.
For one thing, could Mary have seen the autopsy report at
some stage before the trial? Another interesting point is that the “Greenbriar
Independent” that carried the story of Zona’s death also contained a report of
a case in Australia in which a ghost had been invoked as providing evidence of
a murderer’s guilt. It would be a remarkable coincidence if Mary had come up with
her story without having read about the Australian case in the same newspaper
that reported her daughter’s death.
Either Edward Shue did kill Zona, and Mary made sure that he
would be convicted, or Zona died of natural causes and Mary used the ghost story
to frame Edward with her murder. In either scenario there are disturbing
details that don’t quite add up. This is probably a case in which the truth
will never be established to everyone’s satisfaction.
(The photo is of the Greenbriar River)
© John Welford
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