About This Location
The grave of Elva Zona Heaster Shue, known as the Greenbrier Ghost, at Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery near Sam Black Church. Zona was murdered by her husband Edward Shue in January 1897, and her ghost reportedly appeared to her mother to reveal the truth -- the only known case in US legal history where a ghost's testimony contributed to a murder conviction.
The Ghost Story
The Greenbrier Ghost is the most famous supernatural story in West Virginia history, and it holds a distinction that no other ghost in American jurisprudence can claim: the testimony of a dead woman's spirit contributed to the conviction of her murderer. The case of Zona Heaster Shue is documented in court records, newspaper accounts, and a state historical highway marker that stands near her grave in Greenbrier County -- the only such marker in the United States erected to commemorate a ghost.
In October 1896, a young woman named Elva Zona Heaster, who went by her middle name Zona, met a blacksmith named Edward Stribbling Trout Shue in Greenbrier County. The two married quickly, over the objections of Zona's mother, Mary Jane Heaster, who distrusted the charming stranger. On January 23, 1897, just three months after the wedding, Zona was found dead in her home. A local physician, Dr. George W. Knapp, examined the body briefly and declared the cause of death to be 'everlasting faint' and later amended it to 'complications from pregnancy.'
Edward Shue's behavior at the wake raised suspicions. He insisted on dressing Zona's body himself, wrapped a high stiff collar and a large veil around her neck, and became agitated when anyone approached the coffin. He cradled her head and would not allow anyone to move it. But the doctor had signed the death certificate, and Zona was buried without further investigation.
Mary Jane Heaster was not satisfied. She prayed fervently for her daughter to return and reveal the truth. According to Mary Jane's testimony, her prayers were answered. Over four consecutive nights, the ghost of Zona appeared to her mother and described her own murder in specific detail. Zona's spirit said that Edward had attacked her in a fit of rage, breaking her neck. The ghost demonstrated by turning her head completely around on her shoulders, showing how the fatal injury had been inflicted.
Armed with her daughter's posthumous testimony, Mary Jane went to the local prosecutor, John Alfred Preston. She spent hours in his office presenting her case, and Preston -- impressed by the specificity and consistency of her account -- agreed to reopen the investigation. An autopsy was ordered. The examination revealed that Zona's neck was broken and her windpipe crushed -- evidence of murder by strangulation, exactly as the ghost had described.
Edward Shue was arrested and charged with murder. His trial began on June 22, 1897, and Mary Jane Heaster was the prosecution's star witness. Under cross-examination, the defense attempted to discredit her by highlighting the supernatural nature of her testimony. It backfired. Mary Jane's unwavering conviction and the precise correlation between her ghostly visions and the autopsy findings made a powerful impression on the jury. Shue was found guilty of first-degree murder on July 11, 1897, and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1900.
Modern historians have noted that the prosecution's case was built on circumstantial evidence rather than ghost testimony per se -- the ghost was never formally entered as evidence. But the popular understanding of the case, reinforced by the state historical marker, is that Zona's spirit solved her own murder. A West Virginia state marker near Lewisburg reads: 'Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy revealed a broken neck. Edward was convicted of murder.'
The Greenbrier Ghost Grave can be visited at the Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery near Sam Black Church in Greenbrier County. The grave is modest -- a simple marker for a woman who died at twenty-three and whose story became the most extraordinary ghost tale in American legal history.
