Two Ghost Stories Reveal Hidden Crimes.

The most famous ghost story in Australia is Fisher’s Ghost; the most famous in West Virginia is the Greenbrier Ghost. Legend has it that each returned from the grave to bring their killers to justice.

Although the two murders happened half a world away and 70 years apart, they share a startling connection.

In June 1826, Frederick Fisher of Campbelltown, New South Wales, went missing. 

His neighbor George Worrall claimed that Fisher had returned to England and had given him power of attorney over his property and affairs.

Four months later, a local named James Farley (some sources give his name as John Hurley) was walking near Fisher’s property and saw the ghost of the missing man sitting on the top rail of a fence. The glowing apparition was bleeding from a gash on its head and pointing in the direction of the creek below.

The tale spread, prompting the authorities to investigate. They found spots of blood on the fence rail; exploring in the direction Farley said the ghost pointed, they discovered a body with a fractured skull in a shallow grave. George Worrall was arrested for the crime, confessed, and was hanged.

Over time, the story of Fisher’s Ghost spread. It was printed in Tegg’s Monthly Magazine in 1836 in Sydney, in Charles Dickens’ magazine Household Words in 1853 in London, and the Saint Mary’s Beacon in 1876 in Leonard Town, MD. 

Eventually, the eerie anecdote landed on the front page of  the Lewisburg, WV, Greenbrier Independent on January 28, 1897, in the following item: 

A GHOST STORY. – J. Henneker

Heaton tells in the London Literary World an interesting sequel to the most famous Australian ghost story, which came to his knowledge as one of the proprietors of the leading New South Wales weekly, “The. Town and Country Journal..” One of the most famous murder cases in Australia was discovered by the ghost of the murdered man sitting on the rail of a dam (Australian for horsepond) into which his body had been thrown. Numberless people saw it, and the crime was duly brought home.

Years after, a dying man making his confession said that he invented the ghost. He witnessed the crime, but was threatened with death if he divulged it as he wished to, and the only way he saw out of the impasse was to affect to see the ghost where the body would be found. As soon as he started the story, such is the power of nervousness that numerous other people began to see it, until its fame reached such dimensions that a search was made and the body found, and the murderers brought to justice.

Page three of that same newspaper carried the death notice of Elva “Zona” Heaster Shue, better known as the GreenBrier Ghost. Her case is famous as the “only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.”

If you’ve ever traveled through Smoot, WV, about 35 miles northeast of Beckley, you may have seen the Greenbrier Ghost historic roadside marker that sits along Route 60 and tells Shue’s story.

I know what you’re thinking: How did the deceased testify? Perhaps this item from the Baltimore American on July 5, 1897, will help.

Mother-in-law’s Vision as Evidence.

Ronceverte. W. Va., July 3. Some time ago, the wife of E. S. Shue was found dead in her home. A coroner’s jury rendered a verdict, “death by heart disease.” Neighbors were not satisfied; the woman’s body was exhumed, and her neck was found broken. Shue was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. The principal evidence was that of Shue’s mother-in-law, who testified that her daughter’s spirit had come to her at a seance and said Shue had killed her by breaking her neck. All the other evidence was purely circumstantial.

Actually, Mary Jane Hester, Zona’s mother, testified that her daughter’s ghost appeared at her bedside for four consecutive nights, revealing that her husband, Erasmus Stribbling “Trout” Shue, had killed Zona by breaking her neck.

On January 23, 1897, Zona was found dead in her home. She was 24 years old and had been married to Trout for about three months. She was examined by her physician, Dr. George W. Knapp, who listed the cause of death as “everlasting faint.” In later paperwork, the cause of death was listed as childbirth, although there doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe she was pregnant. 

Trout Shue only allowed Knapp to make a very cursory examination of Zona’s body. He had her placed in a high-neck dress for the funeral, and there was a pillow placed beside her head in the coffin.

There was plenty of reason for suspicion with or without Heaster’s story. On Monday, February 22, Zona’s body was exhumed, and a post-mortem examination was made. The findings were that her neck was broken and her windpipe crushed. The neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae.

Shue was arrested for Zona’s murder. The trial began on June 22, 1897. Here is a portion of Heaster’s testimony from the July 1 Greenbrier Independent:

Question: “I have heard that you had some dream or vision which led to this post-mortem examination?”

Answer: “It was no dream — she came back and told me that he was mad that she didn’t have no meat cooked for supper…She cames four times, and four nights; but the second night she told me that her neck was squeezed off at the first joint, and it was just as she told me.”

Question: “And was this not a dream founded upon your distressed condition of mind?”

Answer: “No, sir. It was no dream, for I was as wide awake as I ever was.”

Question: “Do you think that you actually saw her in flesh and blood?”

Answer: “Yes, sir, I do. I told them the very dress that she was killed in, and when she went to leave me, she turned her head completely around and looked at me like she wanted me to know all about it. And the very next time she came back to me, she told me all about it.”

The jury completed its deliberations in an hour and ten minutes, finding Shue guilty. It’s not clear if it was the circumstantial evidence or Heaster’s testimony that convinced the jurors. He was sentenced to life in prison and died of an illness on March 13, 1900, in the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville. Shue was buried in an unmarked grave.

Katie Letcher Lyle, in her book The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives: The Greenbrier Ghost and the Famous Murder Mystery of 1897, makes a strong case that the Australian ghost story influenced Heaster.

“In any event, there are the two news stories: on page three, the notice of Zona Heaster Shue’s death; on page one, the account of how the supposed intervention of a ‘ghost’ had been used to bring a murderer to justice. That the slain girl’s mother read both stories, and then decided to use the device described in the second to force the authorities to reopen the case seems obvious.”

The events of Zona Shue’s death and trial leave us with as many questions as answers. Did Mary Jane Heaster read the story about an Australian man inventing Fisher’s ghost to flush out a killer? If so, did it influence her consciously or unconsciously to come up with the story that she testified to in court? Was she visited by the spirit of her dead daughter? Was her experience of four visits from Zona just a series of dreams?

As for Fisher’s Ghost, just as there is a version of the story that says James Farley (or John Hurley) admitted to fabricating the ghost story on his deathbed, it has also been reported that he said: 

“I’m a dying man, Mr. Chisholm. I’ll speak only the truth. I saw that ghost as plainly as I see you now.”

Check out my new book, Blood on the Blue Ridge: Historic Appalachian True Crime Stories 1808–2004, cowritten with my friend and veteran police officer, Scott Lunsford on Amazon. Buy it here! Download a free sample chapter here!

Sources

Lyle, Katie Letcher. 1999. The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives. 2nd Edition (January 1, 1999). Quarrier Press.

Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser, Australia, Saturday, September 23, 1826, Page 1, “Supposed Murder”

Tegg’s Monthly Magazine, No. 1, March, 1836

Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser, Australia, Saturday, March 5, 1836, Page 4

Saint Mary’s Beacon, Leonard Town, Maryland, Thursday, February 03, 1876, Page 1, “Fisher’s Ghost”

Greenbrier Independent, Lewisburg, WV, Thursday, January 28, 1897, Page 1,3, “A Ghost Story” 

Greenbrier Independent, Lewisburg, WV, Thursday, July 1, 1897, Page 3, “Mrs. Mary J. Heaster, the Mother of Mrs. Shue, Sees her Daughter in Visions.”

Truth, Sydney, Australia, Sunday, June 24, 1928, Page 23, “Fisher’s Ghost – An Oft-told Tale – The Actual Facts”

The Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 2001, “In Search of Fisher’s Ghost” by Joe Nickell

The Greenbrier Ghost, A Skeptical Look at the time a ghost’s testimony resulted in a murder conviction by Brian Dunning. Skeptoid Podcast #679, June 11, 2019.

allthatsinteresting.com, The Case Of The Greenbrier Ghost, The Spirit That May Have Solved Her Own Murder By Erik Hawkins | Edited By John Kuroski, September 1, 2022

Wikipedia: Fisher’s Ghost

Wikipedia: Greenbrier Ghost