In January 1897, Elva Zona Heaster Shue was found dead in the log house she shared with her husband near Livesay's Mill, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. She was twenty-three years old. She had been married for three months. The local doctor listed her cause of death as heart failure. He'd barely examined her. Her husband, Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue, a blacksmith who went by Edward, had dressed the body himself before anyone else arrived, wrapped a high-collared scarf around her neck, and cradled her head in his arms the entire time the doctor was present. He told the mourners the scarf had been her favorite. Nobody asked too many questions. Zona was buried the next day.
Her mother, Mary Jane Heaster, had never liked the man. Within weeks, she was telling neighbors that her daughter's spirit had appeared at her bedside four nights in succession, wearing the dress she was buried in, and described in specific, unflinching detail how Edward had broken her neck in a rage over supper. The dead woman's head, Mary said, turned completely around on her shoulders as she spoke. The accounts are specific in ways that typical grief hallucinations tend not to be. The spirit appeared agitated and insistent. This was not a comforting visitation. This was testimony.
Whether you believe Mary saw what she saw, or whether you believe a grieving mother weaponized mountain superstition to get justice no one else was willing to pursue, the result was the same. Mary Jane took her account to county prosecutor John Alfred Preston. Whether Preston believed in ghosts is lost to history, but he spent several hours with Mary Jane and came away convinced enough to start asking questions. He discovered that the attending physician, Dr. George W. Knapp, admitted his examination of Zona's body had been incomplete. He discovered that Edward Shue had been married twice before. His first wife divorced him, citing cruelty. His second wife died under circumstances local people described as "mysterious." Zona was wife number three.
The body was exhumed on February 22, 1897, and examined in a one-room schoolhouse over the course of three hours. The autopsy revealed a neck dislocated between the first and second vertebrae and a crushed windpipe. The marks of fingers were visible on her throat. The ghost, it seemed, had been telling the truth. Or Mary Jane Heaster had looked at the evidence available to her and drawn the right conclusion long before anyone with a medical degree bothered to check.
Edward Shue was arrested. While awaiting trial, he told reporters he was confident of acquittal and mentioned his ambition to marry seven women. Zona had been number three. He seemed unconcerned. The trial began June 22, 1897, in Lewisburg. The prosecution relied on physical evidence and witness testimony about Shue's behavior. Mary Jane Heaster was the star witness. The prosecution kept her testimony to the facts. It was the defense, perhaps hoping to discredit her, that opened the door to the ghost story on cross-examination. Mary Jane did not waver. The jury deliberated just over an hour. Guilty, first-degree murder. Ten of the jurors voted for hanging. Without unanimity, the sentence was life in prison. Edward Shue died in the West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville on March 13, 1900, during an epidemic. In his cell, they found a drawing he'd made of himself and Zona in their home.
