The forensic science’s contribution to solving tough and mysterious crime cases is indeed applaudable but this was not same some 100 years back. The police had to make assumptions of the cases and there was no aid to prove these assumptions correct or incorrect. This makes the huge piles of files which were closed because of the lack of evidence or unreliable evidence.
One such case was held in Greenbrier where a woman was found dead in her home. The police did the initial investigation and closed the case with their findings. But her spirit came out of the grave to tell what the truth was:
Elva Zona Heaster Shue was a resident of Greenbrier Country, West Virginia. There are not many details available about her life in 1800 as it has been a long time. But she will be always be remembered as the Greenbrier Ghost who helped the police solve the mystery of her own death.
Zona started her love life in 1896 when she first met and later married Erasmus (Edward) Stribbling Trout Shue. The marriage was not approved by Zona’s mother as Edward was not a reputed guy and rather a drifter on all the bases. But, Zona married him as she was madly in love with him.
The couple (Zona & Edward) lived a happy married life for a period of a year and everything was quite normal. Then one day on 23rd of January, 1897 everything changed when a hired boy sent by Edward to run some errands at home discovered something frightening in the house.
As soon as the hired boy entered the house he saw Zona, Lying on the bottom of the stairs motionless and sprawled. She was unresponsive, the frightened boy ran home to his mother who further called Goerge W. Knapp, the doctor of the town. But much before the doctor reached the body Edward did something which was completely weird with his wife’s body.
He moved Zona upstairs to their bedroom, redressed her in a pretty dress and made her lie on the bed. When the doctor arrived, she was found dead because of the “everlasting Faint”. While the doctor was in the room Edward behaved very strangely and the entire time kept cradling Zona’s head. He behaved the same way on her funeral, as reported by Zona’s mother who said it made her suspect that Zona was murdered.
It was not late when Zona mother saw a lightning image of her daughter where she told her the cruel truth of her marriage and that her husband is not a nice man. She also said that she did not die a natural death and was murdered. Zona’s mother reportedly said that the ghost spun her head in 360 degrees to tell that her neck was broken by Edward. This happened a lot many times before the local legal authorities exhumed Zona’s corpse to reexamine the cause of death.
Edward was much against the re-examination but when done the reports said that Zona actually died because of broken neck and the fingerprints on the neck indicated strangulation. Edward was charged with murder and jailed and then the truth revealed that Zona was his third wife.
His first wife divorced him on the grounds of cruelty and the second died a mysterious death. The police also found a strange painting made by Edward that has coffins, a house, and a married couple.
The death was officially declared as a murder and was indeed a just decision. It can’t be proved whether it was a ghost or just a mother’s vision; but whatever it was it certainly helped in finding the truth.
After this, the spirit was never to be seen again. Hopefully, she must be resting in peace.