Those you see in the photo are the spouses Elva Zona Heaster in Shue (called Zona) and Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue (called Edward), she is 23 years old and he is 37, A.D. 1897.


 Their, to tell the truth, brief, story takes place in Lewisburg, West Virginia, U.S.A. where the two live peacefully, she takes care of the home while he works as a blacksmith.


The event that makes this couple famous dates back to January 23, 1897, when the son of the Shues' neighbors, entering their house to carry out some tasks, finds the body of Zona. Alerted Edward, he rushes home from work and promptly notifies the local coroner, a certain Dr. Knapp, who however is not asked for an autopsy, but only to arrange the documents for the burial. So much so that on the latter you can find written "death from natural causes".


Although the story does not present any particular sign up to this point, in reality, it is after a month from Zona's death that her mother begins to tell of receiving a visit in a dream from the ghost of her daughter, who tells her that she was brutally killed, pointing to Edward as her executioner. The mother's stories are so convincing and full of pathos that they push the local authorities to reopen the case by exhuming Zona's body to finally perform an autopsy, against her husband's wishes.


And in fact, a careful analysis shows that the woman did not die of natural causes but had "a broken neck, a crushed windpipe, signs that indicate death by suffocation" (Pocahontas Times of February 1897); furthermore, digging into Mr. Shue's past it emerges that he had been through two marriages, the first culminating in the divorce from his wife for violent conduct and the second with the unhappy passing of his wife, victim of a tragic "domestic accident".


In essence, Edward is charged for trial, but there is no certain evidence, since all the evidence collected so far is only circumstantial. And here is the turning point. Zona's mother is admitted to the witness stand as a "third party" contact directly for the victim's ghost, and the evidence, if it is permissible to call it that, is considered decisive, allowing Edward Shue to be convicted of murder.


To date, the case of the "Greenbrier ghost" (from the name of the county) is considered the first and only case in Western jurisprudence in which a ghost has been admitted as (decisive) evidence for the conviction in court of a defendant...  Read more 

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