A West Virginia murder case that legend has it been solved and proven by the spirit of the victim. The case was considered in court, and the testimony of the witness, who referred to the words of the ghost who appeared, was entered into the minutes of the meeting. This is the only known case, at least in the United States, that a murderer was sentenced by a spirit.
The victim, later known as the "Greenbrier Spirit," was Elva Zona Heister Shue, who lived near Greenbrier, West Virginia with her husband Trout Shue. The zone, as everyone called her, was supposedly born in 1873 (records give different dates) and in 1895 gave birth to an illegitimate child.
In 1896, she met Erasmus (some called him Edward) Stribling Trout Shue. Having settled in Greenbrier and got a job as a blacksmith, he decided to start a new life here. The young people immediately fell in love with each other and soon got married. This happened on October 26, 1896. Zone mother - Mary Jane Robinson Hister was against this marriage. Either she did not like the future son-in-law, or the very fact that her daughter is marrying a stranger.
On January 23, 1897, Zone's corpse was discovered in her home by a black servant Andy Jones, whom Shue had sent home with an assignment to ask his wife if she needed to buy anything from provisions. Jones found the Zone lying on the floor, stretched out, with legs shifted, one arm at the side of the body, the other across it, head tilted slightly to the side. Jones ran home to tell his mother what had happened.
They called the local doctor and investigator - Dr. George W. Knap, who arrived at the scene about an hour later. By that time, Shu had already moved his wife's body upstairs and dressed in her best dress - with a high, closed collar fastened with a large bow, and covered her face with a veil.
Knap tried to examine the corpse to determine the cause of death, but Shu could not be dragged away from the head of the bed. He hugged his wife's head and shoulders and sobbed inconsolably.
Because of such violent grief, the doctor made only a superficial examination. He noticed minor spots on the right side of Zone's neck and her right cheekbone. When Knap wanted to look at the neck from the back, Shu protested so strongly that the doctor quickly completed the examination and left.
Initially, Knap announced that the Zone died of "unconsciousness", then officially registered the cause of death as "miscarriage." Two weeks before her tragic death, she was at his reception, complaining of "malaise". At the time, one of the most common causes of death among young women was complications from childbirth, and Knap could have used this diagnosis because he had no more accurate one.
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Before the burial, the body of the Zone was laid on the table. Neighbors who came to express their condolences observed Shu's strange behavior. He was either depressed, painfully agitated, or seized with anxiety. He did not allow anyone to come closer to the Zone. On one side of her head was a pillow, on the other a curled roller. Shu explained that this would make the Zone "more comfortable." He claimed that the deceased was very fond of the large scarf, which was now wrapped around her neck, and that she wanted to be buried with it. People paid attention to this. When it came time to carry the body to the cemetery, the head of the deceased dangled strangely, which caused gossip.
The Zone mother took the sheet from her daughter's deathbed and tried to give it to Shu. He flatly refused to take it. Then she decided to wash, and during the wash she felt a specific smell. The water turned red. But when the mother poured it out of the basin, the water became clear again. There was a pink stain on the sheet. Hister boiled it, it hung in the cold for several days, but the stain did not disappear. For the mother, it was a sign that her daughter had died a violent death. She suspected the blacksmith of killing her daughter and therefore prayed fervently, begging her daughter to return from the underworld, tell the truth about what happened and expose Shu. This was her passionate desire.
Hister's prayers were answered. On the fourth night, she claimed, the spirit of the Zone appeared, woke her up and described in detail the murder that had taken place. The zone said that her husband was a rude, cruel man.
Because of the dinner not served on time, he attacked her in a fit of rage and broke her neck. To prove what was said, the head of the spirit made a full turn around.
Hister went to Judge John Elfrid Preston and demanded an investigation. It was incredible that he immediately agreed based on the message of the spirit's readings. But already there were rumors about the mysterious and sudden death of the Zone. The unusual appearance of the deceased, the strange behavior of her husband gave rise to rumors.
Preston ordered the exhumation of Site's corpse. Shu strongly opposed the investigation. He publicly declared that they wanted to arrest him, "but they are not able to prove that it was I who did it"; a similar statement indicated that he knew that his wife had been killed.
The site's corpse was exhumed on February 22, 1897. An autopsy revealed that the neck was broken and the throat was compressed by compression. No signs of violence were found on other parts of the body. Shu said, "They won't be able to prove that I did it." He was arrested and charged with murder, but pleaded not guilty.
While he was in jail awaiting trial, information about his disgusting past was accumulating. It turns out that he was serving a sentence for stealing a horse and had previously been married twice. He mistreated his first wife and forced her to divorce him by throwing her belongings out of the house. His second wife died under mysterious circumstances from a head injury. Either she fell, or a stone fell on her, opinions on this matter differed.
In prison, Shu was in a good mood, he did not even remember the grief. He stated that he dreamed of having seven wives, and the Zone was his third, that he was only 35 years old and he had every chance to implement his plan. He has repeatedly argued that it is impossible to prove his guilt.
Shu expressed bewilderment as to why suspicion did not fall on an eleven-year-old Negro
Jones' servant. (If Shu didn’t actually commit the murders, he could blame the servant.) Although there was no direct evidence against Shu, the trial began in late June. Many speakers at it testified against Shu.
Hister's story about the manifestation of the spirit could not be accepted as evidence, since it contradicted church dogmas. However, the defense did not protest when she testified, perhaps hoping to convince the court later that he was dealing with a woman with an unstable psyche who had lost her mind from grief. Hister emphasized the words of the spirit that the neck of the murdered woman was "crushed at the site of the first vertebra."
Shu, in his own defense, vehemently rejected all that was said regarding his alleged guilt. It was useless: in the eyes of the jury, he was guilty. However, due to the circumstantial nature of the evidence, the sentence imposed meant life imprisonment, and not the execution by hanging provided for under this article.
Many in Greenbrier were unhappy with the decision. On July 11, even a group was organized to lynch Shu, but the case did not develop. Shue was transferred to a convict prison in Moundsville, West Virginia. He died on March 13, 1900, possibly from an infectious disease that was raging in the area at that time. There is no information about what happened to his remains.
A plaque on the highway near Greenbrier recalls what happened. The caption reads:
“Zone Hister Shu is buried in a nearby cemetery. Her death in 1897 was considered natural until the spirit of the young woman appeared to her mother and told how she was killed by her husband Edward. An autopsy on the exhumed corpse confirmed the ghost's story. On the charge of murder, Edward was sentenced to life in prison. This is the only known case where a ghost's testimony helped punish a murderer."
Despite the court's decision, a lot of unclear things remained in the case. In all likelihood, Shu killed his wife in a fit of anger and then tried to hide what he had done. Later, among the inhabitants of Greenbrier, speculations arose that the Zone died of natural causes, and her mother broke her neck already in the coffin in order to accuse the hated Shu of a crime. There were also rumors that Zone was pregnant from another fornication (this explains her hasty marriage to Shu), and that Knap tried to have an abortion and ruined her. The neck was broken to hide it. They also said that Shu killed the Zone when he learned that she was pregnant and, most obviously, from another. Despite persistent rumors that a dead child was lying in the coffin next to the Zone's head, nothing was mentioned in the autopsy results regarding pregnancy.
Doubts were expressed that the mother of the Zone was the spirit of her daughter. It was believed that Hister had invented a story with a spirit to legitimize her own suspicions and persuade an autopsy to be performed. It seemed rather odd that the young woman's spirit was emphasizing that her neck was “crushed at the level of the first vertebra” and not just broken.
It is possible that Hister's testimony during the forensic investigation was influenced by the autopsy results.
While investigating this case, historian Katie Letcher Leal drew attention to an unrecorded fact that indicates that Hister may well have invented a story about a spirit. The news of the death of the Zone appeared in the newspaper "Oerpener Inchite-rep <lenn" on January 28, 1897. In the same issue, on the next page, a story was published about how one murder was solved in Australia, and all because many people saw the spirit of a murdered man sitting near a pond where his body was secretly dumped. Over the years, one person confessed before his death that he had invented a story about the spirit, while others believed in it so much that they claimed that they had seen the spirit with their own eyes. The dying man said he witnessed the murder, but he was threatened with death if he divulged the details. Then he came up with a story with a spirit, hoping that in this way he would help to discover the body.
Leal put forward a plausible assumption that Hister read the story and decided to avenge her daughter's death in this way. It is difficult to assert whether she acted so deliberately or unconsciously, under the impression of what she had read and believing at that moment in the appearance of the spirit of the Zone.
In the case of the Greenbrier spirit, there are three main motives found in spirit folklore: the victims of murder cannot find peace until the truth is discovered; the dead return to take revenge; awakening by the spirit of a sleeping person.